stephen colbert does nebraska

this week's "better know a district" segment on the colbert report was nebraska's fightin' second. it was not the best choice of nebraska districts since my granny is in the fightin' first and dr. tom osborne, the legendary hoosker coach and most boring man in the world represents the fightin' third. watch the video here and, like me, dream of a big box of omaha steaks.

literary dogs

my literary onkel eric tipped me off to the latest edition of the exquisite corpse called anti-anthropomorphism or, animals redeemed. i was especially fond of the pomes by robert sward including "philsopher dog" and this one:

Dark Matter

"Black holes lurk in the centers of most galaxies
belching x-rays as they swallow stray gas and stars."
--New York Times

Shelby:

"Dogs know this shit,
the cr'me de la cr'me of bow wow.
Astral barking, the music of the spheres.
Yeah, and they've seen the snapshots,
'black hole core samples,'
holes the Hubble found
billions of times the mass of the sun.
Bow wow, bow wow.
Look, dogs want answers too.
You don't think we have a hunger to know?
Not all dogs are rational,
but we're here for a reason.
We're here to take the lid off life.

So, which came first, galaxies
or the black holes inside them?
Bow wow, bow wow.
Just because you can't see something
doesn't mean it's not there.
Dogs know. Dogs knew from the beginning.
Once the universe was swaddled in gas
that blocked all light.
What else?
Humans use only 5 to 10% of their brain capacity;
90 to 95% goes unused.
Six hundred thousand years ago hominids first appeared
in Europe and Asia.
And that, from start to finish,
is just how long it took
to invent dog food.

it's my (sister's) birthday!

my sister turned ONE on monday.

where is our goddamn cake?