There's One Born Every Minute

Three items of interest in the past few days:

1. I went to the bank, opened up a student checking account, got a debit card, and, horror of horrors, got a credit card as well.

I know what you're thinking:
"Well, I guess that just about does it for poor Max. I'm sure he's already a few thousand in debt, getting deeper every day. Oh why oh why did he have to apply for that god-damned unholy devil credit card? Why Lord, why? Don't call him Peter, 'cause he can't go, he sold his soul to the company sto'."


Amazingly, I am not fiscally insolvent....yet. Believe it or not, I did not apply for this credit card so I could go on wild shopping sprees, then either A) declare bankruptcy or B) fake my own death and assume a new identity as a deckhand on a Canadian fishing boat.

In fact, pretty much the only reason I got this credit card was the John Blong theory on credit cards: responsible credit card use at a young age is the key to getting a good credit rating, which is in turn the key to getting low interest rates on things like home and auto loans in the future, which is in turn the key to universal happiness. I'm not sure if I buy the last step, but I really do think that having a credit card, using it once a month, and promptly paying off the entire balance is a good idea for most young people.

That said, everyone should sock away a few hundred dollars now so you can bail me out when I need some cash to get out of the country.


2. I am weighing my laptop options at this very moment. As of right now, the $1200 MacBook is the frontrunner. It costs about $400 more (with a RAM upgrade) than the technically equivalent PC option, but Apple is offering a $100 student discount, and a $100 printer rebate, and a $200 iPod rebate, so that pretty much wipes out the price difference. Most PC laptop owners do nothing but bitch about their computers, while most MacBook owners gush about their computers at every opportunity. So, as I said, all signs are point to Apple at the moment. Feel free to encourage/dissuade me as you see fit.


3. I volunteered at Battle of the Bands for my fourth and final time yesterday, and I have to say: best one yet. As a volunteer, I got in free and got a couple of free brats and a t-shirt, but thankfully, due to the superabundance of younger/more enthusiastic volunteers (i.e. bigger suckers) than myself , I was spared the onerus burden of having to actually, you know, "volunteer" or whatever.

I ran into three people unexpectedly, which is always nice: Tirth Patel, Pammy Ronnei, and Ali Jones. Tirth was volunteering, Pammy, with Brittany and Serena, was spectating (for about 9 minutes), and Ali was there performing, on cello, with Jesse Keller and his Toolbox. Honestly, you couldn't really hear much of the cello at all; I think it was mostly for show. They might as well have had a juggler and a sword swallower and a chimp up on stage.

On a slightly more humerous note, I managed to throw out my right shoulder while playing Frisbee. I just winged the thing too hard, and my shoulder kind of rolled and popped, and I wasn't gonna be playing no more Frisbee that evening. On the plus side, the Frisbee did go pretty far.

Jackson Bollocks

I'd like to go camping with some
fellow Northwestern freshmen before we start classes,
so I figured I'd sign up for Project
 Wildcat, an NU program which provides just such a service.
When I went to the website, however, I discovered
that I could not simply sign up and be done with it
--I had to fill out an application.
Oh, the injustice.

I'm not to worried though. With answers like these,
how could they refuse me?


[Q] What ingredient would you be in a sandwich and why?

[A] I would be smoked turkey, because I'm lean, pink,
and composed almost entirely of carbon.


[Q] What is your favorite joke?

[A] Q: What do worms eat before dinner? A: h'ordirts


[Q] Describe your favorite place in the world.

[A] My favorite place in the world is my home.
It's big and old and creaky, full of history and
bats.
My family also lives there, which, for me at least,
is another major benefit.
 It has a
central location...in my heart.


P.S.: As far as I can remember, I totally
made that worms joke up when I was in like 3rd grade.

are you reelin' in the years?

i woke up at 11 this morning.

then i decided i needed to mow the lawn.

alas, i went to put gas in the mower...but i didn't have any gas. so i had to drive a painful 1.6 miles to the nearest superamerica to put all of 1.667 gallons of gas in the can. cost: an even $5. i'm good at what i do.

i went in to pay for this liquid gold...when lo and behold...a young jason houle was staring back at me. what a pleasant surprise.

after mowing the lawn i realized something: i could care less about this upcoming grad party. (shameless plug: saturday, my house, 1-5. anyone/everyone welcome) basically...my sister has planned out all of it. i will just be standing in my garage greeting/being friendly/not caring and everyone around me will probably ask one of three questions. "where are you going next year?" "what are you going to major in?" "are you excited?"

i've already rehearsed my elaborately detailed answers:

"the U."
"not sure."
"yup."

one last tid-bit: i still kind of want to shave my head. but...everyone around me has begged to keep the curls. so i'm thinknig of compromising: i'll shave half of my head.

with that, i would like to remind everyone that tonight is the drawing for the powerball. 103 million dollars...if you haven't purchased a ticket...you should! for those of you fools who mock me...keep in mind...if i win, i'll gladly pay for your entire college education.

mustache out!

High Definition Semantics

I was vacuuming in my house today, when my productive mind churned up a very brilliant idea: how great would it be if, instead of the standardized dictionary(a historic document epitomizing humankind's finest achievements), we had a pictionary?

Instead of defining a word by employing a bunch of more words, this dictionary would define words by using pictures.The potential benefits from this miraculous invention are endless.Most importantly, this important tool will serve all of humanity by succesfully qualifying the long-standing(but unverified)claim that a picture is
"worth a thousand words".
Anyway, here are a few definitions that would find a place in this innovation:

Arrogance:


Recreation:


Toy:


Genius:


DrunkGenius:


Nobel prize winning American author Ernest Hemingway,a drinker of epic proportions


And finally, here is a word taken right from this venerable blog's title.

Manly:



And as an early warning to the unimaginative goons who might try to pilfer this gem of an innovation, I am backed by two immutable forces of the Universe:

1) The U.S. Patent and Trademark office

AND

2) Attorney Steve Lastovich, frequently seen on local T.V. commercials

P.S. Curiously enough, the word 'glad' rhymes with 'vlad' (as in Count Vlad the third, otherwise known as Vlad the impaler, the glorious inspiration behind Bram Stoker's chilling novel, Dracula)

Take This Job And Love It

I know it's been a while since I rapped to ya, but the shits been raining down hard and I don't have a shit shovel big enough to shovel it all away. Most of my creative energies have been funnled into Gumshoe, the magazine Josh and Sam and Jason and John and David and I are running these days. You should CHECK IT OUT.



Work was kind of a mixed bag today. Allow me to summarize.

Cons: I got bitched out for failing to do some things I was never told to do, then I had to stay for an extra two hours, apparently out of spite.

Pros: I had a couple of sweet tables. I'm having a hard time deciding which one was better.

Table 1: A family of six, mom, dad, and four sons. They were from Lousiana, as I found out when they volunteered the information about 3 seconds after I said "Hello." They all had sweet southern accents, so I kind of accidentally fell into doing a little twang as well ("Dya want cream and suga with that?").

The kids all called me "Sir." The dad (a 300 pound man in a football jersey) alternated between chuckling at the kids' antics and offering up interesting Lousiana factoids ("You know how people from Michigan always hold up their hand and say [he points to his hand] 'We're from about here'? Well, people from Lousiana use their foot!") The mom alternated between threatening punishment and telling the kids to eat their bacon.

This family LOVED their bacon. One of the little boys sat down and said "I am gonna eat SO MUCH bacon!" in a big southern way. Everybody got a side of bacon, even the 2-year-old. One kid got an omlette with just bacon in it, with a side of bacon. The 2-year-old was chowing down on the bacon, so the mom asked me "He just loves it! Is this sugar-cured bacon?". I checked for her, and it totally was. Lady knew her bacon.

Table 2: A family of five, grandparents with a teen girl and twin 10 year old boys. The granny was picky, but the grandpa was cool, and kind of crazy and hunchbacked. All three of the kids said "Thank you" every 15 seconds whenever I was in earshot, regardless of what I was doing.

The little boys sat there and talked as loud and as fast as they could about interesting things, like why Earth spins, and how the moon was formed, and how Microsoft Vista is going to be a huge failure ("There's going to be piles of Vista in the streets, Grandma!"). I wanted to sit down and rap about astronomy with 'em.

Proton

I met Jordan Stitch at Megan Saley's grad party.
He said, "You should post something on the mustache blog"

Since I have nothing else to do right now, I decided to talk about Pizza
Now as you all know, pizza is an integral component of a stable and successful college life. Indeed, some reports (unverified and unscientific but nonetheless very practical)have reached my ears that pizza is synonymous with survival in college. And besides, the manly mustaches are already associated with bread. Why not further this infatuation?

I work at a pizza place (Rafferty's on washington st. They have the best pizza in town) so I thought this is a good opportunity to educate my fellow comrades about the essentials of pizza making.

So here are the steps (which, unfortunately, are not punctuated by fancy-looking diagrams):

1) Pre-made dough is immersed in lots and lots of flour. This flour-dough complex is then passed repeatedly through a fairly complicated (and ominous) machine called "the dough squisher". The end product of this very scientific procedure is a nice and flat and smooth and round tortilla-like pizza base. By the way, this process is technically called "sheeting out".

2) Take a ladle of sauce and lather up the base generously. Add ample amounts of cheese (for us it is mozzarella, cheddar in scripted amounts. e.g. for a large pizza, the amount of mozzarella should not exceed 10 oz. (+ or - .00003 oz.)

3) Garnish the pizza with appropriate toppings.

4) Shove the sauce-cheese-toppings complex in the oven. (Take extra care not to burn your hands)

5) After five minutes, take the pizza out. (Not with bare hands, of course)

6) Cut it into professional slices, and presto! You have a nice, delicious pizza.


a freshly baked, steaming pizza

Now I am aware that I left some vital stuff out. Like, I never talked about how to make the dough, how to acquire the required toppings, and most of all, how to cook the sauce.
But you must understand is, this is all copyrighted information stored securely in the hallowed vaults of a nondescript bank in Zurich, Switzerland, and I, a lowly part-time crew member, do not have access to this vault.

So I have a better suggestion: why not come down to the place and order some pizza?
It'll save you a lot of your precious time, giving you leverage to check out the stock prices before the closing bell.

P.S. The label is for you Max

Just A "B" And An "E" Away From A Cool $300

Dear Andrew Kubas:


Please to explain if I won something on this lotto ticket you so thoughtfully gave me at my grad party? I have two words (AUNT and COURT) for sure, but I'm uncertain about the status of the word in the lower left (C$IN).

Are the $ free spaces? If that's the case, then I'm thinking that I may not have only won back the three hard earned dollars you invested in this magnificent gift, but also gained two more such sums, for a grand total of $9, as my $3 prize would be tripled due to the presence of the $ in one of my completed words.

Am I reading this correctly?


P.S.: Prompted by a prepoderance of influences ($50 in soon-to-be-forgotten Target gift cards from my grad party, a sale at Target, and boredom), I bit the bullet and purchased Mario Party 8 for the Wiiiiiiiii. It is pretty good times. I need a couple more Wii-motes, though, to get the full benefits.


P.P.S.: I worked breakfast this morning at the LoLodge. At one point, as I carried an armload of dirty dishes back to the kitchen, an old woman observed my belabored condition and chuckled "heh heh heh got a match?"

And I did NOT say "Yeah, my ass and your face."



I deserve a raise.

Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality.

This summer has so far been going fast, though nowhere near as fast as it should be. I want to start the next leg of my life. College seems like a whole other journey that will be very very enjoyable. However having to work day after day definitely dampens your spirit and is starting to make me have have a case of the monday's. ("I think I might just come up shooting")
Is there anyway to get rid of these blues?

On a rather odd side note, I just saw Mr. Brooks. It was a decent flick and I would suggest going to see it.

tears in my eyes

well. that was interesting.

let me say: i have had literally no involvement in my grad party planning. and, honestly, i couldn't be happier.

so now that my sister has purchased all of the decorations/plates/food/tent/anything and i'm sure she has chosen very feminine colors...anyone reading this who is among the mustache faithful...you are more than welcome to attend my grad party.

june 30th. 1:00-5:00. my house.

if you are feeling very generous: i enjoy scratch games. oh...and i need new shoes. (that is perhaps the biggest understatement on this blog. maybe i'll post pictures later.)

mustache out!

shameless plug.

sooo...i was kind of roped into becoming a member of a fly-by-night band.

yeah, we don't really know what we're doing, but the support (so far) has been extensive.

we recorded 4 tracks.....right now we only have lyrics to one of them...but we should have all four completed during this week.

(afterwards i will be away as will koreann...but after that we will get back to making fresh music)

we would love you to check us out:

http://www.myspace.com/thelorenthompsonexperience

also:

http://hs.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2414534618&ref=nf

here's to listening!

mustache out!

Puppy+Update=Pupdate

Misadventues in pug breeding continued at the Kuehn household this week.

Poppy and her hapless suitor, Louis, had their third date in 5 days yesterday, and they have yet to connect, emotionally or otherwise. Louis (or Ludwig Von Tailchaser, as it says on his AKC papers) is a handsome, affectionate, affable fellow, very similar to Vegas (or Vegas Lucky 7), the sire we had such luck with the past two times. Vegas, however, had years of experience in the stud-for-hire field, while Louis, at only 10 months old, lacks such first-hand knowledge.

Poppy, after kicking Louis's ass for 6 hours the first day (the "getting to know you" period), was willing, but Louis just....couldn't....quite....figure it out. They've got one more date today, and if it doesn't work out we may be forced to move on to Rocky

Many people have asked why we don't simply breed Poppy and Otto, or simlpy assume that Otto is the father. Otto is neutered, for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, while Otto is a terrific dog in almost every respect, he is a complete failure by pug physical standards. He's leggy and lank, not "decidedly square and cobby." His eyes are prone to injury and bad, even by pug standards. He has an oddly bulging sternum and a loosely curled tail (if he curls it at all.) Otto is a great companion, but he's just not cut out to be a stud.

Secondly, un-neutered males tend to be very annoying and it's a real hassle to have one wandering around the house. Ladies, insert the joke of your choice here.


P.S.: Remeber this game, Red Steel, that I was so excited about? Well, I rented it for the irresistibly low price of $2 for a week, and I've gotta say: disappointing. Is it really that hard to make a realistic, responsive sword fighting mechanic for a video game?

Oh well. Maybe next time.

All Things Dull And Ugly

I'm a pretty big fan of the show Heroes, a well-produced NBC drama about people who suddenly discover that they have supernormal abilities. They have some of your run-of-the-mill superpowers (superstrength, flight, telepathy), along with some more unique talents (radioactivity, absorbing the powers of others, stopping time.) It's kind of like X-Men without all the angst and no Wolverine.

Anyways, the reason I'm posting is because I got to thinking: there's no need for magic or even imagination for some really sweet abilities to exist--they're right in your own backyard! Well, on Earth, at least.

I never took A.P. Biology in high school, but I did read an assload of Ranger Rick as a kid. I learned two things from that raccoon in a hat: recycling will solve all the world's problems, and animals can do some cool things. With that in mind, I proudly present--

Animal Superpowers I Wish I Had

Photosynthesis--While I'd still like to be able to eat, I think that being able to skip meals and just sit in the sun instead would be very satisfying.

Echolocation--As the Animorphs learned in one of their many adventures, it's the only way to find your way through a darkened room filled with light-sensitive alarms and hundreds of trip wires.

Bioluminescence--Not all that useful, but still neat. Also, think of all the money I'd save on flashlight batteries. All out of juice on the ol' maglite? Well, why don't I light our path WITH THE PALM OF MY HAND.

Whale song--Whales can communicate over hundreds of miles of ocean with ultra-low frequency messages. I'd like to be able to stick my head into the sea and yell at some scuba divers off the coast of Italy.

Prehensile feet--No brainer. I can see myself now...calmly reading reports, wearing a suit and a tie, calling for coffee...all while hanging from my office ceiling by my toes.

Electric charge--Stacks of chemicals within the bodies of electric eels and other creatures act as batteries, building up charge which they use to stun or kill prey. I would use it for shocking handshakes.

Super-navigation--According to some scientists, migratory birds, homing pigeons, and lost dogs may find their way around based on the earth's magnetic field. It's like having GPS in your head!




What I'm saying is: magic is all around you. Go out and discover it!

grow it...grow it good.

ladies and gentlemen, i write to you this evening because i need your voice.

earlier this month i made a deal/bet with my father:

from june 1st-june 30th, he was going to grow a mustache. if he did so, on july 1, i was going to shave my head.

well, i woke up this morning....and my father had a clean shaven face.

SHAME ON YOU, JEFF KUBAS!

so...the question remains: should i shave my head?

last year the theme was, "the fro has got to go!" this year...i'm not so sure. please, let me know your opinions.

many mustache blessings.

Be True To Your School

Quick Hits:

1. Poppy (the pug) is in heat and we plan to breed her later this week. Ideally, this will lead to some puppies in early August. Josh asked me if I could name the fattest puglet Pork Chop. I think I can swing that. Other puppy names?

2. I am scheduled for precisely zero hours of work this next week. This may prove problematic. I guess I'll try to make the best of a bad situation and spend some time driving around aimlessly, listening to the Beach Boys.

3. I'm actually kind of looking forward to my grad party. It should be fun to see family friends and relatives, and I think I can handle smiling, gladhanding, and answering the same 6 questions for 3 hours. I wish I could say the same for Sam Walker.

4. I'm posting this on a brief break from the Great Pre-Grad Party Cleaning of Ought-Seven. I've been washing windows and mini-blinds for the better part of 4 hours now. I'd be getting it done quicker, but these damn pugs are weighing me down.

Seriously, I wonder if the Chinese developed the pug as an economic weapon. It's so elegant: they export the pugs to their competitors, who experience precipitous drops in productivity when their populace turns its attentions away from work and towards their pugs. And who's there to step in to fill to pug-induced shortfall? That's right, those pug-developing Chinese.

Really, this could be a national security concern. If we're devoting all of our time and resources to caring for pugs, how can we properly prepare to defend ourselves? By importing more and more pugs, I fear we've moved from A to B on our guns vs. pugs production possibilities curve.

Man, this should be a T-shirt. Pug-loving peace enthusiasts would be all about it.