ArtieShaw

I have a low key interest in birds and have been using the Merlin app to ID them by photo, description, or their song. You can set it to record, then just chill in the backyard while it lists the birds it hears.

I’m not a soda drinker, but Green River gets me right in the nostalgia.

Occasionally, I’ll have some club soda with a bit of vanilla or hazelnut syrup. Not too sweet, but enough to taste. Plain soda water is also good.

Exactly. That kitty encompasses and rules over aaaalllll that couch. Surfaces and interior volume (as soon as he discovers it). No room for anybody else. Just ask him.

One thing I learned about meringue is that the slightest bit of fat will turn it into frosting.

Even a mixing bowl/whip that has been sitting in an open kitchen may have accumulated enough aerosolized cooking oil to effect the outcome. I’ve never failed after washing the utensils and then being scrupulous about broken yolks.

I saw that in a theater, with a guest appearance and Q&A with Crispin Glover afterwards. That was an evening.

Cut the Mullet. A classic. And good advice in general. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roxMH07qHmc

For some general Milwaukee style weird, there will always be Wooden Robot. I really liked Wooden Robot. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOmtl8Lmeps

Oh, my parents take the prize.

To pick just one thing, I remember a disagreement about how to re-arrange the furniture my bedroom. I remember saying (and with regret as the words were leaving my mouth), “well, it is my room.” Instant shitshow. She announced that since she wasn’t needed she would be Running Away From Home.

Even at 5 or 6, I knew that this was the stupidest thing ever, but that she also wouldn’t back down unless I cried and chased her and begged her to stay. She got out the front door and slowly walked towards the street, stopping every few feet to look back. She had nowhere to go, obviously. If this were going to be a battle of wills, I held all the cards. I was also six. If I had been 16, I might have thought to lock the front door behind her. In any case, even at that age I knew that if I somehow won this, things could only get worse.

Yeah, I whipped up some tears and ran after her. But she never tried that one again and I like to think that it was because she got all the way to the street before she got her intended outcome.

Well that’s just a solid banger. It’s also a cover.

Yes. Absolutely yes.

First popular song? Probably Call Me, by blondie. It was played at every skate rink in 1982.

Before that, my memory doesn’t hold. There was one about a castle and a stunt man who got burned in a three way script. And a ghost was there.

Yes. It’s a moo point. It’s moo.

I think I need to add both of these words to my vocabulary.

I think that argument would be moo.

Ian McKellan and Christopher Lee in The Lord of the Rings

I was considering that one.

I’m expanding the parameters here (aka cheating) because they have never been in a movie together.

I would like to see Peter Lorre in any Nicolas Cage role (and vice versa).

Interesting. Sub in a Harkkonen for the mad priest with a taste for organ-harvesting cruelty. A nightclub singer in the role of a Bene Gesserit witch who is there for no obvious reason. (Plans within plans?) The Fremen are the little slaves toiling to extract resources/spice.

In the end, Short Round liberates the oppressed masses and greenery returns to the parched lands. In accordance with prophecy.

It could work.

You may be looking for the Goonies. Conveniently, same actor.

(And I still stand by “pincers of power” although I know it’s wrong).

It was comparable to the natural history museums in Chicago and DC

I enjoyed the Milwaukee museum, but in my opinion, it is not.

I’m still salty that the Pergamum temple exhibit was closed. We went to Turkey and “sorry, that temple is in Germany now.” We went to Berlin a few years later and “sorry, that temple exhibit is being refurbished now.”

All that being said, I enjoyed seeing that very large gold hat.

#1 The archeological museum in Krakow. https://ma.krakow.pl/en/main-page/

It’s an old school museum, which tend to be my favorites, but there had been an art exhibition installed the week before so there were art installations displayed alongside the regular exhibits. The whole experience was wonderfully weird. It wasn’t always 100% clear what was part of the regular exhibit and what was art, because some of the regular exhibits were pretty weird. Was there an entire elaborate exhibit (with light-up displays) about the hydrogeology of southern Poland? What was the very Soviet-bloc looking sewing machine doing in that one room? Adding to the fun, the docents were very very insistent upon the order in which you visited each room. I think that was completely normal for them, but it added to the weirdness. There was also a mirror that would sound an alarm if you approached too closely. Its purpose was unclear. When we went in we were not expecting some of the exhibits to be… off.

#2 The Museum of Jurassic Technology in LA. https://mjt.org/

Apparently now open by appointment only. It’s weird by design, which is why it gets #2 rating.

#3 Any museum where you walk in and mentally say, “I’ve made a huge mistake.” These tend to be small places where it’s just you, your equally uncomfortable spouse, and the curator/owner. You’re getting a special tour. I mean, you know in your heart that he’s more interested in showing your his weird shit than murdering you, but the question of whether you’ll feature in the next exhibit is always floating in the air. They may not have the nicest stuff to look at, but you remember the experience.