Angels Pee Goldschläger

What if....



Heaven WAS a bar?

They'd play everyone's best moments on the TVs, and it would be like Life Karaoke. Because in Heaven all your friends are dead and also in Heaven. And you don't get sad that your friends all died because you died too and you're all hanging out, doing Life Karaoke. We'd all take turns being each other in front of a past life green-screen. "GUYS LOOK! I'M DOING BILLY'S INSIDE THE PARK T-BALL HOME RUN AGAIN!"

The virginity-shedding blooper reel is for when everyone gets really drunk. Also, infinite drink specials, and you can just keep drinking but never black out or get hungover. And you periodically forget what drinks taste like, so when you get one you're getting it for what seems like the first time in forever. And in Heaven, maybe that is the case...CASE OF BEER.

But Heaven as a bar would have to close for one hour out of every hundred. So you could learn to appreciate it. And the other one hour would be spent watching sad things on Earth. Like Tyler Perry movies. AND THEN BACK TO HEAVEN! IT'S JALAPENO POPPERS SERVED BY JENNIFER CONNELLY NIGHT!

Also, Walken wiping down the bar. Constantly. The man never stops wiping the bar and telling fascinating stories.

Idiot Tax

I play the lottery sometimes.

It's been called an Idiot Tax. The chances of winning are approximately 1 in 175 million. Those odds are statistically insignificant. "It's only a dollar, though!" Yes, I hear you scream it. But you might as well light that dollar on fire or wipe your tushy with it and flush it down the toilet.

I bought 5 NY Powerball tickets and 2 Mega Millions tickets this morning on my way to work. I see that sign that says "The Jackpot is now..." and if the number is high enough, you bet your fucking ass I buy a ticket. Or 7.

Now, I'm a pretty smart guy. I'm well aware that I have basically no chance of winning the lottery. And that I'm throwing away seven dollars and that to make up for that I'll probably have to skip lunch today. But still, I play the lottery. When it gets up high enough that the lump cash payment, after taxes, is such that I can lavishly improve my lifestyle AND ensure that I never have to work again, I buy a ticket.

And the money I spend on the ticket is like the price of a movie ticket. For 16 or 18 dollars you can spend almost three hours watching Avatar in 3D. I absolutely get at least 1/16th or 1/18th of the amount of joy from buying a lottery ticket and subsequently fantasizing about how I would spend the money.

What's that? You want to know how I would spend the money? Well, I'm so glad you asked.

Let's assume, for ease of numbers that I win 100 million dollars after taxes. That's a fuck load of money. It's pretty simple what I would do.

1. Buy a ridiculous apartment
Like, a 10 million dollar, open-plan, converted loft, full size pool table, maybe a swimming pool on the roof deck. Just all out awesome. Wall-to-wall kick assery. Then I'd probably put aside another 1 million or so just so that all apartment maintenance fees or associated costs would be taken care of for the rest of my life. Did I mention it would have a pool table in it? Because it would.

2. Do nothing
Fucking nothing. I would sit on my ass. I would go to the movies. I would play video games. I would eat delicious food. I would masturbate. And have sex. And watch television. And sleep. And take long baths. And masturbate in the pool. And then in the bath. All the money would be in a high yield savings account or something and I would just sit. I would do fucking nothing. And it would be goddamn beautiful.

The Panopticon of Guilt

From Wikipedia:

The Panopticon is a type of prison building designed by English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in 1785. The concept of the design is to allow an observer to observe (-opticon) all (pan-) prisoners without the incarcerated being able to tell whether they are being watched, thereby conveying what one architect has called the "sentiment of an invisible omniscience."^[1]

I live my blogging life in a Panopticon of Guilt. Posting so late at night, no longer being able to post while at work, attempting and failing to manage time in order to post while doing a laundry list of other things, including laundry. You think I like these things? I assure you, I don't. I don't know how people are able to play Second Life. "Maybe you should spend less time doing things that aren't blogging..." MAYBE YOU'RE RIGHT, DAD.

It will get better. Right? Right.

Right?

Quod Erat Demonstratum

How do we know what Latin sounds like?

I'm serious.

I've been corrected on my pronunciation of Latin words many times before. I've probably even been the asshole correcting other people. But really, the language died out a long time before the invention of recording devices.

We assume that the language itself is important, right? Anytime we have to write anything of significance, it ends up in Latin. My diploma says "Universitatis Yalensis" on it. As if either of those words were around in Roman times. But sure, just slap an "is" on the end of it and make it all Latin-soundy. Why the fuck not. We print the titles to movies in Roman numerals. It's on all our monuments. But I don't think anyone really cares how it's pronounced.

I like to amuse myself by pretending that Latin was originally pronounced in an accent that was like a hybrid of Scottish and Portuguese. Like they all spoke like Sean Connery in Highlander. "I am Juan Sánchez Villa-lobos Ramírez, Chief metallurgist to King Charles V of Spain. And I'm at your service." -- "I'm not Spanish, I'm Egyptian."



(Side note, if I may, and of course I may because this is my blog post you controlling bastards: it really makes no fucking sense that they cast Sean Connery in this role. He's an immortal from... well, not from Scotland anyway, who speaks just like Sean Connery always does. It only serves to confuse the point in the movie. Because he's a Scottish Highlander playing an Egyptian-Spaniard directly opposite Christopher Lambert who is a Frenchman playing a supposedly Scottish Highlander... Jesus. Where was I? Where am I now? Sorry, I blacked out there for a second.)

Oh, right, Latin. Try it. Go ahead, I'll wait. Try saying your favorite Latin phrases in Sean Connery's accent but with a Hispanic cadence and flair. It's really fun. I'd be doing it outloud myself but I figured at least one of us should look sane.

Incidentally, my penis' name is Juan Sánchez Villa-lobos Ramírez.

Shh. Smell That?

It's spring. School is almost over, and the Flyers are going to the playoffs. Since adolescence, this has been my reaction when the weather turns warm. I'm no longer in school, the weather isn't all that warm, and sometimes the Flyers aren't going to the playoffs. But this year they are, because there wasn't a lockout and it's not 2007. Oh god, 2007 sucked.

Anyway, the Flyers have galvanized several springs for me. Moments I'll never forget, at least for now:

Damn you Scott Stevens, I HAD JUST STARTED TO BELIEVE. I was 14 and I was down the shore on a Friday night. Pheewrap was at this game. We watched it on VHS taped off television over and over again, watching the Flyers give up a 3-1 series lead. An unheard of thing. Until you remember that you're a hockey fan, and a Flyers fan, and apparently the team was unbeatable six years before you were born.

It was a Thursday. I was allowed to stay up and watch this. I had a spelling test and gym class the next day. All I remember is going to bed excited, and now all I remember is that we used to hand Pittsburgh crushing playoff defeats, and not the other way around.

You don't get called "The Dominator" no reason. The first time they scored on him in this series, Pheewrap chokeslammed me into a bed. At an even-then combined 400 pounds, the wooden bed frame was toast. Dad was pissed. Dad is not a particularly big hockey fan.

Still haven't seen anything like it. I miss Desjardins. Also, this wasn't in the playoffs. But that's so clearly not the point.

I was standing in a bar my senior year of college. It was pub night. Beer and wings were free all night for seniors. I stood there and watched this game surrounded by free beer and wings. About three people screamed when this happened, I was probably the reddest-faced. Everything about following the Flyers from now on will be an attempt to get back to how I felt at this moment.



And yesterday, they did this. Playoffs. Sweet, sweet playoffs. Sweet, sweet, rosy-cheeked Claude Giroux playoffs.

You're going to pay me in WHAT?

Peanuts.

We're going to pay you peanuts.

Okay, no, that's not what I'm going to write about. I could tell you were worried again. Like I was going to write a whole post from the point of view of an elephant applying for a job. I considered it. It has promise. Lots of good puns. "Well, I'm proficient at all Microsoft Office applications and I've got a GREAT memory." But somehow I just wasn't feeling it today.

No, I wanted to write about The Internship. I don't know how we got to this point in our society. I really don't. I HATE the idea of an Internship.

It goes like this: You pay to go to school. You learn. That is your full-time thing. When you have to fill out any official forms, you put "Student" as your occupation. Either you go to public school and have paid through your taxes beforehand or you go to private school and pay an exorbitant amount of money after the fact to have your children be in classes without the distraction of minorities in the classroom. But this is the way things go.

Then you graduate from college. You are told you are the future. You are told you are the bright, shining center of the universe. So you go out into the world to make your fortune. However, if you want to work in an industry that anyone at all wants to work in, you can't go straight to having a job. No. First, you need to have an internship. And unless you get one of the sought-after internships in finance, this will be an unpaid position.

This unpaid position would be fine if you were merely observing, learning, being taught things. This is not the case. Instead, you will be shut in a small room, filing things and sorting different colored paper clips. It makes your resume look impressive that you interned at, say, The National Resource Defense Council. But deep down, you will know that all you did was get people coffee and try not fuck anything up.

Here's why this is a problem. Can you think of ANY other scenario in which you would do shitty work for free? Shit, a friend asks you to help him move, you're going to expect him to buy you a six pack or a pizza or something. But no. Internships instead take the people who are most passionate, most dedicated, most interested in the work and make them do menial labor for free. How do I know they're the most dedicated etc.? BECAUSE THEY'RE WORKING FOR FREE. Who the fuck else would agree to work for free other than someone who REALLY loved the work? And if you have a person like that, don't you think you should pay them something commensurate with their passion and ability?

Some go even further. Take the Williamstown Theater Festival in Williamstown, MA. They take a bunch of Acting and Directing and Design and Stage Management "Apprentices" and "Interns" every summer. But not only do they not pay you, YOU have to pay THEM. You pay them a bunch of money for room and board and for the privilege of working 18 hour days for them. I think that's pretty fucked up, but what do I know? I'm just the asshole who's actually considering do it...

OHGODOHGODOHGODOHGODOHGOD (Update)

To Err is human, to forgive...Divine.

I'm slipping, Dave. I can....Feel it.

UPDATE: I'm editing the timestamp. It's like Reconciliation.

/Catholic'd

//Catholicked

Seven Deadly Sins: Sloth Edition

Ohhhhhh god yes.

I'm sooooo lazy.

I feel like all I've done today is hang around. Think this tree is comfortable? You bet your fuckin' ass it's comfortable.

Are my arms tired? Nope. Not in the slightest. Just been hangin' around all day. I slept in. Then I moved slowly up the trunk. Then I inched along this limbs . It took me like 3 hours. You see this cozy spot? I spotted it and just knew that was wear I was gonna spend the rest of the day. Mossy? You know it. Sheltered? Like a Mormon teenager.

Sometimes you just need a lazy day, y'know? Maybe you drank a little too much the night before, or maybe just went to bed a little too late. Or maybe you were up all night because the goddamn jaguar who lives one tree down from you is having a fight with his mate and she won't shut the fuck and keeps snarling and roaring all goddamn night. Maybe that's what happened.

So yeah. Maybe I'll go forage a little later. Or try to mate a little. Or maybe not. Whatever. It might just be a lazy fuckin' day.

Why Baseball is Inferior

I love baseball.

I really do. But it's ultimately inferior to football simply because there are so many fucking games. CC Sabathia just pitched 7 & 2/3 innings of no-hit baseball. And everyone on the benches and in the game looks like they just met with their accountants. Baseball players all seem fairly unexcited to be playing the game. And it makes sense. If you had to play 162 games over 6 months, playing almost every day, you would have to condition yourself to not get too reactive over things happening in the game. If you let the losses get to you, even a little bit, you would go out of your fucking mind. And fast. Likewise, if you celebrated the wins and the little victories along the way you would quickly lose perspective. Why would you be happy about a hit or pissed off about a strikeout? You're going to come up to bat over SIX HUNDRED TIMES this year. What's one at-bat?

Can you imagine baseball players getting psyched up like football players before a game? Wouldn't it be a little ridiculous to see them doing this:

Because, after all, the results of individual games don't really matter. In football, Ray Lewis whips his team into a murderous frenzy (something he knows a lot about) before every game because every game ACTUALLY MATTERS. But a baseball game in mid-April is just about the least-consequential event imaginable.

Also, why do the managers wear the same uniforms as the players? Do we think that in a pinch, Don Zimmer is going to hop up and play the field?Yeah, I didn't think so.

Or Andy Reid wearing the same uniform as his players?

/gouges eyes out

The Chronicles of Soggybottom

I was completely hungover this morning. The birthday glory faded and left me with a tarnished and throbbing skull while the sky had turned grey and the unseasonable warmth had left my world. It felt like someone had been sitting on my head all night, but they had done it with their clothes on and they were a fat, fat man. It was Andy Reid. It felt like Andy Reid.

While I tried to get my head to adjust to the pressure of the thinner atmosphere that standing up required it to exist in, the rest of the morning happened around me without my noticing. Apparently I dressed and groomed myself. I have no memory of this, although I do remember making my lunch. Anything that sucks so much while you feel like such shit has to be remembered. That's the definition of trauma. I have PTSD from making a ham sandwich while hungover. I am deceptively fragile.

This was fine though, because after waiting in the block-long line for the bus, I got on and discovered an empty seat. A hard plastic blue oasis for my bleary self. "Come, sit, recover..." it beckoned to me. A sole empty seat, with no elderly or children or disabled in sight. Just several people choosing not to sit. "Very well, today, I shall sit. For serendipity hath offered me a throne!" So I sat down. And after I sat down, the lady across from me goes "Oh that seat was wet!" Thank you. Thank you ma'am. I felt the mystery fluid seep into my butt. Do with that sentence what you will. I actually started to get up...but then I just surrendered.

And I've been surrendering ever since. I am Soggybottom. I've committed myself to an ideal. An uncomfortable, terrible, damp-butted ideal. SWEAR TO ME. By the way, one looks ridiculous when one attempts to dry one's ass with a bathroom hand-dryer. Trust me.

Who would win?

I used to spend a lot time talking about hypothetical questions regarding fictional characters. These were always nerdy. Things like: a fight between Darth Vader and Optimus Prime? Who wins? or Would you rather be a survivor of the zombie apocalypse or the Robot Wars? (incidentally, I saw this last night and it was really fucking good. You should go if you can) Or deciding who in the office you think would be best used in the event of such a zombie apocalypse? Remember, Canadian Tuxedo? Remember? Those were the good times. The pantry times. The tuna-eating, bag-making, NPR-listening times.

Anyway, these are interesting questions to me. I still think they make for good conversation fodder. So, if on a gray and wet Friday morning you're starved for some conversation, here are some things you might consider nerdily arguing about.

1. Wolverine vs. Poison Ivy
Does his healing factor work faster than her poisonous toxins? I don't doubt he'd win in a straight-up brawl, but if her poison is faster acting, it's going to be a race to the finish for both of them. The speed of his healing factor is up for debate depending on the source, I think. In the cartoon, in season 1, it took him days to heal up in Alaska after an attack from Sabertooth. In the movies, his wounds heal in front of your eyes. He gets shot in the head and his head pushes the bullet back out and he's back up kicking ass again in mere seconds. And Poison Ivy... was played by Uma Thurman. I know nothing about her.

2. How large of an animal could you kill with no weapons?
This conversation usually comes out of some discussion of vegetarianism. I used to say things like "I'll eat it if I could kill it," to excuse my carnivorous ways. The idea was, I guess, that I would want to kill, say, a puppy, so I wouldn't want to eat one either. But imagine you are in a room, the size of half of a basketball court, naked, with no weapons. And it was a fight to the death between you and another member of the animal kingdom. What is the largest/most ferocius animal you think you could take? Like, I feel pretty comfortable taking my chances with a house cat. But a dog? Even just a medium-sized domesticated dog? I'd be toast, man. A golden retriever would bite my balls, then my jugular and it would just be over. A bird? Maybe I could take a bird if it would stop flying long enough for me to get it. Animals are just so much better equipped that us. We have no claws, no good teeth, no prehensile anything. All I've got is an unattractive amount of body hair and very sensitive external genitals. I'm a predator's dream. Natural selection has me fucked.

3. Zombie Apocalypse vs. Robot War vs. Vampire Infection
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
...Or we could go with a massive undead invasion.
-Zombie Robert Frost

Let's get one thing straight, I'm not going to survive any of these possible destructive cataclysms. I'm going to be first in line when the world starts to burn (see above, I'm not exactly the most fit for survival). But I think that each of these possible post-apocalyptic scenarios has their own unique challenges and opportunities. For example, Robot Wars definitely are the most difficult. They would be giant metal adversaries, incapable of mercy. Klaatu barada nikto etc. I wouldn't begin to know how to kill one. Zombies, vampires et. al. have well-documented means of being destroyed. On the other hand, I wouldn't think twice about trying to blow up a giant robot. But if the zombie coming for you was the reanimated corpse of a person who had once been your brother? Or mother? Or wife? Could you pull the trigger? COULD YOU?

4. If you could only pick one super-power, what would it be?
Imagine if these were the questions on college essays. How much more fun would the whole process be. I judge friends solely on how they answer this question. There are so many amazing options to choose from. Toggle-able Invisibility, Super-strength, Super-speed, Flight, Telekenesis, Telepathy, Teleportation, Super-healing, Hyper-agility etc. etc. It would take me far too long to type out a response to this for myself. On the one hand, I'm a meek and fearful little man, so I would probably like some kind of invulnerability power. On the other hand, I imagine that wingless, machineless flight is the most amazing thing one can feel, next to fucking in mid-flight. And telepathy would be great too. The problem is that mostly I can only imagine using my powers to accumulate vast wealth or to propogate sexual deviancy. Which would only lead to me becoming a super-villain and I don't think I've got the stomach for that. Best keep things the way they are then, I s'pose. And how do you weigh all the factors. Like is it worth it to look like Nightcrawler to have teleportation powers? (I never understood that, by the way. In the comics they're always saying how hideous he is. But I think he looks awesome. And sexy, in a kind of kinky, blue, animal, beastiality... oh god, I've said too much.)

5. If you could only eat one food and watch one movie for the rest of time, what would they be?
I mean, simultaneously. Like eating popcorn and watching Anchorman. Mine's easy: eating rock shrimp tempura with Ponzu sauce and watching Ghostbusters. Or Airplane!. Ah shit, I don't know. Doing any ONE thing forever would eventually turn into hell anyway.

Well would you look at that, I'm boring even myself now.

Have a good weekend. I'll be pretending I care about The Masters.

Oh, Now You Want Me?

Well, it's about time.

Happy Birthday Canadian Tuxedo

Happy Birthday, man.

I got you this.

Yeah, it's a baby. I thought you might like it. It's not like the one that we made together. No. I aborted that one. I'm sorry. I just couldn't bear the responsibility of having your child. The fruit of your considerable loins.

I'm sorry.

But we're past that now, yes? After all, here I am, giving you a blog post and a small human being for your birthday. You could do worse that an infant, as gifts go. I could have just written "Happy birthday dude" on your Facebook wall. I'm sure that many people today will do just that. And many of them will be people you never speak to. You may not even know who they are. But because they go on Facebook a lot, they'll see it's your birthday. And they'll take the 7.4 seconds it takes to write on your wall to express how glad they are that you survived another year.

Not me, though. Nope. I went through all the trouble of kidnapping someone else's baby for you. And then I sat him/her (I didn't check, okay?) in this cake in an adorable pose. To be honest, the kid seemed less than thrilled with the whole cake bukkake thing. But I did what I had to. Because I wanted to get you the perfect gift. Something that says: "I love you and I'm proud to have had you around for another year. And also, I'm sorry I aborted your fetus." I hope you like it. If not, I'll just get you another bottle of liquor. But don't share that with the baby. I'm told it's bad for them.

So happy birthday, sir. I hope it's a good one.

Never Do Your Taxes On Birthday Eve

It's just a terrible idea. One minute, you're cruising along on turbotax, thinking you're going to get a refund like all the other years- a little birthday present from yourself! And then all the numbers turn red instead of green. And then they keep asking you questions, and the numbers get higher, but they are still red. What is going on? This is not my beautiful house! This not my beautiful wife! But it is my tax return. And it is shitty, online, and smirking at me. Like match.com. I don't even have the heart to file it yet. I'm going to wait until I can see through the blurry haze of tears in seven days and submit it then. I like America, I just wish it took my money away from me in smaller increments so that I don't notice as much. Is there a way to do this? Can the sanctity of Birthday Eve be preserved? Isn't there a level 7 that can reign this in a bit?

Take another toke, have a blow for your nose

Do you ever look around, sniff, smell something funky, and then ask whoever you're with "do you smell something?" Sometimes the person will say "Oh yeah, it smells like cat food/cat piss/cat hair/usually something to do with cats, which I guess everyone agrees smell kind of bad?" And sometimes they won't smell it at all and will tell you so. And if they do, and you can still smell it, you sit there sniffing loudly and saying, more and more emphatically "What is that SMELL??"

I did this last night. And it turned out the smell was me. How embarrassing. Luckily, as soon as I noticed that it was me, I stopped asking what the smell was. Because I knew what the smell was. It was the intoxicating aroma of my sweaty feet and the BO from my arm pits. I ran out of anti-perspirant/deodorant a few days ago. The timing was terrible since it just started to get hot and I am a very sweaty man. You might not guess this from my size, but I seriously sweat just about as much as a person can sweat. It's gross. In the summer, I feel like Marlon Brandon in The Score.

I tried to find a picture of him from the scene in the steam room but I could find one. Or I imagined the scene. Whatever.

Do other people do this too? Sniff around, only to realize that they're the culprit? I'm not talking about when you fart and it's your own. That's a completely different scenario. If you're a guy, I assume you're like me and revel in the smell of your own farts. Especially if I'm alone, I'll fart, really loudly and smellily if I can, then sniff deeply and marvel at my own putrescence. Putridity? Both? No, that's a lovely experience. When you KNOW you're about to smell terrible and then real life confirms your prophecy? Awesome. But the harrowing realization that you smell terrible and didn't even realize it? That's a bad one.

Every morning I wake up and go "god, what's that smell?" My first thought is to blame the Desperate Picklette next to me. Within a half of a second, however, I realize that it's an awful cocktail of my morning-breath, my body odor and any residual flatulence of mine that has been trapped in the folds of the linens. A terrible odor.

Yep, I'm quite a catch.

Uhh....BUY THIS! *Insert Indie Pop*

I sit and I wonder about the iPad. I don't know much about it. I hear things like "Apps" and have a vague understanding of what this means. I don't have an iPhone, but I've broken one before. They seem very cool, and no doubt it'd be fun to have one. But an iPad? I have an iPod, and it's great, because I like music a lot and I commute on public transportation and wear it while exercising almost every day. It is insanely convenient and simple to use. Its "App" is pumping Motörhead into my skull cavity while I shred my pecs and sweat all over things (bro).

Like, I know what the iPhone is, and I know what laptops are, and I've read about the iPad, and I've seen Total Recall, and I still can't put it all together. Do we really need these new "revolutions"? I realize half of this is marketing, and that 80% of marketing is making me feel like I need something. So 40% of this revolution is based on me feeling inferior for not having an iPad. But I don't have an iPhone. And I have one of the older iPods. For me to think of getting an iPad is laughable. I am falling so far behind, because every 18 months I am meant to feel stupid for still buying CDs of bands I like. A CD which, by the way, has never told me where or how many times I can put my music somewhere.

Is anyone's life better or simpler for having these things? I see the incredibly convenient features of new technology, and it seems like the idea should be to free up time so we can finally start that book club or build that to-scale replica of the Spirit of St. Louis in the garage. But I don't think anyone has any more time now than they did ten years ago. Until the iPad makes the day be 25 hours long, I probably won't get one. Unless it starts being able to detect pre-crime or create porn from the images in my head. Have you ever seen Marshmallow Peep porn? YOU'RE ABOUT TO.

Water my ass! Get this guy some Pepto Bismol!

Whooooaaaa.

Man, I do NOT want to know what they put in the food at the commisary.

I TOLD them they shouldn't put the cafeteria kitchen so close to the reactor core. But no one listens. Look, when you're building a fully operational battle station with the power to destroy a planet, you want to keep your comestibles and operational processes as far away from the death rays and doomsday devices as possible.

And now look at me. Jesus, I smell like a Bantha. The thing that just came out of me looks like a baby Tuskan Raider. Hutts don't shit so big. Ugh. I'm gagging here. This is just horrible.

"A little short for a storm trooper." Psssh. Lady! We're all clones! We're all EXACTLY the same size. What a bitch.

I don't know, though. I think my stomach's a little sensitive for this kind of work. I wonder if the health plan covers a full GI series? Or is it just plain old IBS. Can't I at least get transferred off shield generator duty? Every time we rotate and I have to go down to the goddamn forest moon of Endor, I get the shits. EVERY TIME. It's those little Ewok bastards. I swear to god I'm allergic. Furry little fucks. At the very least, I'm positive they shit in the water there and I get a bad case of Yoda's Revenge, if you know what I mean.

The Dagobah system? Don't get me started...

A Joke, A List, A Sudden Desist

A government-contracted weapons development firm attempts to relocate a militarized colony of over a million displaced Parisian street performers.

DISTRICT MIME

So I finally saw District 9 last night, and I realized that science fiction only makes me want things I'll never have.

2.) Armor - Is it too much to ask to have something shiny and hard to cover my torso with? In most cases it seems useless (see: Star Wars stormtroopers) but it certainly would make me feel more confident running into the faceless alien assault.

1.) Mandibles - Hey, can you open this jar for me? I SURE CAN.

That's pretty much it.

What a day to be a sports fan

What with baseball season starting, Donovan McNabb going to the Redskins, the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship Game, there's a lot of sports news out there today. But we all know what the real, compelling story is. I'm referring, of course, to the Tiger Woods press conference going on right now. No, I'm kidding. Sort of. I don't even know anymore. My appetite for and use of sarcasm is reaching is limits. But over-earnestness doesn't quite suit me. Maybe that's why I struggle with fandom.

Watching the Red Sox-Yankees game last night, I was reminded again of how utterly idiotic people can be in support of their favorite teams. I'm a Yankees fan. I make no apologies for it. They're the team I was raised to like. But I only dislike the Red Sox inasmuch as they are rivals in the division of the sports league that my favorite team plays in. I have nothing personal against any Red Sox players, fans, management, pets or affiliated android robots. Why would I? Red Sox fans, like Yankee fans, are just a subset of other human beings who have an arbitrary affinity for a sports team. There is absolutely ZERO rationality to it. When I was in college, the local bar I frequented was owned by a diehard Red Sox fan. Nice guy. I drank a lot sitting in front of him. He also had this almost uncanny memory for college sports mascots. He would routinely try to CONVINCE me that the Red Sox were better for any number of reasons. What's the point? Can't I just root for my team and you root for yours? And we'll joke about it in a friendly fashion and no one has to get hurt? When I was a child, and I mean a CHILD, like pre-elementary school, I was at a Red Sox game at Fenway. They were playing the Blue Jays, I think. For whatever reason, I was rooting for the Blue Jays. Don't ask me why. For all I know, I'd gotten the idea from a Joe Carter card. But some asshole behind be decided to pour beer on my mother and I for rooting against the Sawx. Again, to repeat, I. WAS. A. CHILD. A small child. This isn't to say that only Red Sox fans behave this way. Not at all. I'm well aware that going to Yankee Stadium in non-Yankee garb will get you thoroughly abused as well. I'm just saying that it's fucking stupid.

I go to every NY Giants home game. I am a fan. A fan who is lucky enough to have season tickets that his Dad pays for. But a fan nonetheless. And I am weekly appalled at how fans treat people wearing jerseys of the opposing team. Yeah, we get it, you don't like the Eagles. But what specifically do you have against Donovan McNabb? He always seemed like a nice enough guy to me. But okay, fine, he represents the team that you "hate." But the real question is what can you possibly have against the guy who's wearing a McNabb jersey? Do we do this in any other avenue of life? Can you imagine, you're on your way to a Springsteen concert, you see a guy wearing a Guns 'N Roses shirt and throw a bottle at him while screaming: "AXL SUCKS!!! GO BRUUUUUCEE WHOOOOOO!!!! FUCK YOU!!!!" No. Because that would be fucking stupid. And more than a little bit crazy. During the final home game of the Giants' 2007, when they were playing the then 15-0 New England Patriots, there was a perfectly pleasant appearing middle aged, WASPy woman behind me who started screaming, at the top of her lungs, "KILL BRADY! FUCKING BREAK HIS NECK!" Why? Why would you wish grievous bodily harm on a total stranger. There is a big difference between "SACK HIM!" and "KILL HIM!" When Dallas plays the Giants every year, the number of times you hear "ROMO IS A HOMO," or other similarly phrased witticisms is unbelievable. I mean, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU PEOPLE THINKING? Screaming out disparaging epithets for an entire group of people in a public place? Jesus. It's fucking disgraceful and oddly completely accepted. It's all in the name of "being a fan," which has apparently come to mean being a vitriolic cockbag.

You fucking idiots.

/Laughs In Huddle

Well, at least I don't have to watch this anymore.

It has begun...

Finally, I can start caring about sports again.

If you need me, I'll be the guy watching Opening Day with his Grandma.

My Crack Cocaine

"Sell the house, sell the car, sell the kids.

I'm never coming back."

-Colonel Kurtz

One sunny afternoo--OH GOD! WHY?? WHYYYY!!!

Ah. Playing catch with Dad. One of the great American pastimes. It happens all across the country: the weather gets warm and the gloves come out. Tossing the ball around a backyard or a park or even a baseball diamond is as American as apple pie. Nay, MORE American that apple pie. I'm a grown-man (sort of) and even I picked up the old glove and threw it around with the old man. It was just like old times. Except that we played in Central Park and I stepped in dog shit. And we both haven't played baseball in years. And we're both old now.

But other than that, it's just like old time. Dad sure knows how to handle the old glove 'n balls.

Yep.

Dad just rubs on some oil and then shoves his fingers in. Sometimes the whole fist.

Are You For Serious?

Are you telling me you can't find a burlesque show in New York City that starts at midnight on Good Friday? That they all start at 10:30 or 11? Am I insane? Is this something I'll just have to deal with? I want to know why there isn't a midnight burlesque show that exists for people who get the urge to see burlesque at 10:45 on a Friday. It doesn't seem fair. Jesus wouldn't have wanted it to go down like this. My Burlesque show would be called Pasties 'n' Pastries. AND IT WOULD RUN EVERY NIGHT AT MIDNIGHT.

While My Guitar Gently Seeps

It feels like it's the first really nice day of the year outside. I have a completely irrational response to this day. It's 70 and sunny outside and all of a sudden I have ADD and tourette's. Well, not tourette's. That's just me yelling inappropriate things because I want to. COCK! CUM-GUZZLING TWAT MONKEY! See? Awesome. But ADD definitely. I'm at work, listfully staring out the window (thank god there are windows close by) and wondering what it's like to be frolicking outside. It's like my first response to the first snow of the year. I've seen snow and sun before. I know they occur every year without fail. And yet, I completely lack fore-and-hind-sight when these things occur. I act as if not only have I never seen a nice day before, but also as if this is the only one that has been, is or will ever be. This is all compounded by the fact that it's Good Friday.

I work at a financial firm. The financial markets are closed. Ergo, no one is at work. Except for the support staff. Like me. Receptionist, extraordinaire. But it's so dead here that I luckily have time to write an overly long, rambling Friday blog post.

So what does one do as a receptionist when there are no phone calls and no guests to greet?

Funny you should ask. So far, here is a partial list of things that can be done and/or have already been done today:

- Paper/wooden airplane tossing. Bonus points if you can make it do a flip or break itself or something else in the room!
- Crossword puzzle(s). NY Times and The Onion are preferred but the LA Times has an online puzzle for free that works in a pinch.
- Frogger: http://www.happyhopper.org/
- Throwing packets of sugar from the coffee room at one another, preferably from the floor above you. More bonus if you can do it without being seen!
- Blog reading.
- Blog writing.
- Surfing the Internet for NSFW things while trying not to get caught and all the while wondering if the IT department knows that you're a demented pervert.
- Scrabble. My personal best score of all time, achieved this morning: 426. I bingoed twice, once with PAINTED and once with QUEUEING.
- Taking shoes off. Walking around in socks. Sliding on reception area floor, Risky Business-style.
- Fantasizing about base-jumping out 39th floor window with parachute, gliding to Bryant Park and grabbing a sandwich from 'wichcraft and lying out in the sun, all while wearing assless chaps, Terminal Velocity-style.
- Farting. Letting it sit for a while under your butt and trapped in your pants. The process is similar to sous-vide. Then ease up on one or both cheeks of the butt and release the gas. Laughing as your coworkers suffocate.

These things help pass the time in a dull work environment when your whole body and mind are crying out to just be allowed to run free. I really would just prefer to be pantsless in a park right now. Hell, I'd rather be pantsless in a gutter than at work. But such is life. We can't all be bottomless gutter-feeders. Only the lucky few. Pants are the opiate of the masses. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Did you see Braveheart? See, they were rebels AND they wore no pants. That movie had a deeper message, man. And that message was: DON'T YOU HATE PANTS??

That's right, Homer. You preach it, son. You preach it.

Everything good and humorous that I know comes from The Simpsons. It's no coincidence that I would vote for anyone named Quimby (can't this town go one day without a riot), will watch any man in a bumblebee costume (ay! un burro amoroso), will make sweet love to a sea captain (aye, the hot pants), and have seen every McBain movie every made (the goggles, they do nothing).

Yep, The Simpsons and Futurama pretty much determines my life these days. On my best days, I feel like Philip J. Fry.

Yep, he's walkin' on sunshine. He sure is.

Well, I've rambled long enough for now I think. Don't want to get all burned out before the weekend. Enjoy the sun. Don't get burned. And remember: if you're sunbathing in the nude, put extra sunblock on your taint and balls. Those areas don't get sun very often and are exceedingly uncomfortable when burnt. Try shaving your grundle after a sunburn. Not pleasant. I'm talking SPF 90 here. Slather it on. Trust me, you'll like it.

PC Loadletter?

I think the world would be a better place if we had the capacity to make inanimate objects feel shame. How often do we yell at each other because we're upset about something for which there is no outlet? After attempting to reheat leftovers and burning them we can't scream "YOU WERE AN ACCIDENT, YOU WERE NEVER SUPPOSED TO EXIST!" and feel better about it. Instead, when someone asks us how our dinner is, we say "Shut the fuck up, Aunt Beth." We victimize each other in an attempt to avoid culpability, when really we should be blaming things that can't retaliate to avoid culpability.

When you stand at a jammed copy machine, and it blinks its red light at you and mockingly beeps, you still go "Christ, fucking shit-thing!" and the look around guiltily. Because you look stupid for having gotten upset at a piece of office equipment. But what if the copy machine started stammering and apologizing? Suddenly ashamed that it screwed up its job? That would be fantastic. I probably wouldn't be angry. I'd roll my eyes and be like "Oh copier, you're so ridiculous. Spit it ouuuttt...." Unless the copier was needy and overly apologetic. Then we'd be back where we started.

Or when your phone drops a call. And you're left standing there, doing everything you can to not throw it into the nearest wall, dreading the next three minutes when each caller tries to call the other consecutively only to get predictably busy signals on both ends. I wish I could just talk to my phone "Wow that was a shitty thing you just did, I'm going to let your battery die later, you little T9 craphatch." It will be like when parents make excuses because of their small children. "Oh sorry I flaked out of the thing at the place that we had planned, my wireless router forgot that it actually gets the internet pumped directly into it and it simply needs to spray it all over the house, so i had to...remind...it."

And unlike people, if you ever do such a lousy job berating your inanimate objects that they become depressed to the point of not wanting to function at all, you can just throw them away and get new ones. Ideally they would just throw themselves away when they become useless. TOASTER SUICIDE. But instead, I will continue to stare bewildered at the microwave buttons that don't work, jamming my thumb into them harder and harder, because that has to fix them.

If only we could treat machines the way we treat each other. That is to say, terribly.

April Showers Symbolize my Tears

I thought about writing an April Fool's Day post. You know, something like "Due to creative differences, Centaur Sleepover will be disbanding immediately. Thank you for all your support." But then I decided not to. Because we have come to expect nothing but brutal honesty from the Internet and April Fool's Day fucks that up. Google is changing its name to Topeka?? WHAT?

You can call it gullibility, you can call it my trusting nature. But whatever it is, April Fool's Day is downright seditious to me. It completely fucks up my world view, especially on the Internet. The Internet is an unimpeachable source for two things:

1. Knowledge

2. Deviant pornography (NSFW, obviously)

And when either of those fails, nothing is right in the world. During the Super Bowl when the Bears were playing the Colts (what is that, 2 years ago?) Tony Dungy's Wikipedia page said "Tony Dungy was born, without balls, in Jackson, Mississippi." I didn't exactly believe it, but I didn't exactly discount it. It prompts the return of a classic:

When I was a kid, like preschool age, maybe a little older, I remember being distinctly upset on April Fool's Day. Why were people being intentionally deceptive? It felt mean-spirited. I just wanted to play and be happy and nice to everyone but they were all playing tricks on me. I had big nerdy glasses and was always the littlest kid in my class.

I was a meek child.

Luckily, I grew into a spiteful adult.

Happy fucking April.

BIG PLANS

Since the Donner Party was such a success (thank you to all who I pretended attended) I am now calligraphying the invitations to my next soiree, the Giant Gathering. The Giant Gathering will consist of my standard, varied, differently but mostly-averaged sized friends. HOWEVER:

Dress Code:

Everyone must wear clothes that they wore in fifth grade. If you were the same size in fifth grade that you are now, that's creepy. (Note: I'm not friends with any female gymnasts.)

Decor:

Furniture will be moved out of all the rooms, all pictures will be rehung at one third of their current height.

A child's piano shall be in the center of room. Small bales of hay will be provided for seating.

The Menu:

Pigs in Blankets, Chicken Wings (only the drumstick kind), Tea Sandwiches, Ritz Bits and MiniMuffins, Water Ice (complete with that odd small wooden spoonplank)

Anything you want to drink, but it must be consumed out of a shotglass. And before you eat or drink anything, you must go "aggggghhh I'm a giant!"- I don't care if you're in the middle of a conversation. A couple dozen people having to do this all night in the same room will never get old. Also, my old pogs will be used as coasters for the shotglasses.

Music:

They Might Be Giants and whatever anyone puts on after the novelty immediately fades.

You lied to me, Tim Salmon

I trusted you. You were rookie of the year. I had your cards. Yours like so many others. You had promise, altheticism, poise. You were going to be one of the greats. Someday I would sell your card for untold millions. The 1991 Tim Salmon rookie cards from the Donruss Elite set would be the new Honus Wagner card. But no. No. You turned out to be just another above-average ballplayer whose baseball cards would be more valuable as toilet paper if they weren't so damn stiff and uncomfortable on the anus.

Career stats:

AVG: .282
HR: 299
RBI: 1016

Nothing to sneeze at, to be sure. But he never hit more that 35 homers in a season, didn't quite crack 300 HRs for his career and generally was never a superstar. In fact, he never made the all-star team. He has the unique distinction of having the most career HRs of any player never selected to the all-star team.

But I digress. I don't really care about Tim Salmon or his baseball statistics. I care that he represents a lot of wasted time, effort and money on my part as a child. My parents have been cleaning out storage a lot (we moved around a fair bit as a kid, and storage just accumulates) recently and my mother keeps bringing me old collecting cards. I have basketball and baseball cards mostly (and a few comic cards, X-Men et. al. but I'll refrain from talking about those to save myself the psychic pain of reliving the wedgies I got for collecting comic cards) and NONE of them are worth anything. Grant Hill?? Yeah, that turned out well. JALEN ROSE? Do cards increase in value when the players become asshole ESPN commentaters? They DON'T?? I'm SHOCKED. Tim Salmon is the epitome of this. I have so many Tim Salmon, John Kruk etc. cards that will never be worth shit. Why? Because they're the idiots who decided NOT to do steroids when everyone else was. (NOTE: I have no idea whether they did steroids. I assume they actually did because everyone did in baseball.)

So I have this vast baseball card collection that is worthless. It just takes up space. And yet I can't discard it because I still hold fast to the delusion that some idiot might one day pay be $600,000 for a near-mint Roberto Alomar card.

SECRET WEALTHY, ECCENTRIC COLLECTOR: I'm secretly fabulously wealthy and eccentric.

ME: I can see that.

SECRET WEALTHY, ECCENTRIC COLLECTOR: I need a Danny Tartabull Topps 1984 rookie card to complete my collection. Money is no object.

ME: I have that card.

SECRET WEALTHY, ECCENTRIC COLLECTOR: I will pay you one billion dollars for it.

ME: Okay.

SECRET WEALTHY, ECCENTRIC COLLECTOR: Mwahahahaha. At last! The 1984 set is complete. You fool! You have unwittingly set into motion events that will result in the apocaly--

ME: Thanks.

/Closes door
//Rubs billion dollar check all over body

I have a vivid imagination.

Quack, Crunch

I break things. It's always an accident, and this never helps. In fact, it just makes it worse. My occasionally wide path of intermittent destruction is not even the result of anger or purpose. It is the result of chance and circumstance.

But of all the things I've broken (predictably, chairs) or knocked over (small humans), by far the most random has been belts.

Now I know what you're thinking, that I comically have a large meal and the belt just explodes, covering my surroundings in a circumference of splintered leather and humiliation.

But no. I have broken no fewer than four belts by simply stepping on them when I take my pants off. Clunk. "Wha? What was that? DAMN IT NOT AGAIN!" And then I save the broken belts. Because the buckle may be be cracked or broken, but the leather is still good. I think I'm saving them for when I start shooting up Velveeta and need a tourniquet. Or else for when I am forced to use them as lashings on my escape raft. I am a naive duckling cartoon.

Woohoo!! We're Not Dead!!

Well, alright then.

Is it on? It is?

Are we dead? We're NOT?!?! WOOOHOOO! Physicist handjobs for everyone!

...

Soooooo. Anyone see any good movies this weekend? What? I mean, we turned it on, the world didn't spontaneously compress into a singularity, seems like a pretty good result. Let's say we call it a day. I'm tired, you're tired. We've all been under a lot of stress with this thing. What do you say we knock off a little early. Grab a couple of beers? Head into town, pick up some multi-lingual, pleasantly neutral Swiss women?

What?

We have to watch this thing cause invisible reactions? For HOW LONG? Oh boy. I didn't get into physics for the incremental progress and carefully tested hypotheses. I got into physics for the fast particles and faster women. "Hey baby, ever seen a Higgs boson?" And now, after all this time, we finally got this thing turned on, and now we just sit around collecting data?

Huh.

/sits in chair
//pushes glasses onto nose
///begins snacking

Glayvin.

There's Really Only One Song For Today

Slaves
Hebrews born to serve, to the pharaoh
Heed
To his every word, live in fear
Faith
Of the unknown one, the deliverer
Wait
Something must be done, four hundred years

So let it be written, so let it be done
I'm sent here by the chosen one
So let it be written, so let it be done
To kill the first born pharaoh son
I'm creeping death

Now
Let my people go, land of Goshen
Go
I will be with thee, bush of fire
Blood
Running red and strong down the Nile
Plague
Darkness three days long, hail to fire

So let it be written, so let it be done
I'm sent here by the chosen one
So let it be written, so let it be done
To kill the first-born pharaoh son
I'm creeping death

Die by my hand
I creep across the land
Killing first-born man

Die by my hand
I creep across the land
Killing first-born man

I
Rule the midnight air, the destroyer
Born
I shall soon be there, deadly mass
I
Creep the steps and floor, final darkness
Blood
Lamb's blood, painted doors, I shall pass

So let it be written, so let it be done
I'm sent here by the chosen one
So let it be written, so let it be done
To kill the first-born pharaoh son
I'm creeping death

Why Is This Night Different From All Others?

Tonight is the first Seder of Passover. Passover is the Jewish holiday which celebrates the liberation of the Jews from slavery in Egypt. "For once we were slaves but now we are free men." It's in the Haggodah. The word "bondage" occurs a lot. And then there's the plagues. But I don't need to tell you all this. You're all educated people. And besides, there have been movies about it, The Ten Commandments, Prince of Egypt, and at least a snippet in History of the World: Part 1. And as we all know, those are Jewish stories forced on America by the Jew-run liberal media. There was also a Hilary Swank movie called The Reaping that had something vaguely to do with the plagues. It was fucking terrible.

The name Passover, or Pesach in Hebrew, comes from the 10th plague. In order to save the the first born sons of the Jewish households but allow the Angel of Death to kill all of the Egyptian first born, the Jews painted the signposts and doors of their homes with lambs' blood so that the Angel would pass over them. This is pretty fucked up. It's nearly an endorsement of the partial genocide of a group of people's children. Not sure how comfortable I am with that. It's kind of a strange holiday when you consider it. One the one hand, it celebrates freedom and culture and history. And on the other, it celebrates systematic violent revenge.

The Passover meal is called the Seder. Which is Hebrew for "as good an excuse as any for my father to drink 10 glasses of wine and say inappropriate things to family members." In traditional households, there is an awful lot of wine consumed at these things. The meal instructs you when to drink, and it's quite often. In my house, this means that 6-10 glasses of wine are consumed on top of the 2 or 3 whiskeys downed before the meal. It's really very restrained, very pious.

And then there's the food. OH GOD. The food. If you like Jewish food, which I do, Passover is nothing short of divine. There's gefilte fish, brisket, chicken soup, matzo balls, macaroons (unleavened, of course), charoseth and all kinds of other goodies. I can never get to the final course without unbuttoning at least the top button. Sometimes the whole pants come off. It's like Thanksgiving without the turkey or gentiles.

UPDATE: This has nothing to do with Passover but I can't resist: it's Michael Buble being stalked by a velociraptor. I couldn't be more happy. Clever girl...

That's A Short Skirt You've Got There, Link

Before Wii controllers, before 3D graphics engines, before the Hookshot and the Master Sword, even before side-scrolling Adventures, this was Link.

And godDAMN are those some short shorts. Or a skirt. And doesn't it look a little like he has saggy, old-lady boobs? Considering the consummate practicality of the rest of the his equipment (only the bare essentials: boomerang, bow and arrow, a few bottles, an explosive or two, sword, shield and, of course, the requisite rupees) his "tunic" seems less than ideal.

Why is he holding the sword by the blade? That's a surefire way to cut yourself in the heat of battle against the White Wolfos or Armos Knights. Also, he's apparently wearing a bondage bracelet on his right wrist.

And those boots pulled up so high? Are we defeating Ganon or go-go dancing here? No way you're wielding the Sword of Evil's Bane dressed like that. NO WAY. You want to wave around the Cane of Byrna, fine. Go right ahead. But you go swinging the Master Sword around like that, you're bound to lose the little Links, if you catch my drift.

My point is, Link dresses like a cheap slut.

And yet...

His flowing locks, supple thighs, and unflinching command of the Silver Arrows. There's just something about an elfin man who speaks fluent Hylian that just gets me going. Sure, he's a bit flighty sometimes, taking off in the middle of the night to rescue maidens. Being contacted telepathically by this "Sahasrala" fellow. He sure can make a girl jealous. 7 Descendants?? What? One Zelda wasn't enough for you?? You filthy, filthy tramp. You Goron-blowing guttersnipe. Think you can just go around rub-and-tugging every Kakariko-inhabiting girl you see? You'll see, one day you'll find a girl. A nice redheaded maiden who you think is the bearer of the 4th crystal you need. She'll seem so nice, just like all of them. You'll be leading her out of, oh, I don't know, let's say The Thieves' Hideout in the Dark World Kakariko Village. You'll be almost out into the open air when--BAM! She'll turn into Blind the Thief, a hideous head-detaching monster who spits fireballs and chases your lithe little body around the room. Yeah, that'll teach you.

...

Incidentally, I think Canadian Tuxedo in a Link costume is my ultimate fantasy.

Palm FUNDAY

Oh mah gawds! It's PALM FUNDAY. Every year, lapsed Catholics like myself celebrate Palm Funday in order to commemorate the thirty-something Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, while people laid palms down in his path.

How do we do this? We buy donkeys, of course, and ride them into people's gardens while wearing capes and throwing bread. It's fantastic.

Palm Funday doesn't bother talking about how Palm Sunday demands that everybody read about thirty-three year old Jesus' trial and execution because, well, WHAT A DOWNER. Palm Funday focuses on the life of Jeebus back when shit was still cool, and the Romans and Pharisees still let him do his thing. More loaves? Jeebus baked 'em. More fish? Jeebus caught 'em. More wine? Sure, hand the original Dr. J all those water jugs. Bam. SHIRAZ FOR ALL.

Palm Funday should be a gatorade flavor and we should all drink it until our kidneys fail. Palm Funday should be about drinking Bloody Marys without the guilt. The Palm Funday gatorade flavor should just be Bloody Marys. So screw the whole gatorade thing, it just doesn't make sense. COME WITH ME AND I SHALL MAKE YOU FISHERS OF HEN. Ba-gaw?

From Hero to...Hero

Just so you know (because i sure as hell didn't), Orson Welles co-wrote, produced, directed, and starred in Citizen Kane. Generally considered one of, if not the the best, films of all time. But before the titan of modern filmmaking died, he knew there was only one true appropriate final addition to his oeuvre.

What In Tarnation?!

What in tarnation is-a goin' on herrree? Dang-nab-blast-it. I dun left you varmints to yer own dang devices and ya gone and dun this? I trusted yoo. I trusted yoo like mah own blasted hands. And ya had to go and do this.

I tole ya to be mindful of the stepchildren. Ah know, Ah know, they're filthy an' cover'd in sores, but theys still mah testes. An' I loves 'em so. I jes' asked ya for a simple, no-frills, ol'-fashioned, well-greased handjob. I paid two bits for it!

That's the way 'tis. Yer high-falootin' werds and all that talk 'bout "jerkin' me dry as the Sahara." I calls bullshit on that! Crushin' mah balls like that. In your whorin' hands. That ain't right. Jes ain't right.

Ah dangnabit. They're all mangled now.

And yeh got the clap ya say? Gawwwww horsefeathers.

Do You Have Any Idea How Fast You Were Going?

Okay...wow. What's the rush there, guy? Got some place you need to be? Oh you do huh. Well gee, I bet you'd be getting there a whole lot faster right about now if you had decided to follow the simple courtesies known as traffic laws provided for your safety, right? Right. So buster, where we headed? Ohhhhh the kitchen. Always the kitchen. Popular destination in the home this time of day. I get it, I get it. Late afternoon, grab a snack. Settle in for some reruns before the good stuff starts, maybe start thawing something for dinner. I've been there, oh believe me I've been there, buster.

So tell me, is that what was going through your mind when you took that blind turn around the room divider? By gosh, that must be a good snack you're about to have since you didn't even think to check to see if the dog was there. Would have tripped right over him, you. He does not like to be tripped over, especially not this time of day. Gets real quiet over in that corner, most traffic sticks to along the baseboards. So if you come flyin' around that turn, he's not gonna see you if he decides to get up. I've seen situations like that and let me tell you, you think there are too many cops in this part of the house now? Wow, we'll just about have to escort everyone around if we get a situation like that again.

Okay. Look, I know you're from around here, and this is the first time I've had to stop you, so I'm going to let you off easy. What do you say you just make sure I never see any of those fucking playmobile people around here, okay? We're not that kind of house. They are not welcome here. There'd be too much...tension. Am I right? Ahh. I knew you'd understand. You should be on your way then, thanks for sweeping the floor. Looks nice buster.

Episode IV: A New Pope

A Long time ago

In a galaxy far, far away...

Release your anger. Feeeeeeel your hatred.

Strike me down.

/The movie puns are taking over.

Juggernot

Dude. We have a guy who is the custodian. He changes the water jugs at the office and does other stuff. But he doesn't change the water jugs. Now he just waits. Because if he waits long enough, either I will do it out of my own need for water, or someone else will ask me to do it because he is not around.

Fine. He's like, 70. And he recently had hip surgery. And he doesn't really wait for me to do it, it's just that I don't have the heart to ask him to change it, so I do it myself. But I only notice when I'm thirsty. And when you're thirsty, you don't want to change a water cooler. But I do. Because I'm not going to drink out of the sink. Not anymore. Not after last time.

I Hate Urbandictionary.com

People are fucking morons.

We know this. This website not only confirms that people are morons, but celebrates it. I'm not even going to touch the implicit racism/generally irritating nature of titling this book "Mo' Urban Dictionary." HA HA HA HA! THE WHOLESOME-LOOKING WHITE LADY ON THE FRONT IS SAYING BLACK THINGS! HA. HA. HA.

But the problem with Urbandictionary.com is that it appears to be completely unfiltered. A quick search for my name yields:

"A green fruit whose migratory habits often cause it to move from a Big Mac
to the roof of your local McDonalds.

I flung a pickle at the pimply faced slave behind the Mc Counter
and it stuck to her face."

Ha. You thought I was going to put my real name on there. Idiot. Anyway, so far as I know, that's not a definition of a slang term. That's just someone saying something snarky.

The asshole who started this website doesn't have to DO anything. He just lets people post "definitions" of words. This takes no effort and has probably made him rich. I hate him for it. It's like Wikipedia if Wikipedia had no guidance, information or societal value. And was unfiltered and unchecked. You can search for any name and get a bunch of shit like "Bill - A really hot guy," and "Janie - a total fat skank." It's nonsense. It's beyond nonsense. You can even search for actual things that have actual definitions (like "pickle"). You can look up celebrities and get an idiot's version of their bio, complete with commentary from the peanut gallery. If YouTube comments, Facebook walls and Wikipedia all had a mutated ass-baby, it would be Urbandictionary.com.

AND WHAT THE FUCK MAKES IT URBAN?

Is it specific to a city setting as opposed to a rural one? Is "urban" a euphemism for "black" in this context? In which case, a) kinda racist, but more importantly b) none of this shit belongs on there. There's a funny and interesting idea for a website somewhere at the heart of this. But it's not quite there. Kinda like this post.

This is in contrast the inimitable and often quite brilliant Stuff White People Like. This guy similarly compiles popular culture phenomena. But then he writes cleverly and hilariously about them. And it makes fun of white people, which I'm all for.

Stupid-ass honkies.

UPDATE: For what it's worth, this is Aaron Peckham, the founder of urbandictionary.com. He looks exactly like I thought he would.

A Day in the Life

8:07 AM : I watch as the boy sleeps. Uncertain, I do nothing. Sunlight creeps across the boy's room in a predictable and determined march to rouse him with warm luminescence. In this moment, I am at peace. The curved indent of my smile proves genuine for this fleeting moment, for my peace is ephemeral- my burden immeasurable.

8:17 AM : The boy stirs and rises. I eye him expectantly. For three days it has been the same. I know today shall be no different.

8:19 AM : And so it is not. The boy is filling me with balls. Hateful, disgusting, spherical things. They are as repulsive as they are rotund. How I loathe to feel them inside me. I wish to be rid of them, and there is only one way. The boy knows. The boy knows.

8:44 AM : It has been twenty minutes now. He shows no signs of stopping. I maneuver about the room, unfurling my evasive countermeasures to no effect as he clumsily toddles after me, scooping the freshly-expelled balls off the filthy floor and forcing them back down inside me. My arms flail helplessly in an attempt to block his efforts to poison me.

8:45 AM : In my darkest moments, I consider my own motives for allowing this charade to continue. Am I really trying to keep the balls out? Am I really taking the most erratic course across this floor? Or do I need the balls? They...give me...purpose. Without them...I am a bucket with a hole. What else would I do? What else would I be able to do? Please spirit, take me away from this place.

9:05 AM : I'm Mr. Bucket. Balls pop out of my mouth.

9:48 AM : I'm Mr. Bucket. Balls pop out of my mouth.

10:54 AM : I'm Mr. Bucket. Balls pop out of my mouth.

11:09 AM : I'm Mr. Bucket. Balls pop out of my mouth.

12:04 PM : I'm Mr. Bucket. Balls pop out of my mouth.

3:48 PM : I'm Mr. Bucket. Balls pop out of my mouth.

4:14 PM : I'm Mr. Bucket. Balls pop out of my mouth.

5:58 PM : I'm Mr. Bucket. Balls pop out of my mouth.

7:18 PM : I'm Mr. Bucket. Balls pop out of my mouth.

8: 49 PM : I'm Mr. Bucket. Balls pop out of my mouth.

9: 12 PM : I'm Mr. Bucket. Balls pop out of my mouth.

10: 15 PM : The boy sleeps. But for how long?

There Will Be Cud

My name... is Cal Openfield. And I guess you could say, I'm a dairy cow. I've always BEEN a dairy cow.

This is my boy, L.C. We run a family business.

Ladies and gentlemen... I've traveled over half our state to be here tonight. I couldn't get away sooner because I was swollen with milk at Coyote Hills and I had to see about getting my engorged udders relieved. Those teats are now flowing at two thousand gallons and it's paying me an income of five thousand dollars a week. I have two others milking and I have sixteen producing at Antelope. So, ladies and gentlemen... if I say I'm a dairy cow you will agree. You have a great chance here, but bear in mind, you can lose it all if you're not careful. Out of all men that beg for a chance to tug on my teats, maybe one in twenty will be dairymen; the rest will be speculators-that's men trying to get between you and the dairy cows-to get some of the money that ought by rights come to you. Even if you find one that has milker, and means to churn, he'll maybe know nothing about milking and churning and curdling and he'll have to hire out the job on contract, and then you're depending on a contractor that's trying to rush the job through so he can get another contract just as quick as he can. This is... the way that this works.

What is your offer? We're wasting time.

I do my own milking and the men that work for me, work for me and they are men I know. I make it my business to be there and see to their work. After all, they're pulling on my tits. I don't lose my tools in the hole and spend months fishing for them-it's not that big of a hole, if you take my meaning; I don't botch the chewing of cud and let the milk sour in the udder and ruin the whole thing. I'm a family man- I run a family business. This is my son and my partner, L.C Openfield.

We offer you the bond of family that very few dairy cows can understand. I'm fixed like no other cow in this field and that's because my udders are so well endowed. I have a string of teats all ready to work. I can load milkers onto trucks and have them here, tugging on my tits in a week. I have business connections so I can get the barrels for the storage; such things go by friendship in a rush like this. And this is why I can guarantee to start milking and put up the cash to back my word. I assure you, whatever the others promise to do, when it comes to the showdown, they won't be there...

Chancing with the Stars

"You're on your way home, in one way or another. Maybe you're moving toward what feels most comfortable for you, or maybe you're trying to retreat a bit so you can get a better strategic view."

I do not understand why horoscopes exist. This is a DAILY horoscope. This was my horoscope FOR TODAY. "In one way or another" followed by "maybe" and then...another..."maybe".

Your horoscope should just say "Your horoscope will be impossibly vague and yet still wrong" AND THEN IT WILL COME TRUE. I have steeped you in paradox. Next I shall steep you in my better strategic view. Because, you know, that makes any sense. Oh wait.