and the list goes on

Kahlua ate my seam ripper. For the unaware, this is what a seam ripper looks/tastes like:

soundtrack of my life

(eat your heart out Cameron Crowe!)

IF YOUR LIFE WAS A MOVIE, WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE?
Here's how it works:
- Open your music library
- Put it on shuffle
- For every question, type the song that's playing, no cheating!
- When you go to a new question, press the next button

Opening Credits: Amazing-Josh Kelley

Waking Up: Creep-the Bob Dylan cover

First Day At School: Yesterday-John Lennon

Falling In Love: Free Falling -Tom Petty (whoa... creepy)

Fight Song: My Tourniquet-Evanescence

Breaking Up: Let You Down-Dave Matthews Band (ha!)

Life's OK: You Are My Sunshine-Ray Charles

Mental Breakdown: Angel -Sarah McLachlan

Driving: Breakfast At Tiffany's-Deep Blue Something

Flashback: I'll Be Here Awhile-311

Getting Back Together: Blue Eyes Crying In the Rain-Willie Nelson

Wedding: This Is How It Goes - Aimee Mann

Birth of Child: The Closest Thing to Crazy-Katie Melua

Death Scene: Sitting on the Dock of the Bay-Otis Redding

Funeral Song: April in Paris-Ella Fitzgerald

End Credits: There Goes My Hero-Foo Fighters

Movie Review

THE LAST KISS
<-starring all those people
Don't go see this movie. i don't care how much you love Garden State, The O.C. or whatever season of The Real World Jacinda Barrett made it out of. Just don't. Unless, of course, you LIKE spending $10 and 2 hours watching people be awful to each other, then i highly recommend it.
Okay, so it's well acted and well shot and i'm not naive enough to think that you need to love all the characters in every movie everywhere, but come on! Braff's character, Michael, tells his pregnant girlfriend of 3 years, Jenna (played by Barret), who is perfect by his own and his buddies' admissions, that he's madly in love with her and really excited about the unplanned pregnancy, then turns around and immediately and intentionally gets involved with another girl, Bilson's Kim. WHO, by the way, comes on to Michael at a wedding, finds out he has a girlfriend, and still pursues him. This all happens in the first 20 minutes, so there was no chance you were ever going to like Kim. Conniving slut. And later when Michael tells her 'Sorry, shouldn't have involved you in this', she tries to play like she's the victim?! Oh noooo honey, you did not just do that. Somehow, we're supposed to sympathize with Michael because he's turning 30 and 'there are no surprises left' and blah blah disenchanted peter pan blah blah blah. Nope. The guy's a jerk. i'd use other adjectives, but i think my grandma might read this. The likeability the writers create for him is solely based on his love for Jenna, and he annihilates that the first chance he gets.
There are other story lines involving his turning-30-not-ready-to-grow-up-buddies and even Jenna's disenchanted parents (played outstandingly by Wilkinson and the always balls-out Danner), but instead of deflecting your hatred of Michael onto them, they instead serve as further proof that, basically, people suck and treat others horribly. Good times. At least the acting was good. Jacinda Barret is an aussie and her really angry scenes had a bit of her accent in them, which was kinda fun. Bilson does her OC 'sprightly brunette' schtick, only with added sexy (ps, even if you ignore my advice to NOT see this movie and decide you WILL, don't see it with your parents), and it works for this role, but i'm not sure how far it'll take her otherwise. Casey Affleck is really good too. i wish he did more mainstream stuff because i never manage to see the artsy flicks he's in. Josh was ready to leave halfway through the movie, and frankly i was too, but i wanted to stay for Bythe Danner and Tom Wilkinson and they didn't let me down.
i know that the movie isn't claiming to be a great romance and is instead standing on the platform of 'this is reality! people do this stuff! life stinks sometimes! angst is as angst does!' ....but isn't the point of going to the movies to ESCAPE reality? Isn't the point of love and commitment saying 'i'm not going to do this stuff to you, and i'll make your life stink a little less'? Thanks for destroying both in one fell swoop guys.
i don't recommend it, unless you're a guy having an early mid-life crisis and need to feel validated. Even then....maybe not. 2 out of 5 pairs of chinos.

Don't cry for me, Elk Grove

This website takes your pics and finds your 'heritage'. i think they define heritage VERY loosely. Here are Josh, Purg and Travis. Other victims of my boredom included Katie Trihub, who's lookalike was Millard Fillmore (the 13th president), Jason Niemeyer: Scarlett Johansson, and Whitney: Penelope Cruz. Since you asked, a single pic of me got paired with everyone from Shirley Temple to Lauryn Hill to Michael Jackson.

a dog's life

Alot of people ask how Cosmo is getting along with our housemates' dog, Kahlua. Like any relationship, it takes time. They're fascinated with each other, and Kahlua just wants to give Cosmo a big kiss, but Cosmo still can't get over his fear. He stealthily follows Kahlua around the house, always via tabletop, couch, counter, bed or bookshelf...eye level or above ONLY. Occasionally Kahlua gets frustrated that nothing's happening (she's kind of an attention ho) and starts barking at a cruelly ambivelant Cosmo, but eventually he'll come down from his perch and the frantic staring contest will resume. You can click on the photo to see more of their around-the-house adventures.

...like a nose hair after a sneeze

(Stealing this from Matt, it's just too good.)

Every year, English teachers from across the country can submit their collections of actual analogies and metaphors found in high school essays. These excerpts are published each year to the amusement of teachers across the country. Here are last year's winners....

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse withoutone of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.
5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.

8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.

9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldnt.

10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when youre on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced acrossthe grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one havingleft Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topekaat 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fencesthat resembled Nancy Kerrigans teeth.

16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds whohad also never met.

17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she wasthe East River.

18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.

19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a landmine or something.

23. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

More Chalking

Al Franken wants to show you photos of the other Chalk It Up contributions.

Labor Day Weekend

We spent 2 days in Fremont Park this weekend, helping my aunt Cindy out with her double-square for the annual Chalk It Up benefit. Chalk It Up is a non-profit organization dedicated to funding children's art education in the Sacramento region. People can 'rent' portions of the sidewalk and decorate them with chalk. Vendors and musicians come, kids get small squares for free, lots of dogs... you name it. Since Cindy was asked to do a double square, she needed our help! Our portion was sponsored by University Art and was in a nice shady spot under a tree by the Children's Tent.
i can't remember how big our actual chunk of sidewalk was, but you can tell from this pic that it was big. (the sign in the top left is an 8.5 x 11 piece of paper) Of course, the photo doesn't do any justice to the pop of the color or to the nuances of our mad chalking techniques, so just trust me when i say it was genius. Our fingers are still pretty sore from using the small sticks of soft pastels and hand-blending the colors, and our legs and backs also took some for the team, but, it's all for the children. Josh was in charge of working a shout-out to our sponsor into the design, Cindy did all the crazy detail work, and i sat around eating chalk. Seriously folks, i'm not a natural with soft pastels, at least, not on sidewalk. i would color a portion, then Josh and Cindy would have to come through and edit it. It was fun though, anytime i can be covered head to toe in a mess of color is a good time. Makes me feel like an undiscovered prodigy to have art under my fingernails.