A schediastic hootenanny

I'll keep it brief, since I know how boring you find these entries. Saturday, we took a trip to St. Cloud (which is a city north of here in a magical elf-filled valley where there are nothing but chain stores, and where everything is named after a saint) to visit my girlfriend's sister and scope out her lovely new house. Her neighbors are excessively tan and have a giant rock in their backyard. ninafarina turns out to be addicted to video games, for which I mocked her cruelly while secretly weeping that I can't play Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas anymore*.

Yesterday, I made chiles rellenos Greensboro style, which is stuffed with vinegar slaw and barbecued chicken. They were pretty ugly; I can't seem to get the hang of pan-frying stuff and having it come out pretty. But man were they good, if I do so engage in a bit of self-horn-tooting. We then headed out to a St. Paul Saints game, which we told ourselves would be fun for the whole family but really is not the best place to take a three-year-old. There was a special kids' book reading on the field before the game, which is the only time in the last 17 years I've been nostalgic for college, but Li'l' Duce didn't feel like sticking around for it, and her crankiness intensified as the game dragged on, possibly because it was a hundred and three fucking degrees.** Anyway, I was not particularly saddened to leave early, because the Saints were losing 10-0 in the fifth inning.

Speaking of Li'l' Duce, here's another superhero-related conversation we had recently. She was making something out of Play-Doh:

ME: What is that?

LD: It's a castle.

ME: Who lives there?

LD: Spider-Man.

ME: Who else?

LD: Superman.

ME: What do they do there?

LD: They hug together.

ME: What else?

LD: They kiss together.

ME: Does anyone know about this?

LD: (offended) No! It's a secret.

Also, we were coming home from the store the other day, and she said, apropos of nothing, "When I turn you into a kitty, you won't be a person anymore."

I asked her why she wanted to turn me into a kitty, and she replied, "Because that's how I am."

THIS FOLKSY HOMESPUN KID HUMOR COURTESY THE TARGET CORPORATION

*: I thought about claiming that playing GTA:SA would count as research for our upcoming move to California, but that way madness lies.

**: We live in Minnesota.

Just to prove that, despite living in the Twin Cities and posting lots of political crankery and cutesy-poo stories about a kid, I am not actually James Lileks, here is today's example of the master at work.

In the course of complaining about how much he hated Ant Bully (easy for him to complain; he didn't have to watch Transamerica AND a British mystery show about lesbian horticulturalists who solve crimes* ALL IN THE SAME WEEKEND), he criticizes it for being -- ready? -- insufficiently Objectivist, and very possibly Stalinist propaganda. Dig this, and dig it deep:

There’s Lucas the Ant Bully, who picks on ants because big kids pick on him. Through the marvel of recent advances in ant necromancy, he gets shrunk down to ant size so he can learn important life lessons, like the need to swarm over enemy colonies and sting them to death by the millions. Well, actually, no; he learned the virtues of community and sharing and helping, etc. At one point he’s on a mushroom with the wizard ant looking at the great & glorious human city in the distance. The wizard asks about human society, and he is amazed that humans don’t all work together. That is not the Ant Way, which is selfless and communal. John Galt wept. I mean, is it too much to ask that the kid at least stick up for humans? A little? Nope! We’re all selfish and individualistic, scorning the common good, which is why the distant city they’re observing is brightly lit and reaches for the heavens, and the ants are all naked drones giving in a defenseless hole.

JAMES LILEKS, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. If only ants would adopt the values of capitalism, maybe they too would have brightly lit skyscrapers and Mossino sweater-vests.

*: No, really.

And now, comedy.

...sometimes, I even work.

Here is a game for those of you who aren't. I am going to post, in a linked fashion, a couple of internet memes of which I am or once was utterly sick to death. You add to them until they are big enough to crash the biggest server in Microsoftia. Get it? Got it? Go.

Chuck Norris On A Plane Belong To Us!