On what is statistically the most drunken night of the year

I love New Year's Eve. It's safe to say that it's my third most favorite holiday, behind Arbor Day and Flag Day. There's just something about the night that I find irresistible. Maybe it's the waiting three hours for a taxi, maybe it's getting sick of waiting and walking to a party in the bitter cold, maybe it's wearing the same classy Goodwill pants and vest that I wear every year, or maybe it's the thousands of pictures I always take. More likely, it's the drinking and making a fool of myself. My all time favorite New Year's moment came two years ago (I'm the guy saying "that's broken!").

Last year I went to a house party in Dinkytown. I woke up the next morning in a chair in my friend's apartment wearing a humongous heavy coat that definitely didn't belong to me and that I had apparently taken from the party. The last thing I remembered was shaking up my bottle of champagne at midnight and spraying it like I had just won a NASCAR race. Needless to say, it was one of my least embarrassing New Year's.

I am hoping to keep a more dignified profile tonight and to remember the entirety of the evening, but the chances of that happening are pretty slim. At the very least, I hope I don't steal anything* or shake up my champagne and spray it on people like an obnoxious jerk.

Speaking of champagne, I had been hoping to buy some of Paris Hilton's prosecco-in-a-can but the store I went to didn't have it. I won't rest until I try it, but I have a feeling it's probably very hard to find. I had to settle for some weird Italian brand.

Stay safe, everyone.



*The coat I took last year wasn't a big deal. It belonged to my friend Jimmy, who ended up with my jacket and gloves. We made the exchange a couple days later.

Happy non-denominational holiday season, part II

I received many fine gifts this non-denominational holiday. Some stylish apparel, some high brow literature, some cinematic masterpieces. I got a GPS thing for my car, which will be very useful because I have a terrible sense of direction and I get lost three times before I start the engine. But I really want to focus in on one gift in particular, some of the aforementioned high brow literature.

Remember the book that my sister gave me? The one that I said was the sweetest gift I have ever received? It's called Something of Value and it's written by Robert Ruark. It's about the Mau Mau uprising against British colonial rule in Kenya in the 1950's. It illustrates the age-old struggle between native savagery and noble Western ideology.

You may be wondering why I was so happy to receive what is by all accounts a terribly outdated and downright racist book. Well, let's take a look inside the pages...

It's a pretty long book.

A look at the personalized inscription. Yeah, we use last names, even amongst family.


Surprised? Probably not, given the rather transparent nature of this blog entry. I actually was. My sister and I give each other a lot of books, so when I first unwrapped it I didn't sense anything out of the ordinary. I laughed out loud when I opened the book. A real LOL.


Now that's what I call something of value.

I can't wait to have a real bookshelf on which I can hide this. Then when someone comes over and inspects my book collection, they will see this and give me a disgusted look.

"Why do you read this offensive garbage?" they will ask.

"Oh no, don't worry, I'm not racist," I will say as I open the book and pull out the liquor. "I'm really just an alcoholic."

Then we will laugh and laugh and share a drink, and the humor of the situation will mask the fact that the whole thing is a cry for help. Then, two years later, I get drunk and crash my motorcycle while attempting a daring stunt on a foggy mountain curve. I survive, barely, and the incident is a wake up call for me to get the help I need. Eventually I write an inspirational book about my ordeal titled The Things We Value Most. While on an international book tour in 2023, my private jet is hijacked by stowaway militant Alaskan seperatists who demand that we land at their frozen base in the Aleutian island chain. I pull out my worn copy of Something of Value, which I carry at all times as a reminder of how far I have come in life. This time, however, the book does not hide alchohol. It holds a stash of five ninja throwing stars. I disable the terrorists, but in the struggle the jet veers off course and into the protected airspace of New China. I am never heard from again.

Happy non-denominational holiday season!

Oh non-denominational holiday season, I love you so. I don't have much to say at the moment, but I will write a full post tomorrow or the next day. For the moment, enjoy these festive pictures:

My sister's wiener dog Fritz dressed in an adorable elf collar.

The gingerbread man that I carefully decorated.

A book that my sister gave to me. The sweetest gift I have ever received.
More on this later...

On stupid voters, reptilian humanoids

Right now I am watching coverage of the Minnesota State Canvassing Board. They are reviewing challenged ballots as part of the senatorial election recount. The Star Tribune has it live streaming on their website.

Without delving into any deep political commentary, I will just say that it is hilarious. They are discussing ballots one by one, and voting on how each ballot should be counted. It sounds extremely boring, but in actuality they are just clowning on all of the voters and how badly they screwed up each ballot. Some people filled in two bubbles. Some people filled in three bubbles. One guy, instead of filling in any of the bubbles, filled in the 'o' in Coleman. A lot of people just made indecipherable squiggly lines. All of the geeks on the board are cracking jokes about them. Unfortunately I missed where they discussed the "Lizard People" ballot, I would have really liked to see that.

The best part about the recount is that it allowed the public to see this ballot. Lizard People are a very real threat.

It's worth noting that most of the challenged ballots are going Franken's way.

I'll call you on my cell phone, baby, even on peak time... (People vs. Sammie)

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I stand in this courtroom with only on goal in mind: to prove Sammie's guilt. For I truly believe, and by the end of the day hope that you believe as well, that Sammie is guilty of being one of the greatest recording artists of all time. Please take a moment to examine the evidence:

exhibit A

exhibit B

The prosecution rests.

On the Food Network, drawring, and snowball fights

As you may already know, I am a huge fan of the Food Network. So are all of my friends. My mom makes fun of me for this. She finds it strange that a bunch of straight guys in their twenties who don't actually like to cook would spend so much time watching a channel devoted to cooking. She's old fashioned, I suppose. Come on, ma! It's the 21st century! The Food Network isn't just for housewives anymore! And it shouldn't be that hard to figure out why young dudes watch it. We think that food is awesome, and some of the hosts are very attractive.

Anyways, on Friday night I was hanging out with my friends Sam and Brooks at their apartment watching TV. In addition to a thrilling episode of Whale Wars, we watched the show Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. If you aren't familiar with the show, it follows a sunburned grease ball named Guy who goes to diners around the country and eats really delicious looking food while dressed as a member of Smash Mouth circa 1997. It's impossible to watch the show and not become extremely hungry. They should use it as a treatment for people with eating disorders.

So when we saw Guy go to a place called Psycho Suzi's in Minneapolis and gorge himself on a bunch of delicious looking fried things, we had little choice but to go there ourselves. And so we did, and I tell you, those mini mex rolls were just as good as they looked on the screen. Unfortunately we just drank beer and didn't try any of the zany tiki drinks. Next time.

After that came the usual beer drinking and FIFA playing, and we went to some dude's lame party in Dinkytown. There was a huge whiteboard. I drawed pictures. After my usual one of Godzilla fighting a giant robot, which I draw at literally every opportunity I get, I drew some humans.

I drew the first one in about 35 seconds. My friends were really impressed, so I followed it up with a marvelous drawing of a hot chick. They both look a lot better when you're drunk.

We left the party to go to a bar. On the way, as we were walking past a frat house, a guy and a girl came out of nowhere and started throwing snowballs at us. This led to a surprisingly long snowball fight. I dropped one of my gloves during the melee, and when i bent down to look for it, the girl ran up and whitewashed me (see third definition). I got her back, but I'm sad to say that I lost the glove. It was my favorite pair of gloves, too.

After the bar, at which Desdemona and Carnage were playing for some reason, I got a little rambunctious and ill-advisedly threw a snowball at a moving vehicle. I feel bad about it now, because the roads were very icy and I could have caused a serious accident. But it was a perfect throw nonetheless, and it arced gracefully right onto the hood of the car. The driver was a preppy looking college kid, and he immediately slammed on the breaks, jumped out of the car, and started yelling threats of bodily harm. I of course burst out laughing, which did not help the situation. My friends told him that I was just an idiot and that he didn't need to beat me up, and he drove off in a huff. Perhaps I should pay more attention to the consequences of my actions.

So yeah, good times.

Also, while doing "research" for this post, I came across this website. Haha what the hell?

On fate

Last night, after a delicious meal at my favorite Chinese restaurant, my fortune cookie was empty. There was no fortune inside.

I can't imagine anything more ominous. I think it means I am going to die soon.

Save me, Pixiu!

On embattled British musical groups

Last night I went to the Oasis concert at the Target Center.

I will admit that I haven't really listened to Oasis since middle school. And I find most of their newer material rather boring. And I don't like the Target Center, which wasn't even half full. And the performance itself was rather lackluster.

But (What's the Story) Morning Glory? was the first CD I ever bought, and over the years I have listened to it more times than I can count. They played three songs off the album (Wonderwall, Champagne Supernova, and Morning Glory), all of which I still know by heart.

There is nothing better than seeing a band play a song you have loved for years, linking arms with your friends, and belting out the lyrics.

Oh, and being drunk too.

More on that crazy rap lifestyle

Hey, remember when I said that my writing was going to appear in a new hip hop magazine? Well, don't hold your breath. It may still happen, but it's not high on my list of priorities.

On a related topic, I have discovered an amazing website! It's called the Rap Dictionary. It's like Wikipedia, but it deals exclusively with slang heard in rap songs. It's very illuminating, and many of the entries give contextual examples from the artists themselves. For example, the entry for the phrase "around the way":

noun

around the way

Around the way is a term used to refer to your neighborbood or a spot where u chill..

"From around the way" -- Beastie Boys (No sleep till Brooklyn [1986]).

Example: "Around The Way Girl," LL Cool J song refering to girls from the hood.

The term "around the way" isn't actually a noun, but this is nonetheless a very concise and insightful definition of a very complex concept. Some of the entries are slightly more controversial. For example, the word "brizzle":

noun

brizzles

1. Women. Broads. "I got a living room full of fine dime brizzles" --Snoop Dogg featuring Pharrell Williams (Drop It Like It's Hot) [1]
2. Nonsense word, part of the pretend vocabulary created by street idiots to give themselves an insider sense of ownership.

Some people might take umbrage with the combative tone and personal bias of that second definition. Others might say that the first definition, even though it is thoroughly referenced, displays a callous attitude towards women and that the whole thing is just an exercise in misogyny. Someone more familiar with the Rap Dictionary might hear those arguments, and respond "ay yo trip, don't sweat the technique."

But no matter your personal slant, there can be no question that the Rap Dictionary is an incredibly useful tool. And if I do ever end up writing something for Mill City Scene, it will undoubtedly be an invaluable journalistic resource.

On my apparent target audience

Well it's been more than three months since I started this blog, and my readership has grown to levels that I once thought impossible. Apparently word of mouth has been very good, because suddenly hundreds of you are reading this every day!

Whoops, just kidding, there's like five of you.

But in addition to my five frequent fans, there are many fine folks who find my fantastic site by doing Google searches. By carefully gathering data sets and conducting deep statistical analysis, and by tapping my vast knowledge of cultural anthropology and behavioral pathology, I have uncovered a disturbing trend: people are still obsessed with beer commercials.

Back in October, I wrote this post joking that I was adjusting my blog to accomodate the number of people searching for information about Bud Light commercials. As expected, that post drastically increased the number of Bud Light related traffic on my blog. The number one search term leading here is still "drinkability commercial." Here are numbers 2-6:

• Dave Chappelle Drinkability
• bud light drinkability dave chappelle
• drinkability commercials
• "drinkability commercial" black
• who is the black guy in the bud light drinkability commercial

Ugh. I amended my DRINKABILITY WORLD post to include the fact that, no, this is not Dave Chappelle. Dave Chappelle turned down millions upon millions of dollars from Comedy Central because he thought that his massively popular TV show was cheapening his image. Why the flip would he completely obliterate his reputation by starring in the stupidest ad campaign this side of National American University? Unlike the people who drink Bud Light and enjoy their commercials, Dave Chappelle has standards.

Here is an additional cross section of the Google searches that led here:
Out of these 33 searches, 28 of them relate to the Bud Light commercials. 23 of them are about the black guy in the commercial. 10 of them specifically ask if that guy is Dave Chappelle. All of them lead to the worthless Drinkability World. Good grief. I know I already said that I'm not concerned about my audience, but good grief. This is the type of thing that makes one wonder why he even bothers. I put all this effort into drafting long and creative entries, and the only thing that people ever see is the extremely sarcastic and stupid post I spent 5 minutes writing. Good grief.

On the other hand, you might also notice that people searched for "how to be treated like an adult" and "being an inspiration." Those are both rather touching. I'm sure I gave them the advice they needed.

On returning to the grind, banishing old ghosts

I didn't mean to go on a two week hiatus, but it somehow happened anyway. I started this thing in order to maintain a healthy writing habit, so I am a little disappointed in myself for not sticking to the routine. So what should I do now? Should I write up a little retrospective of all of the things in my life that occurred while my pen was silent? Should I talk about the new frontlines in my ongoing search for a full time job? Should I talk about my delicious Thanksgiving with my family? The gritty true-tales-of-the-force that my cousin's police officer husband shared over dessert, and the wine-induced late night political discussion that followed on the ride home? The various hijinks that ensued with my sister back in town? My depraved heroin benders?

No.

Not only would those things be interesting to read and write, but they would potentially give my friends and family a better understanding of my life and my personality. That is completely unnacceptable. Instead, I will go back to what I was doing before, writing long diatribes about irrelevent minutiae that interests nobody else but me, further exposing myself as the weirdo that my friends and family secretly suspect that I am.

Last monday, I dragged my dwindling bank account to Magers & Quinn bookstore and made a purchase that has been over a decade in coming. I bought Explorers on the Moon, the seventeenth book in Herge's totally awesome Adventures of Tintin comic book series. More importantly, it is the second half of a two-part story arc that I began reading more than ten years ago.

For those of you who aren't familiar, Tintin is a plucky Belgian reporter who never seems to do any actual reporting. Instead, he gets into zany international adventures with the help of Haddock, his drunken sea captain friend and Snowy, his ever present white terrier. He's like a European version of Mark Trail. But whereas Mark Trail deals with mildly threatening corporate polluters and hillbillies, Tintin deals with machine guns, submarines, and global drug conspiracies. Except for some unfortunate 50's-era eurocentric attitudes, Tintin is awesome. And that is slightly strange for me to say, as I usually hate comic books. Superhero comics are ridiculous, and I have an unlimited disdain for anyone that ever uses the phrase "graphic novel." But I grew up loving Tintin, go figure. Probably because Tintin deals with real world politics and issues that anyone can relate to instead of preposterous superpowers and flamboyant villains. I mean, who among us hasn't traveled the ocean with our dog in a submarine shaped like a shark, or taken our dog to the Himalayas in search of the yeti? It's that vivid realism that appeals to me.

Anyway, when I last saw Tintin, he was blasting off from earth in an Eastern European nuclear rocket bound for the Moon.
Ten years was a long time to wait to see if the rocket made it or not. I thought about it constantly. It ate me from the inside out. I couldn't focus in class, my personal relationships suffered. In order to cope, I became addicted to heroin. Did the rocket explode? Did the sabotoge attempts succeed? Was Captain Haddock able to sneak any whiskey on board to get drunk and stumble around in a comical fashion? The questions circled me like buzzards over a rotting corpse. Only they weren't buzzards, they were questions.

And so it went last week, I finally ran out of smack and couldn't get hold of my dealer. I went to the store and paid ten bucks for the book. It was a tremendous relief, and frankly it made me question why I waited so long and wasted so many thousands of dollars on drugs.

Yes, the captain was able to sneak whiskey aboard.

Yes, there was exciting adventure on the moon.

Yes, there was a sinister stowaway. And yes, is is smoking a cigarette at the same time he is worrying about the oxygen supply.

Yes, Tintin saved the day.

Yes, they returned home safely. And the Captain's raging alcoholism remained intact.

I'm hoping that finally knowing how the story resolves will restore some much needed balance to my life. Unfortunately, when I was at the store buying Explorers on the Moon, I also bought The Seven Crystal Balls which is apparently part one of another two part story. I am now consumed by this new story of ancient Incan curses and sinister mummies. It never ends!

Also, I'm still addicted to heroin. I should probably get that taken care of.