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Thursday, June 28, 2007

I'm reading The March

It is totally sad!

Because you know even if they survive the Civil War, the starvation, the March itself, Reconstruction, &c., &c., a lot of them still have to live in Atlanta.

No disrespect. Your airport is top notch.

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Samapalooza!

Dandelion*
(a poem)
by Sam

there was a
dandelion
in the grass
for mom
and dad
and sam
and max
and mom

Max**
(a song)
by Sam

Maaaaaaaaaxwell Henryyyyyyy
I will give you some teeeeeeeeth
Then I will give you a treeeeeeat
Because I loooooove youuuuuuuu

Goofy I Love You: The Play***
by Patrick, but he's just transcribing, so really by Sam

(Patrick comes home from work and is talking to Megan. Sam, already in bed, hears him and calls out to him)
SAM: Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!
PATRICK: (Opens door, peeks in) Hey, kid, what's up?
SAM: I want to give you one of my "Goofy I Love Yous".
PATRICK: (Confused) You want to give me a "Goofy I Love You"?
SAM: Yeah!
PATRICK: OK...
SAM: I love you.... door!
PATRICK: (laughs)
SAM: I love you.... dresser!
PATRICK: That's pretty goofy, all right.
SAM: I love you.... walls!
PATRICK: Good night, Sam.
(Closes the door)
SAM: (from his room) I love you.... dragon!

EXEUNT OMNIS



* Suck on it, Apps!
** Sam was slightly alarmed three months ago (three months! Happy 25% Birthday, Max!) when he learned his brother did not have any teeth.
*** Note that there is a dragon marionette (one of those multi-headed slavic versions) hanging from Sam's ceiling. Dragons are not real (but don't tell Sam yet).

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

The Pedestrian

BoingBoing had a post last week about how Stephan Orsak's tasering mirrors the Ray Bradbury story The Pedestrian.

But BoingBoing! You are being silly and misguided again! As we all know, and as Bradbury has repeatedly said, The Pedestrian was not intended to be about police intimidation and brutality, but was meant as a critique of the newly fashionable "automatic transmission".

Of course, Bradbury lost that battle; maybe his beef with television will have fared better when Future Peoples look back at all this nonsense.

Fingers crossed!


Seriously, though: Dandelion Wine was so important to me growing up that my first born son's middle name is taken from the main character.

Therefore, I think I am allowed to say: Ray Bradbury, please stop being idiotic and stupid and sucking so much and acting like such a stupid, sucking idiot.
I am serious: I will fight you if it comes to that. I don't want it to, but I will fight you. Or at least send a robot to fight you.*


* This was one of the first stories of his I ever read, and I remembered that story was called something like Usher II but I had forgotten that the full title was April 2005: Usher II.

April 2005 used to be THE FUTURE!

Thursday, June 21, 2007

(Speaking of Danish Things)

MORTENCENSUS!
Or:
Employees of International Business Machines with the Last Name “Mortensen” Who Were Working in the Denmark Office During the Summer of 1992, When I was Working at Said Company (in the U.S.)— Because, I Now Imagine/Realize, my Dad Pulled Some Strings—According to the “Callup” Function on a Company-Wide System Called “PROFS” (i.e., “PRofessional OFfice System”), Ranked in Order of the Increasing Amusement I Felt Upon Reading Each Name

1. Kim
2. Jan
3. Jon
4. Karina
5. Henrik
6. Lars
7. Kai
8. Inger (9)
9. Jìrgen (10)
10. Lis (11)
11. Mogens (12)
12. Per (13)
13. Uffe (14)
14. Bent (8)
15. Bent T.

Note: Number in parentheses indicates ranking before the discovery of "Bent T."

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Monday, June 18, 2007

It is no wonder..

..that McSweeney's is experiencing such financial calamity: They have a Feedback Score of 0!!! That doesn't exactly fill me with the comfort level I need from my post-post-post-irony lit journals.

Apparently, they are not, as I am, a "lightning fast payment, friendly, appreciative, A 12 ON A 1-10 SCALE! Excellent Ebayer! Super! Totally recommended. A+A+A+A+"


Please be more like me, McSweeney's.


As a start, please publish everything I send you forever.

Sunday, June 10, 2007

It is totally weird to me..

..to see my name show up on someone else's blog when I'm not expecting it (and especially to see "Sugar Land, TX" right next to it (even though this is a line from an email I sent Maud, and she asked me if I would mind if she posted it, and I said, sure, but then I kind of forgot about it)).

Aside:
The last time I saw my name via Internettical means when I wasn't expecting it was when an email I sent to Harpers Weekly last year was included in the subsequent week. It was in response to a line in the 2/28 edition:


Sudanese villagers forced a man to marry a goat after he was found having sex with it; the man also was required to pay the goat's owner 15,000 Sudanese dinars as dowry.

I shot off a note, and when the next week's edition came out, I was scrolling down and saw:


TO: Harper's Weekly
FROM: Patrick Mortensen

I hope the Sudanese man and the goat stay together for the kids.
Thank you! Good night!

(See?)

End Aside.

However:
In the above-linked post, Maud refers to me as a "fellow Brooklyn transplant", and this will soon be an inaccuracy, as we have these two kids now who demand/deserve more space than our apartment can give them, and we can't afford the Next Size Up in Park Slope, and we can't find exactly what we're looking for anywhere else around here, so we've put our place on the market, and assuming it sells, we're moving to Chicago, my previous town of residence, and where my wife grew up.
This is both exciting and cool and also totally destroys me every time I think about it (how can I leave Brooklyn? all of my favorite bloggers are here*).

Anyway, anyway:
in the email I sent Maud, I referenced "pretty faces"; a while ago, I did a "memory map" (a fun, flawed game where you annotate a Google Map screenshot of your hometown on Flickr) for Sugar Land, which I had forgotten about until recently. I was just reminded of it again, because I mention the pulchritude in there, too.

Clearly:
you can't go home again.

But:
maybe you can go to Chicago again.

Thank you! Good night!


* seriously, though, do I have to stop reading Maud and start reading Bookslut? I don't want to fucking read Bookslut. Please do not make me read Bookslut.

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

I'm reading What is the What

It is totally sad!

Because you know even if he survives the civil war, the starvation, the lion/crocodile/helicopter attacks, the murahaleen, &c., &c., he still has to live in Atlanta.

No disrespect. Your airport is top notch.




(see also: previous eggersalitiness)
(from 2004, holy cow, that was a long time ago)

Tsunami Quelled

Joey Chestnut ate 59 1/2 hotdogs at the Southwest Regional Hot Dog Eating Championship at the Arizona Mills Mall, beating Takeru "The Tsunami" Kobayashi's old record of 53 3/4.

All eyes will be on Kobayashi at Coney Island this 4th of July:
WILL HE BE ABLE
TO PASS MUSTARD?


That's all. I just wanted to make that joke.


v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^
Update, 6/26/07: Kobayashi may be down for the count. I'm sorry I was joking about this. Kobayashi, if you're reading this, please call me.
All is forgiven.

Friday, June 01, 2007

Starbucks closing

All of the guys I work with are bummed out by the announcement that the next season of Battlestar Galactica is the last one.

But good news, Guys I Work With:
I hear Katee Sackhoff will play "Face" in Spike TV's reimagining of The A-Team.


And Edward James Olmos is all set to die of pneumonia in Santa Monica, only weeks after agreeing to be in a Bonanza remake.

THIS IS WHAT I HEARD.