This Week in Nelson, volume 3, number 9

Here we are again. Weeking it, Nelson-style. And running a bit behind this week, so let’s get cracking. We’ve got retard backlash, the evils of strong drink, the king of the douchebags, filet o’ people and a college basketball dry surprise. Get ready, the first three rows will get wet!

Birthday shout-out to Corey, for reals this time. And birthday shout-out to Ashley! Whoo! Birth!

Books read this week:
-Finished reading The View from the Seventh Layer by, Kevin Brockmeier
-Still reading Infinity Blues by, Ryan Adams

It took me way too long to finish the Brockmeier short stories, but I have to say they really were excellent. Highly recommended, along with all of Brockmeier’s other books. The Ryan Adams is a book of poetry he just put out. Being a fan, I figured I should pick it up. It’s pretty good, but nothing amazing. He’s got some pretty good turns of phrase, but there’s some hit and miss stuff and mechanically it could use a little work in some places. There’s a little unnecessary repetition, some overwrought emotional phrasing and some weak line breaks here and there. His music is better, is my verdict. I think the thing is, it’s a long collection and he might have been better served with paring it down to just the best work. Which is honestly a criticism I’ve seen of him before. The guy’s a prolific motherfucker, I guess. What can you do? Still, if you do like Ryan Adams, feel free to check it out. There’s good stuff in there. I just can’t give it the full-on recommendation. At least not yet. I haven’t finished it yet. Maybe he’ll really start dropping gold later on.

Random out-of-context quotes of the week:
--“Galileo, what the fuck!?”
--“Somebody out there is dead set to take retards down a peg.”
“Yeah, they’ve had it too good for too long!”
--“If there’s one thing I hate, it’s losing. If there’s two things I hate, it’s losing and getting cancer.”
--“Sometimes, to do something good you have to do something bad first.”
“I just want you to remember that when I eventually make love to your mother.”
--“No! We would never shoot nuclear weapons at Decepticons!”
--“Stephon Marbury Embroils Celtics’ Big 3 in Elaborate Shakespearean Intrigue: ‘I shall of these three fools now make my purse,’ Marbury was heard to say after the game, although he appeared to be addressing no one and perhaps spoke only to himself.”

The O’Reilly Factor for Kids book quote(s) of the week:
-CURRENTLY UNDER RECONSTRUCTION. PLEASE EXCUSE OUR MESS!

Interesting news articles of the week:
-Nothing particularly interesting this week, I’m afraid.

Something(s) I’m tired of/ mad at:
-That I watched the new Street Fighter movie. Cause Jesus, it sucked. Loren and Margaret were in town for an early celebration of Gaus’s 30th, and we were fucking hammered, and they needed to watch a movie to sober up before driving back to KC. And somehow it came down to a coin flip between that and Paul Mart Blart Carp (we were that drunk). It just goes to show you, kids. Drinking can have a serious downside. Still, it was cool to see the Saunderses. Is that the plural of Saunders? I just don’t know. It was nice seeing all the people I don’t see regularly for the two-part Gaus party. Good times. You should get old more often, Gaus.

Something(s) I’m delighted by:
-Reaper being back. Finally. That season premiere was solid fucking fun. Absolute ridiculousness. If they had just used “You’re the Best” from the Karate Kid, that would have been enough for me, but the “college cram-session” montage, the baby beer mascot, the poorly executed fire hose escape, and the “Where did you get this book? The Devil is attracted to radishes? Like, sexually? What does that mean?” brought it all home. Seriously, I love that fucking show. One of the best things on TV right now. I can’t recommend it highly enough. The first season’s on DVD, check it out if you haven’t.
-That new Demetri Martin show is kind of hit or miss, but there’s usually at least one bit that completely raises the bar every week. The one in last week’s where the kid gets to have his dream dinner with Ben Franklin, Shakespeare and Galileo at a T.G.I. Fridays and they keep trying to nail the waitress was solid gold.
-Seeing Watchmen tonight. I am totally excited to see what they’ve done with it.
-Colbert’s Doom Bunker last night. That shit was amazing. “Werewolf congress.” Hell yes.
-KU bending Missouri over on Sunday and making them cry. That was fucking sweet. Not so sweet was us playing like absolute ass last night against Texas Tech. I would have put that in the mad at section, but I’m not really mad. Just disappointed. Besides, we still clinched at least a share of the regular season title. Things are gonna be just fine.

Something(s) I found really kind of odd:
-The weird Jay Cutler possible trade clusterfuck in Denver. You’re not filling me with confidence, new guy.
-The filet o’ fish commercial for McDonalds with the singing fish on the wall. Really just because it says how if the people were in the sandwich they wouldn’t be laughing. Cause, even if you’re discounting the idea, why bring up the subject of eating people at all? That makes me think that they’re trying too hard to say that there isn’t people in the filet o’ fish, which leads me to the conclusion that it is, in fact, people.

This Week in Answers to Your This Week in Questions This Week!
--“The woman with whom I share an office listens to Rush Limbaugh everyday while eating lunch. Needless to say, it irks me. Now, I can’t do what I want to do, which is bludgeon her to death with her mini-radio while it’s still playing Rush so that it seems like her racist, pill-popping hero is actually killing her, the way he’s slowly killing me. Any suggestions?”
-Why can’t you kill her? Okay, okay. No killing her. Could you kill Limbaugh? Hmmm . . . . solving problems without murder is tricky . . . How about this? How about you counteract the diatribe with a little gangsta rap? Karmically cancel it out, and such like. That’s my non-murder suggestion. Cause there’s nothing Limbaugh hates more than black people. Except maybe women. Or everything that’s good in the world. No, on second thought, I’m prescribing murder here. It’s just the only way. Good luck with that! You’re doing God’s work.

Seriously, is there anyone in the world more vile than Rush Limbaugh? I mean, sure there is, but he’s gotta be up there. One time Paul Rudd jokingly more or less said about somebody that “calling him a douchebag is too kind. He’s what they make douchebags for.” When I think about Rush Limbaugh, I think about that. Rush Limbaugh is what they make douchebags for. He’s Douchebaggus I, King of All Douchebags.

I finished my Buffy marathon two nights back. I’m not going to go on and on about it, but I still just want to say that goddamn, it’s the fucking best thing ever. It is the fucking pinnacle. I’ve said before that while it’s my favorite, The Wire might still be better, but I really have to put them on equal terms, I think. They form a two-headed monster of awesomeness the likes of which the world has never seen. During that Buffy-thon, I would watch the current shows I watch that I’d DVRed first, and then I would watch the Buffy, and I have to say that for the vast majority of the current shows I watch, while I watched them these last couple weeks, I kept thinking, “come on, hurry up and finish so I can get back to watching Buffy.” I wish to God there was something that good on TV right now. The world would be a better place.

Thank you to Ryan and Chad for giving me shit for not working on my thesis when they saw me, as I previously requested. Granted, I was at Gaus’s birthday party at the time, but still, their hearts were in the right place. I have to say that the Buffy marathon really gave me a creative charge, and I’ve recently doubled my efforts on the thesis front. Just another reason to love that show.

Well, that’s enough for now. I’ll see you when I see you. Next week if not sooner.

–> N.