Whoa mama....

Please also check out the size of the cast's mouths in the Spring Awakening video below.

wow.

recom-Mc-dation- Spring Awakening

Today I'm posting a recom-Mc-dation for the hit broadway play Spring Awakening. SA won the Tony award for best musical in 2007 and for good reason. The musical is based on the controversial 1891 German play of the same title. It's set in late-nineteenth century Germany and it's not your typical "PG" rated musical. The original play was banned in Germany due to its portrayal of masturbation, abortion, rape and suicide. Heavy topics for anyone to sit through but throw in modern folk-rock power songs, this play comes alive.

Not many college-goers are into the theater scene but this is a musical that really appeals to a youth audience. If you get the chance, see it. Student rush tickets are only $20 an hour before the show. It's playing today and tomorrow in Minneapolis before rushing off to the next great city. If you missed it, make sure you download the soundtrack or catch it when it comes to your town.

Here is Spring Awakening playing at the Tony awards. So awesome.

Pants on fire

Sam is such a liar. I do not run, much less enjoy all the running I'm not doing.

I tried a version of jogging last spring as a less suspicious way of spying on all of the East River Parkway estates. After a month or two I decided it wasn't worth all of the ankle/knee/lung pain I suffered afterwards. Nah...I can spy on them walking too.

Six-pack Nation

Believe it or not folks, Spring Break is closer than you think. Sunday marks the start of Febuary which means there is only a month and half for you to turn that beer gut into a six pack or to go from the color of cream cheese to a delicious caramel (do you personally pronounce it car-mel or cara-mel? I'm more inclined to the former).

Despite the fact Megan and I will probably both spend the break walking backwards for the U rather than lying on a beach trying to remember what we did the previous night, I have started a workout regime. Have you noticed the difference in my physique? Probably not since I hate working out and and my regime consists of dragging myself to the St. Paul Gym maybe once a week.

Megan, like most people, gets endorphins when she runs. But I feel like my brain is wired in reverse and rather than be happy, I get crabby. And when I'm crabby, we all know it's best just to stay away.

So society you can either have me a six-packed asshole or as a personable, unhealthy flab...but you can't have both.

Take that, NE Kentucky Industrial Pkwy

According to a quick Google search, the source of all things truth, the longest street name in the U.S. is Northeast Kentucky Industrial Parkway, located in, duh Kentucky. That has nothing on our twin's Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Junior Boulevard (see below).

Thank you VO for my knowing how to spell boulevard. But don't expect me to win a spelling bee with bouttenier, even though I also work for a local wedding magazine. Monique Lhuillier, on the other hand, is my favorite spelling conquest of the year. Last year, that is.

Yes I live on RDMLKJ Blvd....

The city of St. Paul boasts some fantastic sites to aimlessly wander around on a sunny July Saturday. and while our former wrestler-actor-governor Jesse Ventura said that the streets in StP "must have been designed by drunken Irishmen," I feel that st. p's street names have taken the prize.

Here is a picture of our friend (and the mother of Sam's 26 children) Sarah Rowcliffe, with what could quite possibly be the longest street name in the nation.

I'll sweep your supermarket

Alright Sam. I'll take your Russian Roulette and raise you one Supermarket Sweep, my favorite game show everrr. (But this is only because Cash Cab is in a category beyond game show; it's more like a lifestyle/educational show. The PBS for the young and restless.)

Thanks to Supermarket Sweep, I know the anatomy of a grocery store AND can unscramble letters of produce products. By the age of twelve I was well-versed in the most expensive products--gallons of olive oil, full turkeys, armfuls of cheese blocks. As a Wisconsinite, even I couldn't identify that cheese. I suppose that cheese factory field trip from fourth grade wasn't very effective...

I especially appreciate the low production value of Supermarket Sweep, the little game show that could. Notice that the taped audience is surrounded by mirrors and the fake enthusiasm of the host. Is it just me, or does it seem game show hosts have a high suicide rate? Best yet: though while the winners go home with the cash value of their sweep, the second and third place constestants are only given a sweatshirt.

A Supermarket Sweep sweatshirt! Get the car, Sam. We're going to Goodwill.

The best game show

I'll admit it. I love Game Show Network. It hasnt been on in a couple of years but there is one game show that will go down in history as the most awesome. I am of course talking about Russian Roulette. What's funnier than watching people fall awkwardly through trapdoors after answering a question wrong? (see montage below). Better yet, what could be more fun than unexpectedly falling through a trapdoor on a gameshow? This is one game show I would want to lose on.

-S

Still I can't let you go

Have you ever noticed that the Boyz 2 Men Pandora playlist repeats a lot? End of the Road over and over and over.

Maybe that just means nobody else can compare.

Breaking free from the playlist

Nice try, Apple.

Lately when we're working at the VO (our office), we seem to be listening to Pandora a lot. Since we're primarily an office of student workers, Pandora gives us the ability to add more variability to our work playlist then just one person's iPod can provide.

For those of you unfamiliar with Pandora, it's know as the Music Genome Project (similar to the Human Genome Project). One simply puts in a song or artist they like and the website then analyzes over 400 different musical attributes (riffs, lyrics, vocals, etc.) of the song of your choice. After a few seconds of waiting, Pandora generates a online radio station that plays songs of similar interest. Some of you might try and suggest that isn't it a play on iTunes Genius Sidebar?

No.

Pandora was launched in 2006, whereas Genius didnt come out until the iTunes 8 release in September of 2008. Whereas Genius does generate a playlist of songs you already have in your music library, it also encourages you to purchase select songs on iTunes, a marketing ploy to increase Apple profits and a computer slowing program. Genius is also only limited to the computer of which your music library is on whereas Pandora can be accessed via any internet-connecting computer (are there non-internet-connecting computers now?).

So Apple, we give you an A+ on innovation for the iPod and iTunes, but a fail for Genius.

-S

More than a frosted pastry

Today over our lunch of frozen dinners and soup from a box, we discovered that like many members of our generation, rather than select our breakfast treats based on nutritional content, we opted for sugar and artificial colors. And what better breakfast treat for diabetes than...

POP-TARTS!

Toast them, micro them, or eat them plain. Pop-tarts have been a staple for over 20 years of delicious breakfast.

Do you remember that kind that had purple frosting with blue swirls? We couldn't. So...of course we went to poptarts.com.

But wait. a mandatory login? What's this? Turns out Pop-tarts is full of advergames to satisfy any pop-tart aficionado. Naturally we got drawn into the world of breakfast games and only after several attempts to get our pop-tart avatar to jump over a boiling vat of orange juice, did we decide to continue our task of figuring out that pop-tart flavor.


On to the Kellogg website. Did you know that there is an entire line of poptart flavors? They have everything from Orange Cream to Chocolate Banana Split to Vanilla Milkshake pop-tarts. Turns out, the kind we wanted was Wild! Berry flavor. mmm. And in fine work of website genius, the Kellogg pop-tart website shows you where you can find the nearest retailer that sells each individual flavor.


So after a successful lunch, we congratulate you Pop-tarts for being more than just a feast of champions but for catering to your consumer (namely children under 10) and parents willing to concede to unhealthy eating habits.

And so it begins.

An introduction of sorts:

I like to pretend I don't believe in love, if only for the purpose of delusion and protection from disappointment; Sam likes to claim he didn't laugh and cry and feel any wire-walking inspiration from Man on Wire. (Ok, I made up the crying part.) If I never hear the word hegemony again, it will not be soon enough. But if you need to hear some harsh words, "tough love" Sam is your therapist for the minute. Sam microwaves his Pop-tarts; I eat them in any form, from straight from the fake foil to curled from a microwave to beautifully browned from a toaster. Just as long as the edges--my favorite part--aren't burnt, I'll take them any way.

We both have earned a paycheck from walking backwards and can give you a tour of the University of Minnesota in our sleep. Perhaps we have.

And just watch: someday we'll be discovered, if for nothing else than our dazzling personalities...

-M

Let's get it started

Meet the hosts of your new favorite talk show, Sam McCabe and Megan McCarty!