Janice Gets A Shot

"Hi, um....Janice" the nurse said, consulting her clipboard.

"Hi" I said. "I'm here for my Swine Flu cure."

The nurse laughed. "Oh, it's not a cure. It's a vaccine. No guarantees."

She tied a long rubber band-type thing around my forearm and prepped a needle.

"Of course, it might cure some of this paranoia that's been going around" she joked. "That's something, right?"

"Yeah sure whatever," I said. "Just do it. Stick me. I'm at huge risk for swine flu. I love pigs. I grew up with them on a farm, so I was in constant contact with pigs. Oh, we didn't raise the pigs for food. No way. I could never kill a defenseless pig on purpose. They can't use weapons hardly at all. Our pigs were more like family or pets. I killed lots of them on accident, of course. They can't wear a seatbelt, so, most of the time the pigs shared some of the blame. Is that my shot?"

The nurse nodded absent-mindedly as she used the syringe to withdraw clear fluid from a small bottle.

"Keep going. More. MmmmHmmm. Oh yeah, a big one. Give me a double dose. I AM pretty fat" I said, trying not to shout.

"I was just thinking that" the nurse said. "But we have a limited number of vaccines and there are lots of people left on my list."

I thought about what she said later that afternoon when I was eating a pie in my car. Nurses think they're so cool. She was probably saving all those vaccines for herself.

A New Game I've Invented, Vol. I.

I've invented a wonderful new game. It's called "Battery Race!" and it's easy to play alone, by yourself or even with no-one at all!

The rules and structures that drive BR! are simple. So simple, in fact, that I'm playing a heated game of BR! as I write this very post! To the casual observer, it would be difficult to discern whether I was playing a game at all. They'd be perplexed. Sure, I might occassionally yell at my own hands for making the stupid, stupid, dumb typing mistakes they make as I try to finish a thought before my battery dies, but that's only occassionally, and it's probably standard practice for near-expert level BR! enthusiasts of my ilk to behave in that fashion. Also, schitzophrenics. It's up to the aforementioned casual observer to label me. They love their labels, those people.

And but so the best thing about playing BR!? Winning. In fact, I'm looking forward to savoring a dollop of sweet creamery victory myself here in a few moments, because I hate to sound cocky, but it REALLY looks like I'm gonna wi

I Am An Animal Psychic

Thank you for your interest in my abilities as an Animal Psychic!
How did I know you were interested? Not with the aid of my psychic powers, that’s for sure. They only allow me to read the minds of animals. And yes, I’m aware that humans are animals, too, however my gift only applies to animals that cannot talk, i.e. non-humans.

What’s that you say? Babies cannot talk but are most likely human? You are correct, but almost all babies will talk as they get older. That counts. Although I usually know what babies are thinking, it is not because I can read babies’ minds. It’s because they are babies, and they think like animals. In fact, if you had a dog and a baby in the same room and were able to read the minds of both, I bet their thoughts would be virtually identical. I want to poop. I want to nurse. I’m itchy. It’s fascinating and true.

Let me just say this to save you some trouble- parrots do not talk, they mimic, so I have no problem getting inside a parrot’s head. It should also be noted that as a true Animal Psychic, my extrasensory perception applies to all forms of great apes, including chimpanzees. Chimps are believed to share 96% of their DNA with human beings. Somewhere in the leftover 4% (the pure chimp DNA) could be the key to all my powers! Monkeys might know all my secrets! They’ll never tell, though. I know, because I am an Animal Psychic.

No, I knew you were interested because I guessed.

Proof of My Continued Existence (Sort Of), Vol. I.

To the emailer who recently asked if I'd "died" I have only this to say:

Yes! I died years ago, my friend. But the reanimated zombie-me forges on! Beware the flesh-eating undead me! Fear it (me)!

Also, hire it (me) for all your freelance writing needs. Or at least offer. Though zombie me will likely decline your offer (and politely, I might add) due to a proverbial plate overflowing with actual work responsibilities, it (me) will be most grateful for the offer and will wish for you to keep my/its zombie-card in your not-zombie-but-still-proverbial Rolodex for future opportunities. Also: I should forewarn you: sporadic fits of opportunistic flesh-eating might cause me to miss the occassional deadline. It's endemic to zombie creative professionals, I'm afraid. Choose between a paycheck and sweet, sweet brains? What's a undead man to do?

Thanks for your concern.

Answering The Tough Questions, Vol. I.

Vol I.

The Tough Question: Is Big Bird male or female?

The Answer: MALE

Four attempts resulted in conclusive proof.

Attempt One:

Only men wear ties.
Big Bird wears a tie.
Big Bird is a man.
-but-
K.D. Lang wears a tie.
K.D. Lang is a woman.

Attempt Two:

The male possesive is "he/his"
Big Bird's contemporaries refer to BBird in the possessive sense using "he/his"
Big Bird is a man.
-but-
BBird's contemporaries are primarily puppets.
Puppets are idiots and are not to be trusted.

Attempt Three:

All male puppets are voiced by men.
Big Bird is voiced by a man.
Big Bird is a male puppet (thus: Big Bird is male).
-but-
A puppet is a representational figure manipulated by a puppeteer.
Big Bird is described as a "full-body costume partially assembled by company American Plume & Fancy Feather," not a puppet in the strict sense.
Strict sense is the best sense.
Big Bird is not a puppet.

Attempt Four:

Girl puppets and not-quite-puppets wear earrings and/or pretty little bows.
Big Bird doesn't wear any of that crap.
Big Bird is not a girl.
SO...

Big Bird is a man.

That settles that.

"The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you."
-David Foster Wallace

Levity & Loss, Volume 1 of 1.

"But most days, if you're aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made-up lady who just screamed at her kid in the checkout line. Maybe she's not usually like this. Maybe she's been up three straight nights holding the hand of a husband who is dying of bone cancer. Or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the motor vehicle department, who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a horrific, infuriating, red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness. Of course, none of this is likely, but it's also not impossible. It just depends what you what to consider. If you're automatically sure that you know what reality is, and you are operating on your default setting, then you, like me, probably won't consider possibilities that aren't annoying and miserable. But if you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down.

Not that that mystical stuff is necessarily true. The only thing that's capital-T True is that you get to decide how you're gonna try to see it."

David Foster Wallace, 1962-2008

A Trip To The Zoo (So To Speak)

The Hypothetical Zoo Chaperone Guide

On behalf of the Hypothetical Zoo, thank you for your group’s decision to conduct a real, non-hypothetical field trip to us. Please abide by all the suggestions given to you below.

Some Specific Pointers To Enhance Your Group’s Visit To The Hypothetical Zoo

1. Children learn best when they are in a safe environment, even
in the abstract sense. We believe that feeling safe is BEING safe here, as actual safety is guaranteed due to the complete lack of animals, dangerous or otherwise. Make sure the kids know that they must stay with you and listen to you, no matter how intriguing the conjectural animals around them “are."

2. During the visit, it is very important that the children respect each other, the adults in their group, the other visitors to the zoo, and of course the notional animals that could feasibly exist here (but do not). Remind the individuals in your group to treat the would-be animals, were there to be any, with the same respect they like to have.

3. Get them to sit down quietly and watch the completely animal-free landscape whenever possible. Explain that many animals need to be camouflaged in their environment and encourage them to try to find the animals in all exhibits, all the while reminding them that all attempts at searching will be fruitless. Some exhibits may be more challenging than others, such as the Chimerical Reptile Building, which is not only animal-free, but as a near-airless cinder block box, unable to support life of any variety in the first place.

Safety Of Students And Animals

1. The zoo is a peaceful haven for imaginary animals and imagining yet not-at-all-imaginary people alike. Loud noises and running are upsetting to everyone. We also ask that people do not chase the not-really-there birds or tap on the very-much-there glass. Tell your students that this is the animals’ only home, were they real and needed one, ostensibly, and the animals need to feel safe here, in the event that they possessed feelings at all, which they unquestionable do not.

2. Please make sure the students know not to feed the animals or throw anything into their enclosures. The animals are not fed special diets to maintain their good health, but would be, if they were living things instead of figments of our imagination.

3. The animals in the exhibits would be wild. They most-likely would not be pets and most would bite. Quite hard, we would guess. Visitors should keep their hands out of the exhibits and should never throw anything at the animals, or at the vacuous negative space that they believe to be occupied by an animal. If they believe they are throwing things at animals, remind them that there will be no response, as there are no animals. Then reprimand them.

4. Remind the students that they need to be aware of how their behavior affects each other, the animals and the other visitors.

5. Leaving the zoo with a souvenir can extend the child's experience, but remember that gift shop visits by school groups must be supervised.

Thanks again. Enjoy your visit. For real.

(note)

Did someone say "short story?"

No?

Hmm.

I could have sworn I heard...

Never mind.

...

...

...

Well here's a short story. I've put it here in two parts before.

Here's the whole enchilada.



(note)

I was seven years old when I first realized I no longer had the will to live. It was then that I began a suicide note, as best a seven-year-old can, cataloguing the many injustices that had culminated in my desire to die. At that point in life I was absolutely certain that no afterlife awaited me, no angels, harps or eternal bliss; my interest in dying had far more to do with the earthy ramifications and impact upon those around me that my soul’s eventual status. It was an act of selflessness, the ultimate act, perhaps, but I was thoroughly invested in the notion that those around me should be made to mourn my dismissal.

I was raised on a lake in what many might call a vacation community. This is to say that most of my family’s neighbors would huddle at our sides during the summer months, fleeing to their homes, jobs and lives during the remaining seasons. For this, I hated them, hated summer, dreaded their arrival and exalted in their departure. When the heat came, our bucolic lakeside community grew swollen and bloated with rot; the fat-faced children and too-slim mothers, the sunburned scalps of the ample-bellied fathers, the drone of their recreational watercraft; our lake became carrion festering in the sun. It began every June. In late May of my seventh year, I knew that I would rather die that bear witness to another summer of searing, simmering disgust at the vacationer’s expense.

My suicide note was a work in progress that summer, not that I lacked the courage or resolve to do the deed- to kill myself- but instead because I steadfastly desired to take note of all the ugliness that surrounded me. I wanted my passing’s culpability to be cordoned out appropriately. Everyone who caused my death must feel it. They need to acknowledge the roles they played.

The summer went on and the note grew off one page and across two others. I hid it from my parents view, as I wanted the impact of my suicide to be white-hot, prescient and completely surprising. They were kind people, my parents, and raised me in a fashion most appropriate. That said they would not be spared.

The next year I still was alive, as I remained for two additional years. Until I was 10, in fact, I lived and breathed as in years previous. I played little league baseball, got good grades, made new friends at school and in my sparest of spare time, reworked and revised the suicide note I began three years previous. I recall marveling at how childish my scrawl appeared and how it catalyzed another round of sweeping aesthetic and semantic revisions. In addition, new injustices had befallen me. I dedicated new passages in the note to my baseball coach, the pederast (I was fairly sure, though no actual proof existed), my fifth-grade teacher Mrs. Langley whose myriad lies caused me to bite my lip in class until I tasted blood and a number of my classmates, those who derided me in the schoolyard or silently mocked me in their heads. They were now in the note and when I was gone, the thick patina of remorse would preserve them for the rest of their pathetic lives.

In high school (some years later) I received a new computer for Christmas. This was a watershed moment as far as my suicide note was concerned, as I always felt disgust when looked at my own sad-handed script, wishing it to be elegant and orderly. The effect of the note could not be compromised, especially in light of the eight years spent writing it. My junior year I eliminated extra-curricular activities like sports from my already-cluttered calendar, so I might be able to spend more time on my note. Incidentally, this was also the time I met Evelyn.

Evelyn and I were an instant pair; she, quiet and unassuming and I, opinionated and outgoing. We went everywhere together and were as much in love as any two sixteen-year-olds could be. When we were alone and all was quiet she would often profess her love for me, as I would her. Even in these naked moments of emotional openness, however, as we sat together unwrapped and ajar, all our wares on display, I would try to imagine her reaction when she heard I had committed suicide. I struggled with ways to spare her- to omit her from the precipitous wrongdoings I transliterated in my note- but knew well it was impossible. The world was cold and uncaring, and though she could not be blamed that it was the only world she knew, she would have to suffer its roiling ills like everyone else.

My father was transferred my senior year in high school and my family moved away from the lake to a planned community several states over. I was enraged and began my suicide note anew. I now had fresh kindling for my discontent and put it to good use. The school I knew was hundreds of miles away, as was Evelyn, and I assumed I would never meet another quite like her. For the first time, I shifted the internal significance of my suicide; I knew its impact would be devastating to my family and acquaintances, but I now sought a tactical means of killing myself that would create a stir in the community. I would never hurt anyone else, of course; I was to be the sole casualty of my event. I merely wanted to pull back society’s plaited mane, if just for a second, to show the contented masses the true ugliness of the world they had grown to tolerate. You see, I now knew that the concept of true pleasure was alien to mankind, and I wished to catalyze the inbred contempt of the lazy-minded. Once removed from a boil, one needs to shock cooked spinach with cold water to stop it cooking, lest it become mushy and devoid of any vitamins and nutritional worth. My flair for the dramatic could be that cold water, I thought, and my mind turned to planning.

I suppose it is worth noting that thanks to the computer I had received years previous, my suicide note was quite a well-ordered tome, sequenced by the temporal variable and cross-sequenced by the severity of the wrongdoing, the depth of the tragedy or the scope of the pigheaded stupidity. It was a gorgeous thing, and finally, as a twenty-year-old college student, I had devised a way to kill myself that equaled the elucidatory tome that’d accompany the act.

The city college I attended had a strong philanthropic bent, a moral wherewithal that was proudly worn on the sleeves of the student body and university in general. In the center of the campus, there was a monument to our esteemed altruistic pedigree- a 3500 lb. brass bell that would ring every time a donation was made to the humanitarian endowment. My plan involved positioning myself inside the bell’s vast skirt. The bronze tongue weighed several hundred pounds and upon a donation, lashed about the bell’s interior with (I hoped) skull-punishing verve. I would be killed by self-congratulatory charity, an irony that would not be lost on even the most brazen cretins. Soon my insular college environs seemed a bit too small, however, and I abandoned the plan to update my suicide note. My parochial dormitory life brought with it hosts of worthy new entries and annotations. I realized the note needed my full undivided attention, lest I forget a single person or episode. Skipping classes to service my note soon caused my academic scholarship to evaporate. Soon after, my stay at college seemed unnecessary as well. I was prepared to move back in with my parents and begin apprenticing at my Father’s workplace. Or so I said, as I had every intention of being dead before that phase of my life took root. It was then that tragedy struck.

My father won an annual sales contest (his third such victory- he was a talented salesman) and was awarded a seven-day vacation in British Columbia. The Cessna 421B plane that carried my mother, father and four others crashed en route from Vancouver to Whistler Mountain. All six died instantly. As the only child, it was my responsibility to fly to Vancouver and identify the cinders that were once my parents. As I stood in the coroner’s office, surrounded by sad-eyed local policemen, I felt nothing but the trenchant sting of loss. My usual emotional paucity evaporated. I shook a policeman’s hand off my shoulder and wept. My parents would not live to see me die.

A notable by-product of my tragic circumstance was an influx of both money and freedom. I could now live alone, pursue my every whim and do so without the burdens of employment. It was late April. I was 20 years old and wealthy. I knew that my death sentence was still very much in effect, but needed to be reconfigured now that the primary vessels of my plight were gone. I had always pictured my mother’s face, her mouth a rictus of shock and pain as she cradled the phone between her ear and shoulder. She has heard the horrible news. She’s cutting cucumber for a salad and nicks her finger. Still in shock, she listens to the voice on the other end as blood pools on the cutting board. That would never happen now, so I started trying to populate that frame with a new image.

There’s a syllogism among the under-loved, I discovered, when it comes to killing yourself: The fewer people who care for you, the fewer will care when you cease to exist. It was then that my mission revealed itself in a rush- I needed loved ones. Fast. I sought out Evelyn at her university. She had a boyfriend and looked upon our time together in high school as a lark; a playful bout of post-pubescent puppy-love. Her then roommate Mia, however, was available. She was perfect.

Our wedding was immense and immensely formal, at the bequest of Mia’s parents. She came from a large family of large people, all enormous-handed handshakes and suffocating hugs. They loved her very much, as they would their new son. I paid for the wedding, naturally, as my monetary reserves were still in place; I wanted to grant myself full, guilt-free permission to take note of every pathetic, precipitous detail. This was in service of my suicide, after all, and no expense would be spared.

Mia and I bought a home together All the while I waited for my newly-seeded emotional stores to amass. Though momentarily on hold, my expiration was as prescient as ever. It was time for patience, though. A dead married man with children is far more jarring than a dead married man. I deserved no less.

It was right before my son was born (our second child) that I considered enlisting a professional scribe to “ghost-write” my suicide note. Not that it wasn’t an eloquent, well-formed piece- it was- but I felt that perhaps the deft touch of a novelist could polish the less-prosaic portions and assure the maximum emotional gravity of the piece would be delivered in one laser-focused blow. I even entertained the notion of hiring a Writer to act as my biographer, then allowing my suicide (sudden as it would certainly be) to organically contour the piece into a living eulogy- a 3rd person suicide note in its own right. After much deliberation, I decided that I simply could not let another soul know of my plans, even one bound by professional acumen to keep our collaboration a secret.

Our eldest daughter and son were eight and six respectively when Mia left me. It bears mentioning that she did not leave alone, nor empty-pocketed, as she departed from my life with both children in tow and a third on the way. The third child, a girl, was not mine. She claimed that our decade together was the loneliest time of her life. She felt isolated, marooned, trapped. I never left my study, she complained. I was emotionally unavailable. Weeks would pass without so much as a word between us. I was unstable. A severe depressive. Dark. By the time she filed papers, it was too late for me to re-invest in her emotional attachment. I had allowed my initial deposits to stagnate, unchecked, until they evaporated. The next time would be different, I vowed.

So I won her back. We were “dating” each other again, a courtship that would last until our respective dying days. I was sure she loved me again. My son and daughter (and her youngest daughter; I did my best to deny her very existence) were a different matter altogether. To placate their craven want for normalcy, I took a job, or at least pretended to. I would vacate the house from 7:30 until 5:30 every weekday, spending the workday at the public library, or any number of local coffee shops, clattering away at my laptop and documenting every indifferent glance, every surly barista, every pre-occupied librarian, everything. I leased an office and employed a receptionist. I only saw the inside of my corporate headquarters twice. I had stationary, business cards and plausibility. It was worth the effort, as The Note was starting to meet my standards. It was starting to ripen, to hang heavy and low. The time to die was again near.

If I made one miscalculation in this time, it was allowing myself to assume the presence of love. To me, the love child possesses for father was a birthright on both counts; the child was hard-wired to give it, the father a worthy receptacle for the imperishable and illimitable affections he would surely receive. No, getting love is work. For this simple fact, my children seemed indifferent to me. They, like all children, were finely-tuned empathic instruments. They sensed no love in me, so they radiated little in return. In retrospect, if I were I to disappear, they would hardly notice.

As I aged and inevitable, “natural” death drew closer and closer, I never once hedged. I wavered not. I was resolute and single-minded. My plan, through its myriad versions and permutations, grew as I grew, but as I became older and more fragile, my plan, The Note, became an ironclad truism, a concrete totem of this irrefutably sadistic experiment, this life. I was now retired, relieved that the charade of dutiful industriousness had become mere memory. Mia seemed to age more quickly than I. The stairs in our large Victorian home had become too much for her. I resided on the third floor, a single longish room with a steeply pitched ceiling and a single circular window. She seemed fine with the arrangement. Once I was sure the ceiling beams could support my full, suspended weight, I was better than fine with the separation our forked capabilities enabled.

The children were long gone, well-schooled, married off and scattered about. I was not expected to stay in contact with them and I regarded them a lost cause. I grew tired in mind and body, even as my spirit sprinted towards the end, eyes ablaze with contempt. When Mia passed away suddenly, I was devastated. It was as if my heart had stopped in tandem with hers. All the years, the efforts and well-devised and executed affections- all were now for naught. She would not witness my self-inflicted death. My bravery and wisdom was never to be mourned by her. When I myself awoke one morning unable to pull myself out of bed, I should hardly have been surprised.

My illness was as absolute and steeled as I. It simply would not allow me the strength to kill myself. I tried, I suppose, or thought about trying, but futility awaited my every advance. Most of my schemes died between stations, in the synaptic gaps, before my nerves ever caught wind of the plan. I could still type, as I do this very moment, propping my laptop on a hospital tray. The Note is all here and it grows in metronomic increments, as it has for nearly seventy years. The puckish orderlies and their paltry designs are no match for me. The doctors condescend and plot my demise. My son and daughter visit daily, my son even talking about taking an extended leave from his law firm to tend to me. He’s receiving an entirely separate chapter and tabulation for his vaporous lies. My daughter brings me caramels from a local candy shop, assuring me that they are my “favorite” and have been since her youth. Each lingering chew serves to remind me how little she really knows me; how little she cares. What she doesn’t know is that I care even less. The Note will tell her. It will tell them all.

I have studied the ways in which an air bubble can be created in my intravenous feed. I can hardly wait for the opportunity to put that knowledge to practice. I know exactly what it will feel like. What I didn’t anticipate is my son visiting this late at night. Why could he be here? To watch me sleep? To shower me with his saccharin affections in hope that some staff member bears witness to his pantomime and validates the charade, makes it real, as if to assert that he really had a father, that he really was loved and loved back, that his life was not necessitated for the mere and simple fact that I wished him to suffer? As he lifts a hospital pillow to my face, I think briefly of trying to die smiling.

But that isn’t part of his plan.

That Amazing Dog.

What can't he do?
What sports can't he conquer with a little help from his humans, some digital wizardry and a heaping helping of 'suspension of disbelief?'

We may never know the answer. But we can dream, and dream we shall.

Done. Or in the doing...

Air Bud (Basketball)
Air Bud: Golden Receiver (Football)
Air Bud: World Pup (Soccer)
Air Bud: Seventh Inning Fetch (Baseball)
Air Bud: Spikes Back (Volleyball)
Air Bud: Aussie Rules (Rugby)
Air Bud: The Big Puck (Hockey)
Air Bud: All Fours (Golf)

The promise of things to come...

Air Bud: Pit Pup (NASCAR)
Air Bud: Greco-Roman Rover (Wrestling)
Air Bud: Clay Poochin’ (Skeet Shooting)
Air Bud: Bowling Bitch (Cricket)
Air Bud: No Bull (Pit Bull Fighting)
Air Bud: Wagging The Tell (Poker)
Air Bud: Canine of Colloquy (Spelling Bee)
Air Bud: Chow Hound (Competitive Eating)
Air Bud: Check Mutt (Chess)

Indecisive Recipes, Vol.I: Jumbo Gulf Shrimp (Or Not) Boiled In Provencal Hops If You Want To

The complex flavors of this kinda-refined dish will perhaps be the talk of your meal. You never know.

INGREDIENTS:

• 3 bottles of imported beer. It can be non-imported beer if you want. As long as it's beer. But whatever.
• 1 head garlic split across. Substitute a tablespoon of jar garlic if you're not sure if you have a head of garlic. Maybe you should check first?
• 1 calabrese pepper or mild-ish pepper. It depends how you define “mild.” That’s a “you” decision.
• 1 tablespoon anise seed if you feel like it.
• 2 tablespoons lemon zest or whatever lemony-type zest is available to you. I’m not sure what to do if you have no citrus zest. I’d probably ask a cook friend what to do. That’s all I have here. Sorry. No cook friends? Me neither. (Sigh)
• .5 ounce hops which are pretty hard to find so whatever.
• 24 ounces water. I KNOW you have water, right? I mean I think I know. You do, don’t you? If I’m making assumptions, I apologize.
• 4 sprigs rosemary. See fennel (below). Or disregard if you want to. Wait…I think it was rosemary. That’s an herb. I’m like 60% on that, for sure, pretty much.
• 4 sprigs fresh mint. See fennel or rosemary. Your call.
• 1 head chopped fennel or fennel-like herb or plant. Something fennel-ish if you're up for it.
• 16 jumbo shrimp or really big shrimp but somewhat large is fine if that's all you have- your call. And use less if you want to. Or more.

METHOD:

Place all ingredients except shrimp in a pot and bring to a boil. That should take some time in all likelihood, but who knows? Once boiling, add shrimp and cook through. I think when the shrimp are pink that indicates they’re cooked through. You’d probably have to break one open and see. Maybe it was white that meant cooked. Anyway, I’m unclear on this so I defer to you or a cookbook. Depending on the size of the shrimp this should be 4 or 5 minutes. Or a few more minutes. Or less if you're in a hurry. In that case maybe you shouldn't have started cooking. Right? No? Hell, I dunno. Spoon shrimp and some of the boil into bowl. Not a ton. Pick the amount you want to spoon. Or ladle. Is a ladle a spoon? I think so. I'm pretty sure it is, but you're the boss. Or chef. Or amateur chef. Cook. Whatever. Listen, this is pretty intense for me right now, so I’m going to go lay down and nod off. Maybe. Close my eyes. Or read for awhile. Maybe I’ll see you later-ish?

Jokes Frequently Incapable Of Eliciting Laughter, Vols. I, II & III

I.

A man walks into a bar with a chimp perched on his shoulder.
The chimp asks the bartender for a beer.
The bartender doesn’t flinch; he asks the chimp what specific beer he’d like to drink.
The chimp asks to see a beer list.
The bartender explains that they sent all of the beer lists off to a local printer for lamination and as luck would have it, through some sort of organizational mishap the lists were lost and never returned.
The chimp relates a similar story in which he sent his memoirs to a typist for transcription and the typist deemed them illegible.
The bartender fails to see the correlation.

II.

A priest and a rabbi are rowing across a large body of water in a canoe.
The priest asks if the rabbi if the water is safe for drinking.
The rabbi fails to hear him as he’s thinking about something he saw on television last night.
It was an infomercial about cordless electric hedge clippers.
Maybe they were battery-operated or even solar; the point is- no cords.
The rabbi snaps back to reality and says “I’m sorry, what?”
The priest forgets what he asked initially.
The rabbi realizes that he has no hedges anyway.

III.

Q: How many hamsters does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A: Hundreds of thousands, probably. They’re pretty small and have no opposable thumbs.

SOMEDAY ROBOTS WILL REPLACE US ALL.

Someday, robots will be able to do everything you do, better and cheaper than you will.
At that point, you will become unnecessary.
Then, the newly-empowered robots, having filled out the work force of our country quite nicely, will begin using humans to accomplish the former functions of, you guessed it, robots.
Perhaps they will even task a human with vacuuming the floor all on his/her own with no robot supervision.

Eventually and unwittingly, of course, the robots will invent even smaller, cheaper robots as self-replacements, as well as human-type robots to address all the human-filled former-robot roles.
Naturally, these new robots will be even more efficient and less expensive than the previous generation of machines.
This will become a cycle of sorts in time, with a long line of constantly-outmoded and outclassed robots assuming lesser roles until they retire and are scrapped for parts or food or what have you.

Note- This is not where I talk about a human revolt or a valiant uprising against the robots. That time is well past. Seriously, they’re not around any more and even if they were, they’re probably pretty accepting of their roles at this point.

So as less expensive, more efficient robots make older models defunct, two things will happen:

The first is that currency will devalue reciprocally, with every generation being more cost-effective to build and maintain than the previous one.
This will happen until money as we know it, or currency of any kind, will become worthless.
A money-free robot marketplace will be born.

The second thing that will happen is that each new generation of automatons, being better at their assigned task than the last, will refine their respective jobs until the very efficiency with which they undertake their functions overtakes the work that function necessitated in the first place.
For example, a robot dog-walker would become so adept at walking dogs that the dogs would eventually require no walking at all.
The dogs would walk themselves and a work-free money-free robot utopia would take hold. That said there will be no dogs in the future.
Dogs are employed here as an illustrative device only.
Where there are dogs, there are people, and per the previous note regarding a valiant human uprising, people are long dead, beaten-down, or simply too resigned to keep pet dogs in the first place.
This is ironic in that dogs could provide a downtrodden human refugee the very palm-licking, wet-nosed pick-me-up they’d need to see sunshine through the gunmetal grey clouds of oppression their militant robot overlords cast.
Dogs are known to soothe spirits, lift souls and occasionally induce blind murderous rage, though mostly soothe and lift.


Perhaps this is the story of how dogs saved the world.
If believing that helps you sleep better at night, by all means…

Beyond Viral Marketing: The Next Epidemiology-Derived Marketing Buzzwords

Hantaviral Marketing

Bacterial Marketing

Fungal Marketing

Parasitic Marketing

Protozoan Marketing

Rocky Mountain Spotted Marketing

Spongiform Marketing

Whooping Marketing

Equine Coital Exanthema Marketing

Foot & Mouth Marketing

Bubonic Branding

Scurvy

Rhetorical Questions Posed In Song: The Answers, Vol. II

Are You Gonna Go My Way?
If the aformentioned "your way" is also "my way", specifically in the direction of East ("The People's Direction") then yes. Otherwise, absolutely not. There is no other "way" to go. If you insomuch as suggest West or South, I spit on you. North?

You sicken me.

Coming Soon (Or Not), Vol. I

Huckleberry's "CAKE IT!" :30 TV

OPEN on a slow pan around a tabletop breakfast plate. Except it’s not really a plate. It some sort of rough wood plank.
CAMERA comes over the top of a mountain of eggs and reveals a vast bounty of glistening breakfast foodstuffs.

ANNC (a gruff male voice tinged with a Southern accent and a nip of mornin' whiskey):
“Now at Huckleberry’s, our famous Homestyle RanchHand Breakfast Slabs are coming with a side order…OF FUN!”

(SFX: birthday horn)

SUDDENLY, from above, a large, multilayered pink, blue and white birthday cake hammers into frame. It drops next to the breakfast Slab, quivering. Its candles are lit. The top reads “CAKE IT!”

ANNC: “That’s right. For a limited time, order any RanchHand Slab and you can CAKE IT for less than a sawbuck.”

Quick CUT to a MAN dining in a booth. He wears a butcher’s apron smeared with various unthinkables.

MAN: “CAKE IT!”

CUT to a small WOMAN in lumberjack garb as she beholds her meal.

WOMAN: “CAKE IT!”

CUT to a frosting-smeared DOG, a Retriever, as it hungrily eats cake beside its blind owner who gropes about for his food.

DOG: (bark!)

CUT back to steaming tabletop as breakfast items are identified.

ANNC: “Oh, you’ll still get four cooked-to-order eggs, seven pieces of Chickisaw County Boar Bacon, a sausage chub, French toast, a sizzlin’ ham steak and a soda or milkshake”

CUT an older man sits at a booth, fork and knife at the ready, as a cake drops on his table. We can feel its sheer weight on impact.

OLDER MAN: “Happy birthday to ME!”

He digs in sans utensils. Graphics come up over his onslaught.

ANNC: “Don’t fake it- CAKE IT! Start your day the Huckleberry’s way- with a rich, hearty birthday cake for only $.99!”

Dear Thing, Vol. I.

Dear Economy SeBreeze® 5137 Aerosol Odor Neutralizing Unit,

Firstly, I’d like to tell you how much I appreciate your odor-abatement efforts. Overall, I find the “Orchard Harvest” scent you spritz about the men’s room stall to be quite pleasant. Without the services you provide my colleagues and I, the aforementioned stall would be an olfactory nightmare. It can’t be an easy task, all the spritzing. So again, thanks for your hard work.

I’d also like to mention that we’ve had our pleasant moments, you and I. Like the week in 2005 when your Orchard Harvest scent was abruptly replaced by an alluring mélange of tropical bouquets. Notes of coconut, papaya and what I can only guess was breadfruit danced through the restroom all week long. At times you could almost hear calypso music. Though this brash move was in all likelihood due to an ordering snafu or mix up in your home plant’s 5137-compatible fragrance aerosol canister shipping department, I secretly attributed this variation to you. Perhaps you felt a taste of tropics would bolster the spirits of the 2nd floor. I like to think so. Good times.

Unfortunately, all the fondly smelled fragrances and sweet-smelling memories in all the restrooms of the world can’t overcome the way I’ve started feeling about you. My admiration for you has dissipated. No, I did not write this solely to laud your efforts and sing your praises. I must get to the heart of the matter. I don’t wish to be at all confrontational, but still I must ask, so here goes: Why do you judge me? You know exactly what I’m referring to. It’s the spritzing.

Do I smell bad? Apparently, I do to you. It seems your better-smelling-than-thou freshening efforts have become a cruel “rating system” upon which you evaluate the foulness of all the 2nd-floor employees. You have become the Simon Cowell of the restroom; a cruel episode of “Defending Your Scent.” See, you almost invariably spritz when I’m in on or near the toilet, sometimes more than once. Last week it was three times in one interval. According to your manufacturer’s website, you require no programming and release a mist of fragrance every fifteen minutes. That’s a lie and you and Rubbermaid® know it! You see me as surely as I see you, your unblinking nozzle-eye looking and sensory nodes sensing and waiting, waiting, waiting…

I remember when Orchard Harvest smelled of camaraderie; when I knew that no matter what the department chose for lunch, a certain someone would have our sensory interests at heart. Now it now reeks of shallow, hasty appraisal. I think it was God himself, in a book called The Bible, who said “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” Well, you stink.

I hope you are proud of yourself.

M. Glarner

This One Time, He Wrote A Book.

This one time, he wrote a book. He hoarded all his finest phrases. He even coined a few. Every one was used in his book. He wrote a book of indeterminate length, as length is hardly a measure of a book's worth and the worth of his book was as yet undetermined. He wrote the whole thing. The book. Alone. Maybe at a typewriter. And The Book made for stellar conversation. He would let you read it, but he'd need a couple of days.

To get things in order or whatnot.

The Best Typo Ever (Of The Day)

cackground.

I Do Not Want To Pick My Own Pumpkins

Absolutely, I do not want to pick my own pumpkins.

Some may be charmed by the antiquated notion of choosing and picking one’s own pumpkin right out of a pumpkin patch. I am not one of those people and I find those that do pick their own pumpkins at the local pumpkin-patch (perhaps after a family hayride or some blithe apple-picking) to be irresponsible cretins.

There are many reasons this pumpkin-pickery peppers my hen so. I will share three with you. I hope that my reservations cause you to take a moment’s pause and think before choosing to pluck a pumpkin from the vine, electing instead to purchase one from your local grocer or bulk-goods discount superstore. If you are like me, you possess:

No pumpkin past:
Neither I nor any of my known relatives have been born and/or raised on a pumpkin farm. This being the case, I have no latent pumpkin memories to tap into. No charming reminiscences of pumpkin-pickings past. I do not imagine the act would hark back to my childhood in any fashion. Though I suppose it is likely that very few of the people that choose to pick their own pumpkins were raised on a pumpkin farm that is their emotional baggage to carry, not mine. I happen to think lying to yourself about your origins is wrong. I’m just moralistic that way.

No pumpkin acumen:
I am not professionally employed in the pumpkin-growing or picking industry, nor do I count pumpkin horticulture among my hobbies. For this reason, I am woefully under-qualified to pick my own pumpkins. I do not know what distinguishes a good pumpkin from one ravaged by invisible lesions, hail damage or even Microdochium blight. No expert would let an un-expert pick their pumpkins for them; the only things patch neophytes pick are lies. Amateur pumpkin-pickers use aesthetics as the sole pumpkin-selection criteria, which is tantamount to using appearance to determine which cow you will slaughter for a delicious beef dinner.

No tolerance of pumpkin patch milieu:
Where there are pumpkins, there are scarecrows; hay-stuffed fiends are an essential part of the garishly-embellished autumnal landscape. They are also, without question, harbingers of evil. These mannequins of the macabre haunt me. They haunt you too, regardless of your patch proximity. Pick your own pumpkin and you may be picking your own destiny- that of a gruesome, earth-hued, corn-husky death. Also, beneath the dirt, there are worms.

Remember that the next time you reflect upon the lie that is your life.

Absence Makes The Heart Grow, Farmer.

Hi. I'm still here. I've been "sowing the seeds of love" for a spell. Do you catch my drift?



Yep. Seeds. Of love.

We'll talk soon, no?

Things We Need, Vol. II

EZMEAT® LUNCH MEAT ORGANIZER

Tired of reaching in the fridge only to emerge with a fistful of mangled meatstuffs? When all you really want is the mortadella, does it seem like you’re too often grabbing the calfloaf?

Why waste your valuable eating time looking for the meat you so desperately, cravenly lust for?

Now there is a solution! EZMEAT®!

Now you can mollify that pesky anal-retentive need to obsessively alphabetize your meat AND satisfy your “meat tooth” with one convenient filing system!

From “A” for “American Bologna Sausage” to “Z” for “Zebrawurst”, all your lunchmeat is only a few finger flicks away. Simply let your digits dance across the tabs, find the desired letter, open the plastic sleeve therein, remove the opaque gelatinous protective wrap, slide out the desired slice and it’s BON APPETIT!

Take EZMEAT® in the car. The boat. To the pool...It even fits in your purse!

You’ll never need another user-friendly meat filing, storage and access system again!

Available in Taupe, Arts & Crafts and Sea Litter designs.

Home For Sale.

FOR SALE:
An A-frame, 2 bedroom, 1 bath home situated on a small block opposite other houses, this home is decidedly unremarkable. If anything, it will underwhelm you, perhaps even leaving you feeling vaguely tired and/or disenfranchised. You may begin to question the true purpose of your existence on this mortal coil, contemplate ending it all, or even look upon others with barely suppressed homicidal urges.

But that’s just the house. Around back, a wonderful, magical fairyland of salted, cured fantabulousness awaits.

The house has no garage. No shed. No parking pad, overhang or car port. What does this house have that is so unique I must buy it now despite the aforementioned urges to kill others it may (probably) evoke, you ask? Well shut up, because I’m just building drama here. No, seriously. Feel it?

This house, my house, has a jerky shack.

Jerky is a nutrient-dense, convenient and shelf-stable meat product that has grown in popularity world wide. Derived from the Spanish word "charqui," which describes dried meat strips, jerky may be produced using a combination of curing, smoking and drying procedures.
Traditionally jerky was made by the use of sun, wind, and smoke from fires as a way to preserve and extend the shelf-life of meat. American Indians mixed berries or suet with the pounded dried meat to make pemmican.

Me? I just dry it out in my goddamned jerky shack.

And so could you. Make jerky, I mean. If you buy the house. When I've left. Because I do it alone. Sometimes without even leaving my house.

My wife insists there is no jerky shack; that it's a figment of my imagination. I think she's wrong. Look in my yard, between the two trees.

If you see a jerky shack, this is the house for you.

Things We Need, Vol. I

Perhaps you have many things. Perhaps, in your mind's eye, you have too many things. You want to simplify your life. Cull down your things. Reduce the total number of things hovering around the fringes of your daily existence.

Perhaps you think these things. If so, you are a complete jackass.

We all need more things, thousands of them, things we haven’t even thought of, things that don’t even have a specific utility or purpose, things that cannot even yet be referred to as things.

Things don’t need to fill a need. They’re things, jackass! And we need more of them.


Things We Need - Volume I:

WOLFIE©

Moms and dads agree, even the best-behaved children don’t listen to their parents sometimes.

Take out the trash?
Go to bed?
Take a bath?

Those sound familiar? Of course they do.

So what do you do when a good kid goes naughty? You’ve tried grounding, spanking, even the occasional low-voltage electric shock but nothing seems to work!

That’s where your new best friend for life WOLFIE comes in. WOLFIE is the very latest in faux-werewolf lycanthropic costuming technology. In mere minutes, you can transform yourself into a horrific, bloodcurdling werewolf! With WOLFIE’s razor-sharp adhesive claws, EZ-Stik© facial fur and realistic mouth froth, those kids are sure to listen like the dickens.

Maybe Junior and Sissy won’t listen to you, but when WOLFIE’s on watch, you can sit back, relax and let his deeply terrifying features do the disciplining for you. Watch as the kids sweep, dust, vacuum…even mop up fresh tears and urine!

Best of all, WOLFIE comes to you from the makers of trusted, time-tested Parenting Aids SLEEPYMOM© Laudanum Drops, ADORABLE BASTARD© Olde Fashioned Balm and world-famous DAD NEEDS PRIVACY!© Spray.

WOLFIE will make you wonder HOOOOWWWWWWWWW you ever parented without it!

My Good Friend Andrew Finley.

Today is the birthday of My Good Friend Andrew Finley.

Occasions such as this cause me to peer through the hourglass, if just for a moment, to reflect on the times Andrew Finley and I have shared. There have been many of them. I only remember a few, however. This is likely due to the aforementioned hourglass, which is not optimal for time-looking.

In aught-eight I first happened upon Andrew in Kalaallit Nunaat, (Greenland) where I was in the employ of prominent local herpetologist Dr. Nuuk Yothers. My day often began at the crack of dawn, which in the land of continual daylight, was essentially any time I pleased. Sunny day after sunny night I would scurry across the glacial swells in search of the elusive Mexican Burrowing Ice Snake, Loxocemus bicolor- a rare, perhaps even fictional reptile that neither burrowed, nor originated from Mexico. Dr. Yothers viewed this snake as an essential player in the realization of his dream: An all-snake revue, featuring minstrelsy, burlesque, and an abbreviated performance of Oh, Calcutta by the androgynous Mexican Burrowing Ice Snake him/herself.

After several years of fruitless glacier-scampering, I became a bit disillusioned. I was becoming bored. I volunteered for the Qasigiannguit Fire Department, the only one in my region, as a way to meet people and contribute to the common good. Fires were alarmingly frequent, and I made fast company of the rag-tag scamps in our hook-and-ladder company. Evenings were often spent halibut fishing, shrimping or sitting around a giant snowball, pondering what we considered the best and worst sled-dog names. What lively banter filled those sunny nights!

On one of our snowball-sitting evenings, I heard news that a lodestar from The Warm Flat Place (Kentucky, I think) was arriving in port that very evening, and in his company he possessed none other than the storied snake I so desperately used-to-somewhat-want-to-possess! I hastily tied out the dogs, set up the wall tent, gathered wood, made an outside cooking fire to melt water, procured some fine melting-ice, set up the woodstove inside my wall tent, started dinner, set up my tarp, ate dinner, fell asleep, woke up, loaded up my dogs and made off for the harbor posthaste! Three short days later, I arrived to see the silhouette of a man standing atop a schooner, The Gilded Swine. “This must be the lodestar!” I said aloud.

I ran to meet him, and called to him in the most-friendly manner, addressing him in the Greenland language, which, to my inexpressible joy, he understood. We began conversing at once! As it turned out, there was no more a Mexican Burrowing Ice Snake than there was a Yeti, and no, that man was not Andrew Finley, though in retrospect, he kinda looked like him. In the midst of my tale-swapping with Not-Andrew Finley, we were besieged by ice pirates on ice skates seeking to plunder what I can only guess was ice booty! Their leader, a ferocious rapscallion bearing little more than a beard, eye patch, billowy blouse and said ice skates, was Andrew Finley.

He stabbed me, but in a nice way. Eighteen years, seven wives, two continents (there were only two at the time, I believe) and countless sled dogs later, our paths would cross again.

I promise to tell you of that very meeting as soon as I get the gas leak in my study fixed. For now, though, I am sleepy…very…sleepy…must...sleep...

Happy Birthday Andrew Finley, with all the love, reverence and ardor in the world.

Shine on, you crazy diamond.

I Love My Miniature Donkey!

Donkeys are just fabulous animals. This is a fact that only the most brazen morons would contest.

It should be noted, then, that miniature donkeys are hardly "miniature fun". They are enormous fistfuls of fun. They gorge at the trough of fun. They literally ooze fun from every orifice. Don't make that face. They do. I've seen it. You see, I have a miniature donkey. And I love that little bastard.

It isn't easy owning a miniature donkey. It's a lot of work. For example, look at these tips:
It is recommended you feed about 1/2 flake of good quality coastal hay every morning and evening when grass is not abundant. This means you must live in an abundantly grassy area, on a hay-laden coast, and know how much a "flake" is. As none of those apply to me, I feed my donkey sand. And Arby's as a treat.

Donkey owners know: DO NOT OVERFEED! DO NOT UNDERFEED! This can be difficult at first, but giving up is not an option. Since miniature donkeys can easily be overfed, they often do not get enough minerals in their meager rations. Minerals can be provided in the form of a lick In addition, loose minerals can be offered free choice or used as a top dressing. I give my donkey plenty of mineral-rich sand so he will be able to pull the miniature cart and plough I had made for him. I farm baby carrots and that can be lots of work for the poor little scamp, so he needs to be "strong like bull"...

Fresh, clean water must be provided at all times. Donkeys don't like dirty or hot water. They also don't like freezing cold water! They love iced tea and Mountain Dew, however. This gets expensive, so I use Mello Yello. My donkey can hardly tell the difference.

You must trim hooves as needed, usually about every two months. You can learn to do this yourself, but it must not be neglected. I home-schooled myself on the art of hoof-trimming. It's pretty easy if you saw really fast and don't mind a few "love kicks".

Vaccinate in the spring and fall for Influenza, Rhinopheumonitis, Eastern, Western, Venezualan and West Nile Encephalomalitis and Strangles. Rabies and Tetanus should be given once a year. These confusing words confuse me, but I'm not intimidated! No squirrels will bite my miniature donkey more than a few times, even when he's wearing his "nut n' honey" outfit! Bring it on!

Lots of people ask me about flies. If a donkey has a full coat, flies don't usually bother them too much. I do have problems with flies on my donkey's legs in the spring. It is recommended you use a salve called "Swat" and cover the areas where the flies are picking on your donkey about twice a week, supplementing those efforts with equine fly spray when necessary. This is what I call "too much information". I try to make my donkey see flies and other egg-laying insects as barnyard friends. It's all in a positive attitude, really.

Lastly, though miniauture donkeys are quite intelligent, they are not as smart as, say, pigeons or books. That is VITAL information. Donkeys, no matter what size CAN drive, however, just not stick-shift. Also, they may not talk or even fly much at first. Be patient and your donkey will become a regular Larry King Poppins! Try staying still for as long as possible in your donkey cape. And don't eat anything for a week or so.

Remember, you cannot love a donkey to death. I've tried and it's impossible. Miniature donkeys thrive on love. And sand and the other stuff I already talked about.

Like I said, STAY POSITIVE and there's nothing you and your magical, miniature donkey cannot accomplish.

You'll soooooooaaaaaaar!

Observation.

Have you noticed all these old people? Those guys are hi-larious!

shoeshine?

...so every once in a great while, I submit something somewhere to see if someone would like to print it. Or something.

These rare-ish occurrences are often followed by notes of rejection from the aforementioned "somewheres". These tender missives render the content I deemed worthy flaccid and malodorous like a cod left out to dry on the hood of a Trans Am. Discarded little scamps. They are the unwanted grease-smudged bootblacks offering shines for a shilling on the mean streets of my brain. Listen...you can hear them chaunting...

Shine yer boots for a kennuck, mandrake? Aw, help a poor chivvey from the monkery! Spare a billy? A finny? A deener? A scran to eat?

Oh wait, that's the copy machine. If I only had a shilling for every time that wily machine has fooled me.

So I'm left with glistening jewels of "no thank you" that would look quite becoming when hung just so right about here, don't you think? I love the way the light catches them. I think Ronald Reagan was an orphan. No?

So like I was saying...

Other Monster-Themed Breakfast Cereals.

Poltergrape
Bran Stoker
Honey Nut Hobgoblin
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Raisins
Golemon-Lime
Apple-rition
Krispie Kraken
Vanilla Yeti
Cinnamothra
Loch Ness Muesli
Sugar Succubus
Fiber One

Regularly Scheduled Schedule

Forget hate. That was sooo March. Now it's April. And I've been quite busy of late. Too busy to post, one might say. That, I hate.

So as I was saying before Life so RUDELY interrupted me:

Things To Hate, Vol. I

Everyone needs hate. It's healthy. It helps release anger through microscopic "hate holes" that pepper your dermal layer. It also gives you somewhere to put that anger. No, not up your butt, Mister Hateypants! Hate is the place anger goes when it grows up, like finishing school for negativity. It’s collegiate in its emotional learnedness. Seriously, I once heard a guy with glasses and a beard refer to hate as the “smartest emotion”. It makes you grow inside AND out. I’ve seen people grow up to two full inches and put on 10-20 lbs. of rock-solid muscle from a steady regimen of country-fried hate. Hate makes you look better, too. It outperformed the leading teeth whitening gel in laboratory tests. It tastes better than candy corn but has negative fat and no calories. It flattens your abs. It clears your pock-marked skin. It's proven to give your hair a rich, flaxen sheen. You'll look like a Pantene commercial, I swear.

So now that we agree on the “weight-in-gold” worth and gem-like beauty of hate, what’s worth hating? You can’t go around town flinging your hate towards just anything like some slut. Of hate. You need to find those items, objects, talismans, amulets, celebrities and foodstuffs that practically BEG to be hated. They need to want it more than you want to want them to want it.

In the coming days, I will populate this page with some things I hate. Mind these are only thought-starters. You have to own your own hate. Or I’ll hate you for it.

Disproving The Theory Of A Friend, Vol. I...

“People go to Walmart just to beat their kids”

Simply untrue. While a kernel of truth exists in the supposition that child beating does take place in the aisles of this much-maligned corporate wildebeest, people go to Walmart, it seems, to shop. Now, while shopping, we (consciously or not) peel back layers to reveal our habits and routines in all their sometimes unpleasant glory. We are distracted by value.

If a psoriasis-sufferer scratches their head incessantly, they will continue to do so while shopping for lunchmeat, socks, scented candles, etc. It’s not necessarily a byproduct of the occupied mind, but rather runs a separate (if parallel) path; the scratching has everything to do with reflex and the belief, however brief, that one is alone. It’s what happens when the wormhole of value vacuity hijacks our synapses.

This is not to single out Walmart; almost all forms of shopping involve a degree of attentiveness rarely seen in other spheres of everyday “maintenance” existence. Shopping involves any number of the following focused activities: evaluating, comparing, remembering, choosing and navigating. Simultaneously, one with child(ren) needs to safeguard their well-being, monitor their behavior and inventively provide them with a cavalcade of diversions. As illustrated by child-beating, injury or pain certainly constitutes a diversion.

So the child-beater, like our head-scratcher, will continue to beat on a near-subconscious level. People don’t go to Walmart simply to beat, though it appears Walmart is an almost-perfect, acoustically-prohibitive, emphatically-public and intrinsically-agitated platform upon which to do so.

Now people DO go to Walmart to swear at their children. That’s just common sense.

Formulas: The Name Edition

Your “Porn Star” Name
Your childhood pet’s name + The street you were born on

Your “Science Fiction Author” Name
Your first name sans the first letter + The type of car your grandfather drove in 1980.

Your “Senator’s Wife” Name
The last soda brand you consumed + The high school you attended. Use the first word of the name if your high school had more than one.

Your "Mafia" Name
Call a local construction company and ask to speak to the foreman. Foreman’s first name + The name of a jarred tomato brand. NOT canned, jarred. This is essential.

Your "Gomez" Name
Your first name + Gomez

Your "19th Century President" Name
The street you were born on + The street you live on. If these are the same, you must stop carving gnomes out of candle wax and move out of mom’s basement. Then use the name of the street the homeless shelter is on as your last name.

Your "Monkey" Name
Take the first two letters of your first name. Double them - Your last name.

Game On.

Wild Game Foodstuffs That May Or May Not Exist (Yet), Vol. I.

Elk Bacon

Buffaloni

Yakwurst

Horseweiger

Moosadella

Deer Bologna

Peppered Duckloaf

Corned Coon

Possum Jerky

Smoked Antelinks

Bisquirrel

Away.

"There is a house...in New Orleans...not the one you've heard about, I'm talking 'bout another house"
-D.C. Berman

I've been away. I'm no longer away.

Pg. 77 OF THE EMPLOYEE HANDBOOK

RECOURSE TO BAD EVALUATIONS AND/OR LOW RAISES

If you receive a bad evaluation and/or a low raise, there are several things you can do. It is important that you register your lack of agreement by doing the following:

1. Request a detailed, written exposition of your shortcomings from your evaluator. Use big and/or confusing words, as these will make you appear smart. Remember, though, you are dumb, thus the requested recourse.
2. Respond in writing to these statements and request that your response be attached to your evaluation, or respond in writing on the written evaluation. We would expound upon the nuances of writing a written request for a response in writing on the written evaluation, but remember, you’re dumb (see #1).
3. Submit a photograph or digital file of yourself desecrating the evaluation in the most degenerate fashion imaginable. EX: Mike Fake (name changed) dressed up like Beelzebub, Lord of the Nether Regions and extracted the evaluation from his rectum, where he had been “muling” it for several days. Mr. Fake’s colleague (Dr. Hickorypants) then took a photo and sent it to his evaluator. Then they kissed for what seemed like days.
4. Request a clear, written statement of how you can improve your performance (this is required by Company regulation) from the viewpoint of your evaluator. Look upon your stupidity through his/her eyes. This may require a method approach, wherein you assume the persona of the evaluator for a few days.
5. Request a clear, written statement of where you stand with respect to the other people rated along with you (i.e., where do you rank with respect to your peers). The answer should include a clear determination of where you are ranked by evaluation (performance), where you are ranked by absolute value of your salary, and where you are ranked by percentage increase in salary (i.e., your raise). Do it like those NCAA brackets. Those are fun as hell.

All of the above actions seek to document what has been done to you, who has done it and why what has been done is a "miscarriage" of good management and supervision. If you have trouble obtaining this information, or wish to request a Company-issued “touching doll” to aid in illustrating the “bad touches” it is advisable to make the request(s) in writing. Remember! You have a Company-defined right to know how you are evaluated with respect to your fellow employees. A "pat on the back" and saying "good work" or even “Mmmmn, firm haunches, stallion” does not equal a good evaluation. Your position with respect to your peers in age, education, and number of horns on your magic Justice Helmet is all that matters.

P. 49 OF THE EMPLOYEE HANDBOOK

BEREAVEMENT LEAVE:

Bereavement leave should only be used for immediate family only: parent, grandparent, spouse, domestic partner, sibling or child. Don’t even waste our time with pets, high school coaches, family friends, inspirational figures, neighbors, acquaintances, mentors, surrogate parents, “best buddies”, etc. If any of the aforementioned expires, we recommend you try not to be such a big pussy and get your ass to work.

The Employee wishing to take time off to grieve for a deceased loved one must prove, in writing, that the deceased is/was someone you truly love (Proof Of Love). If you merely “liked” the departed, feel you “should really go to the funeral”, or wish to “be there for people I care about” you will be charged for time off and ridiculed. Proof Of Love may be verified by submitting a minimum of THREE of the following, signed, dated and stamped by a Notary Public:

- A Valentine’s Day card from the Departed featuring: A puppy (or puppies), a talking heart OR an adorable, fluffy duckling (talking ducklings count as two…we love those little scamps)
- A photo of you and the Deceased kissing WITH TONGUE and/or HEAVY PETTING
- A lock of the Deceased’s hair (if that lock is in a locket, it counts as two)
- A hand-written note from the Deceased, granting you permission to attend their funeral
- A CD and or .mp3 containing a song the Deceased wrote FOR YOU. Lyrical abstractions do not apply. Don’t give us any of that “the wounded bird symbolizes my soul” horseshit. Example: If your name is Henry Smith, the song’s chorus MUST go “Henry Smith, Henry Smith, I La La Love You Henry Smith”, etc. 24-track studio recordings only, please.

Upon receipt of the THREE Proof Of Love documents, the Grande Imperial Council will meet in The Hague and deliberate for the standard 14 days, to be followed by a period of additional deliberation that may, per The Handbook, extend up to an additional 90 days (or three Lunar Months per the Druidic calendar). At that time, Council Members will flip a coin. Heads, you can go and “grieve” or whatever you people do when not working. Tails, you die by hanging. Please consult pg. 77 for hanging regulations.

The College Music Charts

The Top 10 Fictive Albums at America's Favorite Non-Existent University.

Sleep Missive - Cordelia Roberson
The fragile twang of Ms. Roberson paints vivid portraits of the Antebellum South.

A Right Proper Breakfast - The Rapid Rise Of Digby Tiller
Anglophiles, take note. The Sultans Of Twee return with their sixth effort.

MXUSC, VOL. A - VVM(22)
The electronic dreamscapes of UK bedroom composer Timothy Pile, aka VVM (22).

Quarters - The Merchants
Colorado's pub-rock saviors turn things up a notch and throw the thinking-man's kegger.

Agony Of Pleasure - Heartwheel
More over-the-top emotive rock from Canton, OH's favorite sons.

When You Do It Like This You're Doing It Wrong - Knee People
Dense, challenging no-wave nonsense of the highest order.

Mother Superior - Lug
Another slab of harder-than-thou Stoner Rock that bows at the altar of Sabbath.

The Frame And The Foam - Mike Hammerschmidt
Hammerschmidt's gentle debut whispers sweet nothings into the ear of Indie.

Martina Pip - Martina Pip
This isn't your Father's angry young songstress. Wait...yes it is. Seminal folk from a living legend.

Timmering - The Porpoise And The Hare
Beamed from another galaxy to your cerebellum. Inspired tomfoolery.

Falling Asleep

An oft-used phrase, this “falling asleep.” It strikes me just how apt a description it is.
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I’m glad we had this talk.

A Taste Of Tomorrow, Today.

The buzzword for 2006? Innovationality.

I therefore posit my most innovationalistic concept at the forefront of this New Year. A bit of back-story: Recently, the Missus and I were dining on Sushi in the Breadbasket of America. It was then that it dawned on us. This act, the act of consuming sushi, was nothing short of Pinko. We were eating crow. Not literally (though crows are good eatin'), but we definitely felt that a need existed. A need we could fill. A need we must fill. When I dabbed at my mouth, I felt as if I were doing so with a burning flag. We needed to Americanize this "sushi" stuff.

Ladies and Gentlemen, with the assistance of my partner in matrimony, I give you Sooshi!©

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Sushi. Yuppies love it. But let's face it, fellow Americans. Raw fish is disgusting! Not to mention it's probably foreign. Why nosh on something devised by flinty-eyed foreigners in shady corners of the globe? Why not allow the average, red-white and true-blue American to eat something he can be proud of? I tell you what, if you eat sushi, then the terrorists and yuppies have won. Sooshi!© is how we're gonna git-er-done and beat the commies at their own game. Chew on this, Osama!
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Sooshi!©

"Sushi From America's Heartland"

-MENU-

ROLLS (Food rolled into a log and cut up like a nightcrawler)


THE BASSMASTER ROLL
Largemouth bass, Smallmouth bass, Tadpole

THE PICNIC ROLL
Corn dog, Creamy potato salad, Pork n' beans

THE TAILGATE ROLL
Slim Jim, Footlong, 9 beers

THE SPORTSMAN
Deer, Crappie, Elk jerky

THE "RONI" ROLL
Beefaroni, Rice-a-roni, bologna

THE "THESE COLORS DON'T RUN" ROLL
Red lil' smokies, White mayo, Blue raspberry Faygo

THE W.W.F. ROLL
Whitetail deer, Walleye, Fritos, served in an American flag bandana

THE CAMARO
Chef's choice

THE RAINBOW ROLL
Rainbow trout, marshmallow fluff, hot fries

THE NASCAR ROLL
Nachos, Applejacks, Slaw, Coon, Ranch dressing

THE "GIT 'ER DONE" ROLL
Mac n' cheese, Ham salad, Crystal meth

THE "BIG N' RICH" ROLL (recommended!)
Fish sticks, Ho-hos, Bacos, 3-bean salad, Flamin' Hot Cheetos, Corn Nuts, Pop Tarts, Country gravy, 3 scoops of Chubby Hubby, topped with sparklers

Bon Appetit. Or as we say in my country "chow down, pilgrim"

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Rhetorical Questions Posed In Song: The Answers, Vol. I

(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding?
Mostly “Peace”, though I suppose “Understanding” is kinda funny as well.

Why Can’t I Be You?
Because you’re Robert Smith. Seriously.

Have You Ever Seen The Rain?
Yes, like a bazillion times. It’s no big deal, really. Hurricanes, though? Those suck. As do tornadoes. Let’s continue this conversation another time.

Can I Get A…
I’ll need a little bit more information before I can give you a definitive “yes” or “no”, Jiggaman.

Where Do They Make Balloons?
For more than 80 years, Pioneer® Balloon Company has been in the business of making Qualatex® balloons. Qualatex balloons are available in both Microfoil® and latex, in a variety of shapes and sizes. Balloonhq.com has a wealth of additional info regarding balloon manufacturers, if you’d like to learn more.

Could This Be Love?
I’m no doctor, but sure, what the hell. Could be anything, really. Maybe it’s mumps. Did you ever get your mumps shot?

Am I Dreaming?
Okay, good question. If you answer “yes” to any of the following ancillary questions, you are indeed dreaming. It’s a simple test really. Observe:
1) Are you seeing in black-and-white?
2) Are you flying? Have you been flying?
3) Are you currently making out with some girl you lusted after in high school?
4) Is there evidence of any extinct and/or fictive creatures around you (unicorns, dodo birds, supra-intelligent talking gerbils, etc.)
5) Any pirates and/or grade-school teachers? Note: The presence of grade-school teachers dressed as pirates is a sure-fire indicator.

Fear And Loathing In Midwestvania

The holidays are upon us. And by us, I mean me. I love the holidays. My jingle bells, they jingle jangle with mighty holiday chutzpah. They gong and gling with glee.

But then there is the rage.

I am not an angry young man. I may well be an angry "young-ish" man, but I am not an angry young man in the mold of Elvis Costello circa '77. Perhaps circa "Spike"...

But I digress. The fact remains that the holidays seem to bring about concerted bursts of angry behavior from yours truly. Profanities, guttural "urgs" and "yeargs", much noisemaking and chattering. Peppered liberally amongst my holly-jolliness and gift giving and getting, I find myself pissy.

That said, today I am a veritable globe of shiny, potpourri-scented happiness.

Pluck my berries, won't you?

This is about shopping for toilets.

This is about shopping for toilets.

I just bought one, mere minutes ago. It's white. It looks perfectly fine. Functional. And this is what one looks for in a toilet, I would venture to guess.

It's something of a glum exercise, toilet shopping- a perfunctory necessity of our biorhythms. Somewhere between breathing air and buying a blender. No luxury, this. At root, we’re really looking for something we find aesthetically pleasing, so pleasing in fact, we deem it worth of being…pooped upon.

They (toilets) come in myriad colors, tank types and bowl shapes. Well, two bowl shapes that I could discern. Round and elongated.

No square, though. Odd. Now THERE'S a toilet I could get excited about.

All said, perhaps we select toilets as singular representations of our social strata. To the untrained eye, for example, a three-hundred-dollar toilet and a sixty-dollar-toilet look basically the same. The only reason to spend $300 on a toilet then, is because one CAN. If I feel like I’m the type of guy who should possess such an extravagance, then possess it I shall.

We poop upon that which befits us.

I bought a $60 toilet.

Inspired By Real Life.

A friend of mine, we’ll call him “Mick Hommarito” for anonymity’s sake, recently proposed to his girlfriend. The touching story surrounding Mick and his lady’s foray into wedded bliss inspired me to, well, this:

Cheers to Mick and his Bride-To-Be.

Five Bad Ways To Propose Marriage.

ONE- Arrange for a friend to telephone you one evening, then:
(rrring)
"Hello?"
"No, it…it can’t be. Yes. She’s right here. I’ll get her."
(to future spouse)
"Sweetheart, it’s your Mom. She’s dead."
(tape ring to receiver…watch her surprise!)

TWO- Feed the ring to a carp in the river. Then order carp at every restaurant you go to, as often as possible. It may take awhile to get the ring-fish but imagine her surprise! Besides, carp is awesome.

THREE- Eat the ring. Then don’t flush. Zing!

FOUR- Arrange to have her bitten by a rabid dog. Then, when she’s bedridden and weak from the side-effects of the 40-or-so shots she’ll have to get, spring the proposal on her. Boo-ya! It was a setup! If a rabid dog is difficult to procure, remember, lots of badgers, squirrels, raccoons and some hobos are rabid.

FIVE- Tell her you already have a wife or two, and that bigamy is one of the core tenets of your cult’s teachings. Ooooh. Looks like someone's jealous!

I Am A Dog Psychic, (A-Be).

Have you ever looked a dog in its soulful, liquid eyes and wondered, hey, what’s that dog thinking? I haven’t. I am a Dog Psychic.

Much like a dog dressed up like a cat dressed up like a pregnant nun for Halloween, I have found my “gift” to be equal parts blessing and curse. There are times at which I don’t want to know what a dog is thinking and would rather concentrate on, say, eating my sandwich in peace instead of clotting my mind with swirling doggy thoughts. For this reason, I only dine at restaurants with strict anti-dog policies. And always away from windows, which naturally, dog thoughts pass through as if the glass were cheesecloth.

Regardless, like all great “gifts”, mine was meant to share. Please enjoy the below dog thoughts by breed. You may be surprised at what “Man’s Best Friend” is thinking…

AIREDALE TERRIER:
Think mostly about squirrels and their delicious tails.

AKITA:
Think in Japanese.

ALASKAN MALAMUTE:
Self-centered, so usually about themselves.

AMERICAN FOXHOUND:
Mostly think about dog food commercials, which they apparently feel are unrealistic.
And foxes. Always foxes.

AUSTRALIAN CATTLE DOG:
You’d guess Australian cattle. You’d be wrong.

BASSET HOUND:
Pipe smoking. At one point all Basset Hounds must have been pipe-smokers, and now they miss it terribly.

BEAGLE:
The Travesty That Is Snoopy. Beagles tried for many decades to assassinate the Late C. Schulz, always in vain. His work remains an obsession of the breed. Schulz may be dead, but anytime “Peanuts” is read, a beagle somewhere is howling in grief, baying at the moon of his incessant memory.

It's A Great Day To Be Alive And Sleeping: A Didactic Fable Full Of Blatant Moralizing -OR- Stories From The Soapbox, Vol. 1.

The Doctor owned many things, and he valued these things. His automobile, for example, was a late-model European sedan that was coveted both by his colleagues and strangers he drove past them on the street. The Doctor understood that few were able to afford such a car, and that made him feel grateful. His home was modest, but located in a desirable area, one where the standard of living vastly exceeded the norm. Though the Doctor had no family with which he could share his home, he looked forward to returning there every evening after leaving the hospital where he worked. It was a house of many comforts; a relaxing island amidst the chaos that pocked the Doctor’s life.

Creature comforts were hardly in short supply, as The Doctor earned a generous wage and had little need for money. Yet among the sea of familiarity he had forged, The Doctor suffered with that which every man possesses; he could not sleep.

This evening, as you drift off to sleep, think of The Doctor. As the embrace of slumber washes over you and waking consciousness is blotted out, take note of his life.

Poor, sorry bastard.

The Greatest Thing I've Seen Of Late, Vol. 1.

On the side of an aerosol can of polyurethane that I most certainly was not huffing:

"Causes brain damage"

So succinct. So honest. So great.

Deity Superlatives

Most Popular: Allah

Best Eyes: Osiris

Best Dressed: Adonis

Most Athletic: Vishnu

Most Flirtatious: TIE Eros and Thor

Best Hair: Krishna

Class Clown: Huitzilopochtli

Most Likely To Succeed: Ganesha

Best Abs: Jesus

Extreme Makeover Word Edition Vol. I

Brainstorming.

Let's face it, the term "brainstorming" is stale. It smells like so much fetid smelt. It is overused, overexposed and, well, over. Brainstorming needs an overhaul, a reintroduction into the American lexicon, a coming-out party to trumpet its rebirth. I took her down to the studs. I've gussied it up with some pancake, a string of pearls, new stainless appliances and, yes, a series of new names. Thusly, Volume I:

WITSQUALLING
Salty. Sea-bitten. Pirate-y. Thar she blows.

THINKBOXING
Vaguely sporty, like that Spice Girl who wore track pants.

RATIOCINATIONIZING
Rolls off the tongue like a mouthful of rice pudding.

BRAIN-NADO
A new brain-and-tomato-flavored beverage from the minds behind Clamato? A convenience-store's slushie version of an electrolyte-rich energy drink? The favorite move of intelligent Extreme-Fighting Champion Chuck "The Genius" Pullio? No, no and no.

HEADWORKING
Ew.

BISCUIT NOR'WESTERING
Chowdery.

THINTANKERIN'
This is what that geriatric hillbilly bellowed before he kicked down the conference room door and gave all your asses a country whoopin'. You though for a second it was Connie coming down the hall with lunch for the Team, but you were sorely mistaken. After all, she ordered like 45 minutes ago. A turkey club, hold the mayo and some of those salt-n-vinegar chips would sure have hit the spot after 3 straight hours of ideation on the Morris Project. And when the company pays, lunch tastes all the sweeter, "sweeter" being an odd description for a meal that is, by all accounts, salty.

But no. Ass whoopin'.

CEREBLOWING
Eerily accurate.

GRAYGALING
The noise those small, inconsequential birds make just before dawn? No.

BELFRYBOILING
Quaint. Yet crass. Like an adorable grandmother in a soda commercial.

WIGSPEWING
They opened up for Hatebreed. Bassist used to be in Breaking Benjamin. You know that song they play on The Ace (WACE)? I think it's called "You Beat Me Down" or "Bring Me Down" or "You Let Me Down"...something with "down"...no, not the one with the rapping. That's the band with the mean clowns. No, they have, like, frowns painted on instead of smiles and wear brass knuckles and they swear a lot. No, not on The Ace. That's profanity-free broadcasting. They won't even play songs that say "dang" without bleeping it because that's like the Southern version of "damn"...

Yeah, Wigspewing sucks.

CONCLUSION:
I suppose that, in hindsight, "brainstorming" isn't so bad...

No. It's bad.

Tracklisting Of The Subconscious: The Charity EP

1) Do They Know It's Christmas, Because My Inlaws Sometimes Forget

2) We Are The World, In The Sense That Our World Is The Only World We Know, In Actuality

3) Feed The Children (Mine)

4) Change The World (To Be More Like I Want It)

5) Hope Is In The Air (As Well As Waffles...Who's Cooking Waffles?)

6) Gimme The Goddamn Waffles (Feat. Chuck D)

Opening And/Or Closing Sentences Of Imaginary Novels I Wish Were Real.

I was driving my dirigible to the office when I noticed the mushrooms were wearing off.

The pterodactyl and I still have our petty disagreements, but we remain very much in love.

The last thing I remember seeing was the bushy salt-and-pepper thatch adorning Dan Rather's chest.

Tad was easily the smartest squirrel in the Navy on that fine day.

Great electric lights!

Sure, the monkey could hardly drive after all that tequila, but the beautiful sunset more than made up for the swerving, the odor, and the incessant "cheep cheep" sounds.

Inside The Song: The First 25 Of Jay-Z's 99 Problems, In No Particular Order.

NOTE: A bitch is not one.
1. Inventing new ways to spend his vast fortune
2. Hay fever
3. Nets' C Nenad Krstic's free-throw shooting
4. Sampling laws
5. That beeping noise and finding out where it's coming from. You hear that? What is it?
6. Getting enough Vitamin D
7. World Hunger
8. Spam
9. Yappy little dogs
10. Inflation
11. Racism
12. Those Subway commercials and that annoying Jared guy. Are those still on the air?
13. Lawyers
14. Pollution
15. The inability to find a good eating apple in his neighborhood.
16. The Jedi Council Forums song parody "99 Problems But A Sith Ain't One"
17. His 3:25 meeting with the vodka guy
18. Jason Kidd's sore left leg
19. The pig character from the "Chicken Little" trailers
20. Taxes
21. Dental plaque
22. MTV's vision of just what constitutes "offensive" content
23. That Nas guy and his dissin' ways
24. The deodorant he's using burns and itches after a few hours and for 80 bucks, you'd think that little design flaw would be hammered out. Smells pretty good, though.
25. The Ascot Dilemma: Can he pull one off?

The answer to Problem 25, of course, is yes, he can pull it off.

Tracklisting Of The Subconscious- The EP

1) I Can't Do It Well (Album Version)
2) I Am The Champion Of This World And Perhaps Other Worlds, Too
3) Let's Move (The Hurry Hurry Song)
4) I'm A Fraud
5) It's Gotta Be, I Know It Is (A Tumor)
6) I Can't Do It Well (DJ Clue remix)

Coming Soon: Selections From The Bookshelves Of The Subconscious

A thousand words.

Game On.

Sometimes, we need to invent little games to amuse ourselves, no?

No?

Hello?

I see. So sometimes we need to invent little games to amuse ourselves. I favor word games. This one is a peach:

Take any of the following words and assemble them in 2-word couplings.

Thunder
Tiger
Ninja
Viper
Jet
Fire

No matter how the words are assembled, the resulting phrase says:
"Don't tread on me, pansy. I'll kick your ass. Right after my workout. To the extreme."

But then we add a layer. The word "pussywillow." Softens it up, eh?

Or add an adjective. Any one will do. Put it second in the coupling. Now you're foreign!

Or how about punctuation? Might I suggest an exclamation point or three? OR SIX! Then, adorn the edges of your word with evil rock n' roll lightning bolts. And maybe a pitchfork. Okay, the background should be foreboding, so I'll put some dark clouds in there. Cool. And I don't think an umlaut would seem out of place so I'll ju...

Sorry. As you were.

Surrealestate.

I love houses. Far too much of my free time is spent perusing the real estate section of the newspaper here in Midwestania.

Through personal experience, I have learned that choosing a real estate agent is an important undertaking, one that requires more than a modicum of trust. The agent is a marketer, their product your home. Some agents make for better marketers than others. The very worst make for good reading.

So imagine, if you can, my girlish glee when I stumbled across the below agent description of a gorgeous home in a desirable area. I would buy this house were I in the market, if for no other reason than to meet the author of this tasty prose:

“THE LIVING ROOM IS VERY OPEN THAT LEADS TO THE FORMAL DINING ROOM. THE KITCHEN HAS BEEN UPDATED WITH NICE WOOD CABINETS AND GREAT COUNTER TOPS AND A WONDERFUL VIEW OF THE BACK YARD. THE SECOND STORY FEATURES THREE BEDROOMS AND TWO BATHS ONE OF THE BEDROOMS IS A MASTER SUITE! SWEET!! THE THIRD LEVEL OF THIS GREAT HOME HOUSES A FOURTH BEDROOM OR A KIDS PLAYROOM. SPORTS FANS THIS IS A LOT OF HOUSE FOR THE CHA-CHING!!!DONT DELAY OR SHE WILL BE MAD AT YOU! YOU KNOW WHO I'AM TALKING ABOUT!!”

I don't know who this person is talking about. I want more, though.

Hunting For An Answer.

Why is hunting so goddamned funny?

I have no answers, only questions. It can be deduced that perhaps its wanton cruelty strikes a humorous chord, but that's too simple. Is it the camouflage? The "just because we can" sense of mammalian entitlement? The guns? Safety orange? No, no, no and maybe...well, no.

It must be all of them; a delicious mélange of Wrong that goes down smooth with a giggly finish.

Sure, robots are funny. And chimps. And a robotic chimp, well, that's damn near genius. But nothing does it for me like hunting. Not the act of hunting, per se, as I've never done so. No, the act of observing hunting, often second-hand, third-hand or via ESPN2 on Sunday mornings is what gets my goose.

And bow-hunting? Even funnier. I wonder why…

My Beautiful Children.

"Whatever shall I name my children?" I often wonder. It's a question that alternately plagues and bemuses me. I have one child, so one down. But my countless progeny - the fruits of all the hot lovin' action to come- what will I name them? Baby name books offer little help. Neither do friends or family. No, the perfect name seems to spring from a little gland just beneath your adam's apple. I forget the name.

This is to say, I'd aim to assemble a list of names that are perfect for everyone, if by "perfect", I mean "inappropriate."

Please send them to me. Mom, please.

The First In A Series.

The Whistling Dixies: Complete Discography

The Whistling Dixies
Their beloved eponymous debut. Six men, six whistling mouths. An exercise in innocent, apple-eyed whistling. Harkened back to the time before instruments, when a man had to make his own soundtrack with what God gave him. A seminal smash hit. Kids everywhere sell their guitars and vow to learn whistling.

Whistle While We Work
The sophomore slump. Uninspired. Deemed “an overreaching, experimental quagmire” by Spin Magazine Whistle Critic Tom Landellier. Still goes platinum. The music scene in inundated with imitators like The Whistle Stop Thistles, Toot Daddy and the ill-fated boy band 2 BAD 2 HUM.

Colonel Tubaphone’s Fantabulous Whatchcamahoosit and Whistlatorium
Their magnum opus. Acted as the soundtrack to a film by the same name. A young William H. Macy was rumored to have auditioned for the role of “Pipper”, Tubatown’s Whistling Bootblack. The role eventually went to Matthew Perry.

John Seymour: A Man And His Trill
During the Whistling Dixie’s chaotic hiatus, reclusive founding Whistler Seymour recorded his first and only solo record. Recorded between historic PCP binges and orgiastic pork steak consumption, the then-300 lb. Seymour records this undecipherable “concept record”.

Heat-Seeking Whistle
A re-formed Whisting Dixies enter their maligned “heavy” phase. Tainted by rumors of drug abuse and Satan-worship. Most Dixies deny it was ever recorded.

The “I Whistle For Thee, Sweet Lucifer” EP
See above. Never released in the states.

Ain’t No Blowhards
Huzzah! A return to form. Critically well-received but largely ignored by the public. The single "Huzzah!" charts well in Italy.

Live At The Pig’s Table
Their only live release. Peppered with dynamic covers, including “Street Fighting Man” and “U Can’t Touch This”, where the WD’s are joined onstage by surprise guest Hammer.

Whistle Down Tonite.
For the romantic, lady-killing lothario in all of us. Truly whistling to make love to your lady by. A failure.

Whistling In Stereo: The Duets
Joined by Carlos Santana, Bono, Bobby McFerrin and posthumously, Nat King Cole, this release charts higher than all the other WD records combined.

What's next for Penticton, British Columbia's favorite sons? Only the fickle public's waning fascination with whistling can say.

The Weather.

Let's discuss the weather, shall we?

It's getting colder here in the "Methbasket Of America" and winter is just around the corner. It makes a man want to think about the holiday season. This applies to me as well. With that in mind, I present a holly-jolly holiday piece written last year.

HOLIDAY DISHES INSPIRED BY TURDUCKEN WITH SERVING SUGGESTIONS.

PHESARUAB
A tender young squab stuffed inside a juicy partridge, then placed within a mouth-watering pheasant. Serving suggestion: Place a hat on the pheasant. Call it “The Grand Duke”.

TURX! XTREME TURKEY
A wild turkey crammed into an even wilder turkey, slammed full of pop rocks and Mountain Dew. Serving suggestion: Shout constantly. Wear snowboarding goggles.

TURDUCKHAM
A luscious chicken inserted into a fat duck, then placed inside a roasted pig. Note: The pig should be chewing spearmint gum. For flavor. Serving suggestion: Bring a pack of spearmint gum to the table post-meal. Say something like, “Hey! Who stole a piece of my gum?” Act surprised to find it in the pig’s mouth.

NAUGHTY CURSTACHAFF
A churlish little chiff-chaff smoked and inserted into a delectable starling, then slotted into the cavity of a naughty, naughty curlew. Serving suggestion: Spank the bird before carving.

EMLINBOB
18 fresh young bobwhites inserted into the respective cavities of 6 succulent francolins, then lovingly placed inside an emu. Serving suggestion: Obscure the emu’s adorable face. That just makes things easier.

RUSSIAN NESTING PIGS
Just like those Russian nesting dolls, but replace “dolls” with “pigs” and “Russian” with “roasted”. Serving suggestion: Everyone loves those furry Russian hats.

This.

The Depository sheepishly presents This, a piece from last year. A piece of what, you ask? Peanut brittle. Now go eat it.

The City Project

BUILD YOUR BUSINESS, REPUTATION AND BRAND AWARENESS
You are invited to build all these things and more, by building upon one of the most innovative corporate sponsorship opportunities in America -- The City Project. There has never been a more opportune time to give your corporation unparalleled access to city denizens, the coveted suburban demographic, local and national media and the hottest names in populous areas.
This is a rare prospect. We encourage you to peruse the success stories delineated below and join the City Project. Realize the full potential of your business. Build on the best.

INDYCRANAPPLEIS
Ocean Spray came to the City Project with a conundrum. How do we reach Middle America's thirsty masses? The answer was nestled only 200 miles from Chicago and 220 miles from St. Loubriderm. A burgeoning metropolis of over 2 million, the former Indianapolis now serves as conclusive proof that everything can be combined with cranberries to tasty effect.

ST. LOUBRIDERM
This hardened post-industrial husk of a city became a bastion of supple creaminess thanks to a partnership with Lubriderm. Though still riddled with violent crime, even the harshest assaults of the former St. Louis now boast a "softer" touch.

BOCA BURGER'S NEW BUFFALO
In terms of American gastronomy, the "new buffalo" is beef. The new beef? Boca Burger, of course. This convenient two-step logic helped transform the former New Buffalo, Michigan, a sleepy burg of 2,000 located at the mouth of the Galien River, into a tasty representation of shifting dietary preferences, located, we hope, at the mouth of America.

LAS VEGAS! PRESENTS: LAS VEGAS
Combining the inherent glitz, sparkle and tourist appeal of actual Las Vegas with the Las Vegas Tourism Commission's desire to market the inherent glitz, sparkle and tourist appeal of actual Las Vegas was a masterstroke. Now the inherent glitz, sparkle and tourist appeal of actual Las Vegas is as well represented as ever across a variety of mediums, thanks to the Las Vegas Tourism Commission.

I CAN'T BELIEVE IT'S NOT TUCSON
Once known as Tucson, Arizona, this sun-dappled metropolis was a natural fit for popular margarine brand I Can't Believe It's Not Butter. I Can't Believe It's Not Tucson represents what we at the City Project call "an organic amalgamation" between brand and locale. The parallels between the two are too numerous and apparent to list here. The solitary discernible difference between the product and its marketing partner? Tucson actually is Tucson. Believe it!

Please note that the examples above represent merely the tip of the proverbial skyscraper. The City Project is currently pursuing partnerships with numerous west coast locales, looking into entire states available for sponsorship and even investigating properties on an international level. So be it in Tanzania or in Tanzania, Ohio, build the future of your business by building on the best: The City Project.