1. Google

2. There is a squirrel in my attic.

Now, there are many and various challenges of living in a hip and thriving city (overpriced coffee beans, stroller dads, white guilt), but I had not previously known about squirrels as a potential obstacle which I would have to overcome in my interesting and emotionally wrought life.

For the last couple of days, my roommates and I have been hearing a weird sound in the walls. Like a scratchy or move-y sound, kind of like a homeless dude was digging through our walls for cans, which we knew was silly because we keep our cans in a cardboard box inside the house, not inside the walls. I was pretty sure that it was a ghost (friendly, obv) or some kind of rat. It turns out that it was a squirrel, and also that squirrels are not “some kind of rat,” but in fact their own unique breed of species. Huh.

So the big question is: What’s up with squirrels? Are they cute? Should we befriend it and bring it little nuts and things? Or are squirrels a menace, to be exterminated?

I did a little google-imaging, and here are my findings about squirrels:

This seems like a pretty cool squirrel, kind of a chiller. If our squirrel is like this, I think it would be nice to have it in the attic, strumming the ukulele or whatever. Maybe this squirrel could even be taught to play other instruments, and could join one of the many bands\experimental projects around town. It would be socially valuable for my roommates and I to be associated with this squirrel.

This squirrel has a boozoka. While I totally support the coming Apocalypse, and movies\graphic novel inspired by this future moment in history, I don’t think it’s appropriate to have guns in the home. I’ve been pretty affected by these public service announcements, so I’m going to have to say that, at least for the moment, that I am not OK with a squirrel like this in our attic.

Wow, squirrels are really sharp dressers. I am learning so many facts about squirrels today. I really, really really hope that our squirrel is wearing a similar outfit to this one. If so, I am definitely pro-squirrel.

I am nervous about sexual harassment at the hands\paws of this squirrel.

OK guys, have you had any experiences with being roommates with squirrels? Was it ever tense when they left little nutshells around?

Please note that this blog has an automatic non-discriminatory sensor in the comments section; please do not write anything inflammatory (i.e. a “flame war”) about squirrels that you do not actually know.

x-posted to Horse Facts.

Cat Band was pretty much the first “cool” music I listened to in highschool. I had an *NSYNC binder and this dude Greg the Anarchist was always scaring me by making Anarchy signs, and I was basically on a one-way ticket to Nerd in a handbasket. Until I heard Cat Band.

Their sound was unconventional yet rhythmic. They were attractive, but they wore sensible shoes. They were Polish, but they were really into confronting everyday realities for youths.

I suggest that everybody check out the docu on them. It has Kim Gordon.

x-posted to Horse Facts

The QB gets the ball, and now it’s really Go Time. He has to “set up the play.” Like James Van der Beek in the 1999 MTV film, Varsity Blues. Van der Beek is the QB. It means Quarter Back. It means that women love you and wear whipped cream bikinis for you. It means that later your career will really go down the toilet post-Rules of Attraction but my brother will continue to emulate your middle-parted hairstyle (aka “The Butt Cut”) well into his college years. It means A HERO. Okay. (Me: “What if he drops it?” My Brother: “He sucks.”)

What happens next happens in literally about 2-10 seconds. If you wear glasses usually but are not wearing them now, forget it. If you’re prone to sort of zoning out at pivotal moments when important facts are repeated for the only time during movies that have actual plots, forget it. Basically, the kind of burst of hormone-crazed adrenaline that certain moms are maybe-apocryphally have said to have reacted with in response to infants trapped beneath cars, etc., is happening in all of the dudes on the field, Team Red AND Team Purple, and it looks like this:

1) Everybody

2) gets on top

3) of the dude holding the ball

and the whistle blows again.