Witz Pickz: Oats, Boats, Moats, and MORE

Some of you more clever and involved readers might notice that today is Friday. What's more, you might notice that I haven't posted since Monday, which is to say, "In a few days." In the last 3 days, I have driven the monster drive from Seattle to Palo Alto, where I will now live for the next year. In fact, I drove down in one fell swoop, the 13.5 hour Extended DVD version of the Drive (not to be confused with the short lived tv show "Drive" which lasted about 3 episodes and involved lots of driving-- although my drive ALSO involved lots of driving, Nathan Fillion was far less involved, which made it significantly less full of witty banter) which was both glorious and exhausting. But you know what they say, "after the first 12 hours, you really get your second wind and barely notice the last 1.5." How specific a saying! The big news here is simply that I defeated mapquest and google maps. They spoke of a 13.5 hour drive, which I beat by a ten minutes (it was actually 13 hours: 20 minutes here), and included three short breaks for stretching and gas, and one 20 minute opening credits detour through Seattle when the hood of my car popped open (the latch thankfully held) and I had to pull off the highway in order to...well...not die horribly. But now I'm here, alive and well, finally feeling good, and with a bunch of pickz to present to you. Here they are:

Barbara's Shredded Oats: Purchased for $3.23 at Trader Joe's, these little suckers come in a large box and actually taste really really good. I can't explain it, but the texture and taste are perfect, and they're good for you, which is nice. More so, I really enjoy the idea of Barbara sitting at home watching her "stories" and shredding oats into a big pile while yelling, "When will you learn that he won't treat you right!" at the television. Barbara also has the cereal "Puffins", which thankfully, are not shredded.

Boats: and airplanes for that matter. Has it occurred to anyone that we have created vehicles that are able to FLOAT IN WATER AND TRANSPORT PEOPLE ACROSS THE OCEAN and FLY THROUGH THE AIR AT RIDICULOUS SPEEDS??? Because recently those facts occurred to me and blew my mind. What arrogant fools we are! Wilbur and Other Guy Wright (this is the epitome of my education-- I remember about half of all historical and scientific facts, making them mostly useless, but certainly mildly present. I am able to prove that I did, in fact, go to school and know about the Wright Brothers, but would be entirely incapable of holding a legitimate conversation about them. Same goes for, "Oh, I know how to make this bubble up-- just mix baking soda with--.....) were cocky bastards, but I'm sure, if they saw what we do now they'd say, "Oh my, well we didn't mean for you to fly hundreds of people in ENGINE based planes across MASSIVE CONTINENTS! That's a bit much, no?"

Moats: I guess I just like moats a lot because first people built something of worth such as a village or castle. Then other people wanted to go to that place and/or take it over. Then said towns/castlefolk decided they didn't want those other admirers/aggressors in their location, so they BUILT A GIANT HOLE IN THE GROUND AROUND THE ENTIRE THING! And then, after they did that? They FILLED IT WITH WATER! I love it. I just want to see the reaction they got the first time some guy at a meeting brought up:

-Well, what if we build a hole around us? We can use like, a retractable board to come and go.
-What, like, made of balsawood?
-I dunno, oak perhaps?
-That sounds sturdy.
-And what of the porcullis? Can we keep that?
-Of course we can, the porcullis is inexplicably awesome.
-But what of this hole? It sounds difficult.
-Who will dig this hole?
-And won't it be expensive?
-And what if the tide rises?
-.......

And then moats existed.

Some bands to check out:

The Blue Scholars - great hip hop out of Seattle. They have a brand new album, "Bayani" that you can probably get online.

The Blakes - great rock-ish group out of Seattle via a bunch of other cities including LA and Vancouver, BC. New album out now or soon.

Aiden - Goth punk group reminiscent of Alkaline Trio and currently Bayside. These guys have some good stuff worth checking out.

Beirut - I would call this my top musical pick of the bunch. Beirut sounds like a drunken orchestra striding through the streets playing the soundtrack to their own march out of tragedy and depression. The lead singer said that he wanted his vocals to sound like he may or may not be drunk (probably because that was the case), and in a local live radio performance from SXSW, the lead guy is very cool and friendly. Check em out.

Returning With Consistency Soon,
Witz