Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Monthly Archives: September 2006
More nekkid blogging
The Nekkid Challenge is still open, and I’m ashamed to add, Erin and her readers are leaving us in the dust. I can’t get Kate’s mom’s tush out of my head, but the rest of you have not been forthcoming.
Groan. Do I have to do everything around here? Karen, come over here a sec. I need your help.
More nudity below the cut.
MoDo and Borat, your morning snack
Over at Tennessee Guerilla Woman, Egalia has Maureen Dowd’s latest piece, this one comparing humorist Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat character (a misogynistic, antisemitic, and generally crude form of life) to Bush’n’CheneyCo. JurassicPork has breached the NY Times firewall as well. JP’s Friday roundup has a wealth of good stuff, and Egalia kept me reading for the last thirty minutes.
Read about Borat’s White House “visit” here. And from Reuters:
Secret Service agents turned away British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, in character as the boorish, anti-Semitic journalist, when he tried to invite “Premier George Walter Bush” to a screening of his upcoming movie, “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.”
Also invited to the screening: O.J. Simpson, “Mel Gibsons” and other “American dignitaries.”
Cohen’s stunt was timed to coincide with an official visit by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who is scheduled to meet with Bush on Friday.
Okay, gotta go edit me some romance.
LIVE BLOGGING TONIGHT at 8 PM PST, sooner if I can.
Y’all drop by.
D.
They done good
When I came home today, my wife sung happy birthday to me while my son accompanied her on the didgeridoo:
What with all of us laughing and Jake insisting on getting the entire rendition done without mistakes, it took about thirty-four attempts before I got my song. Afterwards, we went out for sushi, and then we came back home to chocolate cake (which, cuz of my reflux probs, will have to wait until tomorrow).
I’m a very happy man.
D.
PS: This was Jake’s idea, by the way — pretty damned original, if you ask me. Also, he wants me to mention how he actually sung “Happy Birthday” through the didgeridoo. No mean feat.
Who else is (wo)man enough for the nekkid challenge?
Over at Writer’s BBS, there’s a custom for noobs: you gotta get nekkid. For those square BBSers, getting nekkid means telling something revealing about yourself.
Here in the blogosphere, getting nekkid means GETTING NEKKID. Hell, as for that other getting nekkid, I do it nearly every day I blog. But for the record, I recently gave you this:
Getting nekkid nekkid, that takes a special breed of cat. Or, should I say, Vixen. Yes, this evening, Dean’s very own SxVixen joined the esteemed ranks of nude bloggers. And not to be one-upped, Dean has done it, too. Nice legs, Dean, but next time smile for the camera. It’s not a high school football team portrait, for heaven’s sake.
Erin O’Brien got the ball rolling, today posting an historical review of nekkid-model- with-chair photography (and she’s right. Christine Keeler really is one hot babe). So the question stands: who is next?
Here’s my short list of folks I think might be just crazy enough to take the nekkid challenge:
Gabriele! Instead of a chair, you can use some strategically positioned chain mail.
Kate! Impress the hell out of your sons. Or squick them out, one of the two.
Kris! You’ve already given us clickable cleavage. Now we want a bit o’ thigh, too.
Candy! You’ll be the talk of the Smart Bitchery.
Monica! I would never forgive my own cowardice if I didn’t include you on this list. I figure you’ll either (A) oblige the request, or (B) come up here and kick my sorry ass. Either way, you’ll be satisfying a fantasy.
No guys on the list . . . imagine that. But of course, you have Dean and me. That should be enough manhood for the whole blogosphere.
D.
P.S.: If I didn’t put you on the list, please do not be offended. The more people I include, the greater the chance someone really will come out here and kick my ass . . . probably some smelly biker named Bubba.
Which is not one of my fantasies.
Thirteen things I learned from Cosmo, Part Trois
Balls and Walnuts reads Cosmo so you don’t have to. In this issue:
- How not to get raped by that special guy!
- The secret to gorgeous skin!
- WTF is wrong with 68% of men?!
- Couple fights from hell: get a life, people — I outdid all of these in my first year of marriage!
And much more . . . below the cut.
Today at work . . .
I had to cut short a rendition of “Happy Birthday to You” three times (the OR nurses called me on my b-day to do it by phone . . . enough is enough), and I stuffed myself on the pot luck they held in my honor.
What a great crew!
My only gripe: a certain someone nixed the idea of getting me a b-day cake shaped like boobs. My one chance to get a boob cake got killed because of fears of “inappropriateness”! Peeved does not begin to describe it. Not that I didn’t enjoy my piece of the sheet cake, but a boob would have rawked.
And their idea of a spanking paddle is a skinny wooden paint-mixer. I could gripe about that, too, but it’s really the thought that counts. I tried to persuade them that the only legitimate birthday spankings were bare hands against bare bottoms, but suddenly they all found other work to do.
I can’t believe they want me to be Chief of Staff next year. I’m gonna turn this place upside down.
D.
The B&WR of the NYTBR
I’ve had less that than four hours’ sleep each night for the past four nights. The muse needs her rest. Still, if you bear with me, I have one interesting tidbit below.
I have a point in here somewhere. Something about how to right write a good book review. Yeah, that’s it.
12:30 pm Wednesday: I caught those two errors above . . . I don’t dare read the rest of this post!
***
The Balls and Walnuts Review
of
The New York Times Book Review (September 24, 2006)
There are good book reviews and there are bad book reviews. I can’t explain well the difference, but I know what I like.
Take Terrence Rafferty’s review of David Long’s The Inhabited World, a novel of self-examination told by the ghost of a suicide. Not my cuppa, but Rafferty thinks The Inhabited World “is a terrific novel,” and so it’s Rafferty’s job to prove it to me.
Prove it, Mr. Rafferty.
Kris never peed in the pool? Yeah, right.
Kris Starr has a fun post this morning — how much are you worth? I’m worth only $160.50, which is pathetic, and at my age I doubt I’ll ever see $200.00. Um, $200.50.
As memes go, this one’s quick and kinda fun. Check it out.
D.
A textbook definition of cowardice, updated
For those of you who are apolitical, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann for the last few weeks, has been channeling Edward R. Murrow in his (Olbermann’s) quest to take down this corrupt administration.
Tonight, Olbermann called Bush out for cowardice. Wow. Read the full transcript. Crooks and Liars will undoubtedly post a link to the video; I’ll crosslink here, when I get the opportunity.
But if politics doesn’t get you excited, meditate on the sunset 🙂
D.
UPDATE: Here’s some linkage at Daily Kos, or go straight to Crooks and Liars.
My luck
Yet another adventure in Random Flickr Blogging.
Given an email like this:
You have been invited to join the Colon Cleansing Treatment group on MySpace. Click the link below to see the group: http://groups.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=groups.groupProfile&groupID=103939131
I would hope for members like
(Ah, red eyes and colon cleansing. Does it for me every time.)
But my luck, the only other member would be