Ten years ago, these were the pews where 60+ friends, relatives, and hangers-on gathered to watch a truly peachy-keen woman agree to holy matrimony with this one dorky guy who read too many comics.
Category Archives: Mundane
Excerpts from “The Grand Jury Jokebook”
“Ha! I can do this grand-jurying thing with my eyes shut! In fact, I think I will!”
Q: How many grand jurors does it take to change a light bulb?
A: The bulb is burned out, but they’ve ruled it doesn’t need to be changed
Q: Why did the grand jury cross the road?
A: To get to the wrong conclusion
Q: How can a grand jury tell that an elephant has been in their fridge?
A: Those giant footprints in the peanut butter could belong to some other animal, so we have no idea
Q: Why do firemen wear red suspenders?
A: The grand jury has heard insufficient testimony proving that suspenders are a thing
Q: Knock, knock!
A: Who’s there?
Q: Grand jury.
A: We’re not home.
Q: Oh, okay, bye.
Q: What’s black and white and red all over?
A: A grand jury with a checkerboard
Q: Why is a raven like a grand jury?
A: Both invoke sadness, grief, and parody
Q: Why is a grand jury like a writing desk?
A: You can use both to write whatever narrative you want
(If you think these are terrible jokes, by all means, let us speak of things that are like a terrible joke…)
My So-Called “Black Friday” 2014
Hero Blogger Looks for Black Friday War Stories in All the Wrong Places
It was that time of year again! Black Friday has become that highly anticipated, deeply dreaded, beneficial, violent, invigorating, intimidating, fulfilling, decaying, economically necessary, ethically questionable, joyous holiday and/or time of mourning for everyone’s souls. Depending on who’s asking, it’s shopping as a competitive sport, or shopping as the closest American society comes to legalizing The Purge. It’s a great time for rock-bottom bargains, or it’s a time for suckers to get stuck with retailers’ unwanted, defective leftovers. It’s when the Christmas season begins for real, or it’s the ultimate defamation to the name of Christ.
Reporters spend the day prowling for cautionary tales of merchandise hoarding gone wrong, of consumer entitlement run amuck, of retailer manipulation backfiring, of fisticuffs and gunfights, of hair-pulling and cheek-slapping. Somewhere out there, shoppers will be boxing for the privilege to take home a ten-dollar panini maker that the manufacturer discontinued due to exploding wiring, and any number of news crews mean to catch it on tape before some lucky amateurs capture and post it on YouTube first. Everyone tells themselves it’s all part of the Game and complains about the system while continuing to do their part.
Black Friday used to be my thing. In recent years I’ve scaled back my expectations and participation. No more arising at 4 a.m. or earlier like a shopping zombie that thinks “doorbusters” is a synonym for “brains”. No more scheming for the largest tech items that’ll be stocked at a maximum of two per store. No more long shopping lists requiring fifteen or twenty stops’ worth of hunting and gathering.
This year I implemented more modifications to my approach. This is how my Black Friday 2014 turned out:
Mamaw’s Christmas in November
“Merry Christmas! ‘Tis the season! Deck the halls! Buy me now! The wallet wants what it wants!”
Each year my wife and I take her grandmother to Indianapolis’ own Christmas Gift & Hobby Show at the Indiana State Fairgrounds. Now on its 65th year, the Show is always held in the first half of November, shortly after Halloween and well before Thanksgiving. Judging by popular internet sentiment, you’d think there would’ve been protesters marching outside, picketing and demanding it be postponed till the weekend following Thanksgiving or else. Judging by the steady crowds packing every aisle, apparently the average citizens don’t much care about popular internet sentiment. I’m surprised we didn’t receive word of a shutdown from the Christmas fire marshal.
Gazing Upon the Works of Others
This is probably my last autumn photo of the year. I sure didn’t make this tree, but I did work to save its life one year during a terrible drought that pushed it to the brink. Taking extra steps to keep this pretty piece of Creation around seemed the least I could do for the sake of nature in general and our backyard in particular.
Halloween Stats 2014: Snow Falling on ‘Treaters
Maybe next year we can buy new Halloween decorations with voice chips that sing Christmas carols.
We knew tonight would be rough. Everyone around us has been talking about the ominous weather forecast for days and preparing for either disappointment or pneumonia. Last year’s event wasn’t freezing or flurrying; worse, it brought a severe thunderstorm that forced Indianapolis to take unprecedented drastic measures and postpone Halloween till November 1st. I didn’t blame them, but the rescheduling killed our turnout. If there were a cartoon nemesis actively trying to end Halloween as part of his master plan to take over the world, he probably spent that night cackling and proposing toasts to himself.
Tonight’s Halloween proceeded on schedule, despite some early light rain and sharp, gusty winds all throughout. I understand snowflakes showed up much earlier in other parts of Indiana, but ours came later. Regardless, the damage was done. We saw very few kids under age five, very few loners braving the harshness solo, and very few young Method actors opting out of winter gear in the name of costume integrity.
Them Apples: the E! True Hollywood Story
The Apples in Stereo!
In a modest Indiana town called Danville, there’s a place called Beasley’s Orchard where parents can bring their children to let them experience the natural resource of fresh air, and older couples can wander around as a birthday date and/or happy excuse for light exercise. During certain times of the year, visitors to Beasley’s can peruse a farmer-food shop, walk quickly through a small-business sales-tent, get lost for years in a corn maze, or lay traps for the Great Pumpkin in their rather sincere pumpkin patch.
You’re surely familiar with one of the orchard’s biggest superstars: Them Apples.
Our Jack Skellington Team-Building Pumpkin Showpiece
Sometimes team-building exercises can take you to the most unexpected places.
During our Customer Service Appreciation Week, our department and several others were challenged to a pumpkin-decorating contest. Each area received one (1) pumpkin, some bottles of paint, three paintbrushes in different sizes, a sheet or two of random Halloween stickers, probably some other art stuff I never even glanced at, and a few days’ advance notice in case we wanted time to formulate a strategy and bring our own art supplies and accessories. Once our allotted time began, we had ninety minutes to go from plain pumpkin to polished pièce de résistance, and with only one rule: no carving. Presumably the company has plans for all the pumpkin guts after the festivities end.
My team landed on the idea of Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas.
Before You Throw Away Those Cappuccino Potato Chips…
The mandatory “sinister side” pic from their upcoming episode of the Oxygen true-food-crime series Snacked.
One contender in particular, their Cappuccino Potato Chips, seems to be the most taboo-breaking of these next-wave snacks. In a recent Yahoo! article, New York Times coffee authority Oliver Strand was called in from whatever he was doing at the time that had to be more important than this, and was asked to test these chips for coffee authenticity. His conclusion is unsurprising yet apt (“The chips smell like the coffee candy your grandmother kept in a glass bowl in the living room”), but he also delves into the background of the company that provided Frito-Lay with the food-science technology necessary to pull off this modern anomaly. It’s a short, recommended reading that foreshadows other unprecedented, amalgamated endeavors in the future, except maybe those will be popular and people won’t scrunch up their noses at them.
I get the impression the Cappuccino Chips may not be flying off store shelves and will soon be relegated to Dollar General clearance bins within the next six to twelve months. My wife and I have been slowly working our way through the bag we bought, a chore prolonged by my reading comprehension failure that caused me to buy a party-sized bag. Why that size exists, I’ve no idea. Maybe they satisfy a fine-print contractual obligation. Good luck finding a crowd of twenty to one hundred friends and relatives who’d love you enough to unite and eat the entire bag for you in a single month, let alone in one party.
I don’t loathe them, but as Strand points out, they lack the enchanting loyalty that a classic potato chip commands. Anyone who’s ever tried to eat a single Pringle knows those sensations — the surprise hunger pang that wasn’t there a few minutes ago, and the sudden, insatiable craving that demands you eat at least another pound of them before you reseal the container. Unlike Pringles or actual caffeinated products, the cappuccino chips have an addiction factor near zero. They’re okay, but they’re becoming a chore for us to finish.
After a few other food-synthesis experiments that proved unappealing, this past Tuesday night I stumbled across one use for them that truly, sincerely clicked. I like to think every foodstuff exists for a reason, and I believe I’ve discovered the Cappuccino Chip’s true calling. And hopefully this doesn’t lead us into a darker future fraught with French-fry lattes or hazelnut casserole or mocha tots.
Top 10 Lay’s Potato Chip Flavors Coming in 2015
Actual potato chip flavors as of today. I’m saving this as a reminder for myself five years after I’ve forgotten they were a thing once.
Yes, it’s true: I allowed these in our house. Some experiments you have to try for yourself.
Someone at the Lay’s Potato Chip factory got bored this year and let the general public choose new flavors for their mad food scientists to concoct and test on us consumer guinea pigs. So far I’ve tried two of the four ostensibly brazen offerings. Our first contestant, their festive Mango Salsa variety, tasted like authentic dried fruit from the health food store, but crispier so they’re less depressing, and with a pound of salt to help tone down the overwhelming potpourri-basket sensation. I imagine these are what astronaut fruitcake would be like if NASA hated astronauts enough to invent it.
Last weekend we picked up a bag of their Cappuccino chips, which tasted bizarre but not offensive. I suspect this fugitive product hails from an alternate Earth where coffee-flavored sweet cream is a common topping for baked potatoes. The sweetness seems out of place, though it contains zero grams of sugar, only fake flavors. From that standpoint it’s a healthier option than dunking them in HFCS-laden ketchup. Call it a Pyrrhic potato victory.
(Of the other two new flavors, Bacon Mac ‘n’ Cheese sounds perfectly in tune with today’s America and therefore wasn’t abnormal enough for my testing purposes; and I’m flat-out afraid to try the Wasabi Ginger flavor. If they’re terrible, there’s no one else around who’d finish the rest of the bag for me.)
Pacifying the Pumpkin Police
The scene above was part of today’s breakfast: a pumpkin donut. Only because it’s that time of year when every American has a pumpkin quota to fulfill. My part is done. I’m legally free to move on and go back to eating normal food in the flavors I like.
Every year the same product wave pummels all consumer shorelines: pumpkins are in, everything else is out. Pumpkin flavors permeate and overwhelm every conceivable grocery item, restaurant dish, and miscellaneous product or service. Looking away or hiding are futile defenses because pumpkin surrounds you in every direction from your personal space to the horizon. You’ll never be allowed to exit autumn until and unless you surrender to the will of Big Pumpkin.
The Spirit of Health Care Yet to Come (for me)
I can think of four or five things wrong with that sign.
After five months without a chronic back-pain incident, I wake up this morning with slight, tender stiffness. Clock in at 7 a.m. Twenty minutes later my back begins to throb a little. I grab cafeteria breakfast at 7:30. Five minutes and three bites after sitting back down at my desk, the throbbing promotes itself to full-on spasms. Waves of pain roil outward from my lower back, on and off for thirty to forty minutes. So much for this week’s overtime.
Back pain and I are no strangers. It’s a recurring issue for me caused by, I’m told, years of poor posture plus the weight I’ve regained over time in the years after my diet. Some bouts last a day or two; some, only an hour before the pain dissipates at the mercy of ibuprofen. Not every incident requires a medical intervention.
President Obama’s Top 10 Secret Winning ISIL Strategies
Our Commander-in-Chief gears up for conflict as part of Operation: Desert Suavé.
Depending on where you stand with him and/or this escalating conflict, the speech was either too long, too short, too detailed, too vague, too overdue, or too Obama and you’re not listening no matter what LALALALALALALALA. Rest assured, our President and his speechwriters know better than to provide sensitive information to all listeners equally. We three hundred million onlookers will never know the full story behind all the extensive plans being concocted and implemented by our top officials, officers, politicians, diplomats, advisers, think-tankers, and other various hangers-on with useful knowledge or arsenals at the ready. Whatever they’re coming up with, the best we can do is hope it doesn’t blow up in our faces like an explosive cigar from a third-world novelty factory.
This realization, then, begs a question. Given that his speech was merely a superficial overview to assure Americans that they do indeed have concrete plans afoot, even if they can’t share blueprints or instruction booklets with us; assuming they aren’t just trying to save face and feign confidence in the face of roiling international controversy; knowing that the U.S. hasn’t exactly been scoring A-pluses in overseas negotiations over the past several years; I ask, then, because I can’t possibly be the only one who wants to know: What does Obama really have in mind here? How much is he not allowed to tell us, either to withhold info from enemy hands or to forestall embarrassment at the parts that might not work?
The Hunger Boxers
Photo by a cheerful Gleaners representative. They strongly encouraged social media sharing. Consider it done!
No, that’s not a photo of my interim reign as CEO of the Box Factory. But I can dream.
Last week my employer tried something new: they gave several hundred of us the opportunity to spend half a workday (on the clock!) participating in scheduled acts of service at various charities throughout Indianapolis — charitable synergy courtesy of United Way.
I signed up and went forth to serve last Thursday morning at Gleaners Food Bank of Indiana, one of the most prominent resources in local hunger relief efforts. Oddly, my shift happened a full week before our local media declared today as Hunger Action Day. My coworkers and I may have missed that holiday, but I should hope our efforts were useful regardless of timing.
Scenes from the Class Struggle in Ferguson, MO
Michael Brown’s stepfather Louis Head walks through Ferguson, on or after 8/9/2014. (Photographer as yet unknown. Source: blue cheddar via Flickr cc)
Thinking Like a “Chopped” Contestant Can Save Any Dull Pitch-In
The picture and my plate both looked too plain, so I added Crow for garnish. Maybe it’s not something you would do, but I’m an otherwise reasonable adult and I’m perfectly happy with my garnish choices.
Pictured above is my newest creation, inspired by frustrated circumstances. It’s a stale Marsh donut sliced in half bun-wise, filled with one layer of chipped-beef-‘n’-cream-cheese from the best kind of cheese ball, one layer of Ritz crackers, and one layer of plain cream cheese. I dubbed it the Good Afternoon Burger. It would’ve been even better if someone had thought ahead and brought in some rich, creamery butter to use as dressing. They had veggie dip, but that’s the absolute opposite.
Your August 2014 Anniversary-Party-a-Day Guide!
The Princess Diaries 2 turns 10 this August! But you already knew that, right? The stars, left to right: Callum Blue, a.k.a. Zod from Smallville; Academy Award Winner Anne Hathaway; and Starfleet Captain Chris Pine.
Forty-five years since the moon landing! Twenty-five years since Ghostbusters II! Fifty years since this battle! Ten years since that album! Eighty years since this one comic! Thirty-five years since that one thing happened that we wouldn’t mention if this weren’t a slow news day!
Now more than ever, you can count on your favorite sites to devote bandwidth every week to someone’s memories of events that occurred exactly on This Day in History multiples-of-five years ago. If it happened nine, thirteen, or twenty-two years ago, don’t waste our time. But fifteen years ago? Those precious moments need to be documented. Interviews need to be conducted. Reviews and opinions from that year need to be revisited and recontextualized. The important thing is that we need to be writing about stuff everyone loved way back when, instead of wasting a lot of time searching for new stuff in the world of today. Nostalgia rules! Discovery drools!
For once, I’m getting a few steps ahead of their game. Instead of waiting for them to tell me what to celebrate, like some kind of chump who doesn’t own a calendar or know how to Google, I’m planning my own social schedule in advance so I can be first in line to define “the Good Ol’ Days” for everyone else with a big, boiling bowl of Remember When bouillabaisse. And you can join me!
Not Put Asunder, Ten Years and Counting
This is how everyone spends their tenth wedding anniversary, right? Because my wife and I sure wouldn’t want to look out of place or anything.
Real Maps Are Like Big Crispy Paper Blankets
Remember the ancient times of the mid-to-late twentieth century, when long trips to unfamiliar places couldn’t be navigated by squinting at a computer the size of a deck of cards? If you needed to get from point A to point B, your first hope was that an elderly relative could give you directions that used no street names and depended on visual landmarks such as specific gas stations or funny-shaped trees. Plan B was to wander in the general direction until your wife got mad enough to make you stop the car and ask the locals for pointers. Plan C was to stay home and find something else to do.
Plan D was maps. Giant-sized maps that didn’t fit in your pocket unless you wadded them into a ball first, or wore overalls with enormous pockets. They unfolded into thirty or forty sections and covered your entire dining room table. If you were improvising on the run, they covered your dashboard, steering wheel, and most of your line of sight. Driving while mapping was, much like driving while texting, a fun way to terrorize your passengers and the drivers in the other lanes, adding new levels of stuntman risk to even the calmest Sunday outing.
Unironic Wishes for a Happy July 4th
Art by Joe Giella.
You don’t? Cool. Neither do I. But when America’s Independence Day rolls around, any number of internet hangouts feel much like that every year. I’m not really in the mood for it just now.
I was trying to come up with some balance of “America” and “sincerity” to mark the occasion here on MCC, and the first icon to leap to mind was Captain America, because that’s how my mind rolls. I could’ve spent hours digging through my collection and scanning pages from the greatest Cap stories I’ve ever read. Instead I’ve consciously opted for a mix of quaint simplicity, practical wisdom, and childhood nostalgia that brought a smile to my face when I revisited it for the first time in years.
The clickable image shown above is page 122 from the 1976 self-help classic The Mighty Marvel Comics Strength and Fitness Book, in which some of Marvel’s greatest heroes teach readers a series of exercises to improve their health, tone their physique, get their blood pumping, dispel their couch-potato image, and give them an edge in crime-fighting. The book isn’t exactly one of the classics from the Marvel library, but its advice and demonstrations are useful and encouraging to anyone seeking that sort of thing.
Among the participating big names are Captain America and the Falcon, along with the Falcon’s li’l sidekick Redwing. Modern readers may find this all dated and a wee silly, but consider what’s demonstrated in the space of that single page besides the exercise itself: teamwork; perseverance; trust; inter-demographic cooperation; focused dedication toward a shared goal; and complete disregard for whether or not anyone else thinks they look foolish. So many great features from the factory showroom model of Classic America.
The short version: they’ve got each other’s backs no matter what. It’s wildly off-topic, sure. It’s no one’s idea of an overt “Happy Fourth of July!” greeting card, but it exemplifies much of what I’d love to see in one. Your move, Hallmark.
Happy 4th. Stay safe. Go find something in your country to enjoy. Maybe stow the partisan rhetoric and played-out “‘Murica!” jokes till at least the 5th, what say?
Midlife Crisis Crossover! 