What to do this weekend? Avoid the news. Watch dachsunds race. Help out. Vaguely attempt to prettify our home in one way or another, if only to pick up everything that really should have a place of its own. Wait, back up. Perhaps it's a winner: the Weinerschnitzel(R) Weiner Nationals at Golden Gate Fields in Berkeley, a venue normally reserved for horse racin'. June 13, 2009. Noon. Apparently, according to an unclassified email randomly passed around, "in the fall of 2004, "documentary filmmaker Shane MacDougall began to chronicle the surprisingly cut-throat world of competitive dachshunds, Weiner Takes All. Not available on Netflix.

According to the Weinerschnitzel (R) folks, their motto is "Our Food: Pushing the Boundaries of Taste." Do you, like me, find this construction somewhat amusing? There are so many things whose boundaries can be pushed. Biomolecular simulations. Eco-friendly whatever. Insurgent behavior theory. *My* boundaries. When I think of the boundaries of taste, though, I tend to think of snippets like "John Waters continues to push the boundaries of bad taste." Apparently Weinerschnitzel(R) has a new product called the Sea Dog. Yikes. I haven't tried it, but here is one extremely biased review.