The funny thing about asthmatics is that when you say "almost died laughing," it's potentially true

~ Crowley

Welcome baaaaaaaaaaaaaaack to the latest edition of the Mustard all you true believers. And to those of you who are not believers but random people who found their way to this blog by an accidental click of the button, hey, what’s up, thanks for coming.

It’s been a fun old week for Mr. Snow. I’'ve been hard at work putting up a few new chapters of the strip. I got on a bit of a roll and cranked out a hefty chunk of Episode II. So check out Episode II of the strip here.

So we'’re at T-minus 4 days until the make or break game of the season for Notre Dame. Personally I think our season is pretty much decided. It didn’t hurt that I got the ticket application for bowl games from Notre Dame today giving me the option of such highlights as the Insight Bowl and the Continental Tire Bowl. Seriously, this is such a crock of shiatsu. You basically have to guess which bowl game the Irish will get to (probably the Insight Bowl) and if you don'’t guess right, you don’'t get tickets. You can always send in a ton of money for all 3 bowls but the always frugal Notre Dame will not return your money to you until after it has collected as much interest as possible with it. Pretty sweet deal if you ask me... well for one side. Look I appreciate that they do give us the option of getting tickets to a bowl but what'’s wrong with them just sending an application that also gives people the option of asking for a certain number of tickets to whatever bowl game the Irish end up in so that we don’t have to pay $145 to ensure we get a ticket to the correct bowl game?

Ok, so that’s my little rant and I'’m done with it. You know me, sometimes Bitter Snow peeks through the clouds. Alright so couple of quick book reviews for those of you are who currently without a literary companion:

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay:
I randomly came upon this book one day while walking through Barnes and Noble and it was on the summer reading table. I’'d never heard of it before (I didn'’t keep up with the major novels put out in the past few years, especially while I was at Notre Dame) but the title intrigued me. Then I saw the big notice of it being a Pulitzer winner. When I came across the book while in Saratoga for Labor Day I decided to borrow it from my mother. I won'’t lie, it'’s a long book. But it is also a damn good one too. It begins with Joseph Kavalier, a young Jew who recently smuggled himself out of Nazi Prague during WWII, finding his way to his aunt in New York City. There he meets his cousin Sam Clay and together they combine their talents to create a successful comic empire. Yes, this is a really quick summation which absolutely fails to capture the spirit of the book. The author does an amazing job of writing the character of Joe Kavalier, capturing the guilt he feels whenever he feels an ounce of joy or happiness in New York because he feels he should be spending every second working towards figuring out a way to bring the rest of his family, still trapped in Prague, over to the United States. There is also the wonderful portrayal of Sam Clay as a young man chasing the American Dream of becoming something bigger than his current status in life while trying to figure out his own confusing personal life. Most impressive is the scene of 1930’s and 40’s New York City both in the sense of the wartime atmosphere as well as showing the climate during the rise of the golden age of comics. The author, Michael Chabon, knows and loves his comics and their history (he was one of the writer’s on the superior Spider-man 2 and he also wrote the novel on which the excellent movie Wonderboys was based). The only problem I had with the book was I felt the pacing was thrown off about 2/3 of the way through with the sudden adventure in Antarctica (yeah, you'’ll just have to read the book). While it’'s well written and certainly fits with the mood the book is trying to create, at the same time it just seems to suddenly slow things down too much only to have it suddenly pick up again in a mad rush to the end. But in the end the qualm is minor and like I said, well-written, so that I did still enjoy the part. Overall the book was excellent I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a good read. If you'’re a fan of comics or any of the current plethora of comic-based movies (which these days is about one in five movies), this book is an absolute must-read.

America (the book): A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy Inaction:
I won’t spend too long on this because, let’s face it, if you'’re a fan of the Daily Show, you already have this book. If you don'’t then I can only imagine it’'s because you managed to fall into a coma the past few months and therefore missed the fact that Jon Stewart and the Daily Show team put out a book. If you'’re not a fan of the Daily Show but looking for something along the lines of either sharp political satire or just something to read that also happens to be funny as hell, then go get the book already. Honestly I don’t think I'’ve ever laughed so hard at a book in my life (if you don'’t believe me, just asked the people sitting next to me on the airplane who had to listen to me laugh out loud repeatedly during the flight (to any of those poor souls who are reading: I’'m sorry.)) But yes, this book is just, to quote Peter Griffin, “freaking hilarious”. But don’t take my word for it, just listen to the Amazon.com preview of the book:

Alright you Kwazy Klowns, that’'s all for now, I hope all is well in your lives. Rather then leave you with my own words of wisdom, I’'m going to leave you where I started, in the capable hands of Mr. Dan Crowley:

DrC 64 25: for some reason, i'm wishing i still had senior bar available to me
DrC 64 25: and since i don't have any killian's to hoist to senior year, i just cracked open a guinness for last year
DrC 64 25: to hell with midnight, class tomorrow, and potential alcoholism... here's to senior bar.