Let's Try This Again...

Ok. I'm ready. Decemberists. Columbus. Tonight. Let's do this thing.

Go Blue!

Oh Yes. For The Record...

Remember how Waffle House sells only one kind of waffle, with no fruit and no whipped cream? Remember how their "hot maple syrup" is two travel packs of syrup in a cup of hot water? Remember that Waffle House's website was advertising for a bicycle race called the "Tour de Georgia"? Yeah? Well. With just a little negotiation (and no additional charge) with a very nice waitress named Britney at the International House of Pancakes, I got this:


No, your eyes are not deceived. Those are blueberry pancakes with strawberry topping, and whipped cream. They tasted like the triumph of freedom over tyranny, like everything that is right and good in this crazy world of ours, like manna from Heaven.


Bless you, IHOP. BLIHOP (don't ask). We probably paid a little more at the IHOP, but it wasn't really a significant difference, and unlike Waffle House, they took credit cards. Also of note is the fact that IHOP's website advertises something called the Tour de French Toast. Take that, Tour de Georgia!

A Fine How Do You Do

Sheesh. What kind of person promises to give his reader an insightful travelogue of a quintessential American city, and then instead takes an overlong hiatus from blogging? What's that? That was me? Oh. Never mind.

Given that my trip to New Orleans (No Wall-ins!) is no longer fresh in my memory, and given that I'd like to use this space to muse upon other things (oh just you wait), I'll be cruelly brief in my assessment of the place, for which I can only apologize. All that I can really say about the place is that if you like to go places, you should try New Orleans. It's like a whiskey-breathed ballerina; it's both beautiful and a little dirty at the same time, and I've never been to anyplace quite like it. It felt to me like a distilled version of the United States, packing a wallop and leaving a bitter aftertaste, but when all is said and done you'd like another shot, please. Bad simile? Probably. The place gave me a weird kind of feeling everywhere I went, some strange juxtaposition of conquistadors and carpet baggers, fur trappers, slick salesmen and jazz musicians, riverboat gamblers playing Thomas Jefferson and Lafayette for fools while Clifton Chenier sits back and chuckles to himself, and Tennessee Williams calls everybody names. I'm probably getting it all wrong, if it's possible to do so in a place like that. Part of me likes to think that anything you can say about New Orleans would be true as soon as you said it, but not before. I ate breaded shrimp on a submarine sandwich down there, and it was just about the best sandwich I've ever eaten. Whatever I leave out of my willy-nilly description of the place, that sandwich seems like an important enough detail to leave in.

Visiting my family was wonderful, and it's really what made a three day trip worthwhile. Lindsey and I stood as godparents for my brother's son, Pascal, which was a wonderful experience and a great honor. I got to spend some time talking and hanging out with my two brothers and my sister-in-law, which even with the miracles of modern communication is too rare an occurrence. My nephews are both delightful. The youngest (Pascal) amused himself for the most part by sleeping and eating, but he was decent enough to give me a good looking-over before giving his honest assessment of me (he cried). The oldest (Gui) was eager to include Linds, Reen, and me in whatever he was doing, which for the most part consisted of keeping the streets of New Orleans safe from poisonous caterpillars. He's a keeper.

That's just about all I have time to write, though I wish I'd gotten to it while it was still fresh in my mind. I'll leave you with some pictures:
A house with no visible front door. Picturesque, no?
Magazine Street, from the porch of the old bus barn, which is now a Whole Foods Market.
Another caterpillar prepares to meet its fate. He would knock them off of trees and houses with a stick (they're poisonous to touch), and then step on them.
I'm not sure which of us took this picture, but I like it. It's that shot in National Geographic with the caption: "Each year, ten thousand people play pool in New Orleans, which has helped the tourism industry, but there's a darker side to the story as well." It will probably then talk about someone who owns a billiards bar that nobody comes to anymore. Neil takes aim in pool. I think he won the game.


More pool.

Katie's first Irish Car Bomb. Lindsey is very excited.

Liam, in his signature pose.

Neil, in his.

Liam et fils, regardant un grenuille. French = artistic title.

Then we spotted Hilary Clinton. Ooooh! Topical. Current. Win.

Gui, in what he called his "castle tree" (for reasons which should be fairly obvious).

The Champagne of Beers. I'd forgotten how much champagne tastes just like dirty water.

Park and house exterior, daytime.

Neil and Reens spotting their first alligator, in a totally not-posed-for picture.

Gui and Maureen

A sidewalk, or something like one. Note the absence of pavement.

Pascal's patented uneasy look. He loved Lindsey.

Reen is either standing on a step, or is as tall as Neil and I. You decide.

Maureen, Gui, Lindsey, and Neil. I thought this was a nice group shot.

My brother Neil, enjoying a cup of coffee.

Guillame hamming it up (as usual). Very cute.

That's his prized caterpillar killing stick, perilously close to my face.

He had that mischievous glint in his eye pretty much the whole time.

This is the doorway of Neil's "shotgun" apartment. The composition of this shot looked way better to me in my mind's eye.

Just a house that I thought looked neat.

Pascal. Cute, ain't he?

In Which Our Hero Goes On A Road Trip

Hello friends! Over this past weekend I took a long-awaited road trip from southeast Michigan to New Orleans, Louisiana, with my sister and my fiancée (for the record, they are two different people). It was a bit of a marathon trip, leaving Friday night at about 23:30, and arriving back at 7:30 on Tuesday morning, a round trip of just over 2,000 miles. It was a lot of fun, and I hope to post about my impressions of the City of New Orleans itself soon (as that is apparently what one does with a blog), but first I'm going to break with convention and let you all in on the official (and requisite) inside joke of the road trip. As is often the case with road trips, we had already stumbled upon various inside jokes which had some potential to be the Official Road Trip Inside Joke, but we just weren't sure.

Certainly,Waffle House is almost funny enough to be The Joke in and of itself, but it's so ubiquitous that it felt too old hat. Speaking of hats, the official Waffle House site is selling hats to benefit something called the Tour de Georgia. They also have a testimonials page. For Waffle House. We stopped for an early morning breakfast at a Waffle House, and it was just as ghetto as I remember it being. It turns out that they only serve one variety of waffle, and they sell exactly zero fruit toppings for said waffle. Call me crazy, but I expected a little better. Not only is the word "waffle" in their name, it's the first word in their name. Just look at that sign:If you only read one of those words, it's probably going to be "waffle." If Burger King sold only plain hamburgers, with pickles and ketchup and no cheese, I don't think they'd be doing so hot. By the way, if you ever happen to go to a Waffle House (and come on, it's gonna happen), ask to have your maple syrup heated up. We did. Much to our surprise, they didn't take the little syrup pitcher thing off of the table, but instead walked away, only to return a few seconds later with two cups. Each cup was full of warm water, with two travel packets of maple syrup floating in it. That, my friends, is Klassy with a capital K. Perhaps even funnier/scarier than Waffle House's apparent success is the existence of imitators (click for to make bigger):Waffle House, meet Omelet Shoppe. Omelet Shoppe, Waffle House.

But what am I talking about here? I was going to tell you about the Official Inside Joke of the trip. It was only a short while after passing the Omelet Shoppe that we pulled into the town of Bessemer, Alabama, looking to make a short stop for supplies, and there it was. We knew as soon as we saw it, despite having not slept the night before, that we were witnessing something special. It was Destiny that had led us to that exit, to that small town whose most distinctive features were a large iron pipe foundry, and someplace called Red's "Ok" Barbershop (we at the P.R.D.C. can neither encourage nor discourage your patronage of said establishment).
Then, it happened. My memory of that moment is both vivid and unclear. It was a sunny day. April 19th, 2008. My sister was driving. Lindsey was asleep in the back seat and I was in the passenger seat, camera in hand, aimlessly photographing the passing scenery. We were stopped at a red light, wondering aloud why a town of this size wouldn't have a Wal Mart. I turned to look out my side window and there it was, gleaming in the noontide sun. I was transfixed. I felt a rush of pure euphoria, as if the answer to every question I'd ever asked as I stared into a starlit sky were immediately answered, and that every answer led to a thousand more questions. I don't know what happened next. Before I knew it, the traffic light had changed, and we had moved on. I found myself once again on a wide thoroughfare in Bessemer, Alabama. Everything seemed the same as it had been a moment before, but somehow I knew that it wasn't, and that it never again would be. I looked down at the camera in my still-shaking hands. Somehow, without my being aware of it, I had taken a picture, a picture that contained within its four corners a glimpse into the infinite:
EVER WHATCHA NEED! EVER FREAKING WHATCHA NEED! A phrase so beautiful that language itself had to be destroyed for its creation to take place. I have spent hours since that fateful moment trying to figure out how to use that phrase in an actual sentence or conversation. It cannot be done. Ever Whatcha Need defies context. I'm going to have a t-shirt made of that, and I'll wear it everywhere, spreading hope and joy and confusion wherever I go. I'm going to make a poster board containing only that phrase, and I'll hold it up at sporting events. If they ever invent a specifically Catholic sport, I can spell it out as Ever WhaTcha Need, and they'll show it on Catholic cable television. I'm going to name my firstborn child Lambert "Ever Whatcha Need" Cous (Lambert's a good name, right?).

Ok, whew. That's all for now. Stay tuned for my upcoming post on the City of New Orleans, as well as an exciting comparison of Waffle House and the International House of Pancakes.

Slight of Hand and Twist of Fate

Gweetings, music wuvahs! Huhuhuhuhuhuhu. How's November been to you? Good? Splendid. I don't suppose that you've missed much (or even missed me) if you haven't seen me lately, but I've been getting by alright. I was excited, even though I had sworn never to return, to journey to that city I'd rather not mention if I mayn't, to see indie-rock weirdos The Decemberists in concert, but something, perhaps naught but the unsavory aura of that unholy place, deterred said troubadours from their stated purpose, and in fact led them to discontinue the remainder of their performance tour wholesale. Would that a fissure would open in the earth to blot from its gentle face such a ghastly blemish as that city, so rudely named for one of our Great Nation's worthy progenitors. But enough of such things.

What have you been at?
Composing Haikus perhaps?
I would like to know

I visited the 'dale last weekend, crashed on a friend's futon and went to a rock concert. All of these were fun except the futon, which was uncomfortable but is still very much appreciated. I was shocked by how old I felt, I don't remember college kids being so young. I was always amazed in college at how easy it was to survive and feel normal in an environment where you're surrounded only by your peers, sleeping irregularly and living on terrible food. I'm not sure whether it's more surprising that I used to live like that, or that, for the most part, I no longer do (I still can't cook).

I finished Hawthorne's The House of The Seven Gables a week or two ago, and am most of the way through The Blithedale Romance. Neither is as good as The Scarlet Letter in my estimation, but both have their merits and are quite enjoyable to read. I'm also going through Augustine's Confessions again. Despite my usual aversion to re-reading books (I will admit that this is mostly irrational), I've gone through this one probably three times before, and it's still quite good. I would love to check out a different translation at some point, though this one isn't at all bad ( that is as far as I can tell, I certainly can't read Latin).

That was a brief summary of my thoughts, and as you might have predicted, in no particular order. I shall hopefully post again before Thanksgiving Day, though I refuse to make any promise of this. Do stay warm, it's beginning (halfway through the month) to feel somewhat like November out there.

And if only to meet my quota... Post Number Ninety-Two!

Greetings once again. For those of you just now tuning in, I am D.Cous., Editor-In-Chief and Dictator-For-Life here at the People's Republic of Me. Aw, who am I kidding? You aren't just tuning in, are you? Nope, of course you're not. Why would you be? Silly me. Well then! What shall we talk about? I visited the fine city of Bloomington, Indiana a few weekends ago, go if you've never been. Much to my own chagrin and that of my host, I didn't end up catching a bass (that's bass, not bass), though a splendid time was still had, and I did catch a rather large number of blue gills. I saw John Mellencamp's mansion, that has to count for something. Hmm... on second thought, no. No, it doesn't. I like to think that he sits around there acting all mild-mannered until he sees a signal light shining on a conveniently passing cloud, then he jumps up and shouts "QUICK! TO THE COUGAR-CAVE!" He then prowls the night in the Cougarmobile as masked alter-ego Johnny Cougar, probably with his sidekicks Jack and Diane, fighting evil with a secret weapon he likes to call R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A., and taunting evil-doers with lines like "Hey, Decepti-scum! This is our country! Prepare to hurt so good!" Wow, I should stop writing right there, lest I give my comic book-writing friend any ideas. This stuff's just too good to give away for free. Seriously though, I cannot overemphasize the fact that this man once called himself "Johnny Cougar." Heh heh, Cougar. Tangents aside, I had a great time in Bloomington. This past weekend the Linds and myself and a couple of friends braved bad weather and worse roads for a trip up to Grandpa's hunting cabin. Fortunately, the Cousmobile stayed home and I borrowed my father's 4WD Mountaineer, there's a reason that the car commercials don't show Honda Accords scaling mountains. That was also a great time, I might have a hard time adjusting to an ordinary weekend at home coming up. Well, that's all for now. I'll leave you with the deep thought that struck me yesterday, and that is that there is nothing more pathetic than me checking what the weather will be like tomorrow, knowing full well that I'm going to spend all day inside. Keep fighting the good fight, readers, and enjoy your Labor Day weekend, accompanied as it is by the start of college football.

Pardon me a rant

Ok, so I've decided to take the plunge (relax-it's not a very big plunge) and buy health insurance. Since going off of my parents' health insurance I've reasoned that I've never been seriously ill, and if the majority of the insured stood to collect on their health plans, very few people could afford them. Anyways, I listen to NPR a fair amount, although not as much now that my morning commute is approximately 60 seconds from doorstep to office, and if I had to pick their cross-program theme for the year thus far, it would be this: Did you know that some people in this country can't afford health insurance? Of course, this is something they've been telling me for years, but it seems to me that the frequency of on-air reminders has skyrocketed in the past month or so, largely due to an increase in the discussion of such things on Capitol Hill. Yes, as we've all been made aware, all persons are endowed by our creator with the inalienable right to Life, Liberty, and Health Care. You get the picture. Anyways, I was thinking of all this the other day while looking at the stub of my recent paycheck and the price list for insurance which I could get through my employer. The pertinent part of the price list read something like this:

Single employee, health & dental coverage: X dollars

Next, my attention was drawn to the pay stub, the pertinent (for this post) section of which read:

F.I.C.A. : 2.64 times X dollars

Funny. So, you're saying that I, far from the top of the income distribution, could far more easily
afford health insurance (plus a nice steak dinner about once a week) IF I WASN'T ALREADY PAYING FOR SOMEONE ELSE'S HEALTH INSURANCE! Thanks for nothing, Uncle Sam. Burn in hell.

I assume that you already know, but F.I.C.A. stands for "Federal Insurance Contribution Act," which represents one of the most twistedly appropriate uses of the word "contribution" I can think of, in that the law compels you to contribute to something that you have little or no chance of benefiting from, at least if you're my age. Then again, if someone mugs you on the street in order to pay for others' health insurance and retirement plans, I'd guess that you wouldn't call this a "contribution" save perhaps in jest. Speaking of jest, I ran accross this little tidbit in the FAQ section of socialsecurity.gov, under the heading "Why can't I invest my Social Security taxes into an IRA plan?" Good question. The site's authors, probably shaking uncontrollably from laughter, explain that (and I quote) "maybe your investments wouldn't work out." Oh really? My investments might not work out. This is true, they very well might not, but ARE YOU FREAKIN' KIDDING ME? I have a better chance of being hit by a meteorite than on getting one red cent back from so-called Social Security when I reach my golden years, as the system now stands. I have a higher probability of a positive return on my investment if every month until I retire I buy a jar to save my own phlegm in, banking on the value of either jars or phlegm or both going up over the next fifty years.

Phew, ok. I'm done. I'm sorry.

In other news, I had a splendid weekend out in GR visiting the GF and contending with the weather, although at one point I got stranded far from base and had to cut open my tauntaun and climb inside its foul-smelling innards to warm myself. Yes, the blizzard conditions were so bad that Storm Team 13 (or whatever it's called) had to send out one of their junior meteorologists into the cold just to show us all on the teevee (as Lindsey says it) just how bad it is. "Yes Rich, as you can see I'm up to my waist in snow and my face is a ghostly shade of blue. Dear Lord, it's so cold. I sure would like to have your cushy job in the nice warm TV studio pointing at doplar weather maps, instead of standing outside in the freezing cold, waist-deep in snow, going through a very long list of school closings and other information that could easily have been communicated from the warmth of a nearby building, or at least from the back of the Storm Team van. I hate you so much. Back to you, Rich." "Thanks, Nancy. I hope you freeze and die out there. We'll keep you abreast of further developments as they occur, folks."

Anyways, the weekend was an adventure even for those of us who aren't junior meteorologists, and Lindsey was a wonderful hostess as always, as were her friends (and my brother GEC), whose couch I crashed on. The weekend also forced me to realize that I really have been putting off the purchase of new tires for too long, so I'll have to make it down to Discount Tire in the next day or so. That's all the randomness for now, more to come when the time presents itself.

Oh yes, and one more thing: I wasn't kidding in my previous post about the random internet competition. I can't encourage you enough to participate, regardless of what you think of your own artistic abilities. I'm pretty sure I never mentioned strict critera for the judging, and you get a pretty good piece of real estate when I rule the world in exchange for a few minutes of doodling. What could be better?

Once Upon A Friday Night Road Trip

Ok, here's the disclaimer for this post: I'm stupid. I hear voices and do what they tell me to do, or something like that. Maybe I was fed paint chips as a kid. That's my excuse for why, when housemates Matt and Dean invited me to make a one-night road trip to Columbus and back to see our mutual friend Ann in a play, I accepted. It would only take away one night of studying, I reasoned, and I've been feeling pretty eager to hit the road for somewhere (or nowhere) for a while now. Of course, the amount of time it would take was hardly the worst drawback to the trip: as mentioned above, the play was in Columbus, Ohio. Worse yet, the very actress we were going to see is a Hillsdale graduate, studying for her masters (in theatre) at that place that should never be named. You know, the big college in Columbus. In her defense, she hates it just as much as we do. So, it was not without a great sense of foreboding that three Hillsdale students who happen to be devoted Michigan fans began our long journey south, towards Mordor. It was good to be on a road trip, and the shortness of our time reminded me somewhat of the times (yes, plural) when the guys and I headed to Ottowa, Ontario and back in two days. Fortunately, this was significantly closer, but still pretty crazy to drive there and back in one night. What else could we do? Stay in Columbus? Why it's preposterous to even think of, I'm sure you'll agree. After a few hours of riding in the car, listening to music, and cursing Ohio every few minutes, we passed the first road sign, upon which were written those fateful words: "Now entering Columbus." I say the first, becaus we promply passed another sign that said "Now entering bladiblahblah (not Columbus)," and then in equally short order another sign which said "Now entering Columbus." Odd, we thought, but not terribly odd--At least not until the third and fourth times we found ourselves entering Columbus, and on a relatively straight section of freeway. By the fifth time, it was just ridiculous. Are we in Columbus, or not? Apparently the sign company offered the municipality of Columbus a great deal on those signs, and they decided to put them everywhere. Then we saw another sign, the horror of which made us forget that there was ever a man or a place or anything else that might have been named Columbus: "O--- S---- University, next exit." We got out to take a quick picture (you see Matt in front, then Dean, I'm taking the picture), passed another sign that informed us of our entrance to Columbus, and headed on in.We found the theatre without too much trouble, cursing our miserable fate and the red and white street signs marking the streets with unspeakably hideous names, like "woody hayes boulevard" and "buckeye drive," and parked directly in the shadow of the football stadium. The ring was getting to be unbearably heavy, and Matt offered to carry it for just a little while, but I refused. It was my burden to bear, and mine alone.
The play was an obscure (ok, I've never heard of it. It could be quite famous for all I know) 19th century Russian comedy (translated, thank heavens) by Nikolai Gogol, called "The Government Inspector," and the plot revolved around a paranoid small-town mayor and his cabinet attempting to appease (and bribe) a man who they beleive to be an undercover inspector from the capital. I know, it sounds dated, but it was quite well executed, and infused with some brilliant comedic timing, and we all laughed hard enough to forget our environs for two and a half hours, less a fifteen-minute intermission. After the play, we met Ann (who was wonderful as Marya, the mayor's daughter) outside of her dressing room, went out for a congratulatory bite and a pint at a nearby pub (we left and re-entered Columbus twice in the half-mile or less drive), which considering the location was a decent place, stopped at Ann's place, and then hit the road. We considered urinating on the stadium before leaving, but there were security guards present, so we left, entered, left, entered, left, entered, and finally left Columbus, and headed for home, scanning the radio and singing along with oldies to keep ourselves awake. It was too early (or rather, not early enough) in the morning to even mention when we got back, so I hit the sack until noon, and now must spend the rest of my weekend being more responsible. I hope that both of you are well, check back again soonish, and I'll try to have another post up for you.