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!©

...............................

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!
...............................

Sooshi!©

"Sushi From America's Heartland"

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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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