Barefoot in the Park

Not the best quality, but here's a glimpse of us as Paul and Corie Bratter from Barefoot in the Park. Don't we look happy.

Liberties abused

You know those online ads for refinancing that show images of people dancing like drunken children? I was on weatherchannel.com trying to check what degree below zero it would be that day, and the little lady in the ad wouldn't stop. Normally they do after a few seconds, but she kept going. I tried to ignore it. I tried scrolling down past her, but then I couldn't see the temperature. Then I moved the cursor over the ad to see if that would do anything.

Nope, she kept going. She wouldn't stop. Her arms jerked. Her legs contorted. Her torso heaved. I wondered if she was about to vomit, but her expressionless face showed no sign of nausea. Her short red skirt and high heels just went back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. She looked like a horny marionette with Parkinson's disease. Soon I forgot which Web site I was on.

I finally snapped out of it and wondered if I had accidentally refinanced my mortgage.

Are advertisers so lazy that they're just showing us their fantasies? If so, gross. They're creepy, like how clowns are creepy.

I have no idea how cold it was that day.

Hardee's Chronicles, Part VIII

This is me on my way to work at Hardee's during Crazy Days back in 1989. Apparently the regular uniforms weren't crazy enough. And those glasses are a perfect fit, for the doors of our '74 Oldsmobile.

Remembering Fargo

The Seven Days of Christmas

12-24: Seven pups a-peeing
Drive home, have lovely meal and open gifts. We meet Stella, John and Jen's awesome dog. She lays down a playful poker-hand paw for our neurotic pup Sophie. Sophie pushes herself into low orbit with her own pee. Luckily we're outside. Both Johns tell their respective dogs to stop it.

12-25: Six birds attacking
Lovely ham dinner. Watch birds duke it out over new bird feeder.

12-26: Five great ideaaaas
Get buzzed on coffee. Then go to Scheel's and spend more money on a sled and snowshoes for the girls. Then see Enchanted at the Princess theater. Then watch The Shining. Then stay up so late that we see mom get up for work.

12-27: Four games and booze
Play Family Feud, Outburst, Taboo, and Cranium over snacks and alcohol with Dave and Kelly. Every other joke must involve anatomy. Do not go to bed before 1:00 am.

12-28: Three late nights
Grab the "L" book off the shelf and make up a game called "Encyclopedia." Ask what the name Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch means. (It's a village in Wales.)
Stay up until 2:00 am.

12-29: Two extra gifts
Home to celebrate anniversary.

12-30: And a mall half the size of the staaaate
Go to Mall of America and buy Batman Lego people.

Geese

I saw a big "V" of geese fly overhead on my way home from work tonight. It's like 1 degree out. I thought to myself, Man, those geese must be fricking freezing.

Hardee's Chronicles, Part VII

To our young minds, Hardees was not only a peek at the outside world but a laboratory as well. At one point we had become obsessed with straws.

At the height of our obsession, Mark and I once linked about 30 of them end to end. The resulting superstraw was so mighty that it bowed under the low ceiling, a beautiful plastic arc blossoming from our meager cup. Then the ladies behind the counter said that was enough straws for now. But we could have jousted them if we wanted to, and I think they knew it.

The Last Blog of 2007

I should really change my profile photo, but I haven't taken a better picture in the last year. Or the previous 35.

One point of interest though: the night that photo was taken -- December 24th, 2006 -- I flossed a small chunk of filling out of one of my teeth, making it impossible to enjoy the many Christmas treats with both sides of my mouth. And since it happened at the start of the happiest dang holiday on the planet, all the dentists of the world were at home with their families and I had to wait until January 2nd to get it fixed.

And that's how I secured my place among the greats at the Library Table.

[Sporty theme music here]

Happy 2008!

John's Brain

Christmas, 1972

Here's what I like about this one...

1. The couch and the power outlet have just as much frame space as the Christmas tree
2. Mom's arm in a non-Christmas-y pose
3. Mark's pajamas, the most festive thing in the whole picture
4. The giant gray wall

Hardees Chronicles, Part VI -- starring dad!!

Years ago dad was in Rochester on business, and he went to a Hardees for a fish sandwich. So he went inside and placed his order, and asked if they could give it to him in a napkin instead of Styrofoam.

When the girl at the counter asked why, he explained that it kills ozone molecules.

Then she went back to ask her manager, who craned his neck like an idiot. Then she came back and said it would be fine. So she gave dad the fish sandwich, wrapped in a napkin, and the battle for the environment was...not won. Because then the fry cook took a Styrofoam container from the stack and tossed it.

Not only did they serve the food in Styrofoam, they also used it to count how many sandwiches they sold each day.


Epilogue

A woman waiting in line behind dad had been listening to the whole conversation. When she placed her order, she asked not to have Styrofoam too.

At the movies

If you've read Posy's latest blog, you know that we like Netflix. You also know that I ordered Short Circuit. In fact I just finished watching it for the first time since I was 15 years old, the approximate maturity level of every actor in the film. Except the robot.

Even if you haven't seen this movie, if you spent any time in the 80s you can guess where it's going:

1. To be a vehicle for Steve Guttenberg and/or Ally Sheedy
2. To introduce audiences to the concept of a misunderstood robot that could love
3. To turn you, the viewer, into an empathy-retching machine

Here's what I think.

The robot was actually the least-annoying one in the whole movie. First it gets hit by a stray bolt of lightning from a storm passing through some distant mountains and gets a robot soul. From there it wastes no time out-classing all of the people actors by escaping the compound and not swearing every third line of dialog. It also displays an emotional understanding of its situation. It also deflects bullets with a hubcap, and pushes one of its evil twin robots into an outhouse, which then explodes poop everywhere.

Am I asking too much? Is there a story in this? Sure there is. All you do is take away Steve Guttenberg, because he really can't act. Not even poorly. Then you take out his greasy, sweaty-palmed East-Indian colleague who exaggerates his own accent and uses the English language for target practice by saying things like "Well the cat sure dragged in a sight for sore eyes." Then remove Ally Sheedy, who instantly becomes so attracted to the unfamiliar robot that when they cut to the next scene it's morning, and he's making pancakes, and I'm officially worried. (Maybe she's just so repelled by Steve Guttenberg's plappiness, if I might coin a phrase.)

Finally, get rid of the gravy-thick Army guy who wants to blow it up, even though it cost 11 million dollars, along with his scientist boss who nags at him not to. You have now eliminated all of the formulaic characters, and the robot is free to discover life, and I am free to not go looking for a hammer.

I give it two stars -- one for the robot's tolerance of idiots, and one for its laser gun that can blow up tanks. **

Concordia, 1989

Paul -- any idea why you and dad came up to see me freshman year?

Dad -- is that your shaving kit on my desk?

Birthday, 1987

I got a new walkman, the kind that could play a cassette tape.

Check out the look on Dave's face.

Return of the White Ludwig

For Paul, who wanted to see the restored set

For Mark, who helped me get it home

For Dave, who might think it's cute compared to the one he has now

The Hardee's Chronicles, Part V

During my first week on the job my manager, the rotund Betty, gave me some sage advice about how to properly wash dishes. She said to me, "Make the water as hot as you can stand it, and then make it even hotter."


What?

First Day of School, 1978

American Gothic, 1988

I'm a werewolf.

I once took a personality test to see which character I would be from Harry Potter, and the answer was Professor Lupin. The fact that I'm actually a werewolf had nothing to do with the test. It was that accurate.


My celebrity lookalike is Gary Oldman, who plays Sirius Black.

Area Pet Owner Stunned by Volume of Dog Urine

Dog owner John's Brain was speechless Friday morning after discovering a three-foot-long puddle of dog pee on the kitchen floor of his home.

"Oh my fricking --" he uttered, unable to finish his sentence.

"That fricking...," he began again. In a gesture of apathy, he then raised his arms and allowed them to fall, slapping uselessly against his thighs.

Brain, who was on his way to the family's refrigerator, encountered the yellow pool just minutes before he was scheduled to leave his home, but remained motionless in front of it for some time.

Exposure to the substance may have been responsible for his increasing difficulty to remove the offending agent or form a complete sentence without the use of swear words.

"I wasn't late for work until now," he said, addressing the urine with an armada of paper towels.

The urine, which most likely appeared the previous evening, continued to inch its way toward the wall opposite the side of which it had started.

According to John, the dog's small stature makes it "highly unlikely" for her to generate pee in such quantities, leading him to believe that she had help from another animal, possibly a waterlogged bear.

DNA test results came back negative; nonetheless, he vowed a diligent search to find any accomplices.

He also said he would introduce legislation which would allow the dog to be let out more frequently, particularly during the evening hours, with the stipulation that the family's pet find a position of employment to help defray the cost of paper towels and Handi-wipes.

Hardee's Chronicles, Part IV

My job at Hardee's was at the counter. I never worked the kill floor, or whatever it was they did back there. In those days it was rare to have a guy take your order, so just standing behind a cash register opened up a whole can of stigma.

One day the door swung open and a bunch of tough guys walked in. They looked like beat-up cinder blocks in flannel who just got back from a grease monkey fight, sponsored by oil.

One of the men, who I'm pretty sure had one eye, came up to my till. I just stood there in my cute little outfit, wondering how many seconds were left before the murdering started. I thought, There's nothing to defend myself with except meat. I suppose I could threaten him with high cholesterol but he'll probably order some anyway.

Then, in a crackly rumble that stopped the clock, he said, "Hey, aren't you supposed to be a girl?"

I'm not kidding.