The first new Duncan lookalike in a while…

Many people have discovered this already. Not me, until today: see Yacht Rock, the only internet comedy show about Steely Dan, Jeff Baxter, The Doobie Brothers and The Eagles. The last episode is v. funny.

Goddammit!

The mouse has eaten the peanut butter but the traps didn't go off! Tarnation!

On tonight's CSI: Miami: a rapper has been shot during a gig. Callie to Horatio: "You know rap?" Horatio: "No, but I know rap sheets, and what's a felony." Genius.

In other news, I had something of a driving baptism of fire this evening. Having decided not to drive Elizabeth to the airport this evening (wedding in New Jersey) on the grounds that I was still having trouble not veering over to the right hand side of the lane, I packed Elizabeth off to the bus, but shortly afterwards received a panicky phonecall. Turns out the airport bus had been mobbed by local schoolchildren, who had broken the doors and windows and the bus engine, then run away (oh, our lovely neighbourhood). While seven police cars arrived and arrested a twelve-year-old who was not involved, I drove 20 blocks to pick up Elizabeth (plus another girl who had been stranded on her way to the airport), dropped them off and drove all the way back again. Not only did I feel slightly heroic, but I didn't hit any parked cars or anything!

Right, back to loading my CD collection onto my *new iPod*.

Tourism, Kazakhstani style

I just saw the television ad created by the Kazakh tourist board to encourage us to holiday in their fine country. In between shots of rivers, people on horses, and bits of steppe, the commercial-makers have helpfully included a shot of Kazakhstani President Nazarbayev chatting amiably with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. One presumes that the message to tourists is "Look, the Russians like us! -- they won't be cutting off our energy supplies during your stay!" I for one feel reassured. Or perhaps I'm over-reading things -- it may be that there just wasn't enough picturesque footage of Kazakhstan to fill a 30-second commercial. After all, the Lonely Planet guide to the country does begin: "If you're not a fan of endless semi-arid steppe and decaying industrial cities, Kazakhstan may seem bleak […]."

Dinner Theatre and Tractor Rides

I've been meaning all week to write about our apple-picking trip last weekend. At this rate, the apples we picked will be gone before I have a chance to write about it. No, actually, that's a lie. We still have two huge bags of apples in the dining room, even after considerable apple-eating efforts, a large apple pie, and the removal of a further large quantity of apples for a prospective "Cherry–Apple Pandowdy," whatever that may be.

Anyway, last weekend Jeff Rufo, who is just leaving the U of C journal Critical Inquiry as Manuscript Editor, organized an apple-picking trip to Wisconsin as his leaving party. Elizabeth has been working for CI over the summer, so I got to go along as her plus-one. Luckily I knew most people, since all my friends seem to work for CI too. Having sat in traffic for almost three hours, owing to roadworks on the Interstate, we arrived at Apple Holler, where our apples were to be picked. This turned out to be a pretty amazing place -- kind of an apple theme park (incidentally, I hope it's still there after the huge storms we've had this week. Lots of the trees on campus have gone (plus Dave's girlfriend's apartment was flooded!)). Sure, there were apples (and pumpkins) to be picked. But who needs to do that? Instead, we could feed the goats on the "Golden Goat Bridge" (a high, narrow walkway full of goats, up to which one could winch food via a primitive pulley mechanism), make our own toffee-apples, or listen to free musical entertainment from a surly busker doing reggae covers of Crowded House songs. That is, when he wasn't loudly berating six-year-olds for making too much noise during his set ("If you don't want to listen, go home! There's plenty of people who do!"). Or, we could buy all kinds of farm food, like a beer tankard made out of cheese, or a rice-crispie cake covered in chocolate dyed blue and iced with the Chicago Bears logo. Actually, we settled for Polish sausage, cider and toffee-apples. Had we stayed longer, we could have seen Apple Holler's renowned mystery dinner theatre, but we chose not to.

After an hour or so, we finally got to the apples, which are actually very nice indeed -- although, as I say, we have bags of them, owing to the fact that we weren't allowed to purchase less than twenty-five dollars' worth. The only down-side is that I was bitten by some strange midwestern creature (most likely a spider, apparently), so my arm swelled up in a slightly scary way all Sunday and Monday, and still hasn't entirely gone down. That's just the price you pay for kitschy farmyard-themed apple-picking, I guess.

TV's greatest mystery …

… solved. Well, maybe second-greatest. Third-greatest. Top-ten?