Tasty Memories

Posted on January 8, 2014 by tosabarbell

Growing up, it was pretty rare that we ate out. An occasional bucket of KFC for Sunday dinner, MAYBE a burger king hangaber after swim practice if we were running late to the next activity, it happened, but not very often.

But there were a few very rare evenings when dad would come home for dinner before heading back up to the church for his nightly meetings and say, “Let’s go grab some Arthur Treacher’s.” YES!!!!!!  Those were good nights. To this day, I have no idea what would bring on the Arthur Treacher’s spending binge, but I loved it. Fried fish and chips, nummmmmm. We had to wait longer for our food and I ALWAYS wanted to get some just for us to eat on the way home in addition to the regular order. Yuh, I’ve been doing the pre-game meal for a while now. Sometimes dad would let me do that, but not always. So even the special fish and chips night had the opportunity to be epic. Fo shizzle.

To this day, I still have in my mind that Arthur Treacher’s (by the way, saying Arthur Treacher’s in my head every time I type it is tough for this ‘r’ challenged speech therapy class dropout) has the greatest fish and chips on planet Earth. I mean, come on! Hush puppies, this was the only time in my life I could get hush puppies! And all of it served on cool pub paper…

NOW, in all reality, IS this the greatest fish and chips on the planet? I’m guessing not, I’ve had better as an adult. The grease is better pretty much everywhere and I get a Guinness with the meal. I DO remember the chips were crispy and I still enjoy crispy rather than soggy chips. But I’m in Wisconsin now and we have tator tots. Ever have Poutine with tots instead of fries? Uhhhhhh, if no, run to the Red Dot meow. RIGHT MEOW!

But such is the strength of food and memories. I know many, MANY, people who will continue to make shitty food choices just because it brings about some type of happy memory. You’re tasting the memories sweeties, not the food. Start tasting the food. Of course if your diet consists of lots of sugar and refined carbs, you’re not even tasting that. The food actually HAS to be as shitty and greasy as possible in order for you to just taste it. That’s happy.

I’ve previously listed my and Bigg’s list of “if food were hugs.” I can’t remember if I put Arthur Treacher’s on it. I don’t think so. It’s too special, too close to my heart. It’s a special car ride with just me and my Dad. That didn’t happen often. It’s a splurge that we savored, or at least I did. We KNEW it was a splurge therefore treated it with the reverence only a splurge should receive.

I have no idea if Arthur Treacher’s is still around. I DO know that if it is, I won’t touch it. Can’t. There is no way I’ll ruin the tasty memory of our meals there. Quite honestly, that’s exactly where this shitty food that holds good memories belong. In your mind, not your mouth. Savor it…and move on.

There is no greater sorrow
Than to recall a happy time
When miserable.

Dante Alighieri

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Monday Bacon: Chilly Willy

Posted on January 6, 2014 by tosabarbell

I loved watching Chilly Willy when I was young. The cute penguin always looking for fishies. Good fun. We would always say it’s ‘chilly willy’ out for years and years. Well…it applies today.

Chilly Willy

There are a lot of folks who have not gone through an Up North winter who scoff at this so called “windchill padding” of temperatures. I always lulz’d at that. Uhhhhh,  hokay…you take the cold, a cold that steals your breath when you walk out the door and then add wind. Any wind. 2mph…20mph. It is a cold that it like no other. Luckily, most of us never had to be out in it for long periods of time. But there are some who had to be whether for work or because they just didn’t have anywhere else to go.

Think windchill is bullshit? Go hang out in a Minneapolis homeless shelter for an hour or two and ask the visitors about cold…and then ask them about cold + wind.  But sure, folks who haven’t experienced anything near this probably know best. Heeeheee. Silly people.

Our temp’s…and those around us according to all of the pics on The Facebook are cold. Colder than it has been for a while. Now, at Christmas time in Minnesota it was around fifteen below with a decent 20-30mph wind. That was cold. We walked across the street on Christmas Even morning for a McCormick’s breakfast and when the wind hit our faces on the way back to the hotel, well, I ran the rest of the way. Yup. Me…running. Even the Bigg man hotstepped it and that’s as close as he comes to running when not at a competition. True story.

But this morning got my attention. We went out for breakfast before Bigg hit the road for Mexico (yuh, Mexico) and it was cold. School was called off late last week. I’ve seen my fair share of , “When I was a kid we walked to school from the country in 40 degree’s below weather PLUS wind.” First off, shut up. Ok, so you went to school with Laura Ingalls? And you’re still around to tweet about it? Cool. I graduated in 1985 and we had at least two “cold” days that I can remember so if school was called over 30 years ago chances are your school district was keeping an eye out for you too. But before I call anyone an outright liar (which I think you are if you’re saying you walked to school in worse conditions than this) allow me to point out a big difference of your kiddo days and modern yutes.

First off, lots of kids get themselves off to school without Mommy making them a huge pot of oatmeal and a plate full of bacon in the morning. If yours was there making sure you were properly snuggled into your warm weather wear and sorrel boots before you ventured out in your hypothetical cold , congratulations. I hope you appreciate the memories. Since we’re nestled between two Elementary schools; a Middle school; and a High school, we see our fair share of walkers in the morning and in the afternoon. Wearing a sweatshirt, no hats and gloves is actually a normal occurrence around here. Yes, it’s stupid, but it’s reality. Many of these kids live over a mile away from school. I don’t care how dressed for winter you are, a mile walk in 20 below with a 30mph wind will kick your ass.  Look, we get it, we are so much tougher than kids today. We win. And these are just the kids in sheltered little ‘tosa.

But this is cold. Dangerous cold. So hunker down, stop pretending we were so much tougher than “kids today” and move on. Really want to prove how tough you are? Get your arse out in that cold and go volunteer somewhere or make some hot toddies for your mail carrier who, by the way, can probably tell you a thing or two about windchill. Thank you mailman for showing up for work all to bring me my junk mail. You’re B.A. Srsly. 

Over here? The heat’s on, I’ll get my deload lifting in today and I have a Hungarian Kuvasz who still thinks she’s a Malamute…

husky

I literally have to go drag her in. Silly Dazzle girl. But it does remind me of a post from one of our strong friends who is a Milwaukee cop, keep an eye out for homeless animals too. Real cold animals not nearly as cute as Chilly Willy the penguin.

The climate of Barrow is Arctic. Temperatures range from cold as shit to fucking freezing.

Steve Niles, 30 Days of Night

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Friday Jams: Gullible

Posted on January 3, 2014 by tosabarbell

Good Lord we’re gullible. Case in point, the media circus that IS Chris Kluwe. First off, well done Mr. Kluwe, rarely does a former NFL punter keep himself embedded in the daily news. Where’s that little clappy icon, he’s needed here. Anyways…well done. So here’s our little Chris Kluwe for dummies 40 second rundown…

Ok, SO, Chris Kluwe feels strongly that homosexuals should be allowed to marry. Cool. No worries, he has a right to speak on his beliefs. He gained a large following cuz people who knew nothing about Chris Kluwe said “Oh heyyyyyy, you like gay marriage and talked about it in public, you’re so cool and brave and courageous. We love youuuuuu even though we know nothing else about youuuuu” and Chris Kluwe was all ‘yaaaaa man, I’m a brave muthafucker, speaking out on gay rights and all but I’m not a very good punter anymore so I’m looking for a new role for the future and y’all are buying into it so heyyyyyy guys thanks!’ 

And those of us who are all, ‘Uh, you’re a football player, a punter at that. You should punt the ball cuz the only relevance you have in our lives is on Sunday and whether or not you punt well. Don’t care about your personal beliefs cuz I’m not a sucker who will buy into your scam just cuz you’re speaking out on an issue that many of us just  LIVE our daily lives by supporting and shut the fuck up about it’ were all, srsly dude, STFU and play ball.

But then Kluwe got cut from the Vikings (NO stupid people, they don’t renegotiate a less than average punter’s contract. They fire him. Cuz there’s a line of punters behind him who will come play better for less money.) DUH!

And then Kluwe was all, “hey you big bigoted Vikings coaches and owners,  you fired me cuz I’m for gay marriage.” And the rest of the reasonable world was all, “No, fucknutt, they fired you for the same reason the Raiders did. You weren’t good.” 

So ya, there ya go. But in honor of all you low knowledge gullible people who actually know absolutely nothing about whether Chris Kluwe is really a stand up guy in real life other than speaking out on a highly politicized charged topic…The Flatliners, Gullible…eh?

The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words.

Philip K. Dick

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World’s Strongest Flop

Posted on January 2, 2014 by tosabarbell

We’ve been trying to catch footage of the World’s Strongest Man television show as we could this last week or so. Had we been on the ball we would have TiVo’d it. Turns out we didn’t miss a whole lot. Not for lack of efforts of the competitors but for complete lack of giving a shit by those editing the contest down for CBSsports.

A couple of years ago, Bigg explained the concept of the World’s Strongest Man to me. In the last handful of years, the contest has become a television show first and foremost, a strength contest second. Though it is the World championship of Strongman, the main focus is how it looks on the television. Care of it’s athletes and conditions are low priority on the totem pole (my interpretation, not Bigg’s so if anyone reads this and wants to get pissy with Matt, forget it. My blog, my opinion.)

This year’s contest, uhh excuse me, television shooting is a perfect example of this. Although athletes and loved ones are strictly forbidden to comment on any results coming out of prelims or even the finals, enough peeps are there to spill the beans on the Sugden forum to keep us all posted. So we know what’s going on. So why the secrecy? It’s the WORLD FUCKING CHAMPIONSHIP of Strongman! Why do we NOT want people to know how it’s going…who’s excelled and broken world records…who’s out due to injury? FOK! We already know what’s happening, duh! For FOUR fucking months we’ve known that Brian Shaw is the standing World’s Strongest Man…but now we really know because he was finally “permitted” (again, my word) to announce it after the television show announced it. DUH!!!!!! FOK! By the way, Ironmind posted it back in August…way to ruin the surprise…heh.

Also, word coming out of China by those attending was that conditions were absolute shit. Strongman requiring IV fluids after day one due to sickness from the food (not to mention the oven type conditions of China.) I don’t remember which one was doing this but rumor had it that one Strongman was only eating Snicker bars to avoid the food poisoning everyone was enjoying. My comment to one of Lauren Holland’s (whom I don’t know but keeps me completely entertained on the Facebook and given an opportunity I’d really like to go drink with her at this Crush spot they seem to enjoy) posts lamenting about the food and conditions was that I would go ahead and burn every bridge available screaming about the shit care the athletes received. So kudo’s to all of you ladies who watched your Strongman wither away and compete at their very best in these conditions. You’re better than I.

Anyway…back to World Champion Brian Shaw.

For nearly four months he could have (not saying he would have but he appears to be a pretty smart man so I’m going to guess that he would have) been promoting himself and gaining further opportunities (remember the garbage bag commercial, that made me lulz) based on earning his second World championship. But we all were good little boys and girls and pretended while watching the tv show that we didn’t know who won. Well, not me but I’ve never claimed to be a good girl.

But okay, I’ll play along. I’ll wait four months for the television show where I get to view the best of the best in action. We got to see our fav Dutchie competitor Alex Moonen in two prelim events. Yeah! We caught the second half of Loz’s group and he was already injured from the squat event so we didn’t get to see him at all. We caught the Viking, Bjorn, kick ass at his first World’s. We caught other, brief (very brief), events that were fun but at the end of the day left me wondering where the rest of the contest footage went? We did, after all, wait months and months for this. After all.

But hey, the Finals are coming and they must be spectacular. Right??!!

Uhhhhh, no. Not even close.

One hour. One measly hour. Of that hour, there were at least 20 minutes of commercial. Of the remaining time, there were promo shots, interviews, and pre-event set up. I’m only guessing here but feel confident that actual event time was less than 20 minutes. Soooooo, we waited nearly four months for…20 minutes of footage. As I read what the Brit’s were watching on their finals, I kept thinking ”WTF!? I don’t see any of this!’ Well, it turns out because we just don’t get to see it.

And another thing…

I’ve hesitated saying anything about the passing of Strongman Mike Jenkins. I didn’t know him. Matt had never met him. It’s too personal for those who know and love him and miss him terribly. His death has shaken me up due to loving a Strongman, even competing at a different level than what Mike Jenkins and his counterparts do. These are big men. They put a tremendous amount of stress on their bodies. It’s scary. But the passing of one of the World’s greatest deserves a tribute that does Strongman proud. Did that happen? I don’t know. I’ve seen a few comments from across the pond that they saw something but if it was done  for our version of editing, we completely missed it. But we were watching. But we missed it.

That alone makes this television show the World’s Strongest Flop. Congratulations…you suck. You have failed to showcase the hard work, dedication, blood sweat and tears these men work all year for in efforts to succeed at your television show. Fok off. I know, I know…I’ve been completely spoiled by attending a couple of the Champions League Strongman events. My observation of how Ilkka and Marcel take care of the athletes is that everything is top notch. I was fortunate to watch while they put on a LIVE television event of the World Log Lift Championships and STILL managed to take care of the men. Huh. But ya, I’m spoiled.

We just watched a few minutes of the IFSA 2007 World Championships that Bigg was fortunate to be part of. After the athlete introductions guess what the next shot showed? The beginning of the deadlift event. Oh I see! So competition WAS important at one time. Good to know! Awesome.

Promise Yourself

To be so strong that nothing
can disturb your peace of mind.
To talk health, happiness, and prosperity
to every person you meet.

To make all your friends feel
that there is something in them
To look at the sunny side of everything
and make your optimism come true.

To think only the best, to work only for the best,
and to expect only the best.
To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others
as you are about your own.

To forget the mistakes of the past
and press on to the greater achievements of the future.
To wear a cheerful countenance at all times
and give every living creature you meet a smile.

To give so much time to the improvement of yourself
that you have no time to criticize others.
To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear,
and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.

To think well of yourself and to proclaim this fact to the world,
not in loud words but great deeds.
To live in faith that the whole world is on your side
so long as you are true to the best that is in you.

Christian D. Larson

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