Pooh Style Sports

Imagine a world where all sports were Pooh Style. If you don't know what Pooh Style is, you can check out Mike's rant about it or just imagine wearing a shirt but no shorts/underwear. So, imagine Pooh Style sports. Awesome, right? My #1 Pick for greatest Pooh Style sport is Tennis. Imagine if the shirt just covered the privies. You throw up the ball for the serve and voila... You lunge for a ball, voila! Imagine the disgusting possibilities...

What are your picks for coolest Pooh Style Sports?

Cat Humor

I know that Cat Humor pervades the internet--most of which is just plain weird. However, this animated cartoon, made my laugh out loud, and laughing out loud is good---

Gen Text (of which I'm not)

The conversation at Matt's strayed to why I don't use the text feature on my phone and how antiquated I am when it comes to technology. Heck, I just learned about blogs last year and RSS feeds yesterday. I realized tonight that the reason I don't have an affinity to texting is two fold; 1) I car pool with my wife to almost everything (work, runs, groceries,) meaning I don't have to text "Where U at?"--because I know she's right next to me and 2) My Mom and Dad taught me that grammar is important: I can't read a sentence with a misspelled word or improperly used verb or noun without cringing. How am I supposed to read a whole conversation with both problems? I think I'll just wander over to Grammar Girl and see if she wants to chat...

Another Equinox, Another Great Night

Looking at the calender, one might think that the Equinox was on the 23rd of September this year. If so, we observed the Fall Equinox early this year--tonight. We convened at Matt's once again for our quarterly celebration of the passing of the seasons. This time there was a total of 9 people, up from previous meetings. I have to tell you, this is one of my favorite nights of the year. Seriously, how can you beat Jucy Lucys and a bunch of friends (including the founder and inventor of jucylucyrestuarants.com)? Conversation was great, food was great and the weather outside was frightful. Did I mention that I had a great night?

Indestructible Wine

Another month, another post, another wine. And this one isn't a whine about bad wine--it is actually a celebration of a pretty darn good one, especially considering the price. After my disastrous encounter with Trove wines, I stopped in and purchased a different box-- a Black Box. I was hesitant, of course, but the 2 employees of the Byerly's Liquor Eagan store both swore by Black Box, with one even claiming the Cab was as good as any of the $20 bottles of Aussie wine in the store. The beautiful part? A box of wine holds the equivalent of 4 bottles of wine for the nifty price of $23 (likely cheaper at other liquor stores). So, I picked up a box of Black Box Monterray County Chardonnay, brought it home and threw it in the fridge...

The verdict? Very nice, particularly for a summer porch sipper. This wine has quite a bit of citrus nose to it, some melon undertones, and a nice silky texture. No malalactic fermentation has occurred, leaving out the buttery flavor you sometimes get in a chardonnay. There was a little bit of oak, but definitely nothing like Kendall Jackson. If you are a Sauv Blanc drinker who has shied away from America's best white grape (and there is not doubt that Chardonnay is California's best white grape), this is the box Chardonnay for you.

It's about time....and wine
I've been a little tardy in the posting. It seems that spring sprung, summer came and I forgot to look at my computer away from work. I believe there are worse things in the world, but I do feel ashamed. Those of you who know me, know that I like wine. Specifically good wine. However, I have come to realize that there is a time and place for a $25+ bottle of wine and it isn't to drink one glass with dinner midweek. Because of that, and because the marketing is so good, I decided to try a box wine the other night. Specifically the Trove Chardonnay. Cool box, $18 for 3 liters (or four bottles worth), and a cute name (get it treasure trove???). They even claim to be "premium wine in a box" on their website. I have one word for that--NOT. Maybe I have more words. Never (and I mean never) have I had a worse wine that this. I'm not sure what monkey poop tastes like, but it likely tastes better than the Trove Chardonnay. The color was golden, the nose was putrid, and the taste was unfathomable--as in how the heck do they ever get anybody to try this stuff twice??? My only hope (for the vineyard, that is), is that this wine was cooked, causing me so much derision and (dare I say) pain... I went to their website and filled out a product complaint form. I'll be interested to see what their response is. I'll be sure to follow up with this information.

However, I've decided to stick my chin out and go again at the boxed wine trials. I'll follow up in the next few days on my 2nd box o' wine.

UPDATE---Trove Wines Customer Service responded promptly and are sending me a refund for the full amount of the wine. So, crappy wine, stellar customer service.

3000 meter 1996 World Record

Even if you are not a fan of people running in circles, this is a race to watch. 3000 meters (7.5 laps), with all laps sub 60. He takes the world record by 4.5 seconds. Unbelievable...

Lebanon Hills Spring Inventory

Amazingly, I ran today. More specifically, due to the crappy weather, I ran through Lebanon Hills to avoid the wind. On the run, I took a spring inventory of the park. What I saw;

1) One tent in a non-tenting area with approximately 24 cans of beer strewn about. The nice park officer I later saw mumbled something about "damn spring break".
2) Four Wood Ducks. This is a relatively new thing for me at Lebanon Hills, and I am glad to see them. Yesterday, I saw four in different part of the park. That makes 8, which is 8 more than I've ever seen at Lebanon.
3) Roughly 20 Coots--or some other similar bird.
4) 6 pairs (at least) of mated Mallards
5) 2 Beavers (one swimming and one slapping)
6) One Red Bellied Woodpecker (I think, he/she was moving fast)
7) Quite a few deer tracks, but no deer.
8) A very large number of small birds, largely chickadees, nuthatches, finches, and other small woodland birds. They kept me company on the run.
9) The furry remains of one very dead rabbit. All that was left was the tail and what looked to be a wishbone. The tail must not be very tasty.
10) Most impressively, 2 Trumpeter Swans. This is decidedly a first for me. Never before have a I seen these beauties and definitely never at Lebanon Hills. Freakin' Awesome!

So, in roughly 12 miles of running, I saw a lot of wildlife. I feel very lucky to live within 5 minutes of such a great park.

Minnehaha Blogarooni

My friend Nathan, finally joined the Blogsphere, with his blog Minnehahablog. He waxes poetically about Minnehaha Falls, mentioned by Longfellow in his famous poem, "The Song of Hiawatha". While Nathan is no Longfellow, he does write well and is one smart and insightful gent. Enjoy his blog.

Wicked Dance Finales
It is raining here again in Minneapolis, so what better thing is there to do than sit around and watch movies? I've had Napoleon Dynamite on my Free-vo for quite some time, so I finally got around to watching it for the second time (first time was via Netflix, not TV). In the meantime, I've forgotten most of the movie. I really loved it this time around, especially the dance finale. I'm not sure if this was the beginning of a trend, but Little Miss Sunshine seems to have followed the same formula-- Oddly depressing movie followed by a wicked dance finale. Are there other movies that have wicked dance finales? Can I talk my friend Mike into compiling such a list?

1) Napoleon Dynamite
2) Little Miss Sunshine

Spring has Sprung (Again!)

Amazingly, I saw another sign of spring today. Okay, not so amazingly, considering the weather (70F and sunny). In a previous post, I stated that the first sign of spring was all of the old jocks out trying to lose their middle aged swell. I declare that only a weak of sign of spring and not the official sign of spring. For me, the official sign of spring is nearly always found during a run through Lebanon Hills. The sign? Frogs! We're talking a chorus of frogs. Specifically a chorus of "Chorus Frogs" (pictured at right). It is always a encouraging to hear their call throughout the forest and know that they have officially put their stamp on spring. They are not out in full force in the thick of the woods yet, but I'm guessing that my mid-week, the whole forest will erupt in a chorus of clicking sounds. I can't wait to hear the symphony.

Matt's Equinox Dinner

My first blog that I ever wrote came on the heels of our quarterly "meeting" at Matt's Bar. That was 2 seasons ago, as we just had our Spring Equinox dinner yesterday evening. This has truly turned into one of my favorite events of the year--which is great, considering it happens 4x per year. I'm not sure if there are many things better in the world than a Jucy Lucy, Fries, Summit on Tap, and a group of friends to share it with.

Why the time between blogs?

I stopped blogging last month after Anne and I went to Mike and Em's house. We were sitting around drinking a few brewski's before heading out for dinner, and we stumbled on conversation something fierce. Em was saying "So I was heading to the bus...err, you read it about that in my blog." Next, I was saying, "Did you see the Prince 1/2 time show? Err, you read about my thoughts about this on my blog." Based on this, I knew it was time to slow up my blogging. Hence the month off.

I learned a lesson--don't blog everything. Save some cool stuff for conversations. Conversation is waasy cooler than blogging, although blogging is waaay cool too.

First Day of Spring?

Yesterday, at least to me, was the first day of Spring. Why? All of the former high school athletes who now weigh 50 lbs more than they did when they were 18 years of age were out for a run. What I find funny about this is that they still wear the same workout clothes they did in High School. We're talking cotton shorts, a (now) way too small T-Shirt stretched across their guts and cross trainers (or maybe even a pair of high tops). It is a nice look that I'm sure many of you have witnessed.

The question is--what is the sign of Spring for you? And if you cop out and say a Robin, it is time to rethink your thinking...

Prince's Performance

I was seriously hoping to see a wardrobe malfunction tonight. Alas, I leftthe half time performance disappointed. If someone as Masculine (androgynous perhaps?) as Prince had shown some nipple, would there have been an outrage? If he had taken the time to put a star shaped pasty on his nipple, what would we have talked about at the water cooler?

Instead, we had a staid, but good, performance and a subtle wish (Purple Reign (sic)) for the Vikings to win a Super Bowl... He did however, get quite phallic with his guitar--bravo Prince, for being imaginative, bravo. If Janet had gotten that phallic, what would the FCC have done? Shut down the station? No worries about FCC fines for CBS, I guess.

State Fair Catch-Up

I've been meaning to post this picture since I had Anne take it while driving home (from the State Fair, I believe). How cool is this vehicle? I know that it isn't as cool as the wiener-mobile, but it is pretty darn cool... And wouldn't driving this vehicle around be a great job? On the other hand, I wasn't sure how to spell wiener, so I consulted Ed's favorite dictionary website, the urban dictionary for consultation. Here is what it said...

And here is another picture that we took at the State Fair, specifically for our friend Pancho (or is it Poncho?). Pancho's (Poncho's) owner Mike, Em, Anne, and myself actually had a discussion on how Pancho (Poncho) should be spelling his name. I guess the answer was in front of us all the time. Silly dog, not knowing how to spell his name and everything.

Houston, WTHDABLT?


For those of you not familiar with my use of Acronyms, WTHDABLT stands for Why The Heck Does Anybody Live There. It is amazing when you go to a town several times per year and no matter how hard you try, you have a tough time finding any redeeming qualities. The town literally sucks. Okay, make that figuratively. None the less, it really sucks. Reasons to hate Houston;

1. W's Family Lives there
   
2. Kenneth Lay's Family Lives there
   
3. No cohesive zoning strategies (there is a rather large adult bookstore right next to the Galleria)
4. No good radio stations (unless you like Latino, Hip Hop, or Country)
5. Bums at every freeway exit (even in the best part of town)
   
6. No sidewalks throughout most of the town (try running in Houston)
7. The one "good" park has only 2.9 miles of running trails. This is considered awesome in Houston.
   
8. Oh yeah, they only have one "good" park
9. More big cars per square foot than you can shake a stick at
10. Sprawly Sprawly Sprawl Sprawl. Houston is 600 square miles in size. Greater Houston is 10062 square miles in size. And all of it is ugly.
    

Extra, Extra, Read all about her...

My wife has bravely ventured into the blogging world. She named her blog tvsnacks and I've now added her to my "blogs I read" section. You go girl!

Poppies will make him sleepy....

Thank you Slate for bringing us this picture and the accompanying article. Nothing like seeing the military tromping through fields of flowers dreaming of visiting an opium den somewhere other than Afghanistan. Not only that, they argue for legalizing opium. That means that the dude in the picture could visit an opium den in his home town instead of getting drunk on Lone Star (or whatever his poison is)...

Weather Underground

One of my favorite websites is Wunderground.com . It is undoubtedly the best weather site on the web that I've found (Noaa.gov is good too). What I'm here to tell you is that for free, you can get the ad-free version of the website, compliments of yours truly. Just click on the $10 for no-ads, and enter in the code N4Z4N when you get to the pay page. It adds tons of Paul Douglas like capabilities (e.g. zooming on the radar map), and there are no ads. This is some good stuff.

On the other hand, the other Weather Underground were not so cool. Well, cool in a 60's terrorist Black Panther kind of cool, but not really.

Vita.MN

I ran across the website (linked on the side) Vita.MN --which looks to be a subsidiary of the Strib. I'm pretty impressed. Rants about overrated restaurants, the stiffest drinks in the city, and heck, a mention about a friend of a friend, Zander Cannon (mind you it was in an article about a nerd map of the cities)

What a website! (I'll even forgive the adds)

Tanner Dog

Last summer, we lost one of our two dogs. It was one of the most devastating days of my life having to say good bye to the best companion you could ever imagine. Tonight Anne and I were out jogging and came across another runner who was running with her dog. It reminded me of running with Tanner. I became nostaglic and ended up looking for pictures of him. I pulled a few of the best...

Sorry for my little round of nostalgia--but I miss my Dog.

Mexico, Oh Mexico

Last month, I took one of the best trips of my life. I've traveled quite a bit, so saying this really means it. It honestly was one of the best trips of my life. We stayed at a resort called Hotelito Desconocido and lived the good life. No phones, no TVs, and hardly any electricity for that matter. Just Beach, Sun and Amazing Food.

My favorite thing to do the entire trip was to release baby turtles at sunset. The resort lies on a turtle sanctuary and has a staff biologist who cultivates eggs shortly after they've been laid and hatches them in holding pen. Then, once they've hatched, he digs them up, puts them in a big bucket and lets the guests of the hotel release them into the sea. 3 out of 4 nights, we released more than 150 turtles. Simply Amazing! So, here I am, lining the turtles up to go into the sea and watching the turtles begin their slow and scary walk into the big surf (and it was some big big surf on this beach). Next, a wave came in and wave caught me by surprise--it obviously caught the little fellas by surprise too, as they washed back up on to the beach some 20 yards down and 3 yards up the beach as compared to where they started. We made sure they all made it into the sea, then went about our business of drinking and eating. The little fellas (and they were little), had a full night ahead of them, swimming into the sea and trying not to become dinner for some big fish. Sadly, we were told that only 1 in 1000 of these guys would make it back to the beach. Thanks,Anne for capturing this awesome sequence. You are a better action photographer than I could ever hope to be.


If you ever get a chance, visit this place and experience what it is like to vacation. I'll most certainly be back.

Happy New Year!

I recently heard somebody call January 1st "National Hangover Day". I like it and think that we should formalize it somehow--I'll be writing my Senator tomorrow. It certainly is a good day to sit on the couch, particularly if you like Parades and College Football. Even if you don't like either of these, they both are great as background noise as you sit and work that hangover off.

Speaking of hangovers--What's your cure? 1 glass of water per drink is the standard way to not get the hangover, but what do you do to get rid of one? Anne prefers Coca Cola Classic. I always know how she feels if she is drinking one. Me? I've tried pretty much everything without success--the only thing that works is sleep & time. I'm looking for help here people. Not for today, since I finally slept enough that my hangover is gone. But next time...