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by Clake and Klake
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Tuesday, January 22, 2008
News, information and a hot stack of flapjacks!
posted by clake at 3:01 PM (3) comments
Here's a roundup of the latest news from the home of Clake, Klake, Plake, and Penelope Rabbit:
Local HyVee starting to blow noticably harder
The HyVee supermarket in Coralville has always been a less-than-stellar manifestation of this quality franchise. It's a little dirtier than other HyVees. It's laid out in a rather inefficient way. The system of managing carts leaves much to be desired. Yesterday, when Klake and I stopped by on our day off to pick up a couple of staple food items, we emerged from the bitter cold wind into the store only to be greeted by a table blocking the already too-narrow entrance area. At this table were several volunteers from a local food bank. Standing next to this table was a man whose duty it was to step out into the flow of traffic and annoy passers-by. When he confronted me with unsolicited information about his food drive, I opted to make no eye contact and walk briskly by, since this is the polite alternative to screaming "Fuck you!" at a stranger.
Ray Smuckles has recently taken on the role of acting Mayor of Achewood, and has proposed some measures to address this issue.
Following the initial grueling experience in extreme annoyance that accompanied simply walking into the store, we were immediately aware that the store had seen fit to install flatscreen TVs hanging above the aisles in various locations. So instead of shopping in peace we now get to enjoy a bunch of yammering from a television screen as we go about our business. Thank you, HyVee. This is was my shopping experience was missing: constant chatter and needless visual clutter!
HyVee is supposed to be a cut above other stores. You're supposed to walk in and immediately feel special just for being there. You don't mind the higher prices on certain items because the overall experience is geared much more toward preserving the sanity of human beings. At this particular store, though, you find yourself thinking you might as well try your luck at Super Walmart. At least there the prices are low, even though the atmosphere is psychologically toxic and the lines are impossibly long.
On a related note, I made another trip to the Mormon Trek Blvd Fareway store this afternoon for fruit, milk, and a few other things. I continue to be happy with Fareway. The selection isn't always so great, but the prices are very competitve, and they match other stores' ads.
Big date yesterday
Being the primary caregivers of an infant and dealing with the boredom of another Iowa winter, Klake and I decided to use yesterday's day off as a break. Plake's daycare was still open, so we dropped him off and then proceeded to have a nice lunch and a restful afternoon. Despite the HyVee fiasco, it was quite a success. Kim got a chance to get a bit artistic, while I hauled out the old N64 and kicked around a bit more with good, ol' Mario. I'm finally at 50 stars, and I had a hell of a good time getting there. I was off in an ice world doing some mad shredding on a turtle shell. Gnarley.
Diet Cherry Chocolate Dr. Pepper
My verdict: kinda weird tasting. It isn't unpleasant, but I think I have much more of a tolerance for the weirdness of artificial vanilla flavor (much more common) than artificial chocolate flavor (tastes like a scratch and sniff sticker).
Coast to Coast AM
I've finally bothered to figure out the timer record function on the cassette deck of my stereo (haven't had much use for it). I'm using this new super power to occasionally catch a bit of Coast to Coast AM, which is an overnight radio show that my high school/college curiosity about aliens and the occult drew me to. Guests are various alien, ghost, conspiracy or paranormal types. (Ian Punnett, the Sunday night host, teased ahead to a guest with the phrase "He's a wizard, and he knows what he's talking about!") Callers are often people who've seen ghosts, aliens or bigfoots, been possessed, been cursed by a ouija board, etc. or feel they need to weigh in on such topics. I'm a very different person that I was in high school - I am skeptical as hell about all of this stuff now - but it still entertains.
As an example: one recurring guest of the show has been a man who claims to have found a bottomless hole on his property. You can listen to this guy talk to Art Bell about throwing shit down this hole at this website, where someone has archive a couple of entire Mel's Hole episodes. Also, see this installment of the comic strip Overcompensating, which pretty much describes what we're talking about here.
I am tired of winter
Just get warm again, okay?
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Sunday, January 13, 2008
Browsing
posted by clake at 10:30 AM (0) comments
In this week's Randy the Cat, the Wizard looks at something and its owner is displeased.
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Wednesday, January 09, 2008
Ur-House
posted by clake at 9:33 AM (0) comments
Wondering whether House, MD was due to return to new episodes sometime soon, I checked the Fox website yesterday to find that they are rerunning pilots of some of their series this week, including dear old House. So last night, Klake and I tuned in to the pilot episode of the show. It was a lot of fun to see the introduction of the characters and themes of the series, as well as the differences in production from the later series as we know it. The pilot uses completely different sets that the subsequent series, which makes a lot of sense, as when you're filming a pilot you don't have a lot of cash for building huge, pretty sets. The music is different in an almost imperceptible way, as well as the cinematography, making it look a lot more like an independent film. This effect isn't better or worse than the later episodes, just different - and I very much enjoyed seeing something different.
Character-development-wise, Dr. House starts out even more lazy and grumpy that he is later on. It seems that his injury has caused him to sink into a self-pitying funk which causes him to barely do anything at all at work. The hospital is keeping him on entirely because of his reputation as a diagnostician, hoping that eventually they'll be able to motivate him to, like, actually do work again. Here we see the first instance of Cutty forcing House to make up lost clinic time, introducing the now-familiar motif of House instantly diagnosing people based on remarkably few symptoms and expressing his disdain for their ignorance. It was really nice to see that, as this season hasn't had much of House in clinic. (I think this is good, as it gives room for other plot elements to breathe, and will make it even more fun when we do finally see House in clinic again, which we certainly will.)
Dr. Wilson, ever the Dr. Watson to House's Sherlock Holmes, manages to entice House out of his self-absorbed uselessness and into self-absorbed usefulness with the intriguing case of a woman who spoke gibberish and passed out, but whose symptoms do not agree with stroke/tumor/other usual suspects. And the game is afoot!
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Sunday, January 06, 2008
Bachelor Meal
posted by clake at 10:29 AM (1) comments
In early December of 2007, a snowstorm delayed Klake's bus and Plake and I had to eat dinner without her. Below is a photo of the sort of meal a man prepares for himself in the absence of a lady:
That's a tinned kipper, cottage cheese, and a piece of toast.
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Hops Hijinks
posted by clake at 9:10 AM (0) comments
Klake's cousin and our good friend Philthy was involved in a process of rating each pub in the Iowa City area and attempting to find the very best. This journey has been documented in the blog Malt Madness. I only now, with him moving away to start a job in State Capital City, realize it would be a cool idea to link to this endeavour.
Also added to the list of friendly blog today, we have Adventures with Bret and Claudia. I haven't given this a very thorough read yet, but even just the thumbnail pictures on the front page are gorgeous and leave no doubt that very nifty adventures are happening. Bret and Claudia live in England!
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Saturday, January 05, 2008
Randy the Cat: 2008
posted by clake at 9:59 AM (0) comments
More vaudeville cuckoos this week...
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Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Videos of Plake
posted by klake at 8:29 PM (1) comments
Applesauce
Peachsauce
Laughing
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