If no one votes on the recent WICH post for KISS tribute band Mr. Speed by Wednesday, 4:00PM CST , there is a very distinct possibility that the Peter Kriss tribute guy will be designated the leader.
Sure, he may in fact *be* the leader. But what if he isn’t?
WHAT IF HE ISN’T?
A broken window
Jupiter
Here’s something I saw on the sidebar of my Google Mail. The top line isn’t a link — I just made it look like one, to show it to you as it appeared to me.
______________________
Do not buy a Zune
until you see our
Zune Buyer’s Guide
[website URL deleted]
______________________
I think the main message of this ad is “do not buy a Zune.”
Christopher Hitchens: “Let’s kill all the puppies.”
First of all, welcome. Abe Lincoln welcomes you to the 2007 Illinois State Fair.
What you might not be able to tell from this picture (and the rest of the pictures here) is that it was hot. It was 99 degrees Fahrenheit, with a heat index of “OH MY GOD IT’S HOTTER THAN SATAN’S ARMPIT”.
It was Sunday morning. I picked up Tim at around 9:30 am and we headed to the fairgrounds. It was too damned hot to take my family, so I just went there with Tim while my wife and my mom did some shoe shopping with the kids.
One important aspect to the Illinois State Fair is eating. Their motto should be, give us a foodstuff and we’ll put a stick in it and fry it. One of the food booths actually has a name I admire, “Fried What?”.
But for me, the food I have to eat every time I visit the fair is Tom Thumb donuts.
That’s what I call them, at least. They haven’t actually been called that in years, though. Now they have the extremely boring name, Donut Family.
Still, they taste the same as the hot, sugary donuts I fondly remember.
Tim opted for the healthy choice of the Bob Vose corndog. It was so nice, in fact, he had it twice.
Most booths at the Illinois State Fair are just brought in trailers, but Bob Vose apparently has enough clout that he has a permanent structure on the grounds where he sells his food. Note that some disturbing behind-the-scenes business has taken place. As you can see by the sign, Pepsi is no longer served by Bob Vose!
Between Tim’s 1st and 2nd corn dogs, I ambled over to the Pork Patio for a pork chop sandwich.
Okay, enough eating! Let’s get out of this godforsaken heat!
So, one thing I had to do was go see the butter cow. It’s actually the law in Springfield that you must see the butter cow if you visit the fair.
Usually the butter cow is a life-sized cow that stands in a refrigerated glass cabinet reminiscent of a high school’s trophy case. This year, they shook things up a bit. The case this year is round, and rotates. The rotation is not what I would call smooth — it seems to catch every few inches with a minor jolt. In addition to the butter cow, there is a butter calf, a butter tree, a butter cat, a butter… well, I’ll just show you:
One way of rating the butter cow sculptor’s craft is how well the veins on the cow’s teats are portrayed. Sadly, this year the veins are a little unrealistic:
There was actually a little controversy over the butter cow this year. In a recent column in the local paper, a food critic recommended that the butter cow tradition be discontinued, which prompted backlash from the community.
I can understand both points of view. One is sick of having a butter cow around every year, a tradition since 1922. The other wants to see a life-sized sculpture made of butter.
Could we compromise? Perhaps next year we can have a butter Henry Rollins? He’s got plenty of veins that could be lovingly rendered.
Okay, we ate, we saw the butter cow. Now, I just wanted to do one more thing before the sun caused me to spontaneously combust. We had to go on the Sky Ride.
Carnival rides from the Sky Ride
Hi-Dive in front of the Exposition Building
Near the end of the Sky Ride, ridin’ over the “God Mobile”
Just a couple more pictures. Have you ever watched an infomercial? If you have, chances are they are selling its product in the Exposition building. It’s basically that, crappy leather belts, and evangelical Christian booths.
Here’s a quiz for you!
Please be warned that if you try to answer the questions, I cannot tell you if you are right or wrong, as I didn’t uncover #2 or #3.
One more pic from the Exposition building. This is the superpowered Televac handwriting analysis computer, which has been using the same blinking light technology it did back when I was a kid. I guess if it ain’t broke, don’t upgrade it.
And finally, a couple fun ride pics.
The Yo-Yo
The Giant Slide
Well, that’s it. Of course I didn’t cover everything. There’s craploads of livestock, mediocre bands at the Grandstand and beer tents, etc., but I’ve told you what *I* was there for.
I might have one more 2007 Illinois State Fair post in me, but it won’t be published here until next week. If you can stick around for that long, you might find yourself amused, shocked and frightened.
Love and Kisses From The State Capitol,
Splotchy
I was working on an issue at work and thought I had a file system’s subdirectory in my clipboard (the mysterious place that data goes when you “Cut” or “Copy” it on a computer) which I needed to paste in at a UNIX prompt.
But, what I pasted was:
http://samuraifrog.blogspot.com/
So, what’s in your clipboard?
I mentioned in a comment on a Monkey Muck post that I was going to quit the soda (that’s what we call sugary, carbonated beverages from where I come from, not like the hep Chicagoans who call it “pop”). This is being done in solidarity with the dietary sacrifices being made by Doctor Monkey Von Monkerstein and SamuraiFrog.
This is the first day — you didn’t expect me to stay away from it during the Illinois State Fair, did you?! So far, one lunch without a Coke.
Making a public pronouncement like this to the three people who read my blog (that’s including me) will really help me keep to my promise.
I’m lucky in that probably my favorite drink is ice water. Yes, ice water. Delicious, delicious ice water.
Now if I can just stop the glue-huffing and chewing the asbestos gum, I’ll be feeling pretty good.
As a public service requested by Jin, I just wanted to inform the readers of this blog that we are entering Day 5 of the MySpace page of G House displaying my little prank.
Here’s the finalized list of the upcoming Total Absorption mix.
01 – The White Stripes – Seven Nation Army [splotchy]
02 – Gang Of Four – Natural’s Not In It [splotchy]
03 – Luna – La Poupee Qui Fait Non [splotchy]
04 – Magnetic Fields – I Don’t Believe You [splotchy]
05 – The Beta Band – She’s The One [splotchy]
06 – The Shins – New Slang [splotchy]
07 – Robyn Hitchcock – The Speed Of Things [splotchy]
08 – The 13th Floor Elevators – I Had To Tell You [splotchy]
09 – Sam Cooke – Change Is Gonna Come [splotchy]
10 – Brian Eno – Here Come The Warm Jets [splotchy]
11 – R.E.M. – Radio Free Europe [beth]
12 – Lyle Lovett – Friend of the Devil [beth]
13 – Michael Stipe feat. Chris Martin – In the Sun [beth]
14 – Nina Simone – Feeling Good [beth]
15 – Oasis – Champagne Supernova [beth]
16 – Neil Young – Philadelphia [beth]
17 – Nanci Griffith – Morning Song for Sally [beth]
18 – Al Green – Love and Happiness [beth]
19 – The Replacements – I Will Dare [beth]
20 – Brothers Johnson – Strawberry Letter #23 [beth]
21 – James – Ring the Bells [barbara]
22 – Neutral Milk Hotel – King of Carrot Flowers Pt 1 [barbara]
23 – Neutral Milk Hotel – King of Carrot Flowers Pt 2 and 3 [barbara]
24 – Joy Division – Transmission [barbara]
25 – Chad VanGaalen – Blood Machine [barbara]
26 – Pixies – Holiday Song [barbara]
27 – The Constantines – Young Lions [barbara]
28 – Ballboy – Avant Garde Music – [barbara]
29 – Belle and Sebastian – The Boy With the Arab Strap [barbara]
30 – Radiohead – Let Down [barbara]
31 – The Jesus and Mary Chain – Happy When It Rains [barbara]
32 – Johnny Cash – A Boy Named Sue [monkey]
33 – Bruce Springsteen – Darkness on the Edge of Town [monkey]
34 – Rank and File – Post Office Wall [monkey]
35 – Kirsty MacColl – Titanic Days [monkey]
36 – Mediaeval Baebes – Kilmeny [monkey]
37 – Kate Bush – Running Up That Hill [monkey]
38 – Stiff Little Fingers – Who Died and Made You Elvis? [monkey]
I’d be lying to say I wasn’t excited. There is so much music I have not heard on this mix!
Look for a post in the next few days containing the actual songs!
Okay, on the long train ride to Springfield, where I had no WiFi for my new Macbook Pro laptop, and where the movies I had downloaded to a thumb drive to watch on the trip didn’t work, because Quicktime does not recognize AVI files without downloading software from the Internet, I managed to think of my idea for the Green Monkey Music Project.
Jesus H. Christ, was all of that last paragraph one sentence?
Anyways, here is my project idea: TOTAL ABSORPTION
First, a note about the General Rules… Rather than worry about each participant attempting to adhere to a total 20 minute running time for their song choices (odds are none of us are going to be porting this mix down to an 80 minute music CD), how about each person provide something like 5-10 songs per project?
Okay, here are my particular project’s rules.
Total Absorption
==================================
This is more of a touchy-feely kind of mix, and I think it will be a fun one. I want you to come up with songs that when you hear them, you basically have to stop what you’re doing and hear the whole song. If someone tries to talk to you, you hush them, pointing emphatically at the place where the music is emanating from, as if to say, “Hey! I’m listening to this!”
If you’re browsing through your songs to find entries for this project and you are unable to move to another song until the one you’re currently listening to is finished, chances are it’s a Total Absorption song.
==================================
For this particular project, we have four participants:
Splotchy
Beth
Barbara Bruederlin
Doctor Monkey Von Monkerstein
Beth, Barbara, and Monkey, I’m not sure how this will work best — what do you think? Emails? Maybe just leave a comment on this post when you come up with your own songs? We’ll just play loosy-goosy with it.
Here’s my songs for the mix, in the order they’ll appear. Beth’s songs will follow mine, then Barbara’s, then Dr MvM.
01 – The White Stripes – Seven Nation Army
02 – Gang Of Four – Natural’s Not In It
03 – Luna – La Poupee Qui Fait Non
04 – Magnetic Fields – I Don’t Believe You
05 – The Beta Band – She’s The One
06 – The Shins – New Slang
07 – Robyn Hitchcock – The Speed Of Things
08 – The 13th Floor Elevators – I Had To Tell You
09 – Sam Cooke – Change Is Gonna Come
10 – Brian Eno – Here Come The Warm Jets
I won’t be able to post the songs for you to hear until Sunday or Monday, but now you know the beginning of the mix. Looking forward to seeing and hearing your own choices.
Also, if you have the inclination to come up with your own project, I’d love to be a part of it.
Thanks and Godspeed…