Kurt & Karl von Steiger

When I first saw "Kurt & Karl von Steiger," I figured these guys were probably German war heroes of some sort (read: totally bad guys to me and my Jewish family). Fortunately, they are quite the opposite: Canadian tag-team pro wrestlers. But here's the thing--and it's interesting because the last post suffered from the same phenomenon--Kurt & Karl von Steiger are not real names. They are horribly-crafted pseudonyms. Huh?

Okay. They aren't horrible. These guys didn't start with much. Their real names are Lorne Corlett and Arnold Pastrick, so I guess I applaud them for creating the fake brother scenario. But, as someone with little to no pro wrestling knowledge, I find this stage name incredibly lame and non-threatening. They sound like twins who get dressed up in sailor suits and go to etiquette class and play with that Laura Ingalls Wilder-style hoop & stick game.

Based on their stupid name, do you think Macho Man Randy Savage would even flinch at the thought of fighting them? Maybe if he saw them. It might be a result of the times in which they were doin' their thang (the early '70s, when everyone had amazing 'staches and badass attitudes), but they actually did look pretty tough.

Okay, that's a lie. They looked like those old timey carnival strongmen which is actually more hilarious to me than any of the other fake wrestling around these days (particularly The Miz).

Even more hilarious, though? Their most notable feud over the years was with another tag-team duo known as The Royal Kangaroos. I mean, I get it. Kangaroo court, right? And these guys actually do look crazy tough. But listen, 'roos. Kangaroos are boxers. Get with the program.

Don Diablo

I'd never heard of Dutch recording artist and Esquire Best Dressed Man of 2007, Don Diablo*, until today, but it appears he's the most famous man in the Netherlands (you know, where Dutch people are from).

It also appears he was the main inspiration when those hilarious little scamps crafted "J*zz in My Pants." Seriously. Some of his tracks sound like theirs, and he's often pictured wearing a super tight suit & accessories most easily found at your local H&M. If I were him, I'd be pretty jazzed that even though I'm not famous in the States, I've been parodied by some of its more relevant humorists.

You know what, though? I bet he is famous here and I just don't know it. It's not like I spend my weekends waiting in line to go dance my heart out and look supes awesome at the hottest clubs in Chicago. I barely even know today's Top 40 hits let alone what's spinning on the world's dance floors. If I had to guess what went on there, I'd picture something like MTV's The Grind or Nickelodeon Roundhouse.

I mean, if this guy was voted best dressed, and MTV News made a documentary about his charitable efforts, and this crazy Falcor-lookin' thing wants to hang out with him, he's probably totally famous. I mean, his music isn't very good, but what Scandanavian music is really? And since when did one have to make good music to be famous anyway?

*PS: The "Don" is not like the title Don. His given name was actually Don. As in Donald. Like the Duck or the Trump. That deserves this.

Javan Scops Owl

Look. I know this isn't Fuck You, Penguin, or anything, but I'd really like to take this opportunity to give the Javan Scops Owl a piece of my mind for being so sad & whiny, rubbing my nose in his loneliness. He looks like a real passive aggressive fucker, doesn't he? "No, it's fine. I'll go to Party City and buy all the food and decorations. I'll clean the house. Don't worry about me. You just come to the party and have a good time. I don't want you to help me." But you want help, owl. You want help.

That's why he has no friends, you know. He doesn't even have any relatives. They all got sick of his shit and peaced out. It's right there on his Wikipedia page. The entire thing is two sentences and they both sound like they were written by a grandma that got no phone calls on her birthday:

The Javan Scops Owl (Otus angelinae) is a rare owl native to Indonesia. There are no sub-species.

That's it. That's all he gets! You know what, owl? You better shape up and stop it with the sad panda act. You're not even close to being as cute as a panda so you better just let your glowing personality shine through and find a girlfriend, or you'll be the last to carry the Javan Scops name. And what a lovely name it is.

Alec Issigonis

Aside from having a hard-to-pronounce last name, Sir Alexander Arnold Constantine Issigonis, Sir Alec* if you're nasty, is credited with the development of the coolest tiny car ever: the MINI.

Totally badass. It's the star of the Italian Job, for Pete's sake. As a tiny car owner, I have to bow down to the surprising masculinity MINI is able to pull off. Sure, my VW Cabrio is pretty cute in a daddy-bought-me-a-car-for-my-21st-birthday kind of way.** But I highly doubt you'd ever see MINI's Italian Job co-star Mark Wahlberg in one (surely Jason Statham and even intellectual rapper Mos Def would steer clear as well). Maybe this is why I can't get a dude. My car's too gay for any guy to picture himself in. Yeah...that's it.

At least my Cabrio is cooler than a Smart Car, right? We picked one of those up and moved it, Mentos commercial-style, when we were in Spain. Ay dios mio! And no matter what, I know my car is more acceptable than this Nano thing. Right? I mean, it only costs $2K, but it's creepy and, ostensibly, only available in India.

Okay, let's be honest. I kind of want one. I'm going to Mumbai in August, so I can pick a couple up. Marky Mark won't get in the car with me, but maybe it has enough exotic panache to help me snag the kid from Slumdog Millionaire. Or Anoop from American Idol. Or Jay Chandrasekhar (maybe just so I can give him a ZJ).

Fuck, I don't know why I'm assuming I can only pick up Indian guys with this thing. I should expand my options. Seth Green was in the Italian Job, but totally wasn't man enough to get near the MINI. Hmm. I did quite enjoy him in Can't Hardly Wait. Get out of my dreams, get in my Nano, Seth!

PS: Mark Wahlberg talks to animals. Just in case you forgot about this one.

*Just so we're all clear, let's not confuse Sir Alec with Count Alex, of Real Housewives of NYC fame (aka the only reason The Countess deLesseps has more class than you). God, I love those crazy broads.

**For the record, I bought the car myself when I was 25.

"Imagine That" (LL Cool J song)

First off, I have to admit that this still is not from the video for "Imagine That," the second single from LL Cool J's aptly acronymed album G.O.A.T. (Greatest of all Time to the layperson). It is indeed from the video for "Doin' It," and this image of LL is one of the only ones I've ever found attractive. Personally, I think he looks a little bit like a Muppet. All of his songs are about banging chicks or punching dudes yet I don't find him very good looking...except when he's eating that peach. As the stripper he's watching in this scene would probably say, "Daaaaaaaamn."

Despite his physical ickiness, I think he's managed to churn out some good work over the years. "Phenomenon" was on the first mix tape I made when I got my driver's license in '97 (accompanied by Marcy Playground, Spice Girls and many hot trax from the Space Jam soundtrack, but let's not get into that).

Sadly, though, I can't say I'd ever even heard "Imagine That" before today. It came out in June 2000, meaning it was hitting TRL just as we moved out of the dorms my freshman year of college. And, that summer, instead of watching MTV with my dormmates every day, I was working at a country club, where we played nonstop DMB, Guster, Dispatch and other yuppie hippie live sessions you'd hear in the Abercrombie store.

So. No slow jamz in the summer of '00 for me. Sorry LL. But I will listen to it now and appreciate lyrics like:

You could read the Iliad and the whole Odyssey
But no Trojan soldier scold you like me
Match the calculus then measure my frequency
But when you blast on my lap that's the highest degree

Wow. Now I know why the ladies love you, cool James. Listen to more stimulating lines & watch LL's lips say "Imagine That" 1200 times here.

PS: I would be remiss to post about LL Cool J without giving a shout out to a high school BMOC (big man on campus), Chris Dunn, who crafted his AOL screen name after LL. Yep, LLCD99 and I had some really deep IM convos back in the day. And yes, even the super popular kids were computer nerds at my school, I guess.

PPS: Also can't let a post related to goats (or G.O.A.T.s) slip by without telling you to go see "I Love You, Man," if only to hear my future husband Paul Rudd say. "Totally. Totes McGoats."

Runcinated tesseract

Here's some complicated shit. More or less, the four-dimensional runcinated tesseract is the love child of super-intense geometry and science fiction nut-jobbery. Like, for real. When I see "4D "it only means one thing to this Doc Brown-influenced mind: time travel. Since I'm no physicist and didn't fully understand this article, I pieced this term together as well as I could:

Runcinated: At first glance, "runcinated" looked like "truncated" (come to find out, they're closely related). In 7th grade math class, we origami'd some "truncated tetrahedrons" and it was supes kewl. For those of you who aren't math whizzes, a truncated tetrahedron is a pyramid with the top cut off. It's easier to make than a paper crane, but more complex than those childish fortune tellers.*

Tesseract: A freaky ass time warp dealie (technical term), from Madeleine L'Engle's crazy train (read: amazing) novel "A Wrinkle in Time." I read it in 4th or 5th grade and totally understood it, which is insane because just reading the plot summary now makes my head feel like I just ate a gallon of ice cream in 7 seconds.

Back home, there's also an art store (read: a dilapidated witch's house that happened to have some art supplies for sale) called Tesseract. I went there pretty much every week from 3rd-6th grade with the Vial girls and Katie Gattoni, and we spent our allowance on Fimo, neon lanyard plastic and embroidery floss. Then we'd attempt to sell our wares in front of the Mequon Pool. We made like $3.75.

This all makes me wish I'd taken some sort of math after high school calculus (stats doesn't count), so I could have a greater appreciation for this shape. Because if runcinated = top cut off and tesseract = time travel-capable witch's house, then, as far as I'm concerned, a runcinated tesseract is really just an elusive home in need of some roof repairs. WRONG.

Although that does seem like an image ripped straight from the pages of "A Wrinkle in Time." Guess that's why this all made so much sense to me when I was 10.

*By childish, I obviously mean we made two of them at the bar on Friday night and used them to spark up conversations with strangers. True story. Make your own now!

Quarter-life crisis

Disclaimer: This blog title sounds like something a whiny, woe-is-me, Sex-&-the-City-loving gal-on-the-town would write. "Boo hoo, I'm 23 and I'm not married." Cue the sad trombones. Well, it's not like that. Quarter-life crisis was a legit Wikroll. Deal with it.

In a nutshell, the QLC (that's really what they call it) is when young adults feel shitty because they're not totally awesome immediately after graduating college, so they either get super depressed...or get their shit together.

I first heard the term as a lyric in consummate douchebag John Mayer's 2001 single "Why Georgia?" At the time, I listened to that song and felt that he really got me. This is partly because I was about to graduate college and partly because I was one of the dum-dums who thought John Mayer was dreamy. (I'll be honest. When I interviewed him for the school paper back in '02, I pretty much thought everyone was jealous. They weren't.)

There was also a show about peeps hit with the QLC. "Quarterlife" was a web show that graduated to real TV for about 12 seconds. Then, it was tossed out on ass for not being totally awesome immediately after graduation. If that wasn't bad enough, it then heard that its ex was getting married...to a doctor. Typical.

Y'know, I don't really feel like QL warrants a C. Instead, I just take pride in my refusal to grow up, and so do my friends. Which is nice, because I don't think I ever want to see Skinny or Sheridan grow up from this and go through mid-life crises. They'd both look silly driving Miatas.

If we never get out of this anti-QLC lifestyle, we'll always stay at the 1/4 mark...and live forever, right? Sounds fun, until you think about the ending of "Death Becomes Her."* Then it's just depressing. Maybe I should have a QLC after all.

*This was my favorite movie when I was 11. Why was I watching such grownup things when I was in 6th grade? Maybe I'm not refusing to get old. I'm just aging backwards. That's some Benjamin Button shit.