So, on my recent comic strip kick, I was talking about them with some friends last night, and Alan brought up a week of Garfield comics back in the 80s that took a turn for the deathly serious. I was able to track them down online. These ran in 1989, and they are indeed real.

Existential Garfield

So it’s official. Landon’s taking Tilly to live with him in his new apartment. We figured this out sometime last week. Friday, when I got to work, I had an e-mail from Janelle with a bunch of links to cats on Petfinder. We ended up inquiring as to one of them, and got suggested another cat, whom we will very likely be getting next week.

Meet Sherlock. (That picture is slightly Photoshopped.) Being that he’s another rescue kitty, we can’t be sure of his lineage, but his mother is a Ragdoll/Himalayan mix (just like Franny!). Also, notice how large he is in that picture. He’s eight months old. So we could be dealing with a giant. At least Zoey won’t be able to push him around.

I debated not posting this, but it’s too funny to pass up.

I had a conversation with a few co-workers a while back about how to name some of our internal training classes. When it got to my class on personality types, this exchange happened:

person 1: How about, “How to work with your schizophrenic co-workers”?
person 2: Ooh! How about, “How to work with bipolar people”?

Seriously, what are the odds?

Just a disclaimer: I’m not really all that offended by this.

So, for our most recent pitch party, we’re cooking up a ton of food. (Pitch is a card game for four or five players, if you don’t know. We’re going to have four tables.) Here’s the menu:

• Bruschetta chips with mozzarella slices
• Puff pastry shells filled with key lime pie filling and pumpkin pie filling
• Cranberry Brie phillo cups
• Chocolate peanut butter cookies
• Corn salsa
• Cheesy bean dip
• Beer bread
• Barbecue meatballs (wouldn’t be a Kansas City party without barbecue something)

Just some real quick notes on the above…

Corn Salsa

Get a package of frozen corn. (If you’re feeling extra-motivated, you can get fresh corn and grill it.) Dice a red onion, a green bell pepper, and a green jalapeño pepper (optional, dice it really finely if you use it). Drain and add one can of black beans. Drizzle with some olive oil and slowly mix in a tablespoon or two of cumin.

Cheesy Bean Dip

Equal parts refried beans and Velveeta, cubed. Melt, and keep warm.

Cranberry Brie Phillo Cups

Buy two or three packages of frozen phillo shells. (Make sure they’re shells and not just dough!) Also get some Brie cheese and canned cranberry sauce with whole berries. Put a small chunk of Brie cheese in each shell and top with a dollop of cranberry sauce. Bake according to directions on phillo cups.

That’s all I’ve got.

In response to Janelle’s recent blog posts, I’ve come up with some wedding advice of my own.

Disclaimer: This is all crap.

Who to Marry

Marry someone you won’t fight with. This is actually impossible, but I’d feel bad if I didn’t tell you that first. Make sure you’ve had at least one serious, relationship-rocking fight before you make the decision to get married. (That’s probably the only solid piece of advice in this whole post, actually.) It’s also a good idea to invest in a Playstation and maintain separate living rooms.

Marry someone who can cook. Unless you can cook. Then, marry someone can’t cook, so they will appreciate the fact that you cook. If you don’t cook and you can’t find someone who cooks, marry someone who manages a restaurant. Unless you manage a restaurant. You can probably figure out the rest.

How to Marry

In deciding what kind of wedding to have (or whether to elope), you must ask yourself one important question, and that is, “Is this person going to plan a wedding that will embarass me?” If you both have similar tastes, plan a wedding. If you produce indie films and your partner works at the Build-a-Bear Workshop, go to Vegas.

Never, under any circumstances, do a cat wedding (for people) (or for cats).

Vows

Refer to the above section.

Traditions

Two of the most persistent traditions at weddings are the bouquet toss and the garter toss. These are not fun. They can be made palatable by altering the outcome—for instance, throwing the garter directly at the guy who just needs to hurry the hell up and ask his girlfriend to marry him. Better throw the bouquet at him too. Make sure to seat him near the front for easy access.

All speeches should be written in iambic pentameter. This ensures that only people who know how to write well will give longer speeches. Also, the rhyming couplet at the end signals that the speech is, in fact, over, eliminating that awkward is-it-over-or-is-this-just-awkward moment in the audience.

Unity candle. Seriously, what the hell?

Throwing rice constitutes a food fight, and when you throw food at me, it means war. I have direct access to both the cake and the caterer. Don’t throw rice at me, because I will not hesitate to lodge a dinner roll in your throat.

In ancient Rome, the wedding cake was actually more like bread, made from wheat or barley, and was broken over the the bride’s head as a symbol of her fertility. More traditional weddings today will have the bride and groom smash the cake into each other’s faces as a symbol of their joint fertility. If you don’t want to have kids for a while, don’t even touch the cake. Best not to take any chances.

String quartets add a nice antiquated feel to a wedding and are highly recommended for anyone born in the 18th century.

When to Marry

6:30

Warning: Lost geekery.

Wondering what those mysterious reoccurring numbers in Lost mean? Here’s the word from Damon Lindelof, co-creator of the series:

Here’s the story with numbers. The Hanso Foundation that started the Dharma Initiative hired this guy Valenzetti to basically work on this equation to determine what was the probability of the world ending in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Valenzetti basically deduced that it was 100 percent within the next 27 years, so the Hanso Foundation started the Dharma Initiative in an effort to try to change the variables in the equation so that mankind wouldn’t wipe it itself out.

The numbers are the variables in that equation. Seeing them everywhere just reinforces that these seem to be hard-wired into our society.

This is not the first time this information has been released. It came out in bits and pieces throughout promo clips and games outside of the show throughout the years. This is just the first time it’s all been said together.

That helps re-contextualize this video, shown at Comic-Con 2008:

They later declared that that video is not canon, so we can’t use it as evidence that Daniel will come back to run the camera. (Word on the street is that Daniel was supposed to stay on the island and try to change the future, but there was some complication with the actor, which is why they shipped him off and killed him off quite suddenly.)

But it’s quite obvious that someone did pick up Dharma’s work in the meantime. The Cuban missle crisis ended in 1962. The Dharma Initiative was founded in the late 60s or early 70s. Even if Dharma was founded in 1974, when Sawyer and company “landed” there, that would put the destruction of the earth in 2001 at the latest. So either the numbers were off, or the variables really were changed. Let’s not even talk about time loop theories at this point.

Zoey has found a new resting spot. I actually had to touch up that photo with him sitting on my mouse pad. I’d be mad if it wasn’t so cute.

I took this picture a few weeks back, but forgot to post it. I dyed my hair black. It’s naturally dark brown. It took a little while to get used to, but I like it now. Also, it’s permanent, so I’ll be stuck with it for a few months anyway.

So I was searching YouTube for some English major rap songs (don’t ask) and found, much to my chagrin, that not only have people made quite a few English major rap videos, but numerous people have already beaten me to my long-held dream of writing and recording a rap song about Geoffrey Chaucer (in Middle English).

One, though, really puts me in my place. His name is Baba Brinkman, and, although he raps in modern English, this is some of the most brilliant English major rapping I have ever seen. This was performed live at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2005. (The second and third are the best, in my opinion.)

me: By the way, I filled our sink full of mayonnaise.
Janelle: Filled? Or just put some in there? Is it broken?
me: That’s how the Alaskan Natives celebrate Sinko de Mayo.
Janelle: Oh, that’s bad. Really bad.