Friday, August 24, 2007

The Ball, Dropped

Eight days since my last post = shameful. What kind of mickey mouse operation am I running here at VTK? My apologies to all 5 of my remaining readers for dropping the ball. I have a good excuse for not posting during 1/2 of that span - I was in Michigan, ie on my dad's dinosaur machine. After several frozen screens, crashes, mini memory dumps, spyware and cookie cleaning sessions, etc, I asked him exactly how old it was and he said about 10 years. (*pulling non-existent hair out*) I told him that it's unconscionable to be working on a machine that far past its life span and that he needed to buy a mac laptop. C'mon. I think all non-technical people and all people over the age of 60 (is that redundant?) should have to buy macs. That should be a law. But the point is that I wasn't going to attempt to do anything other than a 60 second check of my email on that piece of dung. So posting was out of the question.

Long time VTK readers know what a visit to Michigan means: Costingo! Newer readers can familiarize yourselves here and here. With myself, lil bro, and MAC on site, Costingo was on again. Unfortunately, the absence of lc and the undesirable scheduling made for a somewhat muddled affair. I suppose it was folly to think that we could recreate the phenomenon that was Costingo.06, but we had to try, right? Due to an adults cocktail party on Friday night, a kids High School Musical 2 party on Saturday night, and a scheduled departure of lil bro and MAC on Sunday afternoon, Costingo.07 got slotted for 11:30 AM on Sunday morning. And I have to tell you, I think I speak for everyone when I say that Costingo is more of a 4:30 PM on Saturday affair. The late afternoon ramping up for Saturday night highballs gave way to the late morning hair of the dog Sunday bloody marys and coffee/bailey's. The afternoon of getting jacked up for the big event gave way to the harried morning hungover preparations and artificial excitement. You can see how the vibe might be affected. But it's still Costingo, so it kicked ass, naturally. The kids and the neighbors showed up in their assorted hodge podge outfits and, as was the case last year, everyone was a bit confused and uncertain as to what exactly was going on. Costumed bingo dance party with a cupcake frosting competition? what? But eventually lc's dance mix kicked in and we were off. The chicken cup craft session got everyone more confused/excited, a rousing game of bingo included a hungover UJ leaning back in his chair and breaking an expensive stained glass window, and tacos and hotdogs set off the bailey's heavy coffee nicely. Also, no one cried. So Costingo was a success.

Speaking of my ongoing blogging anxiety, I just realized that a google search of "Costingo" yields 3 links to VTK in the first 3 results. So I guess, welcome to VTK, everyone who is old enough to google "Costingo". Eat your vegetables, listen to your parents, do be happy, and disregard everything you read from/about your step-uncle here at VTK. It's all nonsense. And stay in school. And be nice to your siblings and cousins. And don't swear. And a special shout out to the newest costingita, baby C. She's probably not reading this yet, but she's so cute and well behaved that she gets a shout out anyways.

Rounding out the trip to MI was a flight delay for the NYC contingent which led to them staying an extra day. An extra day in which we watched a bunch of movies: Breach (sucked), My Big Fat Greek Wedding (cute/boring), The Interpreter (best of the bunch), and Bourne Ultimatum (good for what it is - 90 minutes of punching/crashing/smashing tension).

Rounding out the post, I'm listening to the "new" Modest Mouse right now, and I have to give it the thumbs up. Better than their last album, with which I was a little disappointed. It starts a little eh with the first few songs, but brings it around with the next few, and finishes up strong. I'm especially intrigued by track 11, Steam Engenius, which seems to be a bit of a mash-up of Third Uncle by Brian Eno and Learning to Fly by Pink Floyd. with a some Isaac and Johnny Marr thrown in. I'm not saying it's a ripoff, just recognizing influences. All in all, I'd say that the addition of Marr to the Mouse was a success.

18 comments:

Duffless said...

ok, so I"m confused, is Costingo something your family does and invented, or is it something from the midwest I've just never heard of?

If your father invented this, I will renew my efforts to stalk him. Between this and the star wars thing..I'm in love!

Dan Nolan said...

It's something my brother, the girls, and I invented last year. My father participated but was not a core organizer. Last year he was dressed as the Phantom of the Opera. This year he wore a New Orleans Jazzfest shirt and a $2 red white and green hat we picked up in Italy years ago. Talk about your mail in job! But proceed stalking if you must.

Jeannetto said...

You are so paranoid. I'm sure if any of your step-children read this they will assume it is a blog about another family's annual Costingo event.

Anyway, it's not like you drew a comic reenacting the whole thing fifteen minutes after you got home.

Dan Nolan said...

yeah. now that would be creepy.

Anonymous said...

This VTK post needs pics.

PS: Let's hang out soon - want to cook up some trivia?

Dan Nolan said...

We have to hit the Bing soon.

Anonymous said...

it's going to get me a few more months in purgatory but I'm *a wee bit* glad it wasn't as much fun without me. But you also didn't mention the enormous ghost. Was he inflated? Because that was key to the whole - wait-what-is-this-party-really-about-? thing.

Dan Nolan said...

no, no ghost this year either. Honestly, I think MAC and I were the only ones really into it this year. And she took her face paint off 10 minutes in.

Anonymous said...

bogus. Did anyone at least instigate board game fights and make inappropriate comments? to senior citizens?

Dan Nolan said...

there were some bored game fights.

blythe said...

a few things:

1. i'll be naming my first born costingo. it's just so beautiful!

2. quitting is the new blogging!

3. i've never been to michigan, but i did like the bourne identity.

Dan Nolan said...

Michigan = cars, lakes, and costingos.

quitting's for quitters.

blythe said...

maybe we just all need to shake it up. everyone guest post for the blog to their left. what do you think?

Dan Nolan said...

I'm in! So am I guest blogging on yours, or you on mine?

blythe said...

it all depends if you want your numbers to go down. if so, then i'll post on yours. if not, you could post on mine.

Dan Nolan said...

I don't keep stats so it doesn't matter to me. we could do a swap.

blythe said...

ok, let's do it.

Dan Nolan said...

I can't think of anything to post here so I'm not sure I can think of anything to post there either, but I'll try. Maybe the Oklahoma KFC Incident.