The House of Vaughan

Thanksgiving

2009-11-10T11:17:00.001-07:00

We're almost there. If I close my eyes and wish really hard, I can already smell the turkey. The mashed potatoes. The gravy. The stuffing. The second helping of all that stuff. The third. The Tums.

Thanksgiving is, aside from watching midgets try to climb a flight of stairs, the single greatest thing any human being can experience. Most people probably disagree with me. Some may say the greatest thing anyone can experience is love. Others, self-confidence. Still others, a Chipotle burrito with extra meat. But those people are all wrong. It's Thanksgiving.

Whoever invented Thanksgiving (it probably wasn't the Pilgrims – my money's on James Dyson. That guy could design a shirt without a neck hole, and it would still be awesome) deserves a plaque made of the ground-up bones of Nobel Laureates. It's a holiday focused entirely on eating until you rupture your stomach. Then you watch football. Then you eat some more. If there exists something better, I'll ask you not to tell me about it, as I'm sure it would cause my head to explode.

Sure, ostensibly, it's about giving thanks for all the stuff you've got. And I'm not against that at all. The things I'm usually thankful for include these sweet-ass socks, “Arrested Development,” and ninjas. But in the postmodern tradition of my stupid generation, the thing I'm most thankful for is Thanksgiving itself.

If you're a “LOST” fan, Thanksgiving is my constant. If you're a Tarantino fan, it's my Brian DePalma homage. If you're a Kevin Smith fan, it's my huge bag o' weed. If you're a Joss Whedon fan, please kill yourself.

I look forward to it starting on Black Friday the previous year. Once Halloween hits, I start to dream about swimming in pools of turkey gravy. It's a sickness. But I know the cure: Eating turkey and mashed potatoes and gravy and stuffing and pumpkin pie until I feel a little bit guilty and adopt a child from Uganda or something.

Plus, it affords me the opportunity to get together with my family, and unlike most people, I actually like my family (yes, that was ambiguous, and no, I'm not changing it).

Almost everyone glosses over Thanksgiving, and that's just not right, especially since it's a very jealous holiday and it owns several guns. To many, it's simply the gateway to Christmas. It's a harbinger. A pre-game. A checkpoint. But to me, it's the greatest thing since reversible windbreakers. So here's to you, Thanksgiving. I just hope you brought more wine.

Family Vacation

2009-07-26T15:25:00.000-06:00

I'm a Californian, which is to say that I take orders from a man with a ridiculous Austrian accent. But really, all that means is I was born in California, lived there for a while, and stubbornly insist that I still identify more with that state than with any other. It's much like my mother insisting that, despite having brown hair, she's still a blonde because she's “got blonde coloring.” In any case, I'm a Californian. My relatives are almost all Californians. It follows that when I go on a family vacation to attend my cousin's wedding, our destination will likely be California.

Such was the case less than a week ago. We all jumped on a plane (not literally, of course – that would be silly) and flew down to sunny San Diego, CA, to watch my cousin get, as the kids say, married.

Did you know that the San Diego airport is, like, right there in the city? Looking out the window as we prepared for our landing on a 13-foot-long runway, I felt like I was carpet bombing Dresden. (History, you've been zung!) You really start to believe that you're about to slam into a high rise. Don't get me wrong; it's a wonderful city. It's just that their airport may as well be called “The 9/11 3D Experience.”

After tooling around The Velcro City (that's my nickname for San Diego, which I just made up), we drove up to Temecula to stay with my grandparents for a few days. Lemme give you a little background on my dad's dad: He's survived a stroke, a heart attack (or two, or nine), cancer, the Carter administration, and numerous slave uprisings, and he's still kickin'. He's also entirely unfamiliar with the concept of “tact.” I love the man to pieces (which, by the way, is an extremely bizarre image), but he's nuts. He once grabbed a waitress' shirt so he could read one of her buttons. The very first thing he said after I hugged him was “Can you fix the TV so the videos'll work?” to which I replied “Grandpa, you don't have a VCR.”

The next day was the wedding. It was a mercifully short ceremony (just about thirty minutes), and it was beautiful. It was at a vineyard (the Temecula Valley is like southern California's Napa Valley, except without all the unnecessary pretentiousness). I met one of my aunt's new “friends,” who promptly assumed that I was also his friend, and who rested his prosciutto-wrapped asparagus spear appetizer over a candle and insisted that he was “cooking the bacon.” I visualized stabbing him in the brain.

After a couple more days in Temecula, we trekked (or “went,” if you have a strict “no using words with two Ks in them” policy) up to Glendora, the part of California where I would live if I won the lottery and also wanted to live in Glendora. There, we visited my aunt and uncle and cousins for four or five days.

My favorite part of that leg of the trip (aside from seeing my favorite aunt and uncle – Is it wrong to have a favorite aunt and uncle? I make no apologies) was our trip to the beach. Ordinarily, I have a strong aversion to anything beach-related, as I tend to hate things that result in my being simultaneously sandy, sticky, sunburned, and sandy some more. Not this time. We made an elephant out of sand (and when I say “we,” I mean “everyone but me”). We barbecued hot dogs. We played volleyball. Honestly, I'm not sure if I could ever recall having a better time at the beach. I remember laying face-up on a towel just before sunset and thinking to myself, “Andrew, this place is alright. This is your new happy place.” Incidentally, my old happy place was sitting naked on a couch while eating Funyuns and watching “I Love Lucy” reruns. Hey, my happy place rhymes!

Coming in at a very close second favorite was our trip to Roscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles in Pasadena. When I was a student at Azusa Pacific University, my friends and I went to Roscoe's a couple times. I've spent the last several years trying to convince the rest of my family that Roscoe's waffles will make you see God. My praise fell on largely deaf (or, more likely, pancake-stuffed) ears, and I was beginning to lose hope in the idea that I'd ever get to taste that sweet, sweet ambrosia again. Seriously, if you're ever in southern California (on a trip, passing through, or simply by virtue of actually living there), you need to visit Roscoe's. I know the combination of chicken and waffles sounds monumentally bizarre, but trust me. It'll make you envy your own mouth. You'll see music and feel color. It's the greatest thing since the atheists invented sex in the 1960s. Even my parents liked it.

Later, we drove up the coast to San Francisco, a city I've wanted to visit since I said my first words (which were “Wrestling is so fake, dad”). We stayed in a crappy little town just outside of San Fran called Newark. I had no idea there was a second Newark in the US. I thought the first was bad enough.

In San Francisco, we hit all the touristy spots. We saw Haight Ashbury (there's a Ben & Jerry's there now). We drove down Lombard Street. We drove across the Golden Gate Bridge (which was underwhelming to my sister; she preferred the Oakland Bay Bridge – I suppose she also prefers getting mugged and then peed on over being given free cupcakes). We saw numerous hobos, an inordinate number of whom had their hands jammed down their pants. We took the ferry over to Alcatraz, where we discovered that there are tons of furrners who travel all the way to Amurrca to visit one of our most notorious prisons. I guess that's because Amurrca kicks butt (but we don't take names; our pen must be out of ink).

One thing that surprised me was that San Francisco is cold. Mark Twain was right. And the fog. Oh, the fog. It rolls in like a fat guy at Sizzler: Creepily, noisily, and stinking of cheesesteak and Lipitor. It's truly amazing how quickly it can show up. It came in so fast one day, it sent me back in time.

I haven't had a summer vacation in a long time, but this one was well worth the wait. I laughed, I cried, I ate unhealthy amounts of In-N-Out. Not too shabby. Oh, and I dare you to use more parenthetical phrases in a single 1,100 word piece. You can't do it.

Caviar

2009-06-04T15:13:00.002-06:00

Bob: "You know, sometimes when I'm eating caviar, I feel kinda guilty."

Bobb: "Why's that?"

Bob: "Because there are starving people all around the world, and if I'm gonna spend hundreds of dollars per ounce on a bunch of fish eggs, then I can obviously afford cheaper foods. You know? Then it wouldn't seem like such a waste."

Bobb: "Well, yeah, but how many poor people can afford caviar?"

Bob: "That's exactly my point."

Bobb: "No, you're not following. Poor people can't afford expensive foods, and yet there will always be expensive foods out there. Poor people will never eat caviar, because once they can afford it, they're obviously not poor. You're not taking food out of their mouths because you're not overlapping with any foods they'll actually eat."

Bob: "You're a horrible person."

Bobb: "In fact, you should only feel guilty when you're eating cheap, easily accessible foods. You're driving up demand, and therefore, price, which makes it harder for the poor people to afford it. Shame on you. Next time you get a craving for macaroni and cheese, bite your tongue and buy a steak."

Bob: "How do you sleep at night?"

Bobb: "Ever mix antihistamines with alcohol?"

This Conversation (Sorta) Actually Happened

2009-04-19T14:43:00.001-06:00

Thought of the day 03/20/09

2009-03-20T13:47:00.003-06:00

I'm not sure how I feel about Facebook birthday wishes. I have to assume that if most people are like me, they don't really know anyone's birthday until Facebook reminds them. Remembering stuff is for losers anyway.

Twitter, Shakespeare, Seinfeld, and Crack

2009-03-16T14:07:00.005-06:00

As some of you may have noticed, I recently broke down and joined Twitter. For a long time, I actively resisted jumping on the bandwagon for no other reason than I didn't want to be so transparently populist. However, once my roommate joined, it took less than two weeks for me to realize just how useful it could be.

I get thoughts throughout the day that are too short and/or bizarre and/or simple to expand upon. That's why I started those thoughts of the day a while back. Once I found out that I could post those thoughts on Twitter from my phone, I got so excited that I peed my pants a little. Unfortunately, I was sitting on a cloth chair at the time, and now my whole room smells like I just ate asparagus.

If I could distill my feelings about Twitter into a single sentence, it would be this: DO NOT JOIN TWITTER. It is the white man's crack. That's why, in the last week, I haven't posted here, I haven't shaved, and I've only gone to the bathroom four times. At first, I thought it was basically just Facebook status updates without any of that cumbersome "usefulness." I couldn't have been more wrong.

You see, Twitter's evil genius is in its 140 character limit. Anything longer than that gets cut off and won't show up in the public timeline (though people can still read it if they click on the ellipses at the end of the post, but honestly, that is just way too much work). It forces you to be more creative whenever you need to edit something down. You have to get rid of all the unnecessary crap, so it trains you to be a more succinct writer.

Also, you can't really communicate more than one thought at a time, so it feels a bit like drive-by blogging. As Polonius famously said in Hamlet, "Brevity is the soul of wit." George Costanza would be the first to observe that Twitter is a wonderful personality showcase. You post and then you're gone. No fuss, no muss, no titles. It's horrendously addicting, and it's almost as fun as hitting old people with shovels.

Another benefit of the character limit is the fact that it makes it easy for even the busiest of people to tweet (yes, that's officially what it's called; I know it's retarded), which means that a whole bunch of celebrities, writers, and comedians use it. You actually feel like you're getting to know some of them, and you can respond to anything they write (no guarantees that they'll read it, though, and they can easily block you if you're a creep or ugly, so don't ruin it for the rest of us, assface).

So that's my explanation for why I haven't written anything in quite a while, and I'm sticking to it.

Once again, DO NOT JOIN TWITTER.

Worldview

2009-03-08T14:38:00.003-06:00

I was in the shower when I had a moment of apostrophe. My entire worldview is a result of these three things, in order: classical liberalism, contemporary American Evangelical Christianity (with a healthy dose of Reformation-era French Christianity thrown in for good measure), and television. Yet I consider myself a relatively well adjusted (if a bit glib and cynical) modern man. Ironically, and somewhat disturbingly, when all three of those things are combined anywhere outside my brain, the result is Bibleman, something that everyone reading this blog should either be ashamed of or shocked by.

Into the Future

2009-03-07T13:28:00.002-07:00

This last Tuesday was Square Root Day (03/03/09). Evidently, it only occurs nine times per century. As I can't count that high, I suppose I'll have to take Wikipedia's word for it. Anyway, the next Square Root Day lands on April 4, 2016. That's a little over seven years away. For whatever reason, that really got me to thinking about how my life will be different in seven years. I then imagined the following conversation between myself and my daughter, Murgatroid:

Murgatroid: Daddy?

Me: Yes, my little Higgs boson?

Murgatroid: Um... What does that mean?

Me: Never mind. What's up?

Murgatroid: Daddy, the TV's broke.

Me: The TV's broke? How did it spend all its money already? Most of the stores aren't even open this early on Sundays.

Murgatroid: No, Daddy! The TV's broke! It won't turn on.

Me: Oh! Oh... Now I understand. I see. I thought you were telling me the TV was broke, and I'm sure you can see how I'd make that mistake, seeing as how THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT YOU SAID! But now I realize that you were trying to say that the TV is BROKEN. You really need to brush up on your grammar, sweetie, or no one will ever love you.

Murgatroid: What's gremmer?

Me: That's no excuse.

OK, fine, I sincerely doubt I'll have a child who's old enough to speak in seven years. I didn't say a word until I was fourteen.

Thought of the day 03/03/09

2009-03-03T14:19:00.003-07:00

While eating sushi on my lunch break from my job at an Apple store, I adjusted my pretentious film school glasses, ran my fingers through my spiked hair, and had the following realization: I am so damn street it hurts.

Friend Zone Lessons

2009-03-01T17:15:00.002-07:00

It is truly and honestly amazing how quickly I can wedge myself directly into the Friend Zone. But, rather than complaining about all these lemons I have lying around, I'm gonna make myself a big ol' bathtub full of lemonade. With gin in it.

"But Andrew," you cry, "What possible good could come from this? What wisdom do you really think you could impart to someone like me, who is much less handsome than you are?" Well, first of all, it's rude to interrupt. Second, I admire your candor. And C, I'm going to teach you how to remain in the Friend Zone in hopes that you'll learn from my mistakes.

The most important thing is to never make eye contact for extended periods of time. Prolonged eye contact shows interest and makes you appear more confident. Avoid this at all costs.

Next, whenever you ask a lady friend out, under no circumstances should you actually use the word "date." That way, you keep everything nice and ambiguous, just the way God intended. Offer to pay for everything anyway, which will really confuse her.

The two Cs - compliments and chivalry - are another wonderful way to guarantee a permanent work visa in Friendzonia: population you. Nothing says "non-threatening straight guy friend" quite like a steady stream of compliments and an almost fanatical insistence on opening every door for her. It never goes unnoticed, nor does it go unrewarded (assuming, of course, that the reward you're hoping for is a lifetime of being the guy she always calls to complain about her boyfriend).

Whenever the two of you are at a party or with a group of friends, make sure you never walk or stand anywhere near her. We wouldn't want her to get the crazy idea that we like her, would we, my fellow platonian (yes, I know that's not an actual word, but you have to admit it's pretty kick-ass)?

Every time you say "hello" or "goodbye" or "goodnight" or any of that unnecessary pleasantry crap, remember to half-mumble and shuffle your feet. It'll make you appear wholly disinterested and, frankly, kind of a jerk. This is an easy but important one.

Never, and I mean never, say anything containing the phrase "more than friends." This should be a no-brainer, guys. That expression has a high probability of ruining your ultimate plan of dying alone in a cabin in the woods, clutching a remote control in your right hand and a rolled up TV Guide in your left.

So that's pretty much it. I hope you've benefited from my vast grain silo of wisdom. Follow these simple rules, and you'll be well on your way to that cabin, wondering why Ted Kaczynski and David Koresh weren't more popular guys.

Thought of the day 02/27/09

2009-02-27T01:20:00.002-07:00

I just read this in my notebook, and I honestly have no recollection of ever writing it: "I really wish you'd stop humping my bedroom door while I'm asleep."

Thought of the day 02/21/09

2009-02-21T23:54:00.003-07:00

That girl in the Taco Bell Spicy Chicken Enchilada commercials is, to borrow a phrase, "so hot she melted the elastic in my undapants."

This is how I think

2009-02-20T13:54:00.002-07:00

David: You know, it seems like the name Adolph should be more popular than it is.

Me: Yeah, I honestly believe that. I mean, anyone who has a reason to hate that name is already dead.

"Ooooooohhh, I'm-a gonna go to hell when I die..."

Thought of the day 02/19/09

2009-02-19T14:42:00.002-07:00

Every time I use a Q-tip, I feel a little bit guilty. A part of me dies inside. I mean, somewhere out there in the vast reaches of space and desert and more desert, there's probably a little bloated Somalian boy who would would positively love to eat the Q-tip. *single tear*

If it hadn't been for that stupid plane crash

2009-02-13T16:55:00.005-07:00

This would be a much bigger story. Read the article, watch the video, and come back. I'll be waiting.

Back so soon? Alrighty then. Let's get started. AAAAA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA... gasp... HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA... cough! That may be the single funniest thing I've ever seen. "What's financially?" Ha! This kid kills me.

Oh, what was that, Alfie? You're gonna be a good dad? You're gonna feed her an' take care of her an' stuff? I'm sorry, it's just a little hard to hear you over the sound of your undescended testicles.

What? You're gonna have to speak up, young man. Will you be this reticent the first time you have to scold or punish little Maisie? Kids'll jump down your throat if you don't show 'em who's boss. But I'm sure you remember that from your own childhood, way back on Monday.

I guess the best part is knowing that your daughter will be able to wear her mom's hand-me-downs long before they go out of style. Shopping for kids' clothes is such a pain in the prepubescent ass.

You also gave yourself a nice little perk in that you now have a legitimate excuse to stay home from school whenever the hell you want. Wait, I guess it's more likely that you'll either have to drop out completely and/or let your baby mama's parents do most of the raising. That's a pretty sweet gig, now that I think about it. You don't want some little ankle biter bringing you down in your prime burger-flipping days. Diapers ain't free.

And I know you're still on an emotional high right now, what with all the rainbow kisses and butterfly dreams that comprise the first few days of a new parent's life, but I feel the need to point out that babies tend to poop, pee, and drool on EVERYTHING, so it's a really good thing your parents kept those rubber sheets from that bed-wetting phase you went through last month.

Good for you, by the way, for actually wanting to be there for your child's birth, even though, as your dad so eloquently pointed out, you could have "sat at home on [your] Playstation." I'm happy and quite impressed to learn that you were able to overcome all your naivete, inexperience, and immaturity with the simple act of not playing video games for a couple days. Obviously, your dad's almost as smart as you are.

To close, may I offer my sincerest congratulations on getting with an older chick. Bones. Bones all around.

Valentimes... and Baby Dropping

2009-02-13T14:25:00.000-07:00

Why is it so hard for most people to pronounce the word "Valentine" correctly? Not that it matters a whole lot, as it's pretty much a made-up holiday to begin with. But it's the principle of the thing. It's just as bad as when people say "Feb-yoo-ary," which, much like "Valentimes," is not a word.

I love language. I love how flexible modern American English is. I don't love the fact that its flexibility can be abused by people who, in a just world, would have been thrown off a cliff as babies.

I know that sounds harsh, but it's much better than throwing them off a cliff as adults (mostly because grown-ups tend to have a nasty habit of vocally disagreeing with people who think they should be dead; thanks a lot, public school system). Babies have soft heads, so their deaths would not only be instant, but also funny as hell.

Somehow, I feel like I got off track in this post.

Cognitive Surplus

2009-02-11T20:04:00.004-07:00

I spent the majority of my lunch hour today trying to figure out all the ways that someone could use the phrase "That's so phallic it hurts" in casual conversation. Most of them involved prison and soap-dropping. That's really the type of thing that occupies my mind whenever I'm awake, even though I'm supposed to be "working" or whatever. I'm not sure if that makes me weird, crazy, or some sort of absent-minded genius. Though I suppose none of those options are fundamentally exclusive concerning the other two.

If I could somehow tap into that cognitive surplus, I think it would be safe to say, without veering too close to hyperbole, that I could solve all the world's problems, undo reality with a single thought, say "chubby bunny" with over nine hundred marshmallows in my mouth, and finally understand why anyone gives a crap about Tyler Perry. Why can't I use this brain power for something good, or at the very least, neutral? Does everyone else waste that much time and effort on something equally as meaningless? Is it at all ironic that I wrote a blog post that will be read by approximately four and a half people on this subject? Maybe the world is actually a safer place because of my inability to focus on anything of importance whatsoever.

Or maybe that half-assed justification is the only thing keeping me from going completely insane. Either way, I doubt I can stop.

Thought of the day 02/07/09

2009-02-07T18:54:00.004-07:00

Was there really that big a gap between the invention of bread and the idea for slicing it? I find it hard to believe that the guy who invented bread didn't invent sliced bread about ten minutes later. Was it actually that big a deal for someone to say, "Hey guys, why don't we cut this new bread thing into manageable, edible pieces instead of tearing it apart like a pack of ravenous, poorly fed street urchins?" I submit that it was not.

Thought of the day 02/05/09

2009-02-05T12:40:00.002-07:00

Why is poop called "stool"? Who's pooping on stools? And why are they not being openly mocked and punched? Or is it retarded people? If that's the case, then they need to be punched harder.

But seriously, you're an "idiot"

2009-02-04T13:09:00.003-07:00

I think grammar Nazis and real people alike can appreciate this blog. Tangentially, do you think the term "grammar Nazi" is more offensive to grammar Nazis or to Jews? What about regular Nazis? They're always pissed off about something...

Thought of the day 02/01/09

2009-02-01T14:30:00.004-07:00

With so many people bringing up the Superbowl, I couldn't help but make this observation. Our national pastime hasn't been baseball in a really long time. Baseball is for math fetishists and queens. Football isn't our national pastime either, even though it's infinitely more enjoyable to watch, and (unlike baseball) it can't be played by a one-armed, comatose monkey that's being simultaneously tasered and raped. No, our national pastime isn't even a sport. It's talking about how homoerotic football is. It's funny, though, that most of the people who say that don't do so within earshot of someone who actually plays football, as they know they would be beaten like Joe Eszterhas at a feminist rally.

Favorite

2009-01-31T11:39:00.001-07:00

Young, doe-eyed little girl: Daddy, which one of us is your favorite?

Dad: I'm not telling you, ugly.

What's Spanish for "Shut the hell up because you already know I don't speak Spanish"?

2009-01-30T13:52:00.006-07:00

A guy came into the store yesterday asking if anyone there spoke Spanish. After repeating "No hablemos Español" to him several times to no avail, I finally realized that the reason for our apparent miscommunication wasn't the language barrier. It was the fact that he was retarded. He continued to ask if anyone spoke Spanish, and then he pointed out his wallet full of US dollars. Evidently, either he was trying to show me that he wasn't planning on paying in pesos, or he was asking me to take his money and poke him in the eye. Anyway, long story short, I can't get the smell of vitreous humor off my hands.

Mail or bail? We can't afford both.

2009-01-29T12:50:00.002-07:00

Honestly, I wasn't aware that anyone still used snail mail at all. No one will after this. Or maybe, USPS, it would be easier for you if we skipped all these formalities and went straight to you peeing in our mouths.

Buy More Cheetos

2009-01-28T18:01:00.003-07:00

The first time I saw this website, I laughed so hard I think I broke a blood vessel in my eye. The creator is a "teacher and concerned citizen" (read: "loser") who thinks those Cheetos commercials where people get what's coming to them are unfunny and socially irresponsible.

I'm not sure if this dufus is aware of surrealist humor or Web 2.0, but her (I can only assume it's a female humanities teacher) wanton and smelly disregard for all things funny on TV is just plain offensive. I'm amazed she even knew the commercials were advertising Cheetos, and not some antidepressant. If you're reading this right now, lady, then allow me to crack an egg of knowledge all over the dry pancake mix that is your head:

The ad campaign is directed at adults. Frito-Lay is trying to convey the message that Cheetos are a cathartic way for people who are all growns up to kick back and indulge that natural desire we all feel for cheese-flavored powder and hardened corn foam.

If your children are going around smashing snack foods into laptops, then ma'am, I suggest you either call child services and have them cart you away for being a terrible parent, or at the very least, blow the whole college fund on jet skis, as your kids are clearly retarded, and they're never getting into college.

Is this no-account, two-bit thimblerigger actually willing to admit that she thinks children are stupid enough to copy the actions of a character in a 30-second commercial? What about the ads for Priceline, Call of Duty, Travelocity, Burger King, Axe, Scion, Honda, SportsCenter, Trix, Lucky Charms, and literally hundreds of others, all of which feature acts of violence? If she doesn't want to look like a big, floppy tool and a glaring hypocrite, then why doesn't she boycott all the stuff that could corrupt her (obviously moronic) children's fragile little minds? Because she's an idiot who spends more time voting for the next American Idol than she does thinking about why her daddy drank himself to death while she was busy protesting the Vietnam conflict and destroying her own memories one acid trip at a time.

I've Got Your Bailout

2009-01-23T16:03:00.004-07:00

My first thought upon reading this guy's sign was "I know exactly where your bailout is. Obviously, you already spent it on that Members Only jacket, asshat. Isn't Wham just the best? Screw the Ayatollah! Where's my Rubik's Cube?"

Weak-Willed Women Academy

2009-01-22T16:15:00.002-07:00

The first time I saw VH1's Tool Academy, my jaw dropped faster than when President Obama tried to show me his "Baracktagon." It's the single greatest television show since some drunk FOX executive thought it would be a good idea to send a cameraman out to record cops arresting rednecks and tackling crackheads. It's TV Nirvana. It's better than winning the lottery on your birthday while kicking little children in the neck.

Of course, the reason I like it might not be the same as some other people's. The ostensible point of the show is to get a bunch of tools (read: "guys who like Fall Out Boy") to change their ways and become gentlemen. Instead, it's actually about women who are either too insecure or too stupid to break up with their loser boyfriends and find men who won't treat them like Mickey Rourke treats personal hygiene.

A couple of the guys even bragged to the camera about how often they cheated on their girlfriends. Instead of leaving them on the spot, storming out, getting super drunk, and banging a bunch of random dudes like they should have, the girls got a little miffed and then re-upped their efforts to save relationships that any thinking person would have recognized as doomed long ago.

Honestly, I get a kick out of watching these punching bags complain about their douchenozzle boyfriends and then decide to stay with them anyway. I can't think of anyone who deserves to be stuck with these assclowns any more then their current girlfriends. What ever happened to the good ol' days when disgruntled wives and girlfriends pulled a Lorena Bobbit and simply cut off the only part of their significant others that attracted them to the relationship in the first place?

If those relationships are "worth the effort," then what'll actually make them leave? "Well, I thought it was going really well for a while there, but then I found out he prefers Pepsi over Coke, so I dumped his Pepsi-loving ass. Hey! Let's go rent 'Sex and the City,' make ourselves some cosmos, and complain about our cramps!"

If those ladies are representative of most twentysomething women in America, then I think I might have to kill myself.

"Linux ate my baby and gave me cancer"

2009-01-17T13:41:00.004-07:00

Yesterday, I found out about some girl in Madison, Wisconsin who "had" to drop out of her online college courses because she accidentally ordered a Dell with Ubuntu on it instead of Windows. A local news station picked up the story and made it into a tear-jerking human interest piece. They also misrepresented Ubuntu in the process.

The girl's complaints were that the computer didn't have Microsoft Office and she couldn't get Internet access because Verizon had given her a Windows-only installation CD. As it turns out, Verizon high-speed Internet access actually supports Ubuntu, and as many a nerd knows, Ubuntu comes with a program called Open Office, which is a free productivity suite that's compatible with Microsoft Office.

The girl's problems with the OS could have been solved in a single email from one of thousands of loyal Linux users, but instead of trying to deal with it, she decided her best option was to drop out of her online classes, blame the recession and Bush for all her problems, and then cry until she got dehydrated.

OK, so maybe those last few things didn't happen, but you see my point. Unless she was planning on using her diploma as a drool napkin, then it's obvious that college is not for her.

My only real beef with this whole thing is the fact that after receiving vitriolic hate mail from Ubuntu users who were furious about the negative light in which he had cast the operating system, the thumbhead who broke the story followed it up with a retarded straw-man argument and an indictment of everyone who was candid enough to point out how stupid the girl is.

Sure, his faux-benevolent blustering got the poor dolt her precious Internet access, but so would a call to the IT guys at Madison Area Technical College (or a single search on Yahoo Answers). To be perfectly honest, I'm not even sure how someone could accidentally order a computer with Ubuntu in the first place. Did she buy it based on how shiny it was? Did she just start smashing the keyboard with mittened hands while she was on Dell.com until the nice UPS man delivered her computer and told her to stop? And since when are people who make Forrest Gump look like Stephen Hawking getting accepted by colleges? Maybe she was there on a softball scholarship or something.

Some people are all up in arms about how poorly this girl was treated by vicious Linux users. In fact, she reported that she was even getting harassed on Facebook. I'm not sure that the people who rush to her defense are fully understanding the depth of her stupidity.

Imagine that someone you knew didn't know how to drive a manual transmission car but went ahead and bought one anyway because she liked the color. Then imagine that she somehow got it home, only to discover that she's a certifiable moron, the car is useless, and she missed Blue's Clues. Finally, imagine that instead of trying to learn how to drive the car, she cried until a passing reporter asked her what was wrong, and the reporter did a story about how BMW makes an inferior product and owes her an apology. You know you'd tease her until she either committed suicide or developed an eating disorder.

Except running Ubuntu is easier than getting raped at Michael Jackson's house.

Thought of the day 01/17/09

2009-01-17T00:01:00.002-07:00

It's about damn time Hollywood finally acknowledged the Holocaust. I'm glad all those Gentiles who run the entertainment industry are at last starting to talk about the horrors that were performed in the 1940's. And also Hitler.

Wedding DJ

2009-01-14T18:28:00.002-07:00

DJ: Here's a a song list. Now, we can go with sort of a generic party atmosphere, or I can stick with a theme if you prefer.

Sheila: Well, I don't care too much about a theme.

Lance: Let me ask you this: Is there a way I can request songs that you WON'T play?

DJ: Of course.

Lance: OK then. If you play "Friends in Low Places," I'm gonna stab you in the eye.

DJ: Uh... Alright.

Lance: Don't interrupt. If you play "The Electric Slide," you get stabbed in the eye. If you make all the men sing "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" to Sheila here, you get stabbed in the eye.

Sheila: What's wrong with "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'"?

Lance: It's only the most famous song from the single most homoerotic movie ever made.

DJ: I don't think they played that song in "Rudy."

Lance: You're coming very close to getting eye-stabbed.

Thought of the day 01/08/09

2009-01-08T23:57:00.002-07:00

Why does it seem like the vast majority of people with lisps are British? I've met two Americans with lisps in my entire life, but approximately one third of all British people I've seen on TV, in movies, and in real life have lisps. Maybe it's all that inbreeding, or maybe they're all just fancy boys.

Whopper Virgins

2009-01-04T12:19:00.004-07:00

With the crippling amount of TV I watch, I've been subjected to Burger King's "Whopper Virgins" ad series so many times that I occasionally slip into delusion and believe that I made them myself. For the eight people online who haven't seen these ads (or "adverts," as I caught Snowden saying recently), the basic premise is that Burger King got a bunch of isolated people "who have never seen a burger; who don't even have a word for burger" to have sex with hamburgers.

But not really. They just had these people try a Whopper and a Big Mac and vote for whichever one they preferred, and while that's decidedly less sexy, the cleanup is much easier. Burger King billed it as "the world's purest taste test." It's not. It's the world's dumbest idea.

Imagine, if you will, a similar test involving movies. What if we got a bunch of people who've never even heard of a motion picture, showed them every single non-indie American film ever made, and then asked them which they preferred? Their answers would vary wildly from "The Great Train Robbery" to "Speed Racer" to "The Kid" to "How is this magic possible, ghost man? Now, please, may I have my hunting stick back? You've cost me a day's worth of food, so now I have to decide which of my children I hate less, and he gets to eat tomorrow."

Or we can try out a slightly less outlandish example. What if we asked a bunch of Mormons to taste hundreds of different types of wine? In the world's purest wine tasting, the winner would inevitably be Mike's Hard Lemonade. Of course, we'd also have to figure out a way to quantify a statement like, "I want you to know something, man. I like you. I know... I know we just met... but I really like you. You're a cool guy. I can't feel my face. Jeez, it's hot in here! Could you do me a solid and hold the room down so it stops spinning and I can walk across the hall and get me another glass of Franzia with ice in it? By the way, BEST DRINK EVAR! *snore*."

The principle is the same in both examples, and it applies directly to the Whopper Virgins test. The testees would have no consensus whatsoever, as they have no basis on which they're supposed to make a decision that would be intelligible to an American who's eaten a burger once a week for forty years.

Would you trust a book review written by someone who only recently learned to read? Would you pick a car based on a recommendation made by someone who can't drive? Of course not. We only think we need experts because, surprise, we do! People who don't know what the hell they're talking about should stay where they belong: teaching at universities.

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't mean to denigrate the fine, decent, hard-working indigenous peoples of... wherever. In fact, I kinda feel bad for the poor schlubs who got roped into tasting crappy American food in exchange for a green card that (oops!) got "lost in the mail." But then again, seeing rural foreigners who are too poor to own fancy things like doors or underpants really makes me feel better about myself. I'm gonna go let my hot water run for hours and turn on all the lights in my apartment now.

Overheard Conversation

2009-01-03T12:29:00.002-07:00

As I was sitting in the food court on my lunch break at work, I overheard the following erudite snippet of conversation:

Girl #1: So, what's your favorite thing about him?

Girl #2: Oh, he's just so adorable! I love his eyebrows!

Girl #3: Ugh, whatever. I hate his eyebrows.

I sat there for several minutes trying to figure out just how stupid someone would have to be in order to actually engage in a conversation like that. Clearly, these young ladies were either high or developmentally disabled or both, so I finished my lunch as quickly as possible, for fear of one of them getting angry and using her retard strength to crush my larynx.

Is that a normal conversation for women? Am I woefully and irrevocably masculine, or am I simply out of the loop? Do other people have conversations that are that inane? Who cares about someone's eyebrows? Only a person who's too vapid to watch any movies that don't have the word "movie" in the title; that's who. Only morons. Only high schoolers who are being taught that even if they don't show up for a test, they still deserve a grade of 50% on said test. I think we need another plague.

Gift Shops

2008-12-28T16:05:00.003-07:00

The whole idea behind a gift shop is that people want to buy presents for their friends and their relatives and the high school girls they're stalking, but they won't bother to shop for said presents in a store that sells anything they'd actually want to buy themselves. Gift shops, then, exist only to sell stuff no one would buy on their own. Then why does anyone shop there at all? "Oh, thank you so much for this bag of potpourri whose only purpose is to sit on an end table and smell. I've always said I need more olfactory stimulation while I'm sleeping and therefore am unable to appreciate it!"

The initial idea behind gift giving died decades ago. It was replaced by a new idea: If it serves a purpose or performs a function in any way, it is not an appropriate gift. The new mantra of gift giving is now "Give someone something they wouldn't buy themselves." Now, I'm willing to admit that the spirit of that mantra is one of... shall I say... whimsy. A decent theoretical re-interpretation might be "It's only a good gift if it's something the receiver enjoys but would consider too flashy or expensive to buy on his or her own."

That's all well and good, but it has nothing to do with reality. If a gift shop is sticking to its title in spirit, then a gift purchased there is, by definition, utterly useless. If they sold stuff that could be used as anything but a gift, they would cease to be a gift shop. They may as well sell hugs.

Thought of the day 12/27/08

2008-12-27T23:53:00.004-07:00

I finally had to admit that I'm getting old when I became genuinely excited by the prospect of receiving new socks for Christmas. When I was a kid, I never realized just how awesome new socks can be. They are precisely twice as awesome as not getting picked last for dodgeball, and they're three times as awesome as getting out of jury duty. They are, however, slightly less awesome than merely seeing a black-and-white picture of Scarlett Johansson. The feet are really the hands of the legs, and who doesn't love a good pair of gloves?

Thought of the day 12/23/08

2008-12-23T10:59:00.002-07:00

I never fully conceptualized it until this morning, but I am fundamentally unfamiliar with the concept of having to buy Band-Aids. They were always there when I was a kid because, let's face it, kids are stupid and uncoordinated, and they tend to fall down a lot. Now that I'm all growed up, I have fewer reasons to ever need a bandage, so I've never had to buy them myself. I'm not even sure where they're sold...

Thought of the day 12/21/08

2008-12-21T01:44:00.002-07:00

I find it very difficult to gauge exactly how much interest I'm supposed to feign whenever someone tells me about their day.

Thought of the day 12/17/08

2008-12-17T01:24:00.002-07:00

One day, I want to walk around a public place like a mall or another mall, and I want to push an empty wheelchair around. If anyone asks me, "Hey, where's the person whose wheelchair that is?" I'll say, "I'm sorry, but that's an extremely awkwardly worded sentence." And then I'll kill their family.

Thought of the day 12/13/08

2008-12-13T12:07:00.004-07:00

The primary negative effect the success of the Harry Potter series has had on the world is that it has caused millions of children and teenagers all around the globe to buy into the mistaken belief that they are, in fact, special. Of course, that's no different from what the federal government is doing for the UAW right now...

My Civic Duty

2008-12-05T16:27:00.005-07:00

Like most Americans who were stupid enough to register to vote, it came to pass that I got picked for jury duty. Initially, I got called up by El Paso county, but since I'm currently living, well, not there, I told them they could go fly a kite up their butts, or something like that. Instead of merely lying down and taking my unprovoked verbal abuse like they should have, they just told their Boulder counterparts that I'm living here now, and as a result, I got a similar summons to appear at the Boulder County Justice Center about a week later.

I showed up bright and early at the crack of 8 a.m., and I was herded into a room with approximately one million other people. It smelled like a musty old library in desperate need of a few spritzes from a bottle of Febreze. I was given a questionnaire that included a brief summary of the case for which I'd been selected. It asked me how I felt about the American legal system, and I responded that I felt it was "slightly less meritocratic than that of Escobar-era Colombia" and that I'd "rather fellate a curling iron than spend another minute in this stank-ass hell hole." It then asked me if I could think of any reason why I wouldn't be able to serve as an objective and impartial member of the jury. I saw the question not as an attempt to weed out potentially biased jurors, but rather as a personal challenge to see how frank I could be about the whole experience without getting into trouble. This, I swear on all that is holy and sugar-free, was my answer: "Honestly, I simply don't care."

My fellow potential jurors and I were then led into an actual, real-life courtroom (just like in the movies!), where we each proceeded to whisper to ourselves, "I want the truth! You can't handle the truth!" and "This whole courtroom is out of order!" Or maybe that was just me. The judge (oh, that reminds me: Did you know that women can be judges now? Next thing you know, they'll have the right to own property!) explained to us that since the trial was for first degree murder, she expected it to last about two weeks. Because there were so many of us, they'd split us up into groups of ten to fifteen, call each group in one at a time, and then interview us to determine our eligibility to jur (I presume that’s the verb form).

I'm fairly confident in my assumption that I was the only person there with a job, and was therefore the only one who absolutely had to ensure that I would not be selected to serve on the jury. However, I also have a crippling allergy to getting prison raped, so I needed to make sure I wouldn't perjure myself. I figured that since I'd been taught my whole life that honesty is the best policy, it might not hurt to try it in front of a judge, a bunch of lawyers, and an accused murderer (yes, he was sitting right there, entirely unshackled, across the table from my own terrified self). The only thing the judge asked me about was my statement that I simply don't care, and I told her that I'm more concerned about working during the holidays than I am about some silly murder trial. That's when the defendant laughed. That's right: I made a man who was most likely worrying about spending the rest of his life in prison laugh. It was a good day.

I was immediately excused from the jury, and since it was nearing the end of the business day, none of the rest of the trials were still in need of jurors, so I was told by the clerk that I'd just officially fulfilled my civic duty. I didn't say anything, as I was afraid I would accidentally say the only response that I could think of: "I guess this is what I get for voting."

If I'm being honest, the part that really annoyed me the most wasn't the possibility that I could have lost two weeks of my life pretending to care about the fate of some guy who totally shot some other guy over an ideological dispute about whether or not the former had the right to rob the latter at gunpoint. No, what annoyed me most of all was the fact that I had to get up at six o'clock in the damn morning on my day off.

An Actual Exchange

2008-11-30T19:32:00.001-07:00

Dumpy Little Customer: Are you the closest store?

Me: Um... Closest to what?

Dumpy Little Customer: To do warranties and shit.

Me: *aneurism*

Thought of the day 11/30/08

2008-11-30T01:04:00.001-07:00

Have you ever sat staring at your Facebook news feed for ten minutes or so, and then said aloud to yourself, "Geez, some of my friends have really stupid names"?

Thought of the day 11/23/08

2008-11-23T16:07:00.003-07:00

When people are trying to quit everyday habits like smoking or drinking or molesting puppies, it's amazing how often they describe the road to recovery in very violent terms. Phrases like "kick the habit," "beat this thing," "stranglehold on me," and "attack this problem" all took on a disturbing new meaning for me once I started watching the new season of Celebrity Rehab that stars Rodney King. Fortunately for King, though, his stint in rehab is clear proof that he was able to successfully drink away the memory of that night.

Zack and Miri make a chick flick

2008-11-21T23:58:00.002-07:00

I just saw Kevin Smith's new film, "Zack and Miri Make a Porno," and I was a bit surprised at how poignant it turned out to be. Smith, whose first film was characterized by jokes about necrophilia and trannies, has managed to make a sweet, heartfelt romantic comedy that happens to be about two friends who are forced by economic woes into making a porno with each other.

Does it make me weird that I still found it touching? Sure, a little, but I'm no weirder than any of the other people who attended the sold-out showing. Is that a sad commentary on my generation's morals, or is it just the newest offering into a rapidly changing and constantly growing subgenre? Is Smith just keeping up with the times, or is it he and his ilk who've changed us?

Perhaps the strangest thing about the whole experience was the fact that I saw several older couples walking out of the theater at the end of the movie. None of them were shaking their heads. None of them were bemoaning the lost cause that is today's youth. None of them seemed to be angry or shocked or indignant. In fact, they all seemed like they'd enjoyed it.

Maybe the classic concept of the romantic comedy is more universal than I'd realized. Maybe real romance can (or perhaps should) grow right out of the steaming pile of monkey turd called modern American life, rather than out of the cold, unfeeling, sterilized petri dish we've so cynically termed the "Hollywood ending." Sure, the movie itself ends with a pretty predictable Hollywood turn, but it's still, as David Mamet would say, simultaneously unexpected and inevitable.

Maybe this all means nothing except that Kevin Smith is rapidly becoming both more marketable and more mature as a filmmmaker. Or maybe it just means I need to stop doing mushrooms before I go to the movies. Either way, I could really go for some sour cream and onion potato chips...

Thought of the day 11/20/08

2008-11-20T14:51:00.003-07:00

I often think it would be fun to go into therapy or counseling just to see if I could convincingly fake a psychological disorder. This is nearly the pinnacle of yuppie boredom. Next stop, writing a play about suburban angst.

Big Three

2008-11-18T13:45:00.002-07:00

American People: Hey, Big Three, your cars are crap! Honestly, we'd rather drink lighter fluid than even look at a Chevy Malibu. And also, your unions are corrupt, and they're bringing you down from the inside.

Big Three: Fair enough, but you guys totally owe us from decades ago when our cars were decent and we weren't bleeding market share like a stuck pig. Remember the Mustang? We did that.

American People: Who cares? Is a '63 'Stang gonna pay my gas bills? Stop just throwing every retarded idea your designers have against the wall just to see which ones will stick, and come up with cars that we'd actually consider buying!

Big Three: Or, instead of actually making us work toward success like some sort of, like, "company," or whatever, why don't you guys just give us the money to stay afloat so we can support our bloated unions for another year before we collectively declare bankruptcy?

American People: Well, hells yeah, we can do that! Why didn't you say that in the first place?

Heterosexually vain

2008-11-11T12:26:00.003-07:00

I recently got into a bit of a discussion with a gay coworker of mine while I was on my lunch break. It included the following exchange.

Me: I prefer the fall because I think I look better in cold-weather clothes than in summer clothes.

Christoph: Why should you care how you look? You're not gay.

Me: Hey, straight guys are allowed to be vain, too.

Christoph: Nope, I'm pretty sure that's our prerogative.

Me: You can't just take that from us.

Christoph: It's done.

Me: Not cool, dude.

Christoph: What do you mean? You only have to attract women.

I can only assume Christoph was implying that men are harder to impress than women. I'm fairly certain that's the gayest thing I've ever heard anyone say.

Two-handed peeing

2008-11-07T15:27:00.003-07:00

I walked into the men's room at FlatIron Crossing the other day, and I saw a gentleman standing at a urinal with one of his arms outstretched on the bathroom wall. He looked like he was preparing for a strip-search. At first, I thought he was just yawning or something, but for a good thirty seconds (during which I was unabashedly staring at him), he maintained his Rodney-King-inspired pose. Did I miss a meeting or something? Did a bunch of guys get together and officially decide that's how we're supposed to pee in full view of other dudes from now on? How was he aiming and holding open his fly at the same time? Maybe it's just me, but when you're letting loose with a steady stream of human waste, that's generally a time when I'd suggest using two hands. Driving? Performing brain surgery? Playing basketball? Basket weaving? Clapping? Those can all easily be done with one hand, I assume. But when you're in a public place and there's even the smallest possibility that you might have to walk back out into the mall with your head hung low and your pants stained with your own bright yellow urine (which reminds me: you really need to drink more water), it's not the best idea to treat urination with the same flippancy you'd have toward less important things, like carrying nitroglycerin, choking a burglar, or hugging an orphan. This is pee we're talking about. Have a little respect, buddy.

No math at Harvard

2008-11-05T09:24:00.001-07:00

President-Elect Barack Obama: ...We know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime — two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century.

Me: Um, Chris... How long ago were the 1930s?

Chris: Shhh...

Me: I mean, I'm no mathemologist, but I think that's wrong.

Halloween Party

2008-10-31T16:25:00.003-06:00

(I'm wearing an untucked collared shirt, jeans, and pretentious film school glasses)

Asshat (dressed as The Joker): So, what are you?

Me: I'm an underemployed yuppie.

Asshat: Dude, no offense, but that's a pretty lame costume idea.

Me: Costume?

Thought of the day 10/25/08

2008-10-25T14:39:00.002-06:00

Proof that I'm a schadenfreude junkie: I take immense pleasure in purposefully dawdling in my car when I see that there's someone waiting to take my soon-to-be-vacated parking space. Any day I get to do that is a good day.

Thought of the day 10/22/08

2008-10-22T09:23:00.004-06:00

Just one time, I want to walk out of a general practitioner's exam room screaming "Oh, I beg to differ, doctor! You're the colon polyp!" at the top of my lungs. Then, on my way out, I'd maintain eye contact with everyone in the waiting room for an uncomfortably long period of time.

Thought of the day 10/17/08

2008-10-17T12:40:00.002-06:00

Hispanics are the only people I've ever met who will carry on conversations at full volume in the middle of a men's restroom. Is there some Spanish-speaking cultural norm of which I'm entirely unaware that values simultaneous pooping and talking? Or maybe they're just rude.

Metareference

2008-10-14T14:21:00.003-06:00

Laird and Buford, who are still both totally 100% straight, are sitting together listening to Katy Perry's "Hot N Cold." The song reaches the chorus, which includes the lines "You're in then you're out; you're up then you're down."

Laird: I'd like to give her the old in-out.

Buford: Wait, was that a Burgess reference, a Kubrick reference, or a Coen brothers reference?

(long pause)

Laird (sighs): Man, I don't even know anymore.

Buford: Ha! The Simpsons!

Laird: We really need to get out more.

Thought of the day 10/13/08

2008-10-13T00:37:00.003-06:00

I rarely use other people's names. When I want to begin a short exchange with someone, I usually just start talking and hope they were listening right from the get-go. I might preface it with "So..." but that's as far as I'll go. I'm generally embarrassed because I think they think I've forgotten their name, but I'm more embarrassed because that's usually true.

Mustard

2008-10-10T15:52:00.002-06:00

As I sat eating a delicious Subway sandwich (I can has money now, Subway?) I thought to myself, "How long could a normal human being live on nothing but mustard?" The reason for my curiosity is because I apparently give off some kind of vibe that screams "I have a severe mustard deficiency! Please drown out the flavors of all my carefully selected sandwich ingredients with enough mustard to kill an infant!" I may as well have ordered a bowl of mustard and a twisty straw.

I blame the state of our economy on Subway and their mustard-happy ways. I neither want nor do I need a pound of mustard on a single sandwich. That excess mustard could be put to a thousand more practical uses, like feeding the homeless or lubricating doorways for fat people. And if I ever meet the guy who invented honey mustard, I'm gonna stab him in the uvula. The only things that go worse together are philosophy majors and gainful employment.

Mustard, as we all know, is the original fabled ambrosia, but by definition, too much of anything can ruin an otherwise well-proportioned sandwich. Just like, as Eli Roth proved, too much flesh-eating bacteria can ruin a boring weekend in a secluded cabin with that other annoying guy from "Boy Meets World." Or how Robin Williams proved that too much Robin Williams can ruin an entire career.

My point is that the Subway big-wigs (or perhaps the big cheeses) need to let their employees know that if I get one more sandwich swimming in mustard, I just might have to roll up my sleeves and do some serious raping. But to perfectly honest, I'm not sure what's more amazing: That I actually wrote this whole thing on a cell phone, or that I just subjected you to a 300-word rant about mustard.

Thought of the day 10/09/08

2008-10-09T00:22:00.003-06:00

I can tell you how a fission bomb works. I can give basic explanations of two prominent versions of String Theory. I know the difference between "imply" and "infer." I know what started World War I. I can recite 90% of "The Princess Bride" from memory. I have the square root of 5 memorized to 9 places (don't ask). I know exactly how many times The Dude drinks a White Russian in "The Big Lebowski" and how many times the f-word is said in "Scarface." I can explain why antibiotics don't do jack for a viral infection. I can tell you the speed of light in miles per hour and the gravitational constant in feet per second and meters per second. But for the life of me, I have no idea how a zipper works. Is that weird?

Shriner

2008-10-08T17:12:00.003-06:00

Vlad: Dude, what's with the Shriner?

Sigmund: What are you talking about?

Vlad: The Shriner. Where'd you get it?

Sigmund: I'm sorry, but I don't understand why you're asking me where I got a septuagenarian wearing a fez and driving around in a little go-cart. Your question doesn't make any sense. You might as well ask me where I got a muffin made of jealousy.

Vlad: Do you not have a massive black eye? Is it not almost swollen shut? Am I crazy for thinking that you have an unmistakable black eye and referring to it the way old-timey crooks would, as a "Shriner"?

Sigmund: I swear to God, if you didn't owe me money, I would punch you in your retarded face until you were as swollen and disfigured as Renee Zellweger. The word you're looking for, dear sir, is not "Shriner," but "shiner." You were asking where I got my SHINER. A Shriner is something completely different. And who says that nickname is exclusive to old-timey crooks?

Vlad: That's totally what they'd call it.

Sigmund: Yeah, you're right. And then they'd put on their black-and-white striped shirts and their black masks and beanies and then rob the bank of all its brown burlap sacks with large dollar signs printed on the outside. And then they'd drive back to their hideout and drink whiskey out of jugs and smoke unfiltered cigarettes.

Vlad: Wait... Are you saying... that's not gonna happen, or... What exactly are you saying?

Sigmund: I'm saying that's not going to happen. I'm saying you live in a fantasy world where everything is the way it is in movies and on bad radio drama. I'm saying that I'm genuinely surprised that you've survived 'til adulthood without drowning in a puddle of your own drool. I'm saying that in a just world, you would have been killed for your delicious meat long ago.

Vlad: You really think I'd be delicious?

Sigmund: Well, yeah. You live an entirely sedentary lifestyle, and you eat nothing but Cheetos and sausage. You've probably got more saturated fat than Kobe beef.

Vlad: Aww... Thanks, man. I'd eat you, too.

Sigmund: It makes me sad that you think that was a compliment.

Vlad: Whatevs, bro. Anyway, where'd you get the Shriner... er... whatever it's called?

Sigmund: I had an itch in my eye, and I forgot that I was holding a beer bottle.

Vlad (laughing): Dude, you smashed a beer bottle into your own eye?

Sigmund: It's not as stupid as it sounds.

Vlad: It most certainly is.

Thought of the day 10/02/08

2008-10-02T18:36:00.002-06:00

Complete and utter apathy is remarkable in its ability to focus one's mind. I guess another way to say that is "It's hard to care about your problems when I'd rather just do nothing at all, but while you're here, check out my high score in Tetris!" Sadly, that's getting dangerously close to becoming my default attitude. But don't point out that fact to me unless you want to make me cry. As everyone knows, I can dish out criticism, but I can't take it.

Thought of the day 9/30/08

2008-09-30T17:25:00.002-06:00

If I were a terrorist (which, as far as you know, I am not), I would always dress up like a stereotypical Arab, complete with wives in tow and a smug disregard for basic personal hygiene. People are too afraid of being called racists to actually accuse an Arab-looking Arab of being a terrorist. It's the ones trying to fit in who everyone is afraid of. I'm convinced this is my greatest idea ever (except, of course, for my invention of the word "sucky").

Thought of the day 9/29/08

2008-09-29T00:39:00.002-06:00

Nowadays, the default response when someone offers a genuine, unfiltered opinion on any given subject is "Wow, how do you really feel?" It's supposed to be clever and sarcastic, but it makes you sound like a psychotic head trauma victim. You sincerely want to know how I really feel? I feel like you should shut the hell up before I set your face on fire.

Sushi and Racism

2008-09-25T15:30:00.007-06:00

It's hard for me to think of Asian people as actually a "different" race from my own. I like Asian people. In fact, I tend to identify with them. Maybe some Asian cultures appeal to my sense of order and organization. Or maybe it has something to do with my brown eyes, my round face, and my tendency to confuse the letters L and R. But I digress.

In any case, I was on my lunch break earlier today, and I saw an Asian woman ordering food from a little sushi stand in the mall's food court. I thought to myself, "Self, you handsome devil, why in the name of all that is sour and sticky would an Asian woman eat sushi that was made in an American mall?" That's like a Canadian coming to America and eating some Americanized version of... um... moose meat. And it would probably be spelled "mousse meat." And it would be cat meat.

Everyone who's anyone knows that the American versions of foreign or fancy foods are generally little more than corn meal and rat feet compressed into the shape of a rack of pork ribs. Let's say someone stole your dog and raped it with with a long tube of fake crab meat. Would you still eat that dog? Wait a minute... I think I may have forgotten what my point was going to be.

Anyway, I was surprised at myself when that initial thought occurred to me. If anything, I'd have assumed that I would take my obvious lack of intercultural experiences in the complete opposite direction: I would have thought "Of course that Asian woman wants to eat some sushi. She's probably homesick." But I didn't. I wondered why she would bother with a crappy, watered down imitation of a traditional Japanese style of food.

Is it racist for me to assume that she would have any degree of familiarity with genuine sushi because of the way she looked? Probably. Would it have been racist for me to assume she wanted to eat our ass-backwards version of sushi as a way of feeling closer to home because of the way she looked? Hells yeah. Do I care even a little bit? I'm not even going to dignify that with a response.

Maybe she's an Asian-American who's never even been to the country her great-grandparents emigrated from. Maybe some American sushi isn't as pooptastic as most of us assume it is. Maybe she has specific dietary requirements that restricted her from eating any of the other foods offered in the food court. Or maybe she was just Chinese.

Haircut

2008-09-18T23:14:00.004-06:00

After watching some retarded guy hit on a poor, defenseless girl in the food court at the mall today, I had a startling realization: All retarded people have the exact same damn haircut. I then imagined the following scenario.

Me: Excuse me, I've been looking for a nice new haircut that will go well with the white stuff that accumulates at the corners of my mouth. Do you think you could take a Bic razor to the sides of my head, and leave the top part all fuzzy and unattractive ala Kevin Bacon in "The River Wild"?

Barber: Oh, yeah. We can do that; no problem. What you want is "The Retard." It's the standard haircut we give to retarded people. That's why you can usually tell a retarded person from about a half a mile away.

The VMAs

2008-09-08T15:07:00.005-06:00

I wrote this a while ago, so wherever it says "last night" (such as at the beginning of the piece), just insert "several days ago" instead:

Last night, I watched [what I assumed was, based on the fashion] the 1987 Video Music Awards on MTV. I was struck by a number of interesting phenomena during the show, and I'd like to share a sample of my thoughts on those phenomena now.

Rapper Lil Wayne made not one but two appearances in the course of the show, each time performing his embarrassingly dated shtick with the subtlety and creativity of a head trauma victim playing checkers on acid. As he performed each of his songs while grabbing frantically at his crotch, one word came repeatedly to my mind: Minstrelsy. I expected him to start tap dancing at any moment and begin asking every white person in the room if he could shine their shoes. If I were black, I'd be ashamed of the blatant pandering and racist stereotyping that characterizes Lil Wayne's act. He does for black people what Larry the Cable Guy does for white people. And comedy. And humanity. But seriously, I haven't seen that much crotch grabbing since I got invited to a slumber party at Michael Jackson's house. We played a whole lot of Twister...

I also noticed several of those "All violence against women is wrong" ads. You know the ones, where the voice over guy says "You taught him how to hit a baseball, you taught him how to hit a golf ball, etc... But why didn't you take the time to teach him what NOT to hit?" I laugh out loud every time. Surely, they couldn't actually mean ALL violence against women, could they? I mean, what if the woman's trying to stab you in the throat? Or what if she burns the roast? How else am I supposed to teach her her place if I'm only allowed to resort to psychological torture without the occasional ball-peen hammer to the base of the skull?

Christina Aguilera also performed, but she showed up in an ill-fitting Catwoman suit that made her look like a constipated dominatrix.

Even Russell Brand, the host of the evening's festivities, seemed to mock the whole ordeal. The VMAs have finally reached the level of self parody that had previously only been known to each of the individual artists who performed last night. The show was nearly as engaging as a Glaxo-Smith-Klein board meeting after a heavy lunch consisting primarily of turkey, boxed wine, and Nyquil chasers.

The whole event is interesting to me. I'm fascinated by an awards show put on by any industry in which Britney Spears is considered a veteran. It's interesting if only as a perfect time capsule, a vivid snapshot of mainstream teenage popular culture AT THE EXACT MOMENT the show aired. In a month, some of the people who showed up and some of the ideas that were expressed last night will already be extremely old news. It must be exhausting for MTV's producers to constantly be on the lookout for the next big thing - not the thing that's popular now, but the thing that will be popular next week and only next week. Most teenagers aren't important enough for most industries to care about their fickle and largely irrelevant tastes, but in the world of televised pop culture entertainment, I guess some of those dumbasses matter after all. At least for this week.

Thought of the day 09/03/08

2008-09-03T11:37:00.002-06:00

While watching a documentary about what happens when people with no next of kin are found dead, I suddenly found myself wondering this: After going through thirteen years of primary education and possibly four more of college, after seeing enough of the world to recognize just how vast and fascinating it really is, after meeting and befriending people from many different walks of life and backgrounds, and after seeing the innumerable possibilities and permutations available to the average American in the job market, what kind of person says to himself "You know, I'd really like to be an auctioneer"?

Thought of the day 08/31/08

2008-08-31T12:09:00.002-06:00

In a moment of epiphany earlier today, I realized that the reason I can't watch the movie "Titanic" is because I always find myself siding with Rose's mother.

Bank

2008-08-27T13:27:00.003-06:00

This is the reason I avoid banks like Michael J. Fox avoids the board game Operation.

Me: OK, I've gotta ask you something that's been driving me crazy.

Bank Teller: Uh-huh.

Me: How exactly does one 'sign over' a check to another person? I mean, you see it all the time in movies and on TV, but I don't think I've ever actually seen someone in real life sign a check over to someone else.

Bank Teller: Um... Well, the way you could do that is-

Me: I wouldn't want to actually do it. It's not like there's a guy waiting outside with a gun pressed to the forehead of someone I love and saying 'Sign your paycheck over to me, you impossibly attractive sexpot.'

Bank Teller: Uh, yeah... Like I was saying-

Me: I'm just joking about the sexpot thing. I don't think it's very likely that some two-bit thief would bother to compliment me while he was trying to rob me. Is there a way you guys check to see of someone is, like, under duress when they come in and say they want to sign a check over to someone else?

Bank Teller: It's not really like that. Usually, we would just-

Me: Does the other person have to be there when you do it? Or do you just need, like, a photo ID of the person who's actually giving away the money? Or what if it was one twin trying to, you know, extort some money out of the other one? Does someone just write 'Sign over to so-and-so' on the back before they endorse it, or whatever? And what if the person on the receiving end wants to cash it? Would they just have to fill out their own deposit slip whenever they come into the bank?

Bank Teller: Oops! Would you look at the time? I'm late for my lunch break. Have a nice day, sir.

Me (walking away and mumbling under my breath): I could so totally rob this place.

Bank Teller: Um, no you couldn't.

Me: See you soon.

Thought of the day 08/18/08

2008-08-18T14:28:00.001-06:00

I'm fascinated by armpit hair. Everyone has it, but it doesn't seem to have any sort of vital importance. It's the Ralph Nader of body hair.

What I'm really thinking while you're talking to me

2008-08-11T13:11:00.003-06:00

Most of the time when someone is talking to me, I expend more energy just trying to LOOK like I'm interested in what they're saying than I do actually listening to them. Here's an example of what's probably going through my head while you're talking:

"Wow... His eyes are really close together. I wonder if he's self conscious about it. I would be. It looks like he's a cyclops with a thin layer of skin separating the two halves of his single eye. Looks like he's got kind of a unibrow thing going on. I wonder if he waxes or shaves it. What kind of razor do you use to shave a unibrow? I need to shave. My face itches. I shouldn't scratch again; he'll think I have some sort of nervous tic or something. Uh-oh. He's changed subjects. I'll just nod and smile and furrow my brow. Not too much! He'll know I have no idea what he just said. Don't want to look uninterested. What did I have for lunch today? Did I even eat? Does a cup of coffee count as 'eating'? I wonder who first thought to make a drink out of a bunch of ground up coffee beans. He was probably on drugs. What kind of drugs did they have back then? Opium? Cocaine? Maybe he'd been licking jungle frogs. It would suck to live in the jungle. I think I'd rather die. Hey, that girl over there's kind of cute. Needs to hit the gym a little bit, though. Her muffin top is making me hungry. I really should have eaten something. How fast do eyelashes grow back? Could I pluck all my lashes without tearing up? I should try that sometime. What color underwear am I wearing? My mouth is really dry. It tastes bad. I should lick my lips. But I don't want to look creepy. Maybe he'll be done talking soon. His ears are two different sizes. I wonder if he can hear better through the bigger one. I can't wait to start losing my hair. Having this much hair is awful. It feels like I'm wearing a wool beanie all the time. I wonder where my beanie is. Why do they call them beanies? Were they originally made out of bean containers? That's probably what they use in poorer countries. I really need to do more traveling. When was the last time I was on a plane? I think Clinton was President. How many more days until the election? I want to vote for Christopher Walken. I'd pay a hefty sum for Chris Walken to be my President. I should watch Pulp Fiction again."

The best part is that you probably think I'm kidding.

Thought of the day 08/09/08

2008-08-09T18:58:00.001-06:00

I can't pee and chew gum at the same time. When I do, I conflate the two experiences, and it makes me feel like I've got pee in my mouth. It's... unpleasant.

Thought of the day 08/08/08

2008-08-08T18:37:00.002-06:00

As much as we like to pretend the Olympics are about international brotherhood and the celebration of world class athleticism and teamwork, most guys, I'm quite sure, will agree with me when I say that I look forward to the summer games every four years for this main reason: It allows me to yell "Go America and screw everybody else!" without fear of reproach. Winning may not be everything, but it's close enough.

Thought of the day 08/02/08

2008-08-02T08:12:00.001-06:00

Who has a better sense of humor about themselves, Republicans or Democrats? Five words: "Kelsey Grammer is Sideshow Bob." Yaburnt!

Thought of the day 07/30/08

2008-07-30T17:29:00.002-06:00

I'd pay good money to see a prom at a deaf and blind school. It must be quite an experience to watch people silently and arrhythmically shuffling back and forth to the sound of the fake music in their own heads. And that's got to be a sweet gig for the DJ.

Thought of the day 07/28/08

2008-07-28T21:09:00.002-06:00

While watching an episode of "No Reservations" in which Tony Bourdain and his younger brother visit an incredible looking outdoor grill in the middle of Montevideo, Uruguay, I decided that I want my last words to be "Don't... let anyone... touch my steak."

Thought of the day 07/26/08

2008-07-26T15:42:00.002-06:00

While scouring the Internet in search of a very specific techno song over the past eight or nine days, I have come to the shocking realization that techno songs and their myriad remixes have, by far, the stupidest titles in the history of everything. "That was DJ Fart on a Kracker with his newest hit, 'Raped in the Eardrum (Coagulated Blood Spatter Remix)'. Up next, we're burning up the airwaves with a slick new track from DJ Postmortem called 'Lik My Shoes (Uptown Bitch Lightsaber Version)' followed by Milquetoast Groin Pull's classic, 'Acid Zkull (Hot Coffee Enema Remix)'." I suppose such aggressive titles are meant to make up for the fact that the DJs themselves are computer science majors with bacne and eczema.

Thought of the day 07/24/08

2008-07-24T18:21:00.002-06:00

While being subjected to a commercial for Extenze, a product that purports to induce a certain kind of "male enhancement," I couldn't help but notice that the lady trying to be all sultry and alluring in front of the camera was supremely unattractive. Aside from the fact that I'm not a total creep to begin with, that alone would be enough to keep me from ever trying that product. "Extenze: It gets you ugly women!" I suppose that might appeal to someone like Matthew Broderick...

Thought of the day 07/22/08

2008-07-22T20:11:00.003-06:00

Sometimes I secretly wish I'd been born Jewish. If that were the case, I'd replace the first syllable in many words with the word "Jew." Examples: Jewtastic, Jewtopia, Jewniverse, Jewriffic, Jewbulous, Jewcredible, Jewsochistic, etc.

Thought of the day 07/20/08

2008-07-20T22:11:00.001-06:00

No matter what he says or how much he pretends to be an everyman, I can't get rid of the sneaking suspicion that Barack Obama is, in fact, Steve Urkel.

Thought of the day 07/18/08

2008-07-18T16:53:00.002-06:00

According to a recent study, 72% of men said they would intervene if they witnessed what appeared to be a sexual assault in progress. A lot of feminists seem to think that number's not high enough. But let's think about it for a second. If two men see the same sexual assault, that's, like, a 144% chance that they'll intervene. I'm no mathemologist or whatever, but I like those odds.

Number 1

2008-07-18T12:06:00.002-06:00

Mel: Welp, I'm gonna go stab the lizard.

Rory: Huh?

Mel: I said I'm gonna stab the lizard.

Rory: I have no idea what that means.

Mel: You know... go peepee.

Rory: That doesn't make any sense. I think you mean 'BLEED the lizard.'

Mel: What'd I say?

Rory: 'STAB the lizard.'

Mel: What's the difference?

Rory: Um... One's the usual way to say it, and the other makes you sound like a herpetologist who's also a complete idiot.

Mel: I don't know what that word means, so I'm going to assume it was an insult.

Rory: You may have just proven my point. But anyway, why do you want to stab ANYTHING? There should be no stabbing of any kind. Stabbing in that particular area is bad.

Mel: But why would you say bleed? If you're bleeding while you're peeing, then maybe you should see a doctor. Or at least start wearing adult diapers.

Rory: But if you stab something, what's gonna come out besides blood? Blood's involved in the metaphor either way.

Mel: Then why don't you just let me say it how I want and get off my back?

Rory: Because when you say it like that, you sound like a special ed child trying to read James Joyce's "Ulysses" through a kaleidoscope.

Mel: Harsh, dude... harsh. And by the way, thanks for distracting me. I think I just peed my pants.

Rory: Always here to help. Besides, maybe that'll teach you to stop peeing on the seat.

Thought of the day 07/16/08

2008-07-16T13:05:00.003-06:00

"Never drink camel spit - it'll burn your throat like acid." I remember a kid named Anthony I knew from school saying that to me many years ago. I can think of probably thirty reasons why I would never be stupid enough to drink camel spit, and "it burns" isn't anywhere near the top ten, let alone the single reason I'd give someone else. But my real question is this: How on earth did he know that?

Thought of the day 07/14/08

2008-07-14T16:14:00.002-06:00

In the Zapruder film, Jackie Kennedy can be clearly seen reaching behind her newly-perforated husband, presumably to pick up a piece of brain or skull that Johnny had been careless enough to leave behind. What exactly could she have been thinking at that moment? "Oh no! Now we'll never get our deposit back!"

Runner up: "Five second rule!"

Thought of the day 07/12/2008

2008-07-12T20:28:00.003-06:00

There's one thing everyone with Down Syndrome has in common (other than the Down Syndrome, of course). What is it about the 21st chromosome that keeps people from knowing they have chapped lips?

The Terrible Improviser

2008-07-11T17:21:00.002-06:00

Teacher: OK, today in class we're going to do something a little different. Instead of teaching you like I'm being paid to do, I'm going to bring up two students who will improvise a scene, and after it's over, I will barely tie it in with what we've been talking about for the past few weeks.

Class: (completely apathetic silence)

Teacher: Um... LaShawnda and... Bernard. Why don't you two improvise a scene for us?

LaShawnda: What's the scene about?

Teacher: Whatever you want. It's all improvised.

LaShawnda: Yeah, but you have to give us some kind of basis for the scene. We have to know where we're starting. How exactly is this going to teach us anything about Aristotelian rhetoric?

Teacher: Less complain-y; more improvise-y.

LaShawnda: Whatever.

(They begin their improvised "scene")

LaShawnda: Hey, um... (pregnant pause) Bill.

Bernard: Hey.

LaShawnda: Yeah, hey, um... Oh my gosh! Is that your car on fire?!

Bernard: Nope. Must be someone else's.

LaShanda (taken aback): Oh, OK. Uh... How'd you do on that test?

Bernard: I didn't take the test. I was home sick.

LaShawnda: Sorry to hear that.

Bernard: Don't be. I was faking.

LaShawnda: Oh. Alright. Hey, is that a new haircut?

Bernard: I'm wearing a hat.

LaShawnda: Oh, of course you are. My mistake. I couldn't see very well because of the glare from the setting sun.

Bernard: It's morning.

LaShawnda: Ah, yes. Silly me. I'm from California, where the sun sets over the water. Clearly, being on the east coast, the sun is rising over the Atlantic Ocean.

Bernard: We're in Oregon.

LaShawnda: Well, anyone can see that. I was just testing you. After that head injury, I just wanted to make sure you still know where you are.

Bernard: It was a foot injury.

LaShawnda (becoming visibly annoyed): I'm pretty sure it was a head injury.

Bernard: I think I would know.

LaShawnda: Not if it was a head injury.

(pause)

Bernard: Touche. Well played.

LaShawnda: How about that Superbowl last week? Quite a game, huh?

Bernard: It's November.

LaShawnda: Yes... I mean... how about those... um... Olympics?

Bernard: It's not an Olympic year.

LaShawnda: I mean the ones coming up.

Bernard: I don't have a TV.

LaShawnda: You don't hear about the Olympics from other people?

Bernard: I don't like sports.

LaShawnda (completely exasperated): Well, what DO you like?

Bernard: String... folding my socks... playing with my pet rock... going to church.

LaShawnda: Oh, so you're religious?

Bernard: Nope.

LaShawnda: Then why do you go to church?

Bernard: That's where my band practices.

LaShawnda: You're in a band? That's pretty cool.

Bernard: No, I'm the manager.

LaShawnda: Why do you make your band practice in a church?

Bernard: It's just a church building. It's been abandoned for years.

LaShawnda: But why did you call it 'going to church'?

Bernard: What else should I call it?

(LaShawnda is trembling with rage, and she runs out of the classroom.)

Bernard: That's not the exit!

LaShawnda: Shut the hell up!

Teacher: OK, wasn't that fun?

Robots

2008-07-01T15:53:00.003-06:00

Jim-Bob: You know those robots that build the cars in factories?

Jimbo: Uh... Yeah.

Jim-Bob: Who builds them?

Jimbo: I... would imagine other robots.

Jim-Bob: OK, but who builds those robots then?

Jimbo: Um, again, I think I'm gonna have to go with other robots.

Jim-Bob: Then why don't we save ourselves a whole lot of time and energy and use THOSE robots to build the cars?

(long pause)

Jimbo: Tonight, soon after you fall asleep, prepare to be stabbed in the chest.

Shangri-La, thy name is Renaissance Festival

2008-06-27T17:51:00.001-06:00

I recently had the opportunity to attend the Colorado Renaissance Festival and Artisan Marketplace, and it is indeed a sight to behold. Remember the last time you were walking down the street, minding your own business, wondering why they call it a “building” and not a “built,” and accidentally made eye contact with someone dressed as a fairy or a wood nymph or a zombie ninja from outer space, and you said to yourself, “I wonder, self, why on earth this person is dressed that way, and do the orderlies know he’s escaped?” The answer, of course, is probably that the person you saw was on his way to a local Renaissance Festival. But that doesn’t mean he’s not still crazy.

Renaissance Festivals are America’s true last bastion of rampant, unabashed secularism, all dressed up like an edu-ma-cational class field trip destination. The first thing you notice is that everyone who works at the festival is either a theater school dropout or a sour-faced loser teenager. Either way, they still have to speak to you with their best impression of an English accent. Our education system being what it is, most of them end up sounding like South Africans who’ve spent a year or two in New Zealand, and then got raped in the mouth by hot coals and Listerine.

Even so, it still made me want to walk around saying things like “A pox upon me, for a clumsy oaf. I do beg your most gracious of pardons, fair maiden, and offer my sincere and unflagging apologies in recompense for referring to madam’s face as ‘a swovenly malantharp of poltroonity.’ You may wail upon my hindquarters posthaste until such time as your vexation has been appropriately and adequately sated, if not positively surfeited.”

The single most important element of any self-respecting Renaissance Festival is the food, and this one did not disappoint. If it could be breaded, fried, frozen, deep fried, sugared, pan fried, baked, flash fried, or served on a stick, you could buy and eat it. My personal favorite will always be turkey legs. As Michael Jackson is to little boys, so am I to genuine grilled turkey legs (meaning, of course, that I invite turkey legs over to my mansion for completely appropriate and platonic fondling).

But anyway, as we approached the turkey leg booth, one of the loser teenager employees said to my dad, with all the eloquence and aplomb of a PETA member protesting a barbecue at Ted Nugent’s house, “May I help you, m’lord?” to which my dad promptly replied, “You certainly may, m’lady.” Have you ever been so embarrassed you had an aneurism? If not, just ask your dad to do the same thing right in front of you. I guarantee you’ll wish you’d been born with your genitals on your face - because even that would be less embarrassing. The girl looked at him with a look that seemed to say, “If you ever say that to me again, I’ll staple your face to this grill behind me.” I couldn’t stop laughing.

Oh, and as a too-awesome-for-words side note, the guy cooking the turkey legs was a real live hunchback. I kid you not. I’m glad for him. If he hadn’t landed that gig, his only other career option would be posing for the “before” photos in Good Feet infomercials. (“It’s a miracle! My hunchback is almost completely cured! Now I can go dancing and horseback riding and pearl diving! Thanks, Good Feet!”)

I’m always amused by the fact that most Renaissance Festival organizers know less about the Renaissance than Rosie O’Donnell knows about having sex with men. The vast majority of the décor is ripped right out of It’s a Small World, with the rest being filled out with vague Middle-Ages-style gray brick. Apparently, the Renaissance has been loosely redefined as any period during which men were skilled in a specific craft, women were traded like a commodity, children were food, and all shops were required by law to prominently display the words “Ye Olde” somewhere about their signage.

I expected to see a few people dressed up like extras from “The Lord of the Rings,” but I was caught off guard by the sheer number of people who came sporting some sort of costume. A lot of them were dressed as Vikings, and I was shocked to discover how many people in the northern El Paso county/southern Douglas county area have pierced nipples. And those were just the men. Several people were dressed like characters from “Star Wars,” and odder still, I saw quite a few ninjas.

Evidently, Renaissance Festivals are breeding grounds for anyone crazy enough to walk around in public playing a pan flute and drinking two bottles of Mike’s Hard Lemonade at once. If you’ve got a cape and a long walking stick, then take a few hits of acid and head on down to the Renaissance Festival! You can watch a fake joust with plastic swords and wooden performances! You can listen to a guy play “Carol of the Bells” on a 4-ton musical contraption that would make Rube Goldberg proud in the middle of June! You can eat funnel cakes just like King Arthur did! And if you get a coupon from Wendy’s, you can drag a friend along for free!

Two friends just hangin' out

2008-05-12T14:42:00.002-06:00

Bill: Those penniless kids in Africa get all the breaks.

Ruprecht: Um... I'm sorry?

Bill: Those kids in Africa, the ones with the tapeworms and the flies and the mud huts and the AIDS, they're so lucky.

Ruprecht: OK, I'm gonna stand over here now, as it's only a matter of time before you're struck dead by God's vengeful wrath and wrathful vengeance. (looks up at ceiling) Please don't smite me, Lord. I'm just his roommate. And also, he steals.

Bill: Whatevs, dude. It's a legitimate point.

Ruprecht: (laughs) Uh, I'm pretty sure it's safe to say that complaining that starving children in Africa are "lucky" is in no way a legitimate point.

Bill: No, but think about it-

Ruprecht: (interrupting) I'd rather not.

Bill: Just let me explain.

Ruprecht: Alright, lay it on me, homeslice.

Bill: "Homeslice"? You're such a nerd.

Ruprecht: Huh?

Bill: What is this? 1994? That's so old.

Ruprecht: It's retro.

Bill: No, it's just old. You sound like an 80-year-old grandmother trying to sound cool in front of her grandson... who is in kindergarten... and is a loser... but still cooler than you.

Ruprecht: I'm bringing it back.

Bill: You're not cool enough to bring anything back.

Ruprecht: At least I didn't say starving African children with broken legs are lucky.

Bill: I never said broken legs.

Ruprecht: I know, but that made it sound better.

Bill: Anyway, ignoring that... It's simple. What kind of people visit Africa?

Ruprecht: Missionaries.

Bill: Besides them.

Ruprecht: British doctors.

Bill: (annoyed) Nice one, Livingstone. Way to make a 130-year-old reference there, dude.

Ruprecht: No, but Livingstone was the doctor. You mean Stanley.

Bill: (extremely annoyed) What are you talking about?

Ruprecht: Stanley. That was the guy who said, "Doctor Livingstone, I presume?" You were talking about Stanley.

Bill: No, idiot, I was talking about Livingstone. You said "British doctors" and I said "Livingstone," who was the doctor.

Ruprecht: Anyway, please continue.

Bill: Celebrities!

Ruprecht: What?

Bill: Celebrities go to Africa all the time.

Ruprecht: So?

Bill: So where do they go?

Ruprecht: I dunno. Didn't Dave Chappelle go to, like, a spa or something?

Bill: No, I don't mean when they go there on vacation. I mean, like, when they go to help kids and give them rice and pretend they care about them.

(pause)

Ruprecht: I guess I'm not following.

Bill: Oh, come one! They get to meet celebrities! And they get free t-shirts! And food! For nothing!

Ruprecht: Yeah, but they're still living in crappy little huts and eating one meal a day, and that's only a bowl of steamed rice anyway, and they're probably oppressed on a daily basis by brutal dictators. How would meeting some hoe-bag like Angelina Jolie help them forget that they live in a state that makes squalor look good by comparison?

Bill: But they're meeting celebrities! Have you ever met a celebrity?

Ruprecht: Well, once I thought I saw Julia Roberts, but then it turned out to be just a kid with Down Syndrome.

Bill: Well, that's kinda the same.

Ruprecht: Not really.

Bill: So, really, if you think about it, those African kids have one up on you.

Ruprecht: So you're saying that because they've met celebrities, they're better than me?

Bill: (incredulous) Um, of course.

Ruprecht: Dude, you're so goin' to hell.

Bill: Yeah, probably.

I’m paying attention, and I’m not outraged. Suck it, hippie.

2008-05-12T14:38:00.000-06:00

We’ve all seen those bumper stickers that say “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.” Aside from the fact that the word “not” is underlined for no discernable reason (if anything, “paying attention” should be underlined), I have a couple other beefs with these things.

The first is that it’s not referring to anything at all. Presumably, it’s meant to imply the car owner’s dissatisfaction with the current administration’s policies at home and abroad, but there’s no explicit mention of President Bush, Iraq, gas prices, private healthcare, global warming, or anything else that would piss off a trust fund hippie. In twenty years, no one will know what these bumper stickers mean.

The second is that the doucheface who put that on his car assumes that if people were “paying attention,” no one could say they’re not outraged, which is ludicrous. Maybe I don’t want to pay for some moron smoker’s lung cancer operation or some fat tub’s gastric bypass. Maybe I don’t think it’s unjust for the American military’s Commander-in-Chief to send volunteer soldiers anywhere he damn well pleases. Maybe I’m completely indifferent to my carbon footprint because convenience far outranks sustainability on my list of priorities. Maybe I want to be able to retire on my own instead of relying on an antiquated system that was established as a temporary aid program to lift the dismal US economy out of the Great Depression. How dare you assume I’m anything like you?

You’re outraged, hippie? Then take a shower, get a job, and do something about it. Your bumper sticker has changed exactly zero minds. Did you honestly think someone would read your bumper sticker and completely change his or her beliefs? “Oh, well, if you put it that way… then I’d be stupid not to vote Democrat!” Grow up. If you’re really paying attention as closely as you claim you are, then you’d be willing to concede the fact that right now, somewhere out there, you could find a person who is just as highly educated as you are, and who believes the exact opposite of everything you believe. It’s pretty funny that you claim to be tolerant and then turn around and decry anyone with whom you disagree as ill-informed. Once you can explain that paradox to me, you’ll have my undivided attention. Until then, stick to writing beat poetry and contributing nothing to society.

A man enters a shop

2008-05-06T15:23:00.005-06:00

Shopkeep: Afternoon, sir. Anything I can help you find?

Man: Nah. I'm just browsing. I'm thinkin' about buyin' one of those book safes.

Shopkeep: One of those what?

Man: One of those book safes. You know, where it looks like a book, but it's really hollowed out inside, and you can keep, like, cash or booze or a snake bite kit in it?

Shopkeep: Oh, uh, I don't think we have anything like that here.

Man: But this is a Container Store. I know I've seen 'em in other Container Stores.

Shopkeep: Oh, I'm sorry. This isn't a Container Store. It's a Stuff to Put in Your Container Store.

Man: What's that?

Shopkeep: Well, we realized that with the popularity of stores that sell nothing but containers, "Container Stores," if you will, we'd eventually see a need for stuff to put into those containers, and here we are.

Man: That doesn't make any sense. People buy containers to put stuff they already have into them. Why would someone buy a container if they didn't have anything to put in it?

Shopkeep: I repeat: Here we are. If no one needed us, why would we be here?

Man: That's pretty specious reasoning, buddy. What if I'm your first customer ever? How do I know anyone has ever bought a single thing from you at this store?

Shopkeep: Well, it just so happens that you are not our first customer, dillweed. You are, in fact our ninth customer just today.

Man: It's nearly 6 pm. You're about to close.

Shopkeep: It's the off season.

Man: I see. Do you have an on season?

Shopkeep: Of course we do, Mr Smarty von Douchebag. Near the end of the summer.

Man: And why is that? What do you sell, anyway?

Shopkeep: I already told you. Things to put in your containers.

Man: Yeah, but what does that mean?

Shopkeep: We sell trinkets to fill bottom desk drawers, fake hand-made stuff you can say you got on vacation in Cabo, old rec. soccer trophies, worn-looking copies of classic novels you won't bother reading, out-of-style shirts and pants for people with too much room in their closets. You know, crap like that.

Man: I'm sorry. I'm still a little confused. Why in the name of Larry's left testicle would any non-retarded person want to buy stuff that he plans to just throw into the bottom of an unused desk drawer or stuff onto a bookshelf?

Shopkeep: We find that our clients tend to be nerds, Evangelical Christians, college professors, frequent Fark commenters, philosophy majors... you know, mostly people with generally no life of their own. Losers. We also sell stories to go along with everything, so, for example, if someone were to say to you, "Hey, where'd you get this fancy sling shot?" you can respond, "Oh, there's a great story behind that. I was hitchhiking in central Spain. A little blind boy offered to sell it to me for a pack of Juicy Fruit and a hug. I was moved by his plight, but I didn't want to touch him, though; he had lice the size of bigger lice. I threw the gum at him and took the sling shot. And do you know who that boy grew up to be? Aleister Crowley." OK, so maybe it's not a great story, but what do you want from us? We're owned by Carrot Top.

Man: Um, ok... Uh, I'll take three novels and that conch shell with googly eyes glued to it.

Shopkeep: Excellent choice, sir, but if you buy one more novel, we'll throw in a league championship bowling trophy absolutely free.

Man: Oh, why not? I'm not driving.

Shopkeep: There you are. Have a nice day. Tell your friends.

Man: Ha! Don't worry. They're definitely gonna hear about this place.

Shopkeep: And try our sister chain, Dead Things to Put at the Bottom of Your Pool, Inc.

Man: That's a stupid idea. You must think people will buy anything.

*And on an entirely unrelated note, this is the 400th post on The House of Vaughan. Pretty sweet, huh? You're jealous...*

The value of youth

2008-05-06T15:06:00.002-06:00

Driving home from Colorado Springs' retarded, inbred version of a "downtown," I passed through a school zone. Naturally, being the forward thinker I am, I sped up. Don't want to run the risk of being identified by any kids you happen to run over, and the best way to insure that is to guarantee you'll crush their brains like a a robin egg under an anvil. The driver in front of me, however, was apparently one of those law-abiding types, and he promptly slowed to 20 mph. Passing the speed limit sign, I saw that it said fines would be doubled inside the school zone. I've seen countless school zone signs, but this is the first time I actually realized that I could be fined double for speeding.

Why on earth would they fine someone double for speeding in a school zone? Are children's lives worth twice those of real people? That doesn't make any sense. I know plenty of kids who deserve to be hit by cars. Is it because the children are our future, and endangering the future is more egregious than endangering a homeless man? If that's the case, then we should be required to aim for children we see crossing the street. Do you really want to entrust the future to someone who's too stupid to look both ways? It's natural selection. Sorry, parents. Maybe you should have taught your children that in the case of car versus kid, car inevitably wins. In fact, I'd feel better about the future if the parents of children who were killed by sober drivers were chemically castrated. Do you know how hard it is to clean blood off your windshield? Why allow them to make the same mistake all over again with their next child?

Euphemisms

2008-04-26T14:58:00.003-06:00

Tom and Harry are at a bowling alley. There's a group of attractive women on the lane next to theirs.

Tom: Oh, man... Look at her. I'd like to polish her balls... if you know what I mean.

Harry: Um, actually, I don't.

Tom: Huh? It's a euphemism.

Harry: No, it's not. Obviously, you're talking about having sex with her. But that makes no sense because the word "balls" doesn't translate to anything in the female anatomy. You're being too vague for your own good.

Tom: No, you're being too vague for your own good.

Harry: What are you, eight? You said you'd like to "polish her balls." I get it. We're bowling. Very topical and clever, idiot. The problem is that the phrase "polish her balls" has absolutely no connection to what you were actually trying to communicate. The only reason I knew what you were trying to say is because you winked and then blew a kiss after you said it. I just wish you hadn't blown the kiss at me. You're so gay.

Tom: Whatever. It got my point across. That's all that matters. Ooo! Look at that one. I'd give her my turkey anytime.

Harry: Ugh. That's the same thing! You're doing it again. "Turkey" is not an acceptable euphemism for genitalia. Anything can be dirty if you say it right. Like "I'd grease her lane." Any jackass can do that.

Tom: Oh, I like that one. Hey! What about "I'd like to strike her pins" or "She looks like she's ready for ten rounds" or "I'd step over her fault line" or "I'd sure like to cover her in a whole tub of that nacho cheese sauce and lick it off her... naked."

Harry: Great. You found a perfect medium there.

Tom: Yeah.

Harry: I was being sarcastic, dick. You're an awful person. How do you sleep at night?

(pause)

Tom: Alone.

Sweet Samson on ice skates, it's been a long time since I've posted

2008-04-23T11:33:00.003-06:00

Well, we just finished our last real issue of the paper last night. My posting to this blog became sporadic at best when I got my own column, but since I'm finally graduating this semester, I really have no other outlet for my writing. I figured I may as well start things up again on this bad boy.

G.K. Chesterton once said, "Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese." In that same vain (meaning, simply, that it's a subject most people rarely address), here's a question I've been wondering about quite a lot in the last 24 hours: Why are women so grossly underrepresented in the field of construction?

Is it because women are weak? There are women in the military. There are women on police forces. Childbirth is, to embrace a stereotype, generally performed by women. I don't think the "women are weak" argument holds a lot of water here.

Maybe it's because male construction workers are (based on my assumption that everything I see on TV is true) pretty misogynistic. Maybe a lot of women would really like to be construction workers, but they're too afraid of being whistled at to pursue their dream. But then again, it's not as though being admired for one's personal appearance is a bad thing. I'd give my right arm or my brother to be hooted at (of course, I probably wouldn't receive too many catcalls with an arm missing), so obviously, it can't be that.

Or perhaps it's because all the women who would be drawn to that type of career are too busy having sex with other women to get out there and build a house and/or cook me a steak.

Come on, America. I thought we were progressing as a culture. I thought women were all "empowered" now, or whatever... you know, like Rosie the Riveter. But now I see that we're no different from the pie-in-the-sky (which, by the way, is a completely nonsensical phrase) days of Ozzie & Harriet and the Eisenhower administration. Men can be anything they want to be (including women), but women are still relegated to all those stereotypical, oppressed roles, like homemaker, secretary, administrative assistant, executive assistant, personal assistant, administrative secretary, executive secretary, personal secretary, stewardess, executive stewardess, any combination of the words "executive," "stewardess," "secretary," "personal," or "assistant" that I may have forgotten, and, of course, US Senator/Presidential hopeful. Damn these backward ways!

Raise your hand if you're tired of Will Ferrell

2008-03-03T13:04:00.004-07:00

I just saw "Semi-Pro" a couple days ago, and I have to admit that I'm a little tired of Will Ferrell's antics. Maybe it was the fact that he's the least funny thing about the movie (which isn't all that good on the whole), or that he hasn't really done anything new in four years, or maybe that before "Semi-Pro" even started, I was subjected to a trailer for yet another of his movies, "Step Brothers," co-starring relentlessly unfunny non-comedian, John C. Reilly. Seriously, John C. Reilly makes me envy the blind and the deaf (but not the deaf AND blind - that would really suck).

How many times can people laugh at a scene featuring Will Ferrell running around naked? "I clearly don't have a good body! Get it? That's why it's funny! It's irony!" I got it, Will. I just wonder if you're hiding behind the fact that people will laugh as soon as they see you on screen - before you've even said anything.

Painful though it may be, I'm afraid I'm to have to quote Orny Adams here: "You're funny until people tell you you're funny. Then you're not funny." It sounded stupid at the time (and it was), but in the context of Will Ferrell's career, I think it applies.

Ferrell seems to rely fairly heavily on what I've called "the comedy of explanation," which is characterized by the punchline to a joke being nothing more than a simple explanation of what the audience has already seen. Examples: "You pointed to your boobies." "Hey everyone! Come and see how good I look!" "I love Scotch. Scotchey Scotch Scotch. Here it goes down - down into my belly..." "It's so hot out here. Milk was a bad choice." "Brick, are you just pointing to things and saying you love them?" "We are laughing." "I have many leather-bound books, and my apartment smells of rich mahogany." And those are all from just one movie. Granted, Anchorman is still one of the best comedies of the last ten years, but he hasn't changed his formula since that movie.

What if P.T. Anderson had simply remade "Boogie Nights" four times? What if Jerry Seinfeld hadn't retired his old routine, but he still insisted on touring the country and charging $95 a pop for tickets? What if Ben and Jerry hadn't asked the question, "What else is there besides vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry"? What if The Beatles, instead of "Abbey Road" or "The White Album," just released a "best of" compilation album? That's what Will Ferrell is doing. He's banking on his former success, hoping people will forget how painfully bad "Bewitched" and "Kicking and Screaming" were.

All Your "Lost" Questions Answered

2008-01-03T22:18:00.000-07:00

I just finished the third season of "Lost," and I've had an apostrophe. If you're a fan and you haven't finished the newest season on DVD yet, I'd recommend you just stop reading here. I've figured out the answer to every single question anyone has ever had about the show. Step into my office...

After reading through hundreds of individual theories concerning the nature of the island, the reason for the numbers, the bizarre coincidences surrounding the lives of the survivors before the crash, the Dharma Initiative, that damn polar bear from the pilot, The Others, and Jacob, and I'm proud to announce to you that everything has a perfectly logical explanation: It's a bloody television show! I know some of you hardcore fans are shocked to hear this, but cross my heart and hope to die, it's the truth.

OK, so many of you non-fans aren't at all surprised by this revelation, but trust me; it's a huge breakthrough. Think about it. The producers have wholeheartedly denied all of the following theories: the numbers are "magic," the survivors are in purgatory or Hell, all of the events are taking place in the mind of one individual (possibly a dream), the survivors are all unwitting contestants on a reality show, the "monster" is a plume of killer nanorobots ala "Prey," the survivors are caught in some sort of time warp, aliens somehow influence the events on the island, all the events are taking place in a snow globe, some things that happen are supernatural or spiritual in nature. Do you know what that means? It means the writers will not be able to simply explain away events by playing the "supernatural" card. A corollary of this fact is that the writers will be forced to explain everything that has happened so far (and everything that has yet to happen in the final three seasons of the show) with scientific (or at the very least scientific-sounding) evidence.

Another interesting bit of trivia I've discovered concerning the show is that they were granted a request to limit the final three seasons of the show to 16 episodes. This was done because, as many fans will attest, the whole first half of the third season sucked. "Why is that so interesting, Andrew?" you may ask. Well, I'll tell you, but you should know it's rude to interrupt. It means what many fans have known since about the fourth episode: Many episodes are written as mere filler. That means not everything we've seen is important to the grand mythology of the show. That, in turn, means that not everything will be answered. Not all the mysteries actually pertain to the main plot.

Anyway, I said all that to say this: The writers may indeed have an awesome explanation and a shocking finale already in mind for the show (and they've admitted as much), but in the grand scheme of things, not everything will be answered because, let's face it, it's not written by God. It's written by people who somehow got you to believe that an extremely intelligent and capable espionage agent was tricked into thinking she was working for the CIA when, in reality, she was working for a terrorist organization. The explanation, no matter how thorough it may be, will not, I say again, will not answer everything. There's no possible way to explain the numbers, the coincidences, the monster, the button, the four-toed statue, and The Others without a "Dallas"-style "screw you" answer. Mark my words.

Oh, and I even know who Jacob is, and his exact function on the show. I knew it as soon as I "saw" him. Jacob's purpose and his function are actually the same as his last name, and that's MacGuffin.

Double Your Pleasure

2007-12-30T18:14:00.000-07:00

I've been invited by a good friend to participate in another blog over at Cultured Insolence. I don't think it's going to feature the same type of material I usually put up here, but since Chris is the funniest bald man I know, I think you'll quite enjoy it. See you there (not really, of course).

Shining A Turd

2007-12-23T17:07:00.000-07:00

Working at a fancy-schmancy hotel in December offers me the somewhat unexpected fringe benefit of observing blue-collar workers at their absolute finest. When companies have their Christmas parties, they generally provide all the free liquor their employees can handle. Drunk factory workers and a four star hotel normally don't combine very well, but if you're at all curious about how mouth-breathers behave when they're in a hotel in which they couldn't hope to set foot under normal circumstances, working as a bellman at such a hotel during the holiday season should definitely be on your "bucket list."

Two nights ago, we hosted one such Christmas party. One gentlemen assumed that because I and my fellow bellmen were opening the door for him, we were somehow "his kind of people," and that we normally don't get an opportunity to converse with our regular "buttoned down" guests in the language of the great unwashed. He walked around the hotel drinking two Newcastles at once (one in each hand, sipping alternately from both), and talking loudly about his coworkers and fellow guests. When another guest walked into the hotel wearing a headband, Mr Two Newcastles said without reservation, "If I had that on my head, I'd feel like sucking a c***!" I laughed out loud, which unfortunately encouraged him. He kept talking to me like we were somehow friends. Just because I don't wear a tie to work, it doesn't mean I consider myself a member of the WWE-watching class. Actually, I've always just sort of assumed I was a member of the bourgeoisie...

During another company Christmas party, when we were valeting cars, we had a gentleman yell to us from the veranda to make sure we didn't lock his car when we parked it. Naturally, I said "Of course" to him as though I actually cared about his POS Chevy truck. Unfortunately, I wasn't the one who ended up parking his car, and whoever did locked the doors. When it came time for everyone to leave, I was the bellman who got stuck pulling that particular truck. When I tried to open the door, I finally realized why he'd been so adamant about his doors remaining unlocked: this dipstick didn't have door keys to his own car. We actually had to call a locksmith, who charged us a hundred dollars to open the doors.

If the guest whose doors we locked is reading this, I'd like to take this opportunity to speak to directly to you, if I may: You are an imbecile. The sole reason for your existence is to provide comic relief to everyone with an IQ higher than that of a poached egg. If you stopped for half a second to think about why valets at a four star hotel would hesitate to leave a guest's car unlocked, you might realize that you should have offered an explanation for your stupid-ass request. If anything got stolen from your junk-heap of an automobile, we would have been legally responsible for it. Did you ever think about that, you dumb schmuck? No, I don't think you would have. You're the type of man who drops his pants to the floor when you're peeing at a public urinal. I'm sure your GED test prep instructor is mighty proud that you finally developed the ability to sleep for eight hours straight without drowning in a tepid pool of your own saliva. People like you should be chemically castrated and forced to perform brainless, unimportant tasks, like teaching at a public school, or working at Best Buy.

Actually, I'm grateful I've been exposed to the wide variety of guests who stay at the hotel. Some of them are actually quite pleasant. The vast majority are not. It's the latter group that constantly provides me with new material, and I couldn't thank them enough for that.

If I Were A Naked Woman, Where Would I Be?

2007-12-05T13:32:00.000-07:00

Not too long ago, I was in the middle of an eight-hour shift at the hotel where I work, and the front desk got a call from one of the guests saying they couldn't figure out how to use the jacuzzi tub. That's not an unusual complaint, as it appears most people really are too stupid to get water from a faucet. I walked down the hall, wondering to myself (out loud- whenever I'm angry or stressed I talk to myself) if they simply hadn't found the big white button that activates the jets, or perhaps they never tried rotating the nob to get hotter water. It always amazes me how simple the solution to a guest's problem usually is.

Anyway, I got to the guest's door, and I knocked and announced myself ("Bell Service! Can I shine ya shoes, Massa?"). It took the guy about forty seconds to answer the door, so I assumed he had been naked and was putting on a robe or something. When he opened the door, I instantly remembered which guest it was. I'd checked him and his wife into the hotel earlier that day. I remembered him so easily because he had a wicked lateral lisp. I love people with lateral lisps. It's funny to me that they seem not to realize that they sound like partially-unconscious Down syndrome burn victims. He let me into the room, and being the nosey jerk I am, I couldn't help but look around the room to see where his wife was. When you've been a bellman for decades like I have, you naturally develop an uncontrollable urge to look in on the private lives of your guests whenever you enter their rooms. Maybe it's because most people don't clean themselves up AT ALL to answer the door for a bellman. I think they think we're not really humans, but rather some sort of hyper-realistic androids. The fact that I actively avoid eye contact may contribute to that assumption.

After I showed him that blue means "cold" and red means "hot," he thanked me profusely for my superhuman problem solving skills, and he offered to kiss my feet. Having just polished my shoes, I politely declined. As I left the room, assuming I'd simply missed his wife during my admittedly cursory inspection of the room, I looked around for her again. Still nothin'. I walked out of the room, and as soon as he shut the door, I heard his voice, followed immediately by his wife's. Confused, I wondered where the heck she could have been. Then I realized she was probably in the closet. I have a fairly active imagination, so I kept thinking about what had just happened, trying to figure out why she'd been hiding. Then, in a cringe-inducing moment of clarity, I realized exactly what had been going on. When I knocked on the door, I had interrupted some sort of... I don't even want to write it.

I threw up in a potted plant. Don't tell my boss.

Daddy Drinks Because You Cry

2007-11-15T14:30:00.000-07:00

I was watching TV a couple weeks ago, and I saw an ad for Dewar’s scotch. The gist of the commercial was that people should drink to their hearts’ desire on Dec. 5, which is Repeal Day. That’s the day the 21^st amendment was officially ratified.

I sat staring at the TV for a good minute and a half after that. I couldn’t believe what Dewar’s was suggesting. As if we didn’t have enough excuses to drink already, they want people to “celebrate” repeal day by, of course, drinking.

I’ll admit I enjoy a drink or nine just as much as anyone else. I just don’t understand why some people feel the overwhelming need to excuse their drinking as some sort of celebratory concomitant. What’s the point of that?

People should drink because they want to, and not because they feel as though it’s the only way to celebrate something.

It’s not like we don’t have enough reasons to tie one on without celebrating Repeal Day. Look at all the excuses we have to drink already:

St Patrick’s Day- We drink green beer to celebrate that one time when the patron saint of Ireland drove all the snakes out by luring them with corned beef and cabbage, or whatever.

Independence Day- We drink to celebrate the signing of our Declaration of Independence. This is probably the best example of a holiday during which drinking makes a lot of sense. One of the major complaints our founding fathers had against the British Crown was that they were getting absolutely ravaged by liquor taxes. I guess that means this country was founded more on the principle of cheap booze than on “freedom” or “equality” or any of that non-alcohol-related garbage.

The best part of Independence Day is that it combines two thing things that, when combined, become exponentially more dangerous: liquor and fireworks. God bless America.

Christmas- Happy birthday, Jesus! Sorry I got drunk at your party and threw up on your shoes.

New Year’s Eve- Now we’re basically just drinking because we had a lot of liquor left over from Christmas, and we don’t want any of it to go bad. I’m all about conservation. Otherwise, we’d have to throw the skunked beer out in a couple months. If you care about the environment, you’ll drink this New Year’s Eve.

Weddings- It’s the joining of two families, both of which probably have a couple creepy members. How else are we supposed to get along for three straight hours?

Bar/Bot Mitzvahs- You’re a man! Pass the wine! For whatever reason, Jewish people really know how to have a good time. That’s probably why they were chosen. (On a completely unrelated note, as I write this, Microsoft Word is adamantly suggesting to me that I should change the word “you’re” to “you is.” Apparently, “You is a man” is now a grammatically sound sentence. I think the IT guys decided to save a few bucks by installing the Ebonics version of Microsoft Office on all the campus computers. I keep having to manually delete “Holla atcha boy” after the end of every declarative sentence.)

Fridays- You’ve worked hard all week. You deserve to reward your own diligence by getting completely hammered and waking up in a pool of your own vomit on Saturday morning.

Saturdays- Obviously, you didn’t party hard enough on Friday, lightweight.

Birthday parties- Muffle your anxieties at the fact that you’re one year closer to death by getting belligerently drunk, hitting on one of your coworkers, and falling asleep on top of your cat.

Any and every camping excursion or fishing trip- Why else would anyone do those things?

Baseball games- This is at the top of the list of things that are never interesting sober.

Halloween- Beer is just candy for grownups, except we’ve finally recognized that asking your neighbors for liquor stopped being cute after that second Drunk in Public charge.

I’m sure I’ve left a ton out, but you get the idea. We already have way too many excuses to drink. Besides, celebrating the repeal of an amendment is perhaps the nerdiest thing I’ve ever heard of.

Nigga Please

2007-11-13T12:49:00.000-07:00

I've never, never understood why any black person would ever be offended by the so-called N-word. Lemme break it down like a fraction for ya: "Nigger" is derived from a bastardization of the word "negro," which is, as we all know, Spanish for "black." Over time, it became "negra" because of most Southern whites' drawls. "Negra," then, became "nigra." Finally, "nigra" made way for "nigger." If anything, Southern white people should be insulted by the use of the word "nigger" because it proves that they are incapable of pronouncing a simple two-syllable word without butchering it. How exactly is it offensive? Is it that it reminds black people of the horrible ways in which they were treated in the American South as recently as forty years ago (and, in small pockets, as recently as today)? If so, then why do so many black comedians and rappers use the word (usually in its phonetic form: nigga)? If historical context is the only reason black people find the word offensive, then why is it still used so much? And if it's not the only reason, then what else is there? I'm just tired of the huge double standard we've placed on the word. Either it can be used without reservation, or it should never be used. People need to make up their minds.

"I got a huge phlegm ball in my mouth when I was driving over here. Good thing I had your wedding invitation in my car."

2007-11-08T15:47:00.000-07:00

I actually said that to someone. Is that rude? I didn't think so.

I seem to have a problem with blurting things out when it would clearly serve my best interests not to do so. I'm honest. Maybe a little too honest...

The "I call it like it is" defense doesn't fly most of the time. People apparently don't want to know "how it is." At least that's my personal experience. When asked by a girl what kind of hat would look best on her, I said, "A ski mask." Now, in that particular instance, I wasn't "calling it like it was." Obviously, I was joking. Some of the other people around, however, did not think it was funny, which, of course, made it all the funnier to me.

One time, when I was a little, little kid, I saw an ugly kid on an opposing soccer team. Noting that he looked similar (in the non-ugly parts) to one of my own teammates, I remarked to my friend, "Dude, that kid looks like your illegitimate love-child with Barbara Streisand." I wasn't trying to be funny or anything like that. I sincerely thought that was an accurate appraisal of the other kid's looks. The friend thought otherwise.

One day at work, I commented to a coworker that her outfit made her "look like a librarian." I intended no ill-will with such a comment, but she apparently thought I was calling her ugly, or whatever. In my mind, it was an objective observation that held no value judgments. In her mind, I was saying she looked like an old maid or something. This was just a few days after I'd gotten into an argument with the same coworker over whether or not "lite" was a real word (it isn't, and if you say otherwise, I'll tell everyone that you touched me in my bathing suit area).

The list goes on and on and on... I have a notebook filled with jokes about the time I accidentally hit on a forty-year-old woman, the time I said that domestic violence was funny, the time I announced that I thought I was coming down with a wicked case of Down Syndrome, etc.

I know the rules of proper decorum, and if it suits my purposes, I'll actually follow them, but most of the time, I just can't help but say something either entirely inappropriate or grossly offensive. Of course, I love it when people get all pissy about things I say, but since I'm gonna have to get a real job someday, I need to be able to control it. Oh well. Maybe I'll hire some sort of midget to sit on my shoulders and whisper things to say right into my ear. That would be awesome.