Pizza

Over the last few decades I feel like Americans have stolen this great food from the Italians so that now pizza is more a part of our national identity than theirs. Yesterday while studying for finals I actually had 2 meals of pizza and it got me thinking about my favorite slices in the city. Here are my top five (in no particular order.)

Andrea Pizza

- This parlor is located in the skyway on my way between my parents house and school. Although the most recent discovery of all the pies on my list this one is quickly rising in terms of most consumed. They sell you pizza by the slice, but they don't pre-slice it. Instead when you order they take a whole pizza and cut one big floppy slice off. It is wonderful

Cheetah Pizza

-Another relatively recent addition to the list, this was introduced to me first semester by one of my friends from school. Although it is kind of a hike it is certainly worth the trip. Their Chicken Bacon Ranch pizza is responsible for turning me on to pizzas with sauces other than tomato. 

Davanni's

-This is the largest chain of all the places on my list. Yesterday I had a few slices of their Chicago style deep dish and instantly remembered what I loved so much about it as a teenager. Although I am not a big fan of any of their other crust style, the Chicago is enough to keep me coming back.

Paradise Pizza

- located in my old neighborhood I am not even sure this pizzeria still exists. I used to get it all the time as a pre-teen because a huge pizza only cost $7 (remember that roaring late 90's economy?) I should go back and check it out.

Green Mill

-When I was growing up whenever my parents ordered pizza they would always get a deep dish green mill pizza with artichoke hearts and goat cheese. This completely disgusted me. One time I convinced them to also get a normal style pepperoni. That first bite was glorious. Although the flavor on this pizza is good it loses some points because it is difficult to eat. The Cheese likes to stay completely together as a single layer so on the first bite all the cheese on the pizza has a tendency to slide off. This drawback is still not enough to keep it from my top 5 though. 

Flirtation

There are a lot of things in life I wish I was better at. Flirtation is one of them. I wish I was very good at flirting with girls I like in ways which are respectful yet let them get the drift. I have had crushes on a number of women throughout my life and have only been able to successfully seduce a few of them. Part of this, I'm sure stems from the lack of confidence which has plagued me throughout my life which is only now starting to disappear. Right now my standard flirtation with girls is something out of elementary school.

Step 1: meet girl, decide I like her

Step 2: make fun of her with 80-95% of the words that come out of my mouth (because it is the only way I know how to pay the proper attentions)

Step 3: tell her friends I like her (as if it wasn't obvious already)

Step 4: get disappointed when I find out she wants to be "just friends." 

Step 5: find new girl, repeat.

the 25th Annual Mock Trial National Championship

So this weekend instead of studying I went on a road trip to Des Moines for the 25th annual American Mock Trial Association national championships. 

Kostandinos, a former teammate and protege of mine had been begging me to make the trip for nationals since the beginning of the year. After talking to my former coaches about it I found out that my old program would put me up in a hotel and pay for some of my food. Against my better judgment I decided to go.

It was a strange feeling. This was the first time in 5 years I wasn't competing at this tournament and, although many of my friends were still around, nationals had a distinctly different feel to it than it usually did. Now my job wasn't to win, it was to help keep the new competitors get mentally right so that they could try. 

The new competitors weren't just people I had known before, my school also brought along some first years which was kind of strange to me. Apparently, since I graduated I have become something of a legend to my old mock trial program. Kostandinos and others have been telling stories about me constantly which made me more myth than man. One night during the tournament, on request I literally held a meeting in the lobby of the hotel for all the young kids and had a "story hour" (pictured below)

Although it is cool to be worshipped like a hero, the main reason I was there was to watch mock trial. The kids did really well, placing 8th and 13th in their division but weren't happy with the results. Despite their displeasure I was happy I went to see them. I got to see kids I had coached as freshman (or even some I had coached since high school) all of a sudden become huge players on the national circuit. Kids I had taken under my wing a few years ago were now surpassing anything I had ever done. I felt so proud.

So for those competitors who read this blog (I don't know how many of them do): Keep your head up. I am so proud of all of you. I don't know when I will see you again, but I consider myself honored to know you.

One way to dispose of a dead dog...

I pride myself on my story telling. I have worked a lot on my speaking and whatnot (through mock trial) and I lead an eventful life. JLethal sometimes tells me I am the most ridiculous person he has ever met. This stems mostly from a lot of the stories I have told. In most cases I would be willing to bet that in a competition with someone to determine who has the best story I would beat them down like Mike Tyson in the early 90's.

Then about 3 weeks ago I was bested. Not only did I hear a story better than any I could come up with, but this story made me not even want to try. I didn't know how to react, so I have adopted this story into my arsenal. Now this is one of my best stories.

So this girl (we'll call her "Jamie") was house sitting for a family in Chicago where she lived. She had been house sitting for the same family for a long time so they were fairly comfortable with her. For years this girl had faithfully watered the family's plants and fed their dog. Well, she fed their dog every day until this time when the dog didn't wake up in the morning. The family dog died while the family was on vacation. Jaime was mortified and called the family nearly in tears, but the family explained that it was OK. It was a very old dog and the family had expected this for a while so while it was disappointing it happened while they were out of town, the family wasn't mad at Jaime. 

However, because they were out of town for the next week, they explained that Jaime would have to take poor Rover to the vet to be cremated. The big problem with this arose because Jaime didn't have a car. She had ridden the subway to this house to take care of it everyday and now it appeared that she had to use the subway to dispose of the dog. She also didn't really have a container for the dog. This meant that this 110 lbs. girl would have to carry a 90lbs dog on the Chicago subway station crammed into a duffel bag. 

When she got to subway station she was struggling to carry the bag. As she went through a turn style she found it nearly impossible to get through. To her relief, a nice guy came up and offered to help her carry the bag to her train. "Wow this is awful heavy" he said "what do you got in there?" Too embarrassed to admit that she was delivering a dead dog to the vet in a duffel bag Jaime told the guy "ummm.... electronics." 

They got onto the train and talked some more. The guy started flirting a bit with Jaime and she flirted back but the whole time tried to avoid the subject of her bag. She was keeping the secret well and I guess the dead dog didn't smell enough yet to let on the contents of the bag. After talking a bit longer Jaime found out that this nice guy was actually getting off at the same stop as her. This was great because it meant that he could help her carry the dead-dog-duffel out of the station too. As they got to the top of the stairs to get out of the subway station Jaime heard something and looked back into the station. When she returned her attention to the nice guy she was met with a surprise. 

The guy punched her in the face, took her bag full of "electronics" and ran. 

This story is completely ridiculous and there was no way I could beat it. The best part of the story is thinking about this dude's reaction when he opens the bag to survey his treasure and he finds a dead dog. Also something I didn't ask about (although I wish I had) was what the family's reaction was? I mean did they believe this girl? Was her black eye enough to settle any doubts they had. So many unanswered questions... 

regardless of whether I know the answers to these questions I am going to add this story to my repertoire whether Jaime likes it or not.

The median gets it's just desserts

About 2 blocks from where I live there is a median in the middle of the intersection. It is a cement circle with the ugliest patch of dying vegetation I have ever seen. It is strange because while at first glance it looks like it is a roundabout intersection (which is stupid considering the lack of traffic that goes through there)  there are stop signs on the corners, thus ruining the positives of the roundabout (which is even stupider considering how much traffic goes through there.)

For the last 10 months I have been annoyed by this median. It is stupid and pointless and I hate it. Then, while driving home the other night I saw something that made it all worth it. As I was coming home from the bar at 2 A.M. I saw that a car had driven up over the median crushing the sings on it. The funniest part about this was that I don't know how long the car had been there, but I know that the driver wasn't there anymore. I suspected a drunk driving incident where the driver just ran after realizing what they did. Either that, or they honestly thought that was a valid parking space. 

Unfortunately I did not take pictures of the car as I drove by that night... but I did take pictures of the aftermath of the intersection the next morning.

Take that stupid median... and the city planners that made you a reality.

Get In Line!

Last night some friends and I went line dancing. Although I love bluegrass music this was my first time ever getting down in line to it. I was not very good. Part of this is because everything I know about line dancing comes from Back to the Future Part III; part of it is because, although I am known as a hell of a dancer, I had never moved my body in this way. There are an array of bizarre moves where you are weaving through people that were hard for me to grasp. That being said I am now done with my first line dancing experience.

Pictured: Frenchie, Me, HotWheels and some random girl who was in love with us

The crew was me, Frenchie, HotWheels and TheDick. Some of you may have been line dancing before, I would be willing to bet your experience was not like mine. We didn't do it at a bar, rather it was at a community center that was frequented by HotWheels' mom and other people from their Quaker meeting. There were a few young people but by far the majority of attendees were older hippie people. Right when we showed up an older, short black woman came up to us and said to the group "ok the dance just started... this is the best time to hop in. WHO WANTS TO DANCE?" Both HotWheels and TheDick looked around and whistled and after the woman repeated enough time "SOMEONE GET IN AND DANCE WITH ME" I eventually volunteered just to make this woman stop yelling at me. Now, I did not know the steps to the dance but because I had been commanded to start dancing I looked around and did what I was told. After a while I started to get the steps but that certainly didn't stop this woman from yelling at me. "Now DOH-SEE-DOH" she would yell. "Yeah... it's not like I haven't just done it right the last 25 times" I would say under my breath, afraid to further induce her wrath. 

The funniest thing about this experience was the different kind of people who showed up to quaker line dancing. There were a few other young people who were just looking to have fun (like us), a few people who were old hands at line dancing and more than happy to help us get it with a friendly smile, and then a few bitter old line dancing journeymen who were pissed that amateurs would muddy the waters and waste their time. There was a few people dressed very preppy, a lady with a padwan learner braid and a lot of tie-dye. By far my favorite of all the outfits I saw was this guy:

The thing to note about line dancing: it is actually quite the workout. Around the second or third dance I started getting very hot and had to take a break. At one point I went to the bathroom and saw a couple other guys changing shirts and re-applying deodorant. Frenchie was getting very sweaty as well (although as an attractive girl I am told she was merely "glowing.") 

Overall, I think I would go line dancing again, but I would rather not go back to this place. I think it would be much more fun to do it with all young people that are equally ignorant of what they are doing (or at least friendly and patient.) I would also like to be drunk. It is my understanding that there are places where this is possible here in the city so I will have to do some more research. 

Have You Seen These?

I pass one of these almost every day on my way to school. For those of you who are utterly confused: Yes, it is an Ipod vending machine. For the longest time I couldn't figure out why these monstrosities existed. I mean, people surely don't pick a $350 Ipod as if it were a snickers bar. Who is running around making these kinds of purchases?

The thing that is really amazing is that the place where most of the machines have found a home is in airports. The logic makes sense on one level. People are prone to be bored on flights and need something to occupy their time and the Ipod can help with that. On the next level this logic crumbles; if people buy an Ipod at an airport there is no way they can charge it or get any of their songs onto it and then it is just taking up space in their carry on. I thought Apple had lost its damn mind.

Then my training as a Marketing major kicked in. Apple isn't making these machines in order to actually sell any Ipods (though I am sure that would be a welcome surprise.) Rather, Apple is trying to readjust consumer attitudes toward their product. By making us all feel like an Ipod is the same type of impulse purchase as a Milky Way the make people more likely to go out and make a high involvement purchase with little to no actual consideration. It is actually pretty brilliant. They put them in airports because (with our current airport security due to terrorism) no one will step out of line there. Essentially they keep around $5000 in machine cost and products in an airport and they have permanent and effective advertising. 

Well done, Apple.

Pretending to Study.

Law school has a strange effect on people. In addition to taking all of our time Law school makes us bigger nerds. This can manifest itself in a variety of ways. First of all, we can just stay in the library all the time working on things (or pretending to work on things.) Secondly, we can take great joy in things that are extremely dorky or embarrassingly nerdy. So far I have found two videos made by law students that help to bridge the gap between wasting time and actually studying.

The first was sent to me by JayWalker. It is a video about constitutional law set to a mid 90's-esque R and B groove. Although  it is super nerdy it at least helps to verify that my class is teaching me most of the right things. 

The second was one that I found out about back at MockAmerica. It is a video made with Lego's about hearsay objections... yes I have problems because I enjoy it. What is really strange is that I am not even taking evidence yet. I am just a mock nerd.

In Which I am a Celebrity

It is strange being recognized when you are not expecting it. I have always been told I am "difficult to forget" (I am not sure if that is a good or a bad thing.) Once, when I was in high school I was recognized while walking around the Mall Of America. As many of you know, I ran my own bagel business in high school which got to be pretty big. At one point I was walking around the mall when a girl shouted to me across the hallway "Hey you the bagel guy right?" This was strange because I didn't recognize this girl and wasn't even wearing one of my bagel shirts. I respond: "yeah I am." and she says "shit... and I don't even go to that school."

so that was strange.

What is more strange is the kind of selective celebrity that comes with having a niche community. As many of you know I am fairly into Mock Trial. What many of you may not know is that I am not even close to being the only one. Mock trial is the single largest non-athletic intercollegiate activity (in terms of competitor base) with an excess of 3,500 active competitors in a given year. There are names on the mock trial circuit that, while not household names to the common family, draw as much respect as one can get from the right person. Names like Daniel Young, Lawrence Hilton and Amanda Bonn probably aren't familiar to you, but to my people they might as well be carved into Mount Rushmore. what is even stranger is that I am arguably one of those names. 

I always considered myself very good, but I never put myself in league with those people. In the American Mock Trial Association I think I am well known and respected, but not revered like those folks. That is why coming back to Minnesota was so strange. I wrote a while back about how I am coaching high school and was mentioned on a kids blog. What I didn't know at the time was how far reaching that blog was. I was approached about a week ago by a good looking girl on the bus ride over to School. When she came up and started talking to me I thought "alright I hit the jackpot... lets see where this goes." Then she  asked me "are you [the Hamborgler]?" I said that I was and then I found out why she looked so familiar. she had been on a mock trial team I competed against in high school and was now coaching the very team that beat School B for the state championship. We chatted and I said I was coaching School B now and she said "yeah I know." Apparently the fact that I was now on board as a coach was big news in the state, at least to her team. 

But then I found out it wasn't isolated. I got an E-mail from a coach of another team asking me if I would help him coach. What was strange was that he started out the mail by saying "I understand from the blogosphere that you will be working with [School B next year.]  So there it was. For some reason everyone in the state is reading this kids blog and now I am a local celebrity. What was really weird was that this guy was even offering to PAY me to coach his team. Unfortunately I felt I had to decline, I didn't want to break my fiduciary duties to School B and coaching someone who might eventually face them would be poor form. I am excited to see where this trip will take me next. 

The Best Kind of Film

I don't keep it a secret that I think a well documentary far surpasses any other kind of film. 

I got into documentaries primarily because of Brewdog, who is himself a budding documentarian. I can distinctly the first time he introduced me to this form of storytelling. It was the summer after my sophomore year in college and he had just received the movie Grizzly Man on Netflix. We watched it and I was transfixed. The movie (for those not in the know) is the story of Tim Treadwell, a bear lover who spent 15 summers in the Alaskan wilderness before ultimately being eaten by a bear. Treadwell was clearly a very disturbed person, which made this portrait of him extremely compelling. There were also a lot of strange choices by the film maker (Werner Herzog.) For example, the filmmaker has audio tape of Treadwell being eaten by the bear, but he doesn't play it. Rather, he shows the back of his own head as he listens to the tape. Afterward he tells Treadwell's sobbing former girlfriend "you must destroy this tape... if you do not it will be the white elephant in the room for the rest of your life." It is a huge mind fuck. 

Since that experience I have had an insatiable appetite for documentaries. The reason I think that documentaries are so superior to other film is simple. They document real people and real events. Real people have so many more layers to them than could ever be fabricated and put into a Hollywood script. Real people have so many more subtle motivations and strange quirky things than an actor could ever imagine when playing a part. It is those layers and subtleties that make the human drama so compelling. The other thing to consider is that documentaries are made with so much more love and care than any feature film. Documentarians go through thousands of hours of footage and work for hours not only to make a cohesive story out of disjointed interviews and footage but also to find those moments of subtlety that give us perspective on who these real life characters are. 

So in case you share my interest I will give you my list of the top five documentaries I enjoyed the most (although because I have a soft spot for Grizzly Man I have left it off the list.):

1) Crumb

About deranged psychedelic comic book artist R. Crumb this is one of the most critically acclaimed documentaries of all time. It goes through Crumb's impact on the American pop culture landscape by interviewing both fans and staunch critics of his work. While Crumb himself is crazy it is the portions in which his brothers are interviewed that prove most interesting to me. One brother sits on a bed of nails for the entire interview and explains that once every three days he must pass a long string through his body 9eating it then pulling it out of his rectum). The other brother still lives at home with his mother, never leaves the house and describes the reasons why he can't read contemporary literature, he prefers only 17th century French fiction. Needless to say, I find documentaries about crazy people the most enjoyable.

2) Helvetica

This is a story of the font-typeface Helvetica. Although it sounds like a rather dry subject it is actually pretty fascinating. They describe the origins of the font typeface, the various ways that fonts have evolved through the world of graphic design and the reason why Helvetica is the official font-typeface of corporate America (something like 90 large companies, including Energizer batteries and Target, have their corporate logo in Helvetica.) the really crazy thing is just how passionate people get about a simple font-typeface. Eventually, people are yelling and crying about Helvetica. 

3) Word Wars.

The documentation of the 2000 (I think) national Scrabble tournament. being familiar with the national mock trial circuit let me truly appreciate this movie. There are crazy competitors who would be interesting to any watcher but the element that makes it so compelling to me is the scrabble community. There is a whole community of people that are huge celebrities to some but you and I wouldn't know them if we passed them on the street (just like in mock trial.)  The best person in this movie is Marlon Hill, at the time the number 14 scrabble player in the country. Hill is an overweight pothead with dreadlocks from the ghettos of Baltimore. He constantly talks about how if he ever wins the scrabble championship he will "smoke a big fucking spliff right as I'm going to get my trophy." He also waxes on about how he hates German because "the language will take up the characteristics of the people. You got a greedy people the language gonna be greedy." 

4) Mad Hot Ballroom

the story of Inner-city middle schoolers in New York who are taught ballroom dancing and are on a quest to win a city-wide competition. this movie is wonderful and the kids are just so darned cute. 

5) Frontrunners

This follows the election for student body president in an extremely competitive private school. It is strange because although it is a high school election that I have no reason to care about it is great to watch. It serves as a microcosm for all politics. They discuss the reasons that certain people win that trace directly to the rational in the American people during national elections. 

Sorry...

to anyone who reads this regularly I know it has been too long since I posted. I was SUPER busy and there was too much to write about for spring break that I couldn't finish anything... hopefully I will start posting more regularly again