Friday, October 26, 2007

Most Inappropriate World Series Commentary, Ever. (So Far.)

"He's gotta find the right stroke to beat The Monster."

Rockies, Rockies, Rockies at: mbe@drinktothelasses.com

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Midterm

There will not be an actual post today, as I am trapped beneath an eStack. I'm an independent essay evaluator for a local school district, which has all the awesomeness of failing people without the unpleasant side effect of listening to the whining of the person who has just failed. It's kind of like jury duty, only with way, way more comma splices.

If you don't hear from me, it's because I've been flogged by such sentences as "In the world today, things are sometimes good and sometimes bad nowadays."

all children left behind at: mbe@drinktothelasses.com

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Sweetness

You may well ask, as we often do, "What hath God wrought that is fearful in the world of pastel candies?"

I give unto you: Unworldly Huge Smarties.

That's my own scale-providing hand there. I tried to take a picture of the 'Roid Smarties alone in their disturbing hugeness, but it just looked like I zoomed in for an extremely tight Glamour Shot and tried to put one big blonde one over on you, my trusting The Readers.

Will someone please explain to me the resizing of all our sugared goods? I enjoy the One Huge Kit Kat rather than the four smaller ones, and snarfed the mini baking M&Ms until the the M&M people figured out that I liked them and took them away from me, giving me naught but a green CGI M&M attempting provocative poses for comfort.

I am not a particular fan of Smarties, except maybe the white ones, which I suppose makes me a Smartie racist, which is uncomfortable, particularly at dinner parties. Josh The Pilot, however, loves all the Smarties of the world. The upsettingly large ones have pretty much made his life worth living at this point.

"They're just like the small ones," he points out, "only they're really big." Ah.

holding out for the one enormous Twix at: mbe@drinktothelasses.com

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Air

I've been wondering what the Official Horrible Decoration of the 2007 Christmas season would be. It's difficult to top the Frosty That Ate The Baby Jesus of 2005, but then I saw this in full rotation at the Home Depot:

Now THAT'S how to worship the newborn Savior! Rotating nylon as big as all outdoors!

But there's an even more disturbing entry. For the past several months I've been noticing the alarming rise of the Small Pointless Sphere in living room decor; every swishy reality TV designer from here to HGTV has heaped them in bowls on night tables and kitchen sideboards and wee little shelves in a sadly misguided process of awesomefying a house.

It's disturbing, to say the least; if you're going to have balls around, make sure they are the useful kind. These balls do nothing but require dusting and present the opportunity to become weaponry in the hands of the right three-year-old. If you tried to plop these in the middle of my living room, my new decor would come sailing directly at your head. I barely have room for my Yankee Candle storage warehouse and the precious knick knacks I have amassed over the years in the form of plastic purple dolphins that came attached to oversized Long Island Iced Teas. There is no space remaining for pointless roundness.

Let us think. Is there a way these could possibly become more pointless?

But of course, sayeth the outdoor Christmas industry.

You click "enlarge 2000%", light 'em up, and roll 'em outside!

What happened here? This isn't a Christmas decoration. This is Blitzen eating a strand of icicle lights from your actual Christmas decorations, and then taking an enormous dump just as he lifts off for the next house. Way to go, outdoor Christmas industry! You've awed me once again.

not even frost on the pumpkins yet at: mbe@drinktothelasses.com

Monday, October 22, 2007

Notarized

My lovelies, I wish to bring to your attention that we now have... Official Policy! Since some misunderstand why I moderate comments, and new The Readers are often unaware of the MB Happy Place Rules, today I added the following to the commenting function:

Welcome to the Champagne Tasting Room! Please drink responsibly. Comments are moderated so as to ensure your own protection from splog and trolls.

MB's Happy Place Rules are in full effect here, which means that discussion, disagreements, polite smackdowns, and icing recipes are welcome, but political grandstanding and arguing are not. If you wish to spew some solid red/blue love/hatred, you are more than welcome to hold forth over on that other website. You know, every single other website on the face of the earth.
Politics have been discussed within these... I can't say pages, so-- bits? RAMS? Whatever. I type in this here white rectangle and somehow it comes out on your end. Anyway, I've written about politics myself in the early days of BlondeChampagne, and quite shrilly, from what I remember. Longtime The Readers know exactly where I stand. But I pretty much stopped after the '04 election. I was just exhausted. I went and blew all my vitriol on... whatever that election was all about, yachts or something, and since then, with rare exception, I have laid down the Beltway-inked pen. I was discovering that most of what I think on politics can be found in far more widely read outlets, and that I have other, far more important room-temperature horses to beat, such as which method of pencil sharpening is the best, and my utter hatred of collared shirts. I then did the perfectly logical thing and moved about four inches outside of DC, a good five or so years after I became a registered Independent.

This doesn't mean that the American political process no longer interests me-- I still follow much more closely than most--but at a furrowed distance, rather than standing, as I once did as a fifteen-year-old, before C-SPAN with my arms crossed tight over my stomach, in agonies over some Senatorial vote or other. Clearly, I've got enough problems.

What bothers me the most is that in recent years, nearly every aspect of American discourse manages to shade itself politically. It's screeching at us from every outlet; last week I saw a poster on a Star Wars-related thread somehow relate Return of the Jedi to the Nobel Peace Prize committee. Please, I come to my small dork pleasures to escape all that. I speak as a history minor: We're tearing ourselves apart here, it's not boding well, and I don't want to perpetuate it.

The Presidential election, by the way, is still more than a year off. Enjoy, everybody.

So this is one place where you'll find no screechy-screechy, left or right. I'll continue to hold forth on certain broad issues, and you may not always agree with me, but that is okay. There will be no Outrage O' The Day here, unless Dion Sanders begins appearing on my television screen each daybreak.

In its place, let us have a drink together.

buying at: mbe@drinktothelasses.com

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