As a sidenote, I’ve updated the media section with a few more pictures of the kids.

“It’s like a whole buncha stuff in my mouth!”

So said my stepdaughter as she bit into her All-American Thanksgiving Burger, a burger she helped create. Last week my wife took Alexis to Red Robin to eat after school shopping, and while they were at the restaurant, they picked up an application for Red Robin’s Burger Contest for kids. After they got home, we all started brainstorming on unique and interesting burger ideas to come up with something that’d knock the socks off the judges. As we were mulling over different ideas, we came up with the idea for the Thanksgiving turkey burger.

Now I can’t reveal all the ingredients here, as I don’t want to give away any secrets, but I will say the burger combines all the best parts of Thanksgiving into a burger. We made the burgers tonight, and they were a resounding success, hence Alexis’ quote, and now that we know the burgers are delicious, we’re going to help Alexis submit the recipe for judging.

If there’s one thing I hate above all else about living in an apartment, it’s my noisy neighbors. The upstairs neighbors are great people, but they sound like a herd of elephants doing professional wrestling on our ceiling. As if that’s not bad enough, one of the neighbors with whom we share a bedroom wall snores so loud he sounds like a bobcat trapped in a burlap sack. I’m a pretty sound sleeper, but one night last week he was snoring loud enough to wake me up out of a dead sleep.

Like I mentioned, I like my neighbors, but I can’t wait until we can buy a house so that we don’t have to worry about noisy neighbors snoring too loud or doing professional wrestling on our ceiling.

The boy has discovered a new favorite show…SpongeBob Squarepants. He giggles and giggles throughout the entire show, but especially so any time SpongeBob laughs.

Yesterday this blog had its highest number of visitors ever…until today. I know fifty visitors in one day isn’t much, but that’s fully one hundred eyes that have read this blog. Heady stuff, right there.

One of my favorite guilty pleasures? Watching Dr. Phil when I happen to come home from work a little early. I love trying to impersonate Dr. Phil for my mother in law, though I don’t know how much she appreciates my attempts.

Every time I hear Senator Sam Brownback’s name mentioned, I always think of Brokeback Mountain. I suppose it’s the similarity between the two…or could it be something else?

That’s right folks…the 156th annual Wisconsin State Fair is finally here. Now I’m not a huge fairgoer myself, mainly because I don’t do well in situations with lots of animals, especially horses and goats. I am hoping to go to the Fair this year, because I always enjoy walking the grounds, eating all that great food, and spending time in the exhibition halls looking at all the gadgets and products that you can usually only get on TV. I have to admit I’m a bit of sucker for those gadgets and products, and I always end up wanting to buy something I see. After all, who couldn’t use a Magic Bullet or a set of Dryer Balls? And let’s not forget just about everyone’s favorite Fair food - Cream Puffs!

I may not be a huge fan of the Fair, but I still can’t wait to go.

This is a little bit random, but the story caught my eye and made me chuckle, so I thought I’d repost. A Madison man, Jim Gleeson, won San Jose State University’s 2007 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, beating out thousands of other entrants. Gleeson submitted 20 entries, and this was the winner:

“Gerald began - but was interrupted by a piercing whistle which cost him ten percent of his hearing permanently, as it did everyone else in a ten-mile radius of the eruption, not that it mattered much because for them ‘permanently’ meant the next ten minutes or so until buried by searing lava or suffocated by choking ash - to pee.”

Now that right there is some God-awful writing. What’s really disturbing to me is that as bad as Gleeson’s entry was, I’ve seen some pretty comparable writing from folks who weren’t trying to write poorly; they just have no skill at all.

I know they’re not terribly politically correct [actually, they're not at all politically correct], but I’m a big fan of the Broken Lizard comedy troupe. I first saw
Super Troopers shortly after it came out on DVD, and it instantly became one of my all-time favorite comedies. While I’m not as big a fan of Club Dread, my faith in Broken Lizard was restored with the release of Beerfest. Sure, the comedy is pretty sophomoric and not at all politically correct, but I just can’t help but find myself laughing uncontrollably when I watch these movies.

My advice? If you haven’t seen them, rent Super Troopers and Beerfest; you won’t be disappointed.

…I’m a fan of these Dateline NBC “To Catch a Predator” specials. Granted, it seems like that’s all Dateline seems to be running these days, but I sure do enjoy them. Now I’ve had limited exposure to sex offenders through my line of work, and I’ve always been fascinated by what makes them tick. I just can’t understand why they choose to do the things they do, much like I fail to understand how men choose to batter and abuse their spouses or significant others. What’s really mind-boggling to me about these Dateline NBC sex predator investigations is how many of these men they catch have seen or heard about these very same investigations or know who Chris Hansen is.

What’s most amusing to me is the reactions of the men when they find out they’ve been caught with the hand in the cookie jar. I also get a real kick out of the excuses they come up with to try and explain away their behavior, as if there’s some rational explanation for why a 27 year-old man would drive almost two hours to meet with a 13 year-old girl.

It shouldn’t come as any surprise to anyone that I’m not a fan of Bill O’Reilly, and this video just serves to underscore why I think he’s so downright despicable.

I updated the look of the blog yesterday, with the biggest change being the addition of a link to the family’s photo gallery. I’ve been working hard to find a gallery I liked, finally switching from Coppermine to Gallery2.0. Gallery2.0 is much easier to use than Coppermine, at least in my opinion, and I like the look a lot more as well. I’m pleased with the outcome, and I hope everyone out there reading (all three of you) enjoy the photos.