the ass and lamb kept time

The Grizzly clan is super busy, what with the holidays and BUYING A FREAKING HOUSE, but I wanted to jump in here to wish you a happy, safe and warm holiday season.


Oh, and though I don't want to endorse one tradition over another here, I think it's a safe bet nobody ever got lost looking for their menorah.
That's one in your column, Jews!

brotherhood of the traveling pants

For several years my father and a friend of his exchanged the same tie rack as a gift. they would disguise it in various forms to delude the recipient into believing that this time it would be something else. If memory serves, this included baking the rack into a loaf of bread.
It was a hoot.
Eventually, even my father and his buddy got bored with this game. I am sometimes disturbed to find myself daydreaming of similar ways to torture those closest to me. What is this tendency?
I don't know, but I doubt that anyone has taken the tendency to a greater extreme than these guys.

I think I linked to this from my old blog, but I think it merits perennial mention.

nifty

Ol' Griz loves him some vintage paperbacks, but has no time for blogposting, nevermind cataloging and indexing book covers by artist.
Who does?
This person does. Enjoy!

Oona's new fighting technique is unstoppable

IMPORTANT BULLETIN

The Consumer Product Safety Commission has recalled children, finding that they pose a significant health hazard to children and have a tendency to release toxic chemicals.

Sorry, just channeled Erma Bombeck for a second there!

Glad that's over!

note to my daughter

I know your mother and I kid around alot with the "I'ma eatchyoo up!", but I just wanted you to know- if you were a bank vole or a house finch we might not be kidding!
And listen to this:

Klug said filial cannibalism could be a way to root out offspring that take too long to mature and therefore require a little too much parental care

So, you know, shape up or, well, let me just see what this apple looks like in your mouth...

partly Sonny Perdue

Georgia Guv: And can we have a pony?

There's something reminiscent of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court here, since I think rain has been forecast for just after the prayer session since last week, but who knows? Sonny seems a little whackadinghoy himself.

Christ, what an asterisk

Barry Bonds is threatening to break young cheaters' hearts everywhere by boycotting the baseball hall of fame. Which is a shame, because Cooperstown could really use someone with his integrity. Here, Bonds takes the proud, indignant stance of a man wrongly accused:

"I will never be in the Hall of Fame. Never," Bonds said.

What he should have done is hire a chorus of sailors to pipe in here with "hardly ever!", but instead he went with:

"That's my emotions now. That's how I feel now. When I decide to retire five years from now, we'll see where they are at that moment," he added. "We'll see where they are at that time, and maybe I'll reconsider. But it's their position and where their position will be will be the determination of what my decision will be at that time."



Oh. Oookayy. Let me see if I've got this right. You will NEVER be in the hall of fame, unless of course the hall of fame positions their determination with a... uh... how'd that go again?

I'm just wondering: in those hearings, did you ever say "I have NEVER knowingly taken steroids"?

...and Washington DC provides us with yet another example of how humor doesn't work

Jim Manley, senior aide to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, said, "Taking advice from President Bush about fiscal responsibility and getting things done for the American people is like taking hunting lessons from Dick Cheney. Neither is a very good idea."

See, the mice are hunchbacked because the apartment is too small for them to stand up! Oh, when you said "walk this way" you meant "walk in this direction"! Don't just consider my wife as an example of what I'm talking about, remove her from the premises!

Sports build character

Heaven, no longer a place where nothing ever happens, is a wicked pissah cah fiyah:

An unruly crowd flipped a pickup truck to its side near Fenway Park and at least one car fire was reported. Young people sprayed each other with beer and some climbed street signs or utility poles.

"Two World Series in four years is pure heaven," said Andrew Dumas [sic], a Boston University student from West Boylston.

Dumass then resumed punching an elderly woman in the face.

... and speaking of Robyn Hitchcock...

Here's the kid diggin' on her very own globe of frogs:

and on the 8th day Robyn Hitchcock took over

Moths drink the tears of sleeping birds.

you're like a teacher on vacation!*

Look, Bill, I don't care what you like to do in the privacy of your own home, but keep it to yourself, willya?
I'm going to write a book and call it Commas, People. They Don't Cost Extra.

*no class

go wash grandma

Childhood Myths That Are Still Acceptable For Parents To Insist Upon To Their Adult Children
This reminds me of my friend whose father always told him the sound of the ice cream truck was the devil coming to get him. Really!

what's to become of the clock?

I'm a little despondent today. I found out yesterday that my childhood is going to be demolished. I guess an explanation is in order.
I was born, and currently live, in Rochester NY and I'm nearing 40, which means I'm old enough to remember a vibrant downtown, with throngs of people who are there for reasons other than to change buses. Christmas time was particularly magical, with the mechanized window displays and Santa's Mountain, which was a big sparkly mountain in Midtown Plaza where Santa received his visitors. Santa's Mountain featured a tunnel through which a kid-sized monorail traveled. The monorail ride was always more exciting to me than meeting Santa (I don't think I ever fully bought the Santa myth-- at least I wasn't much phased by the realization that he was a hoax). Riding the monorail remained a part of my holiday ritual until they would no longer let me on.
Midtown Plaza boasts the distinction of being the first indoor shopping center in North America (or something like that). Built in the early sixties, the architecture is blocky and a bit kitschy-- too ordinary to qualify as Googie, but with enough camp to garner affection. Particularly campy was a giant clock in the middle of the plaza that had rotating dioramas of various ethnic stereotypes. It was called the Clock of the Nations, and was kind of like Disney's Small World ride in miniature. This is probably the ugliest clock in America, and we Rochesterians love it (or we love hating it).
Well, wouldn't you know it, they're tearing Midtown down. This is probably the right decision, as it has been largely vacant for decades now, and it will be replaced by a corporate headquarters that will bring several hundred jobs into the city center.
Still, I can't help but feel mopey about it. As a friend put it, "that's the closest thing to a favorite baseball stadium you have, isn't it?".
Malls of America has clipped an old chamber of commerce film to the parts about Midtown. If I'm not mistaken, that narration is by the esteemed Ken Nordine.
I have a cherished fedora made by McCurdy's, which at one time was the anchor department store in Midtown. The label inside the hat says "The Midtowner", in jaunty, I dare say swanky, lettering, and has a picture of the plaza. This is an optimistic fedora. I will wear it to the demolition.

It breaks your heart in two

I love Roy Orbison, but I hate cling film.

one look at you and I can't disguise...

I'm the first guy to shut someone down if they're talkin' smack about President Carter. He's the only US Prez of whom I am a "fan". Sorry, Taft.
Having said that, I think some of the synapses might be firing a little kooky these days. I don't blame them, they've been through a heck of a lot. I bet watching Arafat eat a salad is a jarring experience.

Anyways, I was at the dentist's office today reading Time magazine. They have a feature called 10 questions. This is where readers send in questions to ask that week's luminaries, and where I ran across this:

"Q:Did you ever envision becoming so prolific a builder of latrines? —Ricardo Fernandez, Orland Park, Ill.
A: [Laughs.] Ethiopia has one of the highest incidences of blindness on earth because of trachoma, which is caused by filthy eyes."

Oh, that's a hoot!
Incidentally, Filthy Eyes was Tip O'Neill's preferred brand of scotch.

iron butterfly?

Government Agent #1: The boss wants us to get some photos of the protesters downtown, so I'm sending those robot dragonflies we've been working on!

GA#2: I've got a better idea. Why don't I put on a Ron Paul T-shirt and go down there with my cameraphone?

GA#1: Robot dragonfly! Robot dragonfly!

I hear Speed Racer's been knocking over liquor stores

I know my mind is poisoned by an abundance of television viewing in my youth, but all I could think when I saw the headline Devlin pleads guilty in kidnapping case was "it's always sad when cartoon stunt motorcyclists go bad".

You don't even want to know where I ran into Scrambles from the Chopper Bunch.

the "time" in the name of the magazine is apparently 1960

So, being a dad who actually parents is girly.
Reading this article is like sitting next to some drunk meatball at the bar who's accosting you with "I wish I had duh guts to wear a shirt like dat. A lotta guys would be worried dat people thought they was fags. But it's great dat you feel comfortable like dat":

But what does it mean, exactly, to be a man these days? Once upon a Darwinian time, a man was the one spearing the woolly mammoth. And it wasn't so long ago that a man was that strong and silent fellow over there at the bar with the dry martini or a cold can of beer--a hardworking guy in a gray flannel suit or blue-collar work shirt. He sired children, yes, but he drew the line at diapering them. He didn't know what to expect when his wife was expecting, he didn't review bottle warmers on his daddy blog, and he most certainly didn't participate in little-girl tea parties. Today's dads plead guilty to all of the above--so what does that make them?

Um, I don't know-- not jerks?
I would argue that someone who can drink a cold beer while changing a diaper is twice the man, but I don't want to brag.

So thanks, Time Magazine, for congratulating me on being so willingly feminine as to hug my daughter and change her diapers. And I'd switch to water right about now if you're thinking about driving home.

intensity in twin cities

Titivil pointed me to the new Republican Convention Logo , which made me nearly laugh out loud from my urethra, and inspired a few thoughts:

2008: The Year That Got Humped by an Elephant!
or, that 8 should go on the other end (is he humping the year or humping using the year?).
or, every time you look at this you should sing "Jukebox Hero" ("stars in his eyes")
or,
To be perfectly honest, if I had a tail, I'd tickle my own ass while humping a year too.

he's the cat that won't cop out

Jimmy Carter is one baaaaad mother (shut your mouth!).

the moon is made of soylent green

There is a commercial that's been running rather frequently, you've probably seen it, in which a gentleman is holding a large cheese wheel and saying something very like:

"Everyone knows that milk comes from cows. But cheese comes from people".

Eeeeeeew! This is not the cheese we want to purchase and eat, mister.

I find myself saying this about things all the time*, but in my experience working for corporations, nothing's done until there is meeting after meeting to discuss it. Was there really not one person who spoke up and said "do we really want to say that we're selling people-cheese"?

*Some other examples: a kid's play set that was like Colorforms but with felt pieces, called Felt Kids; Christopher Reeve's memoir, entitled Still Me; Aquapets.

they got too many snakes or somethin', right?

President Bush has a reputation for being insulated and out of touch with reality, but in today's speech to the UN, hear how adroitly he sums up the mood of the nation:

"Americans are outraged by the situation in Burma".

That's "sit-chu-AY-shun".

loose change got rained on with his own .38

Here's some good reading for you fine folks:

Douglas Rushkoff on why 9/11 conspiracy theorists are whack. He says it better, natch.

And if you are an adherent to those 9/11 stories, I have some swampland in Florida for you, here.

I dreamed I held you in my nuclear arms

Protesters also assembled at Columbia. Dozens stood near the lecture hall where Ahmadinejad was scheduled to speak, linking arms and singing traditional Jewish folk songs about peace and brotherhood, while nearby a two-person band played "You Are My Sunshine."

Glad to see the Dadaists showed up.

I say let Richard Branson go find him

Not only are your taxes paying to find a missing multimillionaire who couldn't be bothered to file a flight plan, but now you can help from yer very own 'pooter! Flyin' Fossett Junior Rangers ready for action, sir!

Think of this next time some right-winger gets onto food stamp fraud or whatever anecdotal bullshit they like to spew about social programs. How much are we spending to dig up missing Richie Rich flyboys?

Forget it, Jake. It's Corntown.

The family and I went to one of these no-frills supermarkets last weekend, where they have all the products disguised to look like well-known brands, like if you squint you'll think you're actually putting A-1 Steak Sauce on your hamburger, not AL-STEAK sauce- you get the idea.

Anyway, I didn't really want to go. The missus insisted we go there to buy certain things, as she insists that we are poor. She could be right about that, but I insist that poor is a state of mind, and that in my mind I am a gazillionaire.

So, I was along reluctantly- we brought our own grocery bags so we wouldn't have to buy them at the store but we don't own a cart so we still had to rent one- all of this no-frillery made me slightly grumpy.

However, my mood soon lightened as I spotted a box of microwave popcorn with the brand-name, in carnivalesque font:
CORNTOWN!

Did I say my mood lightened? I should say I was in hysterics. All I could do was point and guffaw. Now it was the wife's turn to be grumpy. She tried to pretend she didn't know me.

It's been kind of a running gag for the past week. Corntown!
And, added bonus! Popcorn lung comes along to sweeten the pot! Now I could entertain myself and annoy the missus with my little playlet, performed in the bathroom as I was flossing:

Narrator: Corntown, USA. A town with no future, the only employment available a dead-end job in the popcorn mines. But some hope to escape the fate of previous generations.

Young Davey: Me, I'm gettin' out of Corntown. I ain't gon' die from the popcorn lung like my daddy and his daddy before him. I can still remember Pappy on his deathbed. We knew he was about to go when his coughs slowed down to two or three per minute...

fat jokes in 3,2,1...

Luciano Pavarotti died today. You may remember him from the Three Tenors. He was two of them.
He was known as "king of the high Cs", but was also frequently mistaken for the Queen Mary.
I don't want to say Pavarotti was fat, but when he sat around the opera house...

nobody's gonna slap o'l Griz with a libel suit

So I'm currently hating on a certain company. I won't tell you which one, but they're an insurance provider and their name rhymes with "sweat-na".
And boy, do they suck. They've raised the art of strategic incompetence to heights I never before imagined.

In preparation for a time when my daughter starts talking, I'm trying to start using substitutes for some of my favorite swears. Por ejemple, I really like to call people douchebags. Don't know why, I just do. Now I call those people juice boxes. Sometimes, flugelhorn juice boxes.

Sweat-na? Buncha flugelhorn juice boxes.

hoax, schmoax

Defective Yeti has a nice little piece on the (deliberate?) misuse of the word "hoax" by the MSM. I particularly liked this:

The advantages of labeling something like this a hoax are obvious: you didn't massively overreact to a situation that the average person recognized as harmless, you were tricked into doing so! You didn't just take a quotation from a clearly phony article on a random webpage and build a story around in, you were duped! You're not an idiot, you're just easily gulled! (This argument reminds me of the Democrats claiming that they voted in favor of the Iraq war because the White House tricked them into doing so ... not that getting outwitted by Bush is any less embarrassing than getting outwitted by flour.)

It really gets my dander up when I hear Hillary et al trot out that old "they tricked me" chestnut. How come I, sitting at home on my cigarette-burned couch, knew the White House was lying, but people who are supposed to figure these things out for their job were duped? Because they weren't, that's why. "I was too chicken-shit to stand up and call bullshit", it's more like. And you want to be my latex salesman.

It just makes riding a tall bike around naked seem somehow pointless

"Everyone is looking at it this morning, this big black figure in the sky and that wasn't supposed to burn, saying, 'Now what do we do?'"

big, uh, shoes to fill

Other kids are going to mock this kid real bad:
"Hey, Charley Horse!", they'll shout.

3 months in...

... and I think I'm finally getting the hang of this.

that doesn't sound right

Wow, the compact disc turns 25 today. I remember my friend Josh throwing these "indestructible" discs around his room in the mid '80's. Then I remember listening to his CD of Pink Floyd's The Wall:
"Mother do you think they'll try to break my
bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb
bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbballsallsallsallsallsallsallsallsallsallsallsallsallsallsallsallsallsallsallsalls
allsallsallsallsallsallsallsallsallsallsallsallsallsallsallsallsallsallsallsallsallsallsallsallsallsallsallsallsalls
alls"

So, how are we all enjoying our less expensive/more durable audio future?

addendum to previous post

I think I found it (them).
Watch the video.
All cats on the clown!
(via LFROS)

meme ow

So, I came up with a "lolcats" caption- I just need a picture to go with it:

AFTER UZ DEAD IN HOUSE FOR THREE DAYZ IZ EATING UR FLESH OK THANKS

unless mumbling counts as slurring of speech

The radio station I sometimes listen to on my drive home plays lots of PSAs, like about how you're not supposed to shake your baby but you are supposed to talk to them (DON'T MIX THESE UP!). Yesterday I was half listening to a PSA about strokes when I thought they said "eighty-seven percent of stroke victims have no symptoms".
I pulled over right away.
"My God", I thought, "I have no symptoms!".

By the way, I have a Public Service Announcement of my own to make:

If you're thinking of purchasing a bag of "Red Ju Ju Fish", be aware: these are NOT the same as the red "Swedish Fish" that are so delicious.
Please, don't make the same mistake I made.

spare the Rod

I'm pretty sure there are no Steigers in my family tree, but sometimes I wonder.

can we agree that it could be better?

While some news outlets have a tendency toward sensationalism and hysteria, I've noticed that NPR reporters sometimes tend to understate the case a bit. Example from this morning, and I might be paraphrasing a little:
"the collapse raises questions about the bridge's structural stability".
I would have said it answers those questions, but what the hey.

hello my ragtime gal

This is really just a note to myself to remind me to read this article on living frogs and toads found inside rocks (sorry about registration- try BugMeNot), a phenomenon which I believe inspired the classic Warner Bros. cartoon One Froggy Evening.

Who sent you?

Puddin' Tane?*

Poor guy. I can only imagine the laser beams I'd be ducking if I went to pick up my daughter and said "Come here, Daddy's got you, um, er, uhhh... Brenda? Lucy? Hester?".


*Holy crap. Never made the connection.

Cue Nelson

"On the one hand, people will now say you can't prove the fraud... but the rule of law says that when evidence is destroyed it creates a presumption that the people who destroyed evidence did so because it would have proved the contention of the other side."



Ha Ha!

Fire up the colortini...

...and watch the pictures as they fly through the air.
Tom Snyder dead at 71.
He is survived by his eyebrows.

Gee, I'd hate for it to turn into the obit section around here, but...
I was a fan- he was just the right touch of madness for late night talk. There was one unforgettable interview with Robert Blake, during which Baretta appeared to be having a nervous breakdown and was talking into the camera to his wife/girlfriend, begging her to come back to him. I don't know if this is the same person he was later accused of murdering, but boy was Blake unhinged. Snyder displayed compassion, attempting to re-rail the conversation away from whoever it was Blake was talking to. Still, gripping television, and I couldn't help but think of that interview when he was arrested.

And then, of course, there were the eyebrows, which crawled around Snyder's face like a couple of woolly caterpillars.
Tom Snyder regularly made me think "man, those people sleeping don't know what they're missing!"

you mean this isn't the George Jones Invitational, officer?

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Floyd P. Sincerbeaux!

Sincerbeaux reportedly told deputies that he had been drinking and was driving the lawnmower to a relative’s house in Geneva, Ontario County.

That trip on a lawnmower would give him plenty of time to sober up. Or drink more. Here, see for yourself. Fifteen miles? No problem- I'll be there in about three hours!

my good deed for the day

Okay, look. I'm no detective, but I don't think it takes Sherlock Holmes to deduce:
That cat is killing those old people!


Please, don't thank me.
Hiyooo Silver!

don't fart in the amazon, is my advice to you

Like gluttonous piranhas, supermassive black holes in young galaxy clusters gorge on bountiful gas until little fuel is left, and then they fade away, a new study suggests.


This article has done more to shift my perceptions about piranhas' eating habits than to explain anything about black holes.

"Don't worry about those piranhas, honey. They only eat gas, and they fade away when they're done".

All of these objects-stars, black holes, galaxies and galaxy clusters-can crash and merge with one another.

Can piranhas do that too?

you'll be wantin' to subpeona robert louis stevenson, then?

Congress Seeks Tales of Piracy

I'm relieved that our government is finally standing up for America's beleaguered recording industry. Because if the government doesn't, who will? The hundreds of lawyers the beleaguered recording industry keeps on retainer?
I'll have more energy to worry about whether I can afford to keep my baby in diapers, now that I know someone's making sure Clive Davis can afford his.

Thanks, Congress!

long story short

When I worked for one of the big B bookstores, I learned to hate many things. Two of these were "spoken-word" poetry performances and authors. I also learned to appreciate the experiences that inspired me to question the prejudices I was developing.
Part of my job for awhile was to be the liaison for author appearances. It was frequently astonishing to see little-known, moderately succesful, or out-and-out unknown authors all behaving as though they were J.D. Freakin' Salinger and we should be turning the world upside down for them because they'd managed to bamboozle someone into putting their words between covers. Author appearances were often arranged with little lead time, and there seemed to be a reverse correlation between the success of an author and the level of gluteal osculation they required.
What can I say about "spoken-word", or "performance poetry"? I think we can all admit that I can be forgiven for painting that genre with a broad "it sucks" brush.
Sometimes, though, it's nice to be proven wrong about things.
One of these last-minute author appearances involved a poet named Sekou Sundiata. I actually looked forward to this, as I'd taken home a promo cassette thinking that it might be worth a good laugh and was surprised to find witty, unpretentious, fresh and engaging performance poetry! I figured, though, that he'd be some kind of diva and would complain about the last minute set-up we'd arranged for him.
Mr. Sundiata was, instead, very grateful for our modest accomodations and was just a very warm, genuine guy all around. A pleasure to deal with and a great talent.
So I am saddened that he has left us. Some of my friends (and enemies I suppose) are of the opinion that I hate to be wrong. Sometimes, this is not the case. Thank you sir, and rest in peace.

to fetch a predator

1941 goes to the races!

Yesterday, I was feeling pretty down and needed a laugh, so I decided to watch Talladega Nights.

In a way, it worked. Now I can make myself giggle just by saying "I was feeling pretty down and needed a laugh, so I decided to watch Talladega Nights".

how to put people off balance (for parents only)

I just ran into a colleague who asked how the baby was doing. Because it is required of everyone that they ask me that everytime they see me. I said she was doing great, and added
"How 'bout you? You sleeping through the night?".

Q: "what are you doing?" A: "I'm killing a vampire!"

Some thoughts on this story:

I used to have a running gag with an old roommate of mine, which was this: when someone on the phone asked one of us what we were doing, we would answer: "oh, just fuckin' the dog".
We had no dog. I'm not sure if that's why it was funny to us. "Fuckin' the dog" was the catch-all phrase meaning "I'm not really doing anything worth mentioning". I would like to reinstate this practice using the phrase "killing a vampire".

Also: I believe the culprit may have answered "killing a vampire" because he didn't want to say "I'm beating the peacock!".

Also: I once had a friend who went a little nutso. I recall a party at which he, in all earnestness, proclaimed that Grimace was a vampire. I wonder if he was the one who attacked the peacock.

rendicion Dorothia

Flying witches spotted in Mexico.

they still wouldn't let him call himself Luke Skywalker

I've been reading Bound By Law: Tales from the Public Domain, which is a distillation of copyright law and fair use in comic book form, and is a pretty good introduction to the topic if you can look beyond the crappy illustrations (which would not be out of place in a religious tract or college newspaper).
Anyway, there's a section where they synopsize some landmark fair use cases. One of these is "Campbell v. Rose-Acuff", which was when the rights holders for the Roy Orbison hit "Pretty Woman" sought to prevent 2 Live Crew from using the riff and melody in their song, "Pretty Woman".
In the '90's, this is the sort of thing the Supreme Court was busy with. Ah, the good ol' days...
The Supremes decided that 2 Live Crew's Pretty Woman constituted parody. In their decision they wrote that 2 Live Crew's Pretty Woman "juxtaposes the romantic musings of a man whose fantasy comes true, with degrading taunts, a bawdy demand for sex, and a sigh of relief from paternal responsibility".
Tell me the judges didn't have fun with that one.
Now I'll try one:

The Black Eyed Peas' song "My Humps" features a narrative in which it is inquired of a young woman how she plans to use various anatomical attributes, referred to in the song variously as "junk" "lumps" and "hump". The young woman replies that she anticipates utilizing said attributes to intoxicate the viewer and extort gifts from such.

I guess I need some practice before I'm ready for the bench. The bench. The bench the bench the bench...

an incompleat list of nicknames for Lil' Griz

Sunshine Head
Punky Brewster
Punkin'
Punkin' Pie
Peanut
Milk Goblin
Roto Rooter
Bride of Chucky
Kahuna

Baby

stop thinking about tomorrow

Hillary, you just lost my vote.

I realize that this is not the sort of thing that should determine who I vote for. Except, aren't they hoping that it is? At least on some subconcious propagandistic level?
And speaking of propoganda, is this actually an ingenious wink to the propogandists that like to obsess over Clinton's shrill, piercing speaking voice?
No, I know. It's not.

Just while I'm thinking about it. Celine Dion: why is there one? I have a, I want to call it autonomic response to her voice, even though I think that's probably a misuse of the word. Sometimes I'll hear music and I'll say "Is that Celine Dion? Because I just got that pain in my neck and shoulders like I'm hearing Celine Dion" .It is always Celine Dion. My one month old daughter in a full on infant rage has a prettier voice.

Remember that "101 Uses for a Dead Cat" novelty book?
Isn't Celine Dion Quebecois slang for "dead cat"?

you think you are immune to the cute. you are not.

If you ever get yourself one of these baby things, you will find that they make all kinds of weird noises and you can't figure out where these noises come from, exactly. And you will watch this video with a sense of recognition:


And, because this is the internets, this idea must be remixed.
The "extreme" version:


This one, with nuns, needs a little work. Also, they are not real nuns.


(via Cardhouse)

Ah, one of those traveling surgeries!

Here's a fun headline for you:

Conjoined twins' surgery halted in Ohio

"Hold on, I think I dropped my clamp in Pennsylvania".

they're not good dancers, they don't play drums

I've discovered that, if sung in a soothing tone, Barnes & Barnes' Fish Heads is a very effective lullabye.


Next experiment: Ogden Edsl's Dead Puppies.

Who knew that of all the things I used to do in bed late at night as a child, listening to Dr. Demento would be the truly damaging one?

do they make one for Dads?

The Why Cry Baby Crying Analyzer is a device that will tell you whether your baby is crying because she's hungry, tired, bored, or too drunk to drive.
Of course, it can't do a damn thing about it.

parenting is a snap! har har

You ever put together some piece of Ikea furniture and there's one screw left over, and it makes you crazy wondering what you missed?
That happened to me this morning, but the furniture was an infant garment and the screw was a snap.
The wife says "can you figure out how this goes on?". "This" is one of these crazy Michael Jackson-y garments, like a flight suit for babies, you're not even sure where the head goes.
However, I tried to tackle it logically. First, I found the three crotch-snaps. These are a near-universal feature of infant garments (allowing for quick diaper-access), and they always have the same configuration. It's like finding the big dipper in the night sky. So I started from there, matching snaps as I went, and I was so proud of myself 'cause I thought this would be one of those situations where Dad steps in and saves the day.
But in actually, Dad stepped in and ended up sheepishly handing the kid over to the wife and muttering "there's one snap left over", then going to work.

have you any gray poop on?

When you have your first child, people never get tired of reminding you that "having a baby changes everything", which, yeah, if I want any more input of that caliber from you I'll pull your finger.
Of course, they're absolutely right. Like fr'instance, I think mustard may no longer be my favorite condiment.

If you'll be my Dixie chicken I'll be your Tennessee lamb*

Wow, not alot o'posting. Sorry, still trying to get my footing in this new terrain. I would describe it as reminiscent of that old outfielder bit:
"I got it, I got it, I got it!
*plunk*
I don't got it."
The *plunk* is when I drop the baby.
Kidding!

I am trying to work out in my brain what the evolutionary advantage is for a baby to scream their fool head off. Everything else about a baby seems well designed to elicit the caring response in others of its species, but this screaming- after a certain point, the response is more: "Maybe if I leave her outside a nice wolf will come along and decide to raise her".
Again: kidding! Please don't call social services, there aren't even any wolves where I live.

The odd coyote, maybe.

But really, those "I got it!" moments sure beat all.

And then there are the feets:


*a No-Prize to the reader who can tell me why that headline for this post.

To answer your question, yes the mom must be pretty good looking.

OK, I'm going to link you to a picture. But first I'm going to need you to sit down, and you may want to have a lemon to suck on or pin to poke yourself with, to counteract the deadly onslaught of "aawwww". Remember that Monty Python bit about about the funniest joke in the world, where the joke was used to defeat enemy armies? The following picture should be against the Geneva Convention.
Consider yourselves duly warned.

baby crap

From the Offsprung family of parent blogs, Meconium is a favorite of mine. Not only is that a very funny name for a blog, (for the uninitiated I will only say "look it up") it tells me about all the silly junk I can feel smug about not spending money on.
It's a cliche that becoming a parent rearranges your priorities, and things that may have seemed important once now, uh, don't. One of those things being high concept design.
Just gimme stuff that works, please.

like that one college buddy everybody had

You know they're your kid when...
...they shit in the palm of your hand and you think it's hilarious.


No, this kind of foxworthiness just won't do.

bear with me

Posting will resume once I relocate my smart-alecky tone.

Après moi, le déluge

hallelujah! (shouted the atheist)

Sorry to have kept you in suspense:

Oona Sylvia Paige Grizzly was born Thursday May 17 at 10:34 PM.
6 pounds 3 ounces, 20 inches long (or tall if you point her up).

Grizzly Mom and Dad are ex -hausted and -static, and baby is great and charming the pants off everyone, and making great progress in the tit-sucking department.

Quick little anecdote:

I'm standing in the hallway at the hospital chatting with my father, and one of the hospital staff who is nearby says "are you the dad?" and I point at my father and say "He is".

Blank stare from hospital employee.

Me: "Oh, wait, you mean- I thought you meant MY- yeah, yes- I'm the dad!"
maybe you had to be there.

Pics soon, depending on the practicality of bloggery amidst chaos.

while-u-wait

Yes, while we're all waiting, have an hors douvre and let's see the lil' gal in action in utero:

Yes, I think she's ready for her close-up, Mr. Demille.

probably not the hardest part

But the waiting, she is difficult, yes?

(the next post will most likely be written by a Dad)

Yo, Griz!

What are you laughing about over there?


Thanks, G!

a fungus among us

One of my siblings informed me yesterday that it was Buddhist Sibling Appreciation Day. Since none of my siblings are Buddhist (to my knowledge), I celebrated by focusing my mind on the cessation of desire.
Since I know that the same sibling has discovered this blog, I will return the favor and remind her that May is Fungal Infection Awareness Month. I, for one, pledge to do my part in making everyone aware of fungal infections.
I was hoping to link to something I saw on the internets a long time ago where some guy had chronicled an experiment where he intentionally grew a foot fungus. If this sounds familiar to anyone out there and you have a link, let me know. It had me vomiting through the laughter.

I contain multitudes

An email I just got from Harry Reid (old gambling buddy) begins:

Dear Thomas,

I want to thank the more than 36,000 of you...

He really ought to follow that with the old Steve Martin bit:
thank you thank you thank you thank youthank you thank youthank you thank youthank you thank youthank you thank youthank you thank youthank you thank youthank you thank youthank you thank youthank you thank youthank you thank youthank you thank youthank you thank youthank you thank youthank you thank youthank you thank you...

R.I.Peeper

Tom Poston is dead.
Shed not a tear, however, as he lived a long life and got to sleep with one of my childhood crushes, Suzanne Pleshette.
Emily Hartley was everything I wanted in a woman: wit, intelligence, pantsuits...
Of course, she was no Leather Tuscadero.
Still,
woo-hoo!
Oh right, Tom Poston. Uh, may the road rise to meet you, blah blah blah.

Ah, Emily...

not even a dad yet, already out of it.

You know who I was very surprised to discover that I rather enjoy, musically? You know what the F***'s up with that sentence?
Answer to second question: it came out of my ass.
Answer to first question: The Strokes.

Yeah, I know. The Strokes? Who? Weren't they, like, four years ago?
Yes, they were (or something). At the time I wrote them off. One day a song was on a radio somewhere, and I got mildly excited, believing that I was about to unexpectedly rock out to Tom Petty's American Girl. But then some boob started croaking in a filtered faux-Iggy Pop voice, and I was all "Phaw, what's this bullshit?" (that's right, "phaw"), the DJ said "that was The Strokes" and I was all like "Well F the Strokes" and never really gave them another thought.

Then, a few months ago, the wife and I are having a cleaning day, and the wife has loaded the CD player, and I notice that I'm rather enjoying, musically, whatever's playing.
"What's this?"
You know who.
So, yeah, now I play The Strokes quite a bit and I guess I feel bad for taking such a non-shine to them right off the bat.

Ask me in a year about The Arcade Fire. Or, in two or three years, The Decemberists. I'll be all like "Oh yeah! I just heard them!".

ps- this is the one I likey most, which I gather was their "sophomore slump".

expressway to yr skull

Highway overpass collapses because of melting steel:


Heat exceeded 2,750 degrees and caused the steel beams holding up the interchange from eastbound I-80 to eastbound Interstate 580 above to buckle and bolts holding the structure together to melt, leading to the collapse, California Department of Transportation director Will Kempton said.

I gotta wonder what the great minds in the "9/11 Truth" community are doing with this information.
Obviously the guvmint blew up the overpass to lend credence to the Official Story.

scene from Grizzly Dad, the sitcom

Interior, apartment. G.D. and Wife (39 weeks pregnant) are getting ready to go to Old Navy. Both are dressed like slobs.

Wife: Do you care that I'm fat and ugly?

G.D.: Do you care that I am?

Wife: You're not fat.

other people say stuff better

Wow, there's some good wordcraftin' out there today. No, not here- out there.

I have only heard a few bites from the Dem debate last night, but I was scanning the Crooks and Liars debate Open Thread and someone had this to say about this mysterious Gravel fellow, who appears to at least have enjoyed hisself, and maybe slapped the other kids around a bit:

"Gravel just pitched out a dense truth mind vitamin".

Unfortunately, he/she failed to indicate the specific content of said "mind vitamin". Still, nice turn of phrase.

Then there was this from Alicu:

"Man, if I had a dime for every ill-mannered little shit who believed that the cold stares provoked by his bigoted drivel were proof of his incorruptibility and his hearers' intolerance... well, I might have enough money to be one of those little shits myself."

Ha! Place that in the "wish I'd said that" file.

ultimately wrapped

I'm fully aware that my days as a cool guy, such as they were, had their last coffin-nail hammered in when we saw that little line on the pregnancy stick, but I tell you they never stop reminding you.
By "they" I mean "the people who make stuff for new parents", like the makers of The Ultimate Baby Wrap. For those of you mercifully unaware of such things, the Ultimate Baby Wrap is about 30 feet of cloth with a couple rings on it, which you wrap around yourself to form a pouch- into which you stick an infant. Fine product, from what I can tell, but one which lends its wearer the appearance of some kind of goddam kung fu yoga instructor guatemalan textile wearin' samurai ponytail havin' SNAG who wandered away from his drum circle.
I can now only console myself with the thought that I do not own a pair of khakis or anything that can be called a "polo shirt".

Nah Chyet!

That's what I say all day. People look at me, with a "well?" in their eyes, like "are you a dad yet?", and I say "Nah Chyet!".
It's my Jedi name, I think.

how've you been?

So, I'm over here instead of over here now.
Grizzly Dad will be where I chronicle this new adventure of being a daddy-type person, but I won't limit myself to that. You will also find the usual wisecrackery that readers of The Monk Bought Lunch were used to (if not thrilled with), related to current events and whatnot.
So Hi. Thanks for coming over.

hey asswipe!

Hey, asswipes!