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.

Quote of the Week (Another Short Post):

"[It] finds its rightful home in the subtlety of a fine and rich analysis, one which is not afraid to pronounce - and sometimes to withhold - judgment where mere affirmation might be found wanting. It allows the writer to link ideas without breaking a train of thought; by contrast, over-simplified communication and bald, efficient discourse whose simplistic style is the best guarantee of being widely understood is naturally wary of [it]."

"It," of course, is the point-virgule, or semicolon. My PG-13 rated (for language; the author is British) source comes with a hat tip to the ever-excellent Marginal Revolution.

Not everyone is so fond of semicolons, though. From the same source, Kurt Vonnegut had this to say about them:

"They are transvestite hermaphrodites, standing for absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college."

For my part, you may have noticed that I very seldom use them, though I often use a comma where a semicolon ought to be.

Where, now?

When Jessop was a member of the sect, it was centered in Colorado City, Ariz., on the Utah border.

Come on, that's just plain confusing.

Source.

How Can I Tell It's 2008?

I can tell because I just saw a television commercial for green-friendly chips. That's right, chips that are good for the environment. You can now be smug about the chips you eat, people. It is a new era in which we live.

Apparently, today is Opposite Day.

Paradoxically, when you really think about it, it also sort of isn't Opposite Day. Let us ponder this.

I don't know if I should, like, tell you this, man, but I just had a good experience at the mall. To use the parlance of our times: I know, right? As you are no doubt aware, oh loyal friend that you are, I hate shopping with a passion, and hate malls even more. At this point, I worry for the security of the universe as we know it. Here's how it all went down:

For starters, I was there for work. We need a raffle prize for a business expo thing this week, at which we have a booth. Hence my presence at the mall, on purpose, on a weekday morning. My first clue that something was amiss came almost immediately upon my entering the mall, when my ears were assaulted by the incessant, bubble-gum teenage pop of... Mozart. That's right, this guy. I thought about turning back, then and there. Something was not right. On the other hand, I reasoned to myself, what is not right here is that something is right, in a place where it should be very wrong. Taking heart in that revelation, I swiftly made my way past the jewelry store and the advertisements for whatever's new on the Style Network, to the kiosk that has a map of the mall on it. Blast. My objective is practically on the other side of the mall. How was I supposed to know where to park? I moved at as rapid a pace as was unlikely to be called "running," noting along the way that Abercrombie & Fitch still blast techno and saturate the air in the vicinity of their store with their distinctive musk. I can't abide those clothing retailers. Disgusting creatures! I passed them quickly enough, and once the repetitive dance beat had faded to background noise noticed that ol' Wolfgang was still coming through the main PA. Thank God. Finally, I reached my objective: the Apple Store.

As an aside, I am in no way an Apple fanboy, though I have known some scary ones in my day. I respect Apple for noticing that people who want an aesthetically pleasing computer (women, and some men) were an under-served portion of the market. I sort of like Steve Jobs as a persona. I don't think I'd like him as a person, but he's a smart dude, and I like how he gets behind his product. The way I see it, their products have two main selling points:

1. I'm not sure why, but people who buy their stuff seem to think it gives them license to be smug about it, as if their computer/mp3 player/whatever isn't made from wires and plastic like those other ones, but is somehow carved from a single gem found only on the moon, and harvested by dwarfs riding Pegasus-Unicorn hybrids. This is the main thrust of Apple's ad campaign, so I at least know where they get this idea.

2. They're soooo cute! I personally think that iPods look like they're supposed to be taken as a suppository, but my authority on the relative cuteness of things (and no, she refuses to comment on my own appearance) informs me that to women, an iPod looks how a big hug from a Care Bear would feel. I'm not kidding.

Anyhoo, to return to my story, I found myself in the Apple Store. It was weird. The space was wide open, with a row of high wooden tables going down the center of the room, and display tables along the walls. For a relatively small retail space, it felt quite sparse and roomy, with the interior designed to look something like a spaceship. I was actually able to wander around for a good couple of minutes, eying the wares and all, before a sales rep approached me, to ask if I was being helped, and exactly what kind of clone army I was looking for. I told him what I wanted, and he slowly backed out of the room while bowing, only turning his back on me when he reached the door. He was very polite. A few seconds later he returned, bearing a small (and cute!) box, containing an iPod roughly the size of my toenail. "Ok, I'll take it." I said, glancing around the room for a cash register. There wasn't one. Just more product displays. "Oh, you can check out right here," he said, scanning the iPod's barcode with his Tricorder, and taking my credit card. He produced a bag out of nowhere (seriously, maybe it came out of his sleeve? I don't know), and put the iPod in it while walking me to the front of the store. When we got there, he reached for the underside of a table and produced my receipt. I half expected him to reach behind my ear and pull out another iPod Shuffle. The man was a conjurer, a master of the art--nay, the science--of prestidigitation. He said goodbye to me in the traditional way of his people: "Thank you, come again!"

I strolled out of the store, iPod in hand, and made my way for the exit, humming along with the Mozart. I stopped at the Crackbucks booth on the way out for a tall Americano, just to convince myself that not being miserable whilst in the mall was not some fever-induced hallucination. "Would you like an extra shot of espresso in your coffee? I just poured it and I'll have to throw it away otherwise" said a suspiciously gregarious barista. Before I could contemplate what his ulterior motives might be, I found myself saying "yes, I would." Next thing I knew I was back in my car, merchandise in hand, sipping an extra-strong coffee.

Cous: 2

Monday: 0

Incidentally, I now want one of those iPod Shuffles of my own. I guess they win.

Spirits in the material world

The story you're about to hear is true. Only certain details have been changed, to protect the mental capacity of the author.

*Bling!*

Computer: "Hello, and welcome! Thank you for calling Hewlett-Packard. Para supporto en espanol, blahdibladibla. Let's get started! [sounding helpful and concerned] I need to ask you a few questions. When you hear what you need, just tell me. Remember, you need to speak up so I can hear you, puny human."

Cous: "I would like to ask a question about my plotter-"

Computer (interrupting): "That is not an option. Please repeat one of the following options: to buy stuff, say 'buy stuff,' or try 'marketing' or 'replacement parts' or 'technical support.'"

Cous: "Technical support."

Computer: "Okay! Technical support! Please repeat the name of your product when you hear it, and don't worry about interrupting me."

Cous: "Alright, as long as you don't mind-"

Computer (interrupting): "That is not an option! Please say one of the following: printers, computers, personal electronics, cameras, prune juicers..."

*Long pause*

Computer: "To hear more products, say 'more products,' dummy."

Cous: "More products."

Computer: "Alright! More products! I'd wet myself I'm so excited, if only I had the capacity to do so! Please repeat one of the following: software, robots, rock, paper, scissors, Pantene Pro-V..."

Cous: "Printers."

Computer: "That is not an option!"

At this point, Cous is forced to hang up, because his phone-holding hand has to prevent his other hand from strangling him, a la Dr. Strangelove.

The chances of this reaching the right people are negligible, but please. Please, I beg of you. If you design telephone support systems, do not EVER make them voice-prompt operated. It does not make the computer resemble a human being, except that I begin to think that it is capable of hatred on a superhuman level.

If I am communicating with a machine, I am perfectly happy to do so by pushing buttons. What I am not interested in doing is repeating its own phrases back to it, like a dog which has been commanded to "speak." When you have invented a computer which can actually respond to questions, get back to me, but when it is only capable of recognizing the same twelve phrases it spits at me, and then you subject your paying customers to interaction with this unutterably obnoxious machine, I refuse to call this anything but an insult to my personhood and an affront to the very concept of speech.

**end rant**

Ashes To Ashes...

... to Ash? Ah, never mind. It's Ash Wednesday today for those of you who weren't aware, the first day of Lent. But what am I talking about? Of course you already know what day it is (and isn't).

As Cecelia was kind enough to point out, Feminine Mind Control Day is only a week away, followed on the fifteenth (as facebook has informed me) by National "That's What She Said" Day, a made-up internet holiday enjoyed by double entendre enthusiasts everywhere. I have to admit that short of completing Plan 50-WD ahead of schedule (highly unlikely at the current rate at which funds are coming in around here), I have no idea how to celebrate FMC Day this year. It is, to the best of my memory, the first FMC Day since the start of our relationship (whenever that was) that Lindsey and I are likely to be in the same town for holiday. We have no established tradition here. Of course on its surface it's a fairly stupid holiday anyways, but that's what makes it so clever. Here is one day of the year where no matter how much she rolls her eyes (and she will), I get to give her some mushy card, gift, and flowers, and there's nothing she can do about it. That is the power of FMC Day. The only problem is that I'm stumped. What do I do?

Comments, as always, are welcome.

Review: Rambo

Well well well, if it isn't my old friend the inter-net. Hello friend, if you're reading this. I do apologize for the lack of blogging, if you've missed it. I don't generally subject my reader (you) to this sort of thing, but since it's the only recent film I've seen, and because reviewing stuff is easy, here I go.

I should first point out how amusing the names in this franchise are. The first movie, being very unlike its sequels, and probably having been made with no sequels in mind, is called First Blood. By rights, we should be talking about the First Blood franchise, but they decided to call the second film Rambo: First Blood Part II, which apparently left them with no choice but to call the third film Rambo III. When making a fourth film, it occured to someone that they actually don't yet have a movie that's just called Rambo, so the movie that could've been called First Blood Part IV or Fourth Blood, or Rambo IV is just Rambo. This is funny.

The newest Rambo film, coming some twenty years after the last one, is first and foremost a testament to the power of the Human Growth Hormone. Just look at those guns. (No, not the ones that are really guns.) That man is 60 years old. Much to the credit of Stallone and his pharmacist, I never once questioned that the dude is still capable of Post-Traumatic-Stress-induced carnage, on a massive scale. Which brings us to the carnage itself.

I should point out right now that I certainly went to this film expecting to see a lot of violence, much like one would expect to see cute woodland creatures in a Bambi movie, or a golden retriever that is good at sports in an Air Bud film. It is, in short, pretty much all the franchise has to offer. With the exception of the first Rambo film (with its single on-screen death), the formula has been pretty simple: Rambo kills corny Soviet baddies in corny ways, often involving a bow and arrow with explosive arrowheads. Yeah.

That said, I was pretty shocked. For starters, and I wouldn't have thought that this was possible, this film is a lot MORE violent than its predecessors. Stallone, who also wrote this film and all of its predecessors, was apparently sitting down at his trusty typewriter and said to himself "Y'know, mugshlug grug hmmm junkpagug," which translates (roughly) into English as "You know Sly, you handsome old devil, I really think that the best way to convey in this film the character's disillusionment with postmodern methods and attitudes towards warfare, vis-a-vis his current situation as a forgotten veteran of the American-Vietnam conflict, would be to have him kill more people than he did in previous films. Yes, I think that's a sound idea." Second, and this is where the movie digresses from its roots, the violence that is shown is a whole lot more disturbing.

Certainly, an essential element of the formula (which remains pretty much intact) for these films is "establish badness of bad guys." In previous installments, this meant Russkies would beat up malnourished American P.O.W.'s who have been kept in Vietnam decades after the U.S.'s departure, or shoot poor Afghan freedom fighters from helicopters. In this movie, the bad guys (Burmese military goons on an ethnic cleansing trip - sadly the cold war ended and Rambo no longer fights Soviets) bayonet babies, rape women, burn people to death in their bamboo huts, and press young boys into military service. We get it, these are bad guys. Sadly, this does serve to make them more believable (and detestable) bad guys (this is, after all, what real bad guys do). However, this is most certainly not what I expected from a Rambo film.

Yes, I am in fact complaining that the violence in this film was not mindless enough, at least not for the film in question. I could be wrong here, but if the good guy is going to be Rambo, a decidedly not-believable hero, I think I would be much happier with him fighting not-believable villains. Superman fights Lex Luthor, he does not fight Osama Bin Laden (although really, that might be cool). What makes the Rambo films fun (if they're fun at all, which most of you will probably dispute) is just how ridiculous they are. Going to see a Rambo film means going to watch a shirtless, mulleted commando kick-boxing a Russian soldier who is the size of a truck and is probably named something silly like Ivan Drinksalotofvodkavich down a hole, after pulling the pins out of all the grenades he's carrying. Silly stuff. The most disturbing thing about previous Rambo films is that they make violence so corny. The most disturbing thing about the new film is that it makes violence so... violent.

The good news is that while the baddies have gotten a lot badder (and more disturbing), Rambo pretty much stays Rambo. The film is at its best when it's bandanna-sporting, sad-eyed, monosyllabic hero (he never even pronounces his own surname in the film, since that would require TWO syllables in a single word) is doing his cheesy commando thing, typically involving impossible feats of strength, stamina, agility, and accuracy with a firearm (or bow and arrows). So, while Rambo goes overboard when it's trying to be a Burmese Schindler's List, it works pretty well when it's just content to be a Rambo film. The sad thing is that this mostly happens in the film's third and final act, after you've endured roughly an hour of film dedicated to the bad guys being bad to innocent non-combatants, occasionally bookended by Rambo doing something cool. It's like watching a martial arts movie where the bad guy spends most of the film beating up schoolchildren, only to have one good fight with the good guy at the end.

So, there you have it. I'm not really sure why I bothered, I'm guessing that you've either seen this already, or you weren't planning to anyways, or you've stopped reading my blog altogether. I'll try to write something else soon. Have a lovely day.

All is quiet on New Year's Eve

It's the eve of the New Year already, and what better way to ring in the last few hours before the new year (this time without capital letters) than by completing my stupid 3-5-3 streak on this blog! Hold on to your heads amigos, this post's shaping up to be a real doozy. I'm thinking about re-thinking what I'm doing here at The Republic in 2008. I created this blog in order to keep in touch with family while I was in college, and to have a reason to make myself write every now and then. Not that I have any aspirations as a writer, keep in mind, but I do enjoy doing it and I thought it'd be good to have an excuse to write something every now and then that wasn't a paper. I still want to have the outlet for the written by-product of whatever it is that my mind does, but I should probably try to give myself something to write about. I guess I just feel very fortunate that both of you read this thing every now and then, and that I owe it to you to give you the best output possible. I think I'll also alter the colour scheme or what-not again, because that's easier, but I really do want to write better than I am right (write?) now. Have I babbled enough? Good. Now's when I really get the hamsters cooking in hollandaise with garlic, not to eat, mind you, but to use as bait for when I finally get that tiger trap put together. If there's one thing a tiger can't resist, it's navigating his web browser away from this blog whilst eating hamster-in-hollandaise-flavored potato chips, which you can only get in certain countries, even thought they're made right here in Detroit at Frito Lay. What? Why? Who? Forget all of those silly questions, and then ask yourself if it's really time (When?) to stop hitting me with that inflated latex glove for no apparent reason. Sigh. Happy New Year, Republic of D.Cous. readers!

Noël

Merry Christmas. I still feel somewhat ecstatic every time I say that, so I apologize if it's gotten on your nerves by now. The festivities have mostly wound down, though I still have one family Christmas party and whatever I end up doing for New Year's coming up, which admittedly may be nothing. Lindsey and I managed to attend both of our families' parties and visit with siblings and friends in from out of town over the past few days. I'm extremely grateful that our families live only a short distance apart, and that we didn't have to choose between either seeing my family or hers. I received some fun gifts, I think none that I shan't enjoy using greatly. I had no figgy pudding whatsoever, and I still have no idea what it's like, but there were ample cups of good cheer enjoyed, to say nothing of the other assorted goodies with which I've been fattening myself for the slaughter of late. I couldn't help but think, when Christmas day was upon us, that I wasn't ready. I had the superficial things out of the way, I thought, but notwithstanding that we celebrate it every year, the coming of the Savior among us seems significant enough to me that the celebration of such an event should involve a great deal more spiritual reflection than I've ever put into it. Still, when I awoke shortly after the sun on Christmas morning, no longer because of the anticipation of new toys and good food, but because of that nefarious device which I daily inflict upon myself for that express purpose, I was struck with a remarkable feeling of joy. I didn't feel that the world was suddenly peaceful, or that my life would suddenly sort out all of its own problems, nor did I feel as if the spirit of Christmas had somehow transformed me into a better version of myself. What struck me, I think, was the realization that behind the silly lights and gifts and slightly less silly talk and songs about peace on earth and goodwill towards men, we have a very real reason to be filled with unimaginable joy in the person of Jesus. It suddenly felt to me as if all of the silly things were not just some tradition which we drag out every year for lack of anything better to do when the weather gets cold, they are our imperfect attempts at celebrating something truly beyond our imagination in its greatness. I simultaneously felt sad for all of the people (often including myself) who wish our grocery store cashiers Merry Christmas and buy gifts for our loved ones just for the sake of doing so. I know I'm not saying anything worth reading here, but sometimes I have to step back and remember that for all of my skepticism about this or that insignificant thing, I truly believe not only that the most spectacular miracle imaginable could happen, but that it has. Merry Christmas!

Snow Snow Snow Snow!

Hello friends! Last weekend was an eventful one here in the Republic, and one which brought our first substantial snowfall of the year. I started this post a few days ago, so I may as well finish it now:

On Friday evening I attended (with various representatives of Lindsey's family) Lindsey's youngest brother's school Christmas pageant. Lindsey insisted on arriving some forty minutes early, in order to be sure of getting seats and parking. Things were already hectic when we arrived, but Lindsey knew the bouncer from college, and so he got us in without having to wait in line or pay the exorbitant cover charge. No, wait. That didn't happen. As you may expect, the parking lot and gymnasium were as yet mostly empty. Mr. Mish had already staked out the best filming location with his tripod and new video camera, and saved us some seats right near the nuns in the fourth row. I suppressed as best I could the rumblings of my stomache, greedily eying the saran wrap-covered refreshments, to be served after the programme. In my haste to be forty minutes early I had neglected to nourish myself, and was now haunted by the pangs of a most awful regret for having done so. About half an hour later the rest of the parental press corps arrived, and things got rolling only a few minutes behind schedule, which is quite impressive considering that the cast is entirely made up of elementary schoolers in cute costumes. "That one in the star costume is my granddaughter," the nice lady next to me said. "How cute," I said. "The one in the crown is my... um... future brother in law? Yeah." About halfway through saying so, it occurred to me that that might sound odd. The pageant was incredibly cute and funny, and I don't think I have ever in my life seen so many cameras. Dawheeze (yes, that is her real name) has a much better account of the whole thing here. I shall only mention that first through third graders performing Handel's "Unto Us A Child Is Born," dressed as various characters of the Nativity, is very funny.

Saturday late afternoon I went out to get a tree with my sister Reenie and my brother Brendan, and Brendan's son Geno. The tree farm had of course already been well visited by this time, and the pickings were slim (particularly for the particular pickers among us), but in the end I think we managed to get two nice trees, though I haven't seen Brendan's in decorated form. Saturday evening Linds and I went to a Christmas party hosted by some friends, which they have every year and which is always a lot of fun. I was amused that even at a non-family party, five of the other attendees, not including my fiancee, are in my immediate family. Big families are fun. The snow was coming down hard as I drove home from the party, but for some reason I didn't think to park my car any differently when I got home, which turned out later to be a mistake.

Sunday morning I awoke to Maureen knocking on my door suggesting that I leave for mass with her, since there was no reason for us both to hazard the weather in separate cars. I hurriedly prepared myself and rushed out the door to join my sister, already in the car. The street had been ploughed at some point during the night, but it had since snowed a few more inches. For those of you who inhabit warmer climes than ours, to plough the road means to use a large vehicle with something like a shovel on the front of it to take all of the snow off of the surface of the road, and put it on my car. Good thing I was carpooling. Given the state of the roads, we were probably going to be late, if we got there at all. Unfortunately, we didn't even get out of our own driveway in under ten minutes, and without the help of two neighbors. At that point it was decided that we were not going to make it to mass at all, so instead we went to the hardware store to get another snow shovel, and then returned to shovel out the driveway, and possibly to find my car. Kara, our other housemate, was there when we got back (she had managed to escape the driveway earlier), and explained to us that all masses had been canceled on account of weather in any case, so it was just as well that we didn't make it. We spent the rest of the afternoon shoveling the snow (we managed to recover my car), and then decorating the Christmas tree, which turned out to be more of an endeavour than I had expected it to be, cheifly because Reens insisted upon having every twig of every branch thoroughly wrapped with lights. In her defense, it looks much better than it would had I been left to my own devices.

While decorating the tree we put on a few Christmas CDs, one of which was Bing Crosby's Complete Christmas Recordings. It really was complete, containing a few different versions of "White Christmas," and no fewer than four versions of "Silent Night." What struck me about the CD, aside from the mostly great music (I still don't care for "Sleigh Ride" or "Here Comes Santa Clause"), was that there was probably a half-dozen or so Christmas songs on there that I'd never heard before. These weren't bootlegs or obscure carols in Polish or anything like that, these were-high quality recordings of accessible, radio-friendly pop tunes about sleigh rides and Saint Nick and makin' out under the mistletoe by none other than Buh-ba-buh-ba Bing Freaking Crosby. Given that modern radio's current Hallyday repertoire consists of 2,897,992 versions of roughly twelve songs (including Crosby's hit version of Irving Berlin's "White Christmas"), you'd think folks would be all a-buh-buh-buh-bout it, if you know what I mean. Weird.

In the early evening I set out in my newly-excavated automobile towards my parents' place, intending to relax and visit with my younger siblings over a cup of hot chocolate. The roads were still pretty bad, but I sort of like them that way. What I don't like, as I believe I've mentioned before, is other drivers when the roads are sort of bad. With this in mind, I opted to take the road less traveled by to my folks' place, which, interestingly enough, turned out to make at least something of a difference. I was rolling down Bemis Road at what I thought would be about the right speed to maintain control of the car and still push through the snow and up the hills, when I noticed up ahead of me what I think was a light green Ford Edge, barreling down the middle of the road. "It's ok," I thought. "There's plenty of road for both of us if we just slow down a little and stick to the sides of the roadway," which is what I did and he did not. He kept right on cruising down the middle of the road as if I did not exist at all, leaving me a mere 1/3 of the road and taking 2/3 for himself. "Lord, please help this guy not to hit me," I managed to mutter. My prayers can often be rather selfish. His portion of the road turned out to be more than he needed and mine turned out to be less than I needed, and in the end I had to veer off into the ditch to avoid collision, at which point he went about his merry way, and I got out my phone to call for help. I had to laugh a little, my prayer had been answered. Fortunately, before the requested help could arrive, unrequested help in the form of a very nice guy named Randy stopped and offered to tow me out of the ditch with his tow strap and 4x4 truck. How could I refuse? I dug enough of the snow out from underneath my car to find someplace to attach the hook, and a few moments later I was back on the road. After thanking Randy for his help and wishing him a merry Christmas, I made it the rest of the way to my folks' place with no trouble.

That's all for now, friend. If I write any longer, Laura will wonder why I keep joshing her about long posts. Only five days until Christmas!

And December Rolls Onwards

Well, by Jingo! If it isn't the Twelfth of the month already! Time does fly. It's been freezing rain on and off (and on again) for the past week here in Michigan, leaving the world a startlingly unpicturesque melange of mud and ice, with a generous helping of road salt everywhere there are roads to be salted (which, as you know, is everywhere around here). On Sunday I took an afternoon drive down to Hillsdale to see my friend Matthew's voice recital, which was awesome. On the way down there though I was caught for some time almost directly behind a salt truck, on a section of highway which afforded no passing zones for several miles. The poor Cousmobile was both forced to travel at speeds so slow as to be unsafe to the sanity of its driver, and was subjected to a horrible, corrosive barrage of the hateful sodium. It actually made me glad for the freezing rain coming down all the way back, cleansing my poor car of the disgusting gray film in which it had been enveloped. Secretly, I sort of enjoy bad road conditions, because they give driving anywhere a sense of adventure, and demand more attention of the driver. I think I would enjoy it more if there were no other drivers on the road to worry about. Yes, true to human nature, I trust other peoples' driving abilities far less than I trust my own. I've taken two more cracks at Christmas shopping since posting last, not counting one or two of the online variety, and have reached two useful conclusions:
1. Christmas shopping isn't that bad, when you know exactly what you're looking for and where to find it (though I can think of one notable exception which I cannot discuss here at this time). All you really have to put up with is the bad music, and the fact that you're in a store (as a general rule, I'm very uncomfortable in stores).
2. Christmas shopping takes forever when you don't know exactly what you're looking for and/or where to find it.
I also discovered that while I prefer shopping alone for myself, Christmas shopping is far more pleasant with company, and that I am so lazy that standing and walking around in stores for as little as two hours makes me very tired. The good news is that I'm done with it all. Being an unmarried (at the moment) man, this means that I'm done with any and all Christmas-related stress. I don't have to host a big get-together or bake cookies for a hundred children or put up with relatives I don't like or any of those other things that some people (women) seem to find stressful about the Hallydays. I just show up at someone else's house, eat someone else's food, and put up with someone else's crazy relatives. Actually, that's a lie. I put up with my own crazy relatives. You can't outsource everything. That said, I actually get along pretty well with my family, so I'm probably the one they have to pretend to like. Maybe I'm easy to fool.

We Wish You A Happy Holiday, We Wish You A Happy Holiday, We Wish You A Happy Holiday, and A Happy New Year!

It's The People's Republic of D.Cous.'s multicultural Hallyday Season post! We here at the Republic would like to start out by wishing all of you the very best this Hallyday season. We would also like to point out, though it's as plain as the nose on your face (or the very big one on his), that Johnny Hallyday is awesome. It turns out that at least half of the Hallyday lights that I put up at the office (see the last post) don't work after all (though I swear I checked them), so I'll have to take them down and replace them at some point. Oh well. I've actually managed to get some of my Hallyday shopping done early this year, which is unusual enough for me that when I mentioned it to my friend Jonathan, he remarked "is it December 23rd already?" I was present and sort of participated in Lindsey's family's tree decoration last weekend, I think for the third year in a row. I only "sort of" participated because each member of La Famille Mish has their own designated ornaments to hang (and, if I'm not mistaken, designated parts of the tree to decorate), so I mostly sat around and tried out the family's new video camera, getting candid footage of tree decoration and a few property disputes over prime tree space that nearly developed into Wild West-era range wars, among other traditional Hallyday activities. Suffice to say, I loved it. I'm also looking forward to tree decorating at my folks' place when they get their tree (provided that I get invited, which is a toss-up in my family), which I'm sure will be a different affair altogether. It will probably start with us going through the huge box of Hallyday lights only to discover that (and this is my official prediction, a 5% improvement since last year) 15% work. We'll then spend at least half an hour cannibalizing bulbs from one string of lights in order to augment the other, and another ten minutes or so untangling lights (it's always the strand that works which is most tangled). After wrapping the two strands of working lights around our Hallyday tree, we'll open up the giant box o' ornaments, and begin searching for ornaments that are neither broken, nor ugly. Finding few that fit these criteria, we'll broaden them a bit, probably whilst making some comments about how we should get Mama and Papa some new Hallyday ornaments one of these days. If it goes anything like previous years, roughly zero ornaments and zero ornamentation zones on the tree will posses any particular sentimental value to anyone, and people will hang ornaments based roughly on their height (which is getting more difficult as Owen and Fiona grow up, approaching the maximum possible height in my family of 5'6"), with a ladder thrown in there to make sure that the branches more than 6' off the ground still get decorated. We'll probably throw on one of our family's few Hallyday-themed LP records (unfortunately, none of these feature Johnny himself) whilst decorating the tree. Ah, the Hallydays. Speaking of which, while you're out there getting your Hallyday shopping done on the Inter-nets, you might consider using this, which is a search engine designed to help you spend that last $2.50 needed on Amazon to qualify for free shipping. Cool, eh? I thought so. That's all for now, stay tuned for four more posts this month, the majority of which are likely to be Hallyday-themed.

ADDENDUM:
I doubt that any of you care that much, but the song linked to above is a Christmas love song addressed to Johnny Hallyday's daughter, who, according to Wikipedia, Johnny and his wife adopted in 2004. The music video, again according to Wikipedia, appears to depict them going to Vietnam to meet her. Also, by sheer coincidence, Johnny announced his pending retirement from live performance within a few days of me blogging about him. Strange, no? What's that? You don't care about Johnny Hallyday? Oh, come on. You're no fun any more.

If I Must, I Must

My fingers are numb, my face is red, and I'm standing on a ladder putting up fake pine branches wrapped in Christmas lights which, against all odds, seem to work. All I want is some hot chocolate, but for some reason I can't keep the first verse of "Silver Bells" from running through my head. It has apparently been recorded by everyone who has ever been in the music business, probably as some sort of initiation ritual, but the version that gets stuck in my head at this time of year (I don't much care for the song, by the way) is from the 1975 LP record "Merry Christmas From Sesame Street," which I believe my parents still own (much to their chagrin). Sigh. I guess I'm ready for December to be here. I do love a great deal of it very much, though I shall have to try to avoid stores and such to the greatest extent possible until it's all over with.

In other, totally unrelated news, it appears that the rumors that have (apparently) been circulating in unsavory corners of the entertainment industry for lo these many years are in fact true. I don't know what else to say, really. I only bring it up because some part of me, and it's a part of myself which I do not fully understand, is thinking hell yeah. The only thing I can be led to conclude is that there is either some part of me which loves to suffer, or else one which enjoys terrible, terrible cinema.

This Is Not My Day (Part One?)

Anyone remember the film Good Morning Vietnam? Sure you do. It was that Robin Williams film about how the Vietnam War was bad, partly because it was poorly executed and partly because of the horrible loss of life, but mostly because the people in charge of running the darned thing were a bunch of squares who didn't like Rock n' Roll. No wonder we lost. I remember the film as being somewhat amusing, but now that I think about it, it has about the same plot as Williams' films Patch Adams, Mrs. Doubtfire, and Jumanji (ok, not Jumanji). Anyways, I only bring this up because there's a scene in the film where Robin Williams' character just can't take all the lameness that his superiors force upon him any more, so he breaks military protocol by describing an actual event on the air, rather than a sanitized-to-protect-morale version of said event, but he does so by cleverly stating that everything that happened DID NOT happen, right after describing how it happened in detail. Have I lost you yet? You aren't really reading this anyways? Good enough. Anyways, Paragraph break!

That whole first paragraph was really just a preamble to this one, where I tell you about my day, only because my day is boring, I'll tell you about what didn't happen today. Capisce? It all started this morning (or did it?), when I didn't wake up in the cargo hold of a large freighter that wasn't bound for some tiny, nameless atoll that is not in the South Pacific, and is not the base of operations for some Crazy Organization Bent on the World's Eventual Besmirchment (COBWEB). A seven-foot tall one-eyed man with lots of buckles all over his black leather attire (which would've looked almost comical had it really existed) did not splash some dirty salt water in my face, which subsequently didn't burn in my various cuts and bruises. "How are you finding your quarters?" he did not say, sneering. "Wouldn't it be easier to just tell us all about this Plan 50-WD of yours?" he did not add. I did not defiantly spit in his eye. He then didn't come a step closer to teach me a lesson, which is what I would've needed had I really been there and had he really existed, and I didn't pull myself up by the chain that wasn't attached to the handcuffs around my wrists and suspended from the ceiling, nor did I deliver a swift, powerful kick to the middle of his fat, ugly face. If I had though, it would've been enough to knock him unconscious, allowing me to use one of the silly buckles he had on him to pick the lock in my handcuffs. It wasn't just the opportunity I needed. In the nick of time, I didn't escape. I didn't make my way unseen to the deck of the boat only to see that we had nearly arrived at the island that wasn't our destination. How long wasn't I unconscious below deck? How many days hadn't it been? I didn't jump overboard and swim to shore before the rest of the guards noticed me. Whatever hadn't drawn me there, whoever hadn't shanghaied me, wasn't waiting on that island.

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.

I don't know why I even bother...

You know, for the first eight months of the year, I posted very consistently. But then, curse my miserable fate, I noticed. Now I'm cramming, just to maintain a stupid streak on this stupid blog, because now I feel as if I must. Somebody help me, I'm going insane. Now if you're like me (and I'll bet a round chicken in a dumpling stew that you are) you're probably wondering by now where we're all going with this, and brother I'd be lying to you (that'll be the day!) if I were to say that I'm not very often wondering this selfsame thing, but let's not concern ourselves with such matters at present, goodness knows that worrying never hurt the worrisome, except for all the worrying. What am I talking about? I'm talking about good, cold, hard, American granite, with your name (and if you buy a big enough slab, that of your wife) carved on it for all of your posterity to visit once a year until they grow accustomed to your once-conspicuous absence. How much will it cost? Never you worry about that, think of it as an investment in a future without you in it. Now there, there, don't go running for your dear life until you've heard the best part: If you divide three elephants by fourteen vultures, that comes to just enough pachyderm fillet to make sure that nobody, and I mean nobody comes through that door unless they say the password, which as we all know is the last four stage directions for the Sugar Plum Fairy: "Dance, twirl, then dance some more, then get offstage you're killing Tchaikovsky." Just remember that one man's Jalopy is another man's Lincoln Continental, and one man's Lincoln Continental can very quickly become another man's Lincoln Continental, if the first man happens to leave the keys in it. I think that just about does it for now, I feel a strange urge to eat pumpkin pie, but as I haven't any (there was none in the Lincoln Continental I just stole), I suppose I'll have to make do without, and perhaps its for the best after all.

A Shameful Omission

Somehow, and I swear it wasn't for the purposes of coming up with another post, I left out of my previous list one of the worst things about Halloween (besides prostitute costumes): Halloween-themed songs. Every year around this time I seem to have forgotten last year's barrage of "The Monster Mash," and unsuspectingly turn on my radio, expecting to find one of the normal ten songs that the radio plays these days. At first, it was just as I had suspected. The Fray's "How To Save A Life" was clocking in its ten quadrillionth play on the air, so I was still suspecting nothing when I changed the radio station, only to hear "The Monster Mash" in all its badness, coming through my tortured car speakers. It was too much. I changed to the classic rock station, only to hear some piece of rubbish I've never heard before, but was so bad that it could only find airtime if it were somehow related to this stupid holiday. If my bruised memory serves, I would guess that the song was called "Dracula's Girl," or perhaps "Dracula's Sister," and had been made sometime around 1979. Shiver. I've stuck to NPR and my CD player since then, my fragile nerves can only handle that sort of thing once in a great while. Knowing my luck, Terry Gross will interview whoever the heck wrote "Moster Mash" on Fresh Air, and it'll be all over. They'll find me sitting in a bunker here behind my wall, waiting for the worms to come.