Sponsor the Blog!

Hey! Have you guys been out to Walser Nissan down there on Buck Hill Road? They’re practically giving cars away! And the sales staff is just so friendly! And they have a waiting room with donuts in it! As the temperature rises, their prices plummet! Get over their and test drive a Nissan today!

Sorry, I was hoping if I did that maybe I would get a corporate sponsorship or something.  Celebrities do it right?  For a sizeable nominal fee, I would have no qualms whatsoever about slapping some faceless corporation’s logo on this Blog, as long as that corporation is as reputable as Walser Nissan on Buck Hill! Well, I guess they wouldn’t even have to be that reputable. I would be willing to harbor a company that has been mired in a minor scandal of sorts, but nothing too serious.  Maybe some money laundering, fudging the books a bit–that would be tolerable. Anything worse than that I won’t have.  Take Apple for instance, prior to the release of the iPad, they had people at their factory in China killing themselves to escape the sheer exhaustion! And Steve Jobs seems like he isn’t a very nice person. Although they do make a pretty slick computer. Heck, I use one everyday. Alright Apple, you twisted my arm! I’d accept your money for a little slice of space over there on the left side of the page. But nothing worse than that. BP basically destroyed an ocean, and as a nature lover, I am truly disgusted. Although in the coming weeks and months, probably even years, they are undoubtedly going to be looking to revamp their image, and are going to be willing to pay top dollar to do so. Oh BP, I can’t stay mad at you! Get over here you knucklehead! Accidents happen, right? And I wasn’t really planning on traveling down to the Gulf anytime soon anyways. Just keep your rigs out of Minnesota and you’ve got yourself a gosh-darn deal! I’m sure all those oil-saturated sea turtles, fish, and birds won’t even remember this in a few years.  Just like a forest fire is nature’s way of cleaning house, sometimes you just gotta pump a gigantic aquatic ecosystem full of rich, creamy oil. It gets rid of the weaklings.

Other companies/people that I would consider letting sponsor the Blog:

AIG, Enron, Halliburton, Wal-Mart, Rod Blagojevich, and Richard “Tricky Dick” Nixon, if he were still alive.

The Blong, by request, is some good ol’ CCR.

70th Post Extravaganza!

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAW!!!! 70 Blog posts.  And it seems like only yesterday I was merely a Blogging spring chicken, wet behind the ears, who decided to thrust himself into the seedy underworld of this Blog-Eat-Blog hobby.  So how do you celebrate a 70th Blog Post? Personally, I wish I could afford to hire James Earl Jones and his ropy vocal cords to come over and read each post out loud to me. And then have him say “Sean, I am your father.”  But that will not happen.  In reality I’ll probably end up going through my regular Wednesday night ritual, which consists of shutting off my phone, going to the local Cub Foods, picking up a box of Kleenex and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s, and renting Steel Magnolias from the Redbox. And after that maybe crying in the shower for a little bit, then laying in bed for hours upon hours, wondering why we were put here on this big blue marble that’s mostly covered with water. Well that really killed the celebration. 

But anyways, what a wild ride it has been. Think of all the hours I have wasted, either scribbling recklessly into a notebook, or plopped in front of a computer screen, when I probably could have been contributing something worthwhile to society.  Perhaps the next 70 posts will focus on some sort of humanitarian cause, but more than likely I will continue to spout off the cantankerous pustules of thought that haunt my brain. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Blong (Blog Song) for the Bloupies (Blog Groupies.) Paper Tiger – 2nd Day Back. From his new album “Made Like Us,” which is the most amazing thing I have heard in a long time.

Braised Tuscan Duck With Caviar and Sun-Dried Tomatoes

Greetings and salutations! We’re going to class it up today, and venture outside the normal conventions of the cooking segments that this Blog usually produces.  As you can see up there in the title, we’re going to be coaxing the maximum amount of flavor out of a fresh, taut, juicy, 17-week old Tuscan Duck, garnish it with fresh oceanic caviar, and top the presentation with aged sun-dried tomatoes. Here is everything you will need:

-A Tuscan Duck, obviously. Just walk down to the local farm-fresh, organic, chemical-free, hand-picked (and every other hippie adjective for food) farmer’s market. Don’t live within walking distance of one? Well, I would hardly call that living. Slap the duck around a bit, confirming that its skin is fresh and firm as a Georgia peach, yet also try to find one that is “pleasantly plump”. It is an extremely delicate balance.

-Caviar. To obtain the freshest possible “sturgeon roe,” as it is also called, simply travel to the Caspian Sea, find a female sturgeon, club it over the head with a blunt object, and extract the ovaries. (That is actually how they get it.)

-Sun-Dried Tomatoes. These can be obtained from the same farmer’s market where you purchased the duck. You will also need the sun. Cloudy out? Looks like someone took the Idiot Train from Stupidville and tried to make sun-dried tomatoes on a cloudy day!

Now the preparation:

Gut the duck, maybe saving the innards to give to the panhandler that you walk by every day. He’ll thank you. Begin to pound it with your meat-mallet, flattening it to about 1/4 inch. Ahhhhh, alright. You know what? Take everything you just bought, and throw it into your favorite gargbage can. I can’t do this. I was trying to impress you. Who eats things like this? Caviar? We don’t do that around here! Go make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And maybe take everything out of the garbage, pick all the used Q-tips out of it, and give it to a homeless shelter or something. As repulsive as caviar may seem, it would be a shame to let any of it go to waste.

Well, there you have it. Blong. Hydrophonics – Dreamin’. A great band from St. Cloud that has ceased to exist.

The Excruciating Minutia of Daily Life

Does anybody out there ever walk? I mean like, actually walk without any destination in mind? I like to consider myself somewhat of a walking enthusiast, it’s healthy, it gets you outside, and for me, creates a myriad of awkward interactions that highlight my social ineptitude.  Here is the scenario that has me flummoxed:

I find myself on a paved walkway, happily sauntering along. It is fairly straight, with the next half-mile or so visible. Now, I notice another walker in the distance at the very fringe of the observable sidewalk, and, like always, I begin to freak out.  For you see, when passing someone on a sidewalk, it is common courtesy to at least acknowledge their existence, maybe even toss in a friendly “Hello.” Herein lies the rub: how close do you get to the person before you make eye contact? What do you say when you pass them? There are so many things that can go wrong with this interaction.

1) Do you wait till the last possible moment, gambling on the fact that maybe they already tried to look at you, but you missed it, so they write you off as a scurrilous jerk? And you, having not seen their attempt at pleasantry, think that they ignored you as well? Prognosis = Lose/Lose

2) Maybe you accidentally made eye contact when you were like 30 feet away. It is now assumed that you will exchange a greeting, but what do you look at for those 30 feet that you have left to cover? You can’t just stare at them like some slack-jawed dope until you pass, so do you just kind of look up at the sky for a little while? Check your phone? Pretend to drop your keys, and then “accidentally” kick them off the path, and “search” for them for a little while? This is the one that gives me the most problems. That weird time before you actually have to say “Hi” ends up racking me with so much tension, a sheepish nod is all I can give the other person, and then they kind of look at me like I shouldn’t be allowed in public. Prognosis = No one really loses I guess, but neither side really wins either. This would constitute a tie in my opinion.

2 1/2) And what are you supposed to say? “Hello,” “Good evening,” “Cool shorts,” “That’s a really ugly dog?” I don’t know man!

3) You see the person coming, but make no eye contact, nor do you even attest to their feeble existence.  You stand strong, looking straight ahead, and when you are approximately six feet away, look them square in the eye and boldly announce “Hello.” They do the same, and you go on your way, wondering how that guy could be sweating so much from just walking. Prognosis = Win/Win

4) Same events occur as in #3, only this time you look at them to say “Hello,” but they just look straight ahead. Who are these people?  How did McDonald’s dominate the global fast food market? By refusing to reach out and communicate with people? No way! They used low-grade meat and minimum wage! But despite the disgusting conditions of their meat packing plants,(read Fast Food Nation) they at least greet you when you come in. Prognosis = I win for trying to be nice/They lose for being a curmudgeon.

Blong. Haven’t listened to 311 in a while.

Friday Fun Facts – Medical Slang

Ah, the hospital. A magical place where doctors and nurses cure disease, perform complex surgeries, and from the looks of this website, use thinly veiled acronyms and slang to insult your absurd ineptitude. I’ll give you a few examples here, but you really have to check out the website to get the full experience. A lot of these would really make some good band names too.

Brothel Sprouts = Genital warts             Chocolate Hostage = Constipation

Digging for Worms = Varicose vein surgery      DUB = Damn ugly baby

Eiffel Syndrome (from “I fell” on it) = Foreign object in rectum

FLK w/ GLM = Funny looking kid with good looking mom      

FURB = Funny, unusual rectal blockage

Golden Ass = Affluent mother who treats nurses like servants

Hamburger = Train vs. pedestrian      Hole-in-one = Gunshot wound through mouth or rectum

Stream Team = Urology department       Urban Outdoorsman = Homeless person

Angel Lust = Male corpse with erection (apparently not uncommon)

Bugs in the Rug = Pubic lice         Acute Lead Poisoning = Gunshot wound

Bury the Hatchet = Leave a surgical instrument inside a patient       

Banana = Patient with jaundice

Well that about does it for me……..Here’s a good Friday Blong. Ugly Duckling – Slow the Flow.

Friendly’s Grilled Cheese BurgerMelt

Hooooooooooow is it going? What’s that? You have cranial rectosis? Huh, good luck with that. Well, we’re going to do another recipe today, but in a first for The Blog, it is not of my own invention. Although I must admit that I am supremely jealous that I didn’t think of it. I recently heard about an amazing sandwich called the Grilled Cheese BurgerMelt, produced by a restaurant called Friendly’s. Actually, just calling it a sandwich is an understatement, it’s more like three sandwiches combined into one whorishly delicious marriage of ingredients.  I must say, Chef Andre, who you will meet in the video below, deserves some sort thank you from the local hospitals and clinics for all the business that this blend is going to send their way. It’s almost as if the KFC Double Down has spawned a revolution of restaurants plotting to blow out the waistlines and self esteem of their patronage. Perhaps they are in cahoots with the pants industry. Think about it: fatter people = bigger clothes = more material = the ability to charge more money for underpants the size of bedsheets. And as the people get larger, the less energy they have to go shopping for groceries, so what do they do? They throw on a moo-moo and venture to the nearest fast food restaurant, where no time or effort is required to quell the rumblings of their bottomless gullet. It’s a vicious cycle!

But I digress. Here are the basics of the Grilled Cheese BurgerMelt – you make two grilled cheese sandwiches, which essentially operate as the bun. Then you take cheeseburger fixin’s, and put them between the two grilled cheese sandwiches. That’s what America’s all about, man! The one downside is that the nearest Friendly’s is over 500 miles away, in Ohio. Looks like I’ll be making my own for now.

Here it is:

Wet’n’Wild Wednesday

Oh, hello, thanks for stopping by. Could you hold on for a moment? (Indistinct rustling noises, muffled cursing.) Sorry for the delay. I was trying to find my phone. Oh, there it is. Alright, Hambone, kick it! The sound of my friend Hambone beatboxing.—-> Bum-ba-da-da, bum-ba, bum-ba-da-da, bum-ba. Me.—–>Alright, since it’s Wednesday, we’re going to do some profilin’ and freestylin'(!) Come get a taste.

Sean, Sean
All night long
Up until dawn
Pass out on your lawn
And, uh, what else rhymes with that?
Uh, use his brawn
to abuse a fawn
Infused with, ah crap, filet mignon?

Wiki-wika-what? Boom-pow, how do you like me now. Watch out Ice Cube! That, my friends, is how you rap. Ok, now that we have that out of the way, we can talk about more pressing issues.  Ah crap, yawn rhymes, why didn’t I think of that earlier? Drawn, dangit, there’s another one I missed.  Spawn, could have used that. Shawn. Is it in bad taste to rhyme “Sean” with “Shawn?” I mean, technically they’re two different words. Yongbyon, that’s in North Korea. Alright, this just destroyed my entire train of thought. I’ll be back tomorrow. Or Friday.

Blong (Blog Song) time. The Budos Band.  This is probably the coolest song you will hear today.

R.I.P. Big Stein

If you haven’t already heard, George Steinbrenner passed away today. Since I know literally nothing about the man’s life or work in reality, I would like to share these two Seinfeld highlight reels, which for me served as a conduit to the core of Big Stein’s existence.

Back in the Saddle

What the heck? No Blog last week?! Well, dearest reader, if you have ever thumbed through a copy of “The 48 Laws of Power” by Robert Greene, by now it should be quite obvious to you that I was merely obeying Law #16 – Use Absence to Increase Respect and Honor. Do you have more respect for me? Do you now wish to honor me in a beautiful candle-lit celebration? The answer to both of these questions, is, in fact, yes, you do. Since you were no doubt worried as to the abstract nature of my whereabouts, I will now outline in a day-by-day recollection of the happenings and doings of last week.

Saturday (Lanesboro, MN) – I floated in a river for a good portion of the day. I now have a slighty disturbing nickel-sized open sore on my ankle, which I blame on an astute case of River Rot. Now, you may be asking yourself if there even is such a thing as River Rot, but the orange-ish fluid that has been leaking out of said sore is very much a real part of my daily life.

Sunday (Winthrop, MN) – I helped my Grandmother back her car out of my parent’s driveway.

Monday (Bloomington and St. Paul, MN) – Travelled to the largest mall in America. Man is that place overrated. “They” say its about eight times bigger than the average mall, which in common mathematical conversion would constitute that the people there are eight times stupider than average, eight times more inbred than average, and eight times more likely to be wearing a size Small shirt when it’s glaringly obvious to everyone that an XL would be better suited for such an undertaking. Oh yeah then I went to a backyard barbecue in St. Paul.

Tuesday (Burnsville and Lakeville, MN) – After a less-than-satisfying workout, I produced the schema for the renovation of my personal fitness program. I also made some jean shorts out of an old pair of pants I had lying around. What an amazing time to be alive when you can witness the transformation of Long Pants into Short Pants, all within a five minute window.

Wednesday (Lake City, MN) – Concluded the family reunion (did I not mention that is why I was doing most of this stuff? I had a family reunion, that’s why) at some golf course.

Thursday-Sunday (Burnsville and Minneapolis, MN) – Not much really happened the rest of the week.  I did some stuff I guess, ate a little pizza one of the days.

Here’s the Blong. It’s some of that rap music that is stripping America of its core values by talking about guns and alcohol. But it’s a pretty cool song. It’s like about cowboys or something.

Friday Fun Facts – This Day In History, Again!

Yo. Yo. Yo yo yo yo yo, yo, yo yo yo. Yo. What is crippillating? Here’s some Friday Fun Facts again. I am going to repeat myself and do another one of those “This Day In History” Blogs.  Am I lazy? Nah, man, I just do things other than Blogging. Hmmmm? What else do I do? Oh of course, out of the whole Internet I draw the one little smarta** who asks questions. Hey, guy, zip your lid! I do plenty of stuff. It’s just none of your business.

-Sit on this: back in 1863, this would have been the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg. That kind of turned out to be a big deal, didn’t it?

-Apparently in 1881, President Garfield got shot, and eventually died on September 19th of an infection. That’s juicy, right?

-The negativity continues – the first Wal-Mart opened today in 1962 in Rogers, Arkansas of all places. The biggest shopping craphole opened in one of the biggest  residential crapholes in the country. What a coinki-dink. I actually know nothing about Rogers, Arkansas. Maybe it is a nice place. If so, I’m sorry.

-Ernest Hemingway blew his own brains out on this day in 1961. What a badass.

-The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed in, you guessed it, 1964! 

-1947 – It’s Larry David’s birthday.

Blong-Caribou, Odessa.