Soup du Voyageur

I wish I was an early 19th-century voyageur. I'd get to float around in a canoe for the majority of the day, wear all kinds of animal skins, eat whatever animals were inside those skins, and make loads of money by taking advantage of the naive Native Americans. What is not to love about that life?


Check out this guy. Now that's a voyageur. Sure, he looks like a gay pirate castoff or something that had been digested by a ninja for a week or two, but...well, there's probably an upside. That musket probably shoots pretty far. And let's not forget about the canoe! That hat is really bad, but the canoe almost balances it out.

But after looking at that picture for a little while, I don't want to be a voyageur anymore. I might even delete this post in a few days that guy is so scary.

Man, if this is any indicator, no wonder French Canada is in really poor shape. If there are any Quebeckians out there, you have my deepest sympathy.

Great Day

Hey guys! Today was just a great day. I mean all-around just great. On my list of favorite days ever throughout history, this one wouldn't break the top 20, but it'd probably be in the top 50. When you look at that statistically, that's a really great day. And it's only going to get better--I have a great dinner ahead of me!

Still, there are number of things that would have made this day a little bit more spectacular and extraordinary. So here's a list of what those things would be, and how this day would have ranked on my list of favorite days if that thing had happened.

: Timberwolves acquire Chris Paul, Amare Stoudamire, and Magic Johnson in his prime in a four-team trade across time in exchange for Christian Laettner and our first round draft-picks in 1990 and 1993. (#40)

: A herd of sheep let loose in my office, causing not havoc but something more along the lines of a ho-down. The event is so successful that my company becomes a ranching business and keeps me on as a full-time shepherd. (#36)

: Same as above, but with a temperature of 50-60 degrees. (#34)

: The sheep and the temperature again, plus I get tomorrow and Friday off. (#33)

: Africa gets its act together. (#32)

: Robots take over the bad part of society but live in peace and friendship with the good part, which includes me and most of the people I know. (#27)

: Same as above, but the robots are dressed as lobsters and/or a funk band. Can you imagine a robot lobster funk band? It'd be so rad! (#25)

: I meet Keanu Reeves. (#19)

: Same as above, but Keanu is wearing a lobster suit. (#14)

: I save the world from evil terrorists or something with Keanu wearing a lobster suit. (#11)

Warmth, At Last

Most of us here in Minnesota are used to our bitter winters. We may complain about it all the time and blog about it like crazy, but most of the time we can stomach a good 20 or 30 below.

Not me. I need to be warm. And what's the warmest thing there is? Fire.

That's right, I burned our house down.


This isn't our house. I left my camera inside, so I couldn't take a picture. But it looked a little bit like this.

To be honest, this may have been short-sighted and counter-productive. It would have maybe made more sense to only burn down part of the house, like one of the parts we weren't using. Or maybe we could have burned down the neighbors' house and warmed ourselves up around that. It's not arson if it's for a good cause, right?

Argyle

I don't get it.



Argyle makes absolutely no sense to me. None whatsoever. Where did it come from? What is it good for? Why is it fashionable? It's an anomaly of creation. It's almost like it existed before the rest of the universe, like Stonehenge or certain condiments.

Aside from all the obvious frustrations with argyle, here are a few of the things that bother me the most about it: 1) you can't eat it; 2) it only seems to come in the form of sweaters and socks; 3) it doesn't look good on a cape; 4) you can't build anything with it, or if you do, it blows over on windy days; 5) it's not an any country's flag; 6) argyle is impossible to count.

But let's get back to what I mentioned before I did that list--the origins of argyle. I decided to a little research, and since wikipedia has almost nothing to say about argyle, that research was utterly fruitless. I am going to assume that argyle was invented by a Scottish dragon who was trying to come up with a creative variation of backgammon. You can't prove me wrong, so that automatically means that I'm right.

No More Choices

You may not have heard, but all the major presidential candidates were swallowed by a blue whale last night. Tragic. They weren't all swallowed by the same blue whale, though, which makes it slightly less tragic. But hey, we're Americans. We'll mourn however we want.

Personally, I'm going to mourn by becoming your next president. You don't even have to vote for me if you don't want to. It won't matter. All your alternatives are in several different whale bellies, so good luck finding someone else to elect.

I heard McCain once spent five months in the belly of a whale and survived, but I don't think he could hold out this time. He's 72. And don't get me wrong--if he hadn't been eaten alive, I would have voted for him, if I would have voted. But we can go on and on about "if" this and "if" that, but it doesn't change the fact that every politician you loved is being digested by the largest animal on earth and I'm the only one left you can still vote for.

Shake my hand. Do it. And you better learn to love this hand, because it's going to be slapping you silly for the next four to eight years.

Obscure Historical Figure #2

Continuing in the vein that inspired me to make Christine post about grizzled and destitute Gold Rush baron James W. Marhsall, I'm going to try and write about another obscure and hilarious historical figure. I've heard it said before that the sequel is never as good as the original, but since I'm in a Wikipedia mood today, I don't care.

Allow me to introduce you to Paolo Bellasio (1554-1594), the frequently unemployed Italian composer. He spent the majority of his adult life "probably looking for a job as an organist." Most of his work was part-time, though at one point he held a full-time position for less than two years. No one knows why he left that job, perhaps out of habit, and he ended up in Rome to die four years thereafter.

His legacy is relatively nonexistent. Apparently he published--or at least wrote--a couple books of songs that are by and large ignored or forgotten about today. According to his epitaph, the Pope at the time granted him the title of "Knight of the Golden Spur," but no one knows what that means.

I don't mean to disparage the man's memory or anything. He may be dead, but at least he has a Wikipedia entry, and that's better than anything I'll ever do. No wait, I ate half of a two-pound burger in less than 30 minutes once, and that was definitely better than having my own Wikipedia entry could be.

Eat More Butter

I recently made a major life decision--to eat more. I was inspired by how hungry I was. More hungry than usual, in fact. What better way to be less hungry than to eat more?

I'll be honest. It's not going well. Really, even day one proved to be a problem. When I went into the kitchen and discovered that we were out of pretzels, I figured this was a lost cause.

But today it hit me. It wasn't just any kind of food I was lacking--it was butter! I haven't had much of a solid butter intake for the last 8 years of my life. Can you imagine 8 years without butter? It's insane!

My plan is to eat three sticks of butter every week. I haven't put it into practice yet, though. I'm gonna try and get a book deal first.

Eskimos Are Taking Over the World

I've finally figured out why it's been so cold lately. It's a giant scheme of the Eskimos to freeze the world in order to finally conquer us all. I know I've accused the Eskimos of similar schemes in the past (remember the conspiracy to replace real shoes with snowshoes?), and they all turned out to be mostly false, but this one's for real.

In case this doesn't make sense, allow me to explain. The Eskimos, while easy to ignore for the most part, have been driven mad over the years with an insatiable thirst for revenge against the people who consigned them to the Arctic. Those people were historically Russians and Canadians, but over time have come to include everyone else. And since the Eskimos function best in frigid climates that the rest of us find paralyzing, this is the best means for them to enact their plans for vengeance.

Those of you not in Minnesota may find no cause for concern whatsoever. Think again. In a previous post, I vaguely implied that Minnesota is the perfect staging grounds for an all-out invasion of the entire United States. For instance, we have an airport with destinations in many major cities around the country. We also have two major interstates that connect our state with other states in the nation through a series of interconnected highways. In addition, our many lakes make for perfect hiding places for weapons and artillery. Thus, Minnesota is the ideal starting place for any would-be conquerors.

We need to start to prepare ourselves. Maybe we should all get space heaters and run them outside until this state warms up and scares the Eskimos away. It may cost a lot for your electric bill, but think about it this way. If I'm wrong, then there's no loss, and we might have an early spring on our hands. But if I'm right, then I just saved you from certain annihilation, and you ought to make me your king.

Keanu Reeves Is My Favorite Actor, and I'm Serious

Jim wanted me to blog about this, but I wasn't going to. I figured no one would get it, you'd all just make fun of me, nothing would get accomplished, and the world would move one step closer to the Apocalypse. Then my friends at the Blogulator had to go and pick a fight, so I had to stand up and defend my opinion.

In my opinion, Keanu Reeves is the greatest actor who ever lived, but for the sake of argument (since I'm sure that's going to come off as a farce), I'll just say that he's my favorite actor. Laugh all you want, but I'm not kidding. He's better than acting. He transcends acting.

Allow me to explain. I'm sure you're all willing to admit that Keanu has a distinct style of acting. Most of you would call that style "bad," but you'd be missing the point. Keanu doesn't act like other acting people because he knows how to add a certain element to his characters that others can't. They all try and become their characters, like Jamie Foxx becomes Ray Charles or Nicole Kidman becomes Virginia Woolf. Keanu doesn't merely become; he validates. He lets the character become part of himself, or he lets himself become part of his character, so the performance he gives is real in a sense that we don't usually experience in the movie theater.

It's not bad acting because bad acting is when somebody is obviously trying to be somebody they're not. What we often praise as good acting is when someone just is someone that they're not. What Keanu does is become someone who he simultaneously is AND is not. It's a psychological and artistic marvel.

This immeasurable talent is not totally clear in most of the movies of his that people like. In the Bill and Ted films, he's surrounded by doofuses, so he doesn't shine like he ought (like Tom Hanks in Bachelor Party). In The Matrix movies, it's easy to miss how awesome he is because there's so much action.

But let's take a look at what you'd consider his "lesser" works. Take Speed, or even better, Johnny Mnemonic. Try to imagine those movies if the lead was played by Christian Bale or some other "talented" actor. They would be completely mediocre and hardly even worthy of comment. They wouldn't be anything special (even if you think they're only specially bad now). Why? Because Keanu brings something unique to those films that other actors can't. Taking Keanu out of Johnny Mnemonic is like taking the basil out of any meal that uses basil--it loses all of its flavor! Same goes for his romantic comedies. They'd just be more sappy crap without him, but with him, they're something strangely glorious. Go see Sweet November and you'll know what I'm talking about.

Next time Point Break is on TV, take a little time and pay closer attention. You may be surprised at the light that shines through what you once thought was just a pile of sludge.

Unfortunately Persistent Identity Crisis

Just now, part of me thought it would be a good idea to write about filling my office with scorpions. A slightly different part of me thought it would be a good idea to write about filling the office with gummi bears instead, but the original part of me insisted that if I did write about that, I'd also have to write about spraying all the gummi bears with apple juice to make them sticky and gross.

For a while I thought that part of me just wanted attention. Now I'm pretty sure he's just a jerk. Seriously. And let's not get confused--the funny part of me is actually a different part entirely, but this jerk part keeps teaming up with him and making him do things he wouldn't normally do. I'm just happy that they never ended up in jail. I know I couldn't afford bail.

Whatever happens, this is not going down like Fight Club. I don't care how much a jerk or subsersive communist this part of me becomes, he can blow up all the buildings in New York he wants and I'm just gonna eat vegetables like nothing's going on. Take that, America.

Magic Basement

Last night I discovered something cool about my basement. Anything that goes down there gets cloned. I discovered this when I went downstairs to do my laundry, and two of me came back up. At first I thought it was a walking mirror, but then I realized that I had been cloned.

We did what any sane clone and non-clone duo would do. We named our cloning machine. After a little debate, we decided on "The Clone Zone." The rhyming was really important to both of us.

I was ready to go to bed at that point, but the other me insisted that we toy around with the clone zone. So we got our hands on anything that was clonable. We had a couple plants, a fish, the dog from next door, a painting of an iguana, and somehow he got his hands on an ostrich. That whole ostrich thing would make a good post on its own, but we're blogging about clones here. The point being, now I have two ostriches.

Unfortunately for my clone, I had to tie him to a post in the forest and let the wolves have him. There were just too many problems with having a clone. Mostly I didn't have enough shirts, and I really didn't like the idea of sharing my wardrobe. That just weirds me out. Doesn't anybody else think that's weird?

History's Greatest Bloopers

Thanks to Wikipedia, today we're going to learn about the Alaska Mental Health Enabling Act. Sounds boring, doesn't it? Wrong! Like everything relating to the mental health of our country, this is one wacky adventure!

This bill was introduced to our nation's congress in the 1950s with the idea of improving Alaska's (and only Alaska's) resources and facilities to care for the mentally ill. Amazingly, this became the greatest political controversy since the previous decade. Republicans violently opposed the bill, calling it a communist plot to brainwash Americans. Several groups also claimed it was anything from a Jewish to a Catholic to a psychiatric conspiracy--and not just a regular conspiracy, but a conspiracy to establish US concentration camps.

I am not making this up.

To make matters even more interesting, once the law got passed (thanks to inexplicable Republican cooperation), Alaska's mental health conditions got a ton worse. Though it initially succeeded in establishing a mental health care system for the state, Alaskan politicans--politicians from Alaska, presumably the ones who initially championed this bill--systematically broke down the system and stole the land that was allotted for it. Some 30 years after the fact, that land stealing was ruled illegal.

I am so serious right now.

In addition, this whole debacle is a keystone argument in Scientology's argument against psychiatry. In one of their museums or shrines or whatever, they have an exhibit entitled Pyschiatry: An Industry of Death, in which they purport that, "psychiatrists sponsored the Alaska Mental Health Bill, the Holocaust, the Bosnian War and the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks as part of a worldwide conspiracy to impose control through the guise of mental health."

That's right. I just put the US government on the same level of crazy as Scientology. That's how badly we bungled this one. Barry Goldwater, you brought us as low as L. Ron Hubbard. Thanks.