As I try to get the screechings of Pauly Shore out of the back of my head (buuudddie!), indicating that I've seen the requisite 'too many' Pauly Shore movies, I find myself a week later than the last time I checked in with you kids.
My indication last week that I might have the flu was, in fact, false. Apparently, despite our childhood memories, the real Influenza virus is respiratory, and there is no 'stomach flu'. So whatever still has a death grip on my GI tract is as yet unnamed. Fun times.
But I'm so excited about the things we'll get to share, dear readers, once I get in the groove of Ohio-izing myself. We took a great drive into Amish country this weekend, it's so nice to live somewhere with hills and curves in the countryside again. Got to see little buggies racing along at rather impressive speeds.
And to a counter-point, there was the rambler (homeless or not) wearing a very real shiny metal pointy crown as he walked down the side of the on-ramp. No cheap cardboard imitations for him, no sir.
Would that I had more to share, I feel bad. Please feel free to read my old posts as though you've never seen them before, in particular, check out last August where comments are still ripe for the leaving.
No, not Ohio. I like it here very much. No, the state of which I speak is the dreaded flu. As in, 'my will to live flu out the window around 2 AM Tuesday...'. This really took me out, big time.
I'm still sick, but at least I'm not writhing in pain (at the moment), so I thought I'd beat a dead horse here ever so briefly. Last week, I asked you to name three states other than Ohio mentioned in song over the years. Didn't get many responses, which was sad. As such, I have taken it upon myself to compile a list of states that I can recall being mentioned in song, even with my nutrition-deprived gray matter, all you have to do is come up with any of the songs for each state.
Bonus, one song mentions eight of them, that'll get you almost halfway there if you know it.
- Alaska
- Alabama
- Arizona
- California
- Colorado
- Georgia
- Idaho
- Kentucky
- Louisiana
- Michigan
- Minnesota
- Mississippi
- Nebraska
- New York
- Ohio
- Oklahoma
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Wisconsin
- West Virginia
(Disclaimer - no dead horses were actually harmed in the writing of this post. Which leads me to a thought that pops into my head from time to time. In college, I once wrote "Walt Whitman beats his horse to death just so he can beat a dead horse." in reference to 'Leaves of Grass'. Safe to say I'm not the man's biggest fan.)
We here at CDS Enterprises, a division of Worldwide NFG, try our best to make Cheesehead Displacement Syndrome a mix of culture and humor. A place where reading makes you smarter, gives you something to think about before you go to sleep at night, and something to discuss around the water cooler, if such things actually happen.
However, it would appear that our target audience and our actual audience don't overlap. I give you stories about how poultry reproduces, or where SkeeBall came from, educational quizzes from film and music, or a myriad of well-thought rental car reviews, and all you want is this:
Children. The lot of you. (Yes, this depiction is in my basement. No, I didn't draw them. No, I didn't label them, either.)
I get a fair amount of traffic, maybe a hundred or so hits a day. For my little corner of the interweb, that's a big deal to me. But when news came out that Danica McKellar was posing in lingerie again, this time for Maxim Magazine, I couldn't keep up with the hits. Hundreds an hour from all over the world.
Do I think any of those viewers even bothered to read the pointed article attached regarding the Erdos-Bacon number? Doubtful.
So that's it. Do I take this lying down, accept that people come here for the boobies and nothing else?
Of course not. That would be selling out, cheapening our message to suit the carnivorous yearnings of a few 12-year-old boys with Internet access.
And we have more moral fiber than that.
Danica McKellar Danica McKellar Danica McKellar.
As I may have mentioned, I had a lot of time to myself in the car on the drive from Florida to Ohio. This meant lots of time to devise quiz questions for the lot of you while taking advantage of my 90-day free trial of XM radio. Show your work, kids!
1) Name four songs about Ohio
2) We drove through a lot of other states on our way here from Florida, but only one of those states features in 'classic' song lyrics (meaning song lyrics I've heard, or song lyrics that WEREN'T first released in the last year.) Name two songs that feature this state in the title.
3) Name three other states mentioned by name in song lyrics.
4) Name three television shows based in Ohio.
5) If you didn't come up with CSNY's 'Ohio' as one of the answers to Question 1, shame on you. This song commemorated a tragic event that passed its 40th anniversary on May 4th. What university is referenced in this song?
6) Speaking of four dead in Ohio, my new state is referred to as 'The Mother of Presidents', having produced eight out of 44 US presidents. All eight are dead. Name four of them.
7) One of those men was president while the events portrayed in the film 'Young Guns' took place. Another later president shares his first name and middle initial with an artist whose song sampled the film. Name the artist and song, along with both presidents.
8) Because the pinnacle of success for any musical artist should be a fine luxury automobile, name three songs that center around Cadillacs.
9) Which Ohio-born former president is the namesake of the elementary school in a holiday classic filmed, in part, in Cleveland, though based in another state entirely? I've told you once. Go ask Mjenks, he knows.
10) Which movie based in Cleveland and featuring one of the stars of Young Guns was filmed, in part, in my home town of Milwaukee?
As always, I grade on a curve. Partial credit will be given for partial answers. No credit will be given for smart remarks, unless they're really funny.
As I woke this morning, bleary-eyed and still unsure of my surroundings, the day didn't feel any different from others. Cool, rainy, a perfect day to sleep in while the rest of the family goes off to do their things, while I loll about, eating cake for breakfast and wishing I could work on the projects around the home for which I took off the entire week. Because we just moved, I did NOT take the second week of May as vacation this year.
It's almost always cold and rainy this week in May, I know this because for many, many years I have taken this week off, in an attempt to ignore our culture of celebrating the aging process so blatantly. I didn't do that this year, this year I faced my aging head-on, and it went remarkably well, I suppose. There were no balloons and confetti in my office, no gibes about my creaking bones as today I achieve the near pinnacle of agedness, I 'turned' 39.
This is not my beautiful car...
It really didn't click over like a cheap odometer, or a 1974 clock radio with the flappy numbers, it just kind of happened. It arrived like so many other days, and as I've passed the years, the days seem less and less significant.
Most recently, I celebrated my 30th. I actually made a point to plan an outdoor picnic for family and friends, a day spent in the park playing volleyball and grilling red meat. Prior to that, I may have celebrated my 12th birthday, with some minor fanfare for the 15th and an impromptu cake-and-candling by my college roommate at 20. Otherwise, I have made every effort to ignore the day, letting it pass like 364 of its brethren.
Today, I found it difficult to tie my shoes. One might blame this on age, but I doubt it. More than likely, I can't tie my shoes due to my mass. Weight, like age, is just a number. A much larger number.
When I was young I set goals and dreams based on age. I thought that by 25, I'd have a job I loved, a career. I'd have a wife and kids, a home in the country. Twenty-five came and went. That subsequent year, time passed and I wasn't sure how to handle that goal lost. I hit 26. No big deal, but when 27 rolled around, I was devastated. No family. Every day going to work was a crushing weight. And while I'd been in my apartment for a few years, that hardly passed for a country estate.
This is my beautiful wife...
Not quite eleven years ago, I met Lori. Shortly thereafter, I met her daughters. Our relationship grew slowly, ever slowly, and since I'd given up my expiration-dated dreams, I fought the relationship for a while. But now, I have a beautiful wife. Beautiful daughters. A large luxury automobile. (Where does that highway go to? Under the water, carry the water.) Six weeks ago, I started a new job, one for which I'm so excited by the possibilities I can hardly contain myself. No home in the country, but it is a beautiful house.
This is me, barely containing myself...
So there you have it. Empirical evidence that 39 is the new 25. Now I just need a giant suit.
