Sweetney

Must-See TV.

Stephen Colbert at the White House Correspondents' Dinner last night.

Apparently as Colbert left the podium Bush bolted. One can see why... and why it was TOTALLY RAD.

EDIT: Full in 3 parts here.

Big Pimpin'.

Ravi, awesome music stud and very good family friend (as in Jamie's Best Man at our wedding), has a new blog up chronicling his various commercial musical achievements. And dudes, his Burger King clip confirms that the folks over at BK have lost their freaking minds. I mean, have you seen The King lately? He's borderline menacing masked-stalker, man.

/end gratuitous pimpage.

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart.

Gird your ovaries before checking out this and this. You have been warned.

I place the blame for all of this squarely on the shoulders of Amy [shakes angry fist].

Yet Another Glimpse Inside My Husband's Mind.

He made this page on MySpace.

He's quite excited at this moment, because Bourbon just asked Jesus to be his “Friend.”

PS: Guys! Jesus is in my “Extended Network”!

PPS: I particularly like the fact that its friends include both NIN and Jim Morrison. Fitting, no?

Literary Notes.

Ooooh! Literary! Fancy!

[Book-related stuff after the jump... lots of pix... ]

Donning My Obligatory Sweatpants And Hairshirt.

This post from Shanntastic! is so dead-on in capturing a nagging, yet-not-fully-formed train of thought I've been going around in circles with lately that its almost as if she's a freaking mindreader.

No honey, you go out. I'll stay here with my laptop and teevee. I mean, I like teevee.

Marriage: The complex navigation of landmines in an unending field of potential dissatisfaction.

Sprung Spring.

A few photos from this morn around the yard [click for larger image]...

The front garden is happy.

Funk.

And no, not the bring da noise variety. Sadly.

It is one of those inexplicably forlorn, downcast days. One of those gray, plodding days during which I find myself compulsively raiding M_'s stash of Easter chocolates, feeling as though there is some yawning, bottomless pit inside me.

And that pit demands chocolate.

Terry Tate: Office Linebacker.

Its all about video today here at sweetney.com.

Mornin!

Horrible Chinese Singer

If you haven't seen this yet, behold the glory.

EDIT: Even without understanding a word of Japanese, this is pretty hilarious.

Name That Blog!

So I've been charged with naming my new Club Mom blog. And who better to do my work for me help a sista out than you, the reader?

Thus far I'm fairly stumped. I've been mulling over Webtastic! and Webby Goodness, and all manner of variations and mutations thereof, but I've yet to have that ZOINKS! moment of blog name fixation/attachment. So...

Now its your turn to Name That Blog!* GO!

*And let's try to stay away from names involving buttmonkeys, m'kay?

The Thing About That Thing.

I've been informed that I can now blawg about the aforementioned writing gig, so here goes.

Last week I received an email offering me a blogging position at Club Mom. The gist is that I will have a blog over at Club Mom, on which I'll be covering Cool/Awesome Stuff On The Interweb That You Should Check Out (clearly this isn't the actual blog title -- it doesn't have one yet -- but that's the essence of what its content will be). So, in doing this, it will be like getting paid to do what ya'll know I love to: troll the internet and post amusing linky-links. Could this job be more perfect for me?

I am going to get paid to blog. I am going to be a professional blogger. The mind BOGGLETH.

Barbie And The Magic Of Mommy Committing Hari-kiri.

As M_ absorbs this DVD (a selection chosen, of course, by her -- my pick was the awesome Lilo & Stitch, a decidedly different take on girldom), I feel as though I finally grasp, in an all-too-visceral way, Nietzsche's words: When you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares into you.

Oh yeah, and how about Barbie And The Magic Of Eating A Sammich, huh? Sheesh.

UPDATE: About three-quarters of the way through the DVD, M_ turned to me and said: “I don't like Barbie. I want to watch SpongeBob!”

It seems the genetics involving taste may have kicked in, thank god.

Happy Birthday, Dear Beth.

One of the greatest things that's come from my life in blogdom is the friendship of this lady.

Beth, I'm so grateful to have you in my life. Thank you for your warmth and kindness, your insight and humor... without them, my world would be a smaller, bleaker place.

Oh, and thank you also for keeping me from physically throwing myself at Robert Redford; in retrospect, yours was the wiser (and, of course, more dignified) path.

Happiest of birthdays to you, head trauma lady (ouch!)!

Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting.

Why am I on my computer? Jamie's friends are over, and they're playing poker, drinking beer, and watching boxing. All the milieu needs to achieve the pinnacle of its potential perfection is some strippers and cigars.

So I thought I'd take a time out from this testosterone-fueled moment of zen to thank you. Yes, You. Because although I can't go into details at the moment (I will, believe me, as soon as I'm able), some exciting things have been happening lately because of sweetney.com. One of those things is that I will very shortly be getting paid to write elsewhere.

I KNOW! CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT SHIT?

And I can't even describe how that makes me feel, how simultaneously humbling and exhilarating the knowledge is that people read my words and, best of all, like what I write. Since sixth grade I've said that what I wanted to be when I grew up was a Writer, and here I am, becoming one. Its crazy, heady shit, man. But I really do thank all of you for reading, and I'll continue to do my best to not let you down and to remain worthy of your attention.

...And so concludes the sappy portion of tonight's program. Let us now turn our attention instead to the decidedly unsappy two grown men beating the crap out of each other, shall we?

Alright, people are starting to refer to one another as “pussy hands” over here (apparently in tribute to one of the two featured boxer's Achilles heel), so I best check in with corporeal reality.

We're Doomed.

Tonight I'm officially scaring myself: I just had the first real baby longings I've had since M_'s birth over three years ago while watching The Real Housewives of Orange County.

I know. I only wish I could say that I'm joking.

You know the MILF (nudge-nudge, wink-wink) that has the 13-year-old pothead in Juvie? Yeah well on this particular episode he was released after serving 60 days for being a raging high-on, and I practically fucking swooned as he emerged from the building and caught his little sister up in his arms, each visibly overwhelmed by real joy. I HONESTLY ALMOST WEPT, PEOPLE. I saw the way he looked at his little sister, with familial, gently protective love oozing from all his sensitive emo-boy pores, and thought: I want M_ to have a relationship like that. I want her to have a sibling.

Nine One One! Nine One One!

Somebody better jump in here and talk me down. FAST.

links for 2006-04-21

• qwantz.com - dinosaur comics - April 21st 2006
  Its the distillation of my current spring fever!
  (tags: comics humor)
• YouTube - ali g interviews noam chomsky
  How would you like it if I called you bi-lingual?
  (tags: video tv humor language linguistics)
• CPI Inflation Calculator
  $5 = $12.12? Well that's just depressing.
  (tags: economics history money capitalism reference)
• eBay: ART Leather Bag Backpack "Dragon"
  People continue to frighten me.
  (tags: weird shopping culture)
• Rolling Stone : The Worst President in History?
  Yeah, I'll buy that.
  (tags: politics history)

Today I Did A New Trick.

I blogged about blogs with bloggers contemplating blogging, specifically blogger's block and not blogging/quitting blogging (over at BlogHer, of course!).

...And so it came to pass that the word 'blog' and all variations thereof were stricken from the English Language by its users in disgust.

I'm really rather pleased with myself at the moment.

Prepare To Kick Out The Jams.

Holy crap, its that time of year again!

Let the ceaseless hassling of local bands commence (actually, it commenced some time ago, but I've just ramped up the nag quotient to dreadfully disappointed mother-levels of intensity)...

You SO should come.

Rockheals Update.

Jamie is a laff riot: he sent me the following email about the latest Rockheals:

Possible contextualizing hooks:
- National Poetry Month
- K. Silem Mohammad rocks
- Start catching up on the flarf movement 'fore it passes you by
- You like to smooch me

So go here and check out the new shizzle because I like to smooch my husband. durr...

It Turns Out That “Catfight” is actually spelled F-L-O-A-M.

Its guest post time here at sweetney.com!

Mostly because my friend Andrea cracked my shit up with the following post (and the comments on the blog she links to are INSANE):

Weight Loss Challenge Update: We Are Floundering.

And by “we” I of course mean Me and my jiggling flabbiness.

Sigh. Okay, so I've been making progress in millimeters. Though the healthiness of my eating habits could be considered debatable, I've continued working out 2-3 times a week vigorously, which is borderline miraculous. Since I last reported I've lost an additional two pounds, which is fine and dandy, except that this morning I weighed myself and realized, after much internal debate and longing for denial, that I'VE BEEN READING THE SCALE WRONG. Which would be comic, were it not so retarded. Regardless, I've been reading the scale as being minus ten pounds in my favor, thus explaining why clothes that I thought should be fitting me by now are still all pinch-y and bind-y, and essentially putting me back weight-wise right where I thought I started weeks ago.

Oh, the humanity. The flaccid, corpulent humanity.

But, having endured this much for this long, I refuse to be deterred. Though I've long been remiss in my attendance to and posting on the Flab-Be-Gone 2006 Challenge Boards, I hereby recommit myself to it, because god knows I need both support and butt-kicking of the just fucking do it already variety. Perhaps some of you feel the same and will join me in bucking up, little camper, and jump back on the de-fatifying train as well. JOIN US.

In The Event Of Snakes On A Plane.

[click image for large/legible version]

She's A Card-Carrying Member Of The Future Librarians Of America.

What? You want to know where you can find
books by Anais Nin? Shame on you!

Excrement.

Doesn't that title fill you with a world of anticipation and suspense? I thought it punchy... nay, grabby; I might work on pitching that baby to some hollywood-types as a title for the next Tom Cruise joint. God knows that whatever the film's subject matter or content, its likely to be apt.

But I come to praise excrement, not mock it. Despite fits and false starts over the course of at least a year, I think (wood, knock) M_ is finally on her way to being potty trained [insert dramatic horn-heralding]. There was a couple month period where she steadfastly refused to poop anywhere but in her underwear, and so we reached a training plateau during which panties and pull-ups were both in regular rotation, but I think we've finally pushed past Poopy Pantsdom. And thank god, because I have a constitution composed of 100% pussy, and despite wanting badly to be upbeat and frame the whole experience with warm-fuzzy encouragement, would find myself invariably retching and reflexively chanting“oooh! oooh! oooh!” in a tone of shocked disgust while scraping the crap off her underwear and entire backside... Which -- FYI -- isn't behavior conducive to instilling positive poop associations in the kidlets.

links for 2006-04-18

• Bunnyocalypse - Marshmallow Bunny Apocalypse :: Marshmallow Peeps
  In case you need some ideas for things to do with those leftover peeps.
  (tags: food humor)
• The Year in Images JPL 2005
  Cheesy music aside, some very cool images to get your geek on with.
  (tags: science space technology photography)

It puts the lotion on its skin...

I am, quite literally, Laughing Out Loud.

[via Screenhead]

An Inconvenient Truth.

DUDES!

Gore is back, and he's hotter than ever (heh, get it? HOT? heh)!

Looks pretty incredible, actually. I'm stoked (heh, get it? STOKED? errr.... okay, sorry).

EDIT: The film has a site as well, where you can calculate your “carbon footprint” and thus your/your family's impact on global warming.

Warning: Dorks Lurk Within.

This should serve as sufficient warning to visitors, doncha think?

Its little things like this, cobbled together over the course of one's lifetime, that make life joyful and worthwhile.

(Well this and, you know, people and friends and shit. Or whatever.)

75,000 New Blogs Daily. Gah.

I was just reading over the new State of The Blogosphere and thinking: 75K a day, and I know of none of them. It seems there must be diminishing returns: as more and more blogs are created over time, new blogs become almost invisible, buried in the sheer volume of their own kind. How can any one be heard now?

Of course I'm all pro-blogdom and shit, but I'm just a little overwhelmed by that figure and all that each of us must be missing.

Eastery.

Thank you Easter Bunny (bawk bawk!).

With Love From E. Bunny.

The Egg Hunt Hiding Place Generator.

Ridiculous Los Angeles.

The amusements here are legion.

And be sure to check out her other photo sets. Pearls, people, pearls.

Dubya's Nephew On The Today Show.

Just how hard do ya'll wanna PUNCH HIM IN THE FACE REPEATEDLY?

This Is All Over The Place, Much Like My Mind.

* Last night I was reading about the mid-90s Rwandan genocide and got these deep, down-in-the-gut-level pangs to adopt a child in need. Reading of all the orphans of genocide, imagining what they've endured and what a family like ours could provide for them makes me feel simultaneously warm-fuzzy and pukey-dreadful inside. How can we have so much? How is it reasonable -- nay, moral -- when people are slaughtering each other over land disputes because they simply don't have enough to eat? I think this, and hang weightlessly for a moment or two, buoyed by my own embarrassment of riches, before plummeting beneath the force of: could I seriously handle another child? And I don't know the answer to that, and that's the problem. As much as we have to give, and as much as we're aware that we should be giving it, my stupid desire to remain sane gets in the way. So I need to think on this more, clearly.

*Speaking of my relative sanity/insanity: I'm dropping the Effexor back down to the lower dose. Again.

For the past two weeks since I upped it, I've felt just a little too foggy for my liking, overcome by a combination of apathy and listlessness that has left me couch-snoozing by mid-afternoon daily. And while napping is one of my great loves, my concern lies with how my overall attitude about life has been altered by the drugs, as in: I would rather sleep than actually be conscious. Period. Which is, umm, a little troubling. And murder on my general productivity. So back down the drug dosage slide we go.... wheeee! (Or, rather: siiiiigh....)

I Could Watch This On An Infinite Loop For Days.

Incredible Machines.

The Katamari-like soundtrack doesn't hurt, either.

Styro, you know me all too well. Now GET OUT OF MY HEAD!

This Exquisite Moment Courtesy Of The Email Spammers Of America.

A little something-something, composed solely from email subject lines received in the past two weeks (General Foods International Coffee-drinking in conjunction with reading this HIGHLY recommended):

Need chrysanthemum highhanded

Do chorale it cattlemen
Made abysmal red
On scathe or explore
Or form may gasp
YOUR ASSISTANCE IS SPEEDLY NEEDED.

Little baptiste the backplane
May experience aforesaid
Cliff, or prison
Again typeface but adoption
The provoke sang.

--by Ezra Pound (HA!)

[wiping away a single, perfect teardrop] That was almost as moving as the email I received today from Scotland's National Lottery informing me that I AM (somehow, mysteriously) THEIR WINNER! ONE MEEEELLION DOLLARS (or whatever their fakey monopoly-money-like currency is over there)!!!

[Insert Chappelle's Show closing credit clip:] I'M RICH, BEEYATCH!

You little people will still love me when I'm all flush with Scottish pelf, won't you?

In other news from other media, I have succumbed to the seductive, antiseptic wiles of that medical drama-type show House, and shall now commence with having vague, semi-sexual fantasies about its title character, who somehow manages to make limping borderline HOT.

PS: Besides me, who else here is totally the bitch of delicious dried mango slices?

Preschooler Politics.

Study shows correlation between childhood personality and adult political orientation.

It would appear that early identifiable personality characteristics...seem to influence an approach to the world and a reaction to the world that tends, over the years, to evolve into a worldview, a weltanschauung, on a wide variety of issues, many of them political.

My favorite sentence: As nursery schoolers, the future conservatives were described as easily victimized, indecisive, rigid, fearful and inhibited.

Oh, REALLY? [snort]

Sure Signs That Spring Is, Indeed, Here.

1. M_ has asked me to paint her tiny, almost irresistibly smoochable toenails, and is wearing her new flip-flops with reckless abandon.

2. I've started shaving my legs again.

Welcome, Spring!

American Idol 5: The Ridiculing.

Bucky: Lose The Pseudostache, dude. Cause you're seriously creeping me out with that.

Ace: I'm sorry, but you're not THAT cute.

Kelly: Self-destructive much, honey?

Daughtry: Tonight was it Nickleback, Creed, or Live? I can't quite put my finger on it... [Aside: Dude can sing, no doubt. But he's completely undynamic -- one note, cranked up to ELEVEN, for 3 full minutes -- and I find that, well, boring frankly.]

Katherine: UGH! Am I the only person who thought that was HORRIBLE? I don't know what the judges are on (okay, so I know what Paula is on, but that aside), but in my book that was a virtual cringefest.

Elliott: BLINK, DAMMIT, BLINK!!!

Taylor: He just finished the Elvis gestalt of that song.

Paris: I guess a person can rock out to elevator music.

links for 2006-04-11

• Custom Sign Generator Page
  for your timewasting enjoyment.
  (tags: generator tools toys web)
• TPCSv8
  yet another way to authenticate users... WITH KITTENS!
  (tags: humor tools web blog)
• StripGenerator
  make your own comics!
  (tags: comics generator illustration tools toys web)
• Flickr: The Stick Figures in Peril Pool
  (tags: flickr humor photography)
• snubster - beta
  oh the bitterness.
  (tags: humor social web lists)
• Everyone Poops, by Chris Lee Jones
  can't we all just get along?
  (tags: shopping humor)
• Poop For Peace 2006
  this one's for dooce.
  (tags: humor politics)
• cadbury egg cake
  thank you easter bunny (bwawk bwawk!)!
  (tags: food humor)

Catholics: 1, Heathen Parents: 0.

[At M_'s Preschool, as we pass a rendering of The Last Supper in a hallway]

M_: [pointing to figure in painting] Look! Its Jesus!
Me: Uhhh... Yes, yes, it is.
M_: Jesus is nice.
Me: Ummm... Yes, he is.
M_: I'm going to have dinner with Jesus!
Me: Oh? Really?
M_: Mmm-hmm. At the restaurant!
Me: At the Jesus restaurant?
M_: Yeah! The Jesus restaurant! [contemplative pause] Jesus likes bread.
Me: [mumbling under breath] In both senses of the word...
M_: Mommy, do you want to have dinner with Jesus?
Me: Is Jesus buying?
M_: Yeah!
Me: Well alright then!

I'm guessing Jesus's Restaurant is a seafood joint with magical self-refilling bread baskets on each table and, of course, free refills on the red wine.

Note to self: At Jesus's Restaurant, tip BIG.

links for 2006-04-10

• Reservoir Dogs in 30 seconds with bunnies.
  more bunnies! just in time for easter!
  (tags: film animation humor video)
• Possible "Surprise" Endings to the New Samuel L. Jackson Film Snakes on a Plane.
  thanks, nichole!
  (tags: SoaP mcsweeneys humor film)

My Here And Now.

Talking to the Moon

A defeated politician is in circulation
again, as we say of coins,
and his mouth is full of words.
His words have all been handled smooth.
They'd shrink, like lozenges, except
some sweat from everyone who's had them
is on them. He could be you,
why don't you support him?

But some people hoard words.
“The year the lake froze all the way
across . . . ,” a sentence might begin
and then nod, sleepy in a hot kitchen.
The words are a spell to make the lake
freeze again. The sentence never ends.

Rick used to love to tell how he
and Joanne would creep into her parents'
house after dates, and under
the dining room table he'd eat her
out, he'd say, as if she were an egg
and he a weasel.
His eyes gleamed with grief.
He wanted her back. He told
the story again and again.
The full moon fills the canyon
with pale cream. My huge dog leans
against my knee so hard
he'd fall over if I moved.
Soon he'll go to sleep under the juniper.
The other morning a finch landed on his back
while he slept. He unfurled one eye.
Hmmm, a finch.... I tell him his name.
He goes to the juniper and sleeps.

The moon's so bright
it has no features, button with no holes.
I've nothing to say to the moon.
Still, I want to talk.
I want words to be magic,
some secret I have the way I have
my body, so long as it lasts.
I want words to be food,
enough for us all to eat.
The mild stars shine.
The words I want
are sewing my body to sleep,
the no news that is good news, blood
tying and untying its knots.

--William Matthews

Wererabbit!

Wallace & Grommit were apparently onto something.

People Are Weird.

I was looking at some photos from our trip to New Orleans yesterday, and ran across a series from the annual Barkus Parade, which we just happened to stumble upon while out sightseeing. This stuff makes my application of the occasional t-shirt to Truman's gyrating, dervish-like form look pathetic and amateur.

Everything Is All Wrong.

Okay, that may be overstating a bit. But then I loves me some drama.

Truth be told, we're experiencing some technical difficulties. The kind that involve misfiring synapses (which may signal some sort of tragic brain disease... woot!), a total lack of focus, and a generalized sense that anything I have to say is fairly pointless. I've actually thought quite a bit about what constitutes “pointless” for someone who has never had a problem embracing the trivial, but the fact is that none of my thoughts about even trivial and pointless matters seem to be going anywhere.

Examples:

1. LOST is now not sucking quite as much as it so recently did. But that's all I really have to say about that. For reals.
2. Jamie is joining a local rock band. Well, “rock” in the broadest sense of the word -- they're kind of like a cross between early Portastatic and Palace Brothers. So while that certainly may be fodder for future wholesale mocking, nothing has happened quite yet, so that's kind of that.
3. I've only worked out once this week and so am a total failure as a human being.

And so on and so forth, blah blah blah. Have you watched The Real Housewives of Orange County on BRAVO yet? Yeah. Huh.

I think this isn't so much Blogger's Block as it is some sort of internal failure of confidence. What the hell do *I* have to say that matters so fucking much? Shouldn't I be out, uhh, snuggling crack babies or serving slop to humanoids at a soup kitchen or something? You know, making myself all useful and shit?

But enough about me. NO, REALLY.

links for 2006-04-05

• Minti - Powered by Parents - parent to parent advice-opedia
  (tags: children parenting reference tools)
• New Dinosaur Resembles Large Turkey
  Scientists pronounce finding "delicious!"
  (tags: science history)
• Kurt Cobain Tribute
  Today is the 12th anniversary of his death. 12 years -- amazing.
• Eternity4all
  this whole 'life-caching' concept frankly freaks me out.
  (tags: psychology internet weird)
• The Easter Bunny Hates You
  no easter bunny! noooooo!!!
  (tags: humor easter video)

This Just In.

NO FUCKING WAY.

That's it, we're moving to Mass. As Black Francis once noted, ITS EDUCATIONAL!

Indeed, indeed...

American Idol Aside.

Paula Abdul? COMPLETELY DRUNK.

As I'd be if I had to judge this snoozefest. Did somebody slip some quaaludes in all of their Cokes before the show or what?

Speaking Of Oppression.

I'm sure Truman would have a
thing or two to say about the matter.

You Want Some Radical Mommyblogging? I'll Give You Some Radical Mommyblogging!

Feminism, I'm mad at you [stomps foot].

I've been thinking about the failures of Feminism for quite a while now, but some things were brought into sharp relief whilst traveling this weekend. You know how it is: you're barreling down the Penn Turnpike in total darkness, torrents of rain lashing your car as you attempt to navigate around a seemingly endless string of 16-wheelers, and suddenly it hits you full in the cerebral cortex: the betrayal. That all this time -- from its inception to the present -- this cause hasn't been about tearing down ugly, false, abusive structures of power, or about helping those who need the most help (the poor, the disenfranchised, those held back by the pervasiveness of racism), but about simply plugging women into the extant male-generated/doM_ted hierarchies that by definition require an underclass, wage slavery, abuse and oppression.

And who decided this was a good way to go?

Things I'm Thinking About (Enacted By Dinosaurs).

Because I honestly can't seem to put two complete, thoughtful sentences together today, despite really wanting to (really! No, REALLY!), I'll let this and this do my talking for me (let's hope that this tongue-tiedness is a temporary affliction, and that I won't hereafter be forced to call on cartoon dinosaurs to voice my thoughts daily... amen).

Aren't I HILARIOUS?!?!

Science-Dropping Sidetracked.

In favor of oggling here. I mean, Columbines! And uhh this, whatever it is!

I think we're gonna need a bigger yard.

Back From The Burgh Of PItts.

[The Angela & The Kelly]

Many thoughts to share with ya'll as a result of long hours spent in the car this weekend with Angela, talking nonstop about All The World's Problems And How To Solve Them (oddly enough, our solutions don't involve snakes...on a motherf*ckin' plane!, which I personally find deeply saddening). So, in other words, prepare yourself for the impending droppin' of some science on your asses shortly...