I Need A Life--Part II

Yet another post about Caribou Coffee's trvia. I have four unrelated areas to cover.

1. I am curious what question Rachel W answered at the airport when she was the only to get it right.

2. An engineer living in the western suburbs of the Twin Cities metro area, who likes to protect his anonymity, has brought it to my attention that George Washington is on the quarter and the dollar bill, meaning there are THREE Presidents on two types of US currency, not just one ( click here to see for yourself), making the question from my previous post the worst question of all time. And that is saying something, as about a week ago, the question was "Why did the chicken cross the road?"

3. Caribou does need to raise the discount for getting the question right. The discount is based based on 1996 dimes, not 2006. I used to pass on answering the question because it was only a dime. But then I figured over the course of a year, I passed on 20 to 30 questions that I knew the answer to. If there was a three dollar bill (I think Roosevelt is on the three dollar bill--shit that makes FOUR Presidents...) laying on the ground you'd pick it up right and away. So go ahead and answer each and every trivia question. It will eventually add up.

4. And now for my primary point of blogging today. Wednesday morning the question was "Which planet has the most moons?" In tribute to my childhood geekdom, I knew right away the answer was Saturn. Fair enough.

Thursday morning the question was "Cape Horn borders which African country?" Well I had no idea how to answer this one since I always thought Cape Horn was in South America and bordered either Chile or Argentina (which one, I had no idea), but clearly I was wrong. So I figured it had to be South Africa or Somalia, assuming that big notch sticking out of the eastern end of Somalia could be called a cape, despite its large size. And it looks like a shoe horn. So Somalia seemed like the guess to make. Plus I was pretty sure the southern cape of Africa was called the Cape of Good Hope.



So I guessed Somalia and was told that I was wrong. I was too embarassed to ask for the right answer and asssumed it was South Africa. My coffee cost ten extra cents that day.

As I walked to work from Caribou, the irony was not lost on me that I knew the geography of the solar system better than my own planet. I even had a title for a future blog about this experience,

Think Interplanterily, Act Locally

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But the need for such a title vanished when I got into my office and looked at the world map on my wall. Well of course Somalia was the wrong answer. Cape Horn isn't even in Africa. It is in South America, just where I had placed it. So I guess to make up for the question earlier in the week that had three correct answers (you just had to guess which of the three they wanted you to say), they chose a question that had NO correct answers.

The Caribou I frequent happens to be by Sibley Plaza. Sibley Plaza deserves a blog post all to its own. Emily and I drove past it this morning, in fact, and she called it "the strip mall that time forgot."

What is relevant to this post, however, is that Sibley Plaza and most of lower Highland Park (a neighborhood in St. Paul where I work) is heavily populated by Ethiopians and Somalis. They are known to enjoy a cup or two from Caribou like the rest of us. So I was wondering, the rest of the day, if someone with more confidence than I about Africa's geography went in there and set the record straight. I was going to stop in at the end of the day to see if they ammended the question, but I didn't have time if I wanted to catch my bus.

Cripes. Who does the fact-checking for this particular Caribou branch? Jayson Blair? Is this the best job he can find since the New York Times fiasco?

To help me through my angst, I need to harken back to my college days, and the wise words often spoken by a young man we called "Donkey Balls" for reasons I won't go into. But to put your mind at ease, it has nothing to literally to do with his testicles, donkeys, or a donkey's testicles for that matter. Although when we did call him Doneky Balls we were implying that he was, indeed, the testicles of a donkey.

But, as per usual, I digress.

Back to Donkey Ball's words of wisdom. Like most college kids, we always had a hard time squaring completely up after a night at the bar or the Pizza Hut (we were in Grinnell, Iowa, what kind of nightlife were you expecting?) because at least one of us would inevitably be absurdly short on cash. Each time this happened, Donkey Balls could always magically end our squabbling over who owed whom what amount of money and we'd move on to the next activity, which usually involved copious amounts of Busch Lite in cans and some form of public urination (again, we were in Grinnell, IA, pop. 8200, what more can you expect for a nightlife?).

But none of this post-Pizza Hut awesomeness would have happened if Donkey Balls, wise beyond his 18 to 22 years of age, hadn't said "It all comes out in the wash." Hell, to this day, we'd still be arguing about whether or not Strawman and Nitro were square now that the Klassmaster was paying for Donkey Balls' share of the bill, because that would make up for the seven bucks Nitro owes Klassmaster from Wednesday night and the three dollars and change Donkey Balls still owes Strawman from last week's sortie to Pizza Hut. "Seriously. Let's not worry about it. It all comes out in the wash," Donkey Balls would say, as if he were Mr. Miyagi from The Karate Kid. A gong would softly sound in the background. End of conversation.

I need to remember such sage thinking. For every bullshit, unanswerable question this Caribou has offered me, I have also easily answered the following:

Why did the chicken cross the road? (I know I already said this, but I want to make it clear that this was a real trivia question)
How many days away is Thanksgiving?
What is the distance of a marathon?
What Aldous Huxley novel featured alphas, betas, gammas, deltas, and epsilons?
The first Caribou is in what city?
What are the five great lakes (Hint: the first letter of each one makes up the word HOMES)?
And a lot of either/or questions giving you a 50/50 chance, worse-case scenerio of getting the question right.

So I agree with Rachel W. I love Caribou. The snob in me, that turns his nose up at chains, and mocks poorly written trivia, does indeed love everything about the Caribou experience, corporate chain mentality, drive-thru service, suspect and cheaply discounted trivia, and all.

For Want of a Dime...

If a chain of events leads to my ultimate loss of house, job, family, and friends, we can trace it down to today, this historic day.

Anyone who lives in Minnesota and drinks coffee has inevitably spent some money at Caribou Coffee and probably tried to answer the daily trivia question. For those of you who haven't, there is a trivia question that changes each day and is unique to each location. If you get the question right, you get ten cents off your order.

When I ride the bus to work it drops me off right in front of a Caribou Coffee and part of my morning routine is to get my cup of coffee there and try and save a dime.

Because I am a nerd, I get excited about the trivia question and try to set personal records for how many consecutive days I can save a dime. My record is nine days, and my hitting streak came to an end when I was stumped by the question "How much dirt does a human consume, on average, in a year?" That's a bullshit question, because anything over say, half a centigram will be alarming and disgusting and we all know that the answer will be much higher than that.

So the question might as well have been "Pick a random number between .5 centigrams and 12988347 kilos and if you are right, you get ten cents off your order." I refused to answer that question out of protest, thus breaking my streak. I sure showed them with my silent protest!

But in the interest of full disclosure, at the Caribou I go to, the questions are usually quite easy for anyone with a high school diploma and a functioning long-term memory. Typical questions are "What is the capital of New York?" or "What story is attributed to Homer besides The Oddessy?" and things like that.

So my most recent streak is up to four days and today's question was "Who is the only United States President whose face is on two separate types of US currency?"





I thought it over for a few seconds, made my coffee order and said the answer was Thomas Jefferson.





The guy at the counter said, "Sorry. Good guess" Then held up a penny and five dollar bill from the cash register to show me the correct answer was Lincoln. Very dramatic.

I am the horse's asshole when it comes to all forms of competition, and I was about to prove this. I said, "Do you happen to have a two dollar bill and a nickel in there?"






I was half-joking, and was going to leave it at that. But he went ahead and told me that Thomas Jefferson's presence on the two dollar bill doesn't count because it's not in circulation anymore. I was satisfied with that answer even though I had no idea if that was true or not. But then his co-worker said, "Actually the two dollar bill is back in circulation but the book was written before that happened."





Now I have no idea what The Book is. I assume it's either The Bible (which I'm pretty sure was written before the two dollar bill was re-circulated by the US Treasury) or Caribou publishes a book of possible trivia questions for employees to use.

Either way, I'm back in this conversation, trying to get my dime back. "So Thomas Jefferson is also correct!" I say.

"Well we have to go with what the answer in The Book says," she answered, pointing vaguely to some object under the cash register, which I assume is either Gideon's Bible or Caribou Coffee Inc. Official Daily Trivia Manual. And the conviction with which she said this made me think maybe it was The Bible afterall. She clearly was not going to go against the authority of the answer in The Book, no matter how illogical it was.

Either way I got screwed. Open letter to Caribou Coffee: I want my freaking dime back.






So back to my origninal point, for want of a dime, the bus fare was lost, for want of a bus fare... Well you can connect these dots all the way to me losing wife, dog, house, job, and friends if you please.

In working with adults and teens who stutter I have found that those who feel they are victims and were let down by God have the absolute worse prognosis. I would say the degree to which a person plays The Victim is the number one factor in how much he can improve his or her own life. This is true in all realms of life. Not just stuttering.

However, I am here to say, that if my life goes to the shitter over the next, oh, 50 years, I blame Caribou.

It's A Boy!

Emily's sister gave birth to a boy this morning. Like me, he has been born without a pre-determined name. Unlike me, I am sure his parents will name him before he leaves the hospital.

This is the fourth kid whom I will be an uncle to, but the first on Emily's side. It is very bittersweet for me. It is so awesome and exciting to be living in the same city that this kid was born and to be around while he grows up. But it also makes me wish I could live in the same city that my sisters' kids live in.

But mostly I am very excited for the Emily's sister and her husband. I cannot wait to meet their new kid tomorrow night and see the new parents. Pictures will likely follow.

Check Me Out

I really to read in other people's blogs what books they are reading, a list of ten random songs on their iPod, or what movie they just saw. I don't know why. It's like you get to read their personal mail or rummage through their underwear drawer. Not that I do those things. Or want to.

Seriously. I really don't. Those of you that know me can still invite me over without feeling like you have to put your utility bills and tighty whities in a safe.

I think Netflix should have a feature where you get to show your queue to the world. Our queue is now 250 movies long. It's almost like a status or pissing contest. Who can have the longest queue? A friend of mine has a kickass underwear collection, oops, I mean Netflix queue. He has over 400 movies in his Netflix queue. Something to aspire to.

Right now we have Spanglish, Maria Full of Grace, and (here comes the dirty underwear) Pilates for Dummies. My wife chose it. It's for her. I swear. However, in the interest of full disclosure, I did take a pilates class last spring. The instructor congratulated me for being the first male graduate. I still am not sure if I should be proud of this.

I will say this, the same guy who has over 400 movies in his Netflix queue, took yoga and dropped out. I'm not sure what that means. I think we're still both a couple of sissies, with or without a diploma from an exercise class populated mostly with women, or an endless Netflx queue.

I also wanted to list the other pop culture goings ons in our household.

The three most recent CDs I bought were: Liz Phair (Somebody's Miracle), Dwight Yoakum (Blame the Vain), and The Hopefuls (The Fuses Refuse to Burn).

The Hopefuls CD, I already have. I bought the second copy for my sister, whose birthday was over seven weeks ago. We'll see if I actually mail it before 2006. Anyway, it's a great CD. Guitar pop good and trivial enough to make you feel young again. Incidentally, Emily and I saw them play Wednesday night with this sexy baglady. They were awesome, as was hanging out with her yoga school dropout of a husband.

I am reading Bill Bryson's In A Sunburned Country.

There you have it. I'll let you know how I like that pilates video.

Son-In-Law

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Today I am taking the day off and enjoying the fact that I am still wearing my pajamas, while it snows outside, and Emily reads the paper.

Pancho is watching us wondering when the hell he gets to do what he wants to do. I keep telling him to lick his balls. He usually seems to enjoy that, but I guess he's bored with that for now. Fear not, my four-legged friend. We'll go for a nice, long, lazy run soon.

Last night we went to Emily's uncle for Thanksgiving. There were about 20 of us there and I enjoyed talking to everyone, but no one is as entertaining as Emily's mom. Here are some highlights:

"I think guys [men] are so retarted. There's no doubt about it."

"Who really trusts experts anymore?"

Emily's mom spends a lot of time lamenting how times have changed and how crazy it is that kids are surrounded by hi-tech toys and electronics. She also spends a lot of time at Value Village, which is like a local Goodwill. But lately, most of her engery is spent getting ready to become a first-time grandma (Emily's sister is expecting a child any day now).

So I asked Emily's mom if she feared this grandchild may be one of those kids "spoiled" by things like iPods and X-Box 360s.

She said, "Oh I don't see this kid getting spoiled by stuff from Value Village."

Little tidbits like this make me laugh.

Ents Rule

I want to make this perfectly clear before I begin this post: I love trees. I love the gigantic maple tree in our back yard, and the ample shade it provides in the summer. I think we have an awesome backyard, to be honest, but it would be a godforsaken patch of dirt and sun, if 80% of it wasn't shaded by the maple tree. So I also love the tree's leaves.

I read and saw The Two Towers, so I know it's a bad idea to piss off the Ents by hatin' on their brethren the maple tree. I'm not about to suggest we tear our maple tree down to clear space for some ogre-making factory like that evil wizard tried to do.

But I will say this, I do hate 50923784023 dead maple leaves in our backyard. We have a tiny city lot and I still managed to get 23 bags full of leaves from the backyard alone.

My childhood home was on a lot twice the size of where I live now, and on a corner. So there was a side yard to rake as well, and at least seven pecan and mesquite trees in our yard. I don't think we ever eclipsed 30 bags of leaves raking all three yards. And I got 23 bags from one freaking tree.

I never thought I could dislike a sports team, based on its logo. And I never thought I'd have any opinion about any hockey team, ever, because I don't get hockey and don't really want to. But now, after two falls of raking, I really don't have a lot of good things to say about Toronto's hockey team, the Maple Leafs. And shouldn't they be the Maple Leaves?

So to summarize:




Treebeard and the Ents: GOOD

Toronto Maple Leafs: BAD




I'd rather offend this hockey fan (or even the ones with slightly more testosterone) than Treebeard. Hell I'd rather offend the entire hockey team than one Ent.

The Thrill of Victory

That would be Paul Tergat, as you see below. The close observer will note the agony of defeat, Hendrick Ramaal, in the background. Lying down on the ground. After losing the New York City Marathon. By less than a second.




What an awesome picture.

What an awesome race.



Images from http://www.photorun.net/.


The race was actually last week, but these pictures are so good, I thought it was worth talking about. A friend of mine has Dish TV and gets the New York station that covers the whole race. So we watched the whole thing live. It was such a great race from to start to finish. Who knew watching skinny guys run for over two hours could be so fun?

Jungo Jemba

Last night Emily and went to a party thrown by a friend of mine. He moved into his house six months ago and just bought furniture so he figured he'd finally throw a party. So he had a "DDR, Giant Jenga Party." Once I promised Emily that DDR is "Dance Dance Revolution" (a dancing game for the PlayStation) and NOT Dungeons and Dragons, she agreed to go.

For anyone who thinks they are the ultimate lover of games, this guy can put you to the test. He and a few of his friends are obsessed with Jenga and he knew there had to be something more. So he came up with Giant Jenga. He went to Home Depot and had them cut 30 4X6 10" pieces of wood. The result: Giant Jenga in his garage. We'd typically get the Jenga tower up to seven or eight feet before it would crash. It was awesome.



Image from http://www.hasbro.com/jenga/


Emily got a little stressed out. But you always had ample warning before the tower was about to fall.

Up next on this guys docket: he wants to design Jumbo Operation. I think they already have that though. It's called First Year Med School Student Gets a Cadaver.

Get Out the Vote

Tomorrow is Election Day. I hope everyone gets a chance to vote.

Our friends have a compelling idea. It would be interesting to see how much our political landscape would change if this became a law.

Our underlings in Puerto Rico are also onto something.

Why Buy New When Slightly Used Will Do?

Why watch a DVD when it's on TV?

Emily and I are half-watching Pirates of the Carribean on ABC right now. Complete with commercials and the crappy reception we get for ABC.

We have the DVD, which is commercial and fuzzy-reception free.

But that would somehow ruin the movie-watching experience.

As an aside, Emily has an uncanny knack for recognizing supporting actors and connecting them to previous shows and movies. In this case, she recognized the guy playing British commodore in Pirates of the Carribean as the same guy who played the straight man role in the BBC version of Coupling. Nevermind that he's wearing one of those goofy British military uniforms in this movie.

ALRIGHT ASTROS!!!!

Call me a fair-weather fan, but suddenly I feel emotionally attached to the Astros, even though I haven't cheered for them since I was in college. But I have come to realize they still occupy a special place in my heart. I grew up on JR Richard and Nolan Ryan in the early 8os. I brought my Walkman to high school my freshman year so I could follow their series against the Mets.

But my favorite Astros memories are confined to a minimum wage job I had before my senior of high school. I worked the dinner shift at a salad bar, Souper Salads, that year. I don't know what the official title of my job was, but I was basically the guy who made sure all the salad bar and soup bar items were topped off.

My esteemed associate at Souper Salads was Richard, a long-haired, pot smoking dish washer, and a crazed Astros fan. Our conversations all summer were limited to the following eight talking points:

1. Did I have any pot?
2. Last night's Astros' game.
3. The current Astros' game on the radio.
4. Why I didn't smoke pot.
5. The liklihood that I might have some pot to give to Richard, even though I didn't smoke pot.
6. What Richard was doing when he watched last night's game. This story usually ended with him shouting "Alright Astros!!"
7. The merits of smoking pot.
8. How smoking pot with Richard could make me a better runner.

At this point in time I still liked the Astros, but was more of a Rangers fan since that was who Nolan Ryan was pitching for. But I was satisfied with talking points 1-8 with Richard and didn't feel we needed talking point #9, "Why the Astros are better than the Rangers." So I passed as a die-hard Astros fan.

One night I was re-stocking the salad bar with some vegetable or another. The Astros were far from first place but locked in a close game with some random National League opponent. It was near closing time so there were maybe three tables with customers.

All of a sudden the ten of us in the dining area could hear someone shout "ALRIGHT ASTROS!" This was followed by the classic restaurant sound of procelain plates hitting a tile floor. A lot of them. It was the sound of a tall stack of dirty dishes hitting the floor after being knocked over by an animated dish washer.

Then it was very quiet for a few seconds. Awkwardly so.

The silence and tension was broken from the kitchen when we all heard Richard shout "ALRIGHT ASTROS!!" one more time. When I finally made it back to the kitchen he let me know that the Astros had indeed scored a go-ahead run.

And this is one of the many reasons the Astros have a special place in my heart.

I returned to Souper Salads the following summer and Richard was still there. Well at least in body. He had turned his life over to the Lord. He wore t-shirts that said "Property of Jesus Christ." He no longer bullshitted with me. He had given up the argument that pot would make the "fastest fucking runner ever man."

Instead he tried to convince me to go to church with him, and told me "the Bible predicted AIDS man." And the Astros were no longer on the radio. Instead I was treated to Christian rock every time I went back to the kitchen.

Souper Salads was never the same again. And since that time I have been a Red Sox fan, Cardinals fan, and now have settled down as a die-hard Twins fan. But when I think back to that meaningless $3.35/hr job I had at Souper Salads, before the Lord crushed Richard's soul, I am a born-again Astros fan.

Debbie Downer

A woman was raped at 9 a.m. last Monday in or near the Minnehaha dog park, about three miles from our house. It goes without saying that this pisses me off. I am posting an e-mail from a friend of mine who I go running with. I am including all the information just to alert those of you who use the trails near our house to be extra carfeful.

I just received this information about the incident. Since so many of us run in that area, perhaps we can be on the lookout for this individual.

Facts:
Minneapolis police are investigating the attack of a woman Monday morning, Oct. 17, who was riding her bike in the Minnehaha Falls off-leash dog park. The suspect approached the victim with a gun and sexually assaulted her.

Suspect information:

The suspect is described as a white male, 35-40 years old, six feet tall and 35 to 40 years of age. He has a heavy/muscular build, shaggy dark hair, and no facial hair. His eyes are described as closetogether, and he has heavy jowls and a thick neck. He was wearing a dark blue, zippered, jogging-style jacket, white tennis shoes and dark cloth pants. The suspect may have used a bike that possibly was red and silver.

If you have information about the incident, please contact Sgt. Nancy Dunlap, 612- 673-3782, or the MPD Sex Crimes Office, 612-673-3657.

Some obvious things jump out at me when I think about what happened. First of all is how angry this makes me. Secondly, we should all be extra careful. Even though I probably don't have too much to worry about, this incident has made me stop wearing headphones when I run. We should all do this because it does not only make things more safe for ourselves, but also so wee can hear if someone else is yelling for help.

These are obvious points to everyone, and for some reason my final point isn't. What strikes is that this woman was on her bike. Until this happened I always assumed a woman is not vulnerable if she is on a bike. She can bike away from all danger, right? Not when the asshole has a gun. I would love to hear from some NRA types and know how they can justify conceal and carry over strict gun control laws. Using their logic, the solution to the current problem is for all women to go running and biking with guns. Here's a better idea, with or without gun control laws: it is time for the park police to increase their presence along the parks that abut the Mississippi River.

Yet Another Sports Post

I will add this post to the burgeoning canon of on-line opinions about the nutty ending to last night's White Sox/Angels game. Aside from the fact that I think the Angels got robbed on that one call, I have some other thoughts.

1. The Angels were affected by the umpires, but they lost that game on their own. The umpires put a runner on first with two outs, but that is it. Sure it meant Angels' pitcher Melvim Escobar had to pitch four outs that inning, but it was Escobar who continued to pitch from the stretch with a man on first. And it was Escobar who left that 0-2 pitch over the plate for Crede to hit.

Holding the umpires responisble for a blown call is fair game, but to pin this loss on them is not too far removed from blaming the Cubbies' demise a few years back on that fan who tried to catch a foul ball.

2. I am so glad I am not a fan of either team. I'd be so very pissed if I were an Angels fan and feeling pretty sheepish as White Sox fans.

3. Last year it was David Ortiz. This year it's A.J. Pierzynski. It is hard as a Twins fans to watch these ex-Twinkies play huge roles in their teams' playoff success. A.J. is having a great playoff run, with or without the umps blown call.

Of the remaining four teams, I'd love to see the Astros or Cards win. GO NL!!!

San Diego Steelers

Did anyone watch tonight's (Monday) Steelers vs. Chargers football game. Why were there so many die hard, vocal Steelers fans watching?

It reminds me of when the Spurs sucked back in the 80s and it would seem like there were just as many fair-weather Laker fans cheering as loyal Spurs fans. I wonder if those jackasses who cheered for the Lakers over the hometeam are still doing the same these days.

Who Wants To Be An MVP?

A Rod just hit into a double-play with a runner on, in an elimination game, in the top of the ninth, with his team down by two runs. He has done nothing the entire post-season. I'm not ripping on the guy. He'd get my vote for MVP. It just goes to show how meaningless the MVP award is.

I have never understood why the regular season MVP gets so much attention. The only other MVP candidate, ex-Twin David Ortiz, playss for a team that was eliminated from the playofffs last week.

The Red Sox and Yankees can have their MVPs. I'm pretty sure the White Sox and Angels will gladly pass up that award for a World Series ring.

The Pride of Urbana, IL...

...was born 34 years ago today.

Ever since I was a little kid, I was always rowdy and loud.
Now here I am, thirty-four, still runnin' 'round with the wrong crowd.

-Ray Wylie Hubbard

I spent my 34th birthday cleaning the garage with Emily and mowing the lawn with my dog Pancho watching. Not exactly running with the wrong crowd. But that's okay. I have 364 more days to find a few bad eggs to get rowdy and loud with.

Morons Know Best

If you live in Minnesota and half an interest in sports, it is impossible to ignore the Vikings. For the past five years, people have been calling in to sports talk radio shows complaining about Dante Culpepper. And for five years the talk show hosts would smugly dismiss these complaints, just stopping short of labeling these callers as idiots. The talk show hosts would say these callers had no idea what they were taling about and how Culpepper was a great quarterback, end of story.

I wonder what the radio talks show hosts will be saying Monday. It looks like all the idiot callers were right: Randy Moss is the primary reason for Dante's success. The offensive line has been terrible for the Vikings, but that doesn't excuse Culpepper's performance this year. Until he shows otherwise, it is clear Randy Moss, despite his awful behavior, has been the reason for the Vikings' success over the past five years. I can't believe I'm typing this, but the Vikings miss Moss more than I ever imagined they would.

Happy Thanksgiving

Some friends of ours from college, Jason and Meg, were in town this week. They are touring the country from San Francisco to DC introducing their two-month old son Keenan to the world. They're also going to DC to protest the war. Friday night Emily stayed home from work and she and Jason made Thanksgiving dinner because it is damn good food and there really is no reason why we have to have Thanksgiving dinner only once a year.

The dinner was awesome but as we started eating we had a few complaints about politics, crappy movies, and things like that. So we decided we were having Notsgiving. Clearly Notsgiving is alive and well, as Jason decided decide to leave a Notsgiving comment on my previous post.

Thank you Jason.

Check out Jason and Meg's blog of their trip. It does not suck.

Red Letter Day

I have been waiting for this weekend for a long time. Not because it's the opening weekend for pro football, but because James McMurtry's latest album, Childish Things is finally available.

I've heard one of the album's songs on his website, and he sang it at his show when he passed through the Twin Cities last spring. The song,"We Can't Make It Here," as far as I can tell is the first overtly political song of his. I've heard snippets of the other songs on iTunes and they don't disappoint.

But don't take my word for it. Click here for a review.

And better yet, click here for one of the better features I've read about the man.

For the likes of Steve Earle and the select few elitist Minneapolitans who openly rip the state of Texas just because George Bush gets his mail there, I'd like to give them a copy of this interview and James McMurtry's latest album and quote Ray Wylie Hubbard.

"Screw you. We're from Texas."

Funny Stuff

Due to lack of blogging it is unfortunate that my first (and so far only) post about Katrina is steeped in levity. There is no way I can express the sickness I have been feeling the past week. It has hit me harder than 9/11. Public restrooms are hard for me to use because all I can think of is the Superdome. But here goes...

Via dailykos.com:



Link