Very short reviewlets.

Jolly Rancher Watermelon Soda, C+
You say to yourself, "Self, you like watermelon Jolly Ranchers. You like soda. Therefore, you will like Jolly Rancher Watermelon Soda." But even though (or, more likely, because) the soda tastes almost exactly like watermelon Jolly Ranchers, no.

Breakfast at Tiffany's (Blake Edwards, 1961); C-
So about a year ago, moM, daD, Kim, Ed, Annie, and I were playing Nerts while Breakfast at Tiffany's was playing, and any time I caught the movie out of the corner of my eye, it did not make the sense. I assumed it was because I was only half paying attention.

Roman Holiday (William Wyler, 1953); B+ [high]
Remember at the end of Notting Hill where Hugh Grant goes to the press conference where Julia Roberts is speaking and he starts asking her questions during the press conference and then everyone gets together and is happy? Now imagine that scene being good. I know, I know, it's okay. I couldn't either until last weekend. Also, Gregory Peck is awesome. Also, I would say that Audrey Hepburn is awesome, but, you know, Breakfast at Tiffany's.

I know, the men beat Kansas, so I should be happy.

The ISU women lost to Baylor, so all is lost, you think. Okay, admittedly, it's not looking great, but assuming ISU wins its final three games (and they ought to) and assuming nothing else too wacky happens (which, quite honestly, can only help Iowa State), they're looking at a seed somewhere between 2 and 5, probably closer to five. More specifically, of the 16 likely scenarios, it breaks down thus:

2 seed: 2 possibilities
3 seed: 3 possibilities
4 seed: 6 possibilities
5 seed: 5 possibilities

There are 16 likely scenerios as there are only four games of the 18 remaining where the outcome seems uncertain. (Actually, there's five, but testing shows that the Texas A&M/Oklahoma State game has no impact on ISU's seeding.) If you are trying to figure out who to cheer for in these matchups, here is the cheering list. (Please note by far the most important game.)

Wednesday:
Oklahoma over Texas Tech: ISU up, on average, ½ seed
Nebraska over Kansas State: ISU up, on average, 1½ seeds

Saturday:
Oklahoma over Texas: ISU up, on average, ¾ seed

Next Week:
Baylor over Texas Tech: ISU up, on average, ¾ seed

Bible help.

Hi. So what it is that I have been doing is writing a song for the March 1st contest on the right-hand side of this page, and the chorus is all about telling people to cry out a song of joy (exact lyrics: "Cry out a song of joy"). I have one of the two requisite verses done, and it is about the walls of Jericho ("So the people shouted when the priests blew with the trumpets: and it came to pass, when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell down flat..."), but now I need a second similar Biblical story to versisize, and I am drawing a blank. Please help.

Sometime next week I will post an MP3 of this song, probably featuring the vocal stylings of Choir of Matthew.

More ISUWBB.

Thanks to Ed's invaluable Big XII bracket generator (and dude, please explain how you generated all those jpgs), the picture for ISU women's basketball and the Big XII tourney are looking pretty clear. Assuming nothing too wacky happens (e.g. 8-15 Colorado beating 20-3 Baylor), if ISU beats Baylor on Saturday, they'll be either a no. 1 or no. 2 seed in the Big XII tournament, depending largely on who wins the Baylor/Texas Tech matchup the last game of the season. (We would be cheering for Baylor.) On the other hand, if Baylor beats ISU -- which seems likely, I'm afraid, since it's on the road -- the 'Clones could get a no. 5 seed, even if they win their last three games (which they will). So Saturday's game is just slightly important.

The case of the missing doctor.

After Annie's rave about it last week, I've been very interested in trying out Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper. However, the only two places I had seen a wack Dr. Pepper both had Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper but not the calorieful version. So, with nothing better to do with my lunch today (especially because I was trying to keep it short since I came into work slightly late), I decided to try two pharmacies and one convenience store: all right next to each other, all close to my workplace. Here are the results:

3: the number that had 20 oz. Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper
1: the number that had 2 liter Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper
0: the number that had any form of non-diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper

Mr. Cadbury please explain.

---
Similarly, since I haven't done any lists in a while:

The five best candy bars or candy bar-esque collections of candy, in order of bestness:

1) Fifth Avenue
2) Butterfinger
3) Whatchamacalit
4) Caramello
5) Peanut Butter M&Ms

The one worst coconutless candy bar:

1) Reese's Fast Break

Pretty much everyone knows my predilections.

This morning I received the following e-mail from Kim's brother, with whom I don't remember ever talking about the relevant subject:

"Hey look at this. Michel Gondry is coming to MIT for a while. I actually know the Prof who is hosting him so I can probably chat him up. You should come up to Boston and [meet] him;)"

That is so awesome.

Sundry.

Even "Arrested Development" cannot make Martin Short funny. Because he is not.

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Kim and I were at Baby Gap yesterday -- we need to get gifts for far too many pregnant friends -- and I saw what is, objectively, the cutest baby pajamas ever. It had a baby piggie on it that was saying, "Oink oink," and it had a baby cowwie on it that was saying, "Moo," and it was just so very cute. And it was also $24. Also there was a pair of cute froggie pajamas, but they were also $24. Apparently there is no correlation between amount of fabric and cost.

---
Speaking of the lack of correlation between amount of fabric and cost, last night Kim and I watched part V of PBS' Broadway: The American Musical (very interesting, even though they implicitly dissed The Greatest Musical Ever), and they had a few film clips from Times Square in the '70s, where it was literally a den of sin, or it would have been had it been a den rather than an area of Manhattan. Anyway, on one of the marquees: "UNLICENSED MASSAGES." I mean, obviously they exist, but to advertise them six feet tall? Brazen.

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I am hungry. And people should not microwave popcorn when I am hungry.

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Sometime I will write about my new shoes. But not today.

Another position I cannot apply for.

I'm probably relatively qualified for this music position -- other than my ho-hum keyboard abilities -- but upon looking at the selection of songs at the bottom of this page, I cannot in good conscience apply for this job. Ed and Annie will agree with me, I am sure.

Sign seen on our way home from Ash Wednesday services.

Walgreens-flavored water: $2/3.

"Subscribe to The Village Voice in throngs..."

Other than the occasional Nat Hentoff pro-life column, The Village Voice is pretty well worth ignoring except for two issues every year: The year-end film issue, which comes in December, and the year-end music issue, which comes in...February. Both contain the most exhaustive polls of (respectively) film writers and music writers anywhere, so it's always interesting to discover what the whole of American criticism things of my favorite films/albums.

You can, of course, look at the results yourself, but a few interesting bits:

16: Björk, Medulla
(down from #3 in 2001 for Vespertine, which is her best ever in this poll [despite it being her weakest album])

50: Sufjan Stevens, Seven Swans
(up from #114 in 2003 for Greetings From Michigan...; #50 is his best)

58: Buddy Miller, Universal United House of Prayer
(up from #214 in 2002 for Midnight and Lonesome; best is #49 in 1999 for Cruel Moon)

84: Sam Phillips, A Boot and a Shoe
(rightfully down from #62 in 2001 for Fan Dance; best is #19 in 1994 for Martinis & Bikinis)

139: William Shatner, Has Been
(um)

1519: Brother Danielson, Father: Son
(down from #450 in 2001 for the Famile's Fetch the Compass, Kids; best is #273 in 1997 for the Family's Tell Another Joke at the Ol' Choppin' Block)

Singles is less interesting, but one cool thing:

299: Buddy Miller, "Worry Too Much" (i.e. a Mark Heard cover)

Also, from the comments section, obviously from an atheist or agnostic: "Sufjan Stevens has become my new favorite token Christian. He mildly terrifies me because he so confidently welcomes apocalypse, making him a little too much like those scary Americans for whom the horrors of war, genocide, and natural disaster could never detract one scintilla from the glorious possibility that all those corpses might hasten rapture in our lifetime. Yet his serenity gets me right in the place that still harbors some religious feeling -— the joyful kind that wants to erase all alienation between man and God, and between man and man in God -— and is my new favorite example of what Twain called 'the calm confidence of a Christian with four aces.'"

Well, see, now I'm not so sure I can work for them anymore.

From the biography of the Assistant Rector at the church where I am interviewing/auditioning today: "He came to [this church] from Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, Virginia, where his mark was left not in his great scholastic ability but in the co-designing of a Frisbee Golf Course around the 86-acre campus." Please state the major problem in that sentence.

We will let you pick our next vacation,

because our choice of going to London in early December of last year was obviously a bad idea. So this time we are thinking more domestically and cheaply, leading to thoughts of:

a) CA.
b) HI. (That one is not so cheap.)

or

c) A SeaQuest Florida adventure, followed by a Florida cruise.

(That last one is not a joke other than the part that is obviously a joke.)

So choose for us. We are thinking late May or early June.

Also, the candidate must be able to breathe in and out at a normal rate.

This is from a job description for a Fredericksburg (Va.) company I just happened upon, and I swear I am not making this up:

---
PHYSICAL DEMANDS:
The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an associate to successfully perform the essential functions of this job....

While performing the duties of this job, the associate is regularly required to:
· Sit in a normal seated position for extended periods of time
· Reach by extending hand(s) or arm(s) in any direction
· Finger dexterity required to manipulate objects with fingers rather than with whole hand(s) or arm(s), for example using a keyboard
· Communication skills using the spoken word
· Ability to see within normal parameters
· Ability to hear within normal range
· Ability to move about

Another long-lost post.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (Ken Hughes, 1968), C

Remember in North where the movie was already kind of weird at the beginning and then it went into an hour-long dream sequence where it wasn't quite clear it was a dream sequence but anyway the dream sequence got even weirder and it had Bruce Willis and then when Elijah Wood woke up and there was Bruce Willis in real life even though Elijah had never seen him before his dream. Yeah. That was not so awesome.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (Ken Hughes, 1968), C

Remember in North where the movie was already kind of weird at the beginning and then it went into an hour-long dream sequence where it wasn't quite clear it was a dream sequence but anyway the dream sequence got even weirder and it had Bruce Willis and then when Elijah Wood woke up and there was Bruce Willis in real life even though Elijah had never seen him before his dream. Yeah. That was not so awesome.

Sometimes there are e-mails it's best you don't respond to.

Yesterday, I posted on a handbell mailing list that I was looking for music composition contests -- not just handbell, but for any instrument. Today, I received the following e-mail in response, which I am almost sure is not a joke:

"You may not be aware that Bells of the Sound has an annual composition contest. In the past they have set out themes, and is where Hascall's Andromeda came from. Just go to Bellsofthesound.com to find out information."

On a similar note, this was a nice blurb about me in the Ames Daily Tribune:

short & sour.
follow me on Twitter  |  these are comments, 6119.
oh dear.
i sincerely do not know what you are doing here. are you lost? were you looking for your delicate calico cat, and did you follow her up two flights of stairs to this room? she is not here. she was here, yes. we gave her a warm bowl of milk, we talked with her about campaign finance reform for a time, and then she bid us good day. i believe she was going to the post office two blocks down, but i don't quite recall. for surely you did not find your way from prinsiana, the least traveled site on the internet. if you did, though, perhaps you are looking for humor. perhaps you are looking for profundity. perhaps you are looking for answers. i'm sorry, but you shall go naught-for-three.
messages antérieurs.
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music del yo.
lethargy.
Four-Year-Old School Big waves and big animals Super early Christmas list. Who cares about Shamu when there's a bounce house?... Our California adventure begins Mother's Day with the Cubs Art is something you create I think there's candy inside! My son, the Teddy Graham destroyer What kind of CD packaging do you like?
"i live to frolf."
friends.
i have no friends. that is why my eyes are bloodshot: it is from these tears.
people i know, then.
do you, perchance, recognize the names of occasional p'iana c'ty sojourners beth-annie and edward and moM and alexander and opie and kalista and andrew? no? shameful.
a nother list.
narcissism.
Uh, dudes, the things that once were here are now at my handbell music website.