All Rileyed Up

So Mary over at Life, the Universe and Everything has awarded me an ROFL Award for my January post about Magic Eraser. Thank you Mary!

I was instantly smitten by Mary’s blog because of the title alone. I love the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books. I was reading one of her posts recently, but had trouble getting through it because my son kept pointing to the green planet thingy saying “He’s funny! He’s funny!” And in my comments to her, I mentioned it, which led to an email from her saying that the green planet thingy doesn’t have a name, in which case, does my son want to name it? I asked my son what name he would like to bestow upon it, and he took it upon himself to name everyone in his preschool. So I don’t think he quite understood the question. So in place of his suggestions, I’ve come up with a few of my own.

I figure, since the green planet thingy is from the book series, so then should his name come from the book series.

My choice is “Gargle Blaster,” as in the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, which according to the Guide is the best drink in existence. “The Guide also tells you on which planets the best Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters are mixed, how much you can expect to pay for one and what voluntary organizations exist to help you rehabilitate afterward.” For those of us on earth, you can try to create your own by following any of these recipes.

I think if you are able to imbibe any Earthly concoctions of the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster without passing out, then you might be able to sit through a session of Vogon poetry, which is “of course the third worst in the universe.” (Clearly, Douglas Adams wrote this before that episode of Fresh Prince where DJ Jazzy Jeff ended every poem with “Let’s go get some barbeque and get busy.”)

I also think that if you were to imbibe such drinks, you might quickly find yourself speaking in Drunkspeak, which is a language composed entirely of anagrams of the words “Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster” (Thank you Veronica for introducing me to this anagram site, AKA the world’s biggest time sucker). Here are some of the more commonly spoken phrases by one who has drank (or is it drunk?) the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster:

“A CATARACT GALL GLIB ERG PENS” means “I can’t see and I need to pee.”
“A BAA CARP STALL CENT GIGGLER” means “The dude in the bathroom is laughing too much.”
“A BAA CRAP GLANS REC GELT GILT” means “Oh boy. I crapped and it wrecked my kilt.”
“A BAA CARP TAG CENT LEGS GRILL” means “I bought carp at a tag sale for one cent and grilled it. I also can’t feel my legs.”
“A BACCARAT NAG GET SPELL GIRL” means “Playing Burt Bacharach always gets the girls.”

And last but certainly not least,

“A CABALA GAG CREPT TELLS GRIN” means “Madonna is into the Kabbalah?”

On that note, I think I’m going to head to the grocery store and experiment with the recipe from The Bartender’s Best Friend. Sounds yummy.

So last night was my first Bunco Night, or as I like to call it, gambling without pit bosses. Frankly, I think pit bosses might have come in handy.

Technically, my first Bunco Night was several years ago when a friend of mine asked me to fill in for someone who couldn’t make it to her Bunco Night, and I didn’t know anyone except for my friend and I had no idea what I was doing, except that when they handed me the dice, I rolled them. So last night was my First Official Bunco Night. I only have one friend in this Bunco Night as well, but I recognized three of the other ladies there through previous parties at her house, so I had people to talk to/catch up with.

I’ve learned a few things about Bunco Night. Actually, just one thing. Don’t mouth off with people you don’t know.

So for those of you who don’t play Bunco, here’s a brief recap: it’s 12 players set up at three tables of 4. One of the tables is designated the Head Table. Everyone takes turns rolling 3 6-sided dice, trying to roll ones for the first round, then twos for the second round, and so forth. Every time you roll one, you get one point. Extra points for Buncos and Mini-Buncos. The round comes to an end when someone at the Head Table reaches 21. Rolling all three of the dice in any number is a mini-Bunco, and if it’s the actual number for the round, it’s a real Bunco, which means you get to tell everyone they just got served. In last night’s case, this was done by wearing a red feather boa and blinking tiara. At the end of the night, prizes are given to the person with the most number of wins, most number of losses, and most Buncos. I won $45 for most Buncos. Hell to the yeah. You better recognize!

So back to my mouthing off. This is something I do all the time when I play games. I blame it on years of college nights of playing card games with Texans and jerkwads and the like. If you know me, you know my mouthing off is a joke. Apparently, if you don’t know me, it’s offensive.

So I’m playing a round with Offended Woman (OW) and she and I had a lovely talk for a good twenty minutes about the house she lived in because I happened to know the person she bought it from. I thought we had established a nice repartee. We played the entire first game of Bunco, and were in three separate rounds together and enjoyed each other’s company. The first round of Game Two, she and I were partners and neither of us were rolling the required number. So when the round came to an end, we had obviously lost it. Which meant we had to move to the next table and she said, “Are we still partners?” and I said, “No, we’re supposed to switch partners when we move to new tables.” And she said, “Oh, okay.” And I said, “Yeah, good thing too, because you didn’t roll for sh*t.”

Um. My bad.

See, in the old card playing days, whoeever I would have said that to would have responded with “Oh I know you just didn’t blame me! You didn’t roll anything at all!” But she didn’t say that. Instead, she told EVERYONE ELSE SHE SAT WITH that she was told she wasn’t any good at Bunco. I actually told her I was kidding and that I was sorry and didn’t mean to insinuate she was a poor dice roller. Which is silly really because unless you’re Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation (yeah, all you Trekkies know what I’m talking about), you have no control over what you roll. It truly is a matter of chance.

Anyway, when she left, I smiled and said it was really nice meeting her, and she gave me one of those smiles.

This is why I hang out with guys.

The theme for today’s Tacky Tuesday postcards is Kentucky. Oh, Kentucky.

Or as this man refers to it, Black Lung.

Welcome to Kentucky. We’re approximately 800 miles to Disneyworld and 2,155 miles to Disneyland.

Don’t Fence Me In.

Name: Miss C. Biscuit
Student Activities: Track, 4H Club
Senior Quote: Save a horse, ride a cowboy.

As your Miss America, I will see to it that big curlers and Aqua Net are made available to everyone in the entire world.
(BTW: the back of this postcard reads “KENTUCKY: THE BLUEGRASS STATE, Home of Thoroughbreds and beautiful women.”)

And here I thought it was spelled A-L-K-A S-E-L-T-Z-E-R.

Ah, well. If Elvis was still alive, I’m sure he’d spell relief in that after eating a plate of these:

(Oh yeah, I have LOTS of Elvis recipes. Homeboy could eat.)

1. It’s easier to keep up with my son’s dairy & egg allergies (although the rice allergy is actually more difficult).

2. Since meat is expensive, we’re saving money.

3. Banter over cheese and cheese substitutes.

4. I get to experiment with wildly creative veg recipes. Two nights ago, I made caponata stew with hummus cakes and yesterday I made a noodle and peanut sauce dish that even the kids both loved. Tomorrow, I’m going to bake lemon bread. Today, though, I cooked andouille sausage for the Super Bowl party I’m going to.

5. Animals rights websites. Seriously. I admire their gusto. Plus, these videos are hilarious–a cartoon trilogy tells the tale of Leo Hamderson, a pig living the happy life until Moofeus gives him the red pill:

WELCOME TO THE MEATRIX.

I’m sure y’all remember the wonderful movie starring Bill Murray. I was just talking to Lawyer Girl the other day and we were trying to decide which college days we’d like to “Groundhog” if given the choice, as in which day we would like to relive over and over. We found there were far too many days to choose from that we would like to relive simply because they were that awesome. So we decided to move on to days we wouldn’t mind having another shot at to make a few changes to our decisions.

I actually don’t think I’d like to go back and avoid the really bad decision days where I grew from the bad experience and moved on with life, because obviously, those helped bring me one step closer to the life I live now. However, I wouldn’t taking back a few of those less-than-stellar moments that really did nothing for my personal well-being in the long run.

For instance, the time I overslept my final exam for Early American Indians? Yeah. I think I’d take that day back. That particular professor was a great guy and let me make up the exam, but I’d like to take away the running to him, unbathed, doo rag in hair, tears in my dark circled eyes moment. That look was memorable enough that when I saw him the following fall (oh, did I mention he was also my adviser?), he said, “You’re looking a lot better than the last time I saw you.”

Another day I’d like to change around? The very first day I worked as a waitress, my boss, this excruciatingly condescending woman named Stacey yelled at me for pouring pink lemonade from a pitcher, and said it wasn’t “spec,” and I had no idea what that even meant, and was simply doing what I’d seen some other servers doing. I’d like to relive that moment by quitting the job right then and pouring the lemonade on Stacey. But alas, I stuck the job out all summer. And the tips were all right. And that restaurant went under anyway.

Also, that one time in college when I drank too much. Just that once.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AClwrQeCzog]