This Can't Possibly End Well.

This is a Bad Idea^TM. Mark my words...

Wait, did you think I meant the 63 billion dollar arms sale? I'm guessing that won't end well either. At this point, their plan can be summarized as follows:

Bush Plan For Mid-East Peace

1. Destabilize volatile, resource rich, strategically important region.

2. Get ass kicked by determined but poorly armed insurgency.

3. Give high-tech weaponry to everyone, including those governments suspected of acting against us.

4. [Scene Missing]

5. Whew! That was a miraculous escape!

6. Peace.

This is not, in my opinion, a plan with a great likelihood of success, but it is still not as stupid as autonomous military robots.

According to the planners, "Something that is completely autonomous - you just launch it; it goes off, does its own thing and comes back and says unequivocally X, Y and Z are targets - would score maximum points."

Yes. Because because our record of unequivocally identifying targets is so good. Obviously, our algorithm is so foolproof that we can hand it over to a robot to execute without any kind of guidance.

Things To Do In Wisconsin When You're Dead

In no particular order

1. Read. I went through Practical Demonkeeping, A Dirty Job: A Novel (Lamb was checked out of the library when I went), The Amulet of Samarkand (we were trying, in vain, to get Lex interested in it), god Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, Kitchen Confidential, and (with the family) the first 19 chapters of the new Harry Potter. I think I may have mentioned that I'm a voracious reader when I have the time and inclination.

2. Paddle about in a canoe.

3. Backyard soccer, mainly of the "chip it into the inner tube" variety.

4. Watch the birds, as long as it takes absolutely no effort whatsoever. We had ducks in the back yard all the time, there were some goldfinches at the house next door, and on the last day a swarm of vultures landed in the back yard. That was a little disconcerting.

5. Play with fire.

6. Sample the local beer. Did you know that they brew beer in Wisconsin? I tried a couple of different offerings from New Glarus, and I sampled all six of the house beers as we lunched outdoors at the Milwaukee Ale House, but the Sprecher Hefe Weiss was the stand out of the trip. I think I may be able to get it here. I'm hoping.

7. Come up with an amusing new nickname for the state. Wisconsin is now Curdistan. Spread it around.

8. Buy cheese. We bookended the trip with cheese purchasing excursions, hitting the WineCheeseDeli as soon as we got to our destination and stopping at the Mars Cheese Castle on the way home. Thanks for the suggestion, Natalie. Cheese from Mars! Cheese from Mars!

9. GermanFest in Milwaukee. It's such a beautiful language.

10. Chill until you're practically boneless. I recommend the book-beer-sunglasses-iPod-lawn chair combo. Your mileage may vary.

11. Visit the brand spanking new Apple store in Madison.

12. Watch the talented water skiers in Janesville, cringe at the cheesy presentation, enjoy the fabulous glutes.

13. Hit Maxwell Street Days in Madison. Look in vain for Maxwell Street, because it doesn't exist.

14. Farmer's market in Madison. Try the hot spicy cheese bread.

15. Spelunk.

16. Marvel at the rapacious greed of the folks at Taliesin.

17. Marvel at the rapacious greed of the folks at House on the Rock, which you really only wanted to see because of that scene in American Gods.

18. Blow them both off, find another way to spend $400. I suggest beer and cheese, which should be easy to find.

19. Be endlessly amused by all the Wiscaaaaaansin accents.

20. Did I mention cheese?

Things I Learned From Sitemaster

In lieu of content:
some random crap that I found.
Damn. Still the haiku?

...

Someone from TIAA-CRAP was searching for "deadspot blog" on google. It appears that I was not the droid they were looking for. Oi! Get back to work and make me some money, you lazy bastard!

I'm the number 2 hit on google for "named after the dan ryan". Who knew?

I'm on the first page of hits for Corinne Bohrer.
...and someone in Canada wants to know if she's married. Good question, Dale. I should probably know that, seeing as I adopted her and all. Apropos of nothing, have I mentioned that she is way hot? ...On google, I mean. You would not believe how many hits I'm getting from people looking for her. It's like, I dunno, five or six percent of my traffic. That's actually a little depressing now that I think of it.

Hey, people are googling Caffe Paradiso in Urbana. Yeah, I've been spelling it wrong. I don't think I'll stop. Also, there is a Paradiso Cafe in Urbana, Ohio. They seem to be roughly equally popular, and roughly equally nonexistent on the web, even when correctly spelled.

If you aren't looking for Corinne, and you aren't looking for paradise and coffee in one of the nation's Urbanas, then you are probably looking for Kennywood deaths. Weird, eh? Still, that seems to be the next most likely search to land you here. Is there something about Kennywood I should know?

If you search for "the unbearable lightness of beans", it doesn't take you to my post on The Unknowable Complexity of Beans and Franks, or to my post on the Ubearable Lightness of Spam but to my Death is Not an Option post. Odd.

Someone looked for " "tom baker" who cold sore ", and thanks to Vikki, they found me. (and... ewwwwww!)

Someone from Malaysia found me from the Blogger navbar, and instead of fleeing in abject terror (almost all of those blogger navbar visits are 1 page, 0 second visits) spent 91 seconds, and during that time they looked at 5 pages. I should post about Malaysia more.

Awwww... Some of you missed me. Some of my regular readers were stopping by even though I was on vacation. I'll try not to let it go to my head.

Finally, one of the google hits actually was someone looking for me on Google. They looked for "blog dead spot" and stayed for 4 minutes. Yay!

Phoning In Declaration Thursday

So... I am Deadspot
And I support this message:
I've run out of words.

Richard Scarry's Shortest Recap Ever

Oh no! Disaster!
Sassy Lia was sent home.
Too bad her fish sucked.

A Scheduled Interruption In Service

Friday through Friday
Vacation in Wisconsin.
I do hope there's cheese...

Lightning at 4 am

Close enough to hear
Sudden bugzapper crackle
Then the thunder's boom

The First Thing We Do...

Lawyers' rally bombed.
The punchlines, they come so fast.
Should I be more sad?

Regicide

Unnamed gunman fires,
the emperor has been killed.
Bill Ritter "rattled".

Haiku Monday

Richter six point eight.
Nuke plant leaks into the sea.
Go, go, Gojira.

Veterans Of Foreign Foods

What the hell? Did I miss the early morning montage or did they leap right into the Quickfire? Will Hung act like an ass? Will the judges make someone cry? Let's find out.

Evergreens And Rubbing Alcohol
It's a commercial for Bombay Sapphire, I mean, the Quickfire Challenge. The chefs must pair food and booze: they have to create an appetizer to go with gin cocktails. I'm going to have to give a disclaimer up front. I hate gin. There is no cocktail that cannot be improved by substituting vodka for the gin. Vodka martini, vodka tonic, vodka rummy... all better than the gin version. Gin is the touchstone for how desperate man can be for alcohol. When left with no other option, they'll distill the bushes. In my humble opinion, there is no reason for such extreme measures when there is a fully-stocked bar on hand. However, the chefs must soldier on.

It's time to sell some gin. To the knife block! The chefs draw knives to find out which horrible, disgusting cocktail has been foisted off on them. OK, I withdraw my previous comment. The pine might actually help kill the taste of the wretched crap the gin has been mixed with. Are these actual drinks or practical jokes? I mean, I've had something like that Sherry and Gin monstrosity that Last Mohawk Standing pulled. Once at a party, a really drunk girl thought my glass of Lenin's Choice on the rocks was empty, and she topped it up with cheap burgundy when I wasn't looking. It didn't register that the liquid in my glass was suddenly red until it was already in my mouth. Swallowing was the more polite thing to do at that point, but I was not happy with any of my options.

Last Mohawk Standing is psyched. He used to be some sort of mixology consultant. Yeah. I did a lot of "mixology consulting" in college too. Freelance mainly... Hung is dismissive of the challenge. Only commoners drink hard liquor. He doesn't think it rises to the level of his refined food. Also Lurch is tall, according to the guest judge, who apparently moonlights as an obviologist.

Hung is in the bottom three, and... there it is! He sticks the landing! The guy who never pairs hard alcohol and food pretends he knows more than the guy who does it for a living... using the specific alcohol in question. What a dick!

Last Mohawk Standing makes the top three, so he must not have just been blowing smoke. Tre is there to round out the numbers, but it is Casey who gets immunity, despite being saddled with something called a "Strawberry Balsamic Rickey"... I think I just threw up in my mouth a little. She made french toast, slapped on some foie gras, and put raspberry sauce on it; and since I just made a vomit joke about the drink, I'm stuck with just saying that the appetizer sounds nasty.

Da, Da, Da.
The theme for the Elimination Challenge is Trio. They're doing a tasting menu of four courses, each done three ways, for some group of gustatory elite. I'm not sure exactly, but it sounds like some sort of traveling team for gluttons. Whatev'. The chefs decide to draw names from a hat to be fair. Then they discover that if you draw names from a hat, you're likely to end up with assholes on your team. Last Mohawk Standing is the first to bail. It gets schoolyard-ugly really quick as everybody scrambles to reform their teams. When the dust settles, Tiny Bald Howie ends up with Joey Bagadonuts and Casey At The Bat. I'm guessing that won't end well.

Last Mohawk Standing has jumped from the frying pan into the fire, if I may be excused a rather obvious cliche. Nobody on the fourth course team has dessert experience, but they may get screwed if they don't close with a dessert. Damned if they do, damned if they don't, they decide to go for it.

They all scramble to form a cohesive menu and head for the store, where they promptly throw the agreed-upon menu out the window. Shrimp are kinda like scallops, right, and what is tuna but a sort of underwater duck? No? They whine about their budgets, they buy their ingredients, and they retreat to the kitchen to cook, where it's chaos, catastrophe, and climbing on the stove!

We have a new guest judge for the Elimination Challenge. Out goes the booze pusher, in comes a restaurant owner that I've never heard of. Sorry, restaurant owner slash caterer. OK, then. Now that we've settled that, the guests arrive, bedecked with medals for... eating? Really? "Oh yes, I got this Purple Endive with Cilantro Leaf Cluster for throwing myself onto an overdone fillet. We ordered medium rare and when it arrived at the table it was medium well!" "This is the Legion d'Wankery. I cleaned my plate, even though the hollandaise was decidedly pedestrian." Tell them I hate them.

The first course is shrimp three ways from Brian the Talking Dog, Hung, and Sassy Lia. Brian with another seafood dish, way to stretch yourself, dude. Because I'm the bigger man, I won't comment on how tiny Hung is serving the shrimp course. Bigger man! Ha! Because... he's... oh, you got it.

Second course, Team Tuna: Tiny Bald Howie, Joey Bagadonuts, and Casey At The Bat. (yeah, I know it's lame. She'll get a better nickname when she shows a personality.) The Pretension Brigade hate this course, but they haven't seen what's coming up.

Beef, it's what's for third course, or something like that. Tre, Sara, and Lurch fail to step up. One of the guests suggests that Sara's dish seems like something you might get at Denny's. You can't see it, but I'm rolling my eyes. Like he's ever eaten at Denny's. Oh wait, he's wearing a campaign medal from Operation Grand Slam. My bad.

Finally, a menage a pineapple from Second Sara, Last Mohawk Standing, and Camille Who? Even Mohawk knows they're screwed, and he makes friends with the handicapped by saying they would have been fine if only the guests were blind. Everybody failed: Second Sara had to try to turn her pannarunny jello into a semifrozen custard, and it went downhill from there. Still, there are a lot of empty plates despite the whining. The guests leave to design their new "Terrible Food, Tiny Portions Medal of Valor".

The Center Cannot Hold
The judges despair. The judges wail. The judges have too much suck from which to choose. They take care of the easy stuff first. The only course that wasn't really bad was the first. They call them in, and my girl Sassy Lia takes the prize, which includes a gig as the featured chef at a big charity event. Her olive oil poached shrimp was the best. Hung must settle for the lesser title of Zinc Saucier and somehow manages to keep his mouth shut, despite the lack of double prize money. The judges tell Lia that she is going to have to bring a lot of people back.

Tre, Sara, and Lurch share the Good God, Man, You Can't Call Them All To The Table! Producers' Immunity for this round. Half of the chefs do get called up for elimination, including, for the second week in a row, the chef with immunity. Casey At The Bat cries when she hears how much she sucks, says she feels guilty that one of her team mates might get kicked off because of her, but fails to step up to the plate (Oh, come on, you knew that was coming) when she fails to offer to take the fall instead.

Last Mohawk Standing takes the blame for the choice of offering a dessert and for choosing the ingredient. He defends their choices though, and lays the smack down on the chefs who played it safe by taking easy choices and shooting for mediocrity, but the judges are having none of it. They rip into everyone and send them out to cry in the waiting room.

When they're called back in, it is Camille Who? packing her knives. Camille's cornmeal-based Hockeypuck Upsidedown Cake with Ginger Dribble was the lowlight of a spectacularly dismal dinner. People cry, people hug her, Lurch picks her up, and then she's gone. Last Mohawk Standing has the decency to feel genuine remorse that she is gone in part because of his choices. If you ask me though, and why else would you still be reading, I think 4th course would have been hosed regardless of what they did. If you're going down, you might as well go down in flames.

Holy crap, this was a long post. I'll pass on the predictions and closing comments.

I Apologize To The Pap...

I forgot to specify that I'll post on whatever wins the Vox Pop (right over there -> ) for all of next week, with the caveat that I'll figure out a way to shoehorn my regular features into the theme...

Wait, you did know that I have regular features, right? No? I'll have to do them more regularly.

Adventures in Spelling

True, there is no "I" in "team", but there is an "I" in "win", and a "U" in "suck".

I am Deadspot, and I support this message.

Wiki Wiki Wack.

It's official. In my totally rigorous scientific study, Steve Buscemi has been conclusively determined to be an Indie Actor, by a margin of two to one over the next most popular choice, Actor, which makes perfect sense, as Indie Actor contains twice as many words as Actor. Twice the words, twice the votes, it doesn't get much more rigorous than that.

Wikipedia had characterized Buscemi as both an Indie Actor and a Character Actor, which is, of course, physiologically impossible, or at least ill-advised. However, as we have seen, the option of Character Actor was rejected like the chess team on prom night. A cease and desist order will be going out to the Wikipedia actor categorization committee, just as soon as I can find out where their parents live so we can ascertain the secret location of their basement "lair".

Next up on Vox Pop, what should I write about? I find myself with an inspiration deficiency today, so you get to choose. Remember, if you choose Other, you have to provide a topic in the comments. Or not. I mean, it's not like I can enforce rules here... right?

Bats, Man

So yesterday, we went for a walk in the coolth of the evening, to deliver some stuff to Lex, who was at a friend's house a couple of blocks away, and to go by Cafe Paradiso for (I'm sorry, Becks) an iced coffee and a Naked juice. As we walked home along the rain damp streets, we noticed a swarm of bats* flitting across the darkening sky, also out enjoying the break in the heat and in search of a little treat. Not too long after that, as the shadows deepened, the white-frosted globes of the streetlamps began to light, each illuminating a pool of grass and old herringbone brick sidewalk amidst the trees that thickly line the streets. I love my neighborhood.

That reminds me. I should put up a bat house.

*Swarm of bats may be smaller than it appears in mirror. Actual number of bats may vary, but was quite a bit more likely to have been eight than a thousand, perhaps even six, but definitely more than four.

Predictable, That's The Word Of The Year

Hey, wouldja look at that? After the price of Blu-Ray players dropped by $100 last month, the price of PS3s (each of which contains a Blu-Ray player) also dropped by $100. Nice. I wonder if anyone could have seen that coming.

Oh, and Microsoft? Booyah! A Microsoft product that is poorly made? Color me unsurprised.

In other predictable news, Pollyanna Petraeus is now saying that the war in Iraq will take decades, and compared Iraq to Northern Ireland. Interesting choice. Northern Ireland is, of course, a model of the failure of military force to end sectarian violence. In the end, only a political solution that included the decommissioning of many of the occupation force's military bases and power sharing between the foreign occupier's puppet government and the political wing of the insurgency brought a lull in the Troubles. I'm guessing that's probably not the parallel he intended to draw.

Oh, and more Bushies are refusing to testify before Congress. Because they totally have nothing to hide.

My Life In The Bush Of Geeks

There's a story I've told many times about high school. My friend John and I were walking down the hallway, and we spotted a poster advertising class rings...

If I may digress, were class rings were the same at other high schools? At mine they were either punctuation for the end of your academic career or a sort of expensive pet tag. At least, I seem to recall only seeing them on the hand of some meathead or dangling around the neck of his girlfriend. I dunno. Maybe it's a small town thing. Anyway, back to the story.

Where was I? John, me, hallway, poster. Right. So, the poster was basically just a huge picture of a class ring with the words "These are the best years of your life!" John and I both stopped walking, stunned, the same horrified thought running through our minds. We looked at each other. He was the first to put it into words.

"Oh my god, you mean it's all downhill from here?"

Now, I've told this story many times, because we can all relate, right? I mean, the thought of high school being the best time of your life is just so patently absurd, and he nailed it perfectly. It's a very funny story.

However, the last time I told it, something bizarre happened. I got to the bit about the poster saying "These are the best years of your life!" and the (otherwise perfectly normal) person I was telling, thinking that was the point of the story, enthusiastically interrupted, "Yeah! Weren't they?"

I was stunned. I was just a little sad for her. I think I kept it off my face, but I just couldn't bear to finish the story.

No Shit, Sherlock.

Australia just became the first of the Coalition of the Killing to admit they are in Iraq for the oil. Defense Minister Brendan Nelson, suffering from a rare strain of candor, told the press that securing oil supplies is a key factor behind the presence of Australian troops in Iraq, that oil had influenced their strategic planning, and that their priority was maintaining "resource security".

After changing his trousers, Prime Minister John Howard began damage control, claiming that despite all evidence to the contrary, it was "stretching it a bit" to say that Australia was in this for the oil.

Opposition leaders responded by stating the obvious: "This government simply makes it up as it goes along on Iraq."

Remind me, how's that oil supply working out?

Oh, right.

Well done, then.

Canadalabama

This just in from the Weekly World N... what the hell? ...from the BBC?

Girl Could Give Birth to Own Sibling She's seven and it's her mom's idea. Yeah. It's chock full of creepy.

Dale, aren't you supposed to be keeping an eye on things up there? Canada is supposed to be the more civilized, less Jerry Springery country here. I'm rather disappointed.

(administrivia)
Check out my mad polling skillz: Wikipedia has Steve Buscemi listed as both an indie actor and a character actor. He can't be both. He was Mr. Pink, for god's sake. That has to count for something! But he was also Ellen's dad on Pete and Pete. What gives? Is he fish or fowl? Or meat... or err... tofu? You vote while I get this metaphor back on track.

Also, Becks let us all in on the fabulous FineTune plug in. I have to fi... um... make some small adjustments to my playlist, but it's up and running amidst the staggering amount of crap in my sidebar. Give it a spin. Even if you hate my song choices, blow through enough of them and you'll at least get a mildly amusing message from the folks at fine tune. Have at it!
(/administrivia)

The Unknowable Complexity Of Franks N Beans

Lia is officially my new favorite chef. When the judges start busting her chops for not raising and slaughtering her own chickens or some shit like that, she comes back with a deadpan "I guess I just hadn't realized the complexity of franks and beans." Ho, snap! Oh no she din't! Oh yes she did! But once again, I'm getting ahead of myself...

You Know The Formula
Montage of the chefs waking up, random generic comments about how it's really a competition now, and then off to the Quickfire. Today's secret ingredient: Catch-your-own shellfish! An aquarium full of shellfish, 60 seconds, 1 cheap little fish tank net, go!

Hung goes at it like a madman, drops a crayfish on the floor, and refuses to pick up after himself. What a dick! Lia doesn't like him and neither do I. Tre only ends up with a handful and blames his tools, which is, as they say, the mark of a bad workman. Everybody else manages to get plenty of shellfish with the wonky little net. The problems don't end there. Micah says she's worked with conch before, but apparently has no idea how the get the conch out of its shell and goes after it by trying to hammer a pair of kitchen shears into it. Others just say to hell with the conch and they live to um... well, be eaten later. Brian the Talking Dog says he'll lose his job if he doesn't win this Quickfire, because he's all about the seafood. Hung can't help running his mouth and says his monkey could make simple seafood.

Holy Gotham Bar and Grill, Batman! It's Alfred Portale.

The bottom dishes are Micah, not enough conch... her Iron Kitchen Shears Technique wasn't as strong as she thought; Tre, not enough seafood at all; and Camille Who?, too much tea.

Lurch is in the top three. Tiny Bald Howie does well with a ceviche, and gets praise but no immunity. Finally, Hung's monkey must be a better cook than Hung, because Brian wins the Quickfire and Hung is nowhere to be seen. Brian makes the now-obligatory "I'll still try hard, even though I have immunity" speech.

Hungry Like The Elk
The Elimination Round is to remake a classic comfort food for two generation of Miami Elks. Elks? Elk? The more you type it, the weirder that word looks... Their goal is to make the dishes healthier and reduce the amount of cholesterol. The chefs pick a dish from those provided in reverse order from the Quickfire, so Hung goes last. He feels the need to smack talk comfort food. His family ate steamed fish and vegetables. That couldn't possibly have been bland and disgusting, I'm sure. Sara says she has no idea what Chicken Ala King is. Wait a second, wasn't she asian last week?

Somehow Hung ends up with fried chicken, despite going last. How easy is that to redo? Do these guys have no imagination?

We'll shop, cook, and Release the Elk!

Brian whips up lobster stuffed cabbage. Uh... because lobster reduces cholesterol? Wha?

Last Mohawk Standing says he should have no problem winning this. He is all about the remaking classic comfort food. He remakes chicken and dumplings by making pirogies out of instant mashed potatoes and store-bought rotisserie chicken. Uh, genius, if you want to make mashed potatoes cook faster, cut the potatoes into smaller pieces. A little tip from me to you, no extra charge. Lurch can't believe he's using potatoes from a box.

Tiny Bald Howie whips up pork chops with some kind of apple slaw for his poor dead dad. Let's try saying it with a bad Brady accent... Pork Chahps and Apple Shlaw. Nope. It's not any funnier that way. He'd better hope he doesn't dry it out this time.

Lurch makes some kind of revolting Klingon Tuna Pile with a flax seed cracker on top. The judges will love this, saying that it shows a good understanding of how to reduce cholesterol. Yeah. Lipitor reduces cholesterol too, but crunching it up on top of some nasty green shit doesn't make it food.

Hung turns off Sara's oven when he's done making his nasty chicken skin with rendered fat things, leaving her with undercooked chicken. What a dick! She dishes up a salmonella skewer with a side of cat barf. I could swear she was asian last week...

Lia hates being in the middle because she's getting no feedback. Funny you should mention that, Lia... She buys chicken sausage and lentils. Apparently, crazy idea here, she wants to make something that viewers might actually make at home. If they, you know, like undercooked lentils.

Micah makes crunchy meatloaf with a sundried tomato on top and a nasty aftertaste, because we amuricans loves us some ketchup. The judges are offended that she made an assumption about what "you Americans" like, and then repeatedly do the same themselves.

Thunderdome: 13 Chefs Enter, 12 Chefs Leave!
The Elkses eat and fill out comment cards. The judges kvetch and moan, and we're off to the judges table. Ah! There are TWO Saras. Someone should have a word with the producers about that. The judges hate the too-literal interpretation of the dishes by the chefs, except for Second Sara, whose dish they hate for not being literal enough... but strangely enough, not for the fact that it looks like animal sick. Apparently she needs more cowbell. Or peas. One or the other, I forget.

Howie and Mohawk Dale are the tops. Chef Radicchio (thanks, Vikki!) finally rats out Dale for using instant taters. Nobody could tell the difference, but apparently the company isn't a sponsor, because they blurred out the logo while Dale was cooking. You have to wonder if the producers tried to shake them down for a few bucks when they found out how well he did. I bet they did. Still, Howie wins one for his poor dead dad. He is invited to spend a week cooking at Batman's house, and Joey has to eat a little crow. Hey, I have an idea for the next Quickfire challenge....

Hung has the Preparation H 'Everybody Needs An Asshole' Producers' Immunity for this round and doesn't even get put into the bottom three, err... four, I mean... WTF? bottom FIVE?... even though he sabotaged another chef.

Yes, bottom five, because the judges feel the need to call Brian on the carpet for thumbing his nose at the challenge, then send him back before finishing the judging.

Micah pleads ignorance on the subject of meatloaf.

Lurch's cuisine escapes the Wrath of Tom, even though it tastes like health food and looks like a prop from a low budget sci-fi film.

Second Sara says they don't have Chicken Ala King in Jamaica, although I don't think they normally eat pet vomit there either.

The judges bring it, but Lia sends it back untasted. You go, girl!

At the end of the day, Micah's is the worst of the bunch and they send her home. She says she would rather be back home with her daughter, who she brought to this country in a suitcase or something. Wait... what?

No Top Chef this week, because we amuricans loves us some 4th of July. Try the meatloaf... with ketchup. It's a vegetable, you know.

She Followed Me Home. Can I Keep Her?

Awwwww... Isn't she cute?

Corinne Bohrer (one r, two n's, silent h... Damn, no wonder she has trouble finding good roles... the casting agents just can't spell her name.) has been plugging away, paying her dues since the early eighties, with bit parts in some really dismal television: Falcon Crest, T.J. Hooker, Hardcastle and McCormick, Herman's Head... does anyone remember The Powers of Matthew Star? I thought not. I was flipping channels a couple of months ago and saw her in a previously-unaired episode of Ned and Stacy. Oh, hon. If I knew you needed the money, I'd have sent you ten bucks.

She's been in a ton of made-for-television and crappy, low-budget films, the high points of which were probably Police Academy 4 and Revenge of the Nerds 4. Ouch. Bad franchises well past their sell-by dates.

Still, she's an iconic 80s actress to me, even though every time I see her, I have this confused moment of semi-recognition. "Hey! It's... um... her. She was in... something. Right?" In fact, looking over her filmography I wonder just what the hell I have seen her in. She was probably the main character's friend or sister in something. She just exudes charm and likability, but not "lead character". There's just something about her goofy, off-kilter smile that makes you love her the second you see her, but never take her very seriously.

I did see her a couple of years ago in Phantom of the Megaplex, a lame-ass Disney Channel movie... I know, it's one of the hazards of having children. Thank god they've outgrown it, although I do occasionally miss Kim Possible.

IMDB says she scored 6 episodes of Veronica Mars recently, but I haven't seen them. I like that series, but I only catch it sporadically.

So, Corinne, if you're reading this, you always have a place to crash at my house, and if they offer you another Police Academy movie, please call. I'll send you money.

Oops... shout out to Splotchy's Character Actor Adoption Center goes here.

(administrivia)
Yeah, yeah, yeah... Top Chef. I know! I know!
(/administrivia)