95% of the terrain at Park City is open. On the other hand, Brad and Staci aren’t going to make it.

There is a March of Dimes Billboard above my Apartment that says “Help give all babies their 9 months”.    It’s an anti-Premature-birth campaign, not anti-abortion.     Some people might get confused.

I was watching Coyote Ugly the other day. On television, not DVD.     Say what you want about that bar but their main drink was whiskey neat.   I’m pretty sure if you can maintain over 50% unmixed whiskey drinks at a bar, you can’t suck.   Kevin Trudeau would argue that you can’t get Cancer either.   What happened to you Kevin, I used to trust you.  

Images of Purple Pennies on a Padlock and a Tiger in the Back Seat of a Limo scroll through my head whenever I think of Kevin Trudeau.  Me and some friends did the mega memory program in college to some positive affect,  but   in retrospect the tapes probably programmed us to murder human rights leaders who threaten the fashion industries access to cheap labor. 

One night soon, say around 3AM, (after Coyote Ugly ends) Kevin will come on the tube with an infomercial explaining how The Government doesn’t want you to know that Sharks still don’t get cancer, but what he’ll really be doing is Activating me and the rest of Lipscomb’s 4^th floor.  

This guy is still the best writer around.

Well, I could write about bars more, for sure.

The Constantines and The Hold Steady are two of the best Jukebox Bands since The Rolling Stones.  

We were listening to them at the climbing wall, when the supervisor switched my ipod to Bonnie Raitt.    This may mean that not everyone digs them as much as I.

The same can be said for Birght Eyes "Its Morning" Album, which contains the BarLyricScroller-worthy line "I found a liquid cure for my landlocked blues". I thinks it great, but have read some nasty reviews along the lines of it being sophmoric tripe.   And I'll admit that when I listen to it I often  get the feeling that I  shouldn't like it, but I do. Simplistic anti-war message and all.

Yes, when anyone utters the the words "Televised War" as if they just made a point, my eject finger gets twitchy, but I think its largly  palatable because he doesn't try to get too clever.   I can't stand clever.  

I just listened to that song again looking for a lyric to head this entry.  Its bloody brilliant until the televised war crap.

I walked over to Kezar Stadium for a workout, and had a beer and wings at Kezar pub with friends afterward.  The topic of discussion, put forth by a recently separated guy who just beat me and Adrian at the track, was 'the role of space in a relationship'.

Relationship conversations are exhausting for me since I have to preface every comment with, “Now, I am the last person in the world you should take advice from, but…”

Points I found myself making were that you don't need to have a bunch of common interests.  You need to both see the same future, and have the same idea on how to get there, everything else is just gravy.  Also, there should probably be separation of powers: Each party taking responsibilities and running with them, the other party trusting them completely.  Any reluctance to hand over financial considerations, for instance,  may show a lack of respect, trust, or self esteem.  

From both of those points sprung the third: That you don’t therefore need to be spend all that much time conversing and otherwise hanging out.  At night, or in the morning, you can communicate whatever information is necessary, and then do like other great teams have done, split up and search for clues.

You are , in the end, a team, working towards a goal together, side by side much of the time only metaphorically.     Yeah, I know, I'm a romantic.

Well, I don’t know how much I believe all of that: this was, after all, barspeak.

I saw The Lion, The With, and the Wardrobe afterwards.  I loved it, but I am very familiar with the books, so I quite biased.   

The fight scenes defiantly rocked.    Santa Clause stole the show. Can’t wait for Reep!

 Ok, Walking through the Marina last week I heard a woman say, “Who am I, Tree Girl?”.   I was certain this was a Lawnmower Joke, until I turned around and saw that she was carrying a tree. 

A Lawnmower joke is a non-joke: Meaningless gibberish told in the form of a joke in order to weed out those people in the room who will laugh at everything, from those who won’t. It’s a bonding experience, since Astute non-laughers end up laughing at the laughers anyway.    Everyone eventually ends up laughing, for entirely different reasons, at something that was intentionally not funny. This probably isn’t that uncommon. Some people would argue that this effect is responsible for the whole Napoleon Dynamite craze.

This got me thinking about a great bit of stagecraft by Paul Harris, who mas a magician I used to admire.  He suggested bringing an audience member on stage for a disappearing act.   Once the volunteer was covered with a  blanket the magician would hold up a sign to the rest of the Audience that says “Act Amazed”. Then, with a flourish, the Blanket would be removed and the crowd would gasp in astonishment, as if though they could no longer see the Audience Member.

So the entertainment would be in watching this audience member, on stage, handle himself while under the impression that no one could see him.   

Harris went one further, suggesting that the audience participant could very well be planted by the magician…

It gets confusing: You can have a very successfull magic trick with no one getting fooled.     Some people would argue that this effect is responsible for the whole [Insert any issue you wish to show smug superiority and cynical Indiference towards] craze.

All right troopers!

The ski trip is less than 4 weeks away!

Ed and Kory will probably be driving in to town, so if may be convenient for them to bring something in, if you can think of anything.

We can do our liquor shopping on Wednesday, but per tradition there are some special duties.  

1. Rich: two to three bottles of Sean’s Silly Port.
2. Dave is usually responsible for bringing one bottle Scotch
3. Alex
1. IPod and IPod Speaker system.( I will bring my IPod and a headphone to RCA Jack.)
2. Movies
3. Walkie Talkies?
4. Sean
1. My Ipod and Headphone to RCA jack
2. Some Ameretto and Baley’s I have laying around (Don’t Ask)
3. The Stuffed Goat (Ask Later)

5. It may make sense for Ed to pack a box of spices, and cooking supplies like
1. A Card table so we can all eat dinner together?
2. An Igloo type cooler.
3. Salt, Pepper, Creole Seasoning, oregano, basil, sugar, etc
4. Cooking Oil, Tabasco,  sandwich condiments
5. Tin Foil, Sandwich bags, garbage bags,
6. A Sleeping Bag. 

I think the Liquor situation in Park City is not as dire as it had been made out, but Ed has suggested that he could drive it in.    Should we consider giving him a list? Something like this:

1. Plastic Cups
2. Tequilla, Contrea,  (See, I’m looking out for you Rich!)
3. Brandy (If Rich is making margaritas, I’m making SideCars.  Cause it COLD OUT THERE)
4. Miller’s Gin, Tonic
5. Lots and Lots of Wine
6. Beer, Beer, Beer, Beer, Beer. Specifically, Some Oatmeal Stout for Me,  
7. Champagne

Finally, Don’t Forget your swimsuits for the hot tub.