Central Snark

….due to circumstances beyond our control, our Spin is in a holding pattern. 

I will be back and it will spin, just a little later. 

Do stop back, it gets lonely dancing by myself.  

Okay, I’m not really back, but in the vein of Snuppy’s comment, of the girls dancing and the boys gathering on the sidelines.  Here’s one of those 7th Grade dance songs where the girls/boys actually did dance together.  That is if you consider that awkard two step saunter dancing.   Come see life in 1972 with me:

~ DJ LAMPSHA 

IT started the way most week long visits do, with an e-mail (”Hey, guess what? I’m coming to see you!”), a phone call (”You’re coming to see us? Yippeeeee!”), a panic (”Holy crap, she’s coming to see us, our house is a mess, we don’t have any food, and, uh, we still need to lose 10 pounds!”) , a call to the cleaning lady (”You want HOW much to clean out that room that hasn’t been touched in over 3 years? Oh Not-Hazel, we thought you were our friend.”), and a trip to the grocery store (”Must stock up on chocolate.”) 

In addition to the above, the pending (and subsequent) visit required: 1. a hotel reservation (”Once they meet her, there’s no way our horndog sons will give her privacy.”), 2. a flurry of e-mails (”NBFF! Guess who’s coming to the East coast!”), 3. a complicated set of arrangements covering the span of 6 days (New Slipcovers? Check. New houseplants? Check. Ample Chocolate? Check. Carpets Cleaned? Ack!), 4. several full tanks of gas (logging over 900 miles, and counting), 5. paint remover (oh, those pesky Blue Men), and 6. gum. Naturally, Clean sheets were helpful, clean floors secondary, clean toilets essential, in lieu of aforementioned “carpet cleaning”, spot remover for the mess the poor sick kitty made before being carted off to the Vet mandatory, and dirty windows ignored, because, hey, it’s winter.

Finally, the day before her arrival. Time for review of plan and/or tweaking:

“We’ll pick her up at the airport then whisk her off to the hotel, because staying with us might get tricky, what with the 2 large and/or horny boys, the 3 large and/or noisy dogs and a guest room still filled with Christmas leftovers (damn that Not-Hazel, anyway).”

“But wait. What about all that snow?”

“Snow? It’s 72 degrees.”

“Yeah, well, tomorrow it won’t be. The roads will be icy, the drive treacherous and the hour, late.”

“Oh.”

Calling the car company was easy. Paying for the 5 hours charged to pick up one tiny penguin might not be, but what the hell, at least we didn’t have to schlep out to the airport on those treacherous, icy roads.

Hmmm. If we continue to share aspects of TEH PENGUIN’S visit in this fashion, we’ll never get done. Heck, we’ll probably still be writing while you’re reading, and that won’t be good for anyone. We can type fast, but who knows if we can type as fast as you can read. Are you willing to find out? Neither are we — so let’s speed things up, shall we? Don’t look now, but we’re about to hit the fast forward button. Try to keep up, we can’t promise you’ll get a chance to see this post again as a summer re-run.

FRIDAY, 16 March (9:43 pm): Phone rings, she’s here. Woohoo! She’s safe. Stuck on the plane, watching a British Airway Jet get de-iced. Look for the driver after you get out of customs. Call us from the hotel. See you tomorrow.

SATURDAY, 17 March (12:13 pm): BOBO and SNUPPY are late. Sorry. What can we say? Mad-crazy kids/dogs/snow in driveway. Ready to go? Yeah. Want coffee? Yeah. Ready to try Starbucks? Yeah? Good. Drink up, time to meet LAMPSHA, who’s on her way after picking up STILETTO (what a doll, just flew in, were her arms tired). Hi Stiletto. Hi Lampsha. Eat? Yeah. Good food? Yeah. Lots of laughs? Oh yeah. Ready to say goodbye/go to hotel/get sleep? Yeah, yeah, and yeah. See you both tomorrow.

SUNDAY, 18 March (2:00 pm): Meet Lampsha AND Scissorhands (great guy). Blue Man Group? Yeah. Good show? Yeah, funny, too. Take pictures of Monika and tall Blue Man. Paint in her hair. Hahaha. Bye Lampsha/Scissors! Take Stiletto and Penguin for drive through Greenwich “countryside” in order to scope out un-freaking-believable homes belonging to people with more money than everyone in all three of our families put together? Yeah. Mexican takeout? Yeah. Muy bueno? Sí sí. Back to hotel? Yawn. See ya mañana.

MONDAY 19 March (10:04 am): Pick up girls at hotel. Force car into non-spacious parking space at Starbucks. Drive like maniac to airport. Right Road? Lost. Lost? Lost. Find airport. Throw Stiletto out of moving car. She’s lovely, someone will dust her off and/or pick up her bag. Hi Lampsha. New Jersey? Yeah? Yeah. 4 1/2 hour car ride over bridges and/or through tunnels. Smiling cop pulls up to car, checks out teh Penguin. You Michelle? No? Too bad. MO’A? Yeah, baby! Art? Amazing. Food? Spectacular. Mo’a? Beyond delightful. Love her, staying late. Gotta go, long drive. Drop you off in Queens, Lampsha? Yeah. Lost? D’oh! Home late?? Oh yeah. Nighty night. See ya tomorrow.

TUESDAY 20 March (11:03 am): Train? Starbucks. Drive in to Manhattan, instead? Okie dokie. Hook up with Lampsha at Grand Central Station, take Subway to Lower Manhattan. CALL HIM AL? Hell Yeah! Trinity Church? Wow! Mrs. Al/Doug’s wife waiting to meet us at apartment? Awesome and Very Awesome! Food? Yummy. Rest of tour? Fab. U. Lous. AWESOME. Bye Al, we’ll call. Drive back/drop off. Nighty night, sleep tight. See ya tomorrow.

WEDNESDAY 21 March (10:51 am): Hey, do we need Starbucks? Why yes, yes we do. Larry take our picture. Larry, let go of teh Penguin. Larry, stop running after our car, we’re late. Drive to Manhattan. Get lost, again. Wait for sons to arrive. Hi guys. Hope you all enjoy Lion King. Snuppy left out in the cold? Yeah. Al? Yes? Coffee/cheesecake? Yeah (and yum). Show’s over, was it good? Fantastic. Time to go home? Uh-huh. More Mexican food? Sí sí señora. Back to hotel, get some sleep. Hasta mañana.

THURSDAY 22 March (9:23 am): Must. Have. Starbucks. Long drive to Massachusetts. Meet THE AMOEBA? Yeah. Nice/funny/scary-smart marine biologist? Indubitably. Good food? Delectable. Chit? Chat. Time to go back. Aloha! Good luck in Hawai’i, dude! Long drive back to Connecticut. Too tired for shopping? No. 8:03 pm, tired now? Yes. Hotel? Yes. 5 am pick up? Yes and yikes! Good night. See you tomorrow. Early.

FRIDAY 23 March (4:59 am): Starbucks? Too early. Damn. Long drive to airport? Yeah. Good ride to airport? Yeah. Excited that teh Penguin will soon be meeting WILLIE, KYAHGIRL, and, if she’s lucky, SQUARE-ISH GIRL? Absolutely. Jealous? A little. Sad to say goodbye? Devastated. Long drive back to Connecticut? Oh… yeah.

NATURALLY, there’s a lot more interesting/entertaining stuff we could share about the visit, but our fingers are tired, and we know your attention spans are short, at best. If you’re desperate to read more about the Tour de Penguin, you can do so HERE (thanks to Lampsha), as well as HERE and HERE (thanks to teh Penguin). As for us? Well, don’t look now, but we get to spend one more day with our favorite Icelandic beauty on Tuesday, and last time we looked, that dining room carpet won’t be cleaning itself. Waiting for the last possible minute to do it ourselves? Well duh.

~snuppy   

EVER wonder why we’re sometimes A) late writing posts and/or B) lame once we finally get around to committing to a topic? We wish we had a grand excuse for our lateness/lameness, alas (and alack) we do not. Blame it on our lack of sleep. Blame it on our sick kitty. Hell, blame it on the Bossa Nova for all we care. As for us? We plan to blame our posting woes on 1. Spring Fever (catch it!) and/or  2. our rotten/evil son (throw him out!), who forces us to look at “hot/new!” websites with dumb-yet-addictive games that distract us from the mission at hand, in order to try our hand at something we are, as yet, really bad… at. In. Doing. Whatever.

What we’re trying to say — badly  (spit it out) — is this: despite the fact we can’t play THIS STUPID CARD TOSS GAME to save our lives, that didn’t stop us from spending an inordinate amount of time trying. To play the game. To toss those goddamn cards. To hit that freaking hat. To get past Level 2. Whatever.

Good luck to those of you willing to give it a shot (shot? good one). Trust us, this is a difficult-yet-delightful distraction — which happens to be one of the best ways to waste time we’ve seen since, well, since THIS PAPER TOSS GAME came to be bookmarked in our side-bar (we shot! we scored! 59 points was our all time high! we need to find better ways to spend our time).

No one’s doing the Bossa Nova on HUMOR-BLOGS.COM.

~snuppy

WE know what we said on Monday. We said we’d tell you about our fun/fabulous week with teh PENGUIN – now doing her best to spread smiles across the West coast, in spite of the fact she’s been hanging out with a certain CURMUDGEON, who’d prefer to do anything but (smile).  And we plan to do that, eventually — although we doubt we’ll be able to improve on the account offered by LAMPSHA (who most certainly does not suck), but that’s beside the point. The point, for we think we had one when we got here, is that following the hilarious/insightful post DIESEL did yesterday, we believe we’d be remiss if we didn’t offer up a few helpful tips for proper responses to any and/or all “funny posts” you’ll surely encounter as you meander along the yellow brick road through our Blog, Shirley. And don’t ask us to explain what the hell that means. Most of the time we just write the first thing that pops in to our head, we can’t be bothered to explore why it’s there in the first place.  

Now, where were we? Oh yeah. In the year or so since we took it upon ourselves to set up our humble little blog, we’ve noticed something about ourselves: We like comments. We need comments. Without comments we feel like our time has been wasted and we honestly wonder why we’re here. With comments, we realize we’ve wasted our time, but that someone appreciates it, so it’s okay that we’re here. By now you must be wondering to yourselves (maybe even to each other): “How can we help you feel even better than you already do about yourselves, your blog, and/or our comments?” Glad you asked. Below we’ve attempted to outline our “7-Step” Program, which we affectionately refer to (in the privacy of our own blog) as CRAPPER:

1. Comment. Make it a good one. Use a few well chosen words.

2. Respond in a way that indicates you’ve actually read something remotely related to the post for which you’re leaving a comment. In other words, “Hey, great tip, I tried something like that on my couch once, but it left a stain.” probably won’t convince us that you studied our carefully crafted words about how Stephen Colbert pwn3d Bill O’Reilly a few weeks ago. Unless, of course, something did get pwn3d on your couch — in which case we want you to explain, in graphic detail. Especially the part about what the hell “pwn3d” is, because we really don’t know. That said, if you’re just blowing comment smoke up our asses, pwn on your wn time, and use a towel. 

3. Avoid trickery. Don’t you dare try to drag us over to your tawdry website with promises of larger penises, Howard Stern’s discontinued fragrances (really), and/or opportunities to watch mothers bake cookies while their daughters have sex with with mutant goldfish. We fell for those things once upon a time – but that was then and this is now. Oh, and we don’t need any more “designer” handbags, either. We might be interested in your “get rich quick” plan, but only if it involves a dying Princess and/or dead philanthropist who wanted to “do good works” with her/his funds, rather than give them to family members who haven’t “paid their dues”. Our dues are not only paid, we have reciepts (somewhere at the bottom of our designer bag).

4. Print. It’s hard enough for us to read our own handwriting, don’t force us to decipher yours.

5. Praise us. Tell us we’re pretty. Or pretty funny. Or funny pretty much most of the time. Or pretty much anything you like, because, did we mention we like comments? Tell us we’re pretty, throw in a “winky” face, and we’ll be yours forever, or until we check out your blog and decide we like it and/or you. Speaking of “winky faces”…

6. Emote.   and  are charming devices for saying “Golly, not only did I read this post, i sort of enjoyed it and/or at least it didn’t make me throw up in my mouth a little, so thanks for that.”

7. Resist the urge to say “Wow! This post is just like the one I wrote today! Come check it out! Hurry! Follow me!” As far as we’re concerned, you may as well write “Come read my blog, because I’m a far better writer than you are, dumbshit. Neener neener neener.” Guess what? Stuff like that will get us over to your blog. That’s where we will slap you. Oh, and we won’t leave happy/winky faces, X’s, O’s, or ((hugs)) — not that we’re likely to do that last thing, anyway, because, really, (((hugs)))? Seems so… tentative. Like, well, it’s a hug, but it’s wrapped inside parentheses, so, like, it’s an afterthought. Or an injection. An injected afterthought. In parentheses. With X’s and O’s. What is this, Tic-Tac-Toe? No, it’s a blog. What? Why did we just say that? Hell if we know. If you’re so freaking curious, re-read the last sentence of the first paragraph, then tell us. We’ll be waiting for you in the back corner of the comment section, wrapped inside a parenthetical cage of our own emotion.

Note: Don’t mention this post to the folks over at HUMOR-BLOGS.COM. No telling what might happen if it’s discovered we’re not only NOT funny, but pathetic in our whorish attempts to get attention by leaping on to DIESEL’S cleve/brillaint blog-tails when he wasn’t looking.

~snuppy

Do you wish you had a funny blog? Of course you do. Everybody wants a funny blog. Funny blogs are da bomb. Are the kids still saying “da bomb”? If they are, then that was a good example of topical humor. Or at least a topical sentence, assuming “da” is an article.

Anyway, that’s exactly the kind of hit-and-miss crap you’ll find on my blog all day long. And with my simple eight step program, your blog could be just as funny. Now, because of my love for humanity and inability to get anyone to pay $39.95 for my pamphlet entitled Eight Steps to a Funny Blog, I present an abbreviated version of the program here:

Step 1: Write what you know. If you never leave the house and all you know about is your cats, write about that. Writing what you know allows you to utilize excruciating detail to compensate for the fact that your cats are no different from 80 million other fluff-coated fatballs that nobody gives a shit about.

Step 2: Write about how “crazy” your life is, especially if your life is fantastically dull. For example, let’s say that your toilet overflowed just as you needed to leave to pick the kid up from soccer. That’s what I call a “manicdote” – A story that has a sense of urgency but otherwise is of absolutely no interest to anyone. Manicdotes are pure gold, because (a) people can relate to them; (b) they keep people from feeling bad because your life is more interesting than theirs; and (c) they are a great excuse to use tons of exclamation points!!!

Step 3: Use familiar phrases to evoke a sense of wackiness, such as “You can’t make this stuff up!!!” This particular phrase is quite useful for camouflaging a story that could very well have been made up, but in all likelihood should not have been. Other gems are: “You don’t have to be crazy to read this blog – but it helps!!!” and “Blogging hard or hardly blogging?!!”

Step 4: Pick a joke and stick with it. Don’t confuse your readers by taking your post in strange and unexpected directions. For example, if you think George W. Bush is stupid, introduce that idea in your first paragraph and then take another 16 paragraphs working up to a punchline in which it is revealed that he is, in fact, quite stupid. The payoff chuckle is well worth the 20 minutes of buildup.

Step 5: If you run out of material, copy and paste jokes from an email that’s going around the office. You know, the one about the differences between how men and women drive, or the one with the list of silly things that kids say about going pee-pee and whatnot. Even if we’ve all seen them a hundred times before, it’s probably been a good three weeks since the last time. What’s a blog for if not endlessly repeating other people’s jokes?

Step 6: Break the rules. Don’t feel constrained by other people’s notions of proper grammar, spelling or capitalization. Far more important than following these arbitrary rules is the copious use of smileys and abbreviations like “LOL” to telegraph your point to the reader.

Step 7: Whine about your stupid jerk boss or your ex-spouse (or even better, current spouse!). You won’t sound immature or bitter. Just darned funny.

Step 8: Always end your posts on a positive note. People love that kind of stupid crap.

~Diesel

OH bugger. Can it be Monday already? Already? Monday? Really? Rats. Not sure you can tell, but we’re not ready. Not no way, not no how. Not know how we’re gonna do a post in this condition.

IN case it’s not abundantly clear, some of us continue to be in the midst of recovering from our whirlwind tour of the East coast, as in: we had a beautiful PENGUIN underfoot last week, and we wanted to make sure she had a swell time while she was here, so we whisked her up and down Interstates 95 & 91, the Jersey Turnpike, the Merritt Parkway, and, over, under and/or through a bunch of bridges and/or tunnels with names we forget, in order to properly criss cross as much of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massachusetts as possible in 6 (count ‘em SIX) short days. Yes, that’s right, we said Massachusetts. Shut up*.

BUT none of that matters now. Oh no. This is Monday, everyone’s trying to get back into some semblance of normalcy, and we’re here doin’ our cheesy “musical opposites/cheap laughs” thing — as we’re wont to do when we can’t come up with any other clever way to seque out of a DJ LAMPSHA SUPER SPECTACULAR SPIN (oh how we lovelovelove that woman and/or her spins). Nonetheless, we’re tired, FRENCH and SAUNDERS as the THE CORRS are funny, Bob’s O’Malley’s yer uncle (we kind of missed out of Saint Paddy’s day, cut us some slack), and looky there, another post is done. Since Lampsha featured not one but 2 (count ‘em TWO) artists from the UK, there’s nothing not timely about our sharing this one with you. In fact, we’re bloody brilliant, if we do say so ourselves, which, of course, we do.

LAME? Us? Well, yeah. What about “we’re still trying to recover from last week” did you not understand? You can find funny all over the place, just ask DIESEL. While you’re there, for godssake offer up a caption for his little contest. Honestly, he’s been whoring up the blogosphere for the past 5 days in a pathetic gallant effort to get folks to participate, so do us all a favor and pitch in. Or, if you prefer, come back here tomorrow when he’s sure to do another, in a series of his own Super Spectacular Posts — unless, of course, he forgets, in which case we are SO gonna go over there and smack him on the back of his bald head (which isn’t bald, but looks that way in the picture, and stop looking at us like that, if you’d taken 2 seconds to go over there yourself we’d be through now, and taking our nap).

*We do plan to share more about the activities of last week — with any kind of luck, rest, and/or typing ability, we might even have something for you as soon as Wednesday. If we’re not here, you can find us looking for material over at HUMOR-BLOGS.COM.

~snuppy

It’s time for our first Battle of the Bands! But wait, these are individual artists. Okay, it’s time for our first Battle of the Bit..Young Women! I’m popping up two videos today of two different artists and you can vote in the comments on which was your fave. Now if you’re fickle as I am, it might be difficult. If that is the case, here is my tip - narrow it to the merits of these two songs alone. Then go have fun and look at their individual MySpace pages and decide you like both of them, each in their own unique style.  Really you don’t have to vote, I’m just trying to deflect from what will be a very lean to the point post. 

They are both fun and fresh and span the gammit from ska to trip hop.  Enjoy.

First up we have Jem, a young Welsh singer who has got an interesting style.  I love her voice.  Here is her MySpace page which has some links and info and four songs. So let’s kick off the battle with Jem’s video for the song “They”:

Next up, we have Lily Allen, a young British “pop artist” who you don’t want to do dirty (you’ll see).  She is AB FAB and I love her ska-inflected sound.  Here is her MySpace page with more of her songs.

Check out her video for the song, Smile:

Okay Snarksters, I’m off to violin and a day of percussion so enjoy and have a great weekend!

 ~ DJ LAMPSHA
  spinning out of control since 2006

“To start, press any key.” Where’s the “Any” key? ~ Homer Simpson

WOULDN’T it be funny if we forgot to write a post because we were forced to get up and out the door veryvery early this morning, in order to take someone to the airport, and, when we got back home we closed our eyes for a nano-second, and the next thing we knew the whole freaking day had passed us by without so much as as a howdy-do? And then, after we said to ourselves “hey dumbass, get off that couch, wipe the drool from your face, fire up the stupid computer, and see if you can’t whip out one of those humorous and/or witty posts you keep threatening to write!” we responded with something extremely hilarious like “whoowhatey”?

~snuppy

…I’ll see if I can dredge my swamp-like mind for another post for you tonight. ~Diesel

BECAUSE we’re nothing, if not fair and/or balanced thinkers, we’re willing to give Diesel the benefit of the doubt. We’re sure he meant those words when he left them in the comment section yesterday. Too bad he didn’t bother to write a post, instead.

DID we mention we’re tired? (we are) Cranky? (we’re not) Getting ready for yet another, in a series of, long-ass drives around parts of New England thus unviewed by a certain beautiful, charming and oh-so-feisty and, (woe is us) MUCH younger than we are, but we’re trying our best to keep up with her, anyway Miss “I want to see as much as I possibly can in the short amount of time I’m here” PENGUIN? (we are, they were, she is, she is, she really is, we are, we really are, she does, we’ll do our best to accommodate) We have? Well there you go. And here we go. Be sure to stand outside at some point in the day. At the rate we’re going, chances are very good we’ll be speeding past your house and/or job on our way to wherever the hell it is we’re headed this time. We’ll honk, you’ll wave, we’ll keep going.

~snuppy

UH-OH. Due to circumstances happily within our control, we find ourselves unintentionally undone by an unbelieveably exhilarating-yet-exhausting week. Unfortunately, as a result of our recent flurry of heretofore undisclosed activities, we are woefully unable to write. Stop looking at us like that — see DIESEL’S post below and get off our unattractive case, rubber face. We realize how utterly unimpressive we are. We know our behavior is unacceptable. We recognize our uninteresting prose may render us unpopular. Needless to say, we are unthrilled with our current condition and thisclose to becoming unglued, but we think and/or hope that will be unnecessary, since under the Laws of Blogging we are of the understanding that everyone is allowed — at the very least — one or two uncreative, uninspired, and, um, ungood posts. This is un of ‘em.

No worries, unless something unforeseen occurs between now and then, we’ll do our very best to ensure tomorrow’s post is anything but… forgettable.

Until then, you’re on your own.

~snuppy

PS: We considered sharing our thoughts about last night’s performances on AMERICAN IDOL, but we fell asleep on the couch as soon as Paula and Simon started to bitch slap each other around over the varying degrees of suck they were being subjected to (minds out of your crotches, kids). That said, Paula is either high on crack, or she really can’t tell the difference between a good performance, and that bag we wish she’d put over her head.

Unload those laughs you expected to use here over at HUMOR-BLOGS.COM.