happy birthday, tiki

My dad doesn't text me very often, by which I mean, I don't think he's ever texted me until today. But today I got three texts from him. The first two were about my brother William, who had shoulder surgery today. Dad sent me a message that he was doing fine and then he sent a picture of my little brother recovering in his hospital gown. So those, obviously, were important. It was good to know how my brother was doing.

Then came the third text message of the day:

"Don't 4get 2day is tiki's birthday."

I should probably note, for the sake of accuracy, that the message didn't have any apostrophes in it, because I am guessing that dad might not know how to access the punctuation marks on this phone. But still, this message was a bit perplexing. As I noted, he wouldn't have texted me unless it was important, and clearly anything having to do with Tiki the cat is very very important to my dad.

That's right, Tiki is a cat, I shall note for people who may not read this blog with much consistency. This is the cat that has a picture on my dad's entertainment stand…right next to the pictures of his kids. This is the cat that hisses and scratches at me if I even so much as try to touch her. May 14 is a birthday that my dad made up for her based on an estimate given to him by the veterinarian.

So even though Tiki and I don't really get along (and that is all your fault, Tiki, because I am nothing but loving toward you), and even though it is only your fake birthday and not necessarily your real birthday, I shall offer you three pieces of advice as a gift on this day.

Piece of advice #1: Don't waste your time with Diet Dr. Pepper Cherry, Tiki. Even if you love both Diet Dr. Pepper AND Cherry Coke, as I do, you will not find the combination anything special. Or, at least I didn't. You just have to accept that these are drinks that are meant to be enjoyed separately, and the combination of them does not result in some sort of super drink.

Piece of advice #2: Never ever leave a kitchen cabinet open. I am sure Dad has told you this numerous times, Tiki, because he told all of his kids this numerous times when we were growing up. Do you know what happens if you leave a kitchen cabinet open? You poke your eye out and end up with a glass eye like one of his teachers! So never ever do it, Tiki! Because you will hear the anecdote about the glass eye and it will creep you out, which is unfortunate because if you are in the kitchen, it's probably because you just ate something, or you are about to, and no one needs to hear about glass eyes in those circumstances.

Piece of advice #3: Tiki, if you're ever on a talk show, make sure you wait until they cut to commercial before standing up. If you stand up before they cut to commercial, the host freaks out, even though everyone knows that you have to leave sometime in the next few minutes anyways. For some reason, talk show hosts still insist that you remain seated until they go to commercial. I think it's because they want the audience to think they are friends with their guests and also that they have good hygiene habits.

Well, that's about it. I did just call my dad, and he said that he taught himself to text during William's surgery. He only remembered it was Tiki's birthday because she is the picture on his cell phone. He was worried that her morning schedule was all thrown off because of William's surgery, but I'm sure she'll survive. Happy birthday Tiki! Hope they give both you and William a Skinny Cow tonight.

An Open Letter to Domino's

Dear Domino’s Pizza,
Look, I know times have been hard lately. You had those people make videos of themselves doing unholy things to the food, and that certainly kept you in the news for awhile. I wouldn’t be surprised if sales were down. But my brothers and I decided to take a chance on you on Saturday night, when we were too exhausted to go out. My brother William, a public relations guru, applauded how you had handled the crisis, and my brother George and I figured that everyone who works at Domino’s was probably on high alert for bad apples who do unspeakable things to food. We all figured that it just might be the safest time to eat Domino’s Pizza.

First off, let me compliment you on your online ordering system, Domino’s. I appreciate immensely the fact that you’ve removed the need to ever speak to a human when ordering. Instead, all I have to do to order is dial you up online, find a coupon special that fits my needs for the evening, and plug in all my desires – I can even take advantage of a feature that lets me see what my pizza would look like if I put pepperoni on it instead of green peppers. Then I can just sit back and watch this amazing little ticker that lets me know who is making my order, whether it’s in the oven or not, and whether the driver has left yet. Even if this order monitoring system isn’t completely accurate, I still have to salute you and say that it’s quite a country when you can watch the status of your pizza order in real time.

And, as someone who dislikes speaking on the phone, I’ll say once again that I appreciate not having to explain what I want to a human being. Human beings are fallible. Human beings make mistakes. And oh, Domino’s, how your people made mistakes on Saturday evening.

Here was the situation: my brothers and I ordered a meal deal that came with two pizzas, cheesy bread and a 2-liter of Diet Coke. About 30 minutes from the time the order was placed I got a call from the delivery guy wanting to clarify which number was my apartment number, and which number was my street number. This concerned me greatly as my street number and my apartment number are thousands of numbers apart, and if he’s looking for a street address featuring my apartment number, then he’s probably miles away. Also, Domino’s is really nearby so hopefully he’d be familiar enough with the area? So I was concerned, but tried not to show it.

Ten minutes later, a knock on the door. I sign the receipt and I am handed two pizza boxes. “Um,” I say. “We had cheesy bread and a 2-liter Diet Coke as well.” Dude looks at my receipt and says, “Aww, my bad, I’ll run back to the store and get it.” Frankly I had my doubts, cause he’d already gotten and paid and tipped. I figured we’d never see him again.

And actually, we didn’t see him, not the next time a knock came at the door 10 minutes later. There was a different delivery guy, offering me a thing of cheesy bread. Now, maybe I shouldn’t have done this…I feel a little bad that I did, cause it wasn’t so terribly important, but I said, “Um, we had a two-liter of Diet Coke also?” And the guy got very confused, and he’s like, “I don’t know what you had, they just told me to bring this to you. I’ll call the store.”

So another ten minutes later, another knock. It was the original delivery guy. He said he was sorry and he asked if we had gotten the cheesy bread, and then he handed me a two-liter of Diet Coke and a 12-oz Sprite “for my troubles.” And that’s how it took us three separate visits by Domino’s to get our entire four-item order.

Now, Domino’s, as I started this letter, you’ve had troubles lately. That means that until things die down some, you should probably make sure that you don’t screw up the orders of the people who are ordering from you in this crisis. Because now I think that I shouldn’t order from you ever again, Domino’s, because now I think I’m probably on some Domino’s watch list at that store as demanding, and if I do order again, then you probably will spit in my food and do other bad things to it. Do you see how you screwed up? Do you offer me a lifetime of free pizza to make up for it? Think about it.

Fondly,
Molly

i know that i was your favorite

Every year, Oprah Winfrey says a few things are her favorite things, and all those things become enormously popular. But, let's say you can't buy a Kindle or a ton of electronics and you don't like Oprah's taste anyway. Well, maybe this post will appeal to you, because it features some of my current favorite things. I'm not giving any of them away, like Oprah, but I am giving you my knowledge about these tremendous products, and I think that should be enough. However, should any of the makers of these fine products want to contact me, I think that would be good.

First off, do you ever wear slip-on shoes, the kind that don't allow you to wear socks without looking unfashionable? But you don't want your shoes to get all smelly, the way they sometimes do when you go around wearing shoes with no socks? Then you will absolutely love the first product I am about to recommend. These are little shoe liners made by the fine folks at Wal-Mart. Egads! you may be thinking if you are a raging liberal. How tacky to recommend something made by Wal-Mart. And yet, I tell you, these are the best sock liners I have found. They stay in place, and they are not made out of the same material that pantyhose is made out of. I really really hate pantyhose, and I don't want sock liners made out of it. And anyways, this my favorite things list. If you don't want to buy from Wal-Mart, then make your own favorite things list.

Here are my feet. Sorry for the veins. On the left, you can see a sock liner, but on the right, you see how it's completely invisible once I slip my foot into the shoe. MAGIC. Sweet, non-odorous magic.

And here is another view of my sock-lined foot. I find myself doing laundry just to have clean foot liners.

Now, my next thing has to do with my recent adventures in the kitchen. Suddenly, I have a lot more dishes, and I find that my dishwasher can't cut it when there is actually real food on the plates to be scraped off. So now I have to do the dreaded pre-wash of dishes. For this task, I recommend Ultra Palmolive Oxy plus Odor Eliminator, because it really does eliminate odors!

And let's not forget that it's hot pink! Which, I will admit, is the whole reason that I picked this product over all others available to me in the detergent aisle. I mean, look how well it goes with my decor:

I know, it's like that detergent was made for my kitchen! If your kitchen also has lots of bright colors, then I think you should get this product.

Now, a product that you should get, no matter the color of your kitchen, is Delallo Dipping Spices. Here is how this works. It's a cannister filled with four delicious spice combinations. On this side, you are getting a peek of "Rosemary and Garlic" and "Roasted Garlic and Cheese."

And on this side, you see "Sundried Tomato and Basil" and "Garlic and Tomato":

So you select a spice combo that suits your fancy, and you put it in a bowl. Then you put olive oil on top, and get out some bread that you bought at a nearby store. Then you pretend that you are in a nice restaurant where they bring you bread and oil with spices, except you are really in your apartment watching Letterman. That's essentially how this product works, and I have to tell you, I think it's genius. All the flavor combinations are absolutely delicious, though it looks like I've consumed the most of the Sundried Tomato and Basil section, so perhaps that is my favorite. Now, I'm not saying that it's a good thing for my waistline and overall health that I come home in the evenings craving olive oil and bread, but for now, I'm going with it.

And now, in a very un-Oprah like move, I'd like to tell you my three least favorite things right now:

--people who don't use blinkers when they're switching lanes, as well as people who leave their blinkers on despite the fact that they have no plans to change lanes.

--people who spit on sidewalks where people have to walk, leaving giant gobs of spit in their wake

--tornadoes and rain storms that create massive traffic and power problems, in combination with local media that doesn't mention these problems, so that you get horrible surprise detours on your commute home.

the madness that is march

Last year, I presented an extremely successful and accurate way to complete your March Madness bracket. I’m sure that way still works, but there’s a certain fluidity in sports that really requires figuring out new methods of bracketology each year. Whatever that means. Anyways, here is the Molly-approved method of filling out your 2009 March Madness bracket:

My methodology this year is based on how fun it is to watch people fight. A shocking statement, you say? Well, what is sports but individuals and teams meeting in a form of combat? But what if, instead of thinking of these college teams as groups of individuals worthy of their own merit, we thought of them as more interesting famous people?

Here is what I mean. I took the first letter of every team as it was written on the bracket that I downloaded from ESPN. Then, I thought of a famous male (since we’re doing men’s basketball) with a last name that began with that letter. I didn’t know what famous man I was assigning to each team. Here’s how the teams shaped up.

Louisville --> John Lennon
Morehead St. --> Karl Marx
Ohio State --> Roy Orbison
Siena --> William Shakespeare
Utah --> Bill Paxton (I couldn’t think of any last names that started with U, so I went with Paxton, because Utah=Mormons and Paxton plays a Mormon. This was one of the few exceptions in which I knew what man symbolized which team)
Arizona --> Neil Armstrong
Wake Forest --> Steve Wozniak
Cleveland --> Stephen Colbert
West Virginia --> Walt Whitman
Dayton --> Charles Darwin
Kansas --> Henry Kissinger
North Dakota State --> Richard Nixon
Boston College --> Rod Blagojevich
USC --> Socrates (I couldn’t think of any last names that started with U, so I went with the “S” instead)
Michigan St. --> Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Robert Morris --> Joseph Ratzinger
Connecticut --> Dana Carvey
Chattanooga --> Coolio
BYU --> Beethoven
Texas A&M --> John Travolta
Purdue --> Brad Pitt
Northern Iowa --> Nero
Washington --> George Washington
Mississippi St. --> Nicolo Machiavelli
Marquette --> Monet
Utah State --> Romney (See the note about Bill Paxton)
Missouri --> Mussolini
Cornell --> George Clooney
California --> Winston Churchill
Maryland --> Moses
Memphis --> Bernie Madoff
Cal State Northridge --> Bill Cosby
Pittsburgh --> Pele
East Tennessee State -->Albert Einstein
Oklahoma State --> Barack Obama
Tennessee --> Donald Trump
Florida State --> Sigmund Freud
Wisconsin --> Bruce Willis
Xavier --> Malcolm X
Portland State --> Pablo Picasso
UCLA --> Elvis Costello (U was really really hard! Went with the next letter on this one)
VCU -->Martin Van Buren
Villanova --> Vincent Van Gogh
American --> Aesop
Texas --> Harry Truman
Minnesota --> Nelson Mandela
Duke --> Charles Dickens
Binghamton --> Napoleon Bonaparte
North Carolina --> Noah
Radford --> Ronald Reagan
LSU --> David Letterman
Butler --> Bono
Illinois --> Henrik Ibsen
Western Kentucky --> Andy Warhol
Gonzaga --> Bill Gates
Akron --> Johnny Appleseed
Arizona State --> Andre Agassi
Temple --> Leo Tolstoy
Syracuse --> Bruce Springsteen
Stephen F. Austin --> Patrick Swayze
Clemson --> Jesus Christ
Michigan --> Barry Manilow
Oklahoma --> Laurence Olivier
Morgan State --> Maharishi

Now, when I assigned famous men to each letter, I kept them in the order that the teams were placed on the bracket. Then, I filled out my bracket based on what would happen if the two men fought. This was not just a matter of randomly picking names, guys. This involved laying on my floor and very clearly imagining a physical fight between the two contenders.

Here’s how Round One went.
In the Midwest division, Marx trumps Lennon cause Lennon won’t fight as a pacifist. Shakespeare trumps Orbison because while Shakespeare is a little effeminate, at least he’s not blind. Neil Armstrong easily takes Bill Paxton while Colbert defeats Wozniak in a close contest. Darwin takes Walt Whitman by beating Whitman with a turtle. In one of the strangest Round One match-ups, Nixon takes Kissinger. Socrates beats Blagojevich though it’s a very close contest, as Blago never answers a question straight and that pisses the hell out of Socrates. Last, Joseph Ratziner, the man known now as Pope Benedict, takes Mozart because Mozart is weird. You’ve seen Amadeus, right?

In the West, we have two past-their-prime stars dueling, but Coolio is able to pull it out over Dana Carvey, who is too busy doing impressions from the early 1990’s to put up an adequate fight against Coolio’s Fantastic Voyage to victory. Beethoven takes Travolta because he’s not bogged down by the “religion” that starts with the letter S that is known as being very litigious. Nero plays his fiddle around Brad Pitt for the win, while in a very close match, George Washington’s brute strength outtakes Machiavelli’s cunning. It also helps that Machiavelli only sent mercenaries to do the job. Tsk tsk. Romney beats Monet, probably the one person he can beat. Mussolini beats the dapper Clooney, who, while being against everything Mussolini stands for, can’t stand to get hit in that beautiful face. Moses takes out Winston Churchill because of the all-powerful God Factor. Bill Cosby takes out Bernie Madoff cause Madoff is in jail.

Off to some exciting match-ups in the East! Pele has a strong kick, but Einstein knows all about the physics behind the kick and is able to pull out a win. Obama tells Trump, “you’re fired.” Bruce Willis takes out Freud who barely bothered to get up off his couch for the fight, while Malcolm X defeats Picasso. Elvis Costello is just punk enough to get past Van Buren, though the Vans have a win when Van Gogh takes out Aesop. Harry Truman, the man who dropped an atomic bomb, has an easy win over Nelson Mandela, while Bonaparte’s battlefield experience easily overpowers that pansy Charles Dickens.

In the South: Noah (of ark fame) takes out Reagan due to the God Factor (take that conservative Christians!). Bono defeats Letterman just because Letterman can’t be bothered to care. In a bizarre match-up, Warhol takes Ibsen. Bill Gates defeats Johnny Appleseed just by dropping money on him, Tolstoy defeats Agassi, and Springsteen defeats Patrick Swayze because I unfortunately imagined present-day, cancer-fighting Swayze, and not in-his-prime, ass-kicking Swayze. Next year, Swayze. In the easiest match so far, Jesus Christ beats Barry Manilow. The Maharishi takes out Laurence Olivier.

The second round doesn’t really hold any surprises, but the third round is where things start shaping up. Some highlights:
--Charles Darwin faces the Pope. The Pope loses. Critics say that if the fighting pope had been John Paul II, then maybe Darwin would have lost. This pope is just not as powerful. I take that to mean that the team represented by Ratzinger (Robert Morris) was probably better in other years.
--God’s right hand men fare better elsewhere, such as in the west where Moses defeats fascism by taking out Mussolini.
--Bono faces his African aid relief partner when he faces off against Bill Gates. Bono wins, because he has the cooler glasses and the power of rock and roll.

Those highlights lay the groundwork for the Elite Eight. In which:
--Colbert finally admits defeat to Darwin.
--Washington cedes to Moses (God factor)
--Bruce Willis takes out Bonaparte in a very hard-fought match, but as it turns out, Bruce Willis really does die hard.
--Two men with Messiah complexes meet when Bono faces Christ in the South. Obviously, Christ wins, but the crowd could just not believe the symbolism.

To take a step back, Darwin, Moses, Willis and Christ are going to the final four. Those real life teams are: Dayton, Maryland, Wisconsin and Clemson. Sure, that may be a far cry from what all the statisticians are telling you….but did they consider what would happen if men with last names beginning with the same letter as the team fought in my imagination? Of course they didn’t.

In the final four, Darwin defeats Moses cause Moses is soooooooo old testament. Christ defeats Willis. That means the big game will be between Darwin and Christ. I know, my mind is blown too! I can’t even decide who wins…..evolution or the bible. So, I won’t tell you. Decide for yourself and fill out your brackets accordingly. You can thank me when either Dayton or Clemson win the whole tournament. Cause I guarantee you’ll be the only person who picked those teams.

Some advice on improving your Monday

If you have an Advent calendar with chocolate treats, keep it in your cubicle at work and not at your home. Then, when you are having the Monday blues, you can have three pieces of chocolate instead of just one piece, because you'll get to have the weekend chocolate in addition to that day's chocolate. But better hurry! There are only two more Mondays for you to experience this minor joy. Now is a really good time to buy an Advent calendar, because you'll get to eat eight pieces of chocolate all at once to catch up. That is all the advice I have for today, unless you are one of my coworkers, in which case I have some additional advice for you: stay away from those cookies in the lounge. They are not delicious.

for hungover and stressed people

Here's a tip for all you kids out there. When you're hungover, it's best to stay as still as possible. Do not attempt any big movements, or you risk incurring the wrath of your body. Television is obviously the easiest way to cultivate stillness, but don't watch anything that would tax your brain too much. Mental stillness is just as important as physical stillness. I think I heard that in yoga class once. But even if you're not hungover, you might be stressed from the holidays and the recession and the question of what to have for dinner tonight. This post will help you as well.

In honor of stillness and the strive for inner peace, today's Picture of the Day is meant to be very calming. It's a picture I took when I was on vacation in Oregon, at a place called The Grotto. It's a Catholic shrine and botanical garden, and if you go, you can see statues of all your favorite characters from the Bible, assuming that your favorite characters from the Bible are Mary, Joseph and Jesus. You can also see a cross that was blessed by a Pope and a replica of Michelangelo's Pieta. But if religious imagery isn't your thing, you can also just enjoy the beautiful Oregon outdoors. I think it is best to go when it is raining. A good way to follow up your trip to the Grotto is by going to a nickel arcade. At least, that's how I did it.

Zen: achieved

a magic phone

Today's Picture of the Day shall serve as a cautionary tale. You see, I'm getting ready to go to a party here in a little bit, and hopefully I will have fun yet not act too unladylike. That's why I'm posting a picture of this antique phone, which is in my family's kitchen. When I was a little girl, nothing could make me behave like this phone. According to my parents, this phone was a direct line to both Santa Claus and my school teachers.

Obviously, you can understand why I'd be concerned about Santa Claus getting phone calls about my behavior. But often, I was far more worried about a school teacher getting a call. When I was in elementary school, I desperately wanted my teachers to like me. And not in a casual, we'll pass you onto the next grade kinda way. In a, why don't you come over to my house and we'll talk about what we think about books kinda way. So if my kindergarten teacher, for example, was getting calls from my dad about something embarrassing or some bad behavior….well, that was very traumatic for me. And since the phone was on the wall, I was too small to reach up myself and make any phone calls to explain myself. Plus since there were no other phones like that I was a little unclear about how the whole thing worked.

So that's why today's Picture of the Day is cautionary. If I do anything inappropriate at the party, then someone might have to use the phone. And my advice to all you parents out there is to find some sort of antique by which you can contact Santa Claus and other important figures in your child's life. It will both confuse and scare your kids, which as I understand it, are the main two goals of parenting.

maybe if it was Ziggy Stardust and just a penny

Now, let it be known that if I could magically cure any disease, leukemia would be near the top of the list of diseases I’d consider. I mean, I don’t want to start ranking which diseases are worst or most in need of a cure, but leukemia has affected my family so certainly I’m interested in eradicating it.

Which is why I am so disappointed by a mailing recently sent to me by the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. They want some of my money, and in return, they’ve sent me some address labels. I don’t know why exactly charities started sending address labels, perhaps to guilt a person into sending in a few bucks, but I would like to publicly thank the March of Dimes for the labels that they send me fairly regularly. These labels depict mailboxes decorated for different seasons and they send about 6 zillion so I’m always set for as long as I live in a certain spot. They’re perhaps a little more precious than something I’d pick out for myself but they get the job done.

But, oh, Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. You have picked Ziggy for your address labels, a bizarre bulbous man who frequently forgets to put his pants on. You have chosen an assortment of Ziggy poses, which include Ziggy smelling some flowers, backpacking, roller blading, standing in the rain, listening to a walkman, and jumping around for joy as hearts bloom around him. I can never ever use these labels. I mean, maybe when I’m sending in my utility bill but I certainly don’t want anyone who might actually know me to get the impression that I might actually buy address labels with Ziggy on them. Also, you included quite a lot of Ziggy stickers, in addition to the address labels, which I guess might be good if I had a five-year-old with a Trapper Keeper around but as it stands now that’s just wasted paper.

And speaking of waste, I want to talk about what really gets my goat about this mailing. Please don’t think I’m being too hard on this organization just because they picked Ziggy. That is not my major problem.

My major problem is that they taped an actual U.S. nickel to the mailing.

Now, I’m no expert in fundraising, but it seems to me that the point is to keep all the money you have while trying to get more. I’ve heard the expression “you’ve got to spend money to make money” but I really just don’t know if it’s applicable in this situation.

So the letter starts, “I’ve included a nickel to make a point. You and I both know that a single nickel won’t go far in the fight against blood cancers. But even nickels can quickly add up.” I KNOW THEY CAN ADD UP, LEUKEMIA AND LYMPHOMA SOCIETY!! THAT’S WHY YOU SHOULD HAVE KEPT YOUR NICKEL INSTEAD OF SENDING IT TO ME!!! You go on to tell me that if we invest all these nickels in blood cancer research, we can save a ton of lives. I couldn’t agree with you more. That’s why I cannot for the life of me understand why are giving away your nickels! Why would I send you money when you’re just going to take it to the bank, convert it to nickels, and mail it back out to people?

Now, the request for donations asks that I return my nickel along with a generous gift. This also confuses me. Do you want me to literally mail you back the nickel? Does that affect postage? Because I would think another concept of fundraising is ensuring that it’s so easy for people to give that they just do it. But now I’d be worried that I’d have to make an extra trip to the post office just to make sure that this fucking nickel wasn’t going to be returned.

Perhaps you’re saying, oh, Molly, you’re taking this far too literally. When you write a check, you can just include the nickel there. But this is one of those donation forms where you put an “x” next to how much you’re giving, and all of the numbers are even. So, say, if a person were to mark that they’re donating $10, but they’re including their nickel, then really they’re only donating $9.95. DO YOU SEE HOW THIS IS A MONEY LOSING PROPOSITION, LEUKEMIA SOCIETY?

Maybe this mailing is designed so that I feel guilty, so that I really will donate. Because I really don’t want this nickel sitting here when it could be fighting disease. It’s like blood money or something. But I just don’t know if I can trust charitable institutions that give away money like this. Maybe I could go to a hospital and drop it where I know a nurse or a doctor will find it.

And let me just warn you right now, March of Dimes. If you ever get cute and send me a dime with my mailbox labels…well, woe unto you. The little mailbox flag will go down, permanently.

How to win your March Madness office pool!

It’s March Madness time! This is a time where you might need to pretend to be interested about sports in order to talk to your coworkers or impress your friends. If so, you may be wondering how to pick winning teams and collect your office pool. Here are some ways to fill out a bracket:
1. Ask your dad to fill it out for you
2. Do research about the players, how the teams have played this season, blah blah blah.
3. Judge the teams based solely on how they sound, stereotypes, gossip and gut reaction.

Or, you can adopt my special scientific method, which I have outlined below. Get your lucky gambling pen ready, follow the steps for each round, and be sure to give me a cut if you win.

The First 64
Always pick the number one seed in the first round.

Pick any schools that have the same name as your friends and loved ones. I have a brother named George who I like pretty well, so I picked George Mason, Georgetown, and Georgia.

Give religious sounding schools the benefit of having God on their side. If you do this, then St. Joseph’s, St. Mary’s, Temple and Brigham Young all advance.

Pick three schools with funny names. In the first round, I picked Purdue, Gonzaga and Oral Roberts.

Then choose two places that don’t sound very fun to go. Assume that people who go there don’t have much to do and focus intensely on sports to fill their time. I went with South Alabama and Western Kentucky. Conversely, pick two places that you do like to go; I went with Arizona and Oregon.

Then select all the remaining schools that have the color red in their jerseys. When opposing teams both have red in their colors, pick the higher seeded teams. This advances Washington State, Louisville, American, UNLV, USC and Stanford.

To finish off this round in your bracket, pick the school that comes first alphabetically.

Second Round
Pick the number one seed in the second round.

For all other slots, pick the school with more vowels in its name, not counting the word “college” or “university.” One exception to this rule is wherever “Duke” shows up, you are allowed to pick Duke, even if it has less vowels than Arizona.

In the case that some schools have the same number of vowels in their name, pick the one that is higher in the U.S. News and World Report rankings.

Sweet Sixteen
In this round, you can only pick three of the number one seeds. One of them will be upset. Bye bye UCLA.

After selecting the number one seeds, eliminate any remaining schools that have two names, i.e., South Alabama. After the two-names are gone, pick the schools with the shorter names.

Crazy Eights
To get to the Final Four, your school has to have a lot of fans, so pick the school from the more populous state.

Final Four
At this point, it’s finally time to take a look at the school’s mascot. Identify all the remaining school’s mascots. Personally, I have these left:
North Carolina (Ram) vs Kansas (Jayhawk)
Stanford (Cardinal) vs Duke (Blue Devil)

Now, we’re not trying to pick which one is the coolest mascot, although that method would probably work. Instead, think about which mascot would be more delicious to eat. As a poultry fan, I think I would probably enjoy eating jayhawks and cardinals more than I would enjoy eating rams or blue devils. Immediately eliminate the mascot you are more likely to want to eat, because this is a sign of weakness.

The Big Game
At this point, I am left with North Carolina vs. Duke. This is every North Carolinian’s favorite match-up, unless that North Carolinian was raised by a UVA fan, as I was. I’m going with North Carolina cause I’ve been hearing good things.

ring of fire

What a day. Today I woke up and saw that Alberto Gonzalez resigned. Instead of being happy, I was just sad that the Daily Show and Colbert are in reruns this week. They are missing out on some prime jokes. Do you think Alberto did that on purpose? No, you're right, I don't think he has that kind of foresight either.

Today at work we had a presentation by Red Cross about disaster preparedness. The lady was very nice even though her job was essentially to scare us silly with statistics about earthquakes and tsunamis and volcano eruptions and flooding, and how everyone needs to have a disaster kit to get through all these disasters which are just around the corner. But she had a good sense of humor, and in telling us about how to personalize our disaster kits, she said, "I know I'm going to need a glass of wine if I'm in an earthquake, so I have some in my disaster kit!" And she made a good point, that if you are going to do something like that, then you should use boxed wine, and not a bottle of wine, because that might break in the earthquake. That is very good advice.

She said that in this area, the number one thing that the Red Cross responds to is house fires. Then she gave some advice about candles in the household, complete with an anecdote about a woman who had a candle going but then her cat's tail caught on fire, and she tried to throw water on the cat, but cats don't like water, so it set off running through the house, with its tail ablaze. I didn't quite catch how the fire went out, but it's a good story all the same.

But listening to the fire conversation did take me a back a little bit to when I was 5 years old. In kindegarten, we did stations, and one of the stations was watching 20 minutes or so of Sesame Street. Except when my group got to the station, it was a PBS documentary about families who lose everything in fires. I sat there for 20 minutes and got terrified. I think the point of the show was that kids were supposed to go home and draw escape maps with their parents, and talk about what to do in a fire. But what I took from that was that I was going to lose everything in a fire.

The results of this horrible show on my sensitive psyche were that I slept with a bag of belongings by my bed every night, so I could grab it and run if the fire started at night (although I was likely more convinced that I would just burn to death). But if we were leaving the house for any period of time, I wanted to take several bags of belongings, including a big bag of books so that I would have enough to read until all my things could be replaced.

The bag o'books made my dad mad. I guess there was no room in the car for my brothers with the bag or something. So sometimes, my mom would go out and hide it in the car, so I could have it. The habit of taking so many books with me pretty much ended when my dad put some on the top of the car while he was getting kids settled, and then he drove off without getting the books. I never saw those books again. I learned a horrible lesson that sometimes you don't even have to live through a fire to lose your books.

I forget where I was going with this. I'm too depressed to continue.

Random Friday thoughts

It has been hot here the last few days. I know it's hot everywhere, but Seattle only has a handful of days each summer where it's so hot it's miserable, and we always forget about them til they're here. Trying to sleep just makes you cranky because it's too hot to have a bed pressing against you. It's too hot to eat. Sitting in a chair involves sitting in your own sweat, the kind of sweat that seems to sit right under the surface, cooking you from the inside. Walking across the apartment to the bathroom involves fresh rivulets of sweat breaking out. Then you sit in the old sweat for awhile.

But it's Seattle, so no one has any air conditioning. There was a neat picture on the internet this week, of the fan aisle at Target and it was completely empty. Since there's only a few nice days in Seattle each year, one of the unintentionally hard things about living here is that there's this pressure to make the most of every sunny day, to live each nice day as if it were your last, because you just don't know when it's going to be gray again. I rarely feel like I live up to the challenge.

Last night around 4 a.m. it started raining really hard, and it was wonderful. Wonderful because it was a break from the heat, but more because it sounded like a good hard east coast rain that means business, and not a Seattle drizzle. The kind of rain that's really comforting to fall asleep to.

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Today I discovered a great scam that both obtains quarters (a huge challenge for anyone who has to use coin-operated laundry) while simultaenously getting rid of dimes and nickels (as opposed to more useful currency such as dollar bills). You go up to a soda machine and pretend you're going to buy a drink. Put in 50 cents in any combination of dimes and nickels. Then push coin return and voila! you have two quarters. One thing I know about myself is that I can never live in an apartment that doesn't have a dishwasher, but I will know that I have really arrived when I have my own washer/dryer as well.

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I really like it when bus drivers going one way wave to the drivers of the same route going the other way. I can't imagine it's because they all know each other, because I would think Metro is too large to have things like regular staff meetings, but more out of kinship for the route.

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"Phantom sunglass head" is a term I've come up with to describe the condition of feeling like your sunglasses are on top of your head when really they're not. It's common after events such as vacations or nice days, when you might be alternating between outside to see stuff, and inside to eat. When you're inside you push them to the top of your head until you finish eating or whatever. But when you take them off for the day, it might still feel like they're still up there. You might reach up there to steady them. But they're not there. That's "phantom sunglass head."

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Today I had a cheeseburger for lunch which was an immense relief because I have been craving one for days. The related anecdote I would like to share is that I was reading on the internet about a cheeseburger that has a Krispy Kreme for a bun (it was one of the lead stories on Yahoo! this morning). Can you even imagine a cheeseburger with a Krispy Kreme as a bun? Even I, who love both cheeseburgers and doughnuts more than life itself, could probably not eat that. The only thing that might be unhealthier is the Gusburger, which is the specialty of a place called The White Spot. Apparently my dad ate them a lot when he was a student at UVA, and it is probably a miracle he is still alive. It is a cheeseburger with a fried egg. And heaven help me, it is good.

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Last, I would like to give a shout-out to Bruce Springsteen. Normally, I am not one for reissues or for live albums, but about a year ago, one of the best albums of all-time came out, and it is called We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions. It is Bruce Springsteen singing old Pete Seeger songs, and I talked about it endlessly to anyone who would listen. If I never talked to you about it, just give me your phone number, and I will. Then, several months after that, the re-issue came out. By adding only 4 songs, Bruce made this CD even more amazing. And now I have spent today listening to Live in Dublin, by Bruce Springsteen and the Seeger Sessions Band. It captures some raucous nights in Ireland. And it's as great as I wanted or expected it to be.

What's cool about the CD is that some of the older songs get the Seeger Sessions treatment: "If I Should Fall Behind" becomes a waltz, "Blinded by the Light" kinda sounds like something a snake charmer would sing, and "Atlantic City"...well I probably can't think of a good description for what "Atlantic City"is, but it's awesome. What I'm trying to say is that if Bruce decided to do his entire back catalogue with the Seeger Sessions Band, I don't think I'd mind too much.

Bruce always puts on a great show---seeing him in 2002 in Atlanta is probably one of my top 3 concert experiences---and I think he is one of the few artists that translates well to a live album. It's just that usually I would rather just listen to the original and go to the show myself. I guess people who are into jam bands might disagree with me, like if you wanted to capture every single way Trey ever played something or other. But here, to me, are the unique touches that can make a live album fun:
--Singing a song that mentions the city in which the concert is taking place. Obviously when Jeff Tweedy gets to the line "the wind blew me back / via chicago" on Kicking Television: Live in Chicago, that's going to be a special moment.

--Inserting the concert city's name into a song that mentions a place. While Jimmy Buffett talks about getting "a Mexican cutie" tattoo in "Margaritaville," when he sings it in concert, the cutie is from the town he's in (ex.-"Nantucket cutie"). And crowds go wild! So cheesy, but I love it.

--Letting the audience sing the song without you, or counting on them to fill in certain parts. A good example of the former is on Tom Petty's Pack Up the Plantation: Live! where the crowd sings about two minutes of "Breakdown" before Tom finally comes in, drawling, "y'all gonna put me out of a job." Then he does the honorable thing and sings the whole song anyway, so people who didn't know the song don't feel left out. An example of the latter would be Elvis Costello letting the audience handle "oh why's that" and "oh, that's too bad" and "oh I'm so sad" in (The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes. It's just a nice nod to fans and people who like the music.

--Slowing down on deliberate parts that are funny or meaningful. This one's hard to define, but for example, the Indigo Girls went to Emory, and the second verse of one of their big songs is about how much college sucked for them. So when they played at Emory my sophomore year, they slowed down on the part that went, "got my paper, and I was free" so we could all cheer about the shared experience.

--Cover songs. Enough said.

Anyways, enjoy a video clip of Bruce Springsteen and the Seeger Sessions Band:

Marathon Man

I just got back from the dentist. I fear my dentist, because she seems to involve a lot more technology and instruments and drilling and condescension than I am used to. But today, I went in to the dentist, who is very very pregnant, for two fillings. The dentist said she was going to do them one at a time (rather than numb the whole mouth at once) because she had been having contractions, so she didn't want to get me all numbed up for nothing. So in addition to having fears about my mouth being permanently stretched or never recovering from the numbness, I also had to worry about my dentist giving birth. Every time she leaned over, her gigantic belly rubbed against my head. It was really weird. I would advise people not to have pregnant dentists. I hope she does not find this entry through Google.