Best Before: June 1, 2006

I was living in Ireland at the time - which I say only because it sounds better than "So the semester when I was over in Ireland during college" - and walked, wearing the puppy slippers that were a going away present from my then girlfriend - into the kitchen that I shared with three male roommates (Adam, Dan and Brett) and started rummaging around the fridge looking for breakfast.

Which more than likely means I was hungover since that was basically the only time I ever ate breakfast over there, but that's not really the point.

I reached for the container of milk, popped the top, and poured some into my mouth - which sounds gross I know until you looked at some of the dishes in the sink. Even if my roommates, Dan's girlfriend, and Brett's drug dealer - and he was missing about 6 teeth - were all doing the same thing to the milk jug it was still cleaner than any of the plastic cups we gamely tried to rinse out with lukewarm water in the sink.

Actually I should say that I tried to pour some milk into my mouth, because the milk took a much more lackadaisical approach and globbed its way out of the bottle.

I spit it out in the sink over a skillet that I'm pretty sure we just ended up throwing away rather than even attempting to clean, and checked the expiration date on the milk.

March 23.

It was the morning - well, okay early afternoon - of March 24th. And all ready the milk had begun to cheesify.

I've always been kind of fascinated with expiration dates, for obvious reasons. I had a rather involved conversation with a coworker at lunch this week about the subtle yet importance difference between "Best Before" (Nah, it's still good, go ahead and give it a shot) and "Use By" (You do know that green isn't the color hash browns supposed to be, right?)

It's hard to know when it's time to stop sniffing the milk or when to stop cautiously taking a bite of pad thai that was left out on the kitchen counter overnight and just toss it into the garbage.

It's hard to know when to let something go, to realize it's not going to get any better - or to be fair, any worse - and it's time to just walk away.

It's hard to know when to stop blogging.

Crickets: *roll eyes*
MooCow: Yes I know I'm blogging about blogging again. Shut.it.
Crickets: Wake us up when something happens...

I'm noticing more and more of the people I read on a daily basis hanging up their proverbial keyboards in some form or another - bathroomreading, dan, jay (aka kickballsuperstar), vivian, d2ana, and someone else who I totally can't think of at the moment (sorry).

And I know I'm going to be doing the same thing. Oh sure I'll try to post on Waffling up the Kiwi depending on how things go. Maybe a guest post here and there.

But I've already wasted my "So long and thanks for all the fish..." post on my previous blog.

So I need something different this time.

Something like:

Crazying up the Bottle:
Best Before: June 1, 2006

Crickets: Uh, wait....does this mean what we think it means? (pause) That we can't eat you - not a euphemism by the way - anymore? But you....you're so succulent. (giggle)
Crickets: (longer pause) Um, Moo?
Crickets: That fucker's done again? Wow. He almost made it a year this time. Good job *slow clap*
Crickets: (pausing, looking around) No (they make air quotes here) "snappy" comebacks? Maybe he really is gone.
Crickets: (room echoes) Hello? Hellooooo?

(The crickets begin to throw an increasingly ridiculous pile of stuff - books, clothes, a TV, kitchen sink, airplane, statue of liberty - into a suitcase. A few jump up on the top of the suitcase as the others try to close the latches on the bulging bag. Finally getting the suitcase closed they walk to the door and take a last look around)

Crickets: We just want to say thanks to those of you who bothered to read the ramb--wait a second, why are we reading the shit that Moo told us we had to read otherwise we wouldn't get our security deposit back? Did we even pay a security deposit? (Pull out a check register and begin flipping through it) He is sooo dead. Does he even know what a NZ cricket looks like?
Crickets: (clears throat) Ah-hem. We just want to say, "Boobies!"

(The crickets flick off light switch)

Well that explains today and yesterday...what about the previous month?

So I got a phone call from my parents on Sunday evening as I was sitting melting in my apartment getting ready for what I've now decided was in fact a date.

Phone: (ring) (ring) Uh, yeah so the number is from some weird area code in Colorado
Me: Aw hell, it's my parents.
Crickets: (put down the outfits they had been picking out for me - including a bike jersey and a pair of plaid pajama pants. Stupid colorblind crickets) Don't your parents live in Wisconsin?
Me: Yeah, but they buy these stupid calling cards and so whenever I get a call from 720 or 440 or some goofy area code like that, I know it's them.
Phone: Ahem, ring!
Me: Oh right. (picks up phone)
Phone's boyfriend: (punches MooCow) And that's for pickin' up my special lady friend!
Crickets: This is going to be another one of those nonsensical posts that people give up reading halfway through because there are about 7986234 characters and none of it makes any sense.
Me: More then likely, yeah. (into phone) Hello?
MooMom: Hi Moo! Where are you? [ed. note - Seriously, that was their first question. Not how are you...where.]
Me: I'm at home.
MooMom: Well we were just calling to say that on Tuesday [10 minute story about Tuesday removed because, well I stopped listening for most of it]...and so we're going to be without e-mail for a couple of days.
Me: Huh? Wait what?
MooMom: Because the cable modem isn't working.
Me: Oh right. Gotcha.
MooMom: Well that's really why I was calling. How are you?

So my parents - my dear sweet slightly-to-mostly confused parents - called to tell me that I wouldn't be getting any e-mail from them in the next few days.

Despite the fact that the last time I got an email from them (I heart you gmail search function) was April 21st. And I've gotten a total of 7 e-mails from them all year.

But at least now I know that the reason why I'm not getting email from them is because their cable modem is broken.

Crickets: (peeking heads out of suitcase) That was the story?
Me: Yes that was the story. And get out of there. Seriously you guys. They're very strict about flora or fauna entering NZ.
Crickets: Wait which one are we?
Me: Fauna.
Crickets: Even Hamilton? (cricket wearing a pink shirt with a popped collar waves)
Me: Get out.
Crickets: (grumbling) Don't be all Pissy McMoanerson because it was a lame story dude.
Me: Hate. you.

Stick what?

So there are certain movies that you get done watching and you think "Whoa...Seriously, whoa. That was...whoa."

The Godfather.

Barbarians at the Gates.

And now...Stick It.

So some of you out there, who I may or may not have chatted with on IM, might be thinking "Dude, seriously, Stick It? Like the gymnastics movie. You had better be going with a chick. Seriously, you're going with a woman right?"

Whatever. If you can't understand the reason why I'd want to go see "Bring It On meets the Olympics," well then you don't understand hott women in spandex. (The reason why the guy sitting by himself on the other side of the theater a few rows down from us was watching the movie is debatable at best. Especially given the amount that he laughed at certain "jokes" ("It's not called gymnistics!"))

See, I went to this with Amber ("Hey what do you feel like doing?" "Oh let's go see a movie." "How about Stick It?" "OMG, I sooooo want to see that."), expecting it to be horribly bad. Like Gigli bad.

But it wasn't. It was easily the best movie about gymnastics I've ever seen, beating out...um...well it was still the best movie.

I think it's going to do for gymnastics what "Best of the Best II " did for tai kwan do (whatever, the first movie totally sucked).

Or what the "Cutting Edge" did for figure skating.

It was...it was actually okay.

Amber and I found different things to like about it (I think I appreciated several of the slow motion scenes more than she did) - but it managed to pack an impressive number of sports cliches into one movie.

The grizzled coach who's past his prime yet still cares.
The cold as ice protaganist who grows, learns, and loves.
Training montages - oh sweet jesus were there training montages
The bitch on her team, who eventually comes around.
The bitch on another team who eventually comes around.
The slightly clueless teammate who's just their for comic relief (ah dear sweet Wei Wei)
The soundtrack featuring no less than two songs off of ESPN's Jock Jams (one of the climatic scenes - SPOILER ALERT...oh who am I kidding, like anyone is going to go see this movie - involves a breakdance sequence on a balance beam to K7's "Come Baby Baby")
A slow motion medal ceremony
Large amounts of voice over (ala Million Dollar Baby)

There were the standard teenage movies cliches ("OMG will I get to go to prom?" "OMG, my parents just don't understand me!" "OMG, OMG!!") as well, but let's face it, this is a movie that includes a leotard spraying montage - it's a movie about gymnastics.

And for that random woman who wrote and directed the movie, I salute you.

Though seriously you put out a "Stick It Again" straight to DVD and I'm going to disown ever seeing this movie.

A horse, Andre, and a suburb

So Saturday afternoon was Mr. K's birthday extrva extrava fete - down at the local horse racing track. Because nothing says happy birthday quite like standing and yelling for "Hoof Hearted" to run like he's never run before ("And down the stretch, it's hoof hearted...")

My betting strategy consists of me figuring I'm going to lose anyway, so why not lose big? Betting an 8-6-7 trifecta in one race followed by a 5-3-10-9 superfecta in the next race?

So I didn't even really bother looking at a program before tapping out my first bet on one of those automated machine thingies. A $2 5-3-4 trifecta.

Which I then proceeded to forget as an older heavyset silverback guy, a gold chain around his neck, his shirt open down to the bottom button walked by and made me giggle/retch. More of the second now that I think about it again. Actually all of the second.

Oh wait, I just won. Hee. Yay. It paid off at a somewhat pathetic $42.20. Which was the only thing I won all afternoon, but still yay!

And then it got hott. No I mean like hott. On Sunday the high temperature was a blistering 97 degrees (which google tells me is 36 c, which is good because I'd guess it was 978234234 milligrees or something like that).

I've ranted about my air conditioner before, and how it's good at making noise and tripling my energy bill, but not so good at the actual cooling part. It's like having Andre the Giant sitting in your living room breathing loudly and waving a paper fan over a tray of ice cubes.

I turned it on anyway, in the hopes that my landlord magically snuck in and replaced it with one that wasn't used by the Flinstones.

After about 30 minutes of "Neeeerrrrrrrrr" and the temperature actually going up in my apartment, I shut it off and stripped off my last layer (the crickets making bow chicka bow wah chirping noises and yelling out comments like "Oh come on, do it cross armed like they do in the movies...")

And that's the way I stayed for most of the afternoon, until I had a date/non-date with a girl I went to college with, but didn't know at all.

The original plan had been to meet up for a bike ride - but since it was about 892735897342 degrees, we decided just to grab some ice cream and walk around one of the lakes.

(Now I realize that I complain a lot about the weather, but well, you have to complain about the weather when live in a place with a 140 degree range of temperatures - it got as cold as -36 last winter. So there.)

After scarfing down ice cream - I got Oreo, she got peach - we started walking towards where we thought the lake was.

And walked.

And walked.

And then saw a "Welcome to St. Louis Park" sign.

We went looking for a lake and found a suburb.

Three hours, two games of paper rock scissors later ("Well it's not like we can get any more lost, so let's let PRS decide which way we should go"), and a rather unsettling moment involving an older heavyset silverback guy, a gold chain around his neck, his shirt open down to the bottom button walked by (Is he following me? Are they multiplying like some kind of overly tan, belly-bearing pod people?) - we had found the lake and limped home.

Next date/non-date? Sooo not going to involve walking.

Oh and congratulations are due to Princess Sophia Banana Hammock who will soon be known as Mrs. Princess Sophia Banana Hammock-Crapbag.

The story as I heard it is that her boyfriend re-enacted their first date (yellow roses leading down to his recording studio followed by a trip to Hooters), got down on one knee, and asked her to marry him. *tears up* I'm so happy for you kids.

Though seriously, you have the wedding while I'm gone, I'm going to kick you.

So while you were hiking, did you see any berries?

So I got about halfway through a post before realizing it was yet another meta-angsty maudlin rant, the kind that I've been writing more or less for the last month or so that make it sound like I've been listening to Monster Ballads while reading The Bell Jar all day.

I mean if my life were being made into a movie preview right now there'd be all these scenes of me (played by John Cusack of course) staring out a rain-splattered window as something by, oh, let's say, Imogen Heap plays in the background. Then a quick cut to a woman walking down the street. Then back to looking out the window. Then sitting at a desk pensively chewing on the earpiece of my glasses.

That kind of shit.

But I don't want that. I want the preview to have car chases - no...blimp chases - and koala bears wearing cheerleader outfits and a Clockwork Orange-esque flashing of random images (there's a squirrel, and a cheeseburger, and Optimus Prime, and an etch-a-sketch, and an iPod showing "Melanie - Brand New Key" is playing, and there's Jambi from Pee-Wee's Playhouse, and crickets playing a cricket match (the Chirpers captain is seen getting caught out by the third slip with a finishing with a disappointing 4 for 37)) - all while Save Ferris play a ska version of "Come on Eileen."

But apparently these days I'm just not capable of writing anything like that, so you're stuck hearing me blandly write about my date last night (we got coffee and sat around talking for about 4 hours) where the word "dingle" was used no less than 25 times and no one giggled (the datee, a 27-year-old lawyer, and I had both spent some time hiking around the Dingle peninsula in Ireland).

No giggling. At. Dingle.

I mean I almost started giggling at the word "titration" at work today - though that might have had something to do with the drawing of Millie Mole that we scribbled on a coworker's white board as we tried to figure out how to convert mg/dL to mmoles/L (answer: divide by 18).

But dingle? Nothing. I just nodded politely as she talked about "So after we got into dingle we..." No Ernie-esque giggling - well out loud at least, in my head all I kept picturing Ernie out in the boat yelling "Here fishy fishy fishy fishy..."

Squirrels need to write too

"Can I see your pen for a second?" I asked one of my coworkers as we stood around outside watching other coworkers smoke.

"What do you want it for?" he asked somewhat cautiously, which makes sense since this is the same coworker whose cube I've been stealing things out of for the past few weeks - including the tennis ball that I was bouncing against the door of the building with a satisfying *thump*

"I want to draw some more on my tennis ball." I showed him the smiley face that I had scribbled on during a two hour conference call from hell, and the crotchal region which I had attempted (and failed) to pixelate. (Yes tennis balls do too have a crotchal region..)

He handed over his pen.

I took the cap off, carefully placed it on the other end of the pen - and threw it up on the roof of the building, barely sneaking it over the edge, because the wind took it (my claim) or because I throw like a girl (my sans pen coworker's claim).

I left before him tonight, so I fully expect something to be missing from my cube tomorrow morning.

I think it's safe to say senioritis is officially setting in at work. The sad part is I still have over a month to go.

---

Oooh yay, it's the other side of the line again. I'm liking the line idea more and more because it means I don't have to be coherent through an entire post.

No go ahead. Make your snarky comments now.

Done? I can wait. *starts humming A-ha's "Take on me"*

So you all remember AustinGirl right? What's that? You don't hang on my every word. Fine. I'll post the link, but after this I'm done enabling you.

So I was talking to her last night - she had called because she had read about my trip - but there was something behind her voice, a certain breathlessness, a half octave higher, further blurring that line between reality and cartoon - and the first time I asked what was new, she responded with "Oh nothing."

I told her I could smell the smoke from here (translation: She was such a liar liar pants on fire, they were causing smoke to be smellable (it is too a word) (spell check tells me this is like the 4th made up word so far. That may be a new record for me) from across the country).

"Moo," she steadied herself, "I'm engaged. And getting married next March. And moving to England." She paused, "I couldn't wait for you forever you know." Another pause, "You just sat down didn't you?"

I told her I was of course.

And then I told her I was happy for her - because I am, seriously - but part of me...man, it was like watching the doors slowly shutting at an elevator down at the end of a long hallway. Maybe you could have caught the elevator, maybe you couldn't have (in this case, I totally could have) - but it doesn't really matter now.

The point is moo ("You know, like a cow's opinion.") moot.

Watts and raisins

First off, the power cord for my laptop was finally located inside a box burred underneath a miniature cricket bat, an alligator - or possibly crocodile - mask, and a string of Peep lights that a former boss bought for me on clearance at Target.

Which is obviously the best place to keep a laptop power cord.

But now I have another problem and I'm hoping one of you out there is smart and/or bored enough to give me the right answer (I'll get to something more interesting - uh, maybe - after this, just give me a sec...)

The current battery in my craptop is marked on the battery as being 14.4 watts. All the replacement batteries I've been able to find so far - including a sticker containing a part number for kahlon.com - are 14.8 watts.

My question: Is that close enough, or do I seriously have to somehow have to hunt down a 14.4 from somewhere? I know you can change the amps on a battery no problem, but I've always thought that the watts has to be the same. Anybody know or can google me an answer? I've found nothing useful other than a message board where I think they were talking about model airplanes or some shit and the conversation degraded into a bunch of formulas concerning power or something.

Anyway, moving on. Look, I'll even put a line in...

-------

Hi. Feels totally different on this side of the line doesn't it? Like everybody is going out to eat at the Olive Patch or TGIWeekend.

Speaking of olives, why can you not buy just straight olive juice in the grocery store? I mean if the only reason why I'm buying olives is for martini related purposes, I don't want an entire bottle of olives when I pour most of the juice out and I'm left with half a jar of dry olives which just raisining away in the back of my fridge.

I tried to rehydrate raisins once - you know turn them back into grapes - back when I was about 4 and was convinced that if I put them in a container of water and then into the freezer, they'd turn back into grapes. Which probably explains why the two recipes I contributed for the recipe book my pre-school class read as follows:

Sandwich
Serves 1

1. Take two pieces of bread.
2. Walk out to the sandbox.
3. Grab a handful of sand.
4. Place between bread
5. Eat.

(My theory on this is that I was planning on talking about how to make a sandwich on the way to pre-school and my brother and sister convinced me I really meant sandwich. I know this sounds far-fetched, but it has happened before.)

Pizza
Serves: everybody

1. Put pizza in oven.
2. Go outside to play.
3. Come back inside.
4. Drink pop.
5. Eat pizza.
6. Drink more pop.

Well I'm at least close to being on the right track here. It's not like I said you should put the pizza on your head or anything.

And that's way better than one of the one's from my friend Justin who had a recipe for Spaghetti where he wrote:

1. Get a big pot and fill it with water.
2. Put it on the stove until it's all bubbly.
3. Add noodles and cook until soft.
4. Drain.
5. Eat.

Ha! Stupid Justin. He forgot to mention that you should salt the water before bringing it to a boil. What a moron!

---

So seriously, anyone figured out the laptop battery thing yet?

Oh, and while I'm thinking of it...Anybody have an old iPod they'd be willing to sell/trade me?