Archive for the ‘Life and Such’ Category

20 May

Keep cool, mah babies: Conan live!

Posted by Allison | Squirrel Thoughts in Funny Things That Happen To Me, Life and Such.

As any self-respecting Squirrel Thoughts fan knows, Conan O’Brien is my hero, and seeing his show last week in Denver means I’ve crossed off one of the more important items on my “must do to make life complete” list.

Before seeing Conan live, I’d say my life was around 76 percent complete. Following the amazing experience I will now detail for you in (low quality) photos, I’d say the percentage has climbed to about 97.

(And I do sincerely apologize that these pictures aren’t better. My point-and-shoot camera sucks, especially in less than ideal lighting. But you can take comfort knowing that my actual experience was much better than the photos convey.)

The highlights:


Conan’s opening act. If you had to think of the last place this guy would be from, would you say… Montana? Because you’d be wrong. He randomly busted out an “I’m from Montana!” in the middle of his act, immediately met with cheers from myself and a surprising number of fellow audience members. Reggie Watts, represent.

Conan following the NBC/Jay Leno douchebags fiasco. Understandably depressed, he resorted to growing a beard and fattening up on Dorito/Crisco smoothies. The only way to recover from such a condition, really.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Conan’s first appearance on stage! Though it’s hard to believe, he looked even taller and string-beanier in person!

Conan unveils the show’s “spectacular, budget-blowing stunt.” Yep, that’s exactly what you think it is — the inflatable bat from Meatloaf’s 1978 Bat Out of Hell Tour!

So majestic. So regal.

Upon realizing how ridiculous it is, Conan immediately orders the bat be deflated.

One of the most awesomest aspects of the live show was Conan bringing back many of the characters and skits from his late-night gigs. Except that because of the aforementioned NBC douchebags, he doesn’t own the rights to them. So, though we had to say goodbye forever to the “intellectual property” that is the Masturbating Bear, we met a new, equally beloved character: the Self-Pleasuring Panda! (Which is just the Masturbating Bear with a new head. Take that, NBC!)

Speaking of NBC douchebags– er, I mean an “unnamed network CEO” — someone from the company dropped by to stroke his kitty and let everyone know that his channel has moved all the way up to No. 17 in the rankings since Conan left! Spoiler alert: The cat dies.

Conan rocking out on guitar.

Conan rocking out in the lavender paisley leather suit Eddie Murphy wore during his 1988 tour.

Triumph the Insult Comic Dog!

The audience persuades Conan to kiss band member La Bamba. He was secretly into it.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get pictures of the best part of the show — when Conan brought out the Walker Texas Ranger Lever. I was simply laughing too hard to take photos. (Though they laughed, the people sitting next to me were definitely not as into the whole thing as I was. I would have felt sorry for them if there were any acceptable reason for this.)

Do not fret though, dear readers, as the WTRL clips that originally aired on Late Nite are available on everyone’s favorite video-sharing site! The links, listed in order from favorite to most favoritest of all:

  • Dad scars son for life
  • The one where Walker aka Chuck Norris jumps from a helicopter into a convertible and punches the lady driving it in the face (I scoured the Internets for a clip of this one and just could not find it. So unfortunate.)
  • Haley Joel Osment’s ultimate non sequitur (though I probably shouldn’t have to, let me clarify: I do not think AIDS is funny. It’s the fact that it comes out of nowhere and Conan’s subsequent reaction that make it funny. So just keep cool, mah babies!)

By the time Conan (and Andy!) got through the last clip, I could hardly breathe, I was laughing so hard. Because nothing says comedy like child abuse, lady punching and incurable disease!

I did manage to pull it together in time for the return of …

Pancake! Oh, wait, wrong photo. But aren’t her wittle furry bunny feets the cutest thing you’ve ever seen?!

OK, let’s try that again: I did manage to pull it together in time for the return of …

The bat! (I thought the bat and his “teeth that look like flags from a used car lot” were really, really funny; I apologize if you don’t understand my obsession with it.)

Conan wraps it up with one last song. If I had been down one more row, I would have been able to reach out and high-five him when he ran through the audience. That’s OK though — it was still one of the greatest nights EVER!

13 Apr

Cuckoo for Coco!

Posted by Allison | Squirrel Thoughts in Life and Such, Other.

As I’m sure you probably guessed, I’m pretty excited about Conan’s November return to late-night television. I was a little surprised to hear his show will be on TBS, since I didn’t think that channel actually produced any shows of its own (though I won’t complain about unlimited “Seinfeld,” “The Office” and “Family Guy” reruns). But hey, it’s one of the few channels offered through our extremely basic cable that isn’t C-SPAN/home shopping/Jesus related, so I’ll take it!

Me too, guy in the mildly frightening face mask. Me too.

And before any of you devil’s-advocate types (ahem: Zach) get started on that “but isn’t Conan doing the same thing to George Lopez that Jay did to him” BS, you should know that Lopez personally called Conan last week to encourage him to make the deal, and he is “completely 100 percent on board with this move.” That may just be PR spiel, but having Conan as his lead-in will do nothing but help Lopez, and he knows it. So don’t even start.

And I’m pretty happy about the 11 p.m. start time on the coasts, which (I think) means that it will start at 10 p.m. in the Mountain time zone. As I approach the quarter-century mark, it’s getting harder and harder to stay up past 10:30 or 11. (When my insomnia doesn’t strike, that is, though that tends to happen around 4 a.m. these days. I’m sure you care.) If the show starts at 10, I will be better able to devote myself to watching Coco four nights a week.

I’m also glad the time slot will give Conan a head start on Chin-Who-Will-Not-Be-Named’s show, so Coco can dominate the ratings and his lesser counterpart will crawl into a hole somewhere and die (what can a say — I’m bitter and hold grudges). However, it’s become quite clear that most Americans are bona fide idiots (derrr, typos and stupid people on the street are soooo funny, har har!) and that will never happen. A girl can dream, though.

26 Mar

Let the real madness begin!

Posted by Allison | Squirrel Thoughts in Life and Such.

This week, the real madness, aka marathon training, began. It’s about 16 weeks until the Missoula Marathon on July 11, and I am ready to go! I even watched the documentary “Spirit of the Marathon” last weekend to get an extra boost of motivation (I highly recommend it to anyone training for a race, and you can get it via NetFlix.)

I truly hope my marathon insanity doesn’t come to this, but I can’t make any promises.

When I ran the MM last year, it was my first, so my goal was simply to finish. This year, I want to qualify for the Boston Marathon, which means I have to run the 26.2 miles about 15 minutes faster than last time.

That’s about 20 seconds per mile, so I’ll have to train pretty hard to make it happen, and the race itself is going to hurt a lot more, I’m sure. And I’ll probably have more of my toenails turn black and fall off. (I got by with just two last time.) I’ll also have to run more 20-milers before the race, each followed by a frigid plunge into an ice bath, to (somewhat) appease the next day’s soreness. And my stomach will turn into a bottomless pit, never quite satisfied with the amount of food I shove into it.

So, all this basically  means I’m going to have to be that much crazier to pull this off. You probably didn’t think that was possible — fortunately for you, I haven’t even scratched the surface of my insanity on this blog.

But I know that — even though marathon training like having a second exhausting and somewhat painful job — when I cross that finish line after running as hard as I can for three hours and 40 minutes, it will all be worth it.

11 Mar

My life will be complete after May 10, 2010

Posted by Allison | Squirrel Thoughts in Funny Things That Happen To Me, Life and Such.

Sometimes, my friends, the stars align, and something amazing happens.

I spent most of yesterday coughing, sneezing and generally just feeling yucky, so when I woke up this morning not feeling much better, I called in sick to work.

Now, had I sucked it up and gone in — as I’m usually inclined to do because I have some sort of weird Catholic guilt complex despite not growing up Catholic — I may have actually been working around 9 a.m. Instead, I was lying in bed with my computer, sifting through my RSS feed, when I came across the sweetest sight mine eyes have seen:

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And in case you’re not quite sure how excited I am about this:

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I kind of freaked out and purchased a ticket to his Denver show, since LD lives there, before realizing he’s also going to Spokompton, which is much closer and would be much less expensive to get to, but oh well! I’M GOING TO SEE CONAN!! LIVE!! IN PERSON!! ON MAY 10!!!! OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG!!! OMG!!! OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!

Because of this, what started out as a less-than-stellar day has turned into a pretty good one. Does that mean I have to go into work now?

22 Feb

Keep Missoula … original?

Posted by Allison | Squirrel Thoughts in Life and Such.

“Keep Missoula weird.” Since I keep seeing bumper stickers and getting Facebook requests in support of this slogan, I have to express my opposition.

Now, I love Missoula, and a lot of that has to do with it being “weird” compared to its counterparts. There’s no arguing that it’s the least “Montana” town in the state. You’ll still find a handful of cowboy hat wearers roaming the city — this is Montana, after all — but they’re definitely outnumbered by hippies riding bikes with their one pant leg rolled up (I still don’t understand the point of that, BTW) or leashing up their pet goats for a stroll along the Kim Williams Trail. (Yes, I actually saw that when I was running once. I thought they were strange-looking dogs at first.)

You’re better than this, Missoula.

There’s no doubt the Zoo has earned its weird designation. But I refuse to adopt the “Keep Missoula weird” slogan, because it’s a stolen one. Perhaps that’s not common knowledge here (though I find that hard to believe these days, with the Internets and whatnot), but it originated in Austin, for many of the same reasons it fits Missoula.

I first heard of the slogan when I spent several weeks in the Texas capital a few summers ago as part of an internship residency. Austin is to Texas what Missoula is to Montana (OK, it’s probably the other way around, but same diff), and it definitely fits the bill as weird. Especially compared with the rest of Texas (or so I hear — I’m sort of afraid to experience “the rest of Texas”).

So to me, using the stolen slogan just because it “works” defies the very cause it’s perpetuating, to “keep Missoula weird.” Maybe this is part of a larger scheme by someone trying to capitalize on the slogan’s popularity in Austin (apparently Boulder, Portland and Louisville have adopted the slogan, too, and I can’t imagine it’s not copyrighted), but I still don’t like it. I’m all for keeping Missoula weird, but let’s try to keep it original, too.

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