Scooby Doo, Where Are You?

I remember watching a good bit of Scooby Doo when I was younger. Of course, I watched a whole lot more of it when the Boy was younger. Scooby Doo was the first thing on television in which he ever showed any real interest, so it was on most of the time (like M*A*S*H and Wings, you can find it on cable any time you need a fix).

It is with these older eyes that I present to you a short scene from episode seven of the first season, "Never Ape an Ape Man." I know that Scoob is an American icon and all. I also appreciate what it did for animation (cracked it wide open for TV by doing things on the cheap), but I'm sorry, it's just retarded.

Here we find Scooby and the gang looking for clues to help them solve the case of an ape man that's terrorizing a movie set:

Hey, Scooby, what's that you've found?	Somebody left half a hamburger!
Don't eat that clue, Shaggy!	See those claw marks? The ape man was eating this sandwich.
That's odd. Apes don't eat meat.	You don't, however, find it at all odd that the ape man made a sandwich and served it in a little pie pan? Apes don't make sandwiches, you ignorant cunt.

That last part I sort of added myself. The rest of it is pretty much verbatim.

Pseudoprofanity, Punctuation, and Unbridled Youth

3000 FREAKIN' POINTS!

This, and many other various and sundry freakin' things, have been announced in my quiet home lately. The Boy has discovered the joy of profanity, or at least, the joy of its fat, impotent, retarded cousin. Freakin, friggin, dangit, flip (as in "what the flip!?") and a bunch of other crap. And also crap.

I don't mind it so much. He doesn't know it, but "hell" and "damn" are perfectly acceptable as far as I'm concerned. Language is HEAVEN. Among the greatest pleasures I know. It's a way to get my thoughts out of my head and into yours. Sometimes? Yeah. Sometimes those thoughts include "fuckface" and "shithammer."

His freakin' use of the freakin' word "freakin'," however, required my freakin' intervention. Not an etiquette lesson, mind you. Just the occasional reeling-in you sometimes need when you're 10.

I took myself a marker and an index card and wrote the following:

I LIKE CAKE.
I LIKE PIE.
I LIKE CORN!
and then asked him the following question, "Based on the punctuation on this list, which of these things do you think I like the most?" Corn, of course. He got it right. Then I changed the list:

I LIKE CAKE!
I LIKE PIE!
I LIKE CORN!
"And now? Now it's a little harder to guess. Expletives like 'freakin'' are great and all, but remember that they're used as verbal exclamation marks. Too many at once and they lose their power."

And he FUCKING GOT IT. I was delighted. I've also been trying to heed my own advice in the last month or so. Not that you'd be able to tell or anything. It's important to me that phrases like "I'm going to stab you in your motherfucking neck" don't lose their punch. A person deserves the full weight of a neck-stabbing threat.

NOW -> AWESOME!

I was cracking on the National Organization for Women a while back in an attempt to get some dialog/scandal/notoriety going for myself. Also because I'm sexist and think that all women exist only to house a uterus and fix me some sammiches. Anyway, it didn't go anywhere.

Until now! Now? NOW? Get it!?

So Hillary Clinton was running all over Washington with her tits all out last week. By "tits out" I mean she had a lower than average neckline on whatever she was wearing, and by "running all over" I mean she was on the Senate floor doing whatever the hell they do in there. Shit, it could have been collarbones and a questionable mole showing at a puppet show for all I know.

You with me? Good, then. So after that, The Washington Post ran a story about it in their Style section. Then NOW picked it up, got mad as all hell, and it made it to whoever feeds Yahoo! news. Straight batshit, NOW went. I invite you to go read both articles:

Retarded story from The Washington Post
Retarded story from NOW

And here's the awesome punchline:
I have absolutely no idea whether NOW agrees or disagrees with whoever wrote the original gay story. I do know, however, that a shit piece of fluff from the STYLE SECTION written by whoever missed the last red-carpet gala was turned into national news. The Post's flunky seemed happy with Hillary's bewbage.

You should be pleased to discover that I do not intend to take the low road and accuse NOW of getting the paper and tearing right to the Style section. I want to, but I used up all my low-road credits with the number of times I said "tits."



Author's Note:
I feel the need to chastize both NOW and the Post, however, for not taking a moment to be grateful that none of the cleavage shown belonged to Bill.

Ghost Stories

Parenthood is an interesting thing. Among its many unexpected perils (and there are many) is the attempt to explain the World to someone who really doesn't know squat about anything. That whole "blank slate" thing that TV shrinks go on about can, at times, be a serious pain in the ass.

I try to cut society a pretty wide berth when it comes to questions from the Boy. Religion is one of those things I slide around when I can, as are differences among cultures and language and so forth.

Ghosts and the supernatural, however, fall under the category of "I don't have time for this shit." He brought up the matter, very somberly, the other day.

"Dad, do you believe in ghosts?"
"Nope."
"Why not?"
"Because it's completely fucking gay."

That last part was imparted more in spirit than words. My actual explanation to him was two-fold, and worth noting to all of you people living with the disembodied specter of Granpappy.

Part one is the human tendency to play Mad-Libs with its surroundings. Hey! I saw a light in the sky that I didn't recognize! KAPOW! It must be a scout ship from an invading alien race. Why? Because the notion of something being unknown to me is so goddamned terrifying that any stupid explanation sounds better than "I dunno." Not knowing something, it seems, is a license to jump to the most exotic conclusion you possibly can.

Was this can of beans in this shelf or that shelf earlier? I'm pretty sure I closed those drapes yesterday. Who knocked over the wastebasket? Dangit, Granpappy! What a prankster!

Dumbshit.

Part two is the Brown Lady. I took the Boy and dialed up a picture of the Brown Lady on the tubes. It is, I'm told, one of the most famous and circulated ghost photographs ever taken:


Favorite Sandwich: Boo-loney!

While he was sitting there being dutifully freaked out, I posed to him the following question:

"There's like umpteen-billion people in the World with cameraphones, and those cheap disposable cameras have been around for 20 years. How come some shitty old daguerreotype is the best we can do for haunted pictures?"

And therein lies another hidden peril: When you're 10, logic is worth nothing. I thought my argument was pretty air-tight, too. Stupid kids.

So I changed gears and got his mind off of it by looking up funny pictures of cats. Not the victory I'd planned for, but effective all the same.

MIRACLE SANITIZER!

It's called an appendix. Stop rubbing that germ-away shit all over yourselves. You've got anywhere from five to ten thousand different kinds of bacteria living in or on you. It won't ever go away no matter what you buy. Five generations from now when your decedents are dying of simple infections, they can thank you for fagging up their immune systems.

Howard Huges called. He wanted me to tell you to calm the hell down. Morons.

Kickin' it: Weaboo Style

Weaboo, for the uninitiated, is derogatory term for Americans obsessed with Japan. I suppose that I must be counted as such, except for the final phase: wishing to actually be Japanese. I would not like one little bit. Half the fun of those crazy little people is that they're so completely different than anything familiar to a roundeye like me.

Japan, I believe, is as close as I'll ever come to visiting another planet.

They've got teeny little cars, precious little land, they eat raw sea monsters, keep their gimps locked away, live by volcanoes, sleep in the cupboards, it's CRAZY! They've got a language that's structured, I shit you not, as simply as a third-grade math question. Its completely brilliant. It's also made out of pictures of trees and sounds like a spoon in the dryer. Win! How can you not dig a language that has incomprehensible jabbers for words but a grammatical structure that you could fit entirely on a post-it note?

I've actually been studying Japanese for about three years. Mind you, I have no chance (or real intention) of ever being capable of a conversation. I listen to Pimsleur CDs (and the like) in the car during those quite frequent times that I just don't want to think about anything. I want my mind to stop wandering around or dwelling on crap. Filling the drive learning how to say "restaurant" does the job nicely.

To illustrate my fluency, here is a sample conversation I might have. Our scene takes place shortly after lunchtime in the lobby of a fancy hotel:

me:	Good afternoon.
clerk:	Hello! Can I help you?
me:	Yes. Where is Shinjuku Avenue?
clerk:	GOOD GOD! SOMEONE CALL AN AMBULANCE! THIS POOR RETARDED MAN IS HAVING A STROKE!!

I don't mind, though. I've managed to eavesdrop the words "yet" and "here" in conversations while out and about. No context to it or anything, but still a thrill to manage to pick out a word or two from all that clatter.

I've read more than once that watching lots of subtitled anime (Japanese cartoons, still secretly called "japanimation" by people my age) will help me pick it up faster. I get too distracted, though, wondering why everyone's dressed like Sgt. Pepper and hunting vampires with plasma rifles and a robot vicar. Really.

Indian Restaurant Review!!

A little known treasure on the South Side of Indianapolis is a place called "Somethingsomething Star of India." It might be "Somethingsomething Royal Crown of India." I'm not sure. I am sure, however, that it's in a charmingly run down strip mall behind an abandoned Osco drug store.

The interior is as yellow as anything you've seen in your whole sad life, and features that laquered metal tube furniture that's usually found in your better Chinese buffets. Also, there's only one guy working there. Don't worry about talking to him, since between his crazy Hindu-speak and comical teeth you won't understand a word.

The menu is plentiful and varied (except, you know, that everything is made of curry and elephant chunks and whatever else those people eat). We started with the Grish Rashnesh, an assortment of crackers made from chickpeas with little bits of colored paste. Pretty good. The crackers were saltier than I'd like. The assorted thick fluids, however, served as a suitable foil.

For entrees, the Wife ordered the Grish Rashnesh, a curried rice with chicken and raisins and a bizarre yogurt sauce on the side. This can only be described as TOTAL FUCK WIN. Amazingly good. Boner-inducing, even. The Boy, on the other hand, tried the Grish Rashnesh, which was chicken in some crazy red stuff served with plain Dashiki Rice or something. Also very good. The lumpy red shit on the chicken was bright and sharp-tasting, and was made to be countered by the plain rice. A close second to the Grish Rashnesh.

Finally, I ordered the Grish Rashnesh, a sizzling platter with all sorts of spicy crap all over it. There were some shrimp, chicken, vegetables, crazy Hindu cheese, and maybe a dick. It was good, but I really felt slighted after poaching things from everyone else. That business with the yogurt sauce was beyond compare.

So, if you find yourself halfway to Greenwood from Indy, swing on by the Whateverthefuck Hindu Foodeeria. If you like food that smells like BO and looks like a crushed pig vagina covered in your own vomit (and still manages to taste completely awesome), you can't go wrong with the Grish Rashnesh. Or whatever.

Obligatory Prius Blog

So earlier this week my little blue Prius arrived. As is the tradition of hybridized drivers, I must now evangelize the technology so that everyone who reads this immediately rushes out to get a hybrid of their own. This is a bit tricky for me, considering that deep down, I don't really give a shit what you do.

I'm guessing all the regular points have been made by now. Reduced fuel, reduced emissions, and space-age asskickery look to be the standards. I, therefore, will offer encouragement with three things you might not have already known:

1. Increased opportunities for stupidity. I challenge you to buy a Prius with a backup camera, set the timer on your digital camera and lodge it into the headrest, then attempt to TAKE A SELF PORTRAIT while the car backs up without anyone in the driver's seat.

"Environmentally Responsible" doesn't always mean "Regular Responsible"


2. After your purchase, you get a manual that contains an image depicting untold awesomeness. I'll let you know if I manage to make the car explode my head, catch on fire, sever my enormous penis with the front door, AND summon the wrath of the gods:




3. Quite possibly the best part (especially if you've the slightest touch of OCD): HYPERMILING! Hypermilers live to beat the EPA mileage rating for whatever they drive (although most drive hybrids). Methods include: drafting, Pulse & Glide, Stealth Warp, DWB (driving without brakes), and ridge riding. This is akin to the greatest video game you ever played, but with actual lives at stake! Better still? It boils down to increasing your fuel efficiency by pissing off everyone around you! Sweet. This morning, for instance, about three people flipped me off, but I got an average of over 65 MPG. 70-90 isn't unheard of, and the hardcore Japanese are running well over 100 MPG.

So go buy yourself an EdBegleyMobile! Remember that, if nothing else, it's your license to drive like a complete dick! I'll see you all on the road, most likely while you wish that I'd stop trying to coast 4 miles to the next stoplight.

The Metric System

I am a user of the Metric system of measurement. I'm not a proud user, but I'm not ashamed of it either. The entirety of my primary school education was during the high point of that whole metrification thing that the US tried. Then I made it to high school and everyone forgot.

Long about the fourth grade, I had my first ever true epiphany. One that has, remarkably, stayed with me into my golden years. It was surprisingly astute for an eleven-year-old:

I've had just about enough of these fucking fractions.

And so, I embraced the metric system while the rest of you slobs stuck with furlongs and cubits. Seriously. That's the whole reason.

And now, this many years later? I can combine measurements in my head!

5.7cm + 2.1cm = 7.8cm
whereas
2 3/32 inches + 1 1/3 inches = FRACTIONS SUCK

See? The rest of the planet was on to something, there.

Accidental Green

I annoy my family in endless ways. One method that has, at long last, dropped off of the radar of irritation is my obsessive refusal to utilize the drive-thru window at fast food restaurants. They've finally come around. Well, they've come around or given up. Either way, I win!

Hippies and Democrats sob incessantly about drive-thrus. Blah blah blah, greenhouse whatever, blah blah. It is true that shutting the car off for a few minutes if you can will suck a little less dinosaur juice. Over a period of years it might even cut greenhouse emissions by a pound or two. So, good. I think it's swell that the hempshirts are happy that I'm not tearing shit all up with the car.

The real reason, however, is much simpler and shorter-reaching.

Two things:
Thing one: At any given drive-thru on the planet there are no fewer than two minivans filled with morbidly obese people waiting for their next trans-fat/potato fix. They speak to me telepathically when I see them, and they always say the same thing:

I'm too tired to buy groceries.
I cannot be bothered to prepare food for myself.
You know what? I'm not even going to get off my ass and stand.
I wish there was another window where people would break
up my food and insert it into my gelatinous facehole.

Great job, eatbeast.

If I want to eat, I must be hungry enough to walk 15 goddamned feet to get food that need only be dropped into my mouth. Sitting in the car and waiting to be fed is the last stop before hiring a Mexican to turn your food into poop for you because you're too fucking lazy to digest it yourself.

Thing two: The drive-thru takes too long.




I'm like one of those Greenpeas dudes or something! ENVIRObrian93!

iPod for Dummies!

PROTIP: There's only one button, dumbass.

Ape Nation: THE GRAND CHAMPION

I've made for years the same joke regarding my users and their ability to utilize technology. Seriously. For many years.

"What? Christ, no. I wouldn't trust those hollowskulled Apes to make popcorn in the microwave without supervision."

Today? Today we had a special visitor!


I missed it, but there's a big ladder truck right around the corner.


That's right! The actual fire department came out because popcorn was burned so badly that the smoke alarm went off. Tax dollars: wasted! Better still? This isn't the first time we've been fined for a false alarm because "two to three seconds between pops" is far too complicated an indicator of popcorn doneness.

You should see them use email.

I'm buying a gun!

I might join the NRA!

I've never fired a gun in my life, let alone owned one. Never really cared much for them. Too loud. Instant death. You know the drill.

My mind, however, has been changed! I'm gonna get me a gun! I'm gonna get a gun and then I'm gonna go kiss Ted Nugent. OPEN MOUTHED.


I need this gun. Need . . . It . . .

Regular guns, see, are just for keeping Mr. Revenuer off your property. Maybe for protecting your inner-city liquor store. That gun, I think, was designed for shooting at this:




If shit ever truly goes down, I'm gonna be ready! Or, at least I'll be ready when I read through enough of the manual to understand which end of the gun dispenses the blazing destruction.

A car song.

This song, by me, is completely fictional. It has nothing to do with any test driving and certainly nothing to do with any deposits that may or may not have been paid. The song is untitled, but is to be shouted as loudly and quickly as humanly possible whilst doing this:

And now the lyrics:



Prius! Prius!
Prius! Prius!
Prius! Prius!
FUCK YEAH!
Smart Key? FUCK YEAH!
Bluetooth? FUCK YEAH!
Backup Camera? FUCK YEAH!
VSC? FUCK YEAH!
CRAZY SPACE-CAR?
FUCK YEAH!

Prius! Prius!
Prius! Prius!
Prius! Prius!
FUCK YEAH!

Go make me a sandwich, Bitch.

What the fuck is with you people? In that last post I totally took a shit on NOW, including posting a scathingly racist book to mock them, and invoked the word faggotry in the process. No flames, no threats. Nothing. Fine, Asshats.

For that, I'm not going to tell you about the awesome thing I made.

Put it together last night and tried it out (and was mildly injured during the test). Retooled, and had some success with it tonight. This morning I told the Boy that he'd be happier not putting the smaller end in his mouth since it had already been used.

Feel free to discuss the possibilities among yourselves.

N.O.W. -> RETARDS!

Yes, that NOW. The National Organization for Women one. They've managed, at last, to piss me off with their faggotry.

They haven't really done anything new, mind you. It's just that I only recently stumbled across this bit of stupidity.

Hey! Want to see a great new book!? You bet! Check this out:

This collection of short stories from parents of actual colored children guides you through the ups and downs of raising a child unfortunate enough to be born black. Through its use of colorful illustrations and simple text, you'll discover that not being white doesn't have to mean a career of stealing cars and abusing public assitance.

So? Awesome or what!?

The now.org bookstore has a children's section, and every book I see there make me think this. What in the fuck is wrong with you people? You can do jobs and stuff even though your just a girl! This is the introduction to humanity you're looking for to share with your kids?

Now there's something important I want to tell you. Seriously. Listen up. As you go on in life, a lot of people will be telling you all kinds of things. You absolutely must remember this one truth: you don't smell like raw chicken. Anyone who tells you that you smell like raw chicken is mistaken, or possibly lying. I'm sitting here right now, totally smelling you. I promise you, I don't detect any raw chicken odors eminating from you. I'd tell you if you smelled like that. You'll do well to just ignore anyone who tells you that you smell like raw chicken.

So. How long would I have to keep that up before you started sniffing at yourself? I'm not saying that you'd up and believe that you did, indeed, smell like raw chicken. The seed of doubt, however, would be planted. And what if you were a little kid? Little kids believe all kinds of dumb shit. Here's a true story!

I delighted myself one day by giving the Boy a headache! He was down on the couch, moaning, certain he was going to die from his throbbing head. Advil was requested. I put him off to "see how he felt in a few minutes" since I really like to save the meds for an actual problem. The second request came and the kitchen pharmacy finally opened. Patient was given the requested analgesic. The headache? The headache disappeared and he was again filled with pith and vinegar.

"Those Advil sure do work fast!" he exclaimed.

"Um. It's been about forty seconds. The sugar coating won't even dissolve for another ten minutes."

"Really?"

"Yep. Ten to hit your blood, five or ten more after that to have any effect."

And down he went. Once more sallow and weak from the inescapable pain in his head. It did subside in a few minutes, though, once something else drew his attention. The lesson in that, by the way, was totally lost on him.

I'm picking on NOW because they're the ones with the fuckjaw-retarded book selection that I noticed. I'm sure that other PACs have them, too. I'm sure Bill O'Reilly and Lester Summerall are working on some kids lit by now. And all of it, I'm certain, is fucking ridiculous.

Let your kids be kids for a little while longer, you dumbshits, before you drag them along on whatever crusade you're on this week. There's plenty of shit for them to deal with before you go telling them that the odds have been stacked against them from the start. Or better still: Stop assuring them that there's nothing wrong with them to the point that they start to wonder why you're so on about it.

Have faith that your kids will aquire their own baggage. They don't need yours.








Can you smell that? Something smells like raw chicken in here.

Age-Old Problem: SOLVED

Finally. There's a way to get children to eat doughnuts. Retards.

Altering Time

Technically, we're still a whole month away from the beginning of summer. This will not do. Even though it's over, I'm still sick of winter. Spring? Fuck spring. I don't need spring.

I need summer.

Today, I took matters into my own hands.

I went to the tanning salon! But no ordinary tanning salon mission. I took my flip flops and wore them the whole time. Now I have awesome midsummer flip-flop tanlines!

So suck hard, temporal slaves! I have summerfeet! Now to summerfy the rest of me.

The OCD Chain of Destiny

      This is so very hard to explain. I'm in a terrible conundrum, MySpace, and know not what to do. Lo, Seratonin. A fickle mistress ye be.

      I'll start with a tiny example of how shit snowballs out of control around here.

      So last fall, see, I decide to trim up a decorative tree in our front yard. Branches have grown too low for too long to allow easy passage along the sidewalk. I go out with a circular saw (and precious little sense) and commence to cutting. It works, and with minimal injury to me.

      But now I gots this very large pile of branches. I tie it up as well as I can and drag it around to the side of the house until it's forgotten.

      Spring rolls in and the branchmonster is now home to God knows what. Snakes. Bears. I've got to unload this crap. I can't just light the thing up due to the confines of suburban living and the trash collector refuses to take deforestation leftovers. Hmm. What if I combine the two? Cut the shit up and burn it IN a trash can? I happen to have a can earmarked for containing things that might be on fire (long story), so the plan is laid. Cut up the branches and purify them with fire.

      Now I'm a'burnin' my sticks! Damn. That's a lot of heat just racing up to the sky warmin' God's feets. Surely there's a way to put this to some use.

      Enter the Boy. You knew he was going to show up sooner or later.

      Stick-burning becomes a weenie-roast. Then a weenie-roast with friends. Then the Wife goes out of town for a week and we start cooking chicken. Then he suggests cooking ALL of our meals over the trash can. Mother's Day? We host TWO entire cookouts with the trash can and those damn branches (with greatly varied results).

If you ever have to live under a bridge, Boy, you'll be ready.

      Remember. The problem was the overgrown tree. The overgrown tree which later turned into a hobo cafe in my back yard. I blame the Boy.

~~~~~~~

      So now my mower won't mulch. It barfs big wads of long grass all over my feet when I mow. I've made the declaration: One more blade sharpening, one more tune-up, and then I'm buying a new lawnmower.

      I've done my research and have found one I like, and I'm working hard to maintain my resolve to do all I can to get the current mower up to par. I'm not just shopping for fun; the goal hear is good mulching and overall lawn care.

      Right?

      Well. It turns out that there are no fewer than 20 COMPLETELY FUCKING AWESOME things you can do with a serviceable lawnmower engine. I won't think about that now, though. There's no need, since my lawnmower engine is bolted firmly to my lawnmower.

      God help me if that Boy catches wind of the things in my head.

Avoidable Accidents in the Home

There was very little warning. I was standing right there in the kitchen, watching the whole thing unfold, and I still didn't see it coming. The rest of the Family was busying themselves in the living room. I suppose they'd have had a chance if they'd known what to do.

If we'd only had a plan.

The Boy, if I recall, was actually reading. Quiet. Absorbed in his book. And then his father's horrified voice exploded through the room . . .

SWEET MOTHER OF GOD IT'S WINONA JUDD'S SWEATY GOOCH!!

The Wife reacted first in silence. That look about taking the name of a fat celebrity's gooch in vain in the presence of the Boy. He spoke, but as the words passed it was already over.

It's a winona sweaty wha--AAAAAARRRRRGGGBNLBLLL!!

And then nothing.

Let me back up, if I may.

See, I like to cook. I've got all kinds of potions and appliances for making things for eating. Among my most prized, is my coveted bottle of Fish Sauce. While it looks more like a tea than a sauce, and smells more like cat shit and taco meat than fish, it is my #1 secret ingredient in Japanese (or any Asian) cuisine. The Japs even tried to push a fifth flavor-type to describe it: umami or "sort of like savory but better." It is the reason shit just don't taste right when you make it at home instead of hitting a restaurant.

So, anyway, I'm gonna stir fry up some beef. Kickass! I got my big steel wok. Got my other shit. Wok + peanut oil are getting HOT on the stove. It wants to smoke, but can't. So so close to smoke! I throw in a whole clove of garlic and it starts cracking and jumping around in the pan. Oh, yeah.

And then I don't know what happened wrong in my brain. I know better than this. Without really thinking, I grabbed the bottle of fish sauce and blasted the hot oil with it. The reaction was instantaneous. The water vaporized immediately and the fishy residue lauched a plume of humid buttsmoke past me and into the living room.

I have never experienced anything like that smell. Fuuuuuuck. Fuck. It was so bad.

I was forgiven for my language later, once everyone understood. Once the true scope of the horror I'd unleashed had become apparent.

For the record, fish sauce goes in toward the end of what you're making.

Thank you for calling: APELINE!

Okay. You want to know what work has been like? I'll spare you the technical babble and try to illustrate the underlying bullshit:

**RING RING!**
"This is obrian93, can I help you?"
"Hi. Is this obrian93?"
"Yes."
"Well I just thought that you should know that you're doing a TERRIBLE job."
"Oh? I'm sorry. Is there anything I can help you with now?"
"This chocolate milk of yours tastes like SHIT"
"I'm sorry? I don't think I gave you any chocolate milk."
"Well it's SHIT. Chocolate milk? The stuff you're supposed to DRINK!? I can't drink this swill. What are you going to do about it? Not that I expect anything from you."
"But . . ."
"I've tried to enjoy this slop. I think I'm being more than fair."
"When did I give you chocolate milk?"
"Yesterday. Don't try to put this off on me!"
"Yesterday? Are you talking about the pudding I brought over?"
"Are you calling me stupid? I know all about you, you know."
"I remember the pudding, but I really don't think there was any choc--"
"I KNOW THAT. Are you calling me a liar?"
"No? I'm jus--"
"The pudding WAS chocolate, do you agree?"
"But I thought you said . . ."
"DO YOU AGREE?"
"Sure?"
"And do you drink water, or are you above that, too?"
"What?"
"W-A-T-E-R. Is that something you drink?"
"I suppose."
"So?"
"I'm not sure I understand."
"When I put drinking water into this chocolate pudding, it was terrible!"
"Wait a minute! You put wa--"
"Don't you start that double-talk with me! [SEE REASON MATRIX BELOW]"

Please select:

It worked before
That's how we did it where I used to work
You never specifically advised me otherwise
I was never properly trained
That's how I've always done it at home
My cousin is an expert on these sorts of things and said it would work
I read about it in the newspaper
It never actually worked. I've been bitching to everyone else about it for months.

"Yeah. Um, I don't think that'll work."
"I'll be speaking with your manager about this attitude of yours."


Fuckwit apes. If the above allegory doesn't speak clearly enough of my predecament over the past few weeks, perhaps the following visual aid will:

Death Clock: Two Minutes Closer to Midnight

The day will come, I know, that I will fade into the dreamless sleep of fallen kings. Earth will reach up for me one last time, and in that final solemn embrace, I will at long last rest and wait for the tomorrow that never comes. What mechanics are at work here? What long chain of turning gears both within me and across the universe keep me moving ever closer to the abyss, without hope of stopping?

That fucking Boy. That's what.

Last week he came home with tales of "The Movie." The 4th grade introduction to human sexuality. Had I known just how well this would serve to accelerate my already brisk senescence, I'd have sent that awkward VERBOTEN slip back a month ago.

The books all tell you, of course, to 'discuss' this shit with your kids. "Do you have any questions?" And the old standby, "Don't worry. That's perfectly natural." Snore.

We talked a little bit about birds, bees, and shitty elementary school movies about puberty. The only wisdom I had to offer had a social/sexual bent:

Don't go spreading this around or anything, because it's a bit of a secret. It turns out, though, that about half the population of the entire planet has dicks.

This was touched off by his fascination that the boys and the girls were separated and each watch their own little movie. I filled him in a little bit on what was going on at the other screening. He was not amused.

It's a hilarious bit of folly, the time-honored sexual repression of the USA. I might be among the few non-elderly people around that support it. Sure, we could all loosen up a little bit so there wouldn't be the desire to split up the kiddies by gender so girls could go a little longer without hearing the term "nocturnal emission" and boys wouldn't have to envision the monthly activities of the average uterine wall, but I'm not ready to kill all the mystery.

Case in point: Boobs are awesome. Right? You bet! Boobs are awesome and they're awesome because of the aforementioned repression. Mysterytits! Without at least a few sexual hang-ups, mysterytits would become extinct.

See this guy?

Oh. Those again. That's great.

How tragic! For him, tits are food for babies. The end. Can you even imagine what would happen to our economy without mysterytits? That's, like, half of all our marketing. Maybe even more. How could he possibly know what brand of beer he likes?

My Fine Day Off

Retards, dipshits, chatter, bitching, regrets, drama, crisis, more retards, Apes, war, remorse, fear, panic, Apes that are also fat, distraction, assbags. All of it.

GONE.

For today my Boy turned 10. I can now write his age as a numeral rather than a word. Unchanged, however, is just how amazing he is. Straight-up most awesome thing in the history of things that are awesome. Exactly one decade under my belt now, and exactly nothing else matters that much to me today.

As he rolls on, seemingly nonplussed, into the next 10 years, I hope he maintains the sense of wonder and adventure that he's shown so far.

He is the life of the party. 100%.

Happy birthday, Boy.

M-Rated Birthday Cake

Not "X" rated! M rated. That Boy is so spoilt I don't even believe it myself sometimes.

That was the dry run to see if the stenciling would work on the fondant. I'm gonna let the Boy make the final his own bad self for the big party next week.

And yes. The Gears of War cake has a fondant. Fondants are very manly. It also has chocolate sprinkles for dirt, which is totally manly. Kiss my ass, all of you.

Would You Pee on Me?

I should certainly hope not. You'd be marked forever as just about the rudest fucking person I'd ever met. You nasty motherfucker.

That said, it's been a raucously mellow three weeks off. Holidays and fam and playing hooky. So it's about time to get back to bombarding you strangers with tales of my life. About which you really shouldn't care. But we're both here. And I've been in the liquor cabinet again.

I'm tired. No big. There was Christmas (and we totally win this year for consumerist gluttony), and immediately thereafter the NEW post-coistmas that goes along with it. When you're a kid, see, a big to-do like that ends and you're left wanting a bit for just one more surprise to unwrap. Even socks or something. As a parent, however, it's a little different. There's the end of the anticipation that had lasted for so long, just like before, but there's also an end to the endless prep-work for the event. Joy? Stress? Whatever it was, you're done. For me, at least, it gets pretty consuming throughout the month of December. When it's all over, I'm always left wondering for a little while just what I'm supposed to do next.

Other than clean the skanky fish tank. Which is very skanky.

It's not so much bad as it is a little confusing. I also wonder just how much I'd have accomplished had it not been for all that damn Holiday business.

I get a bit of a break from the New Year's doldrums, though, since The Boy's birthday is a SCANT 15 days afterward. The race is on again in no time! I don't know what you people who have to haul it all the way to spring do. That must suck! It also must be why St. Patrick's Day is still on the calendar.

And in between the two maelstroms of Boy-spoilification?

NEW YEARS!

This year's MONDO FOOLISHNESS:

The red arrow indicates speeding TP

This year we tried out v2 of the Toilet Paper Gun. A modified Shop-Vac blower that can empty a single-ply roll of Scotts in 16 seconds. That's right! 19.25 motherfucking feet per second!* Much better output than last year. Next year we've agreed to revisit the CO2 confetti bombs. "Cylinder Ejection" problems ended research last time.

Boys are messy. Deal with it.


(*gun output based on dumping a roll in 15.8-ish seconds using "Scott's 1000" brand ammo weighing in at 1000 3.7 inch squares per roll. WOMP. Using 2-ply makes for a very short display of power, btw.)

Pancakes!

Boys (and I would assume girls, too) fucking LOVE pancakes! I also loves me the cake from the pan. Too bad, then, that pancakes are so ubelievably bad for you. As a father, I wish the Boy happiness in his mornings. Also, as a father, I know that short of stabbing him through the pancreas and then letting the cat shit in the wound, there's no worse way to start a child's day than pancakes.

So every few weeks or so, I buck up and make the pancakes. Then try really hard not to inhale whatever's left on his plate as soon as he's out the door.

It's been a while, and since tomorrow begins the AWESOME winter break from school, I'm leaning in a pancakey direction for breakfast.

Last time I made them, I caved and got one of those cheapass little add-water-and-shake pancake mixes. I decry them because pancakes have all of four ingredients, and as a grown man I feel like I should really be able to work that out. It was a school day, though, and I had an early appointment that morning, so easy was in.

You add some water, shake the bottle, then loosen the cap to let any volatile battergasses to escape. Easy? Easy. So, to get everything timed out just right, I did the add/shake/vent, put an empty pan on, and then went to rouse his highness.

As soon as he was getting up and dressed, I hit the kitchen to begin the actual cooking part. Spray the pan, and give the batter one last shake. This would be where things broke down a bit, because genius-me forgot to tighten the cap. Pancake batter went everywhere. It was insane how far that shit flew. The kitchen looked like the set of Bukkake Weekend 3: LEPER ISLAND.

Enough batter remained in the bottle, however, for a decent stack of da flapjacks. And that's my pancake story for today! Be sure to subscribe to Pancake Stories Weekly.

Also, my serotonin has finally cranked back around so I am now (once again) weighing everything I eat or drink down to the tenth of a gram and maintaining detailed logs of it all. Stupid fucking brain.

Gay Coffee

I was requested one of those little one-cup coffee machines to include in my Christmas shopping this year. For the last month, I've been singing this song:

Honey, I'm a rover
concrete clover
Tassimo, Tassimo!

See? It's funny because I'm putting Rufus Wainwright in the position to want to have a gay affair with an underage coffee maker! Ha ha ha!

Fuck off. I think it's fucking hilarious. You're a douche.


UPDATE
Fine.
See, the verse above is based on the song Grey Gardens by Rufus Wainwright. Originally, the last line is "Tadzio," not "Tassimo."

Grey Gardens is, in turn, based on a book called Death in Venice, by Thomas Mann. In the book, Tadzio is a teenaged boy with whom this old German guy falls in love. Old German's got it bad, too. Stalking and everything! But alas, the two never actually meet and Old German dies from pooping out all his electrolytes (read: cholera). The book is incredibly, horribly depressing and I must admit that I didn't much care for it.

Grey Gardens, however, is a great song that I highly recommend. Be sure to replace "Tadzio" with "Tassimo" when you sing along, though. Then if you ever die from a terrible disease you can despair over never knowing the tender embrace of my beautiful, young coffeemaker.

You people need to read more.

DEWPOINT!

Oh, God. I swear. I work with grown-ass people and the majority of them have absolutely zero idea what's going on around them. Stupid stupid stupid motherfuckers. You've been here, on this planet, for your whole damned life. How do you miss this kind of thing?

If you're familiar with dewpoint and relative humidity, you're excused. If you can't tell me what either term means, then go cook yourself up another Hot Pocket and go back to bed. Then read this.

Okay, then. You know in the summertime when you grab your fourteenth beer and go stumbling out into the yard to find your son playing with his Legos? And one of the little blocks is fucking PINK?!

"GAWDAMMIT FUKR! I didnn raise no faggit!" you shreik. Then you kick him in the back for a while. Have you done that? Sure! Then his limp little body starts scooting across the yard and keeping up with it makes you DROP YOUR BEER.

You didn't drop it because you were drunk, though! And even though you give the kid another shot for it, you know it wasn't really his fault either. Your cold beer got all slippery and wet because it was hot outside.

When the temperature of the surface of your Pabst Blue Ribbon can is cold enough compared to the surrounding air, condensation forms. Right? You bet. You've seen that happen by now. Okay, then. You ready for the money-shot?

The temperature that the beer can needs to be in order to sweat is the dew point temperature.

The end. It's that easy. When Mr. Weatherman says, "we'll have a dew point temperature of 56 degrees," it means that your beer must be that cold to get any condensation. Colder's great, too, but 56 is the cutoff. 57? Would 57 degrees work?

NO. I just told your stupid ass! 56 degrees, according to my imaginary weatherman, is the required amount of coldness for a slippy beer can.

In 2003, James Bond invented an even handier idea before he was tasked with assassinating Robot Jesus. He invented relative humidity! Here's how that one works:

• Figure out the temperature outside. Most people like thermometers.
• Figure out how cold something needs to be to sweat (or at least fog up a little)
• Do some wicked math based on those two temps to determine the relative humidity.

The short form is this: the more humider it is, the more closer those two temperatures can be. There's actually much more to it than that, like how the whole scale shifts around as the outside temperature changes, but the more closer/more humider rule still works.

And for the mysterious 100% relative humidity? That means no matter how warm your beer is, it will get wet when you go outside to make sure your neighbors still aren't black. That's because it's raining.

These are the rules of condensation! I'll leave you on your own to noodle over things like breathing on a mirror to fog it up or why you should stop cranking up the AC to de-fog your car windows. I'm sure you can do it! Smarty, you!

Copernicus: Kicker of Balls

     There's a whole mess of shit that you should know if you call yourself grown. Even more if you claim the title "grown-ass." I don't know if they talk about this stuff in schools. I paid regrettably little attention in HS, and plain flunked out of college.

     I am, however, a grown-ass man.

     So here's some information that you really need, even if you don't know it yet. Also even if you don't believe you need it after you read it. It's important because I say it is. Bitch.

NICOLAUS COPERNICUS
THE MAN WHO KICKED THE WESTERN WORLD IN THE BALLS

     Copernicus was a mathematician and astronomer and a whole bunch of other things. Most importantly, however, he was an amazing kicker of balls.

     From about 150 CE until the Great Ball-kicking of 1543, the Ptolemaic system was the place to be regarding how the universe worked. Ptolemy (and a host of other pre-time nerds) believed that the universe was geocentric, with Earth in the middle and everything else revolving around it. This got long and involved with the whole rotating spheres and orbs and epicycles and shit. Bottom line, though, was that everything revolved around the Earth.

     Now you can't have a Middle Ages party without a young and very insecure Christianity Machine coming along and fucking things all up. This time around it was the Catholic Church (as it would be for many more years).

     This isn't a sleight against Christianity and/or Catholicism. We were all young back then and made our mistakes. Sometimes with booze, sometimes with torture. Sometimes with this guy from from my second year at college who needed someone to come up to his apartment for some "test shots" for a photography class that he wasn't even fucking taking it turns out. But all the same . . .

     One of the basic tenants of Christianity (dating all the way back when it was still Judaism) is that God made the Earth and the people who live here because He's real great. It stands to reason, then, that the Earth and all of us are real great, too. Being hand-made by God and all.

     And just like Adam and Eve hooked up and begat Seth, so did the Church score with geocentricism to begat anthropocentrism! It's just like the geocentric model, except it's us at the center of the universe! The Earth just happens to also be here so you'll have a place to keep your boat. It was pretty easy to draw that line, too. Remember, God made us all special, so He'd naturally keep us right in the middle of all the other stuff He made just for us.

God has a plan. For your boat!

     And so, this was the way of thinking for all of civilization. At least all of civilization that really meant anything. Like Asia ever did anything for anybody.

     Okay, then. So after mulling things over and farting around for DECADES and putting it off, Copernicus finally got his shit together in 1543 and published De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres). He did a "lite" version, too, called Commentariolus (Little Commentary) in 1514. Both said pretty much the same thing, but Revolutionibus was actually printed and bound like a real book and had a shitload more math and charts.

The Copernican theory was mostly this:The SUN is in the middle, and the Earth travels around it--not the other way around. In the heliocentric model, Earth is just another passenger in a whole crowd of planets and tidbits and crap in orbit around the Sun.

     Humanity, at that very moment, was dealt a devastating blow. No longer were we the great centerpiece of God's whole creation. The Earth was now just one planet among many? Fuck! How much would it hurt to hear that? It would be like saying that God moved away to be at the center of the universe with whoever his REAL favorites were. Remember, we'd pretty much been believing that were were the A-1 crown on reality for as long as we'd been believing anything until then.

     Dethroned just like that? Shit. Fucking asshole Copernicus.

     Western civilization had its balls 100% kicked. 100% awesome!

     Copernican theory didn't last forever, though. Calculators and telescopes no doubt had a lot to do with that. While he didn't have the Sun at the center of the universe, he still thought it was close by; he missed the whole sun-star connection; and he had circular orbits and such-and-such. He SCORED on the changing of the seasons, though (or at least got pretty close). Also missed was the chance for a whole lot of real-world observation to back up what he thought. It was just sooo much better on paper than the Ptolemaic system.

     He wasn't right about everything, and he certainly wasn't the first person to have those ideas, but he opened the door for everything that followed. He also had a hairdo that was officially classified as ADVANCED HYPERGAY by the United Nations in 1928.

He made more time for science by
eliminating any tail-related distractions.

     This ends today's lesson. Hooray for you! Now you know some shit. This is why no one should really care if Pluto is an major planet or not. It's not like God is going to leave over it or anything.