Demetri Martin likes Cold Places

Hence why he chose Boulder to visit. And lucky for him, it was snowing during the show. Not so lucky for those of us having to drive home afterwards. Anyways, the show was absolutely everything one would want from a Demetri Martin show- hilarious, and just a little bit awkward. His opener was Levi MacDougall and he was pretty funny, but a little bit hit or miss- he had a strange sense of humor. I did like him overall, one of his best jokes was about how he was from Canada and having issues adjusting to our temperature here in the states- "it's so fareinheighty!".

I truly enjoyed Demetri Martin's preformance style. He takes time out of his show to ask the audience if there is anything particular they want him to talk about. I liked that, it made the show a lot more personable- would have been nice if half of the audience would be a little less moronic. The "awkward" part of the show happened when an obnoxious girl behind Christine and I screamed "please sign my poster!!!" when Demetri was asking us if we wanted him to talk about anything. He said he would gladly do so after the show, but she obnoxiously insisted that he sign it right at that moment. So, he reluctantly let her come on stage and said that he would do so as long as he could give her a brief interview. It was kind of painful to watch- she was a highschool student and every question he asked her she got really nervous and gave one word answers. I think if you are going to annoy a professional comedian, you should at least be entertaining.

Anyways, that awkward situation and various technical issues aside, the show really was amazing and my stomach hurt from laughing so hard. He had a ton of new material and threw in some old jokes as well. One of my favorite of his new jokes was that "people think that their pets are way more into Halloween than they actually are". Ha! So true...

It's Groundhog Day!

Well, it will be in a couple of hours! And, to properly prepare you for the exciting day where we trust a rodent to predict the weather instead of the television meteorologists, I have decided to do a special post where I tell you more about the history of this quirky celebration. In my family, this holiday means a special screening of the classic Bill Murray comedy Groundhog Day. If you have not seen it, I can tell you that you are truly missing out! It really is one of his best films; right up there with Lost in Translation. Different cinematic styles, of course, but both high-quality.

Groundhog Day, an event perhaps most widely celebrated in Punxsutawney, PA, occurs every February 2nd. If the groundhog emerges from his hole and sees his shadow, it signifies that winter will be elongated by 6 weeks. Now, here in Boulder we are supposed to get up to a foot of snow tomorrow, so I am going to go ahead and predict the prediction of Punxsutawney Phil (the famous groundhog in PA)- 6 more weeks of winter. I hope the little guy says otherwise.

Wikipedia tells me that the tradition began as a Pennsylvania German tradition in the 18th and 19th centuries. The origins of the celebration come from ancient Europe lore which claimed that a badger or a bear could forsee the weather. There is an early American reference to the holiday written by James Morris in 1841. He called the holiday Candlemas day, and he noted in his diary that, according the the Germans, "the Groundhog peeps out of his winter quarters and if he sees his shadow he pops back for another six weeks nap, but if the day be cloudy he remains out, as the weather is to be moderate".

I hope you enjoyed that little lesson! To conclude, a picture of a groundhog, just because they are adorable:

AWWW so cute!

A Horse on the Highway

As an individual who commutes about an hour to an hour and a half to work and back, I am constantly listening to the traffic reports on the radio to listen to just exactly what it is that will be delaying my drive for the day. Needless to say, I have basically heard it all- multiple car crash, car fire, stalled vehicle in the center lane, you name it. Now, about a month and a half ago, I thought it was strange when they mentioned that the highways were all pretty clear, but there was an issue to report- a horse was running loose and he still needed to be rounded up. I found this strange at the time I heard it, especially because of the nonchalant tone in which this strange equine mishap was announced. However, I shook it off and forgot about it soon after hearing the report.

Now, the thing that really blows my mind is that this somehow happened AGAIN this morning, and it was announced in the same tone as if it were a routine occurrence. This raised so many questions for me- how is this the kind of thing that happens twice in about a month? Was it the same horse? If not, why do farmers have such awful fences? Now I really can say I have heard it all and can't help but wonder what is next- massive black hole sucking in the cars of the left lane? Wouldn't surprise me...

The radio really ruins songs for me...

Before I went to Europe, I had never once heard the Adele song "Someone Like You". The first time I heard it was a couple of days after I returned to the United States, and I immediately loved it and wanted to hear it again. Good thing for me, the next station on my preset list just happened to be playing it at the exact same time. This may have been good at that moment, but after about a week of 7 radio stations playing "Someone Like You" at the same time about 5 times a day, I got pretty sick of hearing about Adele's heartbreak. It's not her fault- the radio stations overplay her songs like there are absolutely no other songs to choose from in the universe.

After that first week of hearing her song over and over on the radio, I began to not only get sick of it, but completely resenting it. I wanted to boycott every station forever, but then the same thing happened with another song that I heard from the first time and wanted to hear again and again... what a viscious cycle! It must be stopped!

While we are talking about the radio, am I the only one who has noticed how many songs have really obnoxious lyrics these days? As embarassing as it is for me to admit, I am pretty into the song "Price Tag" by Jessie J (this post probably makes all of you think that I have a horrible music taste- I like other things too I promise, I always say I like a little bit of everything. I'm pretty sure most of you like T Swift and Katy Perry too but are just way too embarassed to say so). The tune is what I find catchy, it makes me want to go dance all night, but when I listen to the words I get a little crazy. It is much akin to that one song about wishing airplanes were shooting stars or whatever. In both songs the singers go on about how unimportant money is to them, which I find unbearably ironic, as they are making a good chunk of change singing about that.

The worst of those two is definitely the one about the airplanes being shooting stars, where whoever it is by raps about how he misses the days "back when ain't nobody listened to his mix tape". Bad grammar aside, this statement pisses me off becuase he clearly has every option to go back to the days where no one listened to his music. Pretty sure he likes things the way they are going now...

Carnage- be ready to bust your gut!

What happens when you put Kate Winslet, Jodie Foster, John C. Reilly and Christopher Waltz together in a room? The most entertaining film I have seen in a while, that's what. To be honest, I never really thought I would see Winslet and Reilly in a comedy like this together, but the result is perfection. It completely demonstrates the capability of all of these actors, and I have to say that Kate Winslet ought to have been nominated for best actress. She proved that she can flawlessly transition from making a serious, World War II era film like The Reader to a short and sweet comedy like Carnage.

I can not recommend this movie more highly. I went in knowing hardly anything about it- all I did was briefly read the description about 10 minutes before deciding to see it. Winslet and Waltz play the parents of a child who got into a fight with the child of Foster and Reilly. The parents meet up to discuss the event and what actions must be taken as far as dealing with their children. Sounds like a pretty simple plot, but the entire situation evolves into a hilarious sequence of events between the two couples that leads to them learning way more about each other than they ever wanted to.

The children themselves never actually enter the apartment- we only get a brief view of them in the park at the very beginning and end of the film. But their presence is irrelevant- this movie is not really about what happened between the children, but rather the fact that it brings together two completely different couples who develop a very strange and endlessly entertaining relationship. Roman Polanski knew what he was doing when he made this film, and any movie-goer will certainly reap the benefits of his hilarious creation.

They know everything about us...

I'm talking about cashiers at Target, of course. I was thinking about it the other day as I was checking out- what we buy at "everything stores" basically tells them everything. If you put condoms on the conveyor, it pretty obviously indicates what you are going to be doing later. If you buy a ridiculous amount of tortilla chips and hot dogs this week it says "Super Bowl Party", an abundant amount of cat food indicates your lack of significant other, too many bottles of cough syrup says "I'm sick" or "I am going to make some illegal drugs in my basement". What we buy says absolutely everything about us. I guess even more so at book stores, however- a self-help book, a how-to book, a textbook... these things reveal a plethora of information about us.

And then when you are buying these persona-revealing products, you always have to carefully choose which checkout line you go to. For instance, a woman buying a bulk supply of tampons will likely not go to the young man resembling Brad Pitt, unless she possesses a desire to make him feel extremely uncomfortable. So I wonder if certain types of cashiers get less/more customer traffic just based on their looks. If there are 50 women buying a bulk supply of tampons in one day, the lines for the woman cashiers would be insanely long, I would think, and the young men of the world might be sent home early. Just some food for thought... hope your minds were hungry!

How do you milk an almond?

So I am just going to say it... I bet all the cows in the world are pissed off. I mean, with the current almond milk craze, a little nut is trying to steal their hard-earned thunder. First it was soy milk and rice milk, and now almond milk is added to the mix. How ever will those cows manage to make it in the world now? They will  just have to hope that beef stays in good standing so they will still  be needed. Although, that is a function for which I am sure they do not want to be needed. In that case, they probably are praying for a total tofu craze to hit the US.

On another note, I am a little confused about where the "milk" in almonds comes from. As far as I can see, almonds do not have little udders. Nor do grains of rice, or soybeans for that matter. Maybe I don't want to know. The label telling me that almond milk has twice as much calcium is good enough for me. Sorry, cows, but consider me an almond milk convert.