The Bathtub

KELLYq & a: Songs of Love

As Tori alluded in her long-ass theme announcement, Phylan and I met Ben Folds one time. We met him on Mother's Day of 2005, and it was AWESOME.

***ALERT: MAJOR BEN FOLDS-RELATED GEEK-OUT IMMINENT***

It was my first time seeing Ben Folds live, and I have adored the band ever since I was 12 and Jon Liener from my bus gave me a mix tape with Ben on it. I borrowed them and was immediately hooked. It was one of the best concerts I had ever been to; he played every song I wanted to hear and did it very well. I felt like I couldn't leave the place without meeting him, and Phylan was equally excited, so we waited and waited and waited until he finally emerged from the place. I met him, and was so atwitter I absolutely froze. I realized that in all my waiting and shivering (it was cold for May) I hadn't thought of anything I wanted to say to him at all.
If I could go back and give myself some advice, I would have...

Too Much Information: Fear of Pop

First of all, a note about my song selection: I don't really have a favorite Ben Folds song, and I don't think I've ever even heard this particular one, but I'm interpreting "My Favorite Song By Ben Folds" as an abbreviation of the real theme, "My Favorite Song by Ben Folds, Based on That Song's Ability to Give Me an Idea for Something to Write About This Week."  If you think that's cheating, then maybe you should know that Ben Folds also has a song called "Dog," a song that would have been a perfect excuse to post more pictures of my puppy, which I am ignoring despite the fact that I have many cute puppy pictures to share, so in reality you should probably be pretty impressed with my restraint.

Now, on to my post.

E-Bathing: Battle of Who Could Care Less

I win this battle because I'm not posting for real. I'm really tired and cranky, and in no mood to string together coherent sentences about crap I found on Ebay.

Nerdish Leanings: Bastard

When Tori announced the theme for this week, I was absolutely gob-smacked. I had received my comeuppance for my previous crapulence. A few months back, you may recall a week of blog posts vaguely related to "Growth of the Soil," by Knut Hamsun. Everybody complained about it at first, but those plucky tubtributors grit their teeth, buckled down, did a little research, and wrote some kick-ass posts. That's why, this week, I've decided to swallow my pride and write about...

Theme for the Week of 10/29: My Favorite Song By Ben Folds

In my current line of work as a social scientist, I often ponder the representativeness of samples.  (This is not entirely dissimilar from pondering the fairness of kickball teams, something I often did in my previous line of work as a gym teacher.)  Anyway, were I asked whether the Tubtributors constitute a representative sample of the American populus, I would be forced to say no.  We overrepresent a lot of demographics.  A preponderance of us are hilarious, white alcoholics residing in major metripolitan areas on the east coast.  We're overeducated, overprivileged, and overly self-indulgent.  And, as a group, we like Ben Folds a whole lot more than does your average group 11 people and a robot.

I really like Ben Folds.  When he came to Cornell in '03, it was very important to me that I got good seats, so I tried to camp out for tickets with my friends.  (It ended up being too cold to actually camp "out," so we camped "in" - inside a heated ATM booth near the ticket office.  But this doesn't render our fanaticism any less hard-core.)  Anyway, I'm not the only Folds-loving Tubtrib.  Judging by Phylan's phacebook photo, he and KELLYq are total BFFs with Ben.  And I would guess that the average number of Folds concerts attended by a Tubtributor is greater than the average number of children birthed into an American family.

Thus, we're celebrating Ben this week.  But not in some sort of obnoxious manner that would render our posts inaccessible to the common man.  Ben wouldn't like that.  Instead, everyone will be titling their post with the title of a song by Ben Folds.  Post content need not deal with Ben in the slightest.  Post content simply need be related to the title of a song written (or covered) by Ben Folds (and/or Ben Folds Five).

And, for the record, posts titled with disc titles (that are not also song titles) will not receive full credit.  Especially if the title in question is "Naked Baby Photos."  Wouldn't want to turn this into a smutfest.       

Men in Cages: Men in Long Hairdos

When my brother was a wee one, he was affectionately known as Bryan Brantley Bald.  This moniker was appropriate, given the extreme dearth of hair atop my young brother’s head. 

Brother was not unique in this respect.  Few members of my family enter toddlerhood with more than a strand or two decorating their scalp.  I myself was nearly devoid of hair for many of my formative years.  But, alas, Victoria Noelle Bald lacks the pleasant allerterative bounce that Bryan Brantley Bald has going for it; thus brother got the clever nickname and I was just “that kid who vaguely resembles a cancer patient.”

Emily's Trivia Quiz: Mom and Dad You Made Me So Uptight, I'm Gonna Cuss on the Mike Tonight

My family is surprisingly normal.  (I know, they produced me, so it really shouldn't be possible.)  But our little nuclear family is shockingly banal, so my angst full teenage years had roughly zero angst.  I didn't go away to college very far because I had nothing to really escape from.  The only reason I can possibly claim I lived a deprived childhood is because we didn't have cable till I was 16 (watched a lot of PBS instead) and we never had a dog (so I'm living vicariously through Lauren).  So, when I need to find something crazy and sad, and I've already read the newspaper that day,  I turn to reading all sorts of books about dysfunctional families.  More satisfying than Lifetime movies and more exciting than my life, these books are the best way to feel great about your childhood.  Especially if your parents are nice people, you never had to worry about anything, you went to great schools, and overall had a pretty fantastic childhood (read: I will not win the pity race when I run for president).  Let's see if you know your dysfunctional literary families in this fun quiz.

YouTub: Tyra Banks is endorsed for a leadership position in this post

I always knew that, one day, this blog would present an opportunity for me to post a clip from Tyra. Unfortunately it's on when I'm supposed to be at a job pretending to do stuff, so I never get to see it, but I was introduced to Tyra herself thanks to a certain Tubtributor enjoying the godawful shitheap that is America's Next Top Model. I'm convinced she's the most obnoxious person alive, and possibly the dumbest person who manages to still somehow seem pretentious, but these are theories for another post. The point for this post is that she thought it would be a good idea to put a crazy racist family on her show and feed their kids some painfully obvious scripted lines to hammer home the horror of it all.

Reasonable Doubt: Best National Anthem Ever?

The last time I included an chat with one of my friends as a post, I think it worked out really well.  It turns out that me and Matt are scraping the bottom of the barrel of human decency semi-regularly, so what ensues is another chat, with emails and other nonsense interspersed.  I swear to you, the only things I've changed from the original chat are for readability's sake (spelling, grammar, and the like), and for anonymity's sake.  Enjoy.

At 2:53, I sent an email to a thread with all of my college buddies.  It includes all of the people who get named in this chat.

Subject:  Best National Anthem Ever?

The entire email was a link to this video:

The Obese Omtubsman: Beauty and the Week

They say that beauty is only skin deep.  Of course, that would mean that my beauty is ample in bounty, for you see, I am really enormously fat, which means  my skin is quite literally deeper than the skin of most men.  In the more rotund parts of my body, my skin has been measured to be around 7.5 inches deep.

But my tremendously deep skin aside, here's what I thought about last week's posts: