I search the Web for K-Fed quotes so you don't have to. You're welcome.

I usually reserve my judgment until I hear something, but just by looking at the guy, reading past interviews, and reading this story, I can honestly say we're lucky to be alive right now.

What other generation has such a pop icon as K-Fed? Who else will our children look up to, if not the skinny, white trash hip-hop artist? I know I'm already reconsidering the names I've had picked out all my life for my unborn children; "K-Fed" just has so much more street cred.

Among the gems of the interview, and others:
1. "My album is sure to set the dance floors across the world on fire!"

2. "I don't think we've ever been formally introduced. My name is Kevin Federline. I'm 6 feet tall, have brown hair and brown eyes. I enjoy horseback riding, long walks on the beach and the wind whipping through my hair." (Seriously, it's from his Web site.) Because if I were a pop-star wannabe, I'd want my Web site to sound like a fifth grader wrote it. No offense to any fifth graders.

3. ""I could go on forever about my love for this girl. ... She's (expletive) proud of me. I could be sitting at home doing nothing. I could be playing (expletive) video games." What??! (Really, it's from this article.)

4. "I've been in the closet with it for a while. I don't know, guess I would have to say I'm the rookie of the year." (From this.)

I'm sure there's more, but I can't stand it anymore.

Huh. I guess I live here now.

My cousin stopped in Oshkosh tonight.

No, really. He's from Ohio, too; he's a year older than I am, and when we were younger we used to take family vacations with each other's family. One year it was Chicago. One it was North Carolina. One it was the Ohio State Fair. When we were really young, I used to chase him and be chased around the basement of my grandma and grandpa's house.

Then, we grew up, and went to different high schools, etc. And now he's living in Chicago. He had work to do in Appleton and Berlin, so he was spending the night in Oshkosh tonight.

Dave and I went with the safe route (because we're lame, I guess): We took him to The Bar for 25-cent wings. If we were in college, we also would've celebrated with some drinks and some karaoke (OK, no karaoke); but we're old and boring now. It was a Wednesday. I have to work the next day. So does he. We sat there and talked and it was awesome and strange seeing someone from back home sitting across from me at MY bar.

But then it was over, and I went home, and he went to his hotel. I got in my car with the Wisconsin license plates and drove all the way home without thinking about how I get home. I thought about work and blogged, and watched my one channel with Dave and listened to the dryer running and am about to go to bed early. I'm really aware of my Wisconsin status at the moment. Like, this is my life. Whoa.

And all I have to show for all this deep thinking is heartburn. Dang.

(Photo: thepostcard.com.)

Yippy dog update

Fluffy's back.

Only its name isn't Fluffy. It's Charlie. We unlocked our door tonight, and we heard the yipping, and "Shhhhhhh, Charlie! Shhhh!"

Only Charlie doesn't shhhh. Charlie yips more.

Now, when we open our door, we know to hate Charlie. When we close our door, it's Charlie who's yipping. When we make any noise whatsoever too close to our door, it's Charlie who notices. Charlie. Charlie.

At least they didn't ruin it by naming it our dog's name; I'm glad it's Charlie. Not unlike the kid in school you hated and thus can't name any child or dog with the same name, Charlie would've ruined my life if his name were Mr. Big. Just sayin'. I called it. No yippie dog is going to ruin that for me.

Not that we have a dog. But someday.

"It just sounded like a good idea"

This is nuts. I don't know what people are thinking, but this isn't a good idea.

See, this kid wandered around Wal-Mart for 41 hours for a sort of class project. An elective class project. Wal-Mart's not really excited about it, but New Line Cinema's talking movie deals. Penguin Books is talking deals.

For what? He wandered around the chain store for 41 hours. He played video games, ate at Subway, watched DVDs. I did the same thing in high school. OK, not for 41 hours. But. Anyhow.

In the late '90s in small-town Ohio, Wal-Mart was the only store open past 8 p.m. on the weekends, so it's where we bought everything; we were those annoying teenagers buying 96 rolls of toilet paper and giggling. But that was high school. This kid did this on his college spring break.

Makes me feel better about the majority of my lame spring breaks when I was in college.

I aaaam an innocent maaaaan. And a big nerd.

Because both of you are dying to know what exciting finds I ... uh, found at the antiques store, here it is (drumroll, please):

Billy Joel's "An Innocent Man."

"But, didn't you already have that?"

Yes. Yes my friends. I have it on cassette, on CD and now, as of yesterday, on vinyl. I am so cool now, apparently.

See, when I was a kid, my dad would dub vinyl onto cassettes for me to listen to; one of the first he dubbed for me was "An Innocent Man." The year he got me a CD player for Christmas, that was the first CD I got. Because I was poor and 11, I had no disposable cash, so "Innocent Man" and I had some quality time together for a while, until I bought more CDs.

Needless to say, Billy's was the only CD I actually kept from that ill-advised bout of CD purchasing. So when I found it in the bin yesterday with a bunch of other "classics" -- Dolly Parton, Luther Vandross, etc. -- I had to rescue it. "Beauty and the Beast" guy? I think Billy keeps better company than that. And now he does. With Bright Eyes and Elliott Smith. On our shelf.

Dolly Parton. I'm so sure.

"But what will I wear??!"

When we were younger (last week), supper with friends consisted of going out to eat at some restaurant like Applebee's or something just as predictable.

Last night, it meant going over to a friend's house with a bottle of wine and eating REAL FOOD.

It should be noted, I ate my vegetables. I ate many helpings of potatoes. And I ate pork. And I drank real wine. So many surprises in four sentences; I can hardly stand it.

It was very grown-up of us, and very cool of them to invite us over to their house and cook and make awesome dessert and not even make us clean up. Whoa. Whoa. It being our first real dinner party, I had envisioned something like Charlie's party in "High Fidelity." Like, they'd be wearing really artsy clothes and obscure music would be playing.

(I should confess, I compare a lot of my life to "High Fidelity." I'm waiting for the moment I have to go pick Dave up from lying in some muddy flowerbed in the rain in a suit.)

I stressed out about the dinner all day (it practically ruined my antique-shopping mood -- almost): about what I would wear, and what I'd do if they made fish (I'd die, that's what I'd do). Being adult enough to go to a dinner party doesn't mean you're old enough to stop worrying about what you're going to wear. I tried on 286 outfits in my head. I don't even own that many clothes.

But, really, they dressed like normal people and we played some Justin Timberlake (not ashamed, I'll say it again, we listened to some Justin Timberlake), and the food was really good. No fish.

What bored me when I was 19 now made me feel very ... adult. I just went to a dinner party. And stayed out too late. And, ergo, completely missed Steven's big iPod DJing (iJing, if you will) debut. I feel badly about that. But, alas. It was Sunday. It's hard to get me out of the house on Sundays.

Baby steps. Baby steps.

Facebook's creepy.

Facebook's supposed to be this place where you meet friends, and add friends, and post comments and photos ... But in all actuality, it's kinda lame.

I mean, Facebook only lets you look at profiles of people who went to your school. It has one static look to all the profiles, and you can't like, blog or anything on it. However, while logged into it today, I found this trends tracker thing. It's kind of creepy.

There's a top 10 list: Your school is on one side, and the national average of Facebook users is on the other. The top 10 catagories are split up into movies, books, interests, clubs, organizations, etc. I guess you're supposed to see how cool your school is compared to everyone else.

Then, you can compare the biggest "movers" at your school. Down five points this week is "My Name is Earl." Up two points: "Beer pong." Down three points: "The Breakfast Club." Up 14 points: "Kroger." Kroger. The grocery store chain. A grocery store chain just jumped 14 points under the "clubs and organizations" catagory at the University of Toledo. Unless there's a Kroger club I'm not aware of. I have been living out of state for what? Six months.

It's creepy because you list what you like and don't like on your profile, and it magically collects all that data. I can think of weirder things. But the real weird thing is that I care -- I just spent 10 minutes reading through it all.

This is the best Saturday ever.

(Kroger: Up 14 points this week at the University of Toledo. Woo hoo!)

An embarrassing story - with a happy ending.

I have an embarrassing confession.

Instead of going out last night, I stayed home to watch "Law & Order." (And to sleep, but that's secondary.)

Right now, I'm watching "Law & Order." Season four. Three DVDs.

And you know what? I have it all down. It's all the same. I mean, I don't know the stories and I don't know whodunit. But man. They have one sound clip of a telephone ringing. Every time they open a door into the police station, it rings. Every time the DA's office door opens, it rings. When they stand in the police station, it keeps ringing. When they're outside on the street, there's a canned car horn noise. There's the sound of cars passing behind them, even when there's no cars driving by.

When they question witnesses, as soon as they're done, the witnesses have somewhere to go. "I have to go to the dentist." "I have to get dinner ready." "I have to go to work." If I were being questioned in a homicide case, I'd stand there like an idiot, until they told me go.

And Jill Hennessey, aka Jordan on "Crossing Jordan," looks really, really bad with a short bob cut.

That's it. I'm turning it off. No more. I'm through. No more!

Welcome to your new home, Fluffy.

When we moved in, we had a very loud, very unhappy couple across the hall who fought all the time, whose baby cried all the time, and who slammed doors at all hours. I'm not completely convinced they ever slept.

They moved on to other housing. Fortunately.

They moved out, what? Around Thanksgiving? Christmas? Since then, it's been nice and quiet.

Until this morning.

I'm not entirely sure who lives there now. I mean, there have been people going in an out all morning like clowns in a Volkswagon; a really skinny, really tall guy, a guy with a big beard. Three women. And one. Very. Yippy. Dog.

I love dogs. I love little dogs. I love medium-sized dogs. I like big dogs from a distance.

But little tiny yippy dogs and I are not friends. I'm hoping it's Mom's dog. And I hope Mom doesn't live there. Oh, my. I went down to get the mail, and I heard it. Everywhere. It was upstairs. It was downstairs. It was in the elevator. It was in the hall. I've seen it only through the peep hole, when I thought the dog was barking right outside my door. It was. Then it disappeared for a little bit. Now it's back. You think the dog would get tired, take a nap. Get a sore throat. Stop barking. Please.

Ha, ha. And you guys have cable.

There must be one very rich, very odd person out there.

VH1 is doing this benefit programming thing, and all the money goes to help people affected by Hurricane Katrina. Pay $25, get one video request. Well, some smart ... guy decided to donate an hour's worth of money to play versions of "99 Luftballons," or "99 Red Balloons." Oh, my. Check it out here.

At least it's for a cause, I guess.

So I was thinking, what song could I listen to for an hour? Or, better yet, what song would I play, if I were so rich as to have an hour's worth of songs to pick from? Um, let's see ... 60 minutes in an hour, divided by three minutes per song ... (insert Erin opening her desktop calendar) = 20 songs (Am I doing this right?), minus like, eight for those songs that go over three minutes.

OK. I have 12 songs. It's harder than you think, because, unlike "99 Red Balloons" guy, I would be thinking about the millions of people who would be sitting there thinking "God, who picked THESE songs?" This is a lot of pressure. You want to appear cool, but not too cool. Not a music snob. Oh, my.

It should be noted that I don't know if videos actually exist, as I haven't seen VH1 or MTV or anything in a decade and a half.

1. "Second Wind," by Billy Joel, because it's hilarious. There's this guy who wants to jump off the bridge, and Billy's all there on the edge like some angel in a trench coat, showing him all the people who would miss him. Very "It's a Wonderful Life." Very funny. I know this one exists, because I have it on DVD. Ha. I am embarrassed.

2. Frou Frou's "Let Go." More commonly known as "the song that's in the background when Natalie Portman and Zach Braff are hugging in the airport at the end of 'Garden State.'" Makes me tear up everytime.

3. "Take on Me," by someone in the '80s. I don't like this song and will turn it anytime it's on the radio, but when I was a kid, I remember thinking "WHOA, how did they do that?" when I saw the characters like, walk through a mirror and turn into chalk-esque drawings on VH1. Very '80s.

4 and 5. I'd waste two votes on "Since U Been Gone," by Kelly Clarkson, to be played consecutively, just to annoy Dave.

6. Something by The Strokes, because I love them and the only video I've seen of theirs is a grainy one from some girl's Myspace page. Very grainy. Very "buffering, please wait."

7. "I Believe In Sympathy," by Bright Eyes. Conor Oberst would hate every second of it, because it'd be on mainstream media ... but I would still love it.

8. "Helena," by My Chemical Romance. I know it's sooo last year. I know they're no longer edgy, but are kinda poppy. But I have the money, and I control the hour on VH1. So there.

9. to 12., I play four other Billy Joel songs, just to round out the hour. And because I've made it through my iTunes and don't feel like going back through the list. Unless anyone has suggestions.

(Photo: Still from "Second Wind" by Billy Joel.)

"I'm glad I didn't die before I met you."

Getting married is hard to do.

I mean, there's the whole finding a person. Then the whole waiting around until the person stops dragging his feet. Then the whole nervous "Will he ask me?" moments, and the drunken, quasi-deep conversations about what you, you know man, want out of life. Then the will-he-or-won't-he phase. I'm not saying those were my experiences. Ha. Just an observation.

And my best friend decided this would be a good idea. Yeah -- my friend since I was 11, my college roommate. Gettin' married. Oh yeah.

And this adds a whole new dimension to my life. OK, not really. But it is exciting to have someone else to talk about the merits of ivory versus off white versus white. The "we want to be different" touches that inevitably, because of cost and laziness, turn into the "everyone else is doin' it" moments.

And I mean that in a good way. I need someone else to tell me we can't always get our way. Or, just let me complain about it, and then we laugh and move on.

I mean, I'm going to have to accept the fact that Dave doesn't want to dance to "First Day of My Life."* And she'll have to accept that he's a teacher and, sigh ... that means she should probably get married in the summer. The hot, sweaty, muggy, miserable Ohio summers. Ha. I mean, the beautiful summer light. Glass half full.

(*Read: Dave will learn to love it. How can you not love that song? "This is the first day of my life ... I'm glad I didn't die before I met you." Nothing says romance like mentioning death. Wait a minute ...)

(Photo: Ring by Tiffany's. I mean, her fiance is a teacher; I'm sure it's from Tiffany's.)

Channel 13, no longer the news channel, but the TOMKAT channel! More at 5!

A friend told me that there were rumors going around Toledo and the 'Net that Toledo's favorite couple, TomKat, is currently in the Toledo Hospital giving birth. Well, technically, I guess Katie'd be giving birth, but ...

Why they'd go to Toledo is beyond me (well, besides that she's from Toledo). Although I bet she won't be waiting in the lobby for three hours like I did that one time ...

Anyhow.

Let it be known I loathe the name TomKat, almost as much as I hate how far back I roll my eyes when I see that Channel 13, not a bad or sleazy news channel (Toledo has worse), has a whole section on its site devoted to Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes news. What happened to the news channel? Oh, wait. That is news. Newertainment.

But WHO KNEW? Did you know Tom and Katie are getting married July 4th? Did you know that's one day after his 44th birthday? Did you? Don't you feel more complete, like a better person for having read that? I know I do.