CBH - Live! at the House of Blues.

Sometimes when I am searching for pictures on the web for particular blog posts, I will stumble on something completely different. With "safe search off," the resulting picture can be so disturbing that it defies description, and of course from that moment on I will obsess about ways to describe it.

During my last foray out into the world of Google, here's what I discovered. It turns out there's these things called "reborn dolls" which are, without a doubt, among the creepiest fucking things I've ever seen. Go search Google for "reborn dolls." I'll wait.

Hi. Welcome back. I know what you're all thinking. You're thinking:

(a) Holy shit!
(b) There is no effing way that's not a real baby.
(c) Is that a fake booger? No, I think it's just something on the picture.
(d) How do I convert pounds to dollars again? Is it twice as much or half as much? Goddammit I hate math.
(e) I love google.
(f) Someone paid over four thousand dollars for that?
(g) No, I'm pretty sure it IS a fake booger.
(h) Holy shit!

I build furniture, and intricate work fascinates me, so I can completely appreciate the amount of sheer amazingness involved here, but tell me I'm not alone in thinking this is one tiny step away from some sort of horrifying baby taxidermy. I realize there are some weird hobbies out there, but for the love of all that is holy, please stop stuffing babies.

Also, I can almost guarantee that the type of person who would buy such a thing is completely incapable of buying just one. No, this type of person will have a house full of these fake babies, in all manner of poses, reclining around the house in strategic places, all designed to provide maximum viewing potential at all times.

I find the mere thought of that to be so creepy that I probably won't sleep tonight.

There is no way you can look at this doll and not be absolutely positive there is a factory somewhere in China with a stack of cloned babies, a vat of quick-drying latex, and a bunch of cardboard boxes with "Fragile: USA" stamped on the side.

All creepiness aside, I will be the first to admit that if they didn't cost 4 grand, one of these bad boys could come in handy. In fact, I was just telling someone at work the other day that if I ever get laid off from my current job and manage to find another, this time I am going to plan ahead. Before my first day, I'm hitting Target and buying some frames, preferably ones with pictures of kids already in them. Then I will put them on my desk and lie my ass off.

Yes, I will pretend to have kids, because -- let's face it -- based on all available evidence, kids are an incredible excuse to either stay home from work, or leave work early. Having one of these dolls would allow you to create some really convincing photo ops, is all I'm saying. Eventually people would probably wonder why your kid wasn't growing and was always asleep in your pictures and then social services would get involved and it wouldn't end well for anyone, but until that happened, you'd be on easy street.

"I have to leave early to pick up my kid from daycare."
"I can't come in today because my kid has strep throat."
"I'm going to be late. My kid shoved something up his nose again."
"Yeah, I won't be in the office for a few days, my kid's paint is flaking off."

There's a million variations on this theme, and I've seen them all in use, with the possible exception of that last one. (As an aside, I am also thinking about taking up smoking, or at least taking up standing outside and holding a cigarette, because from what I can see these folks get about 15 minutes out of every hour off, and who couldn't use that?)

I know, I know -- I dream big, but the simple fact remains that I would be my own worst enemy, and my charade would probably last about three days because even as I write this I am thinking "Man, if they didn't cost 4 grand, I would totally have one riding shotgun on my ski rack right now."

So to make a long post longer, since I'm in a hotel room in Scranton trying to digest a filet that was (coincidentally) the size of a small child, let me tell you how I found out about these bizarre creations.

I can't even remember what image search I did that turned up this picture, but it definitely didn't have anything to do with what you're all probably thinking:



Upon seeing it, I became curious as to what sort of android creature they were building, and found myself on a site that detailed how you, too, can stuff babies for fun and profit.

Let me warn you, some of these pictures may scar you for the rest of your life -- or at least for the rest of this post.

First, to root the fake hair, you apparently must jab the baby-thing in the head with a giant needle, thusly:

When you are half-way done, you will have this demon-monk baby head:

Don't stare at it too long, or you will be forced to do its evil bidding, and I am not even kidding. (Between you and me, I think I may have killed a drifter earlier.)

Apparently, they are also totally customizable. If you don't like the color of the eyes, you can change them. Take little Mr. Blue Eyes here:

Obviously, the first horrifying thing you do is cut out the existing eyes.

I am still having nightmares where I wake up and that disembodied head is floating above my bed making a noise that sounds like "pshwwwsshwwwwhhhwwwwssssshssssshshshsssswwww."

Then, after you calm down and pop a Xanax or three, you simply goop up the replacement eyes and jam them in:

Voila! Your very own Creepy Baby Head:

I'm not even going to get into describing what a bag full of arms and legs looks like, but if you're interested in this particularly disturbing art form, you can get most of your natal appendage needs met here -- the site from which these pictures were shamelessly stolen.

Enjoy your night. If you can.

ps - My next band is totally going to be called CreepyBabyHead.

Mustaches. Crossbows. It's all here.

In case any of you were wondering about the videos I decided not to post, they're actually on-line as of today.

If you've ever wondered what happened to those guys who were in drama club in high school, here's your answer.

Yeah. They fight crime now.

Garbage Day.

I hate Garbage Day. It's like a weekly staff meeting - it only happens once a week, but it feels like it happens every two days. Normally I try to take it out to the curb the night before, but sometimes I forget. OK, I always forget. But that's neither here nor there.

Last Garbage Eve, I went to bed too late and the next morning I overslept. Not only was I going to be late for work, but I was also going to miss Garbage Day. Normally, that's not a huge problem, but the 75 gallon dumpster on wheels was already full from missing it the previous week, and there are only so many bags of cat shit you can have sitting on your porch, frozen or not. So it had to go out.

I jumped out of bed, grabbed some clothes, ran to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, took a quick shower, got dressed, threw a bucket of coal into the stove and ran out the door to drag that giant piece of frozen-wheeled shit to the bottom of the driveway. (Which, by the way, is approximately 120 feet long and currently consists of icy ruts covered in snow, which is not conducive to garbage rolling of any sort.) It was windy as hell, the garbage bin was not cooperating, and I almost dumped it on myself twice. I finally got it to the curb, ran back down the driveway, jumped in my car and headed to work.

Since I was late, I didn't get a chance to make a pot of coffee like I normally do, so I stopped at the Mobil station where I sometimes gas up on all things petroleum and caffeine-based. Even at that time of the morning, it's pretty crowded, and I'm in there often enough so the clerks recognize me. I was pouring my coffee when I noticed that people were looking at me strangely. I got to the counter, and the clerk looked at me and said, "Rough night?"

I laughed and said, "No, a rough morning."

I paid for my coffee, and then headed to the office. I sat at my desk for an hour or so -- answered a few e-mails, checked my meeting calendar and checked our mail gateways for problems. By that time the coffee was starting to work on my bladder, so I headed to the bathroom to take a leak.

When I looked in the mirror, I saw something disturbingly similar to this:



OK, not exactly like that. But subtract out the Hawaiian shirt, the receding hairline, and the date-rape drugs coursing through his system, and it's pretty much right on. It seemed that I had been in such a hurry to bring out the garbage bin that I neglected to do anything but towel off my hair when I got out of the shower. Then, of course, the high winds finished the job nicely.

I immediately splashed water on my hair and then slapped at it randomly until I was slightly closer to looking like I was not completely insane, then headed back to my desk.

Messing around with that mug shot of Nick Nolte (2002? Really? Holy crap.) got me thinking. Some of the hairstyles you see on male celebrities these days aren't too far off from that, and everyone is always talking about how good they look, and by everyone I mean those people in charge of all things Style.

So when I got home, I looked around on the web and found a few pictures, along with their descriptions by those in the know, the so-called Style Experts. I will contrast their view with my own.

Colin Ferrell:



What the experts say: This is a smart and neat look for Colin. Colin's back and sides have been kept short and his top has been slightly layered and blended into the rest of his style.

What I say: Jesus Christ, Colin, wash your hair. It looks like you dipped your entire head into a vat of warm bacon grease.

Keanu Reeves:



What the experts say: Keanu is the king of the casual style and this great look from the 2006 Teen Choice Awards is no exception. His hair length has been left long and this cut requires very little styling or maintenance.

What I say: Keanu looks homeless and a little smelly.

Seth Green:



What the experts say: This is a soft and sexy look for Seth. His hair has been kept at one length all over, slightly parted to one side and styled messy and wispy.

What I say: I'm glad Seth finally got his head free of that elephant's ass. It looks like he had to pull pretty hard.

Ty Pennington



What the experts say: Ty made the right choice at the ABC Upfront event with this hairstyle by messing up his fine textured ends to create a fuller and thicker look for his hair.

What I say: This is how you look moments after intentionally dislocating your shoulders, yanking the straight jacket over your head, escaping from the guards, and leaping over the fence at Arkham Asylum.

Billie Joe Armstrong



What the experts say: Green Day's world class rock star, Billie Joe, shows off his full tousled contoured style cut and jet black hair color. Could his boyish face and rock style look be a trend for men? For that punk rocker charm, Billie Joe's edgy hair style is the way to go.

What I say: He's Billie Joe from Green Day. He's supposed to look all fucked up. Also, my guess is that this hairstyle is not ever going to be a "trend for men," unless you're talking about men who have never held down a job that didn't involve either (a) being in a rock band or (b) wearing a name tag on their shirt.


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In other news, after looking at the rest of that video series, I decided to pass on them. I just didn't find them to be all that funny.


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Get it togetha, baby.

Don't get me wrong, I do think Wanda Sykes can be funny. But those Applebees commercials drive me bat-shit insane. I can't even imagine the truckloads of cash they must have offered her to get her to become the official voice of the Black Apple. I know that sounds like the name of a new superhero, but trust me, it's not. It's just a talking apple. With no face. With no... anything really. Oh, a hat. I think it has a hat now.

But all winter-wear aside, it's just an apple. That's it.

The sheer un-brilliance of this idea just boggles my mind. I can't believe someone from a supposedly high-ticket ad agency pitched it, and I can't believe someone at Applebees signed off on it.

I know you could use the argument "Hey, if you had a talking apple, you wouldn't be saying "Oh, it's just a talking apple, no big deal" and you'd be right. If I actually had a talking apple in my posession, it wouldn't take me long to parlay that into becoming rich beyond my wildest dreams. Unless of course it sounded like Wanda. Then I would just be moderately well-to-do, because talking apple or not, nobody can actually listen to her voice for any length of time without being driven to a homicidal rage. It sounds like a power saw cutting sheet metal. The same holds true for Rosie Perez and Fran Drescher, now that I think about it.

It really doesn't do much either. I guess that's fair, since it has no appendages to speak of. It just sort of....bounces around slightly in one place while it tells you what to do.

Also, I'm not sure what sort of apple-y orifice it actually uses to speak, but I think it's safe to assume that it's not being done telepathically, because I don't think Wanda wouldn't go for that. I am pretty sure that no matter how big the payoff, she would draw the line at mind-voicing telepathic restaurant-chain apples. That's all speculation on my part, of course. I could be wrong.

I'd still like to see the version of the commercial where the guy being berated by the black apple finally has enough, and he scoops it up and takes a giant bite out of it right at the table. Then, while his wife and children look on in horror, he continues to eat it until the screaming stops.

I guess it's pretty obvious why my career in advertising didn't work out.

Bonus question of the day: I've recently been approached by a company that wants to pay me a small amount of money to run a series of short, humorous videos on my blog. I've only seen the first one, and it wasn't horrible. They assure me that the rest are funnier. There's nine of them in total, and if I agree, they'd be run twice a week for a month. I am currently weighing what's left of my blogger integrity against the offer of cold hard cash, and unbelievably, I'm still undecided. One day I lean toward becoming a professional whore -- mostly because my roof is leaking -- but on other days I think that I don't particularly enjoy videos on blogs. There is also the possibility that the videos may actually turn out to be funny. Let me know your two cents.


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Happy "Valintines" Day.

Remember when you were a kid, and Valentine's day would roll around? Remember how you'd be up late the night before, making sure you had a valentine for everyone, because that was the rule? Remember how you would always make sure to put a little 'extra effort' into that one for the girl or boy you had a crush on? You don't? Well screw you, then. I don't want a card from you anyway.

I was driving home tonight and wondering what I was going to post, when I remembered that in my stash of childhood artwork, there was an envelope full of valentines from my 2nd and third grade class. I did a little digging through the pile, and even found one I had made for my mom.

Let's take a stroll down memory lane. A trip back to a simpler life; to a Valentine's Day when your teacher forced you to give a card to everyone in the class -- even the goofy kid who smelled like sour milk and threw up all over his desk that one time. Yes. Even him.

You could always tell the kids who had thrifty parents -- their valentines would always be reused from last year. They'd take the old card, glue it to a piece of paper like it was art, and then fold it in half and write something in it. Here's an example of a card like that I received from Susan:



Because of a clearly inferior glue job, I could see that the back of the original card said "To Tina." That hurt me deeply, since I knew I was getting a recycled card. But that wasn't the worst part. Oh no. Not only was the card itself recycled, the text inside the paper it was glued to was also recycled:



In case you can't make out what's going on here, that bitch Susan had originally written "This is for my best pal. His name is Greg," but apparently Greg pissed in her Frosted Flakes or something, because she decided to give it to me instead. However, rather than expend the minimal effort to actually get a new sheet of paper, she just did a half-assed erasing job and sent it to "Her next best pal" who was apparently me. So it was Tina, then Greg, then me. Can't you feel the love? I know I can.

Then there were the kids who clearly had no help at all from their parents. A folded piece of paper was the best you were going to get from them. Here's one to me from a kid named Danny:



That was it. Nothing inside. In fact, there was no inside. It was just a single sheet, with a deformed sideways heart on it. The heart was scribbled out in an apparent act of defiance against teacher-forced boy-love. I don't blame Danny for fighting the establishment, although he was always a troublemaker. I think he's in jail now. It's sort of ironic.

Remember how I was telling you about going the extra mile for someone you really liked? Check out this painstakingly rendered work of art:



You're hard to beet, Valentine. Do you carrot all 4 me? That's true love right there.

At first, this one made me all warm and fuzzy inside, because there seemed to be quite a lot of work and thought and feeling put into it. Then I opened it and immediately thought, "No, STEVE, I most certainly DO NOT carrot all 4 you, you little homosexual."

I kid. After all, it was a simpler time. I realize that Steve had no idea that his Valentine might have been a little inappropriate. He was just being a nice guy. It reminded me of that one Simpsons episode when someone asked Ralph Wiggum if he was gay or straight and he replied, "I'm not anything yet!" That was us.

Last, but not least, here's one I made for my mother when I was in the 3rd grade:



Thank you for all the Grand Things you did for us?

Who the fuck was I? Little Lord Fauntleroy?

"Thank you ever so much for all the grand things you've done for us, mummy. Now, if you don't mind, The Snitch and Houdini and I are off to play a quick game of cricket in the courtyard. Perhaps before we retire for the evening you'd be so kind as to read to us from the Illustrated Chaucer? Very good, then. Ta ta!"

I don't know what I was thinking. I have no recollection of making any of that.

I'm still not too sure about that Steve kid, though.



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Doghouses are very uncomfortable.

When you're in Orlando for a week, you get to witness a lot of poor parenting in action. Children doing whatever the fuck they want, while the parents are oblivious, or worse, they just don't care. This got me thinking about what my parents did to us to make us behave when we were small. It was a different time, but I think we need to go back to it.

When I was 9, and my brothers The Snitch and Houdini were 7 and 5, respectively, we spent a lot of time in the dog house. Don't misunderstand. This was not by choice.

Whenever we misbehaved, that's what my mother would do to us. She would give us one or two chances, and if we didn't behave, that would be it. In the doghouse we would go. Sometimes, it was just one of us, but most of the time it was at least two, because just as it takes two to tango, it also takes two to gang up on Houdini and tickle him until he pees on the living room carpet.

This was considered the worst punishment my mother could dish out. First came the standing in the corner. If that didn't work, she'd send us to her room (because our rooms were much too fun for the punishment to be effective) where we'd sit by the door dying of boredom and yelling "Can I come out yet? Can I? Can I come out yet? I'll be good, I promise..." until she threatened to spank us if we didn't shut up. If she let us out and we got into trouble again, it was the doghouse for sure. This was the straw after the last straw. Yes, I know that doesn't make sense, but work with me here. Basically, this was the moment when she handed off our punishment to my father, and washed her hands of us. She would scream, "OK, That's it! I'm putting you in the doghouse!" and we instantly became the best children on the face of the planet. But by then it was too late. We had received our warnings. We had squandered our chance to avoid our fate.

When that happened, there was only one thing to do: Beg. Beg as if your life depended on it, because you thought it just might. Beg because our father would be home at 6 pm, and if we were still in the doghouse when he came in the door, there would be hell to pay. At least that's what we believed.

Now, before you go thinking that my mother was the most heartless person in the world for stuffing her children into the doghouse, let me show you a picture of our doghouse:

It hung on the kitchen wall next to the phone. The hook inside the doorway of the doghouse was eventually replaced with a two-inch-long finishing nail, because the stock hook couldn’t easily handle all three dogs, which it was frequently called upon to do.

Most of the time, unless my mother was really pissed, we could convince her to let us out of the doghouse a few minutes before my father walked in the door. He’d normally call before he left work, and we knew that we had about 15 minutes to work on her. It was like being on death row and waiting for a pardon from the Governor. There was an almost palpable sense of freedom when it happened, and we were on our best behavior for the rest of the night, which was probably her plan from the beginning.

If you were in the doghouse and didn’t make it out before he came home, most of the time you would end up in tears, but not because of anything physical. My father was a master of psychological punishment. He was scary in a serious, stern sort of way, and he certainly wasn’t averse to a ritual spanking now and again, but he never really hurt anything but our pride. I can think of only once when he lost his temper and hit me upside the head, catching me a good one with his wedding ring by mistake. I can’t remember what I had done to deserve that, but I’m sure it had to have been spectacular. He apologized to me afterward, told me it would never happen again, and it never did.

Normally, our punishment was of the non-physical type. His usual way of dealing with our transgressions was to use logic, something with which we were mostly unfamiliar. There would be a conversation like this:

“Your mother said you were bad today. What did you do?”

“I got Houdini’s hair caught in the wheels of my race car.”

“So that’s why you’re in the doghouse?”

“No.”

“No? Why are you in the doghouse then?”

“Because I did it two more times after she told me to stop.”

“Is that it?”

“No. He threw my car down the stairs.”

“So what did you do then?”

“I punched him pretty hard. In the butt.”

This line of questioning would continue for a while, but eventually we’d work our way down to the speech, which always centered on a common theme:

“Do you know how much your mother does for you and your brothers every day?”

“Yes.”

“What does she do?”

“She cooks dinner and does our laundry and cleans the house and takes us places.”

“You made her cry today, did you know that?”

“No.”

“Do you think that’s fair? That she does all that for you, and you make her cry?”

“No.”

“I think you owe her an apology, don’t you?”

“Yes. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t tell me, tell her. Come with me. You’re going to apologize right now, and then your mother and I will decide what your punishment is going to be.”

At that point I would usually start crying, and again tell him how sorry I was. After the apology, (and that was rough, let me tell you) he’d send me back to my room. A few minutes later, he’d appear at my bedroom door and just stand there, like a judge preparing to hand down a sentence. By that time, I was resigned to my fate, because (1) I knew the hardest part was over, and (2) I knew I totally deserved whatever it was.

So that’s the story of the parental discipline in our house growing up. I’ve never been arrested or in rehab, so I guess it worked. There’s still time, I guess. I can only imagine how much they laughed about it after we were asleep.

I can remember being in a crowded grocery store with my mother when she got pissed at Houdini and yelled, “If you don’t start behaving right this instant, you’re going straight into the doghouse when we get home!”

Today, screaming that sentence in public would definitely get you a stern talking to – most likely by social services.

Unintelligent Design.

If you've been around here long, you know I talk about bathrooms a lot. For example, there's the reason I've become a stall man, there's the disgusting bathrooms where I used to work, and the bathrooms in our building where people do odd things like this and this and this and this. I'm sure there are posts that I'm forgetting, and they're probably best forgotten.

Well, I'm going to do it again, in order to point out something that should be fairly obvious, but apparently is not. It has to do with intelligent design, and the people and companies that are in charge of this -- this one single thing that they have to do, and yet they consistently fail miserably at it. Case in point: Badly designed urinals. As punishment, these designers should be pummeled into unconsciousness and then dragged to lie underneath their own urinals, to illustrate to them the reasons that I believe they clearly have no idea what the hell they are doing.

I had this epiphany the other day, and I think I've figured out another reason (besides not being able to see your own junk) why the floor in the bathroom where I work is always covered in a sticky, partially-dried coating of pee.

It was early in the morning, and as a result the floor looked pretty clean, so I chanced the urinal, which looks kind of like this:



This is just a picture I found on the web, but it's close, other than the fact that it sensibly has walls on either side of it, while ours are literally 2 feet apart with no wall in between, which is great if you want to get up close and personal with someone else's shaking technique, but not so great for me and most everyone else. Anyway, I digress. Take a closer look at that picture and see if you can figure out what's so incredibly wrong up there.

Give up? It's a matter of surface area. More specifically, a level surface area. In all the wrong places. Let me explain. No. There is too much. Let me sum up.

Listen up urinal manufacturers: There's two things wrong here. One, there's a fucking SHELF of porcelain around the whole bottom of this abomination. Because of a little thing called surface tension, combined with another little thing called disgusting slobs, errant urine just sits on top of that wide, level lip in large, ever replenished puddles. That's number one, and it's bad enough.

Number two is simply this: If you're not hung like Ron Jeremy, and you want to avoid adding to the puddle -- or worse, becoming the victim of your own splashback because you stood too far away -- you'll actually have to stand fairly close to the opening. This can be a recipe for disaster.

Why? Let me tell you. Because this urinal is square in front. This means that the two corners of the urinal are fairly close to your legs. As a result, you're only one bad pantleg-crease away from inadvertently contacting the stagnant piss pond on that ledge, which will instantly wick into your pants like they were made entirely of Bounty paper towels. At that point you have two choices: (1) Walk around the rest of the day with someone else's pee staining your pants, or (2) grab a giant handful of wet paper towels and -- in an effort to avoid simply tearing off your pants and running outside and rolling around in a snowbank -- rub frantically at the pee stains until you make yourself look like you just drained your bladder directly into your Dockers.

Don't ask me how I know this.

The solution from a design standpoint is simple. The edge of the urinal bowl should be sharp. A knife edge. That way, if you happen to lose control of your fire hose your urine goes one of two places -- on the floor, or into the bowl. At least that way the only thing you have to worry about is pissing on your own shoes -- and you can do that all day and I won't give a shit because I'll take one look at the floor and be heading for the stall.

This one has it almost right, since there's no way your pants can make contact, and the ledge is tipped in, but still, it could be sharper:



I took another look at the equipment at work, and it says "American Standard 1.0."

I was hoping for their sake that this was a version number, and their later models were better engineered. I did a quick search on the 'net and I found the American Standard model 7.0:



I still don't think they get it.

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I hate what used to be German food.

I haven't written about the geekfest conference yet, because nothing really bad happened, unless you consider getting drunk on sake and singing karaoke in a Japanese restaurant really bad. Oh, and my singing. My singing was really bad.

Usually, at least one gross thing happens to me when I am at any sort of conference. One year, it was the stall-vomiting incident, another year it was the rotten feet, last year it was the serial snot-snorter. This year it was the second-hand fart. You would think that would be better than a first-hand fart, but you'd be wrong. I'm not exactly sure why, but it just is. Take my word for it.

If you don't know much about Lotusphere, understand one thing. It's huge. There are anywhere from 8000 to 10,000 people in attendance, and there are technical sessions from 7am to 6pm every day for 5 days. The conference rooms are set up with row upon row of padded chairs, usually with a center aisle and two side aisles. The seats are jammed together so you are pretty much shoulder-to-shoulder with the guy (or girl) next to you. You would think that this close proximity would make people more deodorant and chewing gum conscious, but no. (Also, skinny white dude with the dreadlocks that reach the center of your back -- wash that shit. You smell like old socks dipped in sour milk.)

Anyway, the pattern of seat occupancy is generally this -- the seats on the outside aisles go first, then the seats on the inside aisles. Then the back rows. Since there is very little time between sessions in some cases, the goal, for me at least, is to shoot for the easy exit. So I got into the habit of just going to the back row and pulling a chair out of formation and sitting on it. It was a win-win. I didn't have to touch shoulders with the guys next to me, and I could split whenever it was necessary.

So with that background planted firmly in your minds, here's my gross tale for this year's conference. I was sitting in the back row in my pulled-out chair, just minding my own business and taking copious notes (my boss might be reading this) when the 2 large coffees I had after lunch started to work their magic. I put my notebook down, put my far-away-seeing geek glasses on top of the notebook and got up to go to the bathroom.

I was gone maybe 5 minutes total, and when I came back in, there was some dude sitting in my seat. My glasses and notebook were on the floor.

I leaned over and said, "You're in my seat." He looked at me, and said something in what I think was German. I pointed at the chair and said, "I just had to use the men's room. I was sitting there." He finally understood what I was getting at, and stood up to go somewhere else. I picked my notebook and glasses from the floor, and sat down. This was unfortunate. I have no way of confirming this, but I believe what he initially said to me in German was "Trust me. You don't want your chair back right now."

Why? Because German dude left me a present. The second my ass hit the seat, I was instantly surrounded by a very foul, very fresh German fart that had been, until very recently, buried deeply in the chair. It was horrible. I stood up so fast you would have thought there was a hot coal under my ass. I think I actually would have preferred that, now that I mentioned it.

That marked the end of "60 Admin Tips in 60 Minutes" for me, because "60 Admin Tips and One Fart in 48 Minutes" was already more than I had signed up for.

In case you were wondering, the song I butchered the shit out of was Sister Golden Hair by America.


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False Tooth.

You gotta love the SkyMall catalog:



The obvious fact here is that walking around with one of these stuck to the side of your head all day will not actually enhance your image or give you a more youthful appearance.

It will, however, make you look like a dick.


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like those guys over at humor-blogs.com

Teh Awesomeness Awaits.

I'm back from Orlando in mostly one piece. Over there on the right, I'm proud to unveil my very first paid "blog ad" so check it out. They have some pretty cool (and apparently non-girly) merchandise. I'm not sure how they go about the whole testosterone-ladening thing, but I'm probably better off not knowing.

I'll be back as soon as I organize my thoughts and catch up a little.

Also, cold weather sucks it.

I hate Fast Zombies.

Let's get something straight. Zombies should shuffle. They should walk with their hands straight out from their bodies. They should be easy to avoid, and easy to riddle with bullets. They are allowed to be relentless, hungry, and almost impossible to kill, sure -- but they shouldn't be fast. That just freaks me right the hell out.

Other things zombies* should definitely not be allowed to do:

(1) Climb walls and trees and poles like coked-up chimpanzees.
(2) Be completely hairless and in better shape than Will Smith who is also completely hairless.
(3) Unhinge their jaw and roar like a lion right before they run at you full speed and rip your throat out.
(4) Be more than 1/4 vampire.
(5) Be smart.

As you can probably surmise, we saw I am Legend last night. If you think the zombies in 28 Days Later were fast, I am here to say that you are sadly mistaken. I will bet money that the zombies I saw last night would kick major ass in a zombie triathlon against those UK zombies, if in fact you could reliably get zombies to bike and swim. They obviously have the running part more than covered.

Maybe if we replaced biking and swimming with climbing and killing, we could actually get this thing off the ground in time for Beijing -- although I did do a quick google search on 'Chinese zombies' and from what I could see, they appear to be a zombie-free nation.

OK, I'm off to my next class with the rest of the zombies. Luckily, they are of the slow-moving, over-eating, techie-geek persuasion, and I think I can move faster than most of them. Wish me luck.



[note: From reading the comments, I realized that my generic use of the term "zombies" might be slightly at odds with the traditional voodoo-reanimated corpse that is controlled, puppet-like, by the sorcerer/priest who raised it from the dead. So be it. Whatever these things were supposed to be -- I like the term "zompires" -- they were scary-fast bastards.]

*Or any other "virally-mutated" creatures, like those over at humor-blogs.com.

Best 30 bucks I ever spent.

One thing you don't want to see two days before you leave on a trip is your cat dragging his raw ass across your rug. OK, granted, you probably don't want to see that ever, but two days before a trip it's extra-special, in that "Great. WTF is wrong with the cat's ass and how can we get him to the vet before we leave" kind of way.

We managed to take him to the vet this morning and now I'm waiting to go pick him up. It turns out he had to have his anal glands expressed.

Before I read that article, I had no idea what anal glands were, or why they apparently needed to be delivered somewhere overnight, but that's how it goes. I'm always learning new things about cats that make me think I don't want to know anything else because there's nothing left to know that won't cost me a fortune and/or turn out to be totally disgusting.

This wasn't too rough on the wallet, surprisingly. I think my wife said it cost $30 extra. From reading a few things on the web, I found out that you can learn to perform this procedure on your cat yourself. Dear god in heaven, why?? Why would anyone want to do this? Trust me, If I can pay someone else to root around in my cat's ass and fix a problem, then that's a bargain at any price. Although I could definitely live without having deep and meaningful anal gland conversations over lunch.

I think if I were a vet, I'd have to charge a minimum of $15,000 for anything ass-related. I realize I probably wouldn't get much ass-business, but one or two cat butts a year and I'd be on easy street. I really think vets should charge by the relative grossness of the procedure and the size of the animal. For instance, if you have a giant dog with a giant ass problem, that's gonna cost you a lot more, ass-wise, than a ferret's tiny one. That's the price you pay for wanting a pet with a giant ass.

They should also charge by how smelly your animal is overall. If it smells disgusting, there should be a stankification surcharge. They could just have a line item multiplier on the invoice:

080-54: Anal Gland Expressed $30.00
080-887: Smelled like that dude at the Phish Concert (x3)
Total: $90.00

Speaking of smelly asses, I'll try to keep you all updated on my Nerdfest 2008 conference. Picture 8,000 sweaty geeks in one giant hotel complex. You'd think they charged extra for the soap and water or something.

It's always good for a laugh or two.


humor-blogs.com

xs.to.pound.me.in.the.ass.com

Before Blogger allowed hosting of pictures, I used this place called http://xs.to to store them. It was free, and pretty reliable. When Blogger started hosting them, it was easier and I sort of drifted away from xs.to. Well, I guess they drifted away from me as well, because they just dropped about everything I had stored there from mid-2006 on back.

I am currently going through my posts one by one and replacing the pictures. I cannot tell you how much this sucks, and how much it makes me want to stab them in the neck with my car.

ps - If anyone knows how to get blogger to drop the picture where my friggin' text cursor is, instead of at the top of the post, please let me know before I kill myself. Thank you.

Poor Impulse Control.

Similar to the character Raven in the book "Snow Crash" by Neal Stephenson, (it's a fantastic book and you should go read it now instead of this post) I am also getting a phrase tattooed on my forehead. Unlike Raven's, my tattoo will be voluntary, and I'll use small letters because I don't have a giant, slab-like forehead. It will say "Attention to detail is limited at best."

Why? Because that had to be my favorite line in my finally-posted blog review over at humor-blogs.com.

Reading parts of this review was like being in first grade all over again.

The report card criticisms were always the same. Johnny doesn't pay attention. Johnny doesn't apply himself. Johnny is always talking to his neighbor. Johnny won't stop touching his crotch. Well, that last one was actually from Miss Welch, my high school French teacher, but you get the idea. Check it out if you get the chance. Most of the comments were great, and Diesel does a fantastic job with the site. Every blog that gets reviewed always seems to get some unfavorable comments. I am pretty sure that these guys are on permanent retainer over there.

In other news, under the guise of "Well, I have to open it to put the batteries in," I played with this for a half hour yesterday. (Don't worry, that link is safe for work. Or is it? You take your chances on this here blog. )

If you are a geek like me, and had a microscope when you were a kid, this thing is pretty amazing. It's supposed to be a gift for my nephew, but I may have to keep it. It would be either really fun or a complete disaster to take it to a party. I haven't decided which yet. I supposed it would depend upon how much everyone had to drink before you broke it out, and how many nerds were in attendance.

After I put the batteries in, I sat down on the floor in front of the television and just swept my hand across the hardwood a few times to gather a little bit of detritus. I discovered some interesting things at 200X magnification. For one thing, I discovered we need to clean the floor way more often. Aside from that, it's an impressive piece of technology for $40. What did I see? Well, there was something that looked like a giant slab of freshly cut fish that turned out to be a tiny section of Christmas tree needle. Something else that was a bright fluorescent blue-green looked be a sand crystal or something that happened to glow in the particular wavelength of the LED light source.

If you get one of these, just don't look too closely at your own skin. It's shiny and wrinkled and has giant telephone poles poking out of it -- and seriously, you won't want to be in it any more.

And that was just from looking at my arm.

ps - I'm currently working on scanning some of my amazing childhood artwork, so stay tuned for that. Let's just say I was not a talented young man.

Things on Trees.

I always look at tree ornaments. I don't know why. Probably because I have so many different weird ornaments on my own Christmas tree that I like to see if anyone else has stuff like mine. You might remember Just Jack, the ornament I received from Yort last year. That thing freaked me right the hell out.

So long story short, I got looking at our friend's tree at a little house party they hosted on New Year's Eve. They all know I have a blog, so when I started not-so-surreptitiously snapping photos of their ornaments, they pretty much knew what was going to happen.

Let's start with this one:



I have nicknamed him Yul, the Hairless Angel. He wears a burlap dress and I believe his wings rotted off ages ago. According to the owner, he is an antique. According to me, he is a tiny Boy George on a string:



I'm not exactly sure what's going on here:



I always figure Pooh for a catcher instead of a pitcher, but come to think of it, he was always getting his stuff stuck in pots and trees and things, so I could be wrong.

This last one freaked me out a little:



No mouth. No nose. No ears. Fused hands. Empty sockets where the eyes are supposed to be.

And it flies.

If those aren't the ingredients for a guaranteed nightmare, I'm not sure what is. I took more than one picture of it since it was really creepy -- and today, when I uploaded them to the computer, I saw this:



I may never sleep again.

Anyway, Happy New Year and all that. Get on those resolutions, and also check out humor-blogs.com. They have a review page, and supposedly my blog is coming up. If they give me a crappy review, I'll be needing a hacker. So if you know of anybody, send them my way. Thanks.

And we're back.

After a lot of traveling, eating and drinking, we've returned to the cave to recuperate for New Year's eve. Here's a few things I've learned since my last post:

1. The game "Catchphrase" is a lot more fun when everyone is half in the bag.

2. When one of the clues yelled out is "something you beat" a funny but entirely un-PC answer is "your girlfriend!" (real answer: Scrambled eggs)

3. Every Australian person I've ever met has been pretty cool. (Count so far: 2)

4. Australian football is "sort of like rugby, but more physical" and getting "squirrel gripped" is a real possibility.

5. I never want to play Australian football.

6. If someone gets really drunk and then heads up to bed and passes out fully clothed, it's pretty funny to get 15 people to sneak up to his room, climb on the bed without waking him up, and take pictures of this event.

7. It's also pretty funny to watch a drunk chick fall backwards and try to make a snow angel when there is a 3" icy crust on the snow.



It sounded like someone hit a pumpkin with a baseball bat.

The Christmas Mission.

We stared up at the trapdoor in the ceiling.

"No way," The Snitch said. "We need a ladder. No way I'm letting you boost me up."

"Come on," I replied, from atop the chair. "Don't be a butthead. I won't drop you."

"Uh uh. Go get Houdini if you want to, but I'm not climbing up on your shoulders."

"He'll do it -- you know why? Because he's not a chicken," I said. "But you're still helping us. You can hold the chair steady or something."

"What do you need me for?" he asked, his suspicion evident.

"If you help, then you can't tell on us," I said. He knew it was true, and reluctantly agreed.

I went to find Houdini. Time was running out.

I found him downstairs watching The Flintstones on TV. "Hey, mom and dad are out and I'm gonna stand on a chair and then you have to stand on my shoulders and look around in the attic," I said.

"K," he said, not looking away from the TV. "It's almost over, I'll be there in a second."

He didn't even ask why, he just agreed to it. That's what I liked about Houdini -- he was always up for anything regardless of the consequences. I left and went back upstairs to the hallway, where The Snitch was standing with his flashlight in hand. "I got this," he said, holding it up.

"Cool," I said, dragging the chair a little to the left so it was directly under the trap door. I climbed up on the chair again and yelled, "HOUDINI! COME ON!"

He pounded up the stairs and stopped when he saw me standing on the chair. "What's in the attic?" he asked.

"Our Christmas presents," I said. "We already checked mom and dad's closet, and there was nothing in there. This is the only other place they could be. "

"K. Boost me," he said, taking the flashlight from The Snitch and shoving it in his pocket.

"Climb up on the chair," I said, turning and holding on to the chair back. "Then get on my shoulders, and we'll see if you can reach the door."

Two seconds later, he was sitting on my shoulders and I was standing up on the chair. I was trying to look up, but it was difficult with him on my back. "Can you reach it?" I asked.

"Yeah, just barely," he said.

"Push the trap door open then grab on to the edge," I said, knowing that the "door" was really just a piece of plywood lying loose in a frame. "If you can get a good grip on the edge, pull yourself up and stand on my shoulders."

He did it easily, and before I knew it, he was standing on my shoulders with me holding his legs, his head and the top third of his body sticking into the attic. The Snitch was holding me steady on the chair.

"See anything?" I asked, wincing under the weight of Houdini's sneakers, which were starting to smash permanent converse all-star imprints on the tops of both my shoulders.

"Let me turn on the flashlight," he said, pulling it out of his pocket. A pause. Then, "Nope."

"That's impossible," I said. "Look in the back."

"I think I can pull myself up," he said, and before I could tell him not to, he pulled his entire body up into the attic and disappeared.

"How's he gonna get down?," the Snitch asked, voicing exactly what I was thinking.

"He'll have to hang down and then I'll get under him again," I said confidently, having no idea.

"Anything?" I yelled up through the dark hole.

Houdini poked his head down and said, "Nope. Nothing."

"Crap. OK, come down," I said. "Drop you legs down through and get back on my shoulders. Then drag the door over."

He dropped through the hole like a spider monkey out of a tree, and I barely got under him in time. He was facing the wrong way, hanging on the edge of the attic door frame, but at least he was standing on my shoulders. He moved the door most of the way over the hole, then without warning slammed down so he was sitting on my shoulders backward, giving me a face full of Houdini crotch.

"Jeez! Get the door closed, will ya?" I yelled, barely keeping my balance as I tried to avert my face. If it hadn't been for the Snitch steadying my legs I think we both would have been on the floor in a pile.

"Where else can we look?" I asked, not thinking I'd actually get an answer.

"What about the crawlspace in Dad's office?" Houdini asked. I had forgotten all about that.

"Let's go!" I said. We put the chair back and ran downstairs.

Getting into the crawlspace was more complicated than it sounds, because it wasn't just a simple crawlspace. It had a door that had a desk in front of it. The left side of the desk was supported by a chain, and operated like the flip up section of a bar that allows the waitresses and bartenders to get behind it. This section of desk blocked the crawlspace door. We couldn't just move all the crap on the desk and flip it up to open the door, because it would be obvious someone had been in there. We had to keep track of where everything was so my father didn't know we were snooping around.

I grabbed a pencil and pad, making a mental note of its original location. While The Snitch and Houdini waited, I sketched the desktop and the placement of everything on it. The stapler, the hole punch, the stacks of papers, the telephone -- all documented. When that was done, we moved it all and swung the desk up, which allowed us access to the crawlspace door. I motioned for Houdini to make like a good soldier and take a peek while I held up the desk.

He crawled in with the flashlight and I heard him say, "WOW!"

"What?" I said, "Did you find something?"

"Yeah," he replied. "Tons of stuff. But it's all wrapped."

I was afraid of this. "OK," I said. "Don't touch anything. Just look. Do you see anything on the wrapping paper? Initials or anything?" My mother would always put our first initial in some inconspicuous spot so she knew who was supposed to get what on Christmas morning.

"Yeah. I see one that has a K on it. Can I pull it out?"

"No, we have to keep track of where everything is. If the pile gets messed up, Mom will know. Just take the easy ones off the top. If that one's on top, hand it out."

I turned to The Snitch. "Go into my room and pull out the bottom drawer of my dresser," I said. "Pull it all the way out, then lift up the bottom and bring me the box underneath."

He took off to get it and I managed to get the desk section to stay up by itself so I could grab the presents that Houdini kept handing out the door. "OK, that's enough," I said when there was no more room to stack. "C'mon out."

He backed out of the hole and sat up. A moment later The Snitch came into the office with a skinny cigar box.

In the box was The Kit.

The Kit consisted of: A single-edged razor blade, about 4 different types of tape -- gloss, matte finish, skinny, wide -- even a small roll of masking tape, because sometimes my mother ran out. The kit was used once a year to open, examine and then re-wrap Christmas presents.

We carefully examined the presents one by one, deciding which side to cut. It had to be the side where the paper was loosest, otherwise you ran the risk of tearing it when you tried to re-wrap. If you did it right, you could cut the tape, carefully open the flap, look to see what the gift was, then tape it closed again. I fancied myself quite the Christmas present surgeon.

We opened almost all our presents, except for the ones we deemed too hard to re-wrap, taking care to re-tape using the same type and width my mother had initially used. Unless you looked with a magnifying glass, you wouldn't know they had been tampered with. As Houdini was backing out of the hole after putting the gifts back in their places, he jostled something and the desk section came smashing down on his back and head.

"Ow." he said. That was it. A 4 foot long, 30-inch wide hunk of 3/4 inch plywood had just bounced off his melon, and all he said was "Ow." The kid was indestructible.

We got the desk fastened back in place like it was supposed to be, and referenced our drawing to make sure everything was back where it belonged. Lastly, the pencil and pad went back to their original locations.

There was only one more thing to take care of.

"Let me see your surprised look," I said to The Snitch. If anyone was going to crack under the pressure it was going to be him. "Christmas morning when you open that radio you always wanted, what are you going to do?"

He said, "WOW! A radio! Just what I wanted!" and his face lit up. Not bad. A little cheesy. Not Oscar worthy, but not bad. I turned to Houdini.

"That G.I. JOE in there," I said. "Pretend you just opened it up. Act surprised."

He gave a performance that would have made Jimmy Stewart proud. In fact, I think an angel may have lost its wings that day.

I'd like to tell you my parents never caught on to our little mission, but to this day, I'm not really sure. Maybe The Snitch let something slip, or maybe we weren't as careful as we thought we were, but the following year all our presents from my mother and father were stored at the neighbors house until Christmas morning. Maybe it was just my mother's intuition -- I don't know. We never got in trouble for it, so I prefer to think of it a Christmas Miracle.

So anyway, Merry Christmas everyone, since this is probably my last post for the year unless something crazy happens. Even if you don't celebrate Christmas, enjoy your time with your family and have a great holiday season. And here's a tip: Watch your kids closely when they open their gifts on Christmas morning. If they hold that smile a little too long, or glance at each other for no apparent reason -- start looking around for the razor blades and tape.

Peace.

Homeless in Seattle.

For lack of something better to do while waiting in line at Starbucks, I started looking around at the crowd. (It was either that or really think about the ridiculous amount of money I was about to fork up for a small cup of bean juice and milk worth about 25 cents.)

This particular Starbucks is in a college town, and I was amazed by the sheer quantity of grungy, unshowered guys and girls who had laptop computers open and stacks of papers spread out on the tables next to them. One guy was sleeping. Another chick was camped out on the couch by the fireplace and I swear to god she had slippers and a blanket. I am not kidding. I couldn't help but wonder whose job it was to tuck her in at night.

It seems the unwritten Starbucks rule is that as long as you have a Starbucks cup somewhere in your general vicinity you are free to take up couch and table space and use their electrical power as long as you'd like to -- an offer which many people obviously take them up on.

It was at that point I realized something: The only difference between being homeless and not being homeless is a laptop and a paper cup.

Here's an example: Say you're a drummer who just broke up with your girlfriend. If that's not the definition of homeless I don't know what is. The first thing you should do is buy a laptop like this one. Then hit the garbage can outside your local Starbucks and grab an empty cup. After that, you're on easy street. Walk in, sit down, open the laptop, put your feet up and bask in the coffee-scented goodness that is your new living room.

Seriously, could this scheme be more perfect?

You're a musician, so obviously you work nights. Normally you're leaving for the club around nine or ten at night and coming home around six in the morning, so you leave before they close, and you're back when they open.

Truth be told, you don't shower all that much anymore since you discovered AXE, the bathrooms at 'Bucks are way cleaner than what you're used to, and you're there early so you always get the comfy couch. And if you're really lucky, maybe even the blanket.

Added bonus -- If the laptop actually works, you can start a blog to tell all your fans what a raging bitch your ex-girlfriend is, and how she doesn't understand what rock and roll is all about and that you didn't know she was even coming to the show and you were only autographing that chick's tits because you're a consummate professional and seriously, the reason your pants were down is simply because it was really hot in the dressing room and after a great show like that you always like to give it a little air, so kicking you out of the trailer was totally uncalled for and if you think about it, she should actually be apologizing to you, and also Neil Peart is the best fucking drummer ever.

Separated at Birth?

I was watching "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" the other night, and I realized something.

Jessica is really hot.

No, I'm kidding. I actually noticed that when I was about 8. When she lets her hair down during that psychedelic fountain song....yikes. Flat blue eyes be damned, she's a fine looking woman. It's too bad she let herself go.

What I realized the other night is why the "good" winter warlock bugs me. It's because he reminds me of the most annoying human* comedian on earth:





That's freaky, right?


* carrot top, gilbert gottfried and emo phillips are not human as far as I can tell.

This could be the solution I'm looking for.

There's a commercial that's been on quite a bit lately for a sleep aid called Lunesta. Normally I don't pay much attention to these types of medical advertisements -- the Enzyte debacle notwithstanding -- but invariably with these sorts of things, in the last ten seconds some guy with a deep, barely audible voice runs through all of the horrible side-effects that they are probably required by law to tell you about, but don't really want you to know. Like the "fine print" at the end of a car dealership ad when they tell you (at auctioneer speed) that you're not really going to get the fantastical deal they just told you that you were going to get.

Anyway, as the requisite droning voice in the commercial was going on and on about how Lunesta can cause drowsiness (what? my sleep aid can cause drowsiness? WTF?), garbage mouth, light-headedness, heavy-headedness, periodic shooting of luna moths from random orifices, etc. -- something catches my ear.

I backed up my DVR just to make sure I heard it right. It said:

"Instances of sleepwalking and driving while asleep and later having no memory of these activities has been reported."

Sleep-walking, yeah I can see that, but sleep-driving? That is a pretty serious side-effect. They are telling me that I could quite possibly find myself waking up behind the wheel of my car in the parking lot at work and having no recollection of how I -- wait, that's a really bad example.

I went to their website for more information and they elaborated on this theme a little bit. They say you are supposed to "Call your doctor right away if after taking Lunesta you walk, drive, eat or engage in other activities while asleep." Maybe it's just me, but that sounds pretty cool. I'll bet I would get a lot more done.

And really, at that point, why call? Hell, I'm already out cruising around in my sleep. I'll just hit a Taco Bell drive-thru and stop over at his house. I'm sure he'll be glad to see me standing in his doorway in my Underoos at 2am chowing down on a chimichanga and snoring.

Also, "engage in other activities?"

Like what? A Badminton tournament? A 5K marathon? S&M rodeo sex at a highway rest stop?

I can picture the morning call:

Me: "Hello, Doctor Marten?"
Doc: "Yes? What seems to be the problem?"
Me: "I woke up this morning and apparently.... well, I think I painted my house in my sleep last night."
Doc: "Oh my god! We've got to get you off that Lunesta right away!"
Me: "Uh, can I wait one more night? My wife thinks it needs a second coat."

At any rate, this stuff sounds dangerous. If you take it, you might want to hide your car keys. And probably your paintbrush. Either that or just stop over and I'll let you paint my house.

p.s. - Bring Meximelts.

My needs according to internet marketers.

Judging by my bulk mail folder, my need for a new wristwatch is apparently much greater than my need for a bigger penis.

I think that's good, right?

Unless they all just got together and decided, "Well, there's obviously no hope for this guy in the dangle department. Let's at least try to help him remember when his favorite TV shows are on."

Terror Clown.

Did anyone catch the Macy's parade? I flipped the channel just in time to see this:



Holy crap. If I were a child and saw this monstrosity floating down the street directly at me, I think I would immediately shit myself and then start screaming "PLEASE DON'T LET IT EAT ME! PLEASE DON'T LET IT EAT ME!"

Seriously, just look at this thing:



It looks like it should have a Honda Civic in one hand and a dozen screaming children in the other. I thought this next shot really conveyed the complete and utter horror:



There is clearly evil in those eyes. Every time I look at that picture, this is what I see:



He likes the heads best because they're crunchy.

Anyone got a cigarette? I'm spent.

On November 2nd, I peaked at 47,910 visitors in a 24 hour period. Now I'm back down to about 3,000 a day, which is still ten times more than I used to get prior to the JC Penney debacle. At least the pressure is off.

In other news, our friends told us to "bring games" with us tomorrow when we go over for Thanksgiving dinner. So my awesome wife came home with a giant deck of cards today.

Go Fish? Hardly. Uno? Not on your life. Much better than that. On each card is a different drinking game.

I opened them up in anticipation of immediate inebriation, and I was greeted with this card:



I am really glad I didn't dive right in and start playing, because obviously, had I missed this card, I would be lying in a gutter somewhere right now seriously injured or dead. Probably with giant exclamation points hovering over my cold, lifeless body.

Seriously, why would they even bother? I mean really -- their recommendation that you "play these games with non-alcoholic beverages" provides them with about as much actual legal protection as the "for tobacco only" sticker on the bong case at the local head shop.

I can just picture the crazy fun we'd have using Pepsi to play these games.

"Dude, I am so freakin' GASSY right now."

"Here, take my keys. I'm too BLOATED to drive home. Can I crash on your couch?"

Man, that sounds great, doesn't it?

*no, I don't smoke.

I'm sorry. Voice mailbox for....GOD....is full.

I know this sign isn't entirely true, and I know that because I helped Him set up his voice-mail box a month ago. So I know He has it.

God's kinda old-school, though, and by that I mean He isn't very technical. Put it this way - his VCR has been blinking 12:00:00 since 1975. Yeah. It's Betamax. I was over there last week and we watched Spiderman 5. Where he got that on beta I'll never know. The small miracles amuse him.

The problem with the voice mail thing is that it only rings 4 times before going to VM, so He always turns it off when he's going to just be hanging around. Unfortunately, he's not great at remembering to turn it back on when He goes out, so I can see how the church people may have been under the above impression. Seriously, most of the time when you call, it just rings off the hook.

I keep telling him he should just have it roll over to his cell number, but He says being on the phone with Verizon tech support is just way too close to actually being in Hell.

If you're curious, this is what his voicemail message says:

"Hi. You've reached the number of God. I'm everywhere right now, so unfortunately I can't take your call. My message is very important to you, so if you would leave your name and a number where you can be reached, I will call you when when you least expect it. If I don't get back to you right away, it means that I am out working in mysterious ways. If this is an emergency, please contact my son Jesus, or his mother Mary, and they will handle it. You can have complete faith in them. Thanks, and have a good day."

I called him the other day and got lucky. I let it ring about 15 times and just when I was going to hang up, He answered.

"Hello? [heavy breathing]

"Hey, It's me. Why are you out of breath?"

"I was outside raking galaxies. I had to run for the phone. What's up?"

"What happened to that wireless handset I got for you?"

"Still in the box. I haven't had time to hook it up yet. What d'you need, bro?"

"You're all powerful. How long would it take you to hook it up? Jeez. I tried your cell too. Went right to voicemail. To the system greeting, no less. I thought we got rid of that last week."

"Uh, yeah I don't know what's up with that. I was trying to erase old messages the other day and I think I pushed some wrong button. Anyway, If you called my cell I didn't hear it ring. I think maybe I left it in the truck. It's on vibrate so I can never find the damned thing. "

"Whatever. You should just go Blackberry like the rest of the world. Hey, I know you're busy, but I just wanted to tell you -- you might want to drop in over there in the middle east. Things are a little out of control."

"Oh man. Again? Yeah, I've been meaning to do that. Thanks for the heads up."

"No Problem, G. Get back to it. Oh yeah, by the way -- I've been meaning to ask you: Why'd you put all the oil on one side of the planet and all the people who want it on the other side?"

"I know, right? I crack myself up sometimes. [beeep] Hey, hang on second. It's the other line."

click.

"Hello?"

"Yeah, still me."

"OK, hang on. I think something might be burning outside. Let me just get rid of ----"

click. [dialtone]

Unbelievable. Great guy, though.

This is how you know you live in the sticks.

Goat Cheese of Death.

Recently, to celebrate a special occasion, my wife and I were eating in one of those restaurants where the reputation of the food outweighs the ambiance. You know the type -- those places where the tables are so close to each other that you can't help overhearing the topic of conversation at the next table. You're having your own conversation, and listening to three or four others at the same time, and everyone just pretends that it's not happening. It's pretty funny when you think about it. Here we all are, in a big room, sitting literally within arms reach, and ignoring each other completely.

Also, I have three different forks, and I don't know what to do with them. Can you tell I eat in expensive restaurants all the time? At any rate, I tend to be self-conscious in a place like this and find myself unable to hold a normal conversation. I think the primary reason for that is because my 'normal' conversation could quite conceivably consist entirely of quotes from the The Family Guy and the Venture Brothers, and I don't want anyone overhearing that unless they can appreciate my vast knowledge of all things irreverent and animated.

So eventually, I just drift off into eavesdropping. The funniest interchange of this particular meal was a conversation that happened between the waiter and the woman at the next table. It went something like this:

"I'd like the prime rib, medium rare, and a glass of the 1998 Muller-Catoir, please."

"A suggestion, madam? You'd be much better off with the 2000 Chappellet Mountain Cuvee. Trust me. It has a much fuller nose and is a better match for the beef. The other wine will simply not hold up."

"Thanks so much. I'll try that instead."

"My pleasure. Will there be anything else?"

She paused for a second and then said, "Yes, actually. I was thinking of getting goat cheese on my salad, but I'm allergic to dairy. Can you tell me if I'd be allergic to goat cheese?"

I don't think the waiter was expecting this line of questioning, because he immediately dropped a few pegs on the smoothness scale and almost lost that veneer of efficient, elite professionalism.

Playing for time to gather his thoughts, he asked, "What happens to you when you eat dairy?"

"I get giant hives and my throat closes up and my tongue swells," she replied.

Silence.

You could see it in the waiter's eyes. He was clearly thinking that he wanted none of that happening in his dining room, now or at any point in the future. He was also clearly thinking - 'What the hell is wrong with you? Don't you know your own food allergies? Do I LOOK like someone who is well-versed in the contraindications of goat cheese?'

He said none of these things, however. My wife and I were trying very hard not to laugh, and failing.

The waiter caught my eye for a second, and the side of his face twitched a little. He almost cracked a smile, then regained his composure. He was good.

"You'd probably be OK, but personally, I don't think you should chance it," he said after due consideration.

"Yes, you're probably right. I'll have it without the cheese, then."

"That's for the best, I think."

There are many things a good waiter will do to earn a great tip, but apparently stabbing needles full of epinephrine into a stopped heart is not one of them.

That's what I get for going to a place where you have to pay for your meal after you eat it instead of before.