World's Largest Brat Fest

it's real, i've been there. a four-day festival, celebrating bratwursts, attended by hundreds of people, right here in madison, wisconsin. and it really is the world's largest brat fest; last year, the people from the guiness book of world records came out and declared it so. i'm not sure how much competition there was, but regardless, it has been declared.

a brat is basically a large sausage and they put it on a bun. one of the sponsors of the event was the mustard museum so there were six or seven different types of mustard other than plain yellow. honey mustard, chipotle mustard, garlic horseradish mustard.....some other kinds of mustard. yummy. the event stayed pretty true to it's homage to brats, the only thing to eat other than brats were hot dogs or 'double johnnys' - two brats on a kaiser roll. there was also ice cream, funnel cakes, soda (pepsi, shudder, but i came prepared, i brought a diet coke), and beer, but nothing of sustenance. three stages, two for bands, one for local dance studios to perform. there were also brat fest t-shirts. but even if i wore printed t-shirts, the color choices were yellow, orange, and florescent green. seriously?

the cele'brat'ion started in 1983. here are some fun facts i read on the history page of the fest of brat's website (and yes, i know, i'm probably 1 of 1 people who read that page):

total brats sold since 1983: 2,634,255
total $$ raised since 1983: $855,723 (they donate procedes to local charities)

current world record stats:

lbs of brats consumed in 4 days: 208,752

lbs of brats consumed: 41,550 lbs

brats consumed, laid end-to-end: 19.77 miles

brats consumed per minute: 94.03

hot dogs consumed: 22,160

veggie brats consumed: 10,176

20 oz. sodas consumed: 53,568

onions consumed: 1,640 lbs (would be more if my mom attended this event)

mustard consumed: 176 gallons

ketchup consumed: 300 gallons

sweet relish consumed: 172 gallons

sauerkraut consumed: 3,978 lbs

will i go again? probably. i had fun and i have a new appreciation for the brat. i mean, it does have an entire fest dedicated solely to it. i was also impressed with the organization of the event. i only got overwhelmed in the condiment tent and that was just for a minute. brats, good.

there is a season...

turn, turn, turn.

winter, check. spring, check. summer, fall, check, check. yup, that's all of 'em. learned them when i was a youngin. four seasons. there's even a hotel chain named after them. i moved to wisconsin, and all of sudden, people are talking about 'tornado season'. the hotel's not called 'five seasons' people.

in southern california, we have the 'santa ana's', winds that blow lots of miles per hour (couldn't find the actual number - i thought the google knew everything?), stir things up, and help spread fires. we don't call it a 'season', however. 'the santa ana wind season' - that's just silly.

but we're not in southern california anymore toto, i'm in wisconsin where they create new seasons that have nothing to do with the solstice or equinox phenomenon. safety tips for surviving a tornado include: lay under a matress, get away from windows (duh), and if you have a mobile home, get out! brings up fond memories of earthquake drills in elementary school - we'd all huddle under our desks, had to bring a packet of food to class at the beginning of each school year just in case 'the big one' occurred while we were at school. can you imagine being the teacher stuck in a classroom with 30 nine-year-olds after a devastating earthquake who all brought disgusting canned food like vienna sausages. no thank you. i'd probably start teaching the kids about new seasons, like 'earthquake season'.

and so, i say to those of you who are trying to add seasons to our well-established four, please stop, you're confusing the children. and the emigrants from los angeles.

just say...it depends on the drug

see what i did there with the title? instead of 'just say no', a phrase we are all familiar with, i replaced 'no' with 'it depends on the drug'. i also thought of titling this one, 'what's in a drug?', a play on 'what's in a name', but - oh, you saw? well, here's my current rant:

there's this poster in a cubicle at work that i have to pass on my way to my cubicle and i've trained my eyes to look anywhere but at this this poster. every once in while, however, i accidentally catch a glimpse of this poster, and its message, ugh, makes me cringe. and want to rip it off the wall. 'a drug-free world. we can do it' - that's the message on the poster. my question is: do we want to do it?

this is not a drug-war rant, i promise. but i do want to meet the creator of this poster and say, really poster-man? really? do you know what a drug is?

personally, i think they should put prozac in the water supply. anti-depressants are god's gift to us all. as well as aspirin, penicillin, and, of course, caffeine. oh caffeine, you deserve an ode, you do not deserve to be threatened with extinction by a well-meaning but monumentally stupid campaign.

and so i'll close this post with one final thought: just say...it depends on the drug. (see what i did there? bringing it around, full circle - oh, you saw.)

celebrate, celebrate, dance to the gray-ades

finals are over, i passed my classes (barely), and now the real fun begins. quals are in forty-nine days and counting. i've coordinated a biostat tutor (my genius friend justin) and organized my materials (a fantastic procastination technique), now i just have to dig in. i've been preparing all semester, but now it's crunch time.

two days of exams. three subjects: epidemiology, biostatistics, and health services research. level of importance to continuing in the phd program: critical.

my last final was last thursday. i didn't study at all for four whole days; i can feel my brain atrophy-ing already. i need a theme song to get me pumped up. all i can think of is the rocky song where he's getting ready for the big fight, his cute little old man trainer keeps appearing to him, he's running up stairs and doing his victory dance at the top. let me know if you have any other theme-song suggestions.

regardless of the song, there will be a victory dance on 8 july around five pm, followed by mental exhaustion and shutdown. bring it.

boxed hair color

i'm confused about celebrities that endorse boxed hair color. i feel fairly confident that celebrities do not use boxed hair color. i've used boxed hair color; it involves going to stores like target or wal-mart or cvs, picking out a color, and spending seven to eight dollars. and then the fun really begins. plastic gloves, smelly gels or pastes, and a plastic hair cap. if you're highlighting, there's a second plastic cap and a hair pick. you get to wear an old towel around your shoulders so as not to stain your shirt and you have to wait a certain length of time to let the color set before you wash it out. the point is, there's real work involved. and the result is not always pretty. i can name at least three people who have ended up with a green tint due to some interaction between the dye chemicals and the hair - and no, green was not the intended outcome. i'm not suggesting that celebrities are not just like us, that they don't shop at target and wal-mart and cvs, or that they don't perform their own beauty maintenance. i am, however, suggesting that when it comes to hair color, celebrities are more likely to go to a hair-care professional than to rely on their own skills and a boxed tincture. could it be that they are not endorsing the products because they use them, but for the money they receive in return? hmmm...

so, the plan tonight was to do homework but i'm staying at my sister's to take care of the dogs and they (the gibsons, not the dogs) have cable so i've sort of been watching tv instead of doing homework. hence the diatribe on hair color commercials.