Rambling Rhodes

Oh look, the shoe's on the other foot

Let's see if I have this right. When affirmative action and gender balancing are seen to be working FOR the people they're designed for, it's viewed as a public good (even though they're usually basically thinly-veiled policies of reverse-racism/prejudice).

HOWEVER, if those same policies eventually, and predictably, start to IMPEDE those who they were meant to empower. . . well, we can't have that.

MONEY QUOTE: What are the consequences of young men discovering that even if they do less, they have more options? And what messages are we sending young women that they must, nearly 25 years after the defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment, be even more accomplished than men to gain admission to the nation's top colleges?

Duhhhhh, us lazy men can do less and have more options, duhhhh. Me see bird, ME SMASH!

Let's see, men can now do less, and women have to be more accomplished than that? Good, solid argument.

Is it wrong that this is amusing me so much?

You Don't Say. . .

One thing that I think a lot of people don't realize about journalists is that we're not, as a whole, drastically informed on many of the topics we cover. In fact, it's standard practice for many newsrooms to rotate beat reporters to ensure a fresh take on articles, so a city council reporter may be shifted to the court beat, or a business reporter may be shifted to a metro beat. Not all newsrooms do this, but it was taught to me as such in college, so I assume quite a few do.

Factor into this the fact that journalists, in my mind, are writers first, and thinkers second. Myself, I got into the field because I was decent with the written word, and I realized I'd never have to take another math-related class via the journalism route.

All of this is just my way of pointing out that journalists, by and large, aren't some great pool of mental giants, which explains why something like this can be written, and then missed by several editing passes:

Among other things, the legislation would make it a crime to be in this country illegally.

Or maybe, just maybe, a lot of people just can't make the distinction between immigrants and ILLEGAL immigrants.

UPDATE: Holy fuckin' shit.

You Know What's Disconcerting?

I'll tell you what's disconcerting. After about two weeks of being unable to access your blog at work, or the publishing system behind you blog, and coming to the conclusion that it's entirely probable that it's the result of a concious act on the part of the company where you work.

Taking Fights To The Next Level

My girlfriend and I have been going out now for over three years, and I generally have very few complaints. I'm sure she has more than a few complaints about me, but that's just tough. She picked me and now she has to live with her poor decision-making.

We do, however, have our occasional fights. They never amount to anything big, mind you; they're more like bicker-fests. An example:

GIRLFRIEND: Did you put your clothes in the dryer?

ME: No, not yet.

GIRLFRIEND: Well, I want to do some laundry, so go put your clothes in the
dryer.

ME: If you're going to do laundry, why don't you put my clothes in the dryer?

GIRLFRIEND: Because they're your clothes, not mine.

ME: But, you're going to be down in the basement anyway, right next to the washer and dryer, so is it really that big of a deal to put my clothes in the dryer for me?

GIRLFRIEND: That's not the point! The point is that they're your clothes, and you put them in the washer, so you should be the one to take them out.

ME: Tell you what: the next time I do laundry and I find your clothes in the washer, I'll put them in the dryer for you. We'll be even.

GIRLFRIEND: You'd probably just throw my clothes on the floor.

ME: It would cross my mind.

GIRLFRIEND: You need to buy a new washer and dryer!

ME: Where the heck did THAT come from?

GIRLFRIEND: You heard me!

ME: Well, yeah, I heard you, but I still don't know where that came from.

GIRLFRIEND: You're never going to buy a new washer and dryer, are you?!

ME: Fine! I'll go put my clothes in the dryer!

GIRLFRIEND: Oh, taking the easy way out, are you?! I can't believe you!

The thing about our bickering fights like this that bothers me most is just how completely unfulfilling they are. I mean, if we're going to dedicate ourselves to the effort of fighting, it seems to me that there should be more to them. Until last week, I was at a loss when it came to figuring out what's been missing from our fights. Thankfully, a Reuters news report out of Mexico City made me see how domestic squabbling should really play out.

According to the March 14 story, "a Mexican couple were recovering separately after a marital spat got out of control and saw them firing guns, throwing knives and hurling homemade bombs, Mexican daily Milenio said on Monday."

I'll pause for a moment so you can go back and read that paragraph a couple more times, because in my mind it's about the best thing written so far in 2006, if not in history. Let's examine it more closely. First off, we learn the couple is recovering separately, presumably because someone wisely ascertained that maybe, just maybe, putting them in the same recovery room together might be somehow. . . oh, I don't know. . . awkward?

Next, the altercation is referred to as "a marital spat" that "got out of control." I wonder, though, at what point it was officially considered out of control. Is knife-throwing covered under "marital spat" protection? Is gun play an indication that the spat has escalated? Surely the homemade bomb-hurling is considered out of control, but I just can't shake the feeling that it was probably out of control somewhat prior to that. But, don't let my speculation spoil this. I'll let the article speak for itself.

"Juan Espinosa and Irma Contreras fought until their house blew up in a homemade gasoline bomb explosion, Milenio said. Police called to the home in the indigenous Mayan Indian town of Oxkutzcab in the southeastern state of Yucatan arrested Espinosa. Contreras was taken to hospital with third-degree burns."

Now, here's a couple who knows how to squabble! If I had hurled a knife at my girlfriend when she asked me to do put my clothes in the dryer, things may have played out differently. And, honestly, if she had pointed a gun at me when I suggested she put my clothes in the dryer, she most likely would have gotten her way. And, if it all came down to a standoff with us wielding homemade bombs, I'm almost 100 percent certain I'd find myself at Menards, buying a new washer and dryer.

Yes sir, I think this should be how all our fights play out from this moment on!

"Espinosa told reporters he was glad his wife had suffered burns, while Contreras said she was only sorry she had not ‘hacked off his manhood' during the fight."

Then again. . . maybe not.

Ugh

Nothing follows a good morning migraine better than the scratchy throat and chills of a good late winter cold.

Today sucks.

newspaper Thoughts

So, I was just reading this, and this paragraph struck me:

First, I think I'd skip the "paper" part. I've visited a lot of newspaper offices, and many of them proudly display the printing presses that produce their product, just as older newsmen often glory in the title of "ink-stained wretch." But their product isn't paper (in fact, for those of us who recycle, the paper is a drawback, not a plus, at least until it's time to pack things for a move). Their product is information. Paper is just an increasingly obsolete delivery platform. It's expensive, and on the way out. Get rid of it, or start a new "paper" without it.

As a journalist by education and profession, I obviously don't entirely like the thought of newspapers dying on the vine. But. . .

Last week, my girlfriend opted to receive four free weeks of the Rochester Post-Bulletin. Now, I haven't received a paper in years, so I'd kind of forgotten what it's like, but after one week, here's what I think: what a complete waste. Although the cats enjoy playing underneath the paper, there's really no earthly reason for me to want to continue receiving a paper after the four weeks are up. I glance at the front page, peruse the letters-to-the-editor, breeze through the classifieds, and I'm done. Five minutes, tops. I already know, thanks to the Internet, all the national and international news, and local news just isn't all that interesting to me. So, I'm left with all this newspaper lying around that I have to dispose of before the next day's influx arrives. Seems to me like a colossal waste. And I used to work for newspapers, so that's saying something.

No sir, I don't need it.

Soup Talk

Ryan says: fuck this soup is hot.

Caroline says: Punctuation could make that sentence a game.

Caroline says: fuck this soup--is hot!

Ryan says: fuck this! Soup is hot!

Ryan says: fuck this soup is. . . hot?

Caroline says: fuck! This soup? Is hot!

Ryan says: fuck? This soup is. Hot!

I'm Passport Old

So, my girlfriend and I are scheduled to visit Japan in April, which means I had to update my passport. And oh my shit what a difference 14 years makes.

1992 passport photo:

2006 passport photo:

*sigh*

UPDATE: I just realized that I accidently had the original 1992 picture flipped incorrectly. I just now recified the error. I'm sure NOW you can see the resemblance between the two pictures. Right? Right?

It's a Monday

Ryan says: You know, I was just thinking. . . Sir Mix-a-Lot spoke a lot of wisdom.

Caroline says: Baby got back?

Ryan says: For example, my anaconda, too, don't want none unless you got buns, hun.

Caroline says: Deep.

Billboard Moment

This afternoon, my girlfriend and I went on a Joshua-type hike. We started out looking for open houses to walk through, and ended up going through a bunch of fields and shit. Which is fine, whatever, I grew up in a small town, so I'm used to that kind of thing, but I wished, like when I young, I had a B.B. Gun with me, because there were some pigeons just asking to be cacked. Yeah, I hate pigeons. Call me the anti-Bert.

Anyway, we eventually passed under a billboard for a Famous Dave's about a mile or so ahead. I looked at it, turned away, and then something fired in my brain. It was one of those "wait a minute" moments, one of those irony detectors, that just makes you say, "huh, that's kind of funny, in a sick sort of way, so that makes it even more funny." So, I looked back up. And that's when I realized, like, for the first time, the billboard was:

Now, maybe it's just me, but isn't there something twisted about a pig happily. . . no. . . in an antcipatory zealousness--with its tongue out and everything--waiting for the ribs of one of his own kind to satisfactorily cook?

Because, you know, he's not cooking it for someone else--the tongue lolling out of its mouth indicates that he's gonna eat those fuckers. That pig is all about the cannibalism. And its happy about it. BRING ON THE POR. . . ER. . . ME!

And, yes, my girlfriend and I ate at Famous Dave's tonight. We had the "Feast for Two." WITH LEFTOVERS!

The ribs were awesome.

Origins of the close shave

Let's travel back in time, say, 30,000 years or so. I pick this historical time frame because it's from this era, presumably, that we have evidence of the very first shaving razors. For whatever reason, mankind decided that, during this epoch in its evolutionary development, it was high time to divest itself of the annoying beards that had plagued faces for so long.

According to the archeological evidence, the earliest shaving razors so far discovered were made of flint. Flint, of course, was also the rock of choice for making spear and arrow heads. So, it stands to reason that, at some point in our ancestral past, a man picked up a spear or arrow head and decided, for whatever reason, to attack his face with it.

Because I don't like to think that the current multi-million dollar shaving industry was borne from the psychotic actions of some masochistic Neanderthal over 30,000 years ago, I've developed the following alternative theory of how shaving came to be.

THE SCENE: 32,985 B.C. A large camp fire is the centerpiece for a group of about 20 hominids. There is much activity, as the women are skinning a recently-slain mastodon, while the men are hunkered down, fashioning new weapons for the next hunt.

KAROG: Ugh, me eat too much of the great beast me killed. Need nap.

BA-BAR: Beast you killed? You mean beast ME killed!

KAROG: No, Ba-Bar, Maker-Of-Pointy-Stones, I mean beast ME killed!

BA-BAR: Without pointy stones, great beast would have mashed mighty Karog!

KAROG: You dare insult Karog?! You die now!

(a frantic fight ensues, during which Ba-Bar narrowly misses slicing Karog's face, and instead hacks off the entire right side of Karog's beard. All the women suddenly perk up and admire Karog's new look)

LORETTAG: Ooh, me like Karog's face now. Reminds Lorettag of when Karog was young man. Lorettag has new interest in making babies with Karog.

LISAG: Me first!

KAROG: Quick, Ba-Bar, cut hair from other side of face! I give you 25 snail shells if you do good job!

And so Ba-Bar became mankind's very first "barber," and the world hasn't been the same hairy way since.

I myself am particularly in Bar-Bar's debt because, in addition to shaving my face, I also—thanks to a genetic propensity towards premature hair loss—have been shaving my head now for about a decade. What struck me last week, as I wandered the aisles of a local pharmacy, was just how far mankind has advanced from the flint razors of old. I mean, today, shaving is, if the advertising is to be believed, about as exciting and action-packed as a sporting event.

I stood there, confronted by a collection of razors so advanced, I wasn't sure if I was even qualified to use them. There's the Gillette M3 Power Razor, which comes packaged with a battery. Now, maybe I've just been stuck in my Mach 3 rut now for too long, but as awesome as the Mach 3 is when it comes to shaving my head, I've nicked myself enough times to know that I probably don't need electricity coursing through a razor during the shaving process. I think the triple blade is plenty dangerous without a Duracell assist.

And speaking of the triple blade, I noticed that Schick has come out with a four blade razor called the "Quatro," because apparently shaving is all the more hip when it's conducted in Spanish. At any rate, I'd like to think that the oneupsmanship when it comes to adding more blades to a razor is going to end sooner rather than later, maybe around the release of the "Ocho." Because, really, I don't think additional blades actually have that much of an impact, beyond upping your chances of cutting yourself. Actually, I think it's high time we went back to the world of flint razors.

After all, if they were good enough for Ba-Bar, they should be good enough for us.

Now, for no particular reason, here's a list of nonsensical words that make me giggle:

Frugal. Mukluks. Blubber. Gabardine. Eskimo. Whale. Bulbous. Galoshes.
Frugal. Mukluks. Blubber. Gabardine. Eskimo. Whale. Bulbous. Galoshes.
Frugal. Mukluks. Blubber. Gabardine. Eskimo. Whale. Bulbous. Galoshes.

PhotoShop My Ass!

To attone for my heartless amusement at the expense of the hearing impaired, Simon (who himself has ears that don't function properly) has suggested a renewed PhotoShop contest utilizing my now (in)famous ass picture.

The theme for this contest, should you decide to take part, is that you must PhotoShop my ass in such a way that would, in theory, benefit the hearing impaired. You can leave a link to your creativity in my comment box, or you can e-mail me at yossarian9@hotmail.com. I will post all submitted entries.

And, Joshua starts us off:

Jimmo, not unexpectedly, weighs in:

Sign You're Going To Hell #17

You read a headline and subhead like this:

Miss Deaf Texas killed by train
Witness says engineer sounded horn repeatedly before striking 18-year-old

And you find yourself laughing.

God, I'm a sick bastard.

Shameless Employment Plug

If you're reading this, and you need a freelance writer for. . . well. . . anything, I hereby offer my services as a writer. I can do technical writing, humor writing, human interest writing, news writing and, well, pretty much the writing gamut in general.

This is just part of my ongoing attempt to shake myself free of traditional employment. I realize I won't likely get any responses to this, but I figure it can't hurt to ask. It is my blog, after all. I can do what I want.

Sometimes, work is funny

So, I was just editing a fairly technical mainframe article for the May/June issue of the magazine, when I came upon the following paragraph:

The summary dump size has been increased, which enhances first-failure data capture by improving the possibilities of capturing necessary problem resolution data without incurring the performance burden of making a system non-dispatchable while a dump is taken.

So true. So very, very true.

And God Said, "Let There Be Starbucks," And Seattle was overrun

I don't drink coffee. But if I did, I would feel obligated to make Seattle my home. There are Starbucks EVERYWHERE. And, yes, I know this is a running joke, a joke that Lewis Black is pretty much identified with. But, I mean it, this city is, as near as I can tell, 80 percent Starbucks.

I shit you not. My hotel over the past three nights has been the Sheraton Seattle Hotel and Towers, and in the blocks surrounding my hotel, there are roughly 431 Starbucks. There are Starbucks within a half a block of another Starbucks. You could honestly sit an sip a latte in one Starbucks and gaze out the window and watch someone else sip a latte in a Starbucks just 100 feet away.

I would also like to note for posterity that my hotel was under construction during my stay, and those Goddamned workers were up and pounding and welding and pounding and working and pounding at exactly 6 a.m. every Goddamned morning. And do you know WHY they were up and working so diligently, and loudly, at 6 a.m. each morning?

That's right. . . fucking Starbucks man. fucking Starbucks.

Seattle Barnes & Noble Discussion

ME: *Killing time at Barnes & Noble before a lunch meeting at the Grand Hyatt.*

*a man wearing camo pants, a tattered jacket and bandana, rides the escalator up to the top floor, and he starts looking at me.*

ME: *Trying to look interested in a paperback.*

UNKNOWN DUDE (UD): Hey, have you seen Scott?

ME: Excuse me?

UD: You know. . . Scott. He was right behind me.

ME: *Gesturing to my conference badges around my neck.* I'm not from around here. I don't know any Scott.

UD: Everyone knows Scott.

ME: Uh, not me.

UD: Are you sure?

ME: I'm 100 percent positive.

UD: If you see him, let me know.

ME: Will do.

UD: *Walks out of Barnes & Noble.*

Leaving for Seattle, But Before I Do. . .

I'm attending a SHARE conference in Seattle through Wednesday, so blogging will likely be non-existent. But, before I go, I thought I'd kick Nick Coleman in his journalistic Nardles.

We are getting closer to that glorious day when Minnesota throws hundreds of millions of dollars at new sports facilities.

How do I know?

Because you know stuff?

Because on Friday, 50 babies got thrown out of a preschool in north Minneapolis, which means we have more money for millionaire sports heroes and owners.

Chucked out of a four story window, they were, their soft pink bodies making squishy noises as they bounced lifelessly off the ground, while off in the distance, Vikings and Twins players snickered and guffawed.

Don't be shocked. We've been heading this way awhile.

Yes, for as long as Nick Coleman has been writing, we've been informed we've been heading this way for awhile. He's been saying the sky is falling for so long, the sky is thinking about falling just to shut the guy up.

After cutting huge chunks out of programs for the poor to balance the state budget without harming the ambitions of our political leaders, we are celebrating: This year, we will have a surplus! And that means, yes, it's time to get those stadiums underway.

Based on? I'm sure Nick has a source, somewhere, some figures, somewhere, that back up that statement. Surely Nick didn't just make up some conjecture in that gelatinous mass he laughingly refers to as his brain. Perish the thought.

Do you hear anyone complaining? No?

Just you, Nick, but then you've always carried the Torch of Complaints for all one of your devoted readers.

Babies can't talk so good.

And Nick Coleman can't write so good, but we already knew that.

After 21 years, the St. Anthony Developmental Learning Center in the hard-hit Jordan-Hawthorne area of the city -- where two shooting victims hit the pavement just last week and where "For Sale" signs dot the landscape -- shut its doors.

Huh. Fascinating. So, let's see if I understand this: a crime-ridden area of a city is so unpleasant to live in, residents are abandoning it in apparent droves. And in this environment of a retreating population amidst growing crime, a learning center is closing its doors. Color me unsurprised. Of course, to Nick, this is a great injustice that could have been avoided if the state just threw money at the learning center, which ignores the larger problems of, say, people retreating in droves because of growing crime.

I told you about St. Anthony's troubles on Feb. 24. But no one rode to the rescue.

Awwww, Nick's miffed that his lofty position as Minnesota's worst columnist didn't result in outraged mobs chaining themselves to a learning center. That old gray mare, she ain't what she used to be. . . ain't what she used to be. . . ain't what she used to be.

So on Friday, there were tears and anger, and there were dozens of young families -- many led by single mothers still trying to finish school or to beat addiction -- scrambling.

They're scrambling. . . despite apparent advance notice that this was exactly what was going to happen. Unless they went and pinned their hopes on a Nick Coleman column, which. . . *shudder*

Not even Grandma Comfort could stop the hurt.

Ladies and gentlemen, presenting the patented Nick Coleman "amazing Person On The Street" column inclusion! Nick find's these people with the precision of laser eye surgery, and they're always, ALWAYS, portrayed as altruistic victims of a society that didn't give them a fair shake, like the reformed "near-murderer" rapper, Young Plukey.

Grandma Comfort, 70, is a Liberian refugee named Comfort Davies. She has volunteered at St. Anthony for 10 years, helping to feed, change and rock the babies in the infant room. Coming to the United States to escape a war that cost the life of one of her sons, she can't believe a government would let St. Anthony close.

Yeah, it's just incredible that a government would look at a learning center that's a perpetual financial drain due to rising area crime and decreasing population and decide that maybe, just maybe, continuing funding isn't that prudent.

"It will be very hard on the babies," Grandma Comfort said. "The babies will suffer. When they come in the morning, they are starving. These girls who are having the babies are babies themselves. They don't know anything about babies. That is what we help them with. I am begging the government to keep this place open."

One imagines Nick frantically scribbling these quotes, convinced he has the material of the century. The Pulitzer is just within his grasp. "Yes!" thinks Coleman to himself with deep satisfaction. "She said 'babies' no less than four times! There's nothing scripted or suspicious about a quote like that. Nothing at all."

I wanted to talk to another volunteer grandma. But Grandma Bernice, who is 80, went home early, weeping.

Oh, right to the heart! Grandma Bernice went home weeping! Clearly, this is the worst thing to happen to Minnesota since Coleman decided to be a journalist!

"We feel totally abandoned," said St. Anthony's executive director, Pati Yeager. "No one seems to care about what happens to the kids in this neighborhood. All of the politicians say they want to make safe neighborhoods. Well?

"Hellooo!"

Okay, first off, what the hell is the executive director of ANYTHING saying "Hellooo!" for? Second off, keeping a learning center open that acts as an enabling facility for babies having babies doesn't strike me as the best way to make a neighborhood safer.

One suburban nonprofit child center offered $100,000, but the school needs four times that much in new annual funding to keep going. And so it closed.

And the baby chucking began.

St. Anthony DLC, named in honor of the patron saint of lost things, has been itself lost.

*soft blowing of Taps on the winds*

Now, watch the topsy-turvy Nick Coleman haphazard segue machine roar into action.

Carl Pohlad and Zygi Wilf were not on hand to demand that we invest more in quality child care that comes with family counseling, speech therapy and hugs in an area that needs all that and more. No one was.

Yes, yes, those heartless Twins and Vikings owners are so heartlessly heartless, and. . . hey, what the hell does that have to do with ANYTHING?

So 21 years of saving babies is over, undone by budget cuts and demands for academic performance from preschoolers so poor they don't know how to eat at a table, let alone know their alphabet.

Wait, I thought it was because Wilf and Pohlad weren't on hand signing checks. I'm so confused.

Experts say it would take $28 million a year to provide quality preschool care for every at-risk child in Hennepin County.

Again, do you have a source for that, dickhead? Who are these experts? Grandma Comfort? Young Plukey?

By coincidence, that's the amount of new taxes a baseball stadium will cost. Or maybe it's not a coincidence. Maybe it's a straight trade.

This is what passes for journalistic standards in Nick's world. It's kind of sad, really.

Pro sports? Or babies?

You may say we can have both.

Baby football! Now there's an idea!

Maybe we could. But that's not how it has shaped up. We are choosing just one.

Based entirely on Nick's own conjecture. No sources. Nothing to back up his claim. Just good, old-fashioned, Nick-Coleman-Knows-Stuff intuition.

And babies come in second.

Yes you do, Nick. Yes you do.

Snooze News

Now, I understand that Supreme Court proceedings are probably a tedious affair, and a good nap is probably preferable to listening to redistricting issues. However, if you're konked out long enough for a courtroom news artist to render your nap in exquisite detail, maybe it's time to crack open a Red Bull or something.

Via.

Introducing. . . NARDLES.

Yesterday, during lunch, I sat with my friend, Marc, and my other co-worker friend (and Marc's fiance), Caroline. We sat, we ate, we made jokes, we engaged in a threesome, that sort of thing.

After about 20 minutes, Marc had to leave, but before going, he jokingly swung his tape measure in my direction, just barely missing my groin.

Now, the groin has many aliases, as you no doubt know. Getting struck there can be referred to as getting hit in the "balls," or the "nuts," or, as is popular here right now. . . the "nards." Well, for whatever reason, after Marc swung his tape measure my way and almost hit me in the "junk," I said "Hey, you almost hit me in the 'nardles.'" Not sure why I said it, but it struck us all as extremely funny. Caroline said Nardles sounds like an offshoot of the the Smurfs or the Snorks, and from there the hilarity ensued during our subsequent MSN Messenger conversations. One thing to keep in mind about MSN Messenger is that you have the ability, if you so choose, to use a special pen tool to write with, or to make silly little drawings. With that in mind, here's yesterday's Nardle conversation.

Ryan says: On a Fark thread, someone was explaining comedy to another person.

Caroline says: Huh?

Ryan says: "Take what everyone already knows about X and make it funny. That's what comedy is you farking slack-jawed turd gurgler."

Ryan says: I'm going to use the term "turd gurgler" before the day is through.

Ryan says: Or I'll remove my Nardles.

*Caroline sent the following at exactly the same time as mine*

Caroline says: Turd Gurgler sounds like a name of a Nardle.

Caroline says: jeez

Caroline says: effen brain wave

Ryan says: Holy. fuck.

Ryan says: I think our next job should be in ESP research.

Caroline says: The Nardles could be a comic strip in one of our magazines.

Ryan writes:

Caroline says: Oh. My.

Caroline says: What sick part of your brain did THAT come from?

Ryan says: I was imagining what a Nardle might look like in comic book fashion.

Ryan says: I think it's brilliant.

Caroline writes:

Caroline says: Nerdle the Nardle.

Ryan says: I think we've stumbled on to our way out of our current jobs.

Caroline says: We stumbled onto something, that's for damn sure.

Ryan writes:

Ryan says: Nardle Schwartzenegger.

Ryan says: I can only assume you're laughing hysterically.

Caroline says: I had to go pee I laughed so hard. I'm back.

Ryan says: People will think we're nuts.

Caroline says: Punnnny

Ryan says: But we'd have a ball doing it.

Caroline says: Nardles. Who knew?

NARDLE UPDATE:

Ryan says: I'll be the nardles on your bed post.

Caroline says: Lulelurah Nardle would be a great name for one of the Nardles.

Ryan says: Like Smurfette.

Ryan says: More hair.

Caroline says: Exactly.

Caroline says: and Boobles

Ryan says: A Nardle with boobles?

Caroline says: It seems impossible.

Caroline says: It puts your imagination to the testes.

Ryan writes:

Caroline says: They'd call her Knocker Nardle

Ryan says: That is one ugly Nardle.

Caroline says: You know it's ugly if it's an ugly Nardle.

And my first birthday gift of the day is. . .

A summons to Olmsted County Court jury duty! A two week stretch beginning on April 10!

Shit.

Dark Knight. Heath Ledger. Batman. The Joker. Dark Knight. Heath Ledger. Batman. The Joker. Dark Knight. Heath Ledger. Batman. The Joker.