I'm not talking about anyone in particular, but it seems like every Gen-X or Gen-Y hipster has to take a moment to pontificate about how terrified they were of clowns as children. Please. You weren't anywhere near that scared of clowns and you know it. I'll grant that clowns have a small component of fear to them; I'll even grant that there is a small minority of children that are genuinely terrified by them, but don't pretend that you were one of them. You know damn well that when you were a kid, you were probably clamoring for one of Bingo's balloon animals, just like 99% of all children anywhere.

Childhood clown fear is to our generation what Woodstock is to the baby boomers. If all the people who claim to have been at Woodstock really were, it would have been ten million mud-caked hippies, instead of 600,000. If all people who claim to have been terrified by clowns as children really were, clowning would have been made illegal by 1978.

MY 15-month old is in Full Babble Mode. Her words are minimal, but the stream of sound and facial expressions are in full sentences. At day care, she will sit and talk with another toddler, both of them babbling. Do they share an instinctive secret language that all humans know at 15 months and then forget? What are they talking about?

TODDLER 1: I just can't seem to get my mom to pay attention to me...

TODDLER 2: (brief pause) Have you tried biting?

Graffiti on door of a convenience store bathroom:


If I'd had a pen on me, I would have added ...for Lent.

I finally figured out how to e-mail phone camera pics to myself. Now, I just need to learn how to take good ones. Bear with me.

And now, some pictures:


This is a giant statue that stands in Riverside Park in my hometown of La Crosse, WI. I believe he is Hiawatha, but I always knew him as The Big Indian. There used to be a pushbutton recording of his voice explaining, among other things, the "indian legend" that states the area is tornado-proof because it is located where three rivers meet (The La Crosse River, The Black River, and the Mississippi). I believe it's even odds that the local tribes were merely screwing with the traders and settlers.


This is the site of the late, lamented Knuckleheads Comedy Club in the Mall of America. The whole wing is a ghost town, with the exception of Hooters, which continues to thrive in it's own little softcore Red-Light District.

And now, a quick impression of every director of every Disney Channel sitcom:

That's great, but let's try it again, and this time, could you play it a little broader?

You know, I've been cracking wise about Minnesota fireworks for years, ever since they did the partial legalization, some time around ought-two. It comes in in the Omaha fireworks story:

Now, bear in mind, I live in Minnesota. We just legalized SPARKLERS and we're feeling all dangerous. HEY JIM, I'VE GOT SOME SNAKES!

Turns out, what you can buy here is a shade better than that. I'd never purchased fireworks here and they're really not lame. It's freaking AMAZING for a three year-old. One last-minute trip to Cub, one purchase of a $9.97 Patriot Bag, and I'm Hero of the Beach.

On a completely different tack, KARE 11? Are you out there KARE 11? Good, now listen closely...

[ahem]

FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU IN THE EAR FOR TELLING THE HORRIFIC POOL ACCIDENT STORY WITHOUT ADEQUATE WARNING FOR VIEWERS.

Thank you for your attention.

As you may know, I did a weird little record called Snaildartha (it should be available as a ZIP download here).

A blogger in Portugal, wrote about it, first looking for a copy -- first checking Amazon, I think, which is flattering. I have used google's translator, which has resulted in what you get when you use a robot to do a human's job. Artificial Intelligence, my ass.

Here's the post where he/she asks about the recording. (Portuguese)

Success! (Portugeuse)

Here's the google translation (some scrolling).

Robots. Feh.

Come on dude, give me the reins...you're in no condition to ride.

Drunken man parks horse in bank foyer



Is it my imagination, or does the horse have the mildly disgusted, but ultimately tolerant, look of the long-suffering friend of a chronic alcoholic?

A large group of indignant folks just did this guy a huge favor. I'd never heard of him before, but now, thanks to their petulant walkout, and one member of the group's act of boneheaded vandalism, I have. Now you have as well. He's Mike Daisey. Watch the video and show him some love.

Found at Cynical-C Blog

Star Tribune asks: Is the Party Over in La Crosse?

LA CROSSE, WIS. -- It was early yet, a little past 9 p.m. Saturday, and nobody seemed too worried about the cops on bar patrol, armed with the city's new anti-intoxication ordinance, or the dark, mist-shrouded river just three sloping blocks away.
Not Troy Boylen, 22.

"Honestly, nobody walks down to the river," he said with loud and earnest authority.

He pulled himself up and continued in a voice only slightly slurred:

"In La Crosse, experienced drinkers walk uphill."...

Apparently, there's been a rash of college guys disappearing after a night of drinking, presumably wandering into the Mississippi River and drowning, though folks haven't ruled out a serial killer. By a rash, I mean eight in the past ten years. That's .8 guys a year (which is a multiple of .08, the legal limit for blood alcohol content while driving -- coincidence or cosmic joke?).

In response, the city has settled on an increased police presence and stronger public intoxication ordinances. I prefer this idea to their original idea, which was to construct a large drunk-proof fence down by the river. Personally, I think they'd be better off with Troy Boylen's solution: walk uphill.

The only problem there though is that if they're really drunk, they may continue walking uphill so long that they wind up falling off the back side of Grandad's Bluff.