A FURRY TRACTOR

Forget the charts and graphs…my parents have a new neighbor:

Dear SC Borough Police Department:  tranq gun, or roofies stuffed in a steak–your choice.

KYLE’S AWESOMENESS CAN’T FIT ON A CHART

Kyle, you are the Barack (or Hillary?) to my Rahm.  I am so proud to have such an incredible birthday twin, and there’s no one else I’d rather share a Barbie birthday cake with.

Kyle is swimming across the English Channel for charity, so make sure you check out his blog for updates and donate if you can.

Everyone else, I hope y’all enjoy this picture while it lasts.

I HAVE BETTER TASTE IN MOVIES THAN WALT (AND PROBS MEARSHEIMER).

Stephen Walt is a pretty decent foreign policy wonk, so I was excited to check out his Top 10 Foreign Policy Movies list.  And, of course, I realized that 1) I need to pick his apart and 2) I could make a way better list.

You can read Stephen’s selection explanations here.  I haven’t seen all of his choices (but they are in my Netflix queue!), and he disqualified spy capers, war epics and documentaries…but since he broke his own rules, I am breaking them too.

10. Stephen Picked:  Meeting Venus
I Picked:  The Manchurian Candidate

I haven’t seen Meeting Venus, but I have seen BOTH versions of the Manchurian Candidate (I prefer the older one because Angela Lansbury’s acting is so good that I have nightmares about her character).  This is the archetypal Cold War brainwashing movie, almost as good as those DoD-produced films narrated by Jack Webb.  Just thinking about this flick makes me want to watch it again.  Plus, Frank Sinatra!

9.  Stephen Picked: Independence Day
I Picked: Team America:  World Police

8. Stephen Picked:  Syriana
I Picked:  Charlie Wilson’s War

Um, Stephen said his CIA friends said Charlie Wilson’s War is mostly bunk.    Aside from how that sounds sort of eighth-grade gossip-y, CWW upset a lot of important people with big egos, so of course they’re gonna say it’s bunk.  That shouldn’t disqualify it from making the cut—or worse—allow the choosing of a crapstorm like Syriana instead. Syriana was impossible to follow and utterly stupid.  If See No Evil had received the same film treatment as CWW, I wouldn’t be sitting here complaining.  Maybe I would, but it would be about something else of great importance.

7.  Stephen Picked:  Judgment at Nuremberg
I Picked:  The Lives of Others

Actually, I bet Judgment at Nuremberg is good, I just haven’t seen it.  I have seen The Lives of Others, which is an incredible movie, so that’s why it’s on here (duh).  Man, I’m kind of losing steam and we’re only at #7.

6.  Stephen Picked:  Wag the Dog
I Picked:  Clear and Present Danger

“I’m sorry, Mr. President.  I don’t dance.”

If you are looking for a foreign policy scandal-ish movie, look no further.  Clear and Present Danger is phenomenal—probably the best in the Jack Ryan series.  Drugs!  Corruption!  A thinly-veiled version of Iran-Contra!

5.  Stephen Picked:  Fail Safe
I Picked:  The Battle of Algiers

How is Battle of Algiers not on his list?  Amateur hour.   You can’t have a serious Cold War “will we blow up the world” drama AND a comedy version on the same list.  There are rules!  So I’m replacing his choice with this movie…advance warning, though it’s amazing, it’s also v. difficult to watch.  But it’s good in a way because you can see how things in Algeria have gotten so much bet—oh wait.

4.  Stephen Picked:   Gandhi/A Passage to India
I Picked:  Jarhead/Three Kings

Oh, sorry, you can’t choose a spy caper but you can add an India twofer?  What the hell?  So I am gonna do the same with the Middle East.  I prefer Three Kings (Marky Mark!) to Jarhead, but they’re both worth watching.

3.  Stephen Picked:   The Great Dictator
I Picked:  Dirty Dancing:  Havana Nights

This is for Alyson, Becca and Cella.  AND CUUUUUUBBBBBAAAAAAA!

2.  Stephen Picked:   Dr. Strangelove
I Picked:  Dr. Strangelove

A meeting of the minds.  Or perhaps we just watched my #10 selection?

1.  Stephen Picked:   Casablanca
I Picked:  Lawrence of Arabia

This is the biggest crime on his entire list.  I love Casablanca as much as the next person, but give me a damn break.  This does not belong on a foreign policy film list, ESPECIALLY one that doesn’t include Lawrence of Arabia, which is only THE MOST IMPORTANT FOREIGN POLICY MOVIE OF ALL TIME.  No joke, when I scrolled down to the bottom of Stephen’s list and saw that it was missing…I actually got angry.  I felt my blood pressure rise.  How could Stephen do this to me, to us, to fopo nerds and movie nerds and regular nerds everywhere?

I feel that I’ve righted this wrong.  What up now, Stephen.  What up now.

THE UGH FACTOR.

…oh, life.

It has been too long since I last tapped my gushing well of self-deprecation (which has been quantified into “utils of ugh”).   Let’s get back to it:

I LOVE CHERRY DANISH MORE THAN I LOVE MY DIGNITY.

As you know, I take breakfast pastries seriously.

My most favorite breakfast pastry of all time is Marvelous Market’s cherry Danish.  The golden flaky pastry is flavored with lots of cinnamon, and the center is delicious and fresh–it doesn’t taste like supersweet canned cherry pie filling. It’s got a lovely shine to it courtesy of some melted apricot jelly. This exquisite breakfast treat usually sells out on the weekends, so you have to get there early, and YES, I have literally raced people to the pastry counter to make sure that I got one. This is not a gas station croissant, folks.

Anyway, I’ve been running late the past few Saturdays, so I just figured that they had sold out of them by the time I got there. But I was confused on this past Saturday when I saw that there wasn’t even a spot for the cherry Danish next to the cheese one. The little “Cherry Danish” marker wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Suddenly, the cheese Danish was right next to the Pain aux Raisin. wtf.

The salesman confirmed my worst fear–the cherry Danish is no longer being carried at the store. As he was delivering this information to me, I could tell he was concerned about my reaction since he’s been ringing up my cherry Danish for over a year. And yes, I might have loudly yelled “NOOOOOOOOOOO.” I don’t remember. I was too upset.  I marched home, found their website and decided to send them a little message asking what happened.  Today I received my reply:

Hi Sarah,

I was delighted to read your e-mail! We always love learning how we can do a better job.

The bad news first: the cherry danish as you knew it will not be returning to the regular menu. Sadly, that particular store was throwing away, on average, almost 40% of the cherry danishes it received from the bakery. From a business perspective, it simply did not make sense to continue to carry such an inconsistent seller.

I do have two pieces of good news though. First, the cherry danish is available by special order if you call the store by 11 AM the day before pick-up. Second, we are trying to spice things up by adding more seasonal menu items to the mix. With spring and summer fruit season ahead, seasonal fruits are certain to make an appearance in the pastry category.

I do hope that you’ll continue to visit us for your Saturday coffee and treats. We’ve just introduced the best cupcakes in DC, and we’ve got some amazing flourless brownies and coconut macaroons for Passover.

Warm regards,

Lisa

THEY WERE THROWING AWAY CHERRY DANISH. Why don’t you just set money on fire, or shoot people’s dreams?

The bright side is that now I’ve been informed that you can special order cherry Danish!!!!  I feel like I can breathe again. And since I owe y’all a graph, I decided to draft some sales projections for The Marv:

A WARNING TO ALL

Equilibrium is important to me.  So if you complain about my infrequent posts but share an idea for a future blog, you get a free pass.  All is right with the world.  However, if you complain about my blog without providing an idea for a future blog, I will create an embarrassing graph about you to correct the imbalance.  And if you don’t think I am serious…see below for a case in point.

Hush up and get on that midnight train to Georgia.

I NEED NEW BRAGGING RIGHTS.

It’s Selection Sunday, which means I finally have to stop bragging about winning last year’s NCAA March Madness work pool. If I enter the pool this year and lose, last year’s epic victory will be tarnished by future failure. So I’ve decided to diversify my bragging rights portfolio in the hopes of a payoff somewhere.

The last two years I missed my chance to enter WaPo’s Peep Diorama Contest and decided 2009 was gonna be it. Armed with the best idea ever courtesy of Alyson, we worked to realize a dream. And we couldn’t have done it without Laura, who is a miniature bikini subject matter expert.

Below is our masterpiece, “Rock of Love Tour Bus with Peep Michaels”:

I can’t decide if my sides hurt because I laughed for about 7 hours straight yesterday, or because I ate about 5,000 Peeps.

DO NOT MESS

with my grandma:

Photography is not outside the realm of this blog, right?

WHY I LOOK FORWARD TO BEING A PARENT

Found this in an old desk yesterday:

Judging by the care bears strewn behind me, I won the bar fight.

CHRISTOPHER HILL IS THE BRAD PITT OF FOREIGN POLICY

I was pretty psyched to see Christopher Hill’s name mentioned as Obama’s selection for Ambassador to Iraq.  In fact, I was so psyched that I started drafting a list of reasons why I adore Hill—and it was then that I realized I had developed yet another nerd crush.   I have a lot of them, but I decided to do a little data collection because I know I’m not alone.  Operating without a working definition of nerd crush, I asked individuals to provide me with 5 crushes they would define as such and the percentage likelihood that they would create a homemade t-shirt in honor of the crush.  Because nerd crushes seem like they could be a little embarrassing, contributors are identified only by the British Double Cross codenames I assigned to them.  And the results are…interesting:

1)  I suck at formatting charts.

2)  You can have a nerd crush on a dead guy.

3) GROSGRAIN is too proud to honor a crush with a t-shirt.

4) Nerd crushes are associated with 3 fields:  journalism, politics, and food.

5) Aaron Sorkin has cornered the nerd crush market.

6) BIDET is going to request a new codename.