Thursday night, we headed out to Mr. C’s Steakhouse for a tasty dinner after work. With the place set to close this fall, the opportunities to pay a visit to Karate Elvis are dwindling. Karate Elvis, for those of you who don’t know, is perhaps the finest piece of porcelain artwork ever constructed. The statue stands just under 10 inches tall, and is just one of around 100 pieces of Elvis memorabilia in a glass display case in the hallway adjacent to the bathrooms. Dressed in a sequin-and-rhinestone-studded karate uniform, wearing his early-70′s-trademark giant sunglasses, and rocking the Elvis Mullet as only Elvis could, this thing belongs in a museum based solely on its aesthetic value alone.

But one particular encounter with Karate Elvis took it from merely “great’ to “legendary”. Dick Herculanuum and Cliff Glypha were waiting for me to finish up in the bathroom, and were expressing their admiration for the Elvis memorabilia — and in particular, the statue of Elvis in a karate pose. Suddenly, from out of nowhere, a guy who sounded like Beverly-Hills-Cop-era Eddie Murphy came up behind them with a question.

“You know who taught Elvis karate?”

In a scene that could — nay, should — have been from any sitcom on TV, I drew disaffectionate stares as I sang to my five-month old niece to get her to go to sleep. Not funny, you say? Happens every day, you say?

True. But not like this, it doesn’t. See, I don’t know any nursery rhymes; there’s 9078 songs on my iPod, and not one nursery rhyme. But as I was putting her down for the night, I recalled my brother telling me that she loves it if you sing to her — it helps her relax and go to sleep, so I was trying. But like I said, I don’t know any nursery rhymes.

I do know Seattle Grunge though. So I sang her “Polly”, which when sang acapella in a nursery-rhyme tone, actually works surprisingly well. If you change the lyrics slightly so its not so patently, umm, you know.

“Polly wants a cracker…”

I get this question an awful lot, so with the 700th (!) post on this site, its high time to set the record straight. Seriously, 700 posts, what the hell took me so long?

October, 2001. I was five months out of college, weighed 900 pounds, or maybe it was 215, and I went to Nobbies (a local party-slash-costume store here in Omaha) to buy a Halloween costume. No longer strapped by college budget concerns but not yet ingenious enough to invent my own costume from scratch, I bought a pre-packaged Hippie costume. The guy in the photo on the package had a 1960′s-style whiteboy afro, along with peace necklaces and other things the package made very clear were NOT INCLUDED.

“Dude,” I said to myself. “I have to find a wig like that!”

The other day, I went to on my twice-monthly trip to the end of my block to check my mailbox, and discovered I had a letter from Donald Trump. Now, I’ve made no secret about the fact that I would love to go on The Apprentice to class up the inevitable one or two assignments that revolve around design. One of the reasons I do not watch the show anymore is because its too painful to watch future business leaders produce awful looking things in Power Point or Word.

The last straw for me was last year, when there was one contestant who kept insisting she had “extensive experience in marketing and was a very creative person” — and would then prove otherwise by creating hideous looking brochures and materials week after week. The other contestants, and even the clients in one case (when they did work for Liberty Island) LOVED the work. Pissed me off. I want to do a brochure for Liberty Island, and I can’t. But a business person who creates brochures in Word gets that job. The common denominator? Donald J. Trump. She knows Donald Trump, she gets to butcher that job. I don’t know Donald Trump, I don’t get to not butcher that job. I want to be on that show. Nay, I NEED to be. But I digress.

So anyway, I received a letter from Donald Trump.

Anytime you’re at a party, and getting hit on by a 50-year old mom is only the 4th craziest story of the evening, you know its a good time. But that’s exactly the kind of time it was on St. Patrick’s Day at Gilby’s, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t document this stuff — which is why, even six days later, I am doing so.

Now then, in reverse order, the Five Craziest Events of this epic party. I don’t think its a coincidence that they also happen to be in chronological order — parties tend to get better the later you get into the night: