Recently in General Entertainment Category

This Halloween I had a pretty fabulous candy bowl. Among other things, I offered full-sized Milky Ways and cashews. I make the kids choose their own stuff out of the bowl and the amazing thing was, a lot of kids took the cashews. And it wasn't that they didn't notice the full-sized Milky Ways. One kid audibly vacillated between them: "Oh, man! full size Milky Ways! ... Cashews! Full size Milky Way? Cashews? Full size Milky Way? Cashews?" before he took the cashews!! Anyway, it's cool to know that kidz love nutz and next year I'll be sure to have plenty on hand.

I finally took Chris Higgins's advice and started regularly listening to the podcast of The Sound of Young America. (I feel compelled to point out that I think I sent Higgins in that direction by way of the Coyle and Sharpe podcast.) Anyway, I've been enjoying it a lot -- Jesse Thorn's interview with Ira Glass brought up an interesting and challenging question about the dangers of loving narrative too much. Ira Glass's response reminded me of when Jon Steward complains about people asking him why he doesn't do a better job of covering the news and he says, "because I'm a comedian!" And you get where he's coming from but it doesn't solves the problem of people getting all their news from him.

I've also been enjoying Jordon, Jesse, GO! a lot -- it's like hanging out with guy friends who are funnier than you and probably wouldn't let you get a word in edgewise, but you don't need to worry about feeling awkward and left out because it's a podcast and no one expects you to say anything.

btw, I'm aware that I'm weakening the franchise with meandering entries like this, but it's better than no entry at all, I'm guessing. I've been super busy.

I just got some very nice compliments.

Maybe I'll try to say something nice to someone today. No promises.

Nat and I went to the Washington County Fair on Sunday. It was fun. The best part (besides all the animals large and small) was the Dock Dogs competition which you've probably seen on ESPN 12 or Animal Planet or something. They seem to be heavily marketing themselves (it's always weird to me when someone invents a sport and then gets busy trying to sell it). I didn't get any pictures of the dogs "catching big air" (or whatever pseudo sports colloquialism they are trying to get us to use), but there were some flying motorcycles in the demolition derby arena next door. There was at least one kid in the crowd who was like, "screw the dogs -- I want to watch the machines!!"

Update

Nat shared with me this morning this very nice haiku inspired by our trip:

how can a collie
launch herself twenty-two feet
and land like a swan? --

Which reminds me of when I decided to write all the thank you notes for my wedding presents in haiku. I made it through about 5 I think before giving up.

Here is an old picture of Jower's from this year's St. Johns Parade. I forget who the marching band was. Jower's has been owned by the same Chinese American family for like a 100 years or something, but is closing and changing hands soon. Jim had a great idea to turn Jowers into a museum of working class history. And the museum store would sell Carhartts, just like Jower's does now (it's a work clothes store). I thought that was a great idea (TM), but something else is going on with Jower's now. I forget what -- not a museum, though. Probably condos.

BTW, WTF is up with the Willamette Week? Maybe getting the ass-kicking their photographer got is exacerbating out their class prejudices? First the idiotic story on "the most dangerous 'hood in Portland" (two phrases I really hate are "'hood" and "NoPo" -- I read somewhere recently that "NoPo" means, "No Poor People" which kind of sums up my sense of it as part of the vocabulary of gentrification -- and when our neighborhood watch met, the cop who came to lecture us kept referring to our neighborhood as the "'hood" -- he was really eager to get home to Vancouver) and now this story on River Rats -- here's a choice selection from the latter:

"On rafts and drift boats, inner tubes and air mattresses, the great blue-collar tide washes up onto the beach (or hikes in from the Columbia River Highway). They come equipped with boom boxes, cell phones, coolers, deck chairs, beer, chips, dogs and barbecues—and leave behind a swath of broken bottles, plastic bags, cigarette butts and human waste."

Lygate does make the point somewhere in his article that not everyone who is blue collar (or immigrant, the other demographic he points out recreates on the Sandy) shits on the beach, and I'm not saying he shouldn't make references to class, but the overall message of the article is pretty offensive, especially on the heels of the other article. Almost as bad as the continuous references to "White Trash" in the Mercury, which I stopped reading last year for that reason (that, and it had no content to speak of).

I guess I'd better escape into some office AC -- I'm getting too het up.

BTW: One nice thing about the Sandy River article: there's a handy chart of good swimming holes attached!

After eating all the cheese we skipped the focus group and went straight to "Masters of Soviet Animation, volume 1." I skipped over the focus group because it had gotten dark and I was eager to get the movie started, although I'm kind of sad I did, and some people were clearly disappointed. We will definitely have to make sure that happens next time. Maybe we need a Cheese Dominatrix to keep us on task.

But anyway, the movie worked great! The sheet-attached-to-laundry-line screen wasn't too wiggly, as I'd feared, and the sound from the "room filling" radio was perfect for the backyard. All in all, I'm feeling smug and satisfied and plan on watching all my DVDs in the backyard for the rest of the summer. I have a bunch of French movies that I intended to show last night. Come join me!

We invented this last night:

Everytime someone says, "American" or "Dream," take a drink.

Everytime someone says, "The children," take two drinks.

(Did I mention that the judges at the American Inventor Auditions said we'd hear back from them in 6-8 weeks, if we ever do? Well, that's what they said, so if you're looking for actual American Inventor stuff you can scroll down a bit for about 2,000 words and 7 pictures ...)

I was thrilled to be linked on boingboing the other day! Some of my readers will know that once I saw that boingboing was covering the auditions (I'd already bought my plane tickets, btw -- I'm not that desperate), I made getting a link from boingboing the true extent of my ambitions.

The timing was pretty good, since I'd just signed up for google analytics and the boingboing link gave me something to look at. (Posted above is a screen shot of my first google analytics report -- it's actually before they'd processed any data, but I suspect it's not far off from the truth.) I'm not really sure about the etiquette when you get linked somewhere like boingboing and have a bunch of new, mostly one-time readers -- should I have posted a "welcome, boing boing readers!!!" message? I was sick the day it happened and eating my way across northern Washington after that, so I wasn't really up to doing much of anything -- but I probably would have taken the strong, silent approach, anway. I'm just that kind of blogger -- you know, mostly silent.

Anyway, among other things (ok, not too many other things -- but at least one other thing) as a result of the boingboing link, I've been invited to talk to a Canadian radio show called Freestyle. You read it right!!! -- I'm going to be on Canadian radio this Tuesday -- AM, baby!!! I've been singing a little song to the tune of "Mexican Radio" lately. You can listen to it online somehow (the show, not my singing), although I'm still a little confused about exactly when I'll be on -- they're interviewing me around 9:30 am. [Update: I think you can hear it on the internet by clicking on the listen now thing and clicking on Vancouver -- I'm saying this for Terry and Kathy's sake, I guess, since I'm not sure who else will bother *sniff*. And no, you can't call in.]

The Freestyle show says it offers "amusing and fascinating topics and people from all over the country and around the world" as well as, "more Canadian music than you'll ever get the chance to hear anywhere else on the dial." I'm very much looking forward to it. And if the producers of American Inventor are reading this (and you know, I just think you're adorable, Liz Bronstein!), I will definitely put in a good word for American Inventor.

A couple of days ago I emailed a couple friends gleefully letting them know that, in the words of Navin R. Johnson, "Things are going to start happening to me NOW!" and, look, it's starting already!

Anyway, back to the true purpose of this blog (not that self-referentiality isn't a blog standard): Here's a pretty good example of how I frequently don't so much invent something so much as sort of channel some kind of scary consumer collective unconscious (this is pretty much my version of a clip show):

At first, I wanted to make savory ice creams -- you know, gorgonzola, pea, corn, beet, beef, etc.; I thought you might serve it in scoops on top of nice salads or in soups. I babbled on about it so much that Chris even got me a very sweet double-bowl ice cream maker and I had a tasting party, but then like 2 months later I'm reading about savory ice cream shops and stuff in the New York Times dining section and all over the web and oh, snore, we've all heard all about it by now. Scooped again! (heh)

Then at some point, Katy suggested making ice cream for dogs (not to be confused with dog ice cream). I made up a small batch for Ernie's birthday, and it went over great, but then a little while later, I saw some for sale at New Seasons, so my next idea was to get an ice cream cart and troll the dog parks selling specialty hand-made ice cream for dogs -- Chris suggested packaging the scoops as little frozen tennis balls or something. And then I thought: why not get an espresso truck and sell espresso (for people) and ice (for dogs and people) all over Portland at its many dog parks? I went so far as to look at espresso trucks on the internet, and fell in love with one. But that's as far as it went, because a few months later, I heard some poor lady on Oregon Public Radio talking about how she's invested $30,000 into an espresso cart to sell coffee at Laurelhurst Park to the dog walkers. The first broadcast was all about how she'd set out on a new career path and isn't that great, and then one week later they're reporting on how she'd given up on that, too much work, too little money, and now she's doing birthday parties. Well, better her than me. I'm glad I kept my day job.

So, there's a typical trajectory for me and my great ideas.

Not like I'm keeping track or anything, but here are some other great ideas I've had that were really just premonitions or something:

• Inappropriately Contextualized T-Shirts from Around the Third World
• Controllable Flush
• Pitch-Based TV Show

More to come, I'm sure.

p.s. I almost forgot -- the best part about "Freestyle" is they also interview people like a etch-a-sketch artists and Chess Boxing champs -- after learning that this sport exists, I have now made it my ambition to date a champion chess boxer -- it sounds like the perfect combination of brute and nerd. Hopefully Freestyle can help set me up. (Germanist friends, be sure to watch the video and tell me what they're saying.)

Shane just forwarded me the following email, by way of Denise:

> SIMON COWELL WANTS TO KNOW IF YOU’VE GOT A BRIGHT IDEA WORTH ONE MILLION BUCKS
>
>
> From flying cars to time machines, America’s favorite critic wants your
> invention for his new show. Auditions across America start Nov. 14.
>
> Inventors, tinkerers and entrepreneurs of America…
>
> Have you come up with the greatest new product since the Post-It®? How about
> a floss-dispensing pen, or bubble gum with flavor that lasts forever? Well,
> Simon Cowell (American Idol) wants your brainchild for his new show, AMERICAN
> INVENTOR.
>
> Brought to you by the producers of “American Idol” and Simon Cowell’s Syco
> Television, this new network primetime reality series set to air on ABC will
> undertake the biggest search ever for America’s best new invention. Open to
> people of all ages including kids! Casting calls begin November 14th all
> across America (cities and dates listed below).
>
> Says show creator/executive producer Cowell: “America has always been the
> mother of invention, from the airplane, rockets, plastic and the internet to
> flip-flops and soda. This is the ultimate American dream. We want this show
> to make someone a multi-millionaire.”
>
> With one million dollars at stake, AMERICAN INVENTOR will celebrate the best
> in homespun American ingenuity. From mothers with a notion for a better baby
> stroller to experienced engineers with several patented inventions, AMERICAN
> INVENTOR is open to anyone with a great idea. No invention is too big or
> small!
>
> Prospective contestants can enter with a sketch, a prototype or even just a
> concept. The competition is open both to individuals and teams. The invention
> must be something that can be mass produced and sold to consumers in a retail
> outlet. Expert judges will narrow down the initial entries to a group of
> finalists, who will each be given $50,000 dollars to develop their product,
> refine it, and take it to the next level. But in the end, it will be up to
> America to call in and vote on which invention is worthy of the one million
> dollar prize.
>
> For more information such as applications, eligibility requirements and
> addresses for the eight casting calls, please go to www.AmericanInventor.tv or
> call 877/255-8009. This competition is subject to applicable rules, which are
> subject to modification at any time in the producer’s discretion.
>
> For interested inventors, here is the current schedule for casting calls in
> the eight selected cities:
>
> Los Angeles, November 14
> San Francisco, November 17
> Denver, December 1
> Chicago, December 4
> New York, December 7
> Washington, DC, December 11
> Atlanta, December 14
> Austin, December 17
>
> AMERICAN INVENTOR will be produced by Simon Cowell’s Syco Television LLC and
> FremantleMedia North America, Inc. The Executive Producers are Simon Cowell,
> Liz Bronstein, Siobhan Greene, Nigel Hall and Cecile Frot-Coutaz.

I totally DO have ideas!! Lots of them!! And I really want to be on their American Inventor show.

Here's where I need help, though: if I do apply to go down to SF to the open casting call, etc., which idea should I apply with? Maybe I'll see if I can figure out how to add a poll to my blog ... but anyway, I'd like suggestions fro my best, most marketable idea. I'm thinking maybe the Wondue Crock, or the Scrunci Undie ... I think they want something with mass rather than nitch appeal. Anyway, if your reading this, let me know which if my ideas you think would be best.

I kind of wish I'd invented this TV show.

I just got back from Andy and Erin's wedding which was fully satisfying. More adorable couples and babies than a barren divorcee could shake a fat bitter finger at. And all those towns that start with "M" (Minneapolis, Morris, Madison) were charming, and I wasn't frisked on either flight.

Here are two things I learned to love on this tour of Midwester M Towns:

The Current a groovy public radio music station in Minneapolis/St. Paul and some other town south of there. They play stuff kinda like what Pete puts on his CDs and I steal from Higgins -- at least, a lot of the same bands to my ears. If you hear sucky stuff it's probably a local band because they play quite a bit of that, too, but you have to love them for it.

Why can't we have something like that in Portland? I mean, I love and I mean LOVE KBOO (I gave them $100 this year and got an awesome baseball cap) -- but there's a lot of times when I just want to listen to actual semi-normal music, and I'm too lazy and brain dead to pick it out myself, so thank you, The Current, and your webcast. Maybe if you give me a baseball cap I'll give you money.

Speaking of radio, if not the midwest, have I already plugged Shane and Arne's DocTalk radio show on this blog? If not, here it goes: DocTalk is a radio program in which they interview all kinds of interesting documentarians. It's genuinely interesting, and I'm not just saying that because they're my cousin/friends and I like documentaries. You can listen through Pirate Cat radio if you're in some tiny obscure geographical area called the Bay Area on Tuesday nights -- like, hey, that's TONIGHT! (although I'm not sure what's up with that since I thought they were in Portland this week), or you can listen to the webcast or, like I do, the Podcast. The sound quality isn't always totally awesome, but it's not totally annoying, either.

I'm kind of curious: are my friends listening to webcast radio shows, and if so, which ones? I feel like it's something I only just kind of discovered, although I used to listen to something called Hober a few years ago. Let me know ...

OK -- back on topic: So, the other thing both Kathy and I grew to appreciate, if not actually want to marry: Quiznos especially, for me, their Black and Blue salad or, as Kathy called it, my beef and beef blood salad. Yum! Actually, I think I may have had one too many beef blood salads too many on the way back. The Denver airport Quiznos is a little suspect and the salad I got was just ... I donno. Kinda icky. Even for a salad with hunks of beef on it. So I don't know if I'll be eating there again any time soon. But for road food, it was just fine. Delicious, even. OK -- Kathy and I spent 45 minutes on our road trip trying to find one in some godforsaken hell hole of a strip mall along I-94 on our way from Madison to Minneapolis and finally located one between the Walmart and the HomeDepot -- and we didn't regret it!!!

So that's my report from the three Ms. I'm sure people gave me some great ideas to blog about (as well as this cold -- coff, coff), but I've got some work to do so I'll have to come back to them.

Check it out -- Tony forwarded me information about how these people are holding something they call the Pitch, which they describe thusly:

The Pitch, the brainchild of San Francisco artists Jon Rubin and Jason Mortara, is an evening of live art that revels in the promise of a good idea. The duo pre-screens and recruits fifteen individuals to pitch their original ideas to a live audience and panel of judges. The presenters compete for cash prizes, selling ideas brilliant and outlandish, pragmatic and fantastic. The judges include a local building contractor, newscaster, brand strategist, librarian, urban planner and cognitive scientist. The Pitch privileges the idea over the work, the imagined over the realistic. And in the end, as any self-respecting car salesman will confess, it all comes down to the act of persuasion.

Live Art
Jon Rubin and Jason Mortara
Saturday 30 Apr 2005 - 8 pm
Tickets $5 members, students, seniors

I wish I could go! Of course, I'm not one of their pre-screened participants, but I really hope that some new cable station picks it up as a brainier alternative to American Idol. Wouldn't that be great?! to have a bunch of people pitching their crazy ideas and then the audience votes, etc.

Anyway, you should go. I can't.

Curses! I'm torn between cousins: My cool city cousin Shane is having a super fun fundraiser party at Mississippi Pizza on April 3rd for the documentary he and his friend Arne are making about Girls Rock camp. It's going to be super plus cool!! But it's happening the same weekend my sweet country Mormon cousin is getting married in Salt Lake City. So, I can't go.

But you should! Go!!! Support this fun, laudable project and tell them "Little Mary" aka "Cousin Mary" sent you with oodles of her red hot love. Well, you don't have to say that if it embarrasses you. Actually, you can pretend you don't know me and I won't even be there to insist that you do. I'll be in the back of a Temple somewhere (actually, I think it's in a park) drinking from a flask and muttering, "bullshit" during the vows just loud enough for my mom and maybe the person next to her to hear. (Just kidding: I love weddings. Ask anyone.)

Rock out, rock on, tell your friends, and tell me all about it when I get back!

Details from Cousin Shane

Girls Rock Documentary Benefit

Events starting Sunday, April 3rd, 6PM

10 minute Trailer for "Girls Rock!" movie.

Two Live Bands from the camp:

Fringe
The Ready

Location:

Mississippi Pizza Pub
3552 North Mississippi Ave

Admission: Free

The amazing girls at Rock 'n' Roll camp for girls have opened up their lives to have a documentary made about this life-changing place. April 3, come see a long-form trailer from the inspirational movie, as well as live performances by The Ready and Fringe, two of the featured bands, in an event that puts "fun" back in fundraiser. By helping us raise money for the movie, folks will help us get word out about the important work being done at the camp.

The Rock 'n' Roll camp for girls provides empowering music and life guidance year-round in North Portland for young women aged 8-18 years old. Through its after-school Girls Rock Institute and weeklong summer camp, this Portland institution has changed the lives of hundreds of girls from all over the world. The movie will follow several girls as they confront all the challenges and joys of rocking in a world where girls who rock aren't always welcome.

There are two movies at the center of the trailer who will be playing--The Ready is an indie rock band fronted by ten-year-old Una Rose, and features no girl older than 13. The Fringe is a high-school-aged band that will rock your bobby socks off. Both bands have played venues from the Crystal Ballroom to the Memorial Coliseum.

The filmmakers, Shane King and Arne Johnson, are both Portland natives who are currently making movies in San Francisco. The event is free, but we'll be asking for donations and selling credits in the movie, as well as copies of the trailer.

Come enjoy some pizza, live music and movies all in one event!

www.girlsrockmovie.com

Yay! Survivor is back! Now I have something to live for again ... well, on Thursday nights, anyway. The rest of the week is still a wash.

My joy reminds me of an idea that I had, or helped generate, or at least was in the same room when it came about (actually, I think Herr Higgins and I may have developed this one together), during Survivor 6 which was (not to get all sentimental about my Survivors) the first one that Chris and I watched together ... sniff ... anyway, this was the Survivor that they divided teams into girls and boys and I think it was also the first to have somone with a disability - you know - the deaf chick.

It's safe to say that the most interesting part about the show is how groups form, and leave people out, and one of the things that's been pretty obvious over the years is that anyone who is not a muscled up white frat boy is vulnerable in the group dynamics. Skinny white chicks are also favored. Black people, people with tattoos, etc. tend to stick out. This doesn't mean they don't compete well, or even win, but the frat boys tend to stick with the skinny white chicks and each other.

Anyway, this gave us the idea that they should have some Survivors that take the next logical step: if they'd do boys against girls, why not whites against blacks? Young against old? Gays versus straights? Disabled versus regular abled or whatever you call it? Working class Southerners against preppies? They would have to come up with some slightly more interesting challenges in some cases, but that would be a good thing (I am getting really bored of the net and wall climbing for one thing and some wheel-chair accessible challenges could only improve things) and it would rule! And I think they'd get good ratings, too. The only thing that would suck is if the white frat boys won.

I've gotten a couple of requests from Christian bands looking for names because of my blog entry about "rate my band name," which has a link to a couple of band name generators. It seems like it should be pretty easy to create a Christian band name generator, either electronically or in the same way that you find out your porn name (first pet's name plus the first street you lived on). Unfortunately I don't know enough about Christianity, bands, or Christian bands to recommend a formula, but if anyone reading this does, I'm just saying there is a market for one based on my blog traffic, which is as scientific a study as anything.

UPDATE

Seriously, people are hungry for Christian Band names. If some youth pastor wants to take the time to set up a Christian Band name generator, or even set out some guidelines for faithful and rocking Christians to use, I'd be more than happy to send them that way.

Update
Haven't heard from any pastors or other informed people. In the meantime, my advice to someone looking for a band name would be to go to your best source: The Bible. Check out the names and passages that seem interesting to you. Numbers seem to be kind of popular with some bands. Try adding some numbers.

If you're still stumped, you can try my crude generator above (this is what happens when non-programmer types are forced to try to do things). First, go to Random.com and ask for a series of random numbers -- smallest value = 1, largest value = 11. Then, using the chart above, for the first word, go to the first column and the row that corresponds to your number, then for the second word, go to the next column and find the row that corresponds to that. etc. So, for example, I got a sequence of numbers:

8
3
4
11

Which equals to "Sing Their Blue Meaning" -- which isn't a terrible name for a band, right?

Better yet, you could sit down with your band mates, the Bible, and a computer to make your own Christian Band Name generator using the table I created (or a better one) as your model.

Good luck!

(And fair warning: I'm not Christian myself, so the rest of this blog may not be up your alley.)

Everyone has ideas for a country western song. Here are mine:

"If I'm such an extrovert, than how come I'm drinking alone."

"My great big storage unit."
(That one needs some explaining -- it would be a divorced man's tale of woe -- put all his stuff in a storage unit when he got kicked out of the house -- with lots of punning on the word "unit"..

I'm very worried by Rupert's performance so far on ur-Survivor. Especially his shelter building last night -- it was awful!

Anyway, I had an idea for a reality show -- or, Surreality Show, if you will -- and that would be one on which everyone would be on hallucinogenic drugs all the time. They could hype it as an anti-drug message show, if they wanted. The producers would spend a lot of time messing with everyone's heads. It would be competetive in some way. Maybe there would be competitions once a week or something where everyone would get really high and have to function somehow, and the rest of the time they'd spend just getting stoned or whatever. I don't see why this would necessarily be any more boring than other shows -- it would just take a lot of editing.

It would be a lot more "edgy" than The Surreal Life, although now that I look at that show, I don't understand why I'm not watching it.

This is absolutely brilliant. I would also like to give credit for earlier ideas where credit is due, which is to say, it was Melissa who told us that Pica was latin or something or other for dirt eater. I credited Chris because he cited Melissa and I know who butters my bread -- Melissa, you butter my bread on occassion, but it's really more Chris's role. Anyway, Melissa has posted this idea as a comment, but I think it deserves upgrading as its own entry (and now I'm quoting Melissa):

"Weekend heavy equipment driving camp! you know how there are those "schools" where you can pay a pile of cash and get a brief lesson in race-car driving from an actual race-car driver and then you get to drive around in some fast car on a real track? well, i think that concept should be extended to heavy equipment: bulldozers, cranes, bucket loaders.... no, i don't mean the driving really fast on a racetrack part, just paying a bunch of money to spend a weekend driving heavy equipment around in the dirt. i mean, there must be at least as many people with heavy-equipment fantasies as race car fantasies."

The thing is, I know at least three people off hand who would pay to do this. Granted, one of them is under four, but he's part of the Z-generation market, right? I think this is really brilliant.

Chris and I had a good lunch today where he made me come up with a profit model for all the ideas I hope to explore before June. It was tough, but loving.

Later I'll do some googling to see if heavy equipment camp exists anywhere already. I guess that's the advantage of Halfbakery.com. But screw those guys.

My original idea waa for guided tours of dramatic superfund sites, combining our national guilt over the environment with our national obsession with disaster. Could have a Fox network spin off: "World's Most Toxic Dump Sites." Result would be a genuinely educational but also very sensational experience. Could advertise in the back of Sierra Club magazines, for instance. I was inspired by this idea because a lot of really toxic sites, like Hanford, for instance, are actually quite beautiful. lovely Bainbridge Island has its own superfund site.

(It's interesting to me that the only google hit I find for "superfun superfund" is from an article about my own backyard. Either that means there something in my local zeitgeist that inspires this idea, or I was overheard talking about it at a St. Johns bar!)

Then I met Chris, whose own interest in disasters inspired the idea that we wouldn't have to limit the tour to environmental disasters. Chris I think had some ideas about what disasters to include and I'll let him add them.

We could also jump on the true crime bandwagon and have true crime tours. Turns out one guy is doing that in San Francisco, and it's kind of historical. But, like the Superfun Superfund tour, this should be national in scope and to get the biggest audience, I think would have to be truly purient and go to places like where they found the bodies of serial killer victims and stuff. We could call it "Goth Tours" (www.gothtours.com is available, btw), and take people to murder sites at midnight and stuff.

Looks like there are some actual goth tours, including potential for one, once again, right in my own backyard! And then there's the other kind goth tour, too, of course.

I don't actually want to be in this line of work, which is why it's just another one of "mary's great ideas," not an actually good idea.

Many many thanks to Bridget and Carrie who presented us with the amazing fondue pot which inspired this game. I hope they come visit us soon and play Fondutionary with us. This is based on my friends' version of the game Dictionary: TV Guidetionary (and if we're lucky maybe they'll tell us more about that). Both Fondutionary and TV Guidetionary are versions of the game Dictionary, which many seem to consider safe family fun or, worse, educational . Some of us like to theorize our games and then use a dictionary to talk about them. Actually -- I just found that site by accident, but enjoyed playing the prisoner's dillemna online, although I was soundly trounced. Anyway, the thing that makes you an effective player of any of these games is how well you can mimic the format of the original source.

The way you play Fondutionary is: first you start by reading a fondue recipe aloud so everyone gets the formula. We just played using titles and ingredients (not directions) so, using "The Gold Medal Fondue Cookbook" by Marie Roberson Hamm (Greenwich, Conn.: Fauwcett Publications, Inc., 1970) we all heard about:

Clam Dip Fondue

2 loaves French bread
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
1 tablespoon cornstarch
2 (7-ounce) cans minced clams, undrained
8 slices bacon, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 cup tomato puree
1/2 teaspoon basil, crushed
dash salt and pepper

Then, one person (Katy, in this round) picked another real fondue recipe from the book and the rest of us made up our own recipes -- all of us writing them down on similar-looking paper. Then the same person who picked the real recipe read all the recipes to us and we voted for which one we thought was real.

Here are the recipes to chose from (answers below):

A) Yam Yam Fondue
3 large baked yams, diced
1/2 cup cream cheese
2 tbl cornstarch
1/2 cup frozen peas
1/4 cup sweet vermouth
3 strips diced bacon
salt and pepper to taste

B) Rise and Shine Fondue
1/4 cup orange juice
2 tbs. bran flakes
1/2 cup montery jack cheese
2 cups piping hot coffee
1 tbs. cornstarch
dash of salt
2 shots burbon

C) Breakfast Party Fondue
1 egg, beaten
1 cup light cream or milk
3 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaxpoon salt
4 slices sandwich bread
1 cup graham cracker crumbs
1 (8-ounce) package precooked pork sausage
1 (13 1/4 ounce) can pineapple chunks
Teriyaki Sauce
Chutney Sauce
2 cups salad oil

D) Lard 'n Eggs
1 loaf bread
4 ounces Montery chedder cheese
2 ounces butter
3 ounces lard
5 raw eggs
salt and pepper
hot sauce to taste

E) Gouda Sunrise
6 oz. Gouda cheese
1 T. flour
1/3 c red wine
1 clove minced garlic
1 t basil
1/4 c minced sundried tomatoes
2/3 c water

F) Cheese 'n Chunks Fondue
2 16 oz. bags large elbow macaroni
2 cups soft cheese
1/2 cup Spam, cubed
1/2 cub Swiss cheese
1/4 cup milk

Answers below!!

Next on the list: cold war recipes-tionary, Appetizer-tionary, Dissertation-Abstract-Tionary (!!), Chilton's Guide-tionary, jellotionary.

In response to the last set of comments (and I'm getting so lazy/busy I'm not even bothering to google for my ideas before I post them): We need a political organization, a PAC, maybe, to advocate for our rights as television watchers. Not to protect us from smut, etc., but to protect us from excessive advertising, and just plain bad TV. This would be a huge consitency. Tons of people watch TV. We deserve to have our voices heard!! Too many consumer rights organizations are down on television. We need to embrace it and then organize *around* it. Go where the people are.

I don't know exactly what we'd do, but any time a bill came in in DC we would BE there! And our marches would be HUGE.

I would like to visit a museum that had bathrooms from around the world. I don't just mean a toilet museum -- I would want to see showers, and sinks, and bidets, and everything. I thought of it because of the comment I got from the UK saying they have full body blow driers already and there is of course the long-standing fascination with Japanese toilets. I think there is a broad audience for an international bathroom museum.

And the bathroom is a pretty revealing place for cultural differences -- almost as much (maybe more?) as the kitchen. It would have been funny if the Nixon/Khrushchev kitchen debate had taken place in a bathroom.

The credits for movies would be a lot more interesting if they listed the prices for everything, including everyone's salaries. I would be a lot more likely to watch them.

Someone else suggested just having a meter run in the corner, but Chris says "Pop-Up Videos" alread did this, and besides, I am ademently opposed to extra content in the corners of things. I got particularly irritated at the little slasher animation for that show about the plastic surgeons that ran during the "24" marathon.

Wow. This has been a fecund day for blogging.

This could either be a section in a video store, or someone's dissertation topic, or both. But anyway, real estate porn is a very real genre and trope in film these days, one that will only get more popular as baby boomers and gen-exers get more and more into their houses. What I'm talking about is those films having totally gratuitous scenes of beautiful house interiors and exteriors that are unrealistically accessible to the lead character.

Example: The Mothman Prophecies (which is a pretty dumb movie overall - no one said porn was smart) begins with Richard Gere and his wife taking a tour of a big huge beautiful old house with the realtor. They are cooing over the built-in cabinets and closet space and what have you. The realtor basically says: "It's your's for the asking" and it's clear they are getting a very good deal. At the end of the scene Gere and his wife actually end up having sex in in one of those huge closets.

That's one of the most blatant example of Real Estate Porn, but there are plenty of others.

I don't actually keep up with the whole porn industry, but I am curious if porn directors and producers do a whole lot of product placement and stuff, because if not, they really should.

I've heard reference to "shopping and f***ing" romance novels in the past (I think this was in conversation with someone British, so maybe it's a British thing -- actually, to take this opportunity to name-drop, I think it was in conversation with Caroline Steedman, a British academic, who used this phrase -- it was her response when I went to consult with her about my possible dissertation topic on children's horse and/or dog books -- she referred me to someone's paper on Black Beauty and the overlap between the feminist movement and the animal rights movement, or something). (I just googled the phrase "shopping and f***ing" but was too lazy to go beyond a bunch of references to someone's play of that name).

Anyway, we should have porn which is a kind of combination of "Cribs," "Trading Spaces" and actual porn. Actually, I would be really surprised if there wasn't a "Trading Spaces" porn movie out there already. I guess thinking of clever porn movie titles is one of those things like thinking of band names or songs for Weird Al to sing - we all have one or two in us. Is there a comprehensive (and not creepy) porn movie title database somewhere? I want to know if Trading Spaces has been pornofied.

But anyway, my point is, I think there would be a big market of people -- women especially, but men, too -- who would be interested in porn that has a lot more emphasis on nice interiors than the stuff I've seen. A sort of "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" approach.

And maybe you could add a make-over section, too. You start out with someone who's kind of plain or unattractive, then you give them a make-over, and then you watch as they get laid as a result. (I haven't yet seen "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" btw - but I don't think that's what happens?)

Also, a friend of mine in graduate school did her American Studies dissertation on intruder films. I think real estate porn could be related someone -- the antithesis of intruder films, maybe.

Someone let me know about that porno film title database, will ya.

Update, Nov. 3, 2009:

Greg and I just watched The Changeling (1980 version) -- there lots of real estate porn in that (and antiquarian porn, as well), and it reminded me how well hauntings & real estate porn go together. Here's my simplified script:

Unsuspecting dupe: "It's a beautiful house. I love it!"

Realtor: "You can have it for a song!"

House: "You are taking me unwillingly and now I will have my revenge."