I am trying to re-create this site, which is a Frankensteinian mash-up of a half-dozen half-implemented web technologies that in some cases boast a vintage dating back to when the twin towers cast a long shadow in Lower Manhattan, all managed in a nested folder structure resembling an old crazy cat lady's junk drawer, and sprinkled liberally throughout with a jury-rigged hand-coded link structure and the wreckage of a decade of buttons and banner designs. Thousands of pages and images and rambles and scans, oh my. It probably looks like my brain from the inside.

And did I mention that I am trying to do this with no technical or design resources, in the picosecond of free time I have every day, borrowed from a sleep schedule limited by a mandatory 6 am wake up call?

Of course it doesn't matter, but the fact is, this site bugs me. It's sloppy, it's overabundant, it's like late spring, with the tipped-over peony blossoms splattered on the sidewalk like broken heads, and tattered poppy petals blowing around and sticking to everything like wet plastic bags, and aggressive armies of weeds surrounding anything you once tried to plant with anything like deliberation, but couldn't keep up with.

I can't take it anymore. Plus, it's weird and incoherent and abstract. Who the hell is this tiny dog persona I have been yapping behind for years? Can anyone explain it?

It's time for bed.

Unblogging is all the rage, that is, the act of taking your blog offline in a snit after taking personal offense at someone's comment, or something, but instead I think I am going to reblog, which is to take down your current blog, because it sucks, and put up something else.

Not sure what the something else is yet. But anyway, that is my plan.

I saw this show.

And it was awesome.

Before we go any further I feel it needs to be said that the Nup came over the other day and, randomly, broke into the worst song ever written by humankind: Cool Change by the Little River Band, a song containing the line: "The albatross and the whale, they are my brothers."

Dear god.

Moving on. If my site had a search thing, I could try and figure out whether I have ever discussed Stuckey's, not a place you are likely to recall if you are even three minutes younger than myself. Surely I have spoken of the chant my brother made up in the late 70's as we rolled across dusty godforsaken stretches of lifeless Utah interstate in an Econoline van, bound for Arkansas:

I think I see a sign
And it's gonna say Stuckey's
And it's gonna be fine
We're gonna get a smokin' monkey

Stuckey's is a haunting shack of bygone days that once beckoned to summer road tripping backseat brats when the Little River Band ruled the airwaves. It contained vast bins of jiggling, dirt-stained bendy guys with snapped wires sticking out of their rubber thighs, and dried bird poop paper weights with glued-on plastic google eyes, and varnished spanking paddles with some weird, suggestive grandpa joke written across them in cursive script. Your parents might stop there because it was the only bathroom until Jackson Hole, still another 237 miles up the road, but damn the toilets, if you were under 12, you'd sit there fighting over the Walkman tape player loaded up with a threadbare TDK60 copy of Journey's Infinity to kill the time while dreaming of the motherlode: a smokin' monkey.

It is my civic duty to tune into tonight's finale of American Idol, season whogivesa&^% (a.k.a. "The Sanjaya Season") because one of the two finalists, the utterly awesome beatboxin' Blake (a.k.a. BSHORTY) is from my exact town of current residence, probably the most insignificant little bedroom community in the Pacific Northwest. Our mayor declared a "Blake Lewis" day sometime back in April, and dot matrix printouts of his porcine eyes and frosted tips still festoon storefronts in our one-block downtown.

I ask you: how can I not tune in?

At this announcement, the husband scoffs that I know the term "Blaker Girls," and absconds upstairs to do the bills.

My AI history

I stumbled into season one of AI during a desperate phase of TV watching back in its inaugural year, and enjoyed Kelly Clarkson's cavalcade of amateur prom night hairstyles as she squared off against that creepy guy who looked like Sideshow Bob and butchered Michael Jackson's P.Y.T.

Those were the days of Dunkleman. Right, the Seacrest sidekick who bowed out of AI "to pursue other opportunities in the world of TV and feature film." Good move dude.

Anyway, that was the last time I watched it.

Until tonight.

Hour 1: Carry that weight

Cue awful Beatles duet between the finalists. Honestly, they both seem like leads in some Christian private school production of Bye Bye Birdie.

Now it's time to trot out the former AI prom queens, back to pimp their singles. I can't really hear "Kelly Clarkson" without thinking of the chest hair waxing scene in 40 Year Old Virgin. She is belting out some sort of Pat-Benatar-meets-Alanis-Morissette number in her sausage casing dress and 60's beaded-curtain earrings. Sample line: "I bet it sucks to see my picture everywhere." Note to dudes: don't dump Kelly Clarkson. Her songwriting team will rip you a new one.

Why is Jeff Foxworthy in the audience? Shouldn't he be at a Mitt Romney fundraising barbecue?

So I go to grab something to drink, and when I come back, some woman who resembles Snuffalupagus is frenching Ryan Seacrest. Is this the William Hung moment?

In comes a sucks-tet of runner-up dudes, including the aforementioned Sanjaya and some guy who looks like Jack Osbourne pre-makeover to belt out some Motown snoozer. Smokey Robinson then strolls out with blinding white veneers and a surgically surprised expression, the first of an inexplicable and endless parade of geezer cameos.

Finally, our hometown homey Blake busts out on the scene with his newsboy cap jauntily askance, beat-boxing with Doug E. Fresh. He totally sounds like a scratchy record, people. Dump some glitter on this kid and let's wrap this crap fest up, stat.

Washout contestant humor, zzzz.

OK, here's the sucks-tet of loser ladies; their celebrity upstage geezer cameo is Gladys Knight, sans Pips. I feel like I am at the Muckleshoot Casino.

Was that Hasslehoff? I thought he was in prison.

What's with Tony Bennett? He looks embalmed. Seeing dudes like this on AI reminds me of this thing I read in a Kurt Cobain biography years ago, where Van Halen drunkenly begged to play onstage with Nirvana, to rub up against their zeitgeist.

Hey, it's the bush baby dude.

Oh no, is this two hours? I didn't sign up for two hours.

Hour 2: The end

They just gave the finalists some Mustangs. Was this Oprah's idea? I am so going to see that car on my bumper in the Taco Bell drive thru.

Here's Carrie Underwood, singing a plastic surgery rendition of The Pretenders' "I'll Stand By You." Why can't Chrissie Hynde just be one of the geezer celebrity cameos?

Ok, I just saw that actress from Girl, Interrupted in the audience, you know, the one who hid in her room to eat entire roasted chickens before she hanged herself? What, you never saw that movie?

Some nattering old music industry dude is talking about that balding, mutton chopped legend known as DAUGHTRY. No one belts out karaoke versions of Creed's greatest hits like that dude, if recent channel flipping on a free temporary subscription to satellite radio is any indication.

Husband accuses me of secretly watching this show. No honey, I just read the headlines. This is what the American news media focuses their front page reporting on, year in and year out. It's called staying informed.

Stand back America... Washington state's other hair apparent, SANJAYA, belting out some Kinks with his coif billowing back from the blast of 1,000 stageside fans.

Oh lord, there are still 40 minutes left.

John Lennon rolls over in grave as Green Day desecrates "Working Class Hero." Somebody order Billie Joe Armstrong some Smokey Robinson veneers. Does Green Day know that satellite radio classifies them as classic rock?

More has-been winners. First up: the dude who hawks Fords, followed by the big dude who never smiles. Blake will have some cool brothers in his AI frat house.

And another geezer takes the stage: Bette Midler, in a leather cheerleading skirt. A million texting tweens scratch their heads in unison.

Hideous Sgt. Peppers medley featuring former winners. What did the Beatles ever do to you, American Idol? The Husband predicts this is a lead-in to an announcement of Beatles singles now being available on iTunes.

***

I lost consciousness somewhere in the middle of the Sgt. Pepper medley. When I woke up, Bothell's beatboxing son had fallen to the mat, and the glitter rained down on yet another boring chick singing a cheesy ballad through grateful tears.

I'm sorry, humble hometown. Bshorty, I'll see you at Taco Bell.

There is this weird thing on Flickr where people take pictures of lunches they pack in little round Japanese lunch jars called Mr. Bento. Now, there is a lot of weird stuff on Flickr; this is but a lone example. I recently learned that American style bento lunches are all the rage with the internet hoardes, and so I decided to hop on the bandwagon and get me one of those jar things. Mine came not with chopsticks but with a spork, that infamous hybrid utensil that boasts its own Flickr group. Bonus.

I tried documenting my lunch today, which is just sad, when people armed with Octodog cutters and egg molds are making stuff like this and this.

Nonetheless, I may document future lunches.

There are lots of dumb cars. Hell, cars are dumb. But some cars are dumber than others. Which brings us to my list of...

Dumbest cars according to tiny dog:

Bonus car Today, I saw a commercial for the...

Chevy Aveo

Otherwise known as the Daewoo Kalos (sort of its uncool, real name, e.g. Allen Konigsberg = Woody Allen), the Chevy Aveo is a wedge-shaped econo-box, on the order of a European smart car, but with none of the cachè. The commercial I witnessed implied that someone might actually want to buy one. Why?

Toyota FJ Cruiser

The poor man's hummer, this looks like some commemorative Hot Wheel from Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. Lots of silly engineer dudes with pale legs poking out of oversized cargo shorts are driving this rolling beverage cooler around at a certain technology company where I work, and they are not fooling anyone as to whether they spend any time offroading at big game parks. Lame.

Pontiac Vibe

I just don't like the name of this one, is all. My mother in law rented one just the other day and it is sitting out in my driveway. Does anyone in America actually go to a Pontiac lot and say "show me some Vibes?" Runners up: Daewoo Nubira, Suzuki Esteem.

Bonus: tiny dog poses by the Vibe

Pontiac Aztek

Pontiac again. Well played, my friends. Looking like a cross between an armadillo and an At-At, this car's ugliness is well-documented; thus there is no sense in elaborating here. All I know is? It makes me mad.




AMC Concord

No list of dumb cars would be complete without a mention of my first car, a vinyl-topped, manila-colored '82 AMC Concord with brakes that locked up on one side. What, you don't remember the AMC Concord? That is because you are probably thinking of AMC's other iconic entries in the list of outrageously dumb cars of all recorded history. Bonus feature: weird black grease on the seatbelt buckle that smeared on the front of all your shirts.