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 |   The only blog that will put hair on your chest... |
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** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Turning from the Dark Side ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** < This is where I'll insert a cool new blog description. Someday. > |
Here's some shots of the "tree" we put up at work in the IT department...
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'Nuff said. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| I had no idea what I was going to write about for my leading entry until I was driving home yesterday and saw something that made my eyes bleed. I'd apologize in advance to my non-Christian, non-Christmas-celebrating readers, but frankly they'll just have to deal with it. Afterall, bloggers don't apologize in advance to me when they write ignorant, liberal ravings. With the Christmas season comes Christmas lights. Not just those on the christmas trees, but also those lights festooned upon buildings, shrubbery, poles, lawn ornaments, etc. When driving down some residential streets at night, a sea of lights will wash over you and transport you into some magical miniature wonderland, complete with the Island of Toys and Santa's workshop. For a moment, the youthful days of yore will return to you, taking you back to a time of snowball fights and racing downstairs to the Christmas tree. You'll snap out of it when you realize you've drifted into the wrong lane and swerve to avoid a head-on collision. But for a moment the spirit of Christmas (which is of course to say the commercialized spirit of Christmas) overwhelmed you. You might even be inspired to go light up your own home. But for every magical winter wonderful there is a haggard lady with corns on her feet and underwear hang-drying in her living room. Each Christmas she fetches the bulbous, multi-hued, seizure-inducing lights from a mildewed box in her basement and sets about beautifying her trailer. Or better yet, she simply plugs the pre-strung lights back in, the same set she put up around her doorframe and windows six Christmases ago. It's so much easier to just leave them up year-round. Her electric bill will go through the roof for the month of December, but she can use all her winnings on the instant scratch-off lottery tickets to cover that. Yes, I know, I'm exaggerating and perpetuating a stereotype (though technically I very nearly just described my grandmother). The point is we need a Christmas light etiquette, because too many people have traded tasteful for tacky, and the blinding disarray of well-lit eye sores are making the road a dangerous place. Haven't you ever driven along, spotted some shockingly apalling color in your peripheral vision, and turned to see a rainbow house that instantaneously makes you see red spots? Even worse, you probably can't stop staring at it. The sheer hideousness mesmerizes you, resulting in first denial, then shock, a moment of disgust, and finally several minutes of gut-busting hilarity. You even take that image home with you, it's power-draining display burned into your retina so you can tell everyone, "Check out the house on East Street! It's so fugly!" So how about some simple etiquette? Let's start with the lights you choose. If you're still dragging out those enormous, thumb-sized, multi-colored bulbs that you bought when I was still in diapers, you need to rethink this. No one wears tie-dyed shirts anymore, and these are the Christmas light equivalent. Tacky doesn't even begin to describe it. These days why can't people just stick with single-color lights? All white strands are downright classy, all red are gorgeous when used correctly, and all blue are usually tolerable. Green on the other hand is hardly ever nice, and wrapping a green strand around a shrub isn't the least bit clever. It's been done to death and never in a good way. It's when you go mixing the single-color strands though that you enter trailer park territory. I saw a house last night with every front window outlined in a different color strand of lights. It looked like somebody puked glowing Lucky Charms on their front wall. And just in case the Fisher Price square windows weren't hideous enough, each had a tail of lights that spawned off at an odd angle and back to wherever it plugged in. On a scale of 1 to 10 it rated a -4. (Eye gouging automatically moves a light display into the negative range.) Then of course we have twinkling lights. My brother's fiancee, who puts dollar store knick knacks on her end tables and hangs up unframed pictures of panda bears and 1980s fuzzy kitten pictures that I'm sure I've seen at yard sales, loves twinkling lights. She asked the rest of the family, "Am I the only one that likes the twinkling lights?" Yes, yes you are. How about those people that wrap regular lights around their bushes, but for the very last shrub the lights are blinking on and off. Trust me, it doesn't look like blinking lights, it looks like that guy's got a short somewhere. Seriously, dude, I'll buy one more strand of normal lights for you. Lighted lawn ornaments are the big thing now. But here's a couple tips. Setting out a single lighted lawn ornament does not constitute decorating your house. If that's the extent of the effort you're going to put in, you really shouldn't bother. It's like showing up for sex in a body cast. Likewise, don't put your lawn ornaments in the absolute corner of your property. There's a house down the road with two tiny lawn ornaments, a lighted gingerbread house and a light sleigh with reindeer. They are stuck in the ground in the corner of the property, where the driveway meets the sidewalk. Moving along with the sex analogy, it's like trying to get busy with your butt cheeks always touching the headboard. What's worse is the sleigh is on the ground but the reindeer are slightly elevated, so as to simulate taking flight, and the lead reindeer is about to crest the other lawn ornament. Basically it looks like Rudolf is trying to hump the gingerbread house. There's a lot of big blow-up lawn ornaments now too. Here's a tip on those: if combined they occupy more square footage than your house, and you can cross your yard in 5 paces, you probably have too many. One house near where I work has about a half a dozen, all about as big as a jungle gym, and their yard is seriously not big enough for two cars. I have a theory that if a bat were to get in there, he would circle around forever inside that Bermuda Triangle of polar bears and Santa Clauses until he starved to death. Strategically placed, those things can be neat, but please consider the per acre concentration of these and any other item purchased at Wal*Mart. You really can have too much of a good thing. In closing, there's one important lesson to take from this. Some people are tasteless and tacky and generate eye sores the likes of which you've never seen. It's our job not to teach them per se, but rather to ride around town pointing and laughing at all those fugly abominations. Now that's Christmas spirit, folks. |
| Bonus challenge time! This time the bonus game is to read a blog you've never read before, follow it for a week, and write about it next week. Extra points if you pick a blog/journal you're not likely to read otherwise. So, I opened up the blog page and started scanning for blogs I'm not familiar with. I had three basic criteria to go by: 1) someone who isn't likely to read this blog 2) someone outside my usual realm of bloggers and 3) someone that could give me something interesting to write about. At last I spotted a familiar name with a blog I had never seen. I clicked the link and discovered exactly what I expected. Here it is, folks:
I had seen April Sunday  around the site before, usually in the form of an indecipherable review or forum post. Over the course of the next week I'm making it my mission to deciper his/her... unique style and learn more about this cryptic writer through his/her blog. Check the blog out and wish me luck. I think I may need it. |
| I never would you know. Say "cheese" I mean. To this day I hate having my picture taken, but I hold a deep-rooted animosity towards saying "cheese." I never liked having my picture taken, even as a child. I'd only let myself on camera if I was in costume or playing with my action figures. Yeah, some habits die hard. At that young age it wasn't that I feared how the photo might come out. It was actually a case of refusing to smile. I still remember those days of being pushed together with other family members while some photographer tried to coax us all into smiling. Invariably I'd be the recalcitrant 6-year-old with the face of stone. I posed for every photo like I was going to a funeral. Tell me to smile, and I hunkered down even more. Like hell I was going to confirm to that smiling conspiracy. That's where "say cheese" came in. There's always that repugnant little bugger that just can't or won't smile, but apparently "saying cheese" contorts those jaw muscles in such a way that smiling is inevitable. I want to meet the wizard that figured that one out and beat him with a sock full of uncooked rice. I say a sock with rice because I made a startling discovery this weekend that such an object is not only great for heating and relieving neck pain but also as a bola of sorts, capable of inflicting impressive welts and bruises. I wouldn't say cheese. Not once. I still won't. It would be a concession on my part, a defeat of my willpower. And it is quite possibly the lamest thing a person can say in order to smile. We still use that cheesy technique today though, with photographers everywhere. Those perky kids with their preppy clothes and their little pink dresses, all giggly as they climb onto the platform, say cheese. They do it with minimal prompting and total disregard for humility. It makes me sick. The thing is, they would have smiled anyway if you just asked them too, so saying cheese only compounds the idiocy of the scenario. They could put on their cute little dimply grins when you wave a popiscle, or they could contort their faces into a toothy monstrosity of disfigured cheekbones, squinty eyes, and an uncanny resemblance to cerebal palsy, simply by calling out a dairy product. For some reason, we giggle and teehee about the latter and wrap them up in Christmas cards and annoying letters that begin with "Christmas 2006 finds the Smith family... blah blah blah." I see those little people, those individuals yet to be stained by conformity, posing for cameras and saying "cheese." I want to run up, grab them by the arms, and scream, "Dear God, no, don't take the little ones! Take me instead, take me!" But alas, innocence is lost with a single utterance of that ignominous word of photography. Forevermore they will go through life saying "cheese" and leaving behind photos of feigned, toothy grins. What's worse is years from now, they'll use it on their own children, perpetuating a vicious cycle of cheesy photogenics, not unlike alcoholism and other socially irresponsible plagues. Sometimes though I still see those little boys (and it is almost invariably boys) that just will not cave. When it comes to cheese, all they will ever do is cut it. They'll sit there, upon that fabric-covered platform, the photographer's throne of lies, and scowl. Not just frown, but scowl. As if they have a load in their pants that hasn't been cleaned in three days. They'll stare down that photographer like he just turned off the Saturday Morning Cartoons. "Say cheese," the photographer says. Those lips just get tighter, the posing equivalent of flipping the bird. Those boys, those boys I admire. Their fathers taught them well. God willing, Jodi and I will have a son one day, and he'll sit there with his face set in granite until finally the photographer throws her hands in the air and walks out. I'll pump my fist and say "That's my boy!" And thank God for giving him the strength. But resisting the cheese isn't enough anymore. We're always fighting the good fight. The enemy has turned to guerilla warefare. They tried to surprise the kids with puppets, stuffed animals, clowns, bright and spiny objects, seizure-inducing strobes, hypnosis... and stuff. That's only the tip of the cheesy iceberg. They have done something so heinous that I almost cannot speak of it without breaking up. They tell us now to say "pizza." It seems pizza has the same effect as cheese, but without all that stigma of lameass cheese. What kid doesn't love pizza? They've taken an icon of American eating habits and turned it into something treacherous and dirty. I've seen kids fall into the trap, and I so badly want to shake them and yell, "No, can't you see what they've done?! Pizza has cheese on it!" Those bastards. |
| Is that title some kind of reference to male genetalia? Seriously, somebody clue me on this, because I have a history of being completely out of the sexual euphemism loop. Imagine my shock and dismay when I learned that a Dirty Sanchez was not an illegal alien working as a janitor! Yes, I fully intend to comment on every single title in this contest. If I miss yours, just chock it up to lack of interest. Now before I go on, I have one thing to clear up. Zombies are only funny when I talk about them. Even then, they're only funny when the reader has a sense of humor, a lack of delusional self-importance, and at least three forms of mental illness. Those characteristics tend to go hand in hand. Holly Jahangiri though... well, between just between us, I'm planning an intervention and ticket to zombie detox for her. That girl's got it bad.Back on track now. Back to the tea party entry. That's what they call these fun entries where you go through every person and say something specific about him or her. You're all sitting around sipping tea, swapping raunchy jokes with the Mad Hatter, and conversing. It makes everyone feel at home. Like I said, lots of fun. Lord knows I've done several of them in my blog, the most recent of which I have yet to complete, an unfortunate truth that has given poor Sophy  a complex. No contest tea parties for me though, I never mastered the extended pinky thing.Hmmm, I thought I was going somewhere with this, but obviously not. I usually don't respond to entries until I'm inspired with a single coherent theme. Or not so coherent as the case may be. I probably should have done that with this one, but I couldn't wait any longer for clarification on the title. Usually when I find myself in this kind of journaling bind, I use the following space to stroke my own ego. Seems like a plausible alternative now. Jenn  , who clearly knows way more about music than I do, picked "Kryptonite" by 3 Doors Down as my song. What a coincidence, because that happens to be one of my all time favorite songs. It's rather apparent she thinks I have some kind of superhuman power. And of course, she is right. This is the part where Jenn grumbles about the song having nothing to do with superhuman powers. It's also the part where mood indigo IMs me to give me an in-depth analysis of the lyrics and correct me like the musical philistine that I am. I'll continue the charade (one based in reality of course) of relating to the song on a superhuman level, and she'll get flustered and frustrated and quite literally growl at me. She may even whine to Jodi about me being mean to her.And now this is the part where it becomes apparent that I just embarrassed, angered, and alienated the only judge of the contest, proving once again that my Kryptonite has always been none other than myself. |
| Bang! Pop! Chugga Chugga! That's the sound of the confusion-mobile getting started. I seriously hope everyone doesn't think you need to title your leading entry the same as your counterpart in this contest. I know Holly Jahangiri couldn't possibly be guilty of actually thinking that. Clearly the lack of nicotine is starting to affect her judgment. If that's how this all plays out, I'll develop schyzophrenia. I'll even learn how to spell it correctly. And if I'm wrong, and mood indigo wants us to do that, then clearly all those Johnny Depp movies have turned her brain to mush. I daresay he's worse for you than nicotine. Being the conservative that I am, I am immensely tempted to write about my views on gun ownership and gun control. However, I don't like writing about topics with political implications in this blog. Political debates are never as much fun as talking about poop or halibut-weilding midgets, and that should tell you something right there. Suffice it to say that yes, I support gun ownership, and yes, I have owned guns in the past, and yes, I treat the 2nd amendment like a commandment, and yes, I support the NRA, though only in principle not in practice. I don't have any guns right now, because I don't have a use for them. My family loves to hunt, but I quickly learned that waking up before dawn and freezing your nutsack off in the middle of the woods somewhere was not my idea of a good time. So I sold my shotgun. But don't worry, I filed off the serial number first. I though about buying an assault rifle, like an AK-47 something. I had no use for it of course, not until I learned about the ever-growing zombie threat, but I wanted one on sheer principle. I wanted to get one because I could. But I never did. First because I was too lazy and let my Firearms ID card expire, and second because I'd rather spend those hundreds of dollars on cool Transformers statues than a hunk of metal and plastic that would just sit on a shelf and collect dust like all those Transformers stat... oh. So nope, no guns for me right now. My father has a gun cabinet full though. I've already assessed our arsenal. Several shotguns, all excellent for close range head shots with 3.5" magnum buckshot (no wussy birdshot) or even some slugs for protected firing. Gotta stick to the buckshot in a swarm though. Then he has the .308 and the .30-06 We can make hamburger meat out of a skull at close range and destroy the brain at a distance with the scope. Excellent for sniper fire to keep the stragglers from getting too close to our bunker. There's a .222 and a .22, not quite as effective but still likely to get the job done. And we have hand guns too. Holly Jahangiri can man those bad boys if the enemy gets that close. But let's face it, when they get within hand gun range, I'm reaching for the katana. Those zombies won't know what hit 'em. It sure as hell won't be a halibut-weilding midget. |
| When I think of "Bang" all I can think of is that gag gun that has a little flag with the word "BANG" pop out of the barrel when you pull the trigger. Those are so cool. Where can I get one? Seriously, where can I get one? Robert Waltz  loves a good challenge and wants us to challenge him. Everywhere I turn on Writing.com there's people going on about loving a good challenge. Well let me just be entirely honest: I hate a good challenge. In fact, good challenges don't exist; only bad challenges exist. The only time it's good is when it's easily accomplished with my given skillset and followed by some kind of award or accolade. And by that definition, it's not really a challenge at all.It's not that I'm inherently lazy. Well, no, actually it is, but that's only part of it. It's more a matter of ego. I'd rather excel at something and be recognized as the best in my area of expertise than accept some "challenge" and get by with no real acclaim. Take the Boston Marathon for example. Each year hordes of people take the "challenge" of running that marathon. A handful win the top few spots, and armies of joggers take solace in the fact that they simply completed the marathon. Who cares? You accepted a challenge and proved your mediocrity. Why is that so satisfying? It's only those people at the top who have something to brag about. If someone tells me they completed the marathon, my response would be "Did you win?" If the answer is no, then why did you just waste my time? Get my attention when you actually have something worth talking about. I know I could never win, nor even finish for that matter, so I'm not wasting my time. I pick and choose my challenges, sticking with those that actually give me a chance of being the best or damn close to it. No, I'm not playing in the All-Star round of Follow the Leader to accept some kind of challenge. I couldn't care less if I finish or if a handful of bloggers challenge me to stretch my imagination and journaling repertoire. I'm still going to write about poop and ninjas and pirates and zombies and all other sorts of inane material. Why? Because I'm the best at that, and there isn't a soul fucked up enough to try to steal that crown. Incidentally I don't figure I'll win this round either, nor even place. I don't write enough artsy rubbish to take down an all-star trophy. I'm playing for two reasons: 1) it gives me much needed blog material and 2) it's just plain fun. Screw the "challenges." Now, having said all that, don't get the wrong idea here. Just because I don't like "challenges" doesn't mean I don't appreciate them. So long as I'm not accepting them, they can be a blast. I hosted a Truth or Dare contest not long ago in which determined challenge-takers reached into toilets, used someone else's toothbrush, did buffalo sauce shots, and talked about masturbation with complete strangers. It's truly entertaining and astounding what people will do for a handful of GPs and the promise of a "challenge." On a completely unrelated note, the contest is just beginning and already I'm feeling cantankerous. That's why this contest is so cool if you're as opinionated as I am.  |
In my preparation for tomorrow's Annual Day of the Ninja, I came across a most formidable and deadly ninja: becke. He and I have formed a temporary alliance, a blood oath, and together we will reunite the ninja clans. You too can join in our Day of the Ninja! The streets will run red with... something!
Lots of GP opportunities in there. And tomorrow look for ninja bot games, quizzes, and other wicked cool ninja stuff. |
| I've had a very difficult time coming up with a wishlist for my many adoring followers, but here it is at last. So if you're looking for holiday gift ideas for me, check out the link below. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPXF-iZh488 |
| Check out the cool sig terryjroo made for me! Get a load of those ninja shurikens, way cooler than those wussy-ass snowflakes the rest of you got. I also want to take this moment to remind everyone that December 5, a mere two days before my birthday, is Annual Day of the Ninja! On this day we celebrate the ultimate warriorhood of the ninja. Wearing ninja masks to work, throwing shurikens at squirrels, committing seppuku, and flipping out and killing everyone in the line at Target are all acceptable ways of celebrating the ninja. It's a lot like Talk Like a Pirate Day... except ninjas never talk, they kill. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| Here are my choices for a new blog header. What do you think? ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| I'm typing this entry from my toilet. I wanted to savor this poop, seeing as how I've been preserving it all morning, letting it grow into something glorious and refreshing. So here I am relaxing on the shitter, enjoying the minutes of sweet fecal release and stretching this me moment into a whole cluster of poo-filled me moments. Some people read a magazine, do a crossword, or ogle a Playboy centerfold, but I'm passing the bowel-moving bliss by blogging. See how much you all mean to me? Well, actually I'm kind of sick of those Update Your Blog emails. My holiday weekend was spectacular, but I won't bore you with the details. Lord knows I've read Thanksgiving entries in every blog and journal I frequent. I'm still wiping the sleep particles out of my eyes from the last one I read. Yes, you know who you are. There was one moment I could reflect on though that won't bore you all to tears or make you gag from saccharine moments with my lovely fiancee. Jodi actually already mentioned it in her blog. After Thanksgiving dinner the family wanted to play some games. Naturally I'm a five time Trivial Pursuit champion. Naturally. They only broke my streak last year when they bought Trivial Pursuit Junior Edition, a dumb-downed version of board gaming genius that even a scroll spammer could complete. Again this year, they wanted no part of my mad skills at knowing useless facts, and instead thought they could thwart me with Pictionary. Little did they know I spent most of my fifth grade recesses decimating and then taunting all the pretty, popular girls at that very game. In hindsight, maybe not the best strategy, but I digress. I shall try to refrain from doing the same to Jodi. Needless to say I whooped them in Pictionary as well, with Jodi as my tagalong partner. That was while dinner was cooking though, an event that waited until late afternoon because my asswipe brother was dining at his fiancee's parents' house first. Thanksgiving dinner did not culminate in a winner take all, hell in a cell foodfight like it did last year. I managed to fling mashed potatoes on my father's shirt, a task which required three attempts and confirmed my ring rust, but alas I was no Bluto this year. They all resisted the temptation like a bunch of pussies. My father forbid it unless we chipped in $20 a piece for the food, and I was the only taker. Thanksgiving dinner food: $20. Thanksgiving dinner foodfight: priceless! No one else could grasp that math. Oops, hang on a sec, I have to wipe myself. Ah, there we go, nice and fibrous so I was able to conserve TP. But anyway... So then my sister brought out "Nightmare," an anxiety-inducing throwback from my youth. If you're a child of the 90s and you never played Nightmare or one of its oh-so-endearing sequels, you seriously missed out. Basically you go round and round the board with your piece, landing on tombstones (because each square is a aged tombstone) collecting cards and keys. Once you have all six of your keys you move to the center of the board and pull the top Nightmare card off the deck. If it identifies your worst fear, as you wrote at the beginning of the game, then you lose. If the card is someone else's worst fear, then you win, game over. But wait, the best part is yet to come! You put a VHS cassette into the VCR and an ugly, cloaked fellow called the Gatekeeper talks to you. Normally the video is just a black screen with a clock ticking down to the one hour time limit. You see, you have one hour to beat the game or forever be ridiculed by the Gatekeeper. He appears on the screen at random intervals, decaying and developing demonic eyes as the minutes tick by. He screams at all the players, calls them scum-sucking maggots, and demands we answer "Yes, my Gatekeeper!" If you do not answer when called and the other players notice, you're banished to the Black Hole and ridiculed once again. He'll invite you to play games with him, usually by rolling dice, to win the coveted keys. As the seconds tick by he screams at you, and a frantic panic slowly becomes the dominant emotion of the game. We played this game when I was about 12 or so, which means my brother and sister were about 6 and 5 years old. We played the game in the dark with the Gatekeeper screaming insults at us and brain-washing us into submission. Usually around 55 minutes into the game we'd look around and realize no one had any keys yet, and the pressure would begin to build. Everything happens literally in the last 5 minutes of the game. The Gatekeeper declares he's playing Havoc and appears every 30 seconds or so to tell each player in turn that they can't move again until they roll their number. You can cash in all the Time cards at the last few minutes to finally collect keys, and it's a mad dash to the center of the board. I daresay of all the times we played that game, the Gatekeeper won 8 out of 10. Thanksgiving Nightmare was no different. My mother miraculously amassed 4 keys early in the game, and by 55:00 we were all rooting for her to win. All except for Jodi, who sat there horrified that we played this game as young children. Around 57:30 my brother snatched the dice and hung onto them. We demanded he roll and move, but he resisted and stared at the clock ticking down. I feared the inevitable panic had set in and began wrestling him for the dice. Physical brutality was never uncommon when playing Nightmare. He hung on a few seconds more and produced a Time card that earned him every one of his keys. We all whooped in excitement, at last seeing the downfall of the Gatekeeper in our grasp. My mother collected her final key as my brother moved to the center of the board. Of the remaining three players, we only had 3 keys between us. Realizing we were slowing down my brother's chances, I banished the three of us to the black hole and began moving my brother and mother's pieces as they rolled the dice over and over. It felt like those frantic clock-killing minutes from the movie "Miracle," but we had way more at stake than Olympic gold. My brother landed on the Nightmare square and began celebrating. "Wait!" I screamed and reached for the top Nightmare card. I flipped it over and revealed my brother's greated fear: Chlamydia! "It's Chlamydia!" I yelled, and my brother passed out. He literally collapsed to the floor, threatening to topple the gameboard and the table in the process. I looked at the clock on the TV screen. 59 minutes and counting! I slapped the dice in my mother's hand and demanded she keep rolling. I moved her piece toward the center of the board, all the while experiencing that moment of panic when you actually forget how to count. My sister was screaming in my ear "Go go go!" My brother was passed out on the floor, his chest heaving with anxiety attack. And Jodi sat there wide-eyed, suddenly realizing what she got herself into when she said "yes." We moved the piece to the center, and I flipped over the card. Halibut-weilding midgets! That was my fear, not my mother's! I threw my arms in the air and yelled. My brother was hyperventilating in the corner and my sister had begun a celebratory dance. "Hit the stop button! Hit the stop button! Hit the God damned stop button!" I screamed. My sister collapsed in front of the TV and began fumbling for the VCR stop button. 59:42. 59:43. 59:44. 59:45. "Hit the fucking button!" 59:46! Stop. The VCR turned off, and I collapsed to the floor, my heart racing and ragged breaths escaping from my mouth. My sister vanished beneath the table, presumably to assume the fetal position. My brother lay in the corner, silently pumping his fist over and over. And my mother began rocking in her seat, giggling uncontrollably. Game over. Within 5 minutes my sister, the sadistic fuck that she is, suggested we play Nightmare II. From my prone position on the floor, where I was staining the carpet with sweat and soiled undies, I said screw that and announced I was going to have more pie. And that, my friend, is Thanksgiving with the PC family. Oh, looks like I'm done. Yup, definitely finished. I actually photographed the contents of the toilet, and the fecal glory is sitting on the camera right now. I was going to post the photo and link it here. You all partook in this poo-making, and I felt I owed it to you to take a gander. I don't think Jodi would approve though, and I love that girl too damn much. So alas, you won't get to see the poo-fest in which you all participated by reading this. I can email it to you if you want. |
| You thought you could get away with it huh? Oh puh-lease, I'm way too observant for that. What am I talking about you wonder? Oh, just the obvious team effort at cheering me up. I'm on to you. Three merit badges in two days. A journal entry dedicated to me. Countless IMs sent my way at hours when I wouldn't expect them. My fiancee noticing my community recognition number changing? No, I'm way to observant to not figure it out. Yesterday terryjroo sent me a merit badge. Last night Jodi said "So you got a new merit badge huh?" Alarm bells went off in my head. "How would you know that?" "I saw your number went up." Bingo, she was lying. No one except for me notices when community recognitions go up. Well, except maybe for mood indigo , but she's competitive about that sort of thing. I just notice it, often with people I don't even talk to much. I knew something was up.After receiving a second merit badge from missbiggs it became obvious to me. I actually IM'ed terryjroo this morning, asking her who put her up to sending me a badge. She claimed I was paranoid. novusfemina then dedicated a blog entry to me, about one of my favorite subjects no less: poop. And this afternoon darkin sent me a badge. Mix in a whole slew of IMs and a couple anonymous c-notes with similar messages but clearly from two different people, and I could take it no more. I demanded Jodi tell me what she had done. She denied it for quite some time, but eventually she cracked under my insistence and presentation of the evidence. My wonderful fiancee had apparently told several of my online friends that I was pretty down in the dumps and could use some cheering up. And you tricky friends, you, were quick to oblige. I thank you all. It is greatly appreciated, and I'm actually kind of touched. In the head probably, but still... There's nothing quite like knowing you have friends who care, even though you've never met some of them But let this be a lesson to you. You can't slip anything past me. You can't trick the trickster. I dare you to try. |
| I just got the word from a friend of mine that one of Writing.com's premiere Ernie-haters wrote about me in his journal. He dubbed me his biggest fan or something. I don't actually know the details because I never read the entry. According to my friend, this fellow expects me to respond. Kind of hard to do since I don't even read his journal. See I only willingly read things that meet at least one of the following: 1) it's entertaining or 2) it's good writing. I suppose I could read this particular entry that makes reference to me, but frankly I have some nose picking that needs to get done. I don't read his journal outside the context of the "Follow the Leader" contest, and that's how I intend to keep it. However, I aim to please my readership, and since he is apparently one of my devout readers, I shall give him what he wants. So here's your response, grim . See that, I even linked to your handle so my mob of readers can check out your port and journal. I mean, that's really what this is all about, isn't it? Journal envy right?I apologize for not reading your entry, but it doesn't really matter does it? You get to ride my coattails and enjoy my limelight for your fifteen minutes whether I read your entry or not. You're not the first and you won't be the last. It's no secret I let my detractors and libelous naysayers feast on my popularity. Really, all you had to do was leave a comment in here. You would have received this much sought after and no doubt much appreciated publicity. And I would have actually read what you have to say. Instead I have to go on pure conjecture, which isn't really fair. But then again, neither is life. I don't mind giving you the occasional shoutout--Lord knows I try to help those less fortunate than myself--but expecting me to read your entry too? Now that's just greedy. Now if you thought I was going to enter into a debate or blog war with you, I'm afraid you're mistaken. All it ever accomplishes is driving up the views and readership on my opponent. So let's cut to the chase, shall we? Readers, please check out his fantastic journal. It's titled "A Shade of Green," or something like that. Oh! If you happen across the entry that references me, please fill me in when you get a chance! |
| I liked this story the first time I heard too, when it was called "The Matrix." Oh, that's not it. Well, wait, it's so damn familiar. Oh oh I got it! The story of civilization and progress plodding along at the expense of humanity. An anomaly, a nameless anomaly, appearing out of nowhere. Someone spots the anomaly and begins to think. It brings a message of change. It all rings a bell now. It's "The Lorax!" The Lorax spoke for the trees, the Truffula trees!. And the Brown Barbaloots in their brown barbaloot suits! And swommy swans! And... uh... fish. Basically he was a pushy tree-hugger, but anyone that can lift himself by the seat of the pants and float away earns my respect. Imagine how much different it would have been if the Lorax went all gangster on the Once-ler. No more biggering and biggering and BIGGERING if the Lorax is all up in your face with a gloch. I guarantee if the Lorax had left off with all that "I speak for the trees" rhetoric and told him "Get lost, motherfucka, before I bust a cap in your ass" things would have turned out differently. For one thing, Dr. Seuss would have been famous for teaching ebonics to the youth of America. For another, that Thneedy ol' Once-ler would have hightailed it out of town and wound up selling Thneed contraband to all the Whos down in Whoville. Or if the Lorax had know how government works today he could have tied the Once-ler in spools of red tape. He could have alerted the planning board, the building inspector, the board of health, the conservation commission, the EPA... he could have buried that fucker in permits and meetings. He could have "tripped" over a Truffula tree stump and sued the Once-ler. I doubt very much the Once-ler had liability or homeowner insurance; he was a shady character at best, evidenced by all the things he kept in his gluvulous glove. They would have settled out of court for Truffula acreage and maybe some extra barbaloot suits. So many ways the Lorax could have made a change. But he didn't, because he just kept climbing up on that stump and whining. Progress plodded on, because that Lorax lacked a spine. Such a whiner, and I bet he didn't even vote. Or he registered with the Green Party and threw his vote away. |
| It's late, I'm exhausted, I have stuff to do before we leave tomorrow, and I haven't written anything for NaNoWriMo tonight. I'm so very tempted to write one of those one line response entries that so many others are doing. It would go something like "I've never been to a Ren Festival." I'd even abbreviate Renaissance to save time. But I can't do that. I owe it to the contest and to auric to fight the drowsiness and write a real entry. He's the only one that remembers my margarita joke in the W.com chatroom, so he deserves it. No, I've never been to a Renaissance Festival, and I'm actually a little torn on the whole idea. Part of me wants to cave to the inner geek and embrace a culture that's always intrigued me. Another part of me though realizes that so long as I stay away from Ren Faires, learning Klingon, playing D&D again, and dressing as Darth Vader at movie premieres I won't slip into total geekdom. Geekdom is okay, but there's a fine threshold between funny, cool geek and sad, pathetic geek. I think you cross that line when you're elligible to be the butt of a joke on a late night talk show. Assuming I don't mind flirting with that threshold, which I don't, I've never had many opportunities to attend a Ren Festival. In fact I've had exactly zero. I don't know of any festivals within reasonable driving distance, and I've never known anyone who would possibly go with me. In fact, growing up I never went anywhere really, because none of my family shared my interests, and I was too socially retarded to go with a friend. I still am. With Jodi in my life, I have found not only love but also a best friend. For the first time ever I feel like I have someone to do things with that I would have never done alone. Though certainly a Renaissance Festival is too geeky for her. It might even be too geeky for me. |
| I never saw the point in egging things or throwing toilet paper on Halloween. Tricks are only fun when you get to see the victim's reaction, and seeing them clean it up a day later doesn't count. Tossing a roll of TP into a tree or splattering someone's shutters with egg whites isn't funny in and of itself. Giggling like idiots and running around is amateurish and best reserved for pranksters who just smoked too much weed. Think about it this way. Remember the old flaming dog poo gag? Fill a paper bag with dog poo (or human fecal matter as appropriate) set it on someone's doorstep, light it on fire, knock on the door, and hide in the shrubbery to watch. The occupant will open the door to see who has come a calling, discover the flaming paper bag, and proceed to stamp it out. But of course the treacherous trickster has filled the bag with dog poo. Now the startled and perturbed occupant has poo-covered loafers and a poo-covered porch. Charred poo no less. The important detail here is "hide in the shrubbery to watch." You get to see said occupant's eye bug out of his head upon seeing the fire, watch him mash his freshly polished leather shoes into steamy doggy doodoo, and giggle uncontrollably at the horrified look on his face when he discovers the scatological truth. If you're lucky, you may even get to run away, holding your sides from laughter no doubt, as he chases you down the street. Clearly egging a house or throwing TP like confetti doesn't win you this immense bit of hilarity. It's all in the reaction, folks, and eggs just don't cut it. My family has a long Halloween tradition. We spend more on that holiday than on Christmas of late. When deciding if a decoration, a theme, a scheme, or a trick is worthy of our Halloween celebration we assess it's relevance to one adjective: heinous. If it's not heinous, it's not Halloween. Outsiders suggesting items that could be described as "cute" are ostracized, excommunicated, and poked with steak knives. You see, we have one goal at Halloween, one ultimate achievement in trickery, one reaction by which we measure all others. We want to make someone piss his pants. And not just a little piss, not just a tiny pinprick of piss that could pass for a leaky pen in one's pocket. We're not talking about that spot you might get when you're trying to hold it but a tiny bit dribbles out. We're talking full blown, "oh shit I spilled my drink in my lap" kind of piss. We're talking "fuck, I just ruined a pair of undies" kind of piss. Piss that leaves a basketball sized stain on the front of your trousers. If it shows up on the backside too, all the better. If it dribbles down one leg and leaks out onto the floor, kudos to you. If it mixes with that brown stuff oozing out the back, fuck yeah! There is nothing, and I mean nothing, more satisfying than making a grown man scream like a little girl and cry out for Depends. It's the Holy Grail of trick or treating. That total look of bewilderment, followed by that ashen look of humiliation, warms my heart. The moment between which the fear and shock are subsiding and the sudden realization that one needs a change of undies is to be cherished. It's fleeting and is not easily caught on film. For that brief moment, as you stare into the eyes of your victim, you touch the Nirvana of Halloween. And it is a beautiful thing. |
| I am so very tempted to write about the sig image at the bottom of poisonivy 's entry. She's got Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn in there. How freegin' cool is that?! But... I won't. This one is a hard one because there's so many damn things and damn people that I can't stand. And let's face it, I write about them incessantly, to the point that it's practically become my identity. You say PC, and people say "hippie hater." You say "Prob" and people say "Liberal Loather." You say "Ernie" and people say "asshole." Though they'll probably prefix each of those monikers with "poop-loving." I hate being typecast, I really do. That's why I keep reinventing my fixation. Poop, ninjas, pirates, hippies, whatever. People love to take the latest thing I blog about and all but prod me into writing more on the matter. I'm tempted to write about how I can't stand people that can't take a joke. But I've done that already (many times), so I won't. I could write about how I hate womanizers, cassanovas, and sex fiends. But I've done that too, and I have no desire to go off on a rant and end up flirting with the infamous rule #4 mere hours before the contest ends. I could write about hating hippies, liberals, tree-huggers, etc. But not only do I write about that almost daily, but it's also a gross exaggeration and very clearly an intentionally offensive joke, just in case you assclowns with no sense of humor still haven't gotten it yet. Just a couple nights ago I wrote about hating whiners, so that one's out too. That's unfortunate since it most clearly supports poisonivy 's theory that we hate our own characteristics, or at least what are predominant characteristics used to be.There's infinite fodder for stupid people I can't stand, but frankly that's boring because stupid people are mind-numbingly boring. Unless they're doing dangerous stunts or making hilarious blunders. That actually makes them okay in my book because they're using their total lack of intellect or skill for our personal amusement. Of course I can't stand incompetent coworkers, like my damned supervisor that insists we can fix a problem printing service orders after three IT people with way more knowledge than him have repeatedly confirmed that it can't be done. Or my colleague who still needs things repeated 11 months later. Nice guys, but sometime I just can't stand them. Mostly because their incompetence results in me having actual work to do. I often can't stand artsy fartsy people either, but I'm sure you already know that by now. Lord knows I'm rather open with my opinions. Take the artsy out and leave the fartsy, and we might be okay. Damn, I could write about all kinds of people I can't stand. Actually, I guess I just did. |
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Tooo rich...Love the tale....Would make a great comic for a local newspaper!!
