These got me through the MCAT, you guys!

So, you probably don’t know this about me, but I work at a fairly well-known University, as a fairly well-known Provost.  But before that, I rode the rails.  It was during this time that I figured out what America was all about, got my nickname (Haywire), and developed severe seasonal allergies.

I paid my way working as a short-order cook on the night-shift for any truck stop that would have me. What’s that?  Highways and railways are usually miles apart?  Don’t underestimate me.  How do you think I went from hobo to Provo? Pain and determination.

Also, these people don’t do background checks. Like any background checks at all; literally anyone could work for this University.  Seriously, name someone–I can get them a job.  Elizabeth Hasselback? Done. That Double Rainbow Youtube guy? Done. Your old yellow bean bag chair from your mom’s house? Assistant Registrar.

Anyways, the other day I took a bite of one of these Doritos Late Night All Nighter Cheeseburger, and it took me right back to my old days of slinging Blue Plate specials and Adam & Eve on a raft.  (While I’m on that note, let me tell you something, diner lingo is not exactly welcomed by the academic community.  Never ask a collegue if she wants anything “bloody”.  What am I just supposed to do, divine how she takes her coffee?)

Back to the Doritos.  They are legit.  They look like a corn chip, but taste like every burger I ever slapped cheese on to cover up the burnt smell.  You know how much I love Doritos Late Night Tacos at Midnight.  And I love these cheeseburger mutant-snacks even more! Or I did.  But then I started thinking about the tagline: “Bring on the night”.  Bring on the night?  What the junk?!

Are these Vampire Doritos?  Or even just like Adam Lambert-Doritos? (I don’t want anything from you, get off my back, Lambert!) Either way, are these Doritos going to nightstalk me, and fight other Doritos for the love of an inarticulate teenage girl?

Did these Doritos even finish high school? Will these Doritos wear my blood in an amulet around their neck? I kind of feel like they will.  Stay the hell away from these Doritos, man.

Do these Doritos want to sell me Etsy pills or something?  Probably. Who knows? Well, I’m not buying!

Listen, these Doritos are bad news.  Now, I’m not sure, but I’m pretty sure Doritos Late Night All Nighter Cheeserburger keyed my car last Wednesday.  And I know these Doritos do whippets! And they also train Whippets!  These Doritos are training hounds to come kill us!

Doritos' Weapon of Choice

If I learned one thing from riding the rails—and supervising curricular, instructional, and research affairs at a fairly well-known university—it’s this: Watch the f out for these Doritos.

One Bread, One (Governing) Body

I know my faithful readers will remember I advised Justice Soto on her Confirmation.  I would be remiss if I did not do the same for SGK.

The Senate Judiciary hearings with Solicitor General Elena Kagan are over, but don’t worry the full season comes out on DVD August 10th.   This includes bonus footage of Ms. Kagan eating Christmas dinner with friends at a Chinese restaurant and behind-the-scenes bloopers of Sen. Arlen Specter referring to himself as a Whig (he just can’t stop doing this).

The confirmation process, however, is far from finished. There is still a full Senate floor debate and, of course, the Judiciary vote (text Kaga to 8779).  I am sure at times this is a harrowing ordeal for Ms. Kagan.  This is why I think it will be useful for me to share with her what I learned from MY confirmation.  You know just some tips for the blessed event, no big deal.

Hi Solicitor General Kagan!  First thing’s first, you have to pick a Saint’s name.  Don’t listen to any new wave dunces who advise you to choose your own name.   Do you really want to be Justice Elena Elena Kagan?  My younger sister is stuck with Emily Rose Emily for life.

I chose Barnabas, after Barnabas Collins on Dark Shadows. Laura Jayne Barnabas Martin, perfect; unfortunately this choice was promptly rejected by my parents, Father Midori, and Sister Francine—the head of the CCD Young Catholic education program.

So, I went with Michael instead.

Step two you completed head of time, which is so like a Princeton student (Good Job!).  You already have your sponsor.  I chose my aunt, but The President of the United States is okay too.  He’s not a Catholic but neither was Jesus (and the Vatican loves them both).

Now for step three, you just need a dress.  No matter who you are, you are not going to be Confirmed in a pantsuit (I tried).  I would try some of the nicer malls, like in Westchester—but if you’re crunched for time, just head to T.J. Maxx.

After your Confirmation, you should probably throw a big party at your house.  Watch out, your dad might try to get one of those cakes with your face on it! It will be decidedly less cool than a Bat Mitzvah and no one will get souvenir boxers.   Take heart, you will have a delightful time dancing (I know Sen. Coburn hates when you do this, but hey, it’s your Confirmation, not his!) and most likely a seat on the United States Supreme Court.  I hope this helps!

Goaaaaaaaaaaal!

It’s not because I’m American, or a girl, or more concerned with organizing my pencil-case.  (Although, I would really like to know when my new batch of personalized stationery is going to arrive in the mail).

It’s because I’m at maximum lifetime capacity of soccer games witnessed.  Between my two sisters and their gym class, recreational, travel, Olympic development, high school, college, and adult soccer teams, I have seen, literally, 17.4 million games.

And I still don’t know what off-sides means.

One of my cornea is webbing over, and I have a phobia of three-day weekends.  You haven’t felt real fear, until you’ve heard the words “Round Robin” uttered again and again by enthusiastic parents.  Are you aware the middle 80% of Long Island is actually just soccer fields?  Are you even aware of that fact?  It goes Brooklyn, Soccer Field, Soccer Field, Soccer Field, Soccer Field, Hamptons. Most of the exits on the Northern State just say “Fields 64-90″.

So this is the reason that I don’t care about The World Cup.  Also, I made a pact with myself a long time ago, (I’m my own blood brother). There’s no room in my life, (or cabinets) for cups.   I don’t care about the World Cup, or the Stanley Cup, or the Ryder Cup, or the Sprint Cup.  I certainly don’t give a crap about Tin Cup, so don’t even ask.  (Hear that Costner?)

Jock Straps?  Irrelevant.

And I measure everything by counting to 4.

It usually works out.  Besides, if the international community can’t even agree upon a standard definition, something’s fishy.  It’s between 280 and 284 millilitres, …or  it might just be 6 oz.  No one knows for sure.  I mean, why bother measuring at all?  I’m just gonna scoop up some liquid with a bra.

Hot Dog!

The best part of barbeques is how excited people get about barbeques. If you combine meat, outdoors, beer, and fire and then drop people into it that combination, they will lose their mind.  You don’t even have to marinate them first.  BBQ originated in the US in the 1800s during cattle-drives.  I did not look that up; I just went to a really, really good school.

However, the most intriguing example of BBQ I’ve seen in a while is BD’s Mongolian Barbeque.  BD stands for bondage and discipline, which is what it takes to make someone understand the conceptual leap involved in their advertising campaign.

Mongolian BBQ actually originated in Taiwan in the 1960s, which is like Mongolia, in that they are both geographical locations, both have names, and people live in both places.  The chain says that their BBQ technique is from the ancient Mongolian Empire when it was common for soldiers to cook with their swords on their shields over a big fire. While this story never happened in actual history, that’s no reason it can’t sell actual stir-fry.

Many companies have created complete falsifications of history to sell their product. For instance, The Soup Nazi: never made any soup.  He made chowder.  And he was a Fascist.  Pretzels were not originally sold out of Roman chariots (though they did cost twice as much in the Coliseum.)  Lastly, Polly-o string cheese did not originate during the French Revolution.  That is completely ludicrous.  It was used during the Salem Witch Trials to determine who was a warlock. (Hint:  the warlocks didn’t need to peel them).

TheMoreYouKnow# (coming soon)

1. The 7 Year Itch is an Amazing movie with an unfortunate title.

I stayed away for too long thinking it was either about baseball or STDs.  It turns out it’s about two gay interior designers living together openly in a city with a delightful-sounding vegetarian restaurant and being referred to with nonchalance in 1955.   Okay fine, it’s not about that, but that happens.

2. Passion Pit is messing with your mind, man!

Hypsteria!

First, they’re playing at The Fader’s ‘One Step Beyond’ party at the Museum of Natural History for only $25! (So what if it’s only a DJ set.)  Then, a few days prior to the party, they announce a Passion Pit secret show 90 minutes before the Fader party.  And it’s free. And open bar.  And amazing.

Upon hearing this fans were so overwrought, they put on skinny jeans over their skinny jeans.  Three people are still in the hospital having pants surgically removed (You think those things just come right off?)  My friends went, but I didn’t go.

However, I was at Passion Pit’s personal pan pizza and massage party 45 minutes before their secret show.  It was in a Mason lair covered with bones of other lesser indie bands. With free food. And they paid me to go.   Nate Donmoye gives a great backrub and makes an okay Margarita pie.

3. Elena Kagan’s  SATC 2 cameo was cut when they found out she wasn’t gay.  They replaced her with Liza Minelli, which probably stung.

Desert Storm.

However, she did manage to grab 43 of the 51 the votes she needs for confirmation by performing a remixed Lady Gaga duet with Grayson Carter on the Idol Finale.  Which is weird, because Lady Gaga recently wrote a scathing dissent of Kagan’s: “Private Speech, Public Purpose: The Role of Governmental Motive in First Amendment Doctrine”.  It’s called “Alejandro.”

And that’s the only reason why that’s weird.

But, by far the most important thing I learned in the past 6 weeks is this:

Bros are Icing Bros.

See Gawker for whatever ridiculous headline I'm sure they made up to chronicle this stupid phenomenon

Bros are f’ing icing bros!

Bros.

Are.

Icing.

Bros.

Did you hear me? Get on the dude phone! Call Broseph stat and tell him to Fitch up ’cause things are totally gnarly!

When will we learn that Bro-on-Bro icing only leads to more Bros being iced? (And less shirts.) Please join me in solace for all the iced bros out there.  I am selling Diamond Wristbands for the cause. Please buy one and demonstrate your support for Bros not icing each other and having less of a media and internet presence than they currently do.

woof.

Every day I walk up and down Avenue A combing the street for black plastic milk crates full of free vegetarian hotdogs.   Every day is more disappointing than the next.  I can hardly put one foot in front of the other because everywhere I look: I do not see a black plastic crate full of discarded soy tubes.

It is becoming hard to get myself out of bed in the morning.  Sure, I have love, food, shelter, a great life, etc.  But do I have weird food—like an abundance of mysteriously abandoned weird food—that I could use to feed a lot of unsuspecting, or adventurous (TBD), guests at a some kind of maniacal Russian Roulette Backyard Barbecue?

No.

At least not until today.

Thank you torn cardboard sign for catching my eye.  I’m not sure why more menus aren’t printed on cardboard.  And thank you, person skulking around the East Village with a black plastic crate of veggie dogs that you don’t want for a perfectly legitimate reason.  What a magnanimous gesture; no one can accuse you of being up to no good.

Nice move leaving them next to a construction site, makes sense.  If only the hospital would finally approve the Veggie Dog Safe Harbour Dropbox.  So many of our black plastic crates of unwanted Veggie dogs end up in dumpsters.  It’s wrong.

Anyway, are you guys around this weekend?

White on!

So this guy wrote a blog called Stuff White People Like; mainly discussing activities and objects as a sort of mocking tour guide to “white people” .  It totally backfired.  You know why?  ”Stuff White People Like” is exactly the kind of stuff white people like!

I decided to take this book as a survey.  The results say I’m Hapa and 1/16th Jeep Grand Cherokee.  My Caucasian Irish-Catholic  parents have some explaining to do.

Too big to fail

Aside from keeping bar stools relevant for the last 700 years, beer and pretzels are delicious.  I just ate these beer and pretzel caramels from Littabit Sweets.  They are based in Brooklyn NY (Surprised? Please, look at how precious and self-important they are in their tight wrapping.  Also, you can’t tell from the picture but they’re listening to Animal Collective…for now).

The reason these caramels are the best idea ever isn’t because they combine pretzels, beer and caramel. It’s because they combine Martin’s pretzels, beer and caramel.  Martin’s pretzels are basically the greatest gift of all.  Whitney Houston wrote a pretty controversial song about them in the 80′s. (It was called “So emotional”.)

If President Bush choked on a Martin’s pretzel, the Iraq War never would have happened.  I guess what I’m trying to say is, this particular kind of pretzel is doing more for America than most U.S. Senators (and all of the House of Representatives). Please get these caramels into your mouth as soon as possible, if only to prevent further international conflict.

I got mine from Northern Spy, the restaurant everyone cares about (after the NYT article) named after the apple that nobody cares about. I would tell you how the dark chocolate, sea salt caramel is, but I do not know.  My eating partner warned me that I shouldn’t eat it because it is actually too delicious, and I would be opening Pandora’s box (of chocolates).  She fell on her sword like a true Greek hero and quickly devoured it.  I’m starting to question her loyalty.

He's directing "Short Circuit".

This is very disturbing.  I’ve gotten some bad entertainment news.  It is not pretty for those 80′s children who don’t like their youthful memories stolen and sold to younger audiences, with their fancy cellular phones.  Luckily, my first movie in theaters was Disney’s Song of the South. I’m pretty sure they’re not pulling that one out of the Disney vault anytime soon.  Seriously, Birth of a Nation has a better shot.

Honestly, I’m not sure which remake I’m MORE upset about.

This one:

There goes an entire year of 6th grade social studies.

Or this one:

I wish my dad would buy me a classic 80′s movie and let me star in it.  I’d choose Ferris Bueller, hands down.  I’ve been waiting all my life to relive that, plus there aren’t enough girls named Sloan in the 2010′s.  Let’s bring “Sloan” back.  Everything else from the 80′s is already here.

Don’t you think for a minute that I forgot about Flight of the Navigator either, scumbags.  Also Footloose and Robocop,  all are slated for 2011!  Directed by Michael Bay and Darren Aronosky? What the hell is wrong with you people.  Somebody’s Sunday shoes are gonna get kicked off through their partner’s skull….in slow-mo…in reverse.

Go ahead and try to remake ET.  I’m one step ahead of you bastards.  I hid that clammy alien so deep inside my closet you’ll find a Republican senator first.  And if you do, please ask him to leave.  The government’s promised me numerous times they would stay out of my bedroom, but it just doesn’t seem to stick.  Maybe I should get it in writing.

No, there aren’t any horses involved, why do you ask? This is my childhood sled, the one I used for Sleigh riding.

Never forget Paris

Well, this is the closest thing I could find.  It was orange and said “Paris” across the top but it was more square.  It also didn’t look disconcertingly like a dolphin.  It was however, from Paris, France where all the best sleigh riders hone their craft.

I like to think I was ahead of my time.  I broke a lot of barriers with my sleigh riding.  (I literally burst through a snow fence, a wooden plank, underbrush, and slid into traffic.)

I get misty eyed when I think about it.  While that may just be residual damage from frozen ice shards making microscopic slices in my young retina, I like to think it’s something more.

Like all childhood errors of unknown origin, the spirit of the recreational sleigh riding is bittersweet. At some point I realized the terminology I was using was completely wrong, but it still just sounds better.  It’s the same reason Manhattan isn’t flanked by  The East Tidal Strait and The Hudson Estuary.  Gandhi said “be the change you wish to see in the world” and I’m pretty sure he was talking about purposeful misnomer.