My post rounding up my experience at the Defending the Dream conference this weekend is up at the WPRI blog.

It was snowing in Milwaukee after the conference, so I stayed with my friend Johnny Roast Beef, rather than driving back to Madison. The night ended up at Jo-Cat\’s bar on Brady Street, which made for a long Sunday. And I am willing to declare that the Apollo Cafe on Brady Street has the best gyros in Milwaukee. Hands down.

My four-year old daughter has officially changed her endorsement from Barack Obama to Hillary Clinton, she announced yesterday. This is sending shock waves through the Wisconsin political landscape. Hillary should quickly declare my daughter a super-delegate.

On the other hand, I\’m close to getting my two-year old son to switch over to the John McCain side – although he dislikes the McCain-Feingold law as much as his dad. However, he\’s impressed by the fact that they both wear diapers.

I pulled out the old Mr. Show DVDs last night, and was reminded of this outstanding running sketch. I actually had to wait about a half hour to go to bed last night, since I couldn\’t stop laughing, and I didn\’t want to wake my wife up.

There are three minute-long videos that you have to watch in succession, as they build on each other. The last one nearly killed me.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zkMFFm4tdQ&rel=1]

I got a new pair of tires today, so I had the chance to wander around the mall as they were being mounted. I figured the fact that they went flat once a week might be a hint something was wrong.

A took a stroll through the Gap, and found one of the more welcome sights I\’ve seen in a long time – they were selling flannel shirts. Apparently, flannel is creeping back into style, which means I will be able to pull out my college wardrobe and be cool once again.

Back in 1997, I started grad school at Marquette. On my first day of classes, I thought I\’d try to immerse myself into college life once again. So I showed up on campus wearing what I thought the kids were wearing those days – big flannel shirts, Doc Martens, the whole deal. I quickly realized that I was the only one on campus that wore that stuff anymore. The early \’90s had come and gone, and I looked like a fool. Instead of a student, I looked like a historical artifact from the grunge era. You could go to a museum and see me on display – right between the statues of the American Indians making corn maize and the skeleton of a pterodactyl.

\”Come see the homo grungus in his natural habitat – see his perpetual look of indifference, coupled with his ironic facial hair and untucked shirts. Watch him as he condemns any music you listen to as too \”corporate,\” and complains incessantly of his middle-class upbringing. Sadly, the homo grungus was extinct by 1994, although one was spotted on the Marquette University campus as late as 1997.\”

So world, here I come – just give me an excuse.

Has anyone else noticed that former Badger Joe Thomas made the Pro Bowl? As a rookie? I always theorized that the Cleveland Browns\’ surprising season was due in large part to Thomas\’ blocking, and it turns out other people may have noticed that, too. Then again, I\’m a homer, so it\’s hard to tell.

Last spring, after he was drafted, my friends and I went to a bar here in Madison. Late that night, I actually ended up sitting on bench right next to Thomas. As it turns out, he went to the same high school as my wife. During his career here, I always figured that if I ever met him, that would be my opening line. But sitting a foot away from his 6 foot 8 frame, that conversation starter seemed like pretty weak sauce. So I just kept quiet. (Incidentally, he seemed like a great guy.)

You see, I have this thing about meeting famous people. I generally try to think of what my opening line will be well in advance of actually meeting them, even if no such meeting is planned. So I have something in my back pocket just in case I run into, say, Barry Alvarez at the grocery store. (I realize how irrational this is, given the fact that most famous people don\’t hang out near my couch, where I spend most of my time.)

Not adhering to this practice almost got me in trouble a few months ago. I was heading down to the Wisconsin Public TV studios to tape my little commentary, when I got news that Tammy Baldwin was on the show. So I thought there was a chance she\’d be there at the studio. Then I realized that I have no line for Tammy Baldwin. The \”Baldwin File\” in my brain was empty. So I panicked, thinking we\’d meet, and I\’d just stand there like a dope. (Fortunately, she did her interview via feed from DC, so embarrassment saved. Although I still need a good one – suggestions are welcome.)

This got me to thinking about which people would be immune to opening lines. The people who you\’d be so nervous meeting, you couldn\’t spit out a word. Then you\’d feel stupid, and it would wreck your life for all eternity. Here\’s my (admittedly, eclectic) list:

1. George Will

2. Michael Jordan

3. Michael Stipe

4. Tom Wolfe

5. Brett Favre

I asked some friends for their lists of people they\’d be nervous meeting. I got answers like Paul McCartney, Charles Manson, Jessica Alba, George Bush, Pope Benedict, and James Hetfield of Metallica. (Five bucks for anyone who can get all those people together in a hot tub.) Two of my friends separately said they\’d be nervous meeting Bill Parcells, since they thought he\’d yell at them. A female friend said her list was Osama bin Laden, Brad Pitt, and George Clooney – which means if bin Laden shows up in \”Ocean\’s Fourteen,\” she might have a stroke.

Having seen pretty much all the decent movies out right now, the Mrs. and I decided to go see \”Atonement\” on Friday night. This is a weird year, as I have now seen four of the five Best Picture Oscar nominees (Michael Clayton being the only one I haven\’t seen.)

So here\’s the official review: It was looooooooong. I fully expected my first Medicare check to be in the mail when I got home. The ending was decent, but it took forever to get there. Two hours of British costume drama is too much for me, although you can do a lot worse than Keira Knightley (pretty much the whole reason I agreed to go in the first place.)

Saturday night, I watched a movie called \”Rocket Science,\” and thought it was outstanding. There was an element of \”Rushmore\” (which happens to be my favorite movie) and other high school flicks, but it quickly came into its own. (It also steals Alec Baldwin as the narrator, which is stolen directly from Wes Anderson\’s \”The Royal Tenenbaums.\”) I thought it perfectly captured the feeling of changing who you are to attract a girlfriend in high school.

Here\’s the trailer:

I checked the reviews of \”Rocket Science\” at RottenTomatoes.com, and it gets an 85% favorability rating. But then I noticed how much money it had made – a pitiful $601,000 since it was released in August.

That is part of my frustration with movies like \”Meet the Spartans,\” which has now made $28 million in two weekends. A smart, well executed movie like \”Rocket Science\” can\’t draw any viewers, but bottom feeding dreck rolls in the cash. As the saying goes, no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.

Some of you may remember when I \”came out\” of my anonymous persona last February. I chose to do it in a Melanie Conklin interview in the Wisconsin State Journal. She seemed to be under the impression that I was somehow worth interviewing, so I happily agreed.

Fast forward to yesterday, when I got a flurry of e-mails from people pointing out that Melanie\’s latest \”Drinks With….\” column features another blogger (Ryan Zeinert) here in Madison. They gleefully highlighted the fact that Melanie has found a \”new flavor of the week,\” and that I am now \”old news.\”

So it is true, my carcass had now been cast aside. The empty shell of a once-interesting blogger, replaced by a newer model. I always knew Melanie would leave me for a younger man, but it doesn\’t blunt the sting much. I feel like an aging stripper, clinging to the pole for one last teary rendition of \”Kickstart my Heart,\” while men turn away in horror. Or something like that.

Anyway, I wish Ryan Zeinert the best of luck on his newfound fame and the untold riches that are likely to follow. I just hope he thinks about us trailblazers when I\’m begging him for loose change down on State Street.

I often see ads for movies that there\’s no chance I\’d go see, but rarely have I had as visceral reaction as I did when I saw the commercial for \”Meet the Spartans.\” It looked like the most offensive, bottom-feeding dreck I\’d ever seen. Making fun of gay spartans? Genius. Throwing a Britney Spears look-alike down a hole? Comedy gold!

Here\’s a commercial. Prepare yourself to be the opposite of entertained:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7kHtkxTcuQ&rel=1]

As it turns out, the movie is the epic piece of trash it appears.

But lo and behold, guess what the #1 movie of the weekend was? That\’s right – \”Meet the Spartans\” checked in at $18 million, slightly ahead of the similarly cerebral \”Rambo.\” I think it\’s safe to say that if you had $8.00 and chose to spend it on \”Meet the Spartans\” over \”Juno,\” \”There Will Be Blood,\” or \”No Country for Old Men,\” you should be eligible for a government-subsidized lobotomy.

So obviously, stupid people are drawn to this movie like moths to a flame. And the studio is more than willing to take their money. So my question is this: Who is looking out for the morons?

The nation\’s economy is about to go in the tank because of the housing crisis – mostly caused by people who were unaware of the terms of their mortgages. Apparently they were absent in math class the day math was taught. In any event, banks are being vilified for \”preying\” on these simpletons – for offering them the chance to own a home, which they couldn\’t do under the terms of a standard mortgage.

I see no difference between that situation and \”Meet the Spartans.\” Hollywood throws out nauseating garbage like meat to the wolves and rips stupid people off. Americans (mostly young, I would hope) spent $18 million to see this trash, when they could have been saving up for college. Actually, scratch that – I can\’t say that with a straight face. The kids seeing this movie aren\’t setting foot near a college campus.

I just hope everyone has the same animus toward movie studios as they do mortgage bankers, for stealing money from these people. There are no good guys in this story.

This post also gives me the chance to display this, which is kind of funny:

It appears the Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee is a little strapped for cash these days, so they have to cut $3 million from their budget.

I have to say, this is a little spiritually unsettling. You don’t normally think of religions as having to deal with the normal constraints of modern day life – after all, God created the world – you’d think the bank might cut him a little slack. (Or God could try the old \”mail the phone bill to the gas company and vice versa\” trick that worked so well in college.) So it\’s hard to think of something so sacred and powerful having to deal with real people problems. It\’s like recognizing that Natalie Portman occasionally has to poop. Anyway.

Seeing as how the Church is in charge of my post-life accommodations, I thought I\’d pitch in and offer a few cost-saving techniques to help them out:

1. Eternal salvation now accompanied by $20 processing fee;

2. Number of times you’re allowed to take the Lord’s name in vain capped to rate of inflation;

3. Partial insertion no longer a mortal sin;

4. Confession now accompanied by two-drink minimum requirement;

5. Smaller rosaries, quicker penance;

6. Archbishop hat size reduced by 30%;

7. Fire in; brimstone out;

8. Guilt-free Thursdays;

9. Members of the same sex can marry, as long as they’re not gay;

10. Communion now features Thunderbird fortified wine;

11. Baptize three kids at once, get the fourth free;

12. God orders sub-prime mortgage loan on the Vatican forgiven;

13. 15% tax on bad comedian jokes about growing up in Catholic household;

14. Catholic schoolgirl uniform must be returned by strippers after third use;

15. Basilica renamed the \”Hooters\’ Christ Hut;\”

16. Details of Vatican scheme to control the world\’s money supply sold to the Weekly World News for $100;

17. Coveting neighbor\’s wife legal with the purchase of any two Pope Benedict pilates videos.

That\’s it. That\’s the list.

As a \”thank you,\” the Church may now begin paying me my long-overdue Altar Boy pension. I spent years ringing those damn bells, it\’s payback time.

UPDATE: As it turns out, this post belongs in the \”Bad Timing Hall of Fame,\” given today\’s revelations about past priest behavior in Milwaukee. Nothing funny about any of the documents released.

Last weekend, I ventured out to see the outstanding \”There Will Be Blood\” at the local moving picture house. The movie depicts the travails of ruthless oil baron Daniel Plainview around the turn of the century. Interestingly, the theater broke out in guffaws when it was revealed that Plainview\’s character hailed from Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. As everyone knows, Fondy has a strong reputation as a breeding ground for homicidal oil barons.

It was just a few weeks before, in the movie \”Juno,\” that I heard a song by Kimya Dawson (\”Tire Swing\”) that mentioned Madison. Again, muffled chuckles within the theater.

These two movies, of course, have both been nominated for Best Picture Oscars this year. And both, apparently, have some sort of spiritual connection to Wisconsin.

Of course, it could just entirely be coincidence. But it does seem that over the years, Wisconsin has gotten some pretty notable shout-outs in big movies. This includes the highest-grossing movie of all time, \”Titanic,\” where Leo DiCaprio\’s character claims to hail from Chippewa Falls.

It\’s apparent that there\’s something about Wisconsin that appeals to screenwriters. It almost seems that Wisconsin represents \”the place people are supposed to be from that represents their simple upbringing.\” Being from Wisconsin is supposed to tell us something about a character without the screenwriter having to go into detail about the person\’s past.

Okay, so I\’ll just go off the top of my head here – a character in the British movie \”Love Actually\” takes a random flight to Milwaukee to score chicks. In \”Reservoir Dogs,\” one of the back stories involves a guy who\’s a big Milwaukee Brewers fan, so the characters deduce he\’s from Wisconsin. The movie \”A Simple Plan\” was filmed in Ashland, but I can\’t recall if the movie is actually set there.

Before I blow a brain vessel, it looks like OnMilwaukee.com noticed the same thing a couple years back. Here\’s a more complete list of Wisconsin on the silver screen.

Seeing as how this blog is now the repository (or suppository, depending on how you view it) of all the Legislature\’s crazy constituent letters, let\’s keep the mojo going. From January 23rd of this year:

Dear Wisconsin Legislators:

Wisconsin is the home of the greatest consumer fraud in the history of American marketing. The Wisconsin governors and legislators were partners in this horrible crime. Over a trillion dollars has been stolen from the American motoring public. False advertising and misrepresentation was the successful factor.

The chemical responsible, dicoco dimethyl ammonium chloride, was developed and manufactured in Janesville, Wisconsin. No chemical company was able to duplicate it. Our company worked with the chemists who invented it at Varney Chemical Company in the early 1960’s. Now owned by Degussa Chemical and very recently sold to Econik Company. Our company is very familiar with the history as we were directly involved.

The product is a drying agent that causes beading with kerosene. Butyl cellosolve, a deadly chemical is added for blending. One of many deadly chemicals sprayed on the public in car washes.

Our company refused to sell it as a wax although it became popular through a Wisconsin chemical company who called it spray wax. It sold for 50 cents and a wash sold for only 69 cents. It stormed the national industry without any warnings.

We entered the market with our Carnauba Wax called HOT WAX™. Shortly after we captured the market, Turtle Wax entered with a brush wax charging the public 4 times our product with their kerosene product. The brush failed to work so Turtle Wax continued its high price kerosene calling it polish wax.

The public bought it in large numbers through false advertising because of the Turtle Wax name. They dominated the paste wax market for many years. The key ingredient in the paste wax was Carnauba Wax.

Carnauba Wax is dielectric, which means it prevents rusting. Today Turtle Wax makes the most money selling kerosene. A judge ruled they must add, “does not contain Carnauba Wax” to their advertisings.

A federal judge, in our company’s case, against Turtle Wax embarrassed our company’s lawyers by screaming that they threw spaghetti on his wall. Because of this remark no lawyer would take any of our cases against car wash criminals. The judge put us out of business.

Criminals had no fear of cheating the public. They have gone wild stealing over a trillion dollars from the public in car washes. Many businesses are now using the car wash as promotion for a large number of consumer frauds. Huge companies and large marketers have entered the market.

If we had an honest government this would not have happened. Please challenge any of my statements. Wisconsin Administrators and Legislators owe the American people the trillions of dollars stolen from them because they supported and promoted this huge crime.

There are volumes of data available for your review to substantiate our statements
Crime always continues when governments profit. If you do not act now – this crime will never stop. You owe it to the children and families who are sprayed with these deadly chemicals.

As a citizen of Wisconsin we herby demand that you immediately act to protect the public and stop acting in favor of the criminals.

Truly yours,

Name Withheld

Certainly, you have heard the parable about the boiled frog. The story alleges that a frog can be boiled alive if the water is heated slowly enough. It is said that if a frog is placed in boiling water, it will jump out, but if it is placed in cold water that is slowly heated, it will never jump out.

I\’m not sure if this is true, but then again I\’ve never been able to test it. My second-grade teacher made it very clear to me that I shouldn\’t conduct any more animal experiments after I tested my ill-fated \”Can the class hamster survive on a week-long diet of Skittles and Mr. Pibb?\” hypothesis.

Anyway, the point of the boiling frog parable is that radical change scares people and doesn\’t work. Turn up the heat on them slowly and they\’ll never notice.

Government understands this. Income tax and Social Security taxes are withheld from your paycheck. You never even had your money in your hand so you never miss it.

And when the government wants to spend more of your money on something, it\’s always presented as, \”for just nickels a day, we can have an awesome light rail system everyone will, like, totally use.\”

Furthermore, we get all giggly when government sends us our refund checks in spring, even though that is just the government equivalent of getting your change back from the clerk after buying a stick of beef jerky with a five dollar bill.

So why are our pots starting to bubble? It\’s because a whole heckuva lot of people out there think the government should be doing everything for everyone.

Here\’s an example: school breakfasts. 50 years ago, it would have been unthinkable that the school would be feeding kids their morning meal. Today, we\’re crowing because we just handed out 4 million more free school breakfasts this year than we did last year. Since it\’s the school\’s responsibility to make sure some kids eat breakfast and lunch, can dinner be far behind? The logical extension of this nanny-statism ends with the lunchlady knocking at my grandkid\’s door with a pudding cup for his midnight snack. Yeah, yeah, nobody wants kids to go hungry, but is it really so outrageous to suggest that parents be responsibly for feeding their own kids?

So we have a situation where government is doing for people what people should be doing for themselves and the taxpayers footing the bill are barely noticing. We\’re inching toward full-fledged socialism without even realizing it.

There is only one solution to reverse the trend – we need to change the law to make it so we have to pay all of our taxes at once. And when I say \”all taxes\” I mean all taxes. Federal. State. Local. Income. Sales. Property. Alcohol. Smokes. No withholding. All at once.

You made $40,000 this year? You owe $15,000 in one shot. Pay up. Your family income is $100,000? Your check for $38,000 is due right now. You\’re a pack-a-day smoker too? Better tack on another $650.

Your giant tax bill is due one week before the general election.

Imagine if that is how we did it. Heads would explode. The beauty of having to pay taxes this way is that it would sure get the conversation started about how much is enough when it comes to government spending.

Maybe it IS worth millions each year for state government to consistently overpay for a ton of land to keep it out of the hands of private owners. Maybe it IS worth county government to have union employees who primarily cut grass to be on the payroll in February. Maybe the $16 billion we pay NASA to keep an eye Uranus for us is worth it. But maybe it ain\’t. I\’m even willing to have the debate on stuff I think we should spend a ton of money on, like national defense.

If this pay-it-all-at-once plan doesn\’t get us to jump out of pots, nothing will.

My wife has devised a scheme to get me to watch the kids more often – apparently, the more she watches them, the more likely this is to happen:

That\’s right – after his big win in South Carolina this weekend, it appears that my children are swept up in Obama Mania. Probably not the \”youth vote\” that he\’s counting on. But this tactic just might be enough for me to offer to watch them more often – to set them straight.

On the other hand, if Obama can get them to eat their macaroni and cheese, he might just get my vote.

It appears that the decision of Christopher Hitchens (my favorite contrarian) to quit smoking originated here in Madison, Wisconsin:

In an interview with the Financial Times published last week, Hitchens casually announced he\’d quit smoking: \”I got up yesterday morning in Madison, Wisconsin, and I just threw my pack away,\” he said. New leaf for the new year? Turns out the interview took place last fall; he actually kicked the habit in October and has been smoke-free for three months.

How? \”Fear,\” he told us. \”I had smoked enough in my life.\”

Actually, we find out from his wife what his real reason was:

Why? \”He wants to live,\” said his wife, Carol Blue. \”Live to see his political enemies defeated.\”

THAT I can appreciate.