I might just be crazy

A Valuable Teaching Tool For Children

2012-01-12T11:47:00.000-08:00

The other day I was playing some sort of derivative of football with my son, although it was inside, I was sitting on the couch fiddling around on my Ipad, and he was in his underpants. Cleverly, I named this game "Underpants Couch Football." Basically the game is him throwing a small football as hard as he can at me and then me throwing it back while he skitters around in his underpants like Marky Mark.

Anyway, in this one instance he wouldn't throw the ball back to me. He thought it was really clever to continuously pump fake me and then bounce around. Frustrated I yelled, "Shit, I got me enough money to buy me a hundred balls!" He looked at me funny. That's when it occurred to me that he was 6 and had never seen "Boyz n the Hood" and so he didn't know what I was talking about. I felt bad for him. Because "Boyz n the Hood" can teach a 6 year old all sorts of valuable lessons like:

1.) Don't ever bring your football anywhere.

2.) If you do bring your football somewhere, and if a bunch of gang members want your football, you should give it to them, because even if you think they're just going to keep it, the big one wearing his shirt as a hat will eventually give it back, because you know somebody would eventually knock over a 40.

3.) If you see a dead body laying in an alley that has been there a long time, don't bother him, because he's not bothering you. Even if it smells like a dog died

4.) If your friend gets arrested for stealing, you won't see him again until you're 17 and he's Ice Cube

5.) To get a baby all you have to do is find a girl, stick your thing in her, and 9 months later a baby comes out

6.) If your mom calls you a "fat fuck", it's a term of endearment

7.) If you wear a football jersey all the time, USC recruiters will come to your house when you're older, even if your house is in a horrible part of town and there are drive-by shooters (with wheelchairs and pacifiers) on your porch.

8.) If you rake up all 14 leaves in your tiny yard, it will take you until it's dark, but then your dad will take you fishing. As long as he's only 8 years older than you.

9.) When people try to rob your house, you will get startled and pee on your pajama bottoms

10.) We're all from Africa. And we're all African Booty Scratchers.

So it's settled. Instead of Barney, or Phineas and Ferb, or any of that other drivel, Miles and I will be watching Boyz n the Hood tonight. If you have kids, you might want to get on the bandwagon and do this too, because pretty soon people will be jumping on this idea like a fat girl on a hotcake trampoline.

The Not-So-Funny Pubic Hair Joke

2011-12-09T08:58:00.000-08:00

I was in a public restroom the other day, and I walked into a stall and there was a bunch of pubic hair laying everywhere. It was obvious that some sort of frenzy had happened in there. You know when cats or birds have a prolonged fight, and then afterward there's a big clump of fur or feathers, and even if you didn't see it, you know you're at the site of a battle. It was like that. Somebody was dick fighting!

Anyway, I left that bathroom in a hurry, just in case the dick fighters came back. I didn't want to get caught in the middle of that.

It reminded me of this time in 9th grade. It was actually the 1st day of 9th grade, and back then I was an even goofier looking, less confident version of my current self. The very first class I had was a Math class, probably something like Algebra I. The first thing we did in Algebra I was receive a syllabus and our math books. The math books we received were several years old, and had been passed down from the last Algebra class. So I opened my math book to try to ascertain how hard high school math was going to be, and I was flipping through the pages. I got to one page and almost shrieked like a sissyboy. There was a big pile of pubes in my math book. So there I was, 10 minutes into my high school career, and somehow I had gotten the pube book. It was fairly obvious that somebody had chopped off a large portion of their pubes, shoved them into the math book, and shut the book, knowing full well that eventually somebody else would open the book, see the pubes and maybe shout, "Yarrgh! Pubes!"

Since I was a little too shy to shout, "Yarrgh! Pubes!" I just shut the book and felt uncomfortable about high school until the period ended. When the period ended, I figured I had to do something. I couldn't, in good conscience, stick a book into my locker with somebody else's pubes in it. That would have been weird. So, I sheepishly walked over to my teacher and said, "Excuse me sir, I need a different book. This one has pubes." Not surprisingly, the teacher looked at me like I had 3 heads. Then he saw the pubes and was equally horrified, and I could tell that he was trying to figure out if I could have possibly smuggled in a bag of my own pubes and stuck them in the book. I think he must have determined that that was an unlikely scenario, so he just gave me another book, but sufficed to say my high school days were off to a bizarre start. I never did find out who's pubes they were, which is odd, because I had figured that eventually I'd hear somebody saying, "HAHAHA, I stuck pubes into a math book once," and then I would punch that person in the crotch.

So, in case anybody knows who did it, I got the pube book and I was not amused!

A Time to be Thankful

2011-11-21T12:06:00.000-08:00

Being that the Thanksgiving season is upon us I thought I would give an incomplete list of the things I am thankful for this holiday season. In no particular order I am thankful for:

1.) My family
2.) My dog who chews his foot constantly so that it may eventually be amputated
3.) My other dog who protects us from garbage trucks and 13 year olds
4.) The female buttocks
5.) Turkeys (because they hang out on the railroad tracks and eat gravel)
6.) Other turkeys (because I eat them and get sleepy)
7.) Whale blowholes
8.) My penis
9.) The garbage man for taking my garbage (because I don't know what I would do with it otherwise)
10.) Fantasy Football (For making Sundays fun even when the Vikings are gay homosexuals)
11.) Random Debris
12.) Being able to see
13.) Being able to wear pants
14.) Being able to see that others are wearing pants
15.) Rhioceri
16.) Monkeys, as long as they are flinging poo
17.) That time when I found 5 bucks in the grass
18.) My scrotum
19.) My other scrotum
20.) My neighbor who screams obscenities at his wife while doing yard work
21.) This pig I saw on the internet with giant balls
22.) Public urination
23.) Unicorn meat (especially Unicorn Noodle Soup)
24.) The fact that I haven't zipped my weiner into my zipper in nearly a year
25.) The fact that I don't have a giganticly disproportionate or misshapen ass
26.) Any dance that has "extreme pelvic thrust" as one of it's moves
27.) Andre the Giant
28.) Ghetto Fabulous sunglasses found in the ashtray at Menards
29.) Areolas that aren't way huge like Kate Winslet's
30.) The Minnesota Valkyrie (even the no talent hoes riding the pine)
31.) Gay people who don't talk about butt sex in casual conversation
32.) Nymphomaniacs who live near me
33.) Morning farts
34.) The fact that I never get a boner while sprinting
35.) The fact that I never got arrested for stealing condoms because I was too embarrassed to buy them.
36.) Kangaroo pouches
37.) The fact that my nipples are symmetrical
38.) My yard, for being at the bottom of a hill, so I can watch out my window and root for cars to crash when it's slippery
39.) My kids for learning to whistle, and then sounding like foghorns running out of batteries because they can't whistle a tune.
40.) The word "crotch"
41.) Occupy "insert city here" for making me feel like less of a loser
42.) Cat burglars
43.) Fully charged riding carts at the grocery store
44.) Kumquats
45.) The City of Kansas City.
46.) When I saw a dildo in the sewer one time.
47.) This sparkly platypus from my dreams
48.) Anybody who's last name is "Orgasm"
49.) People who mispronounce the word "chipotle"
50.) Sacajawea dollars
51.) This guy at the gym who admitted that he had a "chapped buns"
52.) Anybody who puts crack in their salad
53.) The fact that I can pee longer if I drink a big glass of water while peeing
54.) Tortoises
55.) Flapjacks
56.) The endocrine system
57.) Pooping while running at full speed.

As I've mentioned, this is not a "complete" list. For the full list, please contact the records department of the St. Ignatius Home for the Partially Insane. Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving!

Brian is a PH'er

2011-10-21T07:54:00.000-07:00

I have a much better story to tell than this one. It's called "The Night of Quick Escalation in Kansas City" but for now I have been asked not to put that one in written form, but I gotta tell a frickin' story so here is one...

When I was in college I had this acquaintance. For argument's sake, we'll call him Jeremy. Jeremy was one of those kids who hadn't completely finished going through puberty when he got to college, so he was a gangly mess of arms and legs, kind of like a newborn deer. As time went on though, he eventually grew into his body a little and developed a little confidence and starting trying to mack on girls and stuff.

Anyway, one night I was out at the bar with friends, enjoying a few refreshments, and then a few more, and even a few more and pretty soon I really had to take a whiz. I was disappointed to notice that all the bathrooms were in use. This sucked. I thought about peeing outside, but didn't want to get arrested for public urination, so I pee-pee danced over to this little used bathroom in the other room of the bar. When I busted in, penis already out of my pants, there was Jeremy making out with a really unattractive girl. He was not pleased to see me.

Him: Jensen, go find another bathroom!

Me: No way, I'm whizzin' now. Go french that girl someplace else.

Him: Jensen, dude, why you gotta PH me man? Why you gotta PH me?

In this case "PH" stood for "Player Hate", which was one of those stupid phrases that stupid people used back in the stupid late 90's.

He was a lot more upset than I had anticipated, and unleashed a string of profanities at me, and some more references to PH'ing. I just shook my head and peed. All this hubbub over an ugly girl.

About 2 weeks later Jeremy had a party over at his house. His house was about 200 feet away from mine, and it was South Dakota, so really, what else was there to do, so I went to the party. I walked in rather inconspicuously with about 3 other guys, but I must have set off his PH radar because he yelled (from a different room)

"Hey, look who's here. You gonna PH me again tonight, you fucking PH'er!" I realize how absurd what he said sounded, but for some reason, that night it made me really angry. So I sat over by the keg and drank beer and silently fumed for a while. I also stared at some girl butts, because that's kind of my M.O.

After about 45 minutes of angry drinking, I had to go to the bathroom. I passed by Jeremy as I headed towards the bathroom and he was chatting up some dorks and talking about the relentless PH'ing he faced on a daily basis. When I got in the bathroom, I noticed a pile of his dirty clothes laying in a bin on the floor, so I did the most logical thing I could think of. I peed all over his clothes.

During a night of consistent beer drinking, I had to pee approximately every 18 minutes. (I knew this because I had timed it several times, and it was pretty much like clockwork.) I was at the party for about 3 more hours, so in total, I probably peed on his clothes 11 times. By the end the clothes were totally saturated and there was visible standing urine in there. It was kind of gross.

So, I guess he was right. I was PH'ing him, if PH'ing means "peeing" in his "hamper". Repeatedly. I'm not really proud of this, but I can't change the past, so be it. The next afternoon he walked over to our house and was lamenting about the fact that someone had urinated all over his dirty clothes.

I just shook my head. Stupid PH'ers.

Brian Buries a Cat

2011-09-20T13:32:00.000-07:00

The other day the cat died. It was a sad event for our family, but the cat was 18, and she kind of looked like an old stuffed animal that somebody had thrown up on and then left out in the yard for a few years. In other words, she'd seen better days.

When animals figure out they're going to die, they do whatever possible to avoid you, because they just want to go lie down and die, and it's hard to go lie down and die when little kids are dragging you around, and the dog thinks you're a squeaky toy.

Anyway, she initially decided to lay in the litter box and die, which seemed a little too unceremonious for my wife. After all, she had gotten the cat in high school, and the cat had become a welcome presence in the family. So my wife made up a shoebox with a towel in it, and the cat layed in there and died overnight.

After some tears were shed that early morning, we decided it would better to bury the cat before the kids woke up, instead of them seeing a dead cat laying in a shoebox. So we plopped the cat in a garbage bag, and set out by the light of the moon to dig a cat grave.

The first thing I noticed was that it was way colder than I had expected. The cat had died the night of the first freeze in Minnesota, so the ground was really hard. The second problem was that our backyard is full of trees, so therefore the underground part of our yard is full of tree roots. The third complication was that it was pitch dark. So here we are, holding a dead cat in a garbage bag, trying to dig through frozen, root filled ground in the dark. As you might imagine, this did not go well.

After about 20 minutes of getting consistently stymied by roots, hard ground, and the occasional rogue giant stone, we had dug out about 10 inches of earth. You couldn't even bury a gerbil in our hole. (Get it, bury a gerbil in our hole.) I looked at my wife, with sweat dripping off me, and said,

Me: This is fuckin' impossible, maybe we can just throw her in the garbage.

Her: No way!!!

But it seemed as though she was considering this, because eventually we went inside and began googling things like, "What to do with a dead cat." While she was googling I was secretly plotting out my sneakiest route down to the park by our house which had a garbage. I figured I'd sneak over there, fling the cat in the garbage, and run off, Mission Impossible style.

Eventually we found out that it was illegal to throw your dead cat away at the park garbage so we were kind of stuck, and I had to go back out to my tiny hole. The sun had started to come up by then so it was easier to see and the ground was not as frozen, and mercifully, after a lot of swearing, I managed to dig a big enough hole to fit a cat and a garbage bag, and nobody with a broken leg saw me, Rear Window style, and thought I was trying to bury my wife.

Things appeared to be back to normal, and luckily I must have buried the cat deep enough so dog noses can't smell her and dig her up (that would be traumatic).

Before I left the house that morning, I saw that my wife had left a Facebook post that said, "Good-bye to our dear sweet Mitzah kitty." (Side note: The cat's name was Mitzah. No one has any idea why, and the wife ain't talking. I always figured she had some boyfriend named "Bobby Mitzah" or something that she didn't want me to know about.) Anyway, she had posted this nice, semi-eulogy on Facebook, and I couldn't help but notice that 6 inches above in the Google toolbar search engine was the phrase "legality of throwing a dead animal in the trash." Good gravy. Circle of life indeed.

Mike Vick and Other Animal Cruelty Related Questions.

2011-08-31T13:52:00.000-07:00

I read the other day that Michael Vick signed a contract extension for $100 Million. Of course, not all of that money is guaranteed, but it is a substantial raise from the 13 cents an hour he got washing pots, or whatever he did while he was in the joint less than 3 years ago.

I also enjoy this because I know it makes a lot of people furious. As we know, Michael Vick pled guilty to running an interstate dog fighting operation, served 21 months in Federal Prison, filed bankruptcy, got released from prison, got another job in the NFL, and did well enough to merit a $100 million contract extension, and some people refuse to forgive him, and wish a painful death on him, and other really mature things.

I do not in any way condone what Vick did, fighting dogs is an awful thing to do, regardless of how much credence you give the socio-economic argument that dog fighting is more prevalent in lower income areas of the South, and Vick was just engaging in something he had grown up around. He should have known better.

I wonder though, if people would have still been as upset if Vick had been fighting rats. Or tarantulas. Rats and Tarantulas are pets too. Do you think people would have been so furious if we had learned than Mike Vick went out back and electrocuted a tarantula? What if he was really into snake fighting, and a snake did poorly, so he went out back (Side note: All the really repugnant things I read about that happened to the dogs there happened "out back") and drowned a snake. Snakes are pets.

What if he was fighting gerbils, and his gerbil lost, so he shoved the gerbil up his butt? Would PETA have even gotten involved?? A gerbil is a pet. What if he just took two ant farms and smashed them together? BLAM!! Ant fighting. Dead ants everywhere. What would the ASPCA's response have been? Ants are sort of pets.

We apparently draw a line somewhere between dog fighting (felony) and throwing your digital pet in the river because he purrs too loud in the middle of the night and wakes you up (stupid). I just don't know where that line is.

The Disturbing Encounter with Pedro Homelessman.

2011-08-15T08:13:00.000-07:00

I've had the opportunity to play a large portion of baseball games at Parade Stadium for the last 15 years. Parade Stadium is located right outside of downtown Minneapolis, directly next to a large consortium of highway underpasses. Minneapolis contains a lot of strange people. Highway underpasses, as we know, seem to be a place where the homeless, destitute, insane people congregate. Being that Parade stadium is a stones throw away from both of these places, the parking lot around 9:00 pm tends to become fertile ground for these sorts of interesting people to mill about, which means that throughout the years we've encountered some strange things like

-A legless man screaming incoherently about something. I don't know what it was he was screaming about because he was incoherent.

-A man who carried his own chair around. I believe the chair was smeared in poop, because it smelled awful. Maybe it was the man...

-A methed out guy who got really excited when we gave him a baseball, so he snuck into the outfield after the game and played catch with himself. Like, he would throw the ball 100 feet in one direction, then sprint over to it, and then throw it 100 feet in the other direction. He did this even after the lights were shut off. Dark, solitary catch on meth is difficult.

The strangest thing I've ever encountered however, is what will forever be remembered as "The Pedro Homelessman Incident." This began innocently enough. We had just sat down after a game and were enjoying a few beverages as we tend to do after most games, when we noticed a couple of motley looking people shuffling around the lot. One of them had a giant plastic sack filled with pop and beer cans. He looked a little bit like Homeless Santa Claus.

This didn't raise any concerns, because, like I've said, there are a lot of dudes like this in the vicinity and if they are finding cans to recycle to buy a little food or booze or whatever, more power to them. Far be it for me to say that if was in their position, I wouldn't be doing the exact same thing.

Everything changed though when they decided to come over and bother us. Both of them were obviously homeless, and not recently homeless either, as their clothes were tattered and dirty and fit poorly. Both of them were of Hispanic descent and spoke little English, and both of them reeked horribly of B.O. and beer

Pedro: blblblblblblblblbblblbqkdwqhddhwubn cans?

Us: Um, you can't have these cans yet, we need to drink the beer inside them first.

Pedro's Buddy: bqkbqofnweofinweifwefwiownmfwifn cans????

Us: You can definitely have the cans fellas, but they need to be empty. We need to drink the beer in them first. Then you can have them.

Pedro (emphatically): asoffnwofnwenowefnfnowifnownweonn CANS!!!!

Us: Dudes, get out of here, you guys smell like a giant taint.

Instead of retreating back, or going to look for other cans in the interim, they just started hovering closer to us, wanting to hang out or something. Considering that:

a.) They spoke no English
b.) They smelled awful
c.) They were remarkably, heroically intoxicated
d.) They were homeless and we probably didn't have a lot in common

It became very uncomfortable very fast. Some teammates starting openly mocking them, one teammate stole their large sack of cans and ran off, and others completely ignored them. When Pedro's buddy came over and practically sat in my lap to try to give me explicit directions (in Drunken Spanish) how to correctly do the scorebook, I got up and took a walk. I went over to a nearby pine tree and pretended to take a pee, but really I was just preparing my immune system for battle since a homeless man had layed on me.

After I had collected my wits, and prepared my immune system, I turned around to head back to the circle of teammates + homeless people. What I saw did not please me. Pedro Homelessman.... was sitting.... in my chair! My initial thought was "I'm gonna have to burn that fucking chair." I walked over to him. He was busy excitedly spewing gibberish at no one in particular. He paid no attention to me.

Me: Dude?
Me: Uh vato?
Me: Compadre?
Me: Esse?

He still paid no attention to me. I heard from the peanut gallery, "Jensen, you're gonna get fined a dollar if you don't get that fuckin' dude out of your chair!" So I shook him a little bit by the shoulder. It was like touching a really dirty dog. He looked at me. I said "Up!" He looked pissed, but eventually got out of my chair.

By this time, everybody had grown tired of the antics of these two guys, and were beginning to yell at them to go away. Pedro's buddy came over to me again. He had apparently learned better English in 5 minutes because he pointed over to Pedro and said, "He gotta gun. He keeeeel white people talkin' sheeeeeet!" I told him to go stink somewhere else.

As I said that I looked up because Pedro Homelessman was causing a big ruckus. Then the awful thing happened. Pedro yelled something like "ABLAHBABABABABA" and then lifted up his shirt. On his stomach was an abomination so unnatural that it must have been stuck on by Satan himself. It was red and big and festering and pulsating. It looked like an angry cow udder except bigger and more evil. The image of it is forever seared into my brain. I honestly do not know what it was. Maybe I don't want to know. Apparently this living wound thing had a similar effect on everybody else because you heard things like:

"Oh Dear Jesus, what is THAT??!!"
"AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!"
" Holy shit, put your shirt down!!"

After that, gently persuading them to be on their way was replaced by full blown screaming for them to "get the fuck out of here and never come back." This message apparently did not need subtitles as Pedro and his buddy took off for under the bridge in a big hurry. The rest of us were left pondering what in the name of Sweet Baby Jesus we had just seen. They never got our cans either.

Internet Dating Tips

2011-07-12T13:21:00.001-07:00

I was just reading some dating personals on the internet, because it seemed like a better thing to be doing than working, and I have to say it's surprising to me that anybody ever bones anybody else meeting each other like this. Here are some of my issues.

1.) There's too many weird acronyms in these messages for me to have much idea what this girl is all about half the time. What's a BBW? A big-booty whitegirl? A bad ball washer? A big buffalo wing? Takes too long to figure out. You're dumped.

2.) People sound like insecure liars. Other people (me) can see through that. A sample of things people said:
-"Curvy" = Fat
-"Pretty" = Pretty Gross looking
-"I just want to be held" = I've never been on a date before and I'm 30. And fat.
-"Average build"= Built like a dump truck
- "2 kids and not much drama"= A slut with an ex who still humps and beats her
-"Great Personality"= Really fat and ugly
-"Told I have a great smile"= Gingivitis
-"Done playing head games" = I will definitely let you steal my savings to buy meth, and then forgive you when you don't call me for 3 months
-"Sassy" = Huge pain in the ass.
- "I believe in true love" = I'm an idealistic moron. And fat.
- "Easy on the eyes" = If you're blind.
- "BBW" = This means fat, I'm just not sure how fat

3.) Some people tell you things you wouldn't want to know even if you were married to them.
- "I need someone who's not hairy because I got raped by a badger when I was 12 and have nightmares about fur."

4.) The ones who have pics look absolutely atrocious. Like "Not even with a stolen penis would I get near you" atrocious. If you're going to put pictures up why would you choose:
a.) Side of face Mugshot pic
b.) Cell phone pic of you squatting like you're peeing in your living room
c.) Pic of you frowning while wearing too tight jeans with one leg rolled up gangsta-style

Good rule of thumb here: If you look like the cookie monster, don't post a pic.

I was just thinking that people should hire me to make their dating profiles suck less. I'm sure I would be great at this because
a.) I'm awesome
b.) The current profiles suck, as I've mentioned.

To prove that I am qualified for this job I just invented, here is what my Internet Dating Profile would look like, if I was not married obviously (Luv U hunny).

"Really awesome dude with gigantic weiner seeks girl to eventually cheat on. Must be good at cleaning bathrooms, especially mine, and going away. Should hate things like roundabouts, hornets, and those sweaters with stupid flimsy necks that look like vaginas. Also anything else I might think of.

I enjoy tabby kittens, puffy clouds, long walks by the fireplace, groupie luv, throwing dirt clumps at old people, borrowing money, walking thru tall grass without pants, foods that begin with the letter "Q", anything made of velveteen, sneaking into other's gardens and eating their vegetables, St Patrick's Eve, donating meth to charity, scotch eggs, cornflakes and bourbon, porno movies filmed in Chernobyl, making booger sculptures, screaming at horses to "GIDDYUP", and female nudity.

You should enjoy all these things too. Now please send 20 dollars and a picture of yourself. Then, 1 of 3 things will happen.

1.) I will look at your picture and spontaneously barf all over it. Then I will keep your 20 dollars.
2.) I will look at your picture, shake my head, throw it in a fire, and keep your 20 dollars. But I may send you a sea monkey for trying.
3.) I will look at your picture, and invite you over. But if you want to join my gang, first you're going to have to kill somebody. That's the way it goes in gangs. You pick the person out, so I have plausible deniability in case you do something dumb like get caught or kill the King of England or something. If you succeed, you can come over. If you get caught, you get caught. Either way, I keep your 20 dollars."

Pretty much, if somebody posted something like that, dates would just start falling from everywhere like a plague of locusts, except much different. So yeah, let me know if you want to take advantage of this opportunity, because pretty soon it will seem stupid to me.

Snapping Turtles are Jerks

2011-06-21T13:20:00.000-07:00

The other day the family and I were on our way home from a hike. Originally, the purpose behind taking the kids for hikes was to instill in them an appreciation for nature, and living things and beauty, and to keep them from becoming sedentary fatsos who sit on pillows eating chocolate and watching reruns of SpongeBob NoPants all day. Quickly, the mission of hikes shifted from this to "tiring out the children so they quit running around like energetic snow monkey crackheads on meth." Many times, hikes do not succeed in tiring them out.

As we were leaving the park, I noticed a large stone in the road. This seemed hazardous. I stopped the car and got out. As I walked over to the stone, it walked away from me. "This is odd behavior for a stone," I said to no one in particular. Then I realized that the stone was actually a big Snapping Turtle, and the world started making sense again.

I decided that my good deed of the day would be to help the turtle across the road, like he was an old lady or something. So I walked over to him and tried to shove him with my foot. This is when I realized that turtles are heavy. The turtle realized that some big thing was trying to kick him, so he made an angry turtle hissing noise. It was not friendly.

I decided that I needed to show him who was boss, so I stepped right on top of him, asserting my dominance. He stuck his neck way far out (Side note: Turtle heads and necks look like green penises with faces), then whipped back towards the middle of his shell and tried to bite my shoe. It was pretty quick for a turtle. Startled, I said, "Hey, Fuck You Asshole!!"

I decided to switch tactics, so I got a stick and started trying to poke him across the road. I figured it would work, as I had seen policemen do it to homeless people numerous times in the past with considerable success. I found out that there is a big difference between homeless people, and angry, penis-headed turtles. The turtle felt me poking him and whirled around to face me. He did this fast, like he was laying on a Lazy Susan. He reached his face out again and bit the stick. Hard. Then he shook the stick like a puppy would do, if the puppy was really mean, and had a shell, and smelled like my nut sack after a really humid baseball game.

At this point I gave up. Outside of picking him up, which seemed dangerous considering he weighed 30 pounds and wanted to bite my extremities off, I couldn't think of a way to move him. I figured the Crocodile Hunter would have known what to do, but I didn't. I considering trying to scare him off the road, but after he started bluff charging me like a very small Grizzly Bear I didn't figure he would scare easily.

So I left. Screw that turtle! Have fun dying.

Birthday Memories

2011-05-17T10:09:00.000-07:00

Recently I had a birthday. I am now 34. My kids got me an Angry Birds keychain and a Pillow Pet for my birthday. Apparently they think I am 8. Actually it was nice because they thought of the gifts all by themselves, and I had a very fun time. It makes me think back to other birthday's I've had though...

Age 1: Sat in my birthday cake. Crapped my pants.

Age 3: Received a giant wagon and a stern lecture from my grandmother to not touch the lit birthday candles. Crapped my pants.

Age 4: Received a fireman helmet with a flashing light on top that made a loud French police siren noise constantly. My parents, who bought it for me, got annoyed with it in 12 seconds. A kid named Steve stole it. Steve had a brother named Poopy Charlie. Poopy Charlie smelled like poop, hence his name. Anyhow, Steve stole my fireman helmet, my parents rejoiced, and I crapped my pants and cried.

Age 6: Party in my backyard. Got a swingset. 10 years later the swingset was used strictly as a target for apples, because swinging on it meant getting near the rusty, exposed bolts, and possibly cutting yourself and getting instantaneous, permanent lockjaw (or at least that's what my mom told me). Crapped my pants.

Age 8: Party in my backyard again. Got a wood bat that was way too big for me. Accidentally smashed a kid in the head on my backswing with the aforementioned bat. His mom came and got him. He did not attend any more of my birthdays. Also was forced to invite a weird kid because he was the brother of a kid I wanted to invite. The two were a package deal. Lame! The weird kid held a football by the points and kicked it in the middle like it was a watermelon, for christ sakes...

Age 9: Twins game. 10 obnoxiously loud 9 year olds riding down the highway in a busted out station wagon screaming at the top of our lungs the entire time. This was not particularly safe. The Metrodome was about 50% full, and 6 of the 10 kids got lost for longer than 15 minutes during the course of the game. My Dad mentioned to me many times that he needed about 6 scotches afterward to calm him down. Also, the station wagon died about a week later, and my Dad, being a responsible grown up, ditched the car on the side of the road and walked home. Since the title had never been transferred, the guy he bought it from got dinged for the towing expense. Sorry Mr. Pokorny...

Age 12: Rain. Little league game got rained out. We were going to San Francisco the next day, so I had to miss a game. Lots of crying and gigantic temper tantrums ensued, and trying to bargain my way out of the trip so I could play Little League ensued too. I was unsuccessful. We won the game 16-1. I felt no consolation in this.

Age 16: Got Driver's license. Drove off, leaving my mother in my wake. She cried. Drove around Lake Calhoun under the guise of "pickin' up hoochies". Truth be told, probably would have crapped my pants had any real hoochies approached my vehicle. Drove over a turtle. Felt conflicted about this.

Age 18: Went to a strip club. Really super scared of doing this. Decided during the drive over that I would rather fight 20 dragons naked than this. Did not have that choice. Wore tight bicycle pants so that if I got a boner, the prosty-toots wouldn't notice it. Went up on stage. Nearly vomited in a cup mid walk. Got smashed in the face by boobs for a long time. Noticed that one of the strippers drew eyes and a nose above her c-section scar to make a face. Was repulsed by this. Got approached to go in the champagne room. Nearly crapped my pants. Got out of there barely.

Age 21: Drank too much. Not sure of much else. Apparently stumbled into a street light with my head. Nearly crapped my pants.

Age 22: Hit a monstrous home run on my 2nd to last college at bat. Pimped the shit out of it. Played to the crowd. Nearly tripped around 3rd base. Felt dumb.

Age 27: Stared at my wife's gigantic pregnant belly a lot. Also, a mosquito stung me on the sack (side note: that may not have happened on my birthday)

Age 30: Surprise party. I was not surprised as my wife was acting all funny on the way over to my parents. Also, the 50 cars parked outside was kind of a dead giveaway.

Yep, it's been quite a ride. For sweet 35, I'm getting some Sprewells and going hang gliding with paraplegics. Or maybe something different. I don't know...

The Church Offering Debacle

2011-04-12T12:30:00.000-07:00

I can say with confidence that I am definitely a fiscal conservative. I want my money to be my money, and I want to have the option of donating a portion of it to the less fortunate, or just making it rain on naked strippers if I feel like it.

My son has apparently already developed my appreciation for hoarding money, as we learned the hard way at church the other night.

Let me just explain this first. We go to church on Wednesday night, a service known as "W.O.W." which I believe stands for "W.O.W. on Wednesday" or something like that. Maybe it stands for "Whip Out Weiners." I guess I'm not certain.

Anyhow, the WOW service is very kid oriented, with a lot of singing and dancing, and mercifully a really short sermon. The sermon usually sounds something like this.

"See that flagpole? God made it. See that hill? God made that too. See that pile of sawdust? God made it. God's awesome. Fist bump your neighbor. God's great. Clap 3 times. God rules. Sing this song. Know who made up the words? That's right, God. Go in peace and serve the lord."

That's about it, which is nice, because about 30 seconds into the service my kids get antsy and start rummaging through my wife's purse looking for snacks, running up and down the aisles, and picking tiny green dot stickers out of the bible and sticking them to everything, and there's only so much of that you can take as a parent before you start choking the children, which is frowned upon in the sanctuary.

So there we are, in the middle of church, when it becomes time for the offering. I start handing out dollar bills to everybody around me, like I'm Al Czervik or something, and then in theory, the children go up to the front up the church, plop the dollar into that felt-covered bowl thing that looks like a giant billiards pocket, and come back, satisfied that they'd done their part to keep the people in Japan floating around aimlessly due to the tsunami fed, or to keep the church from being foreclosed upon because apparently God, with his infinite power, can't pay his bills on time. In theory, this is how it goes.

In reality, while my daughter goes up and deposits the money, my son has decided that the dollar is now his, and he has chosen to pocket it rather than donate it to an unknown cause. This causes problems.

Us: Miles, go on up and give your offering.

Miles: No!

Us: Um. Yes, you have to.

Miles (Emphatically): NO!!! It's mine!

Us: Miles, don't you want to help our the poor children? (This is our old standby. If we ever have an issue with throwing away toys or something, the boilerplate mantra is that the toys or items are going to poor children. There is a giant island in the North Atlantic filled with poor children happily playing with our old Happy Meal toys.)

Miles: NO!! Tell them to get their own money!! This is my big money!

Us: Fine, but you can't just keep the money. Give it back.

Miles: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

What followed was a gigantic tantrum right in the middle of church. It was a lucky break that the offering music was playing loudly so nobody noticed except people nearby who could see my beautiful little boy yelling his lungs out with a death grip on a dollar bill. I'm sure they were confused.

Finally we calmed him down a little, but he still wouldn't let go of the dollar. Fine, I'll pay a dollar for a lack of screaming. Seems like a good investment to me, and things turned out OK, except for that the very instant church ended Miles said loudly to no one in particular, "IT'S OVER LET'S GET OUTTA HERE." Even the pastor heard that one.

I don't know what the moral of this story. Don't ever give Miles a dollar I guess...

Burritos and How Not to Order Them.

2011-03-22T13:14:00.000-07:00

I love burritos. Especially Chipotle Burritos. I don't care that they're like 8000 calories, I still eat them a lot. I eat them often enough to know about the "Chipotle Window", the time you can go and there won't be a massive line of people ordering people before you. That way I can get in, get out, and begin the wonderful eating process.

I've even learned to slow down while eating them, because I used to eat them so fast that by the time I was done my brain hadn't figured out that my stomach was full yet, and then I'd have to sit there for 5 minutes consumed with anger because I wanted more burrito. I even emailed Chipotle and asked them to make an "El Grande" burrito that was 25% larger just for guys like me. The representative who emailed me back suggested I order a taco or two with my burrito. He was stupid!

Occasionally, due to unforeseen circumstances, I wind up missing the Chipotle Window and standing in an immense line. This always bothers me because there is always at least one person in front of me who was no idea how to order a burrito. This slows down the line considerably. The employees are relatively efficient but for the most part they speak Spanish, and what I refer to as "Burrito English", in that they understand words like "chicken", "black beans" and "fajita". Anything other than that causes a huge bottleneck and makes me want to choke slam the offending patron.

I knew I was in for an maddeningly long wait when I heard this lady say this.

Lady: I want a....... um....... burrito.

Worker: Kind of meat?

Lady: Uh, what kind you got? What's that one?

Worker: Steak.

Lady: No that one.

Worker: This one? Carnitas.

Lady: Carnitas? What's a carnita? Never mind, what's that one?

(Brian's blood begins to boil)

Worker: Chicken

Lady: Oh, well I want steak.

(Dammit lady, get moving!!)

Worker: Kind of beans?

Lady: Beans?? I want some vegetables.

Worker: Fajita?

Lady: What? No I want some VE-GE-TA-BLES. And I also want some beans.

(AAAAHHHHHH!!)

Worker: Kind of salsa?

Lady: Now.... let... me.... see. Oh, are those tomatoes?

(It's fucking salsa lady!)

Lady: And what's that green stuff?

Worker: Guac.

Lady: What is it in English?

Worker: Guac. Guacamole.

Lady: Ooh, I want Guacamole.

Worker: Guac is 50 cent extra.

Lady: What?? Well how much is my total then.

(53 cents more than it was before, and I'm going to poop in your mouth soon!!)

Then she went to the register, left her cigarettes behind, had to go back and retrieve them, and then proceeded to pay with change, and not well organized change either. Really, she deserved a good slaughtering.

I think the lesson to be learned here is this, to paraphrase Treach from Naughty By Nature. If you ain't never been to Chipotle, don't ever go to Chipotle, cuz you wouldn't understand it in Chipotle. And there might be a big headed fellow lurking nearby to kill you and eat your burrito.

My Great Massage Parlor Idea.

2011-02-28T09:41:00.000-08:00

I have a lot of really great ideas. Trouble is most of them are terrible. The ones that aren't terrible however, are really great.

The trouble with that is, usually I will come up with a great idea while I'm driving, or pooping or something, and by the time I have a chance to write it down I've started thinking about boobs or I've seen a puffy dog or I've heard a weird noise in the woods and I've forgotten all about it.

This was not one of those times.

Here's my idea, and by reading about it you have implicitly agreed not to steal it. It's a massage parlor called the "Happy Ending Massage Parlor." There would be a big neon sign, and around the sign would be pictures of half naked ladies and hearts, and X's and O's and other fun things like that.

The name alone ought to be enough to keep the place packed for a good long time, like forever. But then I'd hire a "Hype Man" to run around the Metro area and tell people that if you got the right masseuse, you could actually opt for a happy ending with this girl who was the hottest girl in the world, or at least in the South Metro. We'd call her "Jasmine" or "Diamond" or "Yuki" or something, and she wouldn't actually exist, but the Hype Man would perpetrate that myth until it was saturated throughout the city.

(Side note: I know this works because when I was a kid there was a legend that these two mean bullies named "Jess and Joe" lived behind the Holiday Gas Station on Excelsior Blvd, and if they saw you at the gas station, they'd kill you, or take your bike. We were all scared to death to go there as kids, and I'm still a little leery going there now even though, to the best of my knowledge, Jess and Joe were figments of somebody's imagination.)

Anyhow, at the same time the Hype Man was spreading the word about the magical prowess of this girl, he'd be immersing himself in the Marijuana culture (so everyplace again) that the name of the establishment carried a secret meaning. Happy Ending Massage Parlor. HEMP. He'd say you could get discount pot here if you bought a year long package of "Happy Endings" and said the magic password that nobody knew, or something similar.

Meanwhile, we'd run the business completely by the book and just let the word on the street become part of the overall folklore of the place. I think it wouldn't matter that Jasmine didn't exist or that weed wasn't part of a long-term package. The overall ambiance of the place would have an illicit, Vegas-y feel to it, except it would be in boring-ass Minnesota where there is a decided dearth of illicit Vegas-y things.

People will come Ray! Oh yes, people will most definitely come! Now all I need is a wealthy dowager or lottery winner, or just somebody with money burning a hole in their pocket to be my financier, because I'm not taking any chances just in case everybody around here is a big, gay nerd.

Seriously, this is an awesome idea. Call me and give me money now.

Brian Has an Itch

2011-02-01T09:27:00.000-08:00

You know what sucks? Did you ever get a really bad itch in a spot you can't get to? I hate that.

I don't just mean an itch in the middle of your back or something that your arms can't reach because in a pinch you can always just sidle up to a wall corner and itch your back grizzly bear style. It's different than that.

It's like my bones itch sometimes. About once a week I get a really bad itch right on my left ulna, and I can't scratch it because I can't touch my bones because of all the arm skin. It makes me angry. Angry Birds angry. But not angry enough to rip off my flesh and itch my arm bone. So I just have to wait for it to go away. Waiting for an itch to go away is like waiting for Jehovah's Witnesses to leave your doorstep when you're naked and trapped downstairs and all your clothes are upstairs and you live in a split level house so the only way to get upstairs is to walk by the door where the Jehovah's Witnesses will see that you've been ignoring them and they'll also see your Wang. It sucks.

But even worse than having your bones itch is when you have an itch in a really inappropriate place. What do you do then? Have you ever been out in public when all of a sudden you get a really bad itch right in your butthole? I was at a Timberwolves game once when all of a sudden my butthole started to itch really bad! If I had been at home, I would have just itched my butthole, and then probably washed my hands. But you can't just start itching your butthole in front of 10,000 people unless you are:

a.) 2 years old
b.) Clinically insane
c.) In a big war

I did not fit any of those groups perfectly, so that meant I just had to sit there with an itchy butthole while my son ate Cotton Candy and Snow Cones for dinner and spilled all over himself. It's difficult trying to cheer for any team while your butthole itches.

Maybe it's just me who has these issues. I don't know.

Aiden's Mom Sucks

2011-01-25T12:07:00.000-08:00

I'm not the best parent in the world. I try hard, but sometimes I yell at my kids when I shouldn't, sometimes I let them do things they shouldn't, and occasionally I feed them M&M's and Sprite for breakfast. That said, we've tried, as parents, to give our kids at least a little bit of independence so they can figure stuff out for themselves. We don't let them skip around in the street or smoke cigars or anything like that, but we do attempt to let them be, without a constant adult presence around them. It seems to have served them well. Outside of brawling with each other on a nightly basis, and occasionally flicking boogers at us, they seem to be happy, intelligent children.

With that in mind, I reserve a certain, special, vitriolic hatred for those parents who cannot get the fuck out of their kids' shadows for even one second throughout the day. I hate them like I hate Hornets and Roundabouts and Heely's and Dog the Bounty Hunter. Hate them. Here's why:

1.) Their kids are usually really poorly adjusted to life, probably because they haven't been allowed to do any living, so therefore you might see a 4 year old kid who:

Is really whiny about everything
Is really fuckin' stupid for his age
Is still breast-feeding
Spends all his time baby talking gibberish and drooling on his sweater with barnyard caricatures on it
Craps his pants frequently

(I mention "he" here because it's never a little girl being smothered. It's always a boy with a crazy ass mom. Always.)

2.) They give off an air of smug superiority, as if to say, "I don't trust all you morons to realize how special my child is, so I'm never going to let him near you or your inferior offspring without being nearby to shove him in the right direction should he get too near the riff-raff"

3.) They always have a misshapen ass. Always. You can't trust anybody with a misshapen ass.

4.) They are constantly in the way. I coached my kids' basketball team last year and one of the other teams was filled with parents like this. Consequently, there were as many adults on the court as kids for that team. It was so obnoxious.

"Your kid is 4! He can't even run 10 feet without tripping on a dust particle and falling over! Stop harassing him!! HE'S NOT GOING TO CROSSOVER DRIBBLE!! Get your misshapen ass off the court!!"

And don't even get me started on the mother who tried to scold our team for guarding her son too closely. That one got a Jensen size 13 Nike in her misshapen ass.

Personally, I thought that team's parents encompassed the dregs of parental society, that that was as bad as it could get. Sadly, I was mistaken.

Let me introduce you to a woman we'll call "Aiden's Mom" (because that's who she is). Aiden's mom has a son named Aiden, and a daughter named "Hey You" that gets her shoelaces tied by Aiden's dad. Both Aiden and "Hey You" go to gymnastics with my kids.

I want to beat the shit out of Aiden's Mom. Literally. I want to smash her face into a pommel horse. I want to fling her off the high uneven bar. I want to choke her with the rings. I want to drop a Port-A-Pit on her. She is quite possibly the worst person in the world, the Genghis Khan of overprotective gymnastics mothers with misshapen asses.

The first time we met Aiden's Mom was in the lobby at gymnastics. The lobby was crowded. My mother was in there, looking very much like you might expect my mother to look. Aiden's Mom began shoving her way through the crowd, carrying Aiden. She got to my mom and said, "Excuse me, I have to get through." When typed, that sounds polite. When Aiden's Mom said it, it was definitely not polite. (You can ask my mom if you don't believe me). Those 7 words made me think to myself, "Wow, that lady is a mean slut!" I was right.

While the rest of the parents sit on chairs and watch from the lobby area, and gossip, and send text messages, and work on their laptops and whatnot, Aiden's Mom is IN the gymnastics area, following Aiden around at all times, and paying absolutely no attention to the other 8 kids in Aiden's class, or Aiden's teacher. If you listen for about 5 minutes, you'll hear the following over and over ad nauseum:

"Hurry up Aiden"
"Watch out Aiden"
"Bounce on your bottom Aiden"
"Out of the way, here comes Aiden"
"Wait for me Aiden"
"Your the best one, Aiden" (said within earshot of the other kids)
"YAYYYYYY Aiden"

The final straw (and this was the thing that even irked the people on laptops that weren't paying attention) was when a little girl hit a slippery spot and fell off the trampoline. She wasn't hurt badly, but it scared her and she was crying. Instead of consoling the girl, Aiden's Mom brushed past her as if she didn't exist and ran over and grabbed Aiden as he approached the slippery spot. I'm no moral purist, but that's messed up.

I'm not proud to admit this, but I kept hoping Aiden would break his leg or get kidnapped by gypsies or fall down a well or something, just so this woman would have to eat a little crow, admit her ass was misshapen, and conclude perhaps that no matter how hard you suffocate your child, eventually he's going to have to breathe on his own.

She probably won't though, at least not without a fight. She's not a great person, but she thinks she's the best. Well, let me save you the suspense lady. You suck balls. And Aiden will always be an effeminate little weiner because of you. Always.

(Follow-Up: As we were leaving last night, Aiden's Dad was tying "Hey You's" shoelaces when Aiden's Mom said, "Hey You, I noticed you weren't putting forth your best effort while stretching. That is NOT how we do things in our family. Looks like we'll be working on that when we get home." "Hey You" is 5. I hate Aiden's Mom...)

Phone Books, Still?

2011-01-11T13:38:00.000-08:00

I realized while searching in vain in my garage for my stupid missing ice scraper the other day, that I have about 30 different phone books laying around on the garage floor. This perplexes me. Why do we still get paper versions of the phone book? When was the last time you actually looked in the phone book? Actually, when was the last time your phone book served any purpose other than "doorstop" or "part of pile of random detritus piled in the garage"?

I don't understand this, and what's more, some guy came by to give me another phone book the other day, and he slipped in the driveway and fell in some dirty snow. As a former Qwest delivery boy myself when I was 18-20, I would never have been caught dead delivering phone books in the snow, and I was a moron back then, even more so than I am now. As proof of this, I offer up some moron-type things I did while delivering phone books.

1.) Went into a yard with a scary dog hiding behind a bush and threw the Yellow Pages at him in order to get away.

2.) Went delivering on a 95 degree day with no water, 12 cents in my pocket, and no credit cards. I had to periodically sneak into people's yards and drink from their sprinklers in order not to die. This led to an awkward exchange between me and a kid about my age who I startled when he popped out of a house I was drinking from.

Kid: Uh, hi. Who are you?

Me: Sorry. I'm delivering Phone Books and I, ummm, I got thirsty. So I was drinking from the sprinkler. Sorry.

Kid: Oh. Ok. (Stares at the ground for a long time)

Me: Well, I gotta go. Thanks for the water.

Kid: I don't even live here...

3.) Got really lost trying to find a neighborhood in Roseville and in the midst of an epic car tantrum, punched the windshield and spider-webbed it. Calmed down to process my actions, found the neighborhood, finished the delivery, and proceeded to blame the broken windshield on a rock falling off an overpass. (Side Note: My parents believed this, even though the break originated from the inside. Must have been a clever rock.)

4.) Told an old toothless homeless guy that loaded the phonebooks into my car from a big trailer that my favorite drink was Tanqueray even though I had no idea what it was at the time and was just trying to seem cool because I heard Snoop Dogg mention it. Thankfully he did not call my bluff. It's always embarrassing to have an old toothless, homeless guy throw the bullshit flag at you. Thankfully it's only happened twice to me.

5.) Got bored delivering one day and threw all my phonebooks in a dumpster and then claimed to have finished the route. Got paid anyway. Learned later that throwing phone books away is illegal. Also threw 2 phone books in a Port-A-Potty to see what would happen once.

6.) Delivered a phone book directly into the hands of a crazy person who to thanked me and then said

"You know, 75% of the 500,000 gooks in the world are chinks. Heh heh heh, that's a lot of chinks!"

It's been 15 years and I'm still trying to figure out what that meant.

7.) Almost got killed by a cadre of Mexican gang members because they thought I was trying to sneak in or something. I set the book on the porch and was leaving when I heard,

"Hey, what are you doing?"

Me: Oh, just delivering your phone book

Him: You like the music?

Me: No, phone book

Him (after long pause): What are you doing here?

Two other guys came out looking angry.

Them: What are you doing here?

Me: Phone books guys, phone books!

They didn't know what phone books were and I was about to get shanked. I finally walked between them all, picked up the phone book, pointed at it and said "Phone Book". It was like Gangsta Sesame Street.

They were all OK with that, but when I left I distinctly heard a "Que Esta Haciendo" coming from one of them. I'm not getting killed over phone books.

So yeah, I was a dumb kid delivering phone books, but even I knew not to deliver in the winter, or even at all anymore. It's just unnecessary clutter. Thanks anyway, but from now on please deliver my phone books to homeless shelters or malnourished kids or something. Thanks.

Brian Touches Pee, Learns Nothing.

2010-12-14T12:50:00.000-08:00

A few days ago, I was peeing at work (in the toilet of course, not just behind the fax machine or something), when my keys fell into the toilet. Initially, when I told my wife this, she was fairly incredulous.

Me: I dropped my keys in the toilet honey.

Her: What?

Me: I dropped my keys in the toilet sugarplum.

Her: You dropped your keys in the toilet???

Me: I dropped my keys in the toilet Cuddle butt.

Her: Why?

And the conversation went on like that for a while, with her growing more and more suspicious that she'd married a man who was born with an extra chromosome, and me trying to reassure her by calling her pet names like babycakes, pooh bear, and hooker lips.

Let me explain how this happened. I originally had my keys in my pocket like a normal person, but the pants I was wearing were obviously made by retarded monkeys in the dark. Somehow my pants are too loose in the waist and too tight in the thighs, which makes no sense because I have normal sized thighs and my fat accumulates mostly as side fat. (I also enjoy clouds, tabby kittens, and long walks by the fireplace.)

Anyhow, since I was wearing oddly configured pants, my keys kept poking me in the groinal area every time I did anything at all. I have sharp keys too. Ouch! It felt like getting bit on the crotch by a parrot. (That's a whole other story.)

So since I was wearing a hoodie, I took my keys out of my pocket and put them in that little kangaroo pouch thing that many hoodies come equipped with. (Side note: I have a skate key on my key chain and I have no idea what it's for.)

Then when I went to pee, I lifted up the pouch so I wouldn't pee on my own clothes and in doing so my keys fell into the uriney toilet. And not just into the toilet either, into that hole at the bottom of the toilet where the wild things go after you flush them. The keys were barely visible, and I didn't have any spares. This was horrible! I walked back out to the office kitchen and I was looking for some salad tongs or something, all the while keeping my eye out for anybody nearby that I could shoo away if they tried to get in the bathroom.

I found a big long knife and figured maybe I could stab out the keys. Of course right as I'm doing this, the UPS guy walks in with some certified mail for me to sign. I'm sure he felt really comfortable engaging some guy who was about to walk into the bathroom with a big knife and I could tell he was not unhappy to get back to his truck.

The story ends like this. I didn't stick the knife into the toilet because... well it's a knife and people cut food with it, and that's a little too weird, even for me. We've somehow managed to retain the pot my wife threw up in as a kid, but she won't cook stuff in it. It's the same basic concept. I did however, stick my entire right arm into a toilet filled with my own pee and retrieve my keys. Then I did some swearing and washed my arm for about 2 hours, and went back to work. All in all, it was pretty gross.

(Post-Script to this story: You'd think I would have learned some sort of lesson from car key/toilet mishap, but today I dropped my keys in the toilet again. Maybe I do have that extra chromosome after all...)

Brian Starts Argument, Passes Time.

2010-11-24T08:56:00.000-08:00

The short Thanksgiving week is notoriously slow for most businesses, except, like stores that sell turkeys and stuff. Neither my wife, nor myself, work for a turkey store, so finding things to keep busy with this week has not been easy.

Since we were bored, we started emailing things back and forth to each other that were very boring.

Me: Today is boring and dumb. I'm gonna clean my keyboard. Heh Heh.

Her: I'm bored too, and you are gross.

Me: Flicking a lintball right now, a little busy.

Her: Are you busy the week of March 15th, 2026?

Me: If I had to bet on it, I'd guess my nosehairs would be the first hairs on my body to go gray.

Her: My sister's kids are always sick.

Me: If I peed in an ice cube tray, could I make pee cubes?

Her: I hope Bella's not getting Strep.

Me: Did you throw away all my underpants?

And on and on it went, all the while very boring.

Then she suggested that maybe we should buy lottery tickets. I never buy lottery tickets, considering the simple fact that I have a better chance of having my penis bitten off by a lake monster than I do of winning the jackpot.

I suggested to her that instead of buying lottery tickets that maybe I should just take a few Washington's and fling them into the street, because the same thing would likely happen which was nothing.

She said that at least her idea gave us a chance, albeit a slight one, of winning money. Let me be the first to tell you, I disagreed with her assessment.

My contention is that it was just as likely that after I flung some dollar bills into the street that a burglar would run by, carrying a large sack with a dollar sign on it filled with money (I made the further assumption that the money was untraceable, and that the burglar had been wise enough to discard the exploding die pack). Anyhow, the burglar would run by, slip on the dollar bills and crack his head wide open, just like my mom always worried about me doing. The burglar would be laying there dead, with a cracked-wide-open head, and I would simply walk over and take the bag with the dollar sign on it, and, somehow owing to the spoils of war laws from the first two World Wars, I would be able to keep it and not pay taxes on it either.

This scenario struck me as just as likely to occur as Ed McMahon coming over and presenting me with a big check. Wait, that might be Publishers Clearinghouse and Ed McMahon might be dead, but my point is still well made.

She disagreed and so we argued about it. Women huh? Oh well, at least it passed some time.

My Keyboard

2010-11-17T12:26:00.000-08:00

You ever notice how disgusting your keyboard gets after a while? This is really, really gross. I cleaned my keyboard today and I was shocked at how much crap was in there. I don't have a really scientific method for cleaning my keyboard. I just whack it against my desk really hard until somebody from another part of the office comes over to see what the hell all the racket is about.

Person: Brian, what are you doing?

Me: Whacking my keyboard against the desk.

Person: Why?

Me: I'm cleaning it.

Person: I thought you were loudly killing yourself.

Me: Nope, just cleaning my keyboard.

(Side note: My latest euphemism for masturbating is now "Cleaning my keyboard". My euphemisms haven't evolved much since I was a kid. When I was 12 it was referred to as "Strummin' on the Old Banjo". But I digress.)

Anyhow, I'm pretty much amazed at the amount of stuff that flies out when I clean the keyboard. A general list:

-Old food particles
-Dirt
-Fingernails
-Boogers
-Old skin
-Disgusting items of unknown origin
-Little bits of paper
-Insect Poop
-Lots of eyelashes

The last one really surprises me. How come I don't notice when my eyelashes fall out? You'd think you'd see that. It's right by your eyes! It's kind of unnerving to think how often I am unknowingly shedding eyelashes all o'er the land. And when people come over to my house, are they leaving a big pile of eyelashes behind? Yuck!

Keep your eyelashes to yourselves people. In the meantime, I'm gonna turn on some porno and "clean my keyboard."

Brian goes to Bahamas, Things Are Dirty There

2010-11-16T10:54:00.000-08:00

I've been meaning to write about this for a while now but I've held off because I didn't want people to get the impression that I didn't have a good time on my Disney Vacation. The vacation itself was a wonderful time. We spent two days at Disney World, and 5 days on a Disney Cruise. The kids had a great time, we had a great time, and uh... it was great. There were two things that bothered me a little.

1.) Walking around for 13 straight hours is hard on your feet. On the second day I found myself sitting in Epcot Center, in the country of Norway, with my shoes off massaging my own feet, totally oblivious to the stares of disapproval from stupid tourists all around me. It was the best foot massage I've ever gotten. So I was sitting there, eating German Cheesecake (which is nothing more than a bunch of Kool-Whip in a pie tin) and rubbing my own feet, and loudly grunting with pleasure about it. I think that about says it all. Oh, and to the fake breasted woman that was gawking at me, worry about yourself and your expensive cha-cha's, or come rub my feet, or keep walking. Ho.

2.) Nassau, Bahamas is a dirty craphole. I started thinking about this because I have a certain Bahamian friend who is being such a pain in the ass that I want to slap him around with my penis and sew his butthole shut. When we got to Nassau, we were immediately inundated by small women carrying beads who wanted to braid my daughter's hair.

Woman: Hey Dada, you want braids for yo' bebe?

Me: No thanks.

Woman: C'mon Dada, yo' bebe want braids huh?

Me: No, you look like you have Syphilis of the hands. I can get somebody on the ship to do it for cheaper, plus I won't have to worry that my daughter will catch the 7 year creepin' Jesus. Eat your Jonny Cake and leave me be.

After being assaulted by about 50 women like this, I started completely ignoring their catcalls and instead staring at my feet or trying to catch small lizards hanging off trees. This tactic was moderately successful.

Finally, after I'd dissed like 3 generations of hair braiders, we got on this bus and headed for a zoo. The zoo turned out to be a ghetto ass zoo. More on that later.

While driving to the zoo, we noticed that all the dwellings seemed to have no windows or roofs or ceilings, and the entire insides were filled with garbage. I didn't see one inhabitable place on the whole drive. 80% of the population of the Bahamas lives in Nassau. I have no idea where.

When we got to the zoo, it became very obvious very quickly that it was a ghetto ass zoo. There were hardly any animals except birds, and it appeared as though it hadn't been painted since 1842. The only thing the zoo had was flamingos, who had been taught to run around in circles. A drill sergeant kept yelling at them and then they'd run around in circles. Then they stopped doing that and began trying to bite us. This terrified my daughter, and enthralled my son, especially when a flamingo ran over to me and tried to bite me in my crotch. You ever see somebody slap a flamingo? You should hang out with me more often.

After we left the ghetto ass zoo, we drove through more garbage until we got to a fort that was falling down. Some random townie with a bizarre voice gave a rambling history lesson and then stood really still like a statue and wouldn't answer any questions. Then he abruptly started moving again and kicked us out of the fort. We were led to an open area that was full of little kiosks that usually would have been filled with peddlers and hair braiders and drug dealers and such. But since we were the only ship that day, nobody had bothered to show up, except one guy who got sleepy, and was sleeping on a table, in a kiosk, with one of his shoes resting next to his head. I wanted to throw some stones at him but Amy wouldn't let me.

Then the tour was over. We drove back down through the garbage, stopping to admire a brightly colored billboard reminding us to "Protect Ya Tings" (apparently there is a high incidence of AIDS in the Bahamas. People must be humpin' in the streets or something). As we got back on the boat, the hair braiding ladies came back in full force and I had to beat them away with a conch.

Really though, where do these people live?

The Things I Hate.

2010-10-20T11:32:00.001-07:00

A lot of people who read this frequently ask me why I have such a strong hatred for various things. Well, faithful readers, I figured I would explain to you.

1.) Hornets-Hornets suck for so many reasons. First they fly around in your face, which is pretty inconsiderate, all things considered. Maybe in France people think it's great to have little insects flying around your eyeballs all the time, but here in America we have personal boundaries and space. Human beings respect each others personal space, is it so much to ask that hornets could do the same. (Side note: My grandmother used to let hornets walk all over her glasses and eyes. It was horrible. I never understand why so many hornets would flock to her face like that. Maybe her eyes smelled like flowers, I don't know)

Secondly, and more importantly, hornets are JERKS!! Hornets will just fly over and sting you on the arm if they think you're looking at them funny, or hanging out too close to their nest or something. Sometimes I think they sting me just for practice.

Hornet (Looking at me): Look there's a big thing.

Other Hornet: Let's sting the shit out of it.

Hornet: Good thinking Ed.

I know people who have been stung like 2 times in their life. How is this possible? I've been stung like 400 times. And they can just keep stinging indiscriminately forever. I hate them. I watched this show one time where this guy named Billy sprayed a bunch of crud into the cracks of this dilapidated shack, and hornets were falling out everywhere dying. My eyes had an orgasm watching this.

2.) Roundabouts-When did this country turn into England? Everywhere I go nowadays, a stupid roundabout is popping up. The powers that be apparently believe that we are born with an inherent understanding of what to do when faced with a large circle in the middle of flowing traffic. Well people are dumb and treat roundabouts like a very small scale Indy 500, so I am constantly in fear of getting in an accident. I'm also in fear of being trapped inside the roundabout like Clark Griswold, driving in circles for hours. "Look kids, there's Big Ben, Parliament." My children think it's funny and cheer loudly when we approach roundabouts. This angers me. People who need someone else to wipe their butts for them shouldn't be making fun of me. If you want me to stop hating roundabouts, you should send me to roundabout camp for a week, at the taxpayers expense of course.

3.) Heelys-I've mentioned before why I hate these stupid shoes, but let me reiterate. The only kids you see with Heelys are fat, weird looking kids with even fatter parents. The kids skate around shopping centers, and crash into people and don't say "sorry" and then skate off to crash into different people, and their fat ass parents can't keep up with them because they're driving around in those motorized wheelchairs with baskets on them for groceries provided by the store, and they've stopped paying attention to the havoc their ugly children are wreaking because they're too busy yanking preprocessed, cholesterol laden items with their canes off of high shelves in an obvious subconscious attempt to bring around that next coronary sooner rather than later.

4.) Dog the Bounty Hunter- I hate him because he has a gay mullet. I hate him because he has a dumb voice. I hate him because he has a 5th grade vocabulary. I hate him because his wife looks like a cross between a super high class prostitute and Grimace from McDonalds. I hate him because he makes idiots believe it's really possible to aggressively chase after criminals without a gun for years and never get shot. Really though, just look at him. How could you not hate somebody like that? Even if he was really nice and all he did was save puppies and babies from buildings on fire all day long I'd still hate him.

I think everything else I have a real hatred for I've covered in earlier posts. For more information, refer back to those.

My Dog is Crazier Than Me

2010-10-13T08:41:00.000-07:00

Let me preface this by saying that I love my dog Jasper. He is a sweet, friendly animal, very good with the children, and I'm happy he's mine. He's also, on occasion, a raving lunatic.

I suppose you can trace most of this behavior back to when he was a puppy. He was apparently abused at a very young age, and then set free in Duluth in the winter, ostensibly left to freeze to death. Instead, Homeward Bound got a hold of him, and while I was still in college my wife adopted him. He had really severe kennel cough, and dog pneumonia, and he sneezed big green boogers all over his feet every 30 seconds or so. My wife spent a good majority of her day cleaning snot out of his paws.

Jasper has never really been able to let go of his upsetting childhood, and since I'm not paying for a dog whisperer to come in and help him express his feelings, or his anal glands, or whatever a dog whisperer does, he has a tendency to act really strangely at times. Throughout his life he has done the following

-Ran upstairs and hid under the bed for 2 days after I fell down the stairs and landed on him early in the morning while still half asleep going to let him out.

-Escaped from us at a park where the snow was 4 feet deep but he didn't sink since he was too little, and proceeded to chase a flock of canada geese, that were flying 500 feet above him in a "V", for about a mile, including across a busy road where he almost got hit by like 8 cars, but was totally oblivious to this fact because he was staring at the sky and barking the whole time.

-Chewed off and ate his long plumage of tail fur along with a considerable amount of stuffing from his kennel mat (which he then chewed to pieces) and then loudly vomited it all up in the night on our new carpet because he was angst ridden since I had started a new job and screwed up his daily routine. This caused a fairly uncomfortable Q&A with my mom since when I returned home from work I couldn't figure out what happened to my doggie's tail.

Me: Uh mom?

Mom: Yes?

Me: Did you do something to Jasper?

Mom: What?

Me: Ummmm, did you uh, come over and cut off all his tail fur for some reason?

Mom: What? No. Why would I do that?

Me: I don't know, to make a bed for a small animal you found?

-Ferociously barked at invisible ninjas for an hour at 3 in the morning until I had to get up and threaten him with euthanasia. He's done this repeatedly.

-Got bitten on the snout by a fly which causes him to be either really scared of flies, or really aggressive towards them depending on the day. When he's really aggressive towards them he runs around barking and snarling at them and tries to leap up and bite them to death. I don't believe he has ever been successful in this. When he's really scared of them, he repeatedly slithers around the house squeaking like a big pussy and tries to wedge himself under furniture and furnace crawlspaces that he has no business trying to fit into. This usually causes chaos and broken furniture.... and threats of immediate euthanasia

-Stands and barks at a random wall for long periods of time, until I come snap him out of his trance by threatening complete and utter euthanasia. (Side note: We learned from our vet that this may be a sign of early onset dog dementia. I don't know how a being with no concept of time can have dementia, but whatever.)

-Pees on people at the dog park. I never apologize for this, instead I choose to say clever things like, "Gee your pants must smell bad" or "I guess that leg belongs to him now". People always appreciate humor when they are being urinated on.

-Lets our other much larger and bouncier dog chew on him until his head is soaking wet from slobber, and sneezes numerous times while playing. We call this phenomenon "Sneezefighting."

His latest, most confounding problem though, is that when he runs out of water he goes absolutely bonkers, but only when nobody is home to correct his behavior/threaten euthanasia. I forgot to give him water yesterday before I left for work. Let me correct myself. Never in the 10 years since I got a dog has it crossed my mind that the dog may need water at some point. I have some sort of mental block.

So my wife forgot to give him water. When I got home, the entire downstairs was in shambles. The rug was all askew, there were pretzels all over the floor, a glass candle holder had been broken, there were magazines and newspapers bitten into tiny pieces, the clothes hamper was laying on it's side, the cable box was in an odd position, there was a plate on the floor, a chair was leaning precariously against the entertainment center, and somebody had eaten a large piece of styrofoam. My first thought was really rowdy burglars. After I went and got a baseball bat and secured the house, I walked in the bathroom and noticed that there was no water in the water dishes. Uh oh. I checked the bathtub. It was full of dirty paw prints because when he gets desperate Jasper hops in the tub to try to drink residual bath water. So I got him some water and proceeded to tidy up the downstairs, sweep up the glass, and throw away the rest of the styrofoam, all the while loudly cursing the heavens for my bad fortune.

I'll say this. Having a crazy dog makes me a lot more empathetic towards the plight of my wife, who has to put up with a crazy human everyday. But still, she should remember to get the dog some water...

Weird People and the Batmobile

2010-09-28T09:20:00.000-07:00

People are weird, I tell ya. Some people are ridiculously fat. Some people are anorexically skinny. Some people look like their spouses. Some look like their pets. Some look like other people's pets. Some people look like combinations of famous people (i.e. Colin Cowherd looks like a combination of Alice Cooper and a guy who stuck his penis in an electrical socket). Some people look like they're dead and don't know it.

Mostly though, people are weird because they say weird things. I count myself as one of these people in this not particularly prestigious group. But it seems as though everywhere I go, I have a certain knack for accidentally avoiding the normal people, and only dealing with the really weird ones. I'm sort of a magnet like that. Today was no different.

I decide to break down and go get an oil change, even though I enjoy getting an oil change in the same fashion that I enjoy french kissing hornets on their stingers after I inject them with meth and Red Bull.

So I go to the oil change place. There are 3 people working there. All 3 look at me. I look back. Then two of them walk back into the office and one begins motioning me in. The two that walked away were normal. The one left over was a full blown wackaloon. The law of averages never applies to me in situations like this.

I can tell that this fellow is most likely crazy because he looks like my brother-in-law Josh, if Josh's mom and dad were also brother and sister who smoked tainted crack during the pregnancy. To be quite honest, this guy looked like a combination of Josh, and one of those people that turns into a Super Villain/Monstrous Freak after he falls into a vat of toxic sewage. He is also chewing on his bandana, which is still attached to his head somehow.

So either he steers me poorly, or I drive poorly, because he begins to gesticulate wildly with his hands, trying to get my car back to the proper position within the little oil change area. Then he puts both hands out really hard, signaling stop, and also stomps his foot like a 7 year old having a tantrum.

I stop. He comes over.

Him: Dude, what are you trying to do? Drive into fuckin' the hole?

Me (Flustered): Dude, you were waving your arms around like a man on fire. Settle down a little.

Him: Trust me, fuckin' you don't want to drive into the hole. That would suck for everyone.

I notice that he is using the "F" word at odd times in his sentences. Further confirms my suspicions that I am dealing with a crazy person.

So I tell him I need an oil change, and the normal people go down into the little basement under my car and begin changing the oil. Then he comes over to my car.

Him: This will take a bit. You can go wait in the lobby.

I get out and begin walking over there. He gets right in my way and smiles at me.

Him: Or you can just stand over here.

I'm not sure what to do. There's only a tiny path in between the front of my car and the garage door, which is now shut. He is standing in the tiny path, smiling at me. I feel like I may get raped. I stand there.

Him: You fuckin' gotta house?

Me: Uh, yeah.

Him: Does it have a pole barn?

Me: No, it just has a garage.

(Really sure he's crazy by now. As I do whenever I get into situations like this, I begin plotting my escape route. He is talking. I am plotting.)

Him: Hey, pay fuckin' attention. Would you build a pole barn?

Me: What? Where?

Him: Behind your garage of course.

Me: I don't know. I guess so, if I had some wood or something.

(This conversation has devolved and gotten me nervous, and when I'm nervous I start saying stupid things, like that I would build a pole barn behind my garage if I had some wood.)

Him: Yeah, I need to get some land.

Me: You ain't no kind of man if you ain't got land.

(I'm quoting movies without realizing it now)

Him: When I get me some land, I'mma build a house, a garage, detached fuckin' of course, and a pole barn.

Me: That's ambitious.

Him: Huh?

Me: I said "Good Thinking"

Him: Yup. Then I'mma go out in my pole barn and build fuckin' the Batmobile.

(I want to run away)

Him: But not fuckin' that Batmobile from the 90's. That thing was shitty. I checked the specs on it, and it could only go 35. 40 tops.

(How did he check the specs on a car from a movie from 20 years ago?)

Him: Naw, I'mma build that one from Dark Knight, that shit can can go zero to 60 in 5 flat. And it can shoot rockets at shit. All that shit was fuckin' fully functional.

(He's getting really excited talking about this bizarre dream of his)

Me: That'd be awesome. I'd drive that.

Him: Shit yeah. And my girl would come looking for me and I'd be like, "Don't bother me, I'm in the pole barn working on the Batmobile, and she'd bring me beer and shit."

After another 10 minutes or so of listening to him ramble on about Batmobile specs, and pole barns, and land and such, the normal people finished changing the oil, and so I paid and left. As I'm driving out, totally bewildered the last half hour of my life, the dude runs up next to the car and shouts, "FUCKIN' BATMOBILLLLLLLLLEEEEEEEE!!!!" I drive away.

This is my life...

My Troubles with Earwax.

2010-09-24T09:08:00.000-07:00

This morning I was on a call with a client, chatting away about annual maximums and other very important things, when all of a sudden I could feel something happening inside my ear. This obviously distracted me from my phone call, and I became even more distracted when a large chunk of earwax fell out of my ear and stuck to my shoulder.

Client: So anyway, how about we move the maximum to $1250, reduce the deductible, and then...

Me: You need to stop talking for a minute. A giant waxball just fell out of my ear!

Client: Um, well...

Me: Now it's on my shoulder. It's pretty gross, I wish you could see it.

Client: Ummm...

So I got the waxball off my shoulder and finished the conversation, but it also made me realize that this was not the first time some earwax fell out of my ear while I was in the midst of something fairly important

One time, when I was about 19, I was on a date with somebody, and we were sitting there at an Applebees or whatever, talking about football, or ballerinas, or the Kama Sutra. Actually, I have no idea what we were talking about...

So we're sitting there talking, and all of a sudden a huge, Andre the Giant sized blob of earwax dislodged itself from my ear canal, fell out our my earhole, bounced off my shoulder, and landed on the table between us. We both stared at the earwax for a while, no one daring to say a word. I was kind of mortified since I was trying to make a good impression, because I figured it was going to be harder to hook up later if she thought I was the type of guy who carelessly flung earwax around at the dinner table. I surmised that it wasn't as bad as having a turd roll out the bottom of my pantleg, but that it ranked somewhere in between having a turd roll out the bottom of my pantleg, and accidentally sneezing a bunch of snot and boogers into my hand on the grossness scale.

So, I did the only thing I could think of. I blamed the ceiling of the restaurant.

Me: Ugh, this restaurant has earwax falling from the ceiling.

Her: Um yeah, the ceiling.

Me: I mean, you'd think they'd clean the ceiling every once in a while, get the earwax off it and stuff.

Her: Mm hmm.

My ruse apparently did not work as the date ended quickly and uneventfully. That sucked. I began carrying Q-Tip's around with me for a while and cleaning my ears so vigorously that I think I went a little deaf, but I gave up on that. Screw it. To quote Popeye, "I yam what I yam," and sometimes what I yam is a dude that has earwax falling out of his head, and that's OK.

At least I'm not constantly bleeding from both eyes...

Brian Needs to Shut Up More

2010-09-14T11:32:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I forget as a father, and authority figure, that my children pick up on anything and everything that I say, even stuff I say that I don't realize I'm saying. They're like sponges; loud, screaming, crying, crazy sponges who don't enjoy eating food.

This all came to a head last week when my 6 year old daughter decided it was a good time to question me on every partially offensive remark that came out of my mouth. I should have known something was different that day, as she started out by saying, "I have a hypothesis" about the TV or something, and then mentioning something about a constellation. I was perplexed.

Me: Holy crap! How do you know what a hypothesis is?

Her: I learned it. What does "Holy Crap" mean?

Me: Ummmm.... nothing, eat your granola bar. And how do you know what a constellation is?

Her: I learned it, Brrrrrrrian (That's what she calls me when she's feeling superior). Now answer the question. What does "Holy Crap" mean?

Me: Ummmm, it means gee whiz.

My son: Did you just say "Whiz"? HAHA, Whiz.

Me: Agghhh!! Go back to bed you two!

Her: No way Brrrrrrrrrian...

And so on. I should have taken this obvious sign from the heavens that my children were bound and determined to make me a bad father that day (or as I'm referred to by other kid's mom's, "That Man") and just went to the gym and stared at chick's butts all afternoon. Instead I went on with my day, doing things, and saying things that only my diseased brain could think of, at least according to my wife. My daughter was quick to catch any verbal misstep I had.

Me (After almost getting crushed by a speeding buttlicker on my street): Watch out, you stupid son-of-a-bitch!

Her: Dad, what's a son of a bitch?

Me: Uh, it's a bad person, honey.

(Side Note: One time when I was about 7 and riding the bus home, someone had written "DAM FAGOT" in magic marker on the bus seat in front of me. I was really interested in that term because I figured it must have been really important for someone to risk getting in trouble by the bus driver to write it on a seat. So I went home and politely asked my mom to define the term "DAM FAGOT" for me. Her response? "Uh, it's a bad person, honey." In that vein, I also grew up thinking "Dildo" and "Bimbo" were similar synonyms for a "bad person". Thanks Mom.)

Later that day, I was sitting on a hill at dusk (don't ask) when I saw my son being chased by a girl and really enjoying it. I was kind of grooving on this because up until now my son's only interaction with kids (outside of his sister) was knocking them over during sporting events if they were "the bad guys". So I'm happily sitting on a hill at dusk watching my son play with a girl, when a friend come comes over and gets in their way. Without thinking, I yell:

Me: Hey, quit cockblocking Miles!

Her: Cockblocking?? What does that mean Dad?

Instantly everybody else on the hill is staring daggers at me, and I think a mom threw up in her purse in horror. I tried to think of a harmless word that sounded like cockblocking, but the only thing I could think of was "knobslobbing" and I figured that might actually be worse, so I just stared at my shoes for a long time and hoped people would forget about me.

Then like 5 minutes later, I was rambling on about something with Amy, and she told me I was foolish, and so I remarked that pretty soon I was going to find me a new stripper wife. These things that come out of my mouth are not my fault, I swear to you. They just happen...

Me: Oh yeah, well I'm fixin' to go get me a new stripper wife, and she's gonna be all strippery and hookery and stuff...

Her: A stripper wife? Haha Dad, you're weird. You're already married to Mom.

Me: Bella, stop listening to me!! Go roll down the hill!!

Her: No way Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrian.

I think I should probably just shut up forever. I heard that Pythagoras imposed a vow of silence on all his disciples. I wish Pythagoras was still alive and formulating theorems, as I could have been a disciple and avoided all this nonsense. Damn you Pythagoras!! A^2 + B^2 +C^2 my ass!

Mister Smart Runs out of Gas

2010-08-25T10:52:00.000-07:00

So the other day I ran out of gas on the highway. Luckily I was able to steer my now idling car through traffic and over to a little grassy knoll on the side of the road, where I proceeded to sit and swear loudly for a really long time. Then I got out of the car and kicked it a few times for good measures. Then I stared out at all the cars driving along happily that were full of gas and prayed really hard that the people driving them would get severe involuntary diarrhea right there. Then I called my mom like a 6 year old and asked her to come meet me on the grassy knoll and bring some gas with her. Then I had to wait an hour for her, because my sister was using her car and was out someplace getting her toenails polished or something. Then I stood around swearing and punching the air for a while until I found some golf balls in the grass. Then I threw the golf balls out into traffic to see what would happen. Then I angrily shook the fence separating the highway from the frontage road for a while. Then I peed on the grassy knoll and waved my ding dong at the traffic in disgust. Then my mom finally showed up.

Apparently my car does the bare minimum to remind you that you need gas. I learned this the hard way. My old car had lots of bells and whistles that told you you needed fuel, and the car would eventually start actively trying to steer you towards gas stations, and finally a little tweezers would emerge from the driver's seat and start pinching your scrotum every 30 seconds until you filled up. (Side Note: The tweezers was rusty. And filthy!)

My new car took a more laissez-faire approach to it's thirst. 20 seconds before you run out of gas a small light shaped like a gas can lights up, and if you happen to be loudly rapping along with an Eminem song and bouncing around in your seat, it's pretty easy to miss.

So as I was sitting alongside the highway, swearing and contemplating ways to murder random civilians with full gas tanks, I kept thinking to myself, "MMM Old Country Buffet!!!" This made no sense to me. Then I realized that Old Country Buffet played a large role in the last time I ran out of gas, some 16 years earlier.

Let me take you back to April 1994. I had just met some friends and crushed the buffet at the OCB in Minnetonka. I had a 1975 Pontiac Bonneville (The EvilMobile to those in the know), and one of it's fun little quirks was that the gas gauge had stopped working in 1976. The other fun quirks were that you couldn't lock all the doors at the same time so stupid high schoolers would break in and smoke weed in it, the spark plugs would randomly fall out, and it had a bad habit of breaking down when it had a keg in it's trunk and an entire party was waiting for it.

Anyhow, since the gas gauge didn't work, you just kind of had to guess how much gas you had. Apparently I guessed wrong, since it died at a Tom Thumb about 2 miles away from my house. So, being that I wasn't that far from home, and I had like 30 cents in my pocket, I decided I'd just leave the car there and walk back. This proved to be a really bad idea.

I got about 3 blocks away from the car when I realized I had to go to the bathroom. Bad. I started walking a little faster. Walking faster made me have to poop worse. So I slowed down. I came to a bus stop. A man harangued me for money so I gave him the 30 cents. In retrospect I should have just pooped on him. I walked on.

I got to about a mile away from home. This was now a serious crisis. I came to a golf course. I considered pooping behind a tree, but there were a lot of golfers out there and I didn't want them to see my butt. I walked on.

I got about a half a mile away. I was now getting desperate. I came to a bridge going over a creek. Since I was about 50/50 if I was going to poop in my pants by then I decided I'd just poop off the bridge into the creek. Right as I was getting ready an armada of police cars drove by me. I took this as a sign. I didn't want to get arrested for pooping in the creek. I thought that might be a felony. I walked on.

I got a block from my house. I was now sweating profusely from the effort, and I realized that for the last couple of blocks I had been muttering "OH NO" over and over in sync with my footsteps. I wasn't sure if I was going to make it. "OH NO OH NO OH NO". A mean looking dog was giving me the eye and looking like he might start growling. "OH NO OH NO OH NO." My shoelaces had both come untied and a hornet was crawling on my shoulder. "OH NO OH NO OH NO." Two people were out mowing their lawns and I was holding my butt cheeks together with my hand and they would notice. "OH NO OH NO OH NO."

The story ends happily though. I made it home without crapping my pants, and then I had to take a nap because I was so exhausted from the ordeal. Running out of gas really sucks!

People Suck at Conversations

2010-08-19T13:01:00.001-07:00

Do you ever get to talking to some casual acquaintance and you begin to tell a fairly interesting story about something that happened to you, and the stupid person completely blows you off when you take a breath and starts talking about his own story which isn't even remotely as interesting as yours? I hate that. When people do that I really get the urge to clang their testicles together with heavy cymbals.

Me: So last week I went parachuting naked in Greenland.

Person: Oh, I went to International Falls.

Me: Um...

Person: Yeah, I went to the Bronko Nagurski museum, and then we hiked up a hill and ate marshmallows.

Me: Cool, well I was..

Person: Then we drove for a while and saw a farmhouse and there were chickens there.

Me: Yeah, so...

Person: Then I took a big poop at a gas station. It was greenish. The poop, not the gas station. Then we went to an embroidery store. Then I pooped again, but not at the embroidery store.

I figured out a really good trick to help get this person's concentration back to your story where it belongs. Just start slapping him repeatedly. It's a well known fact that a good slapping helps with this.

Brian Sucks at Fishing

2010-08-02T14:39:00.000-07:00

So every year I go up to Cold Spring, MN, play in a baseball tournament, get butt raped by the home town umpires, and stop at the Space Alien Cafe on the way home where the children proceed to eat 3 cumulative bites of food, all the while begging for tokens so they can go play games of "skill" and then lose all their tokens rapidly (either because the game takes 15 seconds, or because they accidentally spill them into some token vortex located within the game area) and then come back demanding more tokens, and then throw a giant fit when we finally decide to leave, and then get the small consolation of a ball or a Chinese Finger Trap as a prize from their 30 dollars of game playing.

Anyhow, while I'm up there, lounging in between games, I usually get invited to go fishing with my friend Bob. Sometimes other players come too, and they bring their wives, and the wives lay around on the boat and get tan and take up space, and sometimes not.

Fishing is always a very enjoyable way for me to pass the time. It would be even more enjoyable if not for these few aggravating problems I have.

1.) I can't catch any fish- Oh sure, I get lots of nibbles, but every time I try to hook the nibbles, I wind up with nothing. The only thing I can catch is stupid Milfoil. (Side Note: I was told that what I was catching wasn't Milfoil, just regular old lake plants, but screw you people, it was voracious, deadly, boat-killin' Eurasian Water Milfoil. Prove me wrong!) Anyhow, all I catch is Milfoil, while everybody else catches real live fish. I felt like Charlie Brown when all he got was rocks for Halloween candy.

2.) Tiny fish nibble off the attractive parts of my lure- I don't know how many times Bob had to change my lure for me. It was probably upwards of two. These stupid little minnows or sunfish or something think it's really funny to chew off the flippers off my fake distressed animal, so it just looks like a garlicky smelling tube floating through the water. Even a mentally retarded bass isn't going to bite at a garlicky tube. You little fish are gay!

3.) I suck at casting-Everybody else on the boat is snapping off these 50 yard spirals right into the area they want it to go to. Meanwhile, 1 of 4 things happens when I cast:

a.) I completely forget to release the line causing the rod to snap violently forward, like I'm trying to beat a hooker with it or something. This causes giggles from the stupid peanut gallery who are all up to their testicles in trophy bass.

b.) I release the line way too late so my cast goes at a sideways 90 degree angle, crosses everybody else's line, and nearly lands in the boat on the opposite side. This causes scornful looks from everyone else in the boat including the wife, who has stopped reading Vogue long enough to say, "Jensen, what the fuck are you doing?"

c.) I cast too hard and my lure winds up laying on a dock, or one of those things that covers a dock. Sometimes it sticks to something, and we have to float over and unhook it. This causes angrier scornful looks, and a small part of me fears getting flung off the boat.

d.) I cast what would be a really awesome cast but somewhere along the way my line gets hopelessly tangled up so it abruptly stops mid-air and my lure (probably without flippers by now) plops into a part of the lake that doesn't have any fish in it. Then usually somebody has to help me get my line untangled, because I get angry with things that require patience. This elicits comments like, "Jesus, how did you get it this tangled?" and "Jensen, what the fuck are you doing?"

e.) Occasionally I cast a really brilliant, awesome, Babe Winkelman-type cast. This happens about 1 out of every 300 tries. This causes cheering and looks of disbelief from the others. This makes me cocky. I say things like, "What's up now bitches?" and "I'm gonna rape the fish I catch off this cast!!" Then usually I almost drop my rod into the lake or stumble from somebody else's wake and nearly pitch a header into the Milfoil. I am less cocky afterward.

4.) I won't admit that the plural of bass is "bass"- I'm sure this plays against me somehow, but screw you, it should be "basses." One bass, 2 basses. Makes sense right? Stupid English is for dorks.

So basically, what I'm trying to say is this. I shouldn't have made fun of all the guys on Bassmasters when I was 10 for proclaiming themselves athletes, because fishing for basses on Upper Spunk Lake with a garlicky tube for a lure is HARD!!

A Weird Morning for Brian

2010-07-16T09:32:00.000-07:00

So this morning a bunch of weird things happened. I'm not sure if this is a good or bad omen for the day, but I think it means something. And to that stupid dream interpreter, it doesn't mean I should be questioning my sexuality. (Side Note: I saw a dream interpreter once. I described a dream, that was basically a combination of Harry Potter and Conspiracy Theory. It had to do with people who were secretly wizards riding around on those old time bicycles with gigantic front wheels, and I wondered how they got up there, and the government arrested me for asking, and it turned out they floated up there. The dream interpreter said "Hmm, very interesting... Have you ever questioned your sexuality? So I had sex with her, and then left in a huff. What a slut!)

Anyhow, first I went around to various parts of the neighborhood putting up garage sale signs because we're having a garage sale. While I was in the midst of shoving a sign into the dirt, a car full of hot Swedish bikini team members drove by and honked and squealed at me. (Maybe they were just regular girls, I guess I don't know.) Anyhow, this struck me as odd because it was like 7:30 AM, and I was dressed in the clothes I slept in, and I hadn't showered or shaved or brushed my teeth or taken my morning dookie, or anything. Basically I looked like a sleepy bum, and I was carrying a garage sale sign and a half-eaten Slim Jim. Really attractive.

So then after I got done shoving signs into the dirt (by the way, I'm sure the chaos that comes with a garage sale will inspire a later post) I walked over to a port-a-potty to pee and tripped on a tiny stick and fell down and got all dusty. I got really mad at the stick so I picked it up and whipped it at a tree really hard, but it hit a branch and ricocheted back at my face so I had to hop out of the way. I was starting to feel a little like Donald Duck.

Fianlly, I walked into the potty and peed, and all the while the potty was making a humming sound. I was confused. I walked out, and then curiosity got the best of me, so I opened the door back up to try to comprehend the source of the humming. When I opened the door I saw like 40 hornets flying out of the toilet hole. I freaked out and ran away and almost tripped on the little stick again. There were hornets in the toilet hole! I hate hornets! One could have flown right up my urethra, and then where would I have been? Probably dead. I'm guessing if a hornet stings you on your inside-weiner, you die.

It might just be one of those days. I'll probably get struck by lightning or eaten by a bear this afternoon. Oh well, so be it.

Dude, Where's My Car

2010-07-13T09:12:00.000-07:00

Recently I bought a new car. I had a big SUV, and the lease was up, and quite frankly I was spending a buttload on car payments and gas, and it had started to not work all that well, and high class prostitutes weren't nakedly flocking to it like I had imagined, and it never fit in the garage so I had to leave it in the driveway and sometimes the stupid hooligan kids in the neighborhood would shoot paintballs at it or smash the back window and not even have the common decency to steal my drug cache or my autographed Phil Hellmuth playing card hidden in the trunk.

With those things in mind, I bought an affordable, slightly used car that gets great gas mileage, will fit in the garage (as soon as we fix the garage door), and gets me from Point A to Point B in an economical and expeditious fashion. This makes me happy because in the long run I'm going to save a bundle of money, and as many people know, one of my favorite things in the world to do is check my account balance, and then imagine myself having a giant vault of money and diving in it and swimming around like Scrooge McDuck. I guess I'm weird.

The problem I had though, is that now I no longer have a giant, officious looking truck. I just have a regular old gray car that looks like 50% of the rest of the cars out there. So I go into the gym the other day and do my workout (25% working out, 70% staring at girls' butts', and 5% trying not to fart loudly and scare the other patrons) and then I finish.

One of my many weaknesses is that once I go into a large building and walk around in it for a while, I get completely discombobulated regarding where things are. I would have scored a lot better on my ACT had I not completely bombed the "Spacial Relationships" portion. Sometimes, when I'm in a large grocery store that I'm not familiar with, I attempt to leave and wind up in the way back of the store, by the employee toilets, which always disturbs the pooping cashiers.

This weakness affects me outside as well. Unless I'm paying complete attention to where I am when I get out of my car, I will have no idea where I've parked when I come back. I've walked many a weary mile at airports and parking garages, quietly seething while trying to figure out where I was at.

Anyhow, I come out of the gym and I instantly realize I have no idea where my car is. Shit. Usually my saving grace in this situation is that I have an automatic door locker that honks the car and flashes the brake lights when I push the "lock" button, so I wander around aimlessly pushing the "lock" button until I see the car honking and flashing at me.

Car: I'm here dummy (Honk Flash). Over here dummy (Honk Flash). You can't drive me if you can't find me dummy (Honk Flash).

Me: Gee, I don't remember parking you here.

Car: Yes, I'm Kit from Knight Rider. I was off fighting bad guys while you were eating bone-in filets. Either that or you are retarded. I'll let you figure it out.

I look down at my key chain, and find that I have no "honkflash saving grace" button. Shit! I say to myself, "OK self, you aren't a huge moron, just think where you parked the car."

I think about it. Absolutely nothing comes to mind. I think some more. I start thinking about burritos. This doesn't help me find the car. I give up.

I say to myself, "OK, so you can't remember where you parked. No biggie, just look for your car. There aren't that many rows."

I start to look for my car, but then I realize I have no idea what it looks like. I'm pretty sure it's a car, and I think it may be gray. It's a Chevrolet, but I can't remember the model name. Something like Oreo, but somehow, I don't believe there's a car called a Chevy Oreo. SHIT!!

I decide that I'm looking for a gray Chevy. There are about 15 in the parking lot. This is embarrassing. I swear at no one in particular, and begin arduously checking each gray car to see if it's mine. I'm sure I look like a really tentative burglar. This sucks.

Car 1: Definitely not. It has one of those things brides wear on their thighs and then throw over their heads and whoever catches it gets married next hanging from the rear view mirror. (Side note: What the hell is that stupid thing called?)

Car 2: Nope. There's a cat carrier in the back seat.

Car 3: Maybe. It looks pretty clean. It's a Chevy. I eyeball it for a while. Then someone gets in it and drives off, while shooting me a peculiar look. I assume it was not mine.

Car 4: Too dirty and pockmarked with hail dents.

Car 5: Too messy on the inside. Looks like a homeless person might live in the back seat, and maybe even urinate back there.

Car 6: Nope. Small dog is in it. I contemplate for a moment that maybe I left my window open a little and a small stray dog hopped in looking for food or warmth or something. I decide this is unlikely.

Car 7: Eureka!! This is definitely it. I confidently stride up to the driver door, and stick my key in. I am perplexed when the door won't open. Why can't I get into my own car? I step back to reassess. I notice that the license plate says "ALL4U2." This is not my car. I kick the air, and then quickly pretend to be stretching my leg as some people walk by.

Car 8: Hell no! There's a plastic bucket filled with buttons on the passenger seat, and a Yanni CD case on the driver's seat. I decide that whoever owns this car sucks a lot.

On the 11th try I found my car. It's called a Chevy Aveo, not an Oreo, and it was parked right by the entrance to the gym and I had just missed it. I had spent about 15 minutes stumbling around the parking lot because I have no brain. This is why I get frustrated with myself sometimes. I've decided that I'll have to put a big red flag on my car, or a nutsack on the tailgate or something so this doesn't happen again. Sometimes it's rough being me...

My Mom's Lawnmower has a Drug Problem

2010-05-03T11:48:00.001-07:00

So the other day my mother's lawn mower stopped working. A couple of friends of hers offered to fix it. This is a very nice story so far don't you think?

The people that were going to fix it were two very nice young men, and their offer to fix it was based out of the genuine goodness of their hearts, and the fact that they like my mom. This is still a really nice story!

The two nice young men were unfortunately in the process of smoking or shooting, (I wasn't privy to this much detail), copious quantities of methamphetamine. The story has taken a turn for the worse, although meth use does make any story more interesting, so that's good.

To this point we have a broken lawnmower, a mom who's grass is too long, and some well-intentioned but methed out young men with a keen eye for lawn maintenance. Just thought I'd recap that.

The two well-intentioned but methed out young men with a keen eye for lawn maintenance fixed up the lawnmower so that it worked again. The story has become heartwarming. My heart is atwitter.

Unfortunately, the lawnmower now has an outboard motor or something attached to it which causes it to fly forward at an alarming speed. According to my sources, when my mom tried to mow the yard, the lawnmower took off, dragged her around the lawn for a while, and then zoomed away down the road looking for other lawns to mow without the impediment of a person hanging behind it.

Yes, it's true, apparently my mom's lawnmower is on meth. She sent it to Lawnmower Hazelden, so hopefully when it comes back it'll be straight, and able to settle down long enough to just mow lawns, and it won't be so fidgety when she puts it in the garage. We can only hope and pray right now. Parents of appliances, please have "the talk" with your kids about the dangers of drugs. If it can help even one appliance, it will not have been in vain.

Brian Yells at Horses

2010-04-27T07:25:00.000-07:00

One time I was driving the family around aimlessly probably to kill time until a sporting event, or in the unlikely hopes that the children would fall asleep and quit screaming at each other and trying to maim each other with whatever was in their reach from their car seats.

I stopped at a red light. To my left was a pasture filled with horses. They were standing there, munching the ground and looking stupid, and walking around pooping indiscriminately, as horses are prone to do. For no particular reason, I rolled down my window and yelled, "GIDDYUP!!" really loudly. The horses went bonkers and started running around and doing horse wheelies and whatnot.

This was unexpected and caused a lot of excitement, especially from the youngsters in the back. After that, whenever we'd drive by some horses, my son would shout at them, regardless of whether the windows were down or not.

Since he was pretty young, his pronunciation of "Horsies" came out sounding like "Foofies" so we got used to random exclamations from the back of "GIDDYUP FOOFIES!!" Sometimes there were foofies nearby, and sometimes not. Foofies became sort of incidental to the whole business of yelling really loud after a while.

So now, whenever I see a collection of horses, I always make sure to roll down my windows and shout "GIDDYUP FOOFIES!!" at them. This happens regardless of whether my kids are with me or not. Sometimes, when I'm in a particular mood, I add an "F" bomb as an adjective in there, just to spice things up.

This leads me to this morning. I was leaving the gym, feeling particularly strong and happy. Nearby the Lifetime Fitness in Savage, there is a random, fenced in field filled with a bunch of horses. I'm not sure why they're there, but there's a lot of them. So I came to the stop light, rolled down my window, and shouted, very loudly, "GIDDYUP YA FUCKIN' FOOFIES!!"

Right as I did that, a middle aged woman pulled up next to me. Her window was open because she was getting ready to flick a heater out the window. She looked at me with utter shock and disdain. Not wanting to feel embarrassed, I did the only thing I could think of. I said, "What are you looking at? Fuckin' foofie." Then I drove off laughing. I'm not sure what she thought of that whole confrontation, but I'm sure when she re-tells the story I will not be held in a positive light.

That's OK, I don't think screaming at a horse is against the law...

Fear and Loathing of Comp 101

2010-03-28T19:25:00.001-07:00

Here's something I bet nobody knows about me. I suck the old hind tit at College Composition classes. It's not that this revelation is of any particular relevance or anything since my college days are 10 years behind me and I have no desire to go back, it's just a little odd considering I have this wildly succesful weblog that is, according to some "the second coming of the bible, but not in a sacreligious way" or "the dopest shit since Sarah, Plain and Tall'' or even "the culmination of what would happen if a Fire Monster had sex with Godzilla's bigger, less stable cousin and the baby came out and then choked them both to death with his penis and then started writing a blog." Uh.... I got all excited there reading those accolades and forgot what I was saying...

Oh yeah, so I sucked at Comp 101. I don't know why I was thinking about this, probably because I spend 2 hours or so a day reflecting on things that went askew of my plans in the past, and how I would approach them differently if the situation were to ever arise again. My solution usually involves cartoonish violence and/or death, pre-pubescent name calling, and sometimes, a complicated system of levers, pulleys, guy wires and buttresses. In lay terms, my solutions are friggin' sweet.

Anyhow, I even got two separate chances at Comp 101. You would have figured at least one would have gone well. Wrong as usual, you idiot. Didn't you figure that it couldn't have gone smoothly if I was writing about it? What are you, dumb or something? Wait, who am I talking to?

Chance #1 was in Junior College where I went for a year to play baseball. I quickly realized that I would rather be peed on repeatedly by an 80 year old man than matriculate there any longer than I had to. The college in question was filled with 5 types of students as far as I could tell.

1.) Really scary 25 year old knuckleheads and gangbangers whose conditions of parole required they attend secondary institutions, and scare the shit out of everybody there as frequently as possible.

2.) Women of unknown origin wearing full length burqas that showed only their eyes and foreheads. They made loud popping noises occasionally but otherwise were completely mute. I thought they were wizards or something.

3.) Trashy looking white girls that were 50 pounds overweight and brought their babies to class with them. I guarantee you that all those babies are now 15 year olds that know every single ingredient you need to make meth.

4.) Non-traditional jerk off old people who would show up to class dressed like they were going to a job interview (complete with an attache case filled with crumpled up newspapers or something) and then proceed to fuck up the curve by getting really high grades on everything. Hey Dingus, getting 100% vs 90% in Intermediate Algebra at the local JC is not going to land you any better of a job in the real world, but you are very likely to get a serious beatdown by group #1 if you don't quit fuckin' up the curve.

5.) ME.

So as I sat down to my class, it was kind of like prison. Don't make eye contact with the scary gang members, don't sit near the non-trads, so the gang members won't mistake you for one, avoid the wizards so you don't get turned into some ingredient that goes in a cauldron, and stay away from the trashy white women because both them and their babies are squawking incessantly for no good reason.

Anyhow, our first assignment was to write a paper about a book or a pamphlet or something. So I wrote what I thought was something fairly incisive and clever and turned it in. I got my grade back about a week later. 43%. Apparently I had forgotten to follow some rules regarding spacing and margins, and font, and bibliographies, and other shit that we all use A LOT in real life right? It's terrific that most everything I learned ceased being relevant the exact instant I learned it. But whatever, I did it wrong, I could accept that. So the next paper I wrote was done absolutely according to form, correct margins, a works cited page, etc. It was flawless, like a naked lady holding a burrito. I got my grade back. 44%. What?? Even the freakin' white trash babies had done better than me. I was going to fail this class!

Here's where I made one of my uncharacteristic brilliant decisions. Since I already had a good idea of where I was going to school the following year, and since my GPA was hovering right around the 2.0, baseball eligibility Mendoza line, and since the current season had just ended, I quit. I dropped all my classes thereby ensuring my GPA would drop no lower than it already was and guaranteeing admittance to the next school, along with baseball eligibility. I do a lot of really stupid things, but this choice was right on the money. On the flip side, I was embarrased to tell my Mom and Dad that I quit school, so for about 5 weeks I would get dressed and pretend to go to school, but instead I'd just go to Aquila, SLP's version of Rucker Park, and play basketball for a few hours and then come home. I always wondered why my Mom never asked me why I was drenched with sweat when I arrived home from school.

So then I went out to South Dakota for school, and did pretty well, so my cumulative GPA got up a little over 3.0, but the whole Comp 101 debacle still sat in the back of my head like a dirty secret, so I totally avoided taking it. Finally my 5th year of school, I decided I'd have to buckle down and take the class. I was being openly mocked by my friends because of my class schedule. I had 4 upper level business school electives.... and Comp 101. I even had to mock myself a little.

The first thing I noticed when I got to this class was that for basically everybody but me, this was their first college class. There were girls shrieking and giggling and pushing their desks together and writing their first name and then their boyfriends' last name and stuff like that.

The second thing I noticed was that the TA (listed as TBA on my schedule) was actually a year younger than me, was somebody I knew, and was a friend of mine's girlfriend. Or to put that another way she was a girl that he had dated once. Or to put it another way she was a girl that he had gone on one date with. Or to put it another way she was a girl he had had a sexual relationship with frequently and had taken her to Burger King to feed her once because all we had in the fridge was beer and empty ice cube trays. Or to put it another way, she was a girl he would call at 2:30 in the morning after he had drank 20 beers and eaten a giant vat of fettucini alfredo and was too bloated with food and booze to pass out yet and then would hide in the morning in the hopes that I would break down and drive her back to her sorority house and he wouldn't have to see her.

So with all this newly learned information I was practically ejaculating with anticipation for this class. So the TA/redundant one night stand comes in, and not only does she appear to have been shopping at the Lilith Sternin-Crane House of Style for her TA uniform, but she's also become an incredible hard ass.

Her: There will be no speaking out of turn, no talking without raising your hand. If you're late by 1 second it counts as a tardy, if you get 5 tardies your grade drops by a letter. Unexcused absences drop you a letter grade, etc etc.

Me: Um.... you left your underpants at my house last May. But you can't have them back. Thanks to you I now have a canopy bed. Oh, and come get your bike. It got all rusty cuz it laid outside all summer and I can't ride it to parties anymore and the landlord tripped on it.

It was weird. I had 4 senior level business school classes, and 1 high school class. And of course, while I did just fine with the 4 business school classes, my grades in Comp 101 were consistently D's and F's. I was barely hanging on to a passing grade that was inflated because of my spotless attendance that we got points for.

In my business school classes, if I had gotten a poor mark on something, I would generally go in and speak with the teacher about it, and we'd have a very congenial argument on the merits of my work which would generally result in an upwards revision of my grades, but in the Comp class, it seemed weirdly unconfortable to go talk to someone who was younger than me and whom I knew. I just figured she was going to get some sort of passive aggressive revenge on my buddy with me as the conduit by giving me poor grades. I had accepted this as fact when she asked to meet with me after class one day. I figured I was going to get harangued because Lisa Jo Johnson, the 18 year old from Sioux Falls with the sparkly purse and braces was doing two letter grades better than me. What I got was this:

Her: How do I get him to like me again?

Me: I don't think he really ever liked you in the first place.

Her: OK Mr. D Minus, thanks for the advice.

The lightbulb flickered on in my head. Then I got an idea. An awful idea. The Brian got a wonderful, awful idea. I'm not going to divulge what my idea was, but sufficed to say it involved my friend and her "making up" thanks to some really serious treasonous lying on my part, and I wound up with a solid B in that class.

So I got through the holy hell that is Beginning English Composition, but I still don't understand why I sucked at it so bad. Maybe I'll never know, or maybe it's as simple as a quote from a very wise friend of mine. "Sometimes you suck at stuff because you do." I like simplicity. I hope that's it.

Brian Dislikes Baseball Practice

2010-03-22T10:24:00.000-07:00

Baseball practice started yesterday for me. That's a sure sign of spring, so it always makes me happy. A few of us get together and we throw the ball around, and we hit. Then we leave. It doesn't take too long, and it always reminds me of one thing, the fact that I am extremely thankful that I don't have to endure daily baseball practices anymore.

Although I love baseball itself, baseball practice is right up there with wading penis-deep into a pool of electric eels. There may not be a more boring sport to practice, especially in the winter, in the North.

Baseball practice in the winter in the North means that you have to find a dome or a fieldhouse or something to practice in which is dumb thing #1. You can't throw as far, you have to hit in a cage so you can't watch the balls fly, and there are invariably other sports teams practicing near you, so you're constantly squeezed for space.

Have you ever run to catch a fly ball and smashed into a track girl running hurdles? I have.

Have you ever hit a softball player in her ample buttocks with an errant throw? I have.

Have you ever tripped over the Associate Athletic Director while running sprints and then yelled at him to "get his fat ass out of the way" and then been punished by having to run more sprints until your legs felt like they were going to fall off and you felt like you were going to take a big involuntary diarrhea in Lane 6? I have done this as well.

All this makes me very glad that I don't have daily baseball practices anymore. You know what else I won't miss?

-Practicing at 6:00 AM and having a fly ball hit me directly in the head because I was still a little loopy from the bar the night before.

-Practicing at 10:00 PM and not being able to get to sleep until 2 in the morning and then stumbling into class at 9 AM looking like I'd stayed up all night shooting meth rectally with Courtney Love.

-Running stairs at the DakotaDome. This was a form of conditioning, and also a way to keep us from smashing into other sports athletes because nobody else practiced on the stairs. Usually about once a year somebody would trip and fall into the row of seats below and get a really big bruise. That was the highlight.

-Other forms of conditioning. I never understood why we had to run so much for baseball. Isn't 360 feet the farthest we'd ever have to run without stopping? Apparently, we were training for the time when we had to play in a desert with no fences that sloped downwards for 4 straight miles. Some of our players couldn't hit a ball more than 25% of the time, but they could sure post a great 10K.

-Constantly deferring to the women's basketball team. I know they were the revenue sport and we weren't but still, I could have assembled a team that would have beat them 100-4. I shouldn't have to wait for anything for anybody I could whoop that bad at anything.

So thank you to the Gods of things that are fair and just for not making go through baseball practice very often anymore, because it's very likely that I would have sawed off the head of some unsuspecting athlete by now, and that just ain't how I like to roll.

The Cat Poop Dilemma

2010-03-12T07:54:00.000-08:00

I'm sad to report that both of our dogs favorite food is cat poop. I'm pretty sure that they would rather eat cat poop than steak or burglars or whatever. This presents an obvious problem considering we have a cat. If we didn't have a cat they'd never know how tasty cat poop is, because it's not like I could go buy cat poop at the grocery store. I don't even think they sell that at Aldi.

Anyhow, we have a cat, she poops frequently, and then the dogs, especially stupid Polo, sprint down to the catbox and hungrily gobble up poop. Then he runs back upstairs, giddy with delight, with fecal remnants stuck in his gums and tries to lick us. Fortunately it's easy to tell when he's done this because the entire room he's in begins to quickly smell like a train station men's lavatory if a homeless person died in it. So usually I spend the next hour actively avoiding Polo and attempting to shame him into never eating cat poop again

Me: Polo, you're such a moron! What kind of animal eats something that comes out of someone's butt? You should be ashamed.

Polo: Arf

Me: I mean seriously, we paid good money for you, is this any way to repay us?

Polo: Woof

Me: You're a gross idiot!

Polo: Bark.

Then I say this poem to him that I made up to really illustrate the gravity of constantly eating turds:

If you eat cat poop from downstairs
I will not get annoyed
I'll simply take you to the pound
And I'll have you destroyed

You'd think all these threats would really make him think twice about indiscriminately munching crap. After all, it works with the kids. But you'd be sorely mistaken, because it keeps happening. Seriously, why are we so lenient with our dogs? If my wife ate my poop we'd be divorced. After the first time she did it. No marriage counselor in the world is going to help reconcile that.

So I came up with this great idea to buy the cat a fancy new catbox with a cover on it. The cover had a little hole in it so that cat could sneak in and poop and Polo wouldn't be able to get his big stupid head in it. The problem was solved and I was a genius for figuring it out. I felt a little like Sir Isaac Newton when he invented gravity and people no longer just up and floated away.

But of course, since I'm an idiot and not a genius, my foolproof solution became anything but that. Yes, the cat figured out how to crawl in the hole and poop, but, unbeknownst to me, she doesn't like to pee where she poops. With no other bathroom than the poop hole box, she had no where else to pee but in the deep crevices of the furnace room, where I'm certain a hobo once squatted, and also on top of the poop hole box. It's pretty frustrating, especially when you're feeling all smart, to come down to clean the catbox and find a big stinky yellow river floating on top of it and dripping into the poop hole.

So, my solution was to go get the old catbox out of the garbage, and fill it with litter, and then she'd have a separate place to pee. I felt really super smart again, like Ken Jennings smart.

Me: I'll take "Really Smart, Awesome People with Gigantic Heads" for 2000 Alex.

Alex Trebek: "This guy is the smartest, most innovative man in the world in terms of cat bathroom issues"

Me: Who is Brian?

Alex Trebek: Right.

The cat messed up my delusions of grandeur. Since the old catbox had been the catbox she pooped in, she now just continued peeing on top of the new catbox and pooping in the old catbox which was easily accessible to Polo's mouth. So I'm right back where I started plus I'm out 40 bucks for this deluxe catbox with crystal clean litter inside of it and cat pee flowing on top of it that gets rave reviews on the internet. Suck my butt, internet reviewers, you have no brains.

Basically, I'm going to have to either kill the cat, or the two dogs, or just start a urine emporium in my basement. This is retarded.

Olympic Memories

2010-03-04T11:34:00.000-08:00

I spent parts of the last 2 weeks watching the Winter Olympics, because my wife likes them and I broke the remote because I got angry at a basketball game so we're pretty much stuck with whatever is on since I'm too lazy to get up, walk over to the TV, and change the channel. If we were watching a show about old ladies knitting booties for charity, and a naked lady gymnastics competition was on another channel, and I didn't have a remote, we would continue to watch the old ladies forever.

Anyhow, I watched a lot of the Olympics by default, and here are just a few random things I noticed.

-Figure skating is really boring. I understand very well that I can't flip around 3 times in the air, or even stay on my skates for more than 30 seconds, and I also can't pour myself into a tight, faux-fur laden, sequiny ensemble without looking like Elton John on a really bloated and extra gay day. That said, it's still boring, and the programs are way too long. The skaters spend an inordinate amount of time skating around vogueing and flapping their arms, and not enough time flipping and spinning in 4000 circles without getting dizzy somehow. And the top American competitor, Rachel Flatt, looked like Jim Valvano. Couldn't we have gotten somebody less atrocious looking?

-Dick Button has to be 80, but he looks very young, and speaks very eloquently, not the slow, slurred version of English that many 80 year old's talk. But why was this young acting, fast talking, intelligent old man wearing gigantic black shoes? The soles had to be a foot thick. It looked like the shoes they give to those people who have elephantitis of the legs. What's up Dick? Why are your shoes so frigging huge? And do people make fun of you because the first two syllables in your name are Dickbutt? Dick Butkus never got over that.

-Biathalon is a make-believe sport. I think a crazy person came up with this idea. Let's ski down a hill and then shoot stuff with a rifle, and then, do it again. One time, when I was 10 I came up with this game where I would pick up my cat, throw him over the shower curtain, and then sprint outside as fast as I could and make three baskets. My record was a little under 25 seconds. I think that if Biathalon can be an Olympic event, then Cat-Fling Basketball should at least be sanctioned by some governing body somewhere.

-The USA women's skiers are a bunch of teary-eyed, soap opera sluts. Geez, what drama, and I'm not talking about skiing. Lindsey Vonn is a prima donna according to her teammates. Julia Mancuso is always crying. Vonn's husband is accusing the track makers of designing the track so it would favor their home country skiers. Either have a big fight at the bottom of the hill, or make out with each other at the bottom of the hill, or just ski, or do all three, I don't care.

-Skeleton is for crazy people. The death of the Georgian kid notwithstanding, going down the hill on a tiny sled that looks like it was built by elves on heroin at 90 miles per hour does not sound like a good idea to me, even for a gold medal. I think I would rather run naked through a village of Penis Cannibals. (Side note: I'm not sure that Penis Cannibals exist, but I still worry about them)

-The closing ceremonies were remarkably dumb with the exception of the giant inflatable beavers, which I thought were aptly pointed out and appreciated by Bob Costas. Everything else was pointless. William Shatner was not funny. The mom from Home Alone?? That's the most famous Canadian you could get to speak? And Michael J Fox must have been on some serious Anti-shaking drugs, because you could barely see him twitch, which is one of his coolest attributes, if you ask me.

So now the Olympics is over but Channel 11 is still on because I haven't worked up the energy to turn the channel yet. Maybe I will someday, or maybe I'll just hire a giant inflatable beaver to do it.

Brian at the Zoo.

2010-02-24T09:06:00.000-08:00

It's become apparent to me over the past year or so that I go to the zoo way too much. We all have things we do too much, but mine isn't even interesting. I don't masturbate in public too much, I don't poop 12 times a day, and I don't spend too much money on Austrian hookers, but I do go to the zoo too much. Pretty lame.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised at this. After all, I have 2 little kids, and for some reason, as a society we've decided that staring at sleeping wildlife is educational, not to mention the fact that we live 5 miles away from the zoo and have a membership there.

Pretty much without fail, the zoo experience goes like this: We get to the zoo, the kids run ahead, one of them falls and cries and wants a band-aid, we stare at the red-butted monkeys for a while, we go in the Tropics trail, the kids race through the exhibit, we go to the Minnesota Trail, the kids race even faster because it's cold in there and they stare at no animals because all they're interested in is getting to the next animal stamp as quickly as possible, we stare at the dolphins, one of the kids throws a tantrum because we have to leave, and then we leave. That's pretty much status quo for the zoo.

In fact, I bet I can tell you, in chronological order, what we do in the Tropics Trail. It goes like this.

-Enter
-See the large lizard in an exhibit with silhouettes of large, extinct animals.
-Bronze tortoise statue that the kids always feel the need to climb on until one of them falls off and cries
-Mynah bird that never says anything even though mynah birds are notoriously vocal
-Egg scultures that kids manhandle and sometimes lick, much to my chagrin
-2 different colored lemurs that occasionally screech loudly and make everyone think that the zoo animals are staging a riot.
-Black and white monkeys that aren't there anymore, because according to the sign left by the zookeeper, they've been at the "doctor" for 3 months. They're probably dead.
-In the same enclosure are flamingos and ducks. This is a common theme at this portion of the zoo. The kids try to stand on one leg like a flamingo. They fall over. They cry.
-A cave that the kids run in to. Then they pop out the wrong end and for a second they are lost. This frightens us as parents.
-A bird with a gigantic nose. This is a new gigantic nosed bird because I know, since I go to the zoo too much, that the old gigantic nosed bird died. From a stuffy gigantic nose.
-A tree kangaroo that never does anything. I remarked once that it was a statue, and a woman next to me reassured her children by stating, "That man is a liar honey." I felt bad.
-A big fat cow looking thing with a small elephant trunk called a Tapir. The Tapir smells great, if you think a dead old lady who's been laying in a shallow pool of fetid water in the desert for 4 days smells great. In the same exhibit is an animal that looks like a big black house cat (I forget it's name) and smells like popcorn. Another double animal exhibit?? I wonder if the zoo people were carrying the popcorn cat thing and then it started scratching and hissing at them and they dropped in into the Tapir exhibit and were just like "Whatever. It can stay there, it scratched my arm."
-Some tortoises that don't hold anyone's attention for long because the most exciting things they do are turn their heads and chew lettuce. That's pretty boring.
-The upper portion of the coral reef. There's a huge glare coming from the top of the zoo so you can't see anything
-The lower portion of the coral reef. This part is underwater and everyone hangs out there. Sometimes there's a scuba diver with a microphone in there and he feeds fish and answers the same three stupid questions from kids, in slightly different variations:
1.) Do the fishes eat food?
2.) What kind of fish is that big shark?
3.) Are you a swamp monster?
-Some really smelly warthogs. The warthogs never move but you can tell they are alive because they smell like inside buns left on the counter overnight.
-Another double animal exhibit. A red panda who is always sleeping on a tree branch. In the back portion are a few goats seemingly stuck high on tiny ledges on this make believe mountain. I think they act as sherpas if the red panda ever wants to go on an expedition. Or maybe they're just goats.
-Another dark portion. It's under construction, so there's nothing in it except another lemur, and a very large snake that is always curled up in a tiny ball. This is the portion of the zoo that we lost my grandmother in in 1985. We went in, she was with us, we popped out, she was gone. She was lost for like 3 hours too. We almost just gave up and left without her. Lord knows what she doing during that time. Probably sitting in a chair smoking cigarettes and doing crossword puzzles. Since then I've had a profound fear of getting lost in the dark part of zoos. It's not as profound as my fear of big, violent lesbians, but still...
-A section filled with birds that you can't really see because there are too many trees in the way.
-A door made of hanging pieces of bamboo that you have to smash through, so it feels like you're entering a fortune teller's lair. The kids make sure to smash through the bamboo repeatedly until I threaten to beat them about the buttocks if they don't stop.
-Some poison frogs. I know they are poison because they are brightly colored and because they are actually called "Poison Frogs"
-Quadruple animal exhibit alert. A sloth who really might be dead, some more tiny monkeys, a couple of birds, and the infamous red-rumped agouti all share an enclosure. Did the zoo run out of funding or something?
-Finally, another double animal enclosure. An anteater, and some more tiny monkeys share space.

By the end the kids are practically sprinting to get to God knows where, but they always want to stop at that stupid coin thing, where you put a coin in and then in rolls around in a circle for a while before falling into a hole. That stupid thing is like crack to kids. We never have change so they always wind up having a big fit as we're leaving Tropics Trail.

See, I go to the zoo too much. But just to prove to you what a moron I am, we're going on a Disney Cruise in April, and what is the shore excursion we signed up for in the Bahamas? That's right, the zoo. I'm dumb.

A Day in the Life...

2010-02-09T08:59:00.000-08:00

Sometimes people categorize me as strange or odd. Some even think I might just be crazy. But, I'm not any different from the next guy. How, pray tell, do I know this? Well, I've decided to enlighten you with a glimpse of a typical day for me, which should erase any doubts you may have. This was what I did yesterday.

Wake up
Pee for 48 seconds, wonder how many glasses I could fill up with that much pee
Get dressed to go work out
Sit down and watch a show about white street gangs while I wait for the car to warm up
Fall asleep
Wake up and realize I have no time for the gym
Go to let the dog inside and realize he's standing next to me
Drag him into his kennel while he's shreiking in anguish and biting my hand
Curse him loudly and kick his kennel
Leave
Turn around, forgot cell phone
Leave
Turn around, forgot wallet
Scream in anger
Leave
Get gas
Get accosted at the gas station by a worker because I am kicking off my klinkers from the bottom of my car into his parking lot (Side note: Klinkers are those icy, snow chunks that hang off your car, by your wheels)
Yell back at him, buy beef jerky
Drive in miserable, snowy rush hour
Scream at slowness of commute
Play "Bitches Ain't Shit" by Dr. Dre seven consecutive times
Shout "Blizzards Ain't Shit" more than seven consecutive times
Honk at everyone in anger
Get to work
Work a little, and also watch Super Bowl commercials
Develop a crush on Danica Patrick
Work some more
Play online Scrabble
Cook soup in microwave, spraying chunks everywhere
Eat Chunky Soup, Extreme Chicken Alfredo flavor
Decide it's not "extreme" or even "tasty"
Work more
Play "Bitches Ain't Shit" on Youtube
Notice that my jeans have a large hole in them that I could theoretically let my penis dangle out of
Contemplate doing this for the rest of the day
Decide against it because I'm not sure if snow on the penis would be even a little OK
Turn down a walk-in salesperson who wants to sell me a reservation to play paint ball on his farm in Carver.
Buy a spooky, noisemaking flashlight from him instead (Side note: What kind of a weird combo sales package is this? The flashlight makes 8 spooky noises like a witch cackling and a door squeaking. Odd.)
Leave in a blizzard
Decide I need food
Stop at Subway, chatting with sandwich artist about the fact that she has a tattoo of a mermaid on her serving hand.
Frighten her
Leave with food
Eat it quickly spilling lots of lettuce in my car
Swear about this loudly
Think about Danica Patrick while throwing lettuce out the window
Play "Bitches Ain't Shit" several more times
Honk at someone angrily for having Packers decals on his car.
Have a long argument with myself about the merits of knowing how to play the fife
Lose the argument
Watch a guy nearly drive off an embankment because he needed to cut in front of a car to save 20 seconds
Condemn his foolishness and short sighted nature
Get very angry with a man shoveling his driveway because he's home am I'm not
Finally get home.
Yell at the air in frustration
Shovel snow like a crazy person, flinging it everywhere like a monkey flinging poo
Get nervous because the dog is out in the yard unleashed, and looks as though he wants to run and bite every car that comes by
Calmly tell him, "Polo, you idiot, cars are not food."
Notice that the neighbor, (the professor's wife), is stuck in her own driveway
Laugh at her, then mosey over to help
Get there just as she gets unstuck
Tell her, "Oh, you're unstuck, I was just revving up my loins to help push."
Watch her back away in fear and confusion
Advise my daughter NOT to build a snow fort by the place that Polo just took a big dookie while gearing up for the next approaching vehicle.
Become dismayed when she picks the poop up with a little red shovel and prances around with it.
Walk inside and get ordered by my son to play MarioKart
Whoop him severely and talk trash about it
Get whooped by him and pout and kick the couch
Decide that I am probably not teaching him great sportsmanship
Pout and kick the couch over this realization
Get presented a gift of Exotic Sea Salt by my wife as an 1st date anniversary/fake 1st date anniversary/Valentines Day present
Panic because I have nothing thoughtful to give back to her
Pout and kick the couch because of this
Eat dinner and sprinkle exotic sea salt on all my food
Text my sister as to the condition of her sprained ankle that has a walking boot on it
Make up a new word, "Booterus-A uterus with a boot on it"
Play more MarioKart with my son to satisfy his addiction
Sit on the couch fiddling around on the internet while my son, daughter, and wife fall into a coma watching Food Network next to me
Hum "Bitches Ain't Shit" while pooping
Get mad at online Scrabble because words like "Whiteboy" "Buttfish" and "Ballhair" are not recognized Scrabble words.
Kick the couch a little more
Drink a Purple Mountain Dew. Realize that I have no idea what "Voltage" is supposed to taste like.
Watch out the window and root for people to slip down the hill and get stuck in their cars
Cheer loudly and wake up the family when one does
Boo loudly when he escapes
Carry the entire family up to their respective beds
Poke myself in the eye taking out my contacts
Lay down in bed and realize I am laying on a tiny stuffed dog
Cast dog into closet
Toss and turn for a while thinking about Danica Patrick
Fall asleep and dream of Dragons

See, that's entirely normal.

My Brushes with Mortality

2010-01-18T11:26:00.000-08:00

You ever almost die? I almost died the other day. It was last friday and I was driving to a friend's house to play poker. Before I went I stopped at a gas station and bought a Cherry Crush. I was really excited because I'd never seen a Cherry Crush before and, as everybody knows, any kind of Cherry flavored soda is really awesome and sweet.

So I was driving on a county road, happily swilling my cherry flavored beverage, and loving life when all of a sudden I got a really bad ear itch. It was something that needed scratching immediately. So I started itching my ear. To do this I had to transfer the cherry pop to my left hand. I was now steering the car and clinging to my pop with one hand. Then the pop started to slip out of my hand. Being that it was a terrific, new, potentially rare kind of pop that I may never have the opportunity to drink again, I instinctively clasped my legs together so that I could catch my soda between my knees before it fell on the dirty interior of the car and spilled all over the place.

Unbeknownst to me however, my left leg was resting directly against the underside of the steering wheel, so slamming my legs together caused my knee to turn the wheel left very violently, aiming the car right towards the concrete divider in the center of the road. Now, because I was lucky I managed to catch my pop, grab it with my ear-itching hand, and then grab the steering wheel with my other hand and correct my direction back towards the middle of the road all in the same motion. I came about a millimeter from the divider and I spilled a little pop on my crotch, but other than that I was fine. But it could have been way worse. I could have whacked the divider going 55 and then overcorrected trying to get back on the road and flipped my SUV and crushed my neck and died face down in the snow, and nobody would have ever known what the hell I was doing.

It got me to thinking about how many times I've almost died based on pure stupidity or weird luck. I thought of about three different examples.

1.) Age: 9
Nearly died from: Hanging/ or serious head trauma

I had just finished playing a rec league basketball game at my elementary school and, along with some friends, was getting ready to watch the game after us. It featured 3rd graders from my own school, so it held a certain level of interest to me. We would sit on the stage facing the game and cheer or boo, or whatever. While the teams were warming up we spent most of our time screwing around on the stage. There was a big port-a-pit back there for reasons unknown, and it was always fun to launch yourself onto the port-a-pit because it felt really comfy to land on. So during one of my forays onto the pit, I got a really big running start and dove, but because I had such a head of steam, I dove a little far and hit the corner. Landing on the corner made the port-a-pit shoot me off at a weird angle, backwards, and towards the edge of the stage. Realizing that I was in trouble, I tried to flip my body around in mid-flight to see where I was going. Just as I did that, I got caught by my neck in the rope that was used to pull open the stage curtains. I was officially hanging myself. Just as I started to die my neck dislodged itself from the rope and I landed on my butt, about two inches from the edge of the stage. Now the weird thing is, if I hadn't almost hung myself, I would have flown off the stage backwards and probably cracked my head open. (Side note: My mom was always warning me about cracking my head open, usually wide open. Until I was 24 I believed that you could actually hit your head and it would crack wide open like an egg, and your brain would just fall out with a loud "PLOP" . I'm glad I never saw that. Ick!) Anyway, I only hung myself a little bit, and I didn't fall off the stage and crack my head wide open so my brain plopped out. Instead I ran back and jumped on the port-a-pit a little bit more.

2.) Age: 16
Nearly Died From: Crushed by a Semi

I was driving to school one spring day. I had just gotten my license about two weeks earlier and I was feeling pretty geeked about my new found autonomy. To drive to school, I had to drive through Highway 7. There was no overpass or anything, so you had to wait for a stop light. I got about 3 blocks from the stop light, when I heard a buzzing coming from behind me. I glanced over my shoulder and I saw, to my horror, that there was a hornet flying around in my back seat. Now, people that know me know that I hate hornets more than just about anything, because they've always loved to sting me. For some reason mosquitos love to bite me because I taste good, and hornets love to sting me because I must feel really good on their stupid hornet butts to sting. I immediately started to freak out, roll down all my windows that I could reach, and pay complete and absolute attention to what the hornet was doing. This meant I was paying no attention to where I was going. Then I heard a bunch of honking, including one big giant horn honking. Screw you people, there's a hornet in my car. I finally looked up to see where I was after the hornet stopped flying around for a minute and was instead crawling around on my back window. I was all the way across Highway 7, I had gone right through the red light, and I had come within about 2 seconds of being smashed by a semi-truck. The cars in the left lane had stopped and honked at me but the semi probably couldn't stop that fast so instead he just honked really loudly. I stopped my car and got out to ponder all this, and also to give the hornet a chance to leave, and then when he finally flew out I stood there a minute, and then shrugged my shoulders and got back in my car and drove to school. Let me just say this for posterity: Hornets are punk ass bitches!

Age: 21
Nearly Died From: Broken Throat.

I was at baseball practice and we were all in lines playing catch before the actual practice started. Next to me was a teammate of mine named Pat. Pat was a young kid, and we loved making fun of him because his name was Pat, so we'd yell stuff at him that the androgynous "Pat" character from Saturday Night Live, played by Julia Sweeney, used to say, such as "I forgot my travel baaaaggg" and "My partner's name is Chris". Hey, baseball practice is pretty boring, it was something to do. In this instance, I threw the baseball to my partner Mitch, and then turned to Pat and said, "PAAAAAATTTTTTT!!!!" He did not appreciate this which made it even more fun. So I was staring and laughing at him, and I forgot that Mitch was throwing the ball back until he hit me directly in the larynx with it. Instantly I forgot about how much fun I was having teasing Pat because I was very concerned with the new reality that I could not breathe. You ever try to breathe and you can't? It's gay! So I bent over, holding my throat, and started to die. After about 10 seconds my throat opened up a little so I could sort of breathe, but still not well enough to not die. In the midst of slowly dying of asphyxiation, I thought to myself, "Hmm, the throat is sort of flexible, I wonder if I could choke it open?" That's what I did. I began choking myself and in doing so I opened up my esophagus more so that I could breathe well enough to not die. After about 5 minutes of sitting on a training table choking myself, my throat opened up enough by itself so that I didn't need to choke myself anymore. I never forgave Pat for that. He almost killed me!

It's kind of weird when you think about it. I bet the graveyards are full of people lying there dead just because they were acting dumb at the wrong time. And here I am. I guess that means there must be a greater plan for me. Either that or it's just a big coincedence. Whatever, I don't care, I'm going to go eat a bagel.

Brian Learns to Chat

2010-01-13T08:18:00.000-08:00

You know what's really fun. Going onto chat lines and bothering people. I know it might be a little bit old hat, but screw it, I'd never done it before, and I wanted to get in on the fun. So I found myself a chat line and went about trying to get people to chat with me. Here is a transcript:

-A website-

Me: Hey, anybody want to have sweaty avatar sex???

(No responses)

Me: Hey, I'm buck naked and doing jumping jacks. Let the sex begin.
Person: This is a chat line for the American Girl Dolls. Go away.

A better website:

Me: Hey, my avatar wants some lovin' from all of your easy bake ovens. BOI-OI-OI-OI-OING!!
Person: What's up?
Me: My boner. Let's have some avatar sex.
Person: LOL. OK.
Me: So, like how do we do this. Do I stick my weiner in the disk drive or something??
Person: What???!!
Me: I'm new to this game, like a fresh faced rapper...
Person: You have a disk drive?
Me: Actually, I have an old toaster at my feet. I figure it will work OK for this.
Person: What??? Is wrong with you.
Me: Well, it's not like it's plugged in or anything. I'm following safety standards.
Person: You don't stick your dick in a toaster.
Me: Now that's sound advice. Note to self: No dick in toaster. Thanks!!
Person: How old are you?
Me: 4 and a half.
Person: No you aren't.
Me: OK, you got me.
Me: I named my ding-dong. You know what his name is?
Person: Oh no.
Me: Ed.
Person: Ed. Why Ed?
Me: Well, why not? Why did your parents name you Ginger?
Person: My name isn't Ginger!??
Me: Shut up Ginger.
Me: This is going well, are you ready for some sweaty avatar sex where we don't stick our dicks in the toaster?
Person: I'm a girl.
Me: Whew. So a toaster would be pretty pointless for you then huh? Maybe a milk frother would work better.
Person: What are you talking about? This is stupid.
Me: Wait, guess what I'm wearing?
Person: A sign that says "I'm stupid."
Me: No, cowboy boots, a dickie, and a deer skin.
Person: Really?
Me: Yes, my bear skin is at the dry cleaners.
Person: You are very strange.
Me: I used to be a mountain man. Except that I didn't have a mountain, only my parents basement. Minor detail.
Person: IMHO you are just screwing around.
Me: Don't call me Imho. My name is Big Ernie, and my weiner's name is Ed. Old Ed wouldn't hurt you, would he?
Person: I don't think we'll ever find out.
Me: Are you breaking up with me?
Me: Because if so, I'm sticking my dick in the toaster.
Me: I don't like all your draconian rules.
Me: I just wanted some sweaty, no-strings-attached, dick-in-the-toaster, avatar sex. Is that so much to ask??
Me: Are you blue, like the people in the movie about avatars?
Me: Because being blue is a turn-on for me. That and having more than two nipples. If you had 3 boobs like that girl in Total Recall, I'd marry you.
Me: I also like girls who swear in Polish. C'mon give me a big Yavutski!!
Me: Do you know what a face baby is?
Person: AAAAHH, leave me alone.
Me: You have sexy elbows.
Person: (is offline)
Me: Bye, bye Ginger

That was fun!!

My Neighbor

2010-01-06T20:16:00.000-08:00

I have this neighbor. I really like my neighbor. I really like all my neighbors, I mean, that's kind of the point of having neighbors right? But this particular neighbor that I'm speaking of, worries me a little bit.

We call him "The Professor" because I believe he is a teacher, either that or he's unemployed over Christmas and the summer. He's very tall and skinny, with a gray pony tail, and a gray beard. Every conversation I've had with him has been cordial, although he is one of those people who cares nothing about what you have to say, and instead waits patiently, and in many cases not so patiently, to talk about himself.

Being the good neighbor that I try to be, I smile and nod, and acquiesce, and pretend that his drivel is important and meaningful to me, as I do with many people who I come into contact with.

The thing that worries me about this man is that he has perhaps the worst "up front" temper I've ever been privy to. I understand that people, behind the privacy of the walls of their homes, may scream and say some terrible things, but this man seems to leave the privacy walls behind him. And he's LOUD!!

I remember a time this summer when he and his wife were out doing yardwork, she was raking up old, dead grass and shrubs, and he was mowing, and I was out picking up dandelions, which is a large part of my summer work, and it looked as though he deliberately drove the mower directly into a large pile of crud. It was large enough to short the mower, and it made him start jumping around in furious anger. It made me giggle because it looked retarded.

So, I sat there giggling to myself at the idiocy of this man, but then he let loose with a string of profanities that shcoked even me, and it's me.

"WHAT IS THIS FUCKING PILE OF SHIT DOING HERE." He was furious. I realized this and it worried me enough so that I snuck behind my truck to make sure he couldn't see me snickering at him. You ever do that, see somebody lose their cool, and then go pretend you are doing something behind something? Just to make sure they don't run over and quickly kill you. I also planned my excuse too. I bet you don't do that. If he came over I was going to say that I had seen a chipmunk in my garage, and I had gone over to investigate. I had my bases covered.

I've also seen him get mad this winter. Now realize how loud he was yelling here because I was in my house when I heard him. I heard a loud screeching noise, and when I peeked outside I saw him gesticulating wildly with a snow shovel in his hands. So, naturally, I went outside and pretended I was shoveling..... behind my truck. I can't lie to you, he was cursing at the weather. There was nobody else out there and he was yelling things like "I'LL FUCKING TEACH YOU TO BE THIS COLD" and "OH YEAH, PILE IT ON MOTHERFUCKER!!" Then he got in his car and screamed........ for about 30 seconds. I was worried and excited, like when hookers are nice to me in Vegas.

The thing is, I don't think he'll go off and kill the entire neighborhood, but I've been wrong before, and he's still there, even right now as we speak. He's still there, he's still there, he's still there.....

My Dogs are Dumb.

2009-12-23T08:08:00.000-08:00

As if there isn't enough chaos in my life with two little kids, I am also the proud father of two dogs. Now, I love my dogs very much, they are great companions for the kids and for my wife and I, but I am sad to report that they are also some of the dumbest dogs in the world, and for those of who think the phrase "dumbest dogs" is redundant, I agree. Dogs are pretty dumb. Let me give you some examples.

Jasper is a 10 year old brown mutt. Amy got him after she graduated college and while I was still in college so she could have a companion while I was out fiddling around and drinking too much in the South Dakota prairie. Jasper was an orphan found roaming the streets of Duluth as a very young puppy. There were signs that clearly pointed to abuse in his former home. He also had kennel cough and dog pneumonia and he sneezed big green snotballs all over his paws every 5 minutes or so. Naturally Amy felt bad for him and bought him, and spent the next 2 months completely immersed in dog boogers. As we've found out, buying a formerly abused dog means that Jasper is really weird sometimes, which makes him prone to doing really dumb things like,

-Hiding under the bed for 36 straight hours because he got scared because I fell down the stairs, ass first, and yelled loudly because I landed on the hard pokey part of an extension cord.

-Being scared of flies- I think a fly must have bit him on the snout once, because every time he sees a fly he goes and hides under things and squeeks loudly, until I tell him to shut up or I will throw him in the dryer and turn it on.

-Barks ferociously in the pitch-ass dark middle of the night at nothing, which causes me to get worried that there are a pack of zombies surreptitiously sneaking into my house to decapitate me and eat my brains.

-Eats cat turds and then tries to come lovingly lick my face including the inside of my mouth.

-Barks for hours at Box Elder bugs that congregate on the west side of my house. Westside bitches.

-Sneaks away from me and runs aimlessly throughout the neighborhood and almost gets hit by cars in the process.

-Tears apart the garbage and drags it throughout the house including underneath small hidey-holes that are not easily accessible by people.

-Barfs in the corner all over the baseboards.

-Sneezes right in my face while I'm petting his belly.

So, because I'm an idiot who doesn't understand anything, I thought that Jasper would benefit from having a friend in the house to keep him company when we were at work, and that this would help him be more social and less apt to hide under furniture and woof at nothing in particular.

This led us to buy Polo, a big stupid Samoyed. Finding a Samoyed puppy was more difficult than I would have imagined, so we wound up driving out to some tiny town in the middle of Wisconsin to get him. He is a purebred Samoyed, AKC certified and all that good stuff, so theoretically we could show him at dog shows, if I wasn't convinced that he would eat other dogs and possibly smaller judges in the process. We bought him from a sort of Amish lady and her daughter, whose main ambitions in life were, as far as I could tell, being sort of Amish, and breeding Samoyeds. I say sort of Amish, because although they dressed in 1800's garb and talked with strange accents, they also had cell phones and computers and indoor plumbing and Jonas Brothers posters and stuff. Also, I didn't see them ever drink milk straight from a cow's teat, so that was another strike against them.

Polo obviously wasn't big when we got him, he was a tiny puppy, but very soon he grew into this big, puffy, poorly behaved monster dog, which I suppose is our fault for being bad dog trainers, but still...

Polo is very friendly, and I have to keep reminding myself that even though he's big, he still has a puppy brain, which makes him do dumb things.

So now we have two dogs, who are supposed to be best friends and all that, but really their entire relationship can be summarized like this:

1.) Polo runs over to Jasper and bites his face repeatedly
2.) Jasper hides under something and growls
3.) Polo is egged on by this, and tries to get him out, all the while barking a really annoying high pitched bark that we in our family refer to as "squeekbarking" (If you ever come over, you will hear the following command come out of my mouth at least 5 times an hour. "Polo, for Chrissake stop squeekbarking!")
4.) Jasper reluctantly comes out and lays down and growls while Polo chews on his head.
5.) Polo squeekbarks a lot and Jasper starts sneezing, presumably because Polo is chewing on his nose.
6.) I give them both chewies to shut them up for a minute
7.) Polo eats his chewie quickly and then goes back and re-starts the entire process.

After a while of this I get irritated and let Polo outside, where he proceeds to chase cars driving up and down the road and bark ferociously even though he's in a fenced in backyard and can't get within 40 feet of them. Then he gets tired and jumps up on the kids trampoline and falls asleep. ( A dog sound asleep on a trampoline is a sight to behold.) Then he wakes up and barks a lot at the air, or a leaf, or something else totally superfluous, so I let him back in and he tackles the children and steals their toys or underpants, and then sometimes he jumps in the bathtub and just hangs out in there.

Then we go to sleep, with Polo in our bedroom because if we try to kennel him up he shrieks like a thai hooker. At 5:14 am every morning, Polo wakes up, jumps on the bed, and licks somebody until they let him out. He has a very wide tongue that covers most of your face and it's very rough, like a cat's tongue, so it hurts a lot.

This is the routine in our family, and every day, I realize a little bit more that dogs are just dumb, but I'm probably more dumb for thinking having them would still allow for a peaceful utopia.

Brian has a Beef with Macy's.

2009-12-18T08:21:00.001-08:00

Why is it that everything I enjoyed in my childhood is slowly being changed, or messed with to make it a shell of it's former self? It seems like people go, "Hey, there's something kids really enjoy, let's fuck with it and make it stupid." You can think of a lot of things like that.

-Merry Go Rounds- Not the ones with horses at the carnival, I'm talking about the ones at a park, where you'd hang on and the strongest kid would spin it around in a circle and then jump on and you'd get all dizzy and feel like barfing afterwards. That was awesome. But now, thanks to the Society of Super Cautious Parents, which I'm certain is a secret cult hell bent on taking all the fun stuff away, those are few and far between. Some dopey kid probably got stuck under one or something, and the SSCP went bonkers. Voila, no more Merry Go Rounds.

-Those things where you can hold on and swing across the park- Again, some idiot probably fell off and cracked his head open, and the SSCP had a field day. Stupid retard kids spoil all the fun.

-Halloween- Remember when you could just go out with your friends and get a little candy, smash a few punkins, and have a little fun. Now kids have this giant cadre of parents who come along, all with flashlights (heaven forbid your child is in the dark), and some of these people even dress up. (Newsflash: Halloween is NOT for you anymore. If you still crave Halloween so much, dress up as fat Brandon Lee from The Crow, and go to an adult Halloween party, get hammered, and ramble about insurance rates, and how big of a wheel you are at your job.) Then, the parents go through the candy with airport metal detectors and ration the amounts kids can eat. Whatever happened to eating candy until you felt sick, and checking for syringes in the goo goo clusters yourself? Kids don't want to eat cyanide either. I was fairly cautious about that, and the proof is that I am still alive today.

The reason I bring this up is because we took the kids to the 8th floor at Macy's to see the little Christmas show that Daytons first started back in the 50's, and has continued to this day, and also to see Santa Claus. The first thing I noticed, way before we even got there, is that Macy's has given up on this tradition. 50 years of happy kids, gone in the blink of a beaurocrat's pen. I know this because they mentioned that they were running the exact same display as last year, this boring nonsense called An Elf's Life. They tried to enthuse the masses by saying the display was "back by popular demand" which is a corporate euphemism for, "we don't give a shit about this long-loved, storied concept, and as a matter of fact we never took down the display from last year, so all we have to do is plug in a few things and now we want you to come see this half-assed knock off so you will pay us to see Santa, and hopefully buy things from our woefully overpriced Christmas store, and then go downstairs and choke to death from the scent of whore perfume we have emanating from all crevices of our space."

Needless to say, I went into our little journey with a slighltly jaded viewpoint. The first thing that bugged me is that no matter how many times I go there, I can never find the escalators. Somehow I always wind up in the underpants section. Then I have to drunkenly stagger around until either I accidentally find the escalators, or until my wife uses her built in homing device to point us in the right direction.

Once I've found the escalator, and done some swearing because it's so hard, I begin to notice that there is nobody there. This pleases me. Usually, the line wraps all the way down to the offices (which are dark and empty now which also pleases me. Eat a dick and go bankrupt, stupid Macy's), but in this case there was no line, so we paraded down the hall, past the elevators, which are not overflowing with angry people and wheelchair-bound kids, past the old retired ladies handing out booklets, and all the way into the display. This is all very pleasing to me. I don't have to wait in line, which is awesome, because I hate lines in the same fashion as I hate hornets, and because it proves that people aren't falling for the Macy's ruse. Stupid Macy's.

Once we get in the display I get annoyed again. An Elf's Life is configured about as stupidly as is possible. It's like Pablo Picasso designed it or something. The displays don't match up with the part you read to your kids. There was some garbled prose about the elves receiving lots of mail, and the display was of them going to elf school. So the message was really convoluted, and then every few yards or so, there was a real person dressed like an elf, that was running security detail or something for that small portion of the display, making sure kids weren't touching the bogus snow and things like that.

We also noticed that some of the "elves" in the display were actually just regular people from displays past that had been sawed off at the knees to make them look little. I swear to you that one of the elves near the end was actually the Godfather from "The Nutcracker" whose legs had been sawed off. You can't fool me, Punk Ass Macy's.

Finally we got through that mess, which was appropriately about half as long as the good displays Daytons used to do, and went to see Santa. Again, there was no line, which ruled, because I didn't have to worry about the kids running amok and bumping into people in front of us, and when we got done visiting Santa (who was criticized by my son for not getting him the right stuff last year, much to my surprise) and getting the hard sell by a 17 year old to buy a large quantity of Santa pictures and frames, we went over to buy Gingerbread Men (which we always do even though I don't like Gingerbread Men that much). At the Gingerbread Man station, we got the hard sell from the Gingerbread Man baker (what is it with the hard sell? Merry Christmas to you too, buttlicker.) who tried to sell us Gingerbread Men in bulk, and remarked what a bad deal we were getting because we only bought 3.

As we sat in an empty stairwell, eating our Gingerbread Men, two words kept running through my head, over and over, like the gears that made the elf/Nutcracker Godfather move. Screw Macys, Screw Macys, Screw Macys........

One post-script: I nailed a lady really hard in her ample buttocks coming out of the bathroom with the bathroom door. She looked at me like it was my fault. Why would you hang out in the indentation leading into the men's bathroom? That's a good way to get nailed in the butt if you ask me.

The Schwann's Man: A Tale of Heartbreak

2009-12-09T05:41:00.000-08:00

There are a lot of things that really bother me in life, but I hold a special hatred for a chosen few punk ass irritating things like Hornets, Dog the Bounty Hunter, Roundabouts, Jimmy Fallon's monologue, muumuus, crocs, not being able to see your own butt without a house of mirrors, you know stuff like that.

I also reserve a special hatred for the Schwann's guy. Now most of my hatred I've come up with on my own, but the Schwan's owns a special place, for this is an inherited hatred, one I picked up from my Dad, and low and behold, I've found that this animosity is well deserved.

Let me take you back to 1986, when I was a fresh faced youngster, happily naive, with no trace yet of any of the sarcasm and cynicism I would later develop keenly. The Schwans man would come by and although we didn't have a lot of money, sometimes my parents would indulge me with some little circular pizzas, or dreamsicles or something. It was a happy time.

The Schwan's man's name was Brian too, and although it was likely that he was a recovering crackhead with an eye for young boy butts, because we were both Brian's, we had a bond.

Everything changed one dark and stormy night. Brian came over, and was being sort of insistant that we buy some goods from him. We had just gone shopping and we didn't need anything. Come back another time right? Nope, instead Brian fired off this query which altered the course of history.

"Whatsa matter Mr Jensen, can't afford a few treats? Having job problems?"

The nerve of this idiot to pry into other people's personal business. We just didn't want your food. My dad told him, in no uncertain terms, to leave, and I never saw Brian again. I would assume that he drifted into a life of rampant drug use and gay prostitution, but who knows; he could have become a clergyman.

Fast forward to 2005. I am now a grown man (in age, not in maturity) with a wifey, a house, a dog, and a baby girl. The American dream right, except that I don't drive around in a big van solving mysteries. I guess you can't have everything. Anyway, the Schwann's man reappeared into my life. I was a little apprehensive after how badly I'd been burned 19 years earlier, but decided to give it another shot. I was happy. I had my little circular pizzas that always burn the roof of your mouth no matter what again.

But, as it always is with the Schwann's man, the relationship went south faster than a preppy white kid who kills his wife. First he just stopped showing up. This was odd. After about 3 months of no-shows, he finally appears again, like nothing had happened. This is akin to a relationship where a dude disappears on his girlfriend and goes and humps everybody for a while and then comes back and tries to pretend she's the only one for him because he needs money.

I am not fooled. I tell him I'm not interested in his little pizzas anymore. Unbelievably, I get nearly the same response as my Dad had gotten 19 years earlier.

"Whatsa matter Mister Jensen, little short on funds this month?"

What the fuck is up with these people? Is this like, a strategy they teach at the Schwann's Institute?

Rule #1: If a customer refuses to pay you 7 bucks, tease him about his financial situation. It may also be helpful to insinuate that you've seen him at the welfare station

Rule #2: Have sex with his pets when he goes to the bathroom.

Seriously, to all the Schwanns people reading this, the whole issue is customer service. I can buy pizza and popsicles at Cub Foods. If you can't be conciliatory when I turn you down over 7 dollars worth of groceries, then please don't approach me in the first place. Walk back to your freezer with wheels, and go peddle your wares elsewhere. Thanks.

P.S. Don't have sex with my pets either!

I get myself in trouble in the bathroom

2009-12-05T06:49:00.000-08:00

Here's something I bet some people have done before. The other day I was in the bathroom at Target, in the stall, just minding my own business, and trying to ensure that nobody accidentally walked in on me or tried to Larry Craig me, when I started thinking about this morbidly obese man I had recently seen. He had a red sweatshirt, red sweatpants, and was wearing a red stocking cap. He looked a lot like the big Kool-Aid mascot guy, the one that used to crash through the wall in commercials.

The more I thought about Kool-Aid man, the funnier it became to me, so eventually I started chortling and eventually laughing out loud, alone, in the stalls of Target.

Now of course there's like 3 people milling about outside the stall at this time, peeing or washing their hands, or doing drugs or whatever, and all the while there's some weirdo in the stall giggling.

When I think of it in those terms, I immediately stop laughing. I am overcome with a completely rational concern. My concern is that the people outside the stall will hear me laughing and think that I am laughing at my own poop. I don't want people to think this, so I start to cough to try and convince all the random people that the laughter they heard was actually just a weird form of coughing. I don't think they are convinced. Now I am embarrassed so I remain perfectly still and I pick my feet up so nobody can see me. I will do this until everybody leaves. But they don't leave quickly enough because some other guy comes into the stall next to me and it sounds like an army is marching out of his butt.

I am faced with a serious dilemma. Do I stay in the stall and listen to the butt symphony going on next to me, or do I leave and risk the people who think I laugh at my own turds seeing my face. I decide to leave. I stand up and realize that one of the people in the bathroom is the really fat Kool-Aid man who I was laughing at in the first place. I decide this is a good omen. Just for the record though, I don't think my poop is all that funny. Maybe mildly amusing, but only if it's an odd color.

My Son is Just Like Me.

2009-11-23T11:21:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I wonder how much my kids are going to be influenced by the fact that their father is a semi-insane, ultra competive weirdo with a giant head. At times I think, blissfully, probably not too much, after all, they have their mother who is grounded, maddeningly reasonable, and has a normal sized head.

Other times, however, I can see a lot of me in them, especially my son. To wit, he is 4 years old, yet completely happy with watching an entire football or baseball game with me, all the while peppering me like a caesar salad with questions ranging from totally inane and pointless ("Dad, does the brown football team have 2 shoes?") to concise and well thought out, ("Dad, what happens if the pitcher throws a ball and the guy hits it and it bounces over the fence?")

His favorite question however, is always, "Dad, who are the bad guys?" He's determined to know who the bad guys are in any situation, so he can figure out who to cheer for, and against. This doesn't just apply to regular sporting events either. The other day we were watching an airplane race from Greece or someplace like that and he wanted to know.

Him: Dad, who are the bad guys?
Me: Ummmm, I don't know dude, this is an airplane race. I don't think there are bad guys.
Him: The red?
Me: Seriously, I don't know.
Him: The blue?
Me: Sure, the blue.
Him: No, the red.
Me: Ummm....

He also wants to know the bad guys when we are watching SportsCenter.

Him: Dad, who are the bad guys?
Me: Buddy, this is just a bunch of people talking about football. There aren't any bad guys.
Him: The guy in black?
Me: Miles???

So once he determines who the bad guys are in any situation (Football, Basketball, the VMA's) he begins vociferously rooting against them. This can be pretty funny when we are alone, but in a setting with others, it's a little embarrassing. We were at Farmington High's Homecoming football game, and near the end we were sitting with my wife's parents on the visitor side, because the home side was too packed to find seats. So then the visiting parents and fans got to enjoy a 4 year old obnoxiously, and loudly rooting for the other team.

Him (Really loudly): GO TIGERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That was OK, a little gamesmanship never hurt anybody. But then one of the players on the other team suffered what appeared to be a pretty severe knee injury. Things got a little out of hand after that.

Him (Very loudly again): THE BAD GUY GOT AN OWWIE!!! YAY!!!!!
Us (In hushed tones): Miles, you can't cheer when somebody gets an owwie.
Him: Why not, he's the bad guy. GOOOOO TIGERS!!!!!

People turned around to frown at whoever was cheering a high school kid's injury, and saw my beautiful little boy. He frowned back at all of them, very defiantly. I figure that might be partially my doing. Oops.

Then there's the issue of strategy for winning, which he appears to be coming up with all on his own. I'm not necessarily opposed to this, but it's the type of strategy he's employing that has me a little concerned. I coached his and my daughter's soccer team this fall, and what I noticed was that in between coming up to me and making sure that his team had more goals than the "bad guys" i.e. a bunch of 4 and 5 year olds every 3 minutes or so, that he was also crashing into the other team's players and knocking them over an inordinate amount of times, enough so that it was raising eyebrows with the fans. After the game I said to him,

Me: You were really crashing into the other team a lot. What's the deal?
Him: I was bumping the bad guys so that our team would get the ball and win.
Me: Ummmm....

See, strategy. He was the wrecking ball, opening lanes for his teammates. I applaud the thought he put into that, he's only 4 after all, but I was a little concerned it might be, I don't know, blatant cheating.

Finally, there's this thing he does, around our house we refer to it as a "Gigantic Temper Tantrum", whenever it seems as though he's going to lose at something. I can't help but accept that this is my fault, you're looking at the guy who got kicked out of SS Billiards in Hopkins at the ripe old age of 5 for beating up the "Baby Pac-Man" machine because I thought the joystick wasn't functioning properly. Again, oops. Yesterday we were playing the Wii version of some really lame mini-golf game. My son lost to my daughter. What followed was an epic tantrum, which should really only be reserved for things like the End of the World, that lasted well into dinner, and including loud screaming, and trying to maim his sibling, and the dogs.

I'm not really lamenting about this, he's probably going to be a wonderful athlete, but it's just weird to see the traits your little ones pick up on. I'm resolving to kick garbage cans less this year during baseball season for this reason. Awww, who am I kidding?

Lost & Found

2009-11-12T12:11:00.000-08:00

Did you ever stop and think about how much stuff you've lost in your lifetime, and then think in terms of monetary value how much all that stuff would be worth if you had it back? I think about that a lot, and it makes me really mad at myself. How could I have possibly been so careless as to lose all this stuff? Maybe some of it got stolen, but mostly I probably just left the stuff lying somewhere because I'm a careless idiot. Let's break down the list.

-99% of all pens I've ever owned
-60% of all CD's I've ever owned
-1 IPod
-20 pairs of sunglasses
-1 pair of shoes (Side note: When I was 12 and on vacation in San Francisco, my shoes mysteriously vanished, and to this day I have no idea what happened to them. I had only brought one pair also, so I had to wear bread bags on my feet to the airport. I felt like an orphan.)
-A plastic bag containing over 1000 dollars. (Side Note: I found this while floating down a river in Mexico, and I was so geeked about finding it that I forgot to put it in a safe place and it floated right out of my pocket)
-3 cement dildos
-The cassette tape that I drunkenly rapped at Funkytown Studios on
- 2 Wallets
-A trapeze
- A $25 Mystic Lake Casino Chip
-40 Pairs of underpants (Boxers and briefs, but not my snakeskin ballhuggers, thank goodness!!)
- 342 homework assignments (Grades 7-12)
-4 Turtles
-A Sword of Damocles
-404 Wiffle Balls
-2 Girlfriends
-1 cage to keep girlfriends in.
-1 cell phone
-1 baseball uniform (J Botten)
-A really rare Playboy with a nude pictorial featuring Martina Navratilova frenching Ellen DeGeneres.
-74 VHS videos, including 3 Caddyshacks.
-41 DVD's, including 3 Caddyshacks.
- A pair of Jeans that I really liked.
-My "Bad Ass" t-shirt that I made myself and wore to the bar once
-A Charleston Chew that Goose gave me
-A large vat of Meth
-Horse Testicles that I won at the Dakota County Fair
-A Rocket Ship
-The infamous "Will Watson Alaska Anchorage Basketball"
-The 1958 Cleveland Browns
-The Soundtrack to "Peter and the Wolf" hummed loudly by Elton John
-4 million buttons
- A bag of cat poop that we had planned on putting on an old lady's doorstep and then setting it on fire and then ringing the doorbell and when she ran out to stomp on the bag we would run in and lock the door, essentially stealing a house. A foolproof plan conjured up by 11 year olds, foiled because the cat poop bag went missing.
-4 gas caps
-A machine that could turn a normal person into an angry transvestite.
-A large hole in the earth (That's right, I lost a hole. Deal with it.)
-A foam rubber phallus, very handy for smashing people on the head with.
-One of those big foam hands, formed in the shape of "The Shocker"
-A fish hook that actively tried to hook itself into your fingers
and
-All of my baby teeth

That's a pretty long list of very valuable things. But while I was getting all angry, and pouting and swearing, and contemplating going gang raping alone, I realized that I have an equally large pile of things that I have no idea where they came from. I may have inherited them from the earth, like Johnny Appleseed, but more likely it's just mostly stuff my people left behind, and I was too lousy of a friend to ever tell them. This list includes

-74 Tapes and CD's
-42 shirts
- One fleece that did not fit, but I wore it anyway to justify having it.
- One of those bowling glove/carpal tunnel syndrome fixer hand things
-A beach towel previously owned by a professional hockey player
- A statue of Marge Schott
-Some strange medicine from China that makes you poop, pee, and hallucinate about large kittens all at the same time.
-One Moose
-A bunch of hamburger patties that wound up in my freezer.
-Skim cat milk.
-A false Declaration of Independence
-A rogue Tylenol PM that lived on my dorm room floor for months. We even vacuumed around it.
-A bunch of pubes (In a textbook I had in 9th grade)
-2 folding chairs
-A broken camera
-2 pairs of rusty nipple clamps
-A Garden Weasel
-Noseplugs
-A half used tube of Diaper Rash Ointment
-Kevin McHale
-Penis tweezers
-A bunch of useless self help books (Example: How to be Clinically Depressed and Still get the Morning Paper)
-3 different cement dildos
-22,000 rubber bands
-Everybody Poops on Audio book
-A Fernando Valenzuela rookie card, not autographed by me in a blatant attempt to fleece a childhood friend out of money
-Doyle Brunson's front teeth
-A large vial of Crack (or shaved peanuts)
-A small vial of liquid mercury
-The Zapruder Film
-A term paper that proves conclusively the amount of wood a woodchuck would chuck had he been willing and able to chuck the aforementioned wood.
-A zipper
-A bottle of Salmon flavored Whiskey
-A deck of naked lady playing cards that is all jokers and instruction cards
and
-A bottle of sunshine.

I figure I came out about even in this whole thing, so that made me feel a lot better.

Brian is Eco-Friendly Sort-Of

2009-10-30T09:22:00.001-07:00

You know what I can't figure out? How come there's all these shoes on the highway? Why is it that people seem compelled to huck their shoes out the window? And why are the shoes never in pairs? Is there a roving gang of newly peg-legged pirates roaming the countryside littering their now obsolete peg leg shoes? I find this suspicious

I swear, just drive along any thoroughfare for 10 minutes, and you'll see at least one shoe. See, I reserve my special "highway garbage" passes for large things, like urine soaked couches and the large cage I kept that 11 year old in for five years once. Shoes just go in the garbage, people.

Here's another thing I bet only I wish I could do. I would really like to comb the highway for random items, trace them back to the people who they belonged to, and return them. Not because I'm "green" or really all that environmentally conscious, just because it would probably make them unconfortable. The weirder the item, the better too:

Me: Are you Darwin K. Morris?

Guy: Uh yeah.

Me: We traced these 50 bottles of urine back to you. We found them along highways all over the place.

Guy: Um... these aren't..

Me: Sir, let me implore you to be cautious with your bottled urine. Apparently these little buggers have a mind of their own when they're on the road.

How about this for fun. Turn the tables on these litterbugs. Stand on the side of the highway and throw garbage at cars driving by. Fun! The bigger the item the better. Extra credit if it's alive and has pointy talons or a poisonous bite. Then crap in an orange safety cone (the small end) and run off giggling.

I'd just like to mention that I plan on doing all these things before 2010, so look out South Metro near 169....

Kid Cartoon Reviews

2009-10-16T12:10:00.000-07:00

Recently the kids have been home with the H1N1, or some derivative of it, so we've spent a lot of time laying around watching kid stuff on TV. What follows is a review of some of our current favorites:

Scooby Doo-First off, the plot is the exact same every time. A monster pops out and cackles. Then the gang is driving around aimlessly, apparently looking for mysteries. They find a mystery to solve. They split up to look for clues. Shaggy and Scooby get scared and also eat things. Fred and Daphne go in the corner and hump. Velma's glasses fall off. They accidentally catch the monster and reveal that he is Mr Carruthers, the janitor. They unravel the flimsy evil plan for the benefit of the police. There is usually dry ice involved. Scooby and Shaggy eat more things. The end.

In newer episodes, however, the ghosts have become real, instead of Mr Carruthers, the janitor, which sort of ruins the "everything can be explained by a greedy jerk" thesis the old show had going for it. Heck, I even saw a 20 foot tall glowing red Chupacabra, when in actuality they are supposed to look like a hairless coyote. Then we watched "A pup named Scooby Doo" where the plot was totally implausable, even for a cartoon, which is saying a lot. An example: Burglars were chasing the gang, who are all kids now for some reason, so they jerry-rigged a Home Alone type device to foil the burglars. So a burglar ran in and a tennis racket hit him in the face. Normally, you'd go "Ow" and maybe have a bloody nose. In this case however, the burglar flew backwards, out the door, over the trees, and into a whole other country where he landed on the beach and made a giant hole, which he then climbed out of, stole a rowboat, rowed back to the correct country, and ran back to the house, all in a span of 5 seconds or so. Even the kids were skeptical of this scenario.

The Jetsons- Possibly the most sexist cartoon ever. I guess it was made in the 60's, so that was acceptable then, but I found myself almost being offended, and I'm me. Women drivers are feared, Jane spends all day shopping (How do you spend all day shopping, every day?). Mr Spacely is a jerky midget, George's job consists of pushing one button and then sleeping, and this bank robber named Knuckles Nuclear seems to appear in every episode. Also, your food is all in pill form, which sucks.

MVP-Most Valuable Primate- Almost as implausable as the plots from "A pup named Scooby Doo". A monkey, who lives at a college with an old man and a retarded dude and is really smart, runs away when the old man dies because the jerkface dean is going to sell him to a research lab. The retarded guy puts him on a train and tells him to get off at "Simian Village" or something like that. Here's where it really gets tough to believe. He's leaving from LA. The stops on the train are San Francisco, Simian Village, Portland, Seattle, Vancouver, and Bumblefuck, BC. Let's see, 4 giant metropolises, a monkey village, and a frozen noplace. Right. The monkey, of course, winds up in Bumblefuck, BC, where he is befriended by a deaf girl and becomes the star of the hockey team. What strikes me is that somebody actually had to look at this plot and say, "Yes, I think this will serve our viewers well. Go with the 'Runaway Monkey Hockey Star' movie". Funniest part of the movie bar none: The deaf girl is talking like deaf people talk. Bella says to me, "This girl talks worse than Miles." She is 5. He is 3. I am dying laughing.

Higglytown Heroes- Obviously thought up by someone on meth. Everyone in the show are Russian Nesting Dolls, and when the smaller ones get frightened, they hop inside the bigger ones, regardless if the bigger ones like it or not. This could, theoretically, lead to a situation, like the Apocalypse, where the biggest person in the world could be hopped into by the rest of the 6.791 billion people, which would surely cause some gastrointestinal discomfort. Also, the squirrel is voiced by the secretary from Ferris Bueller's Day Off with a weird Fargo accent. Just makes the show more bizarre.

Handy Manny- Wilmer Valderrama's attempt to become the most sensible kids show since Mr Rogers, which it is, but even with the anthropomorphic tools, it's really boring. The antithesis to the "A Pup Named Scooby Doo" plots, these center around Handy Manny being hard working and resourceful, while his tools bicker about stuff. Remember when your mom used to put Mr Rogers on to make you settle down, because it took him 10 minutes to change shoes and put on a gay sweater? This is Handy Manny.

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse- Finally, a show that would make Walt Disney mad enough to break out of the cryogenic chamber he's stored in along with Ted Williams' head, John Henry Williams' testicles, and Austin Powers' mojo. Mickey and friends are all CG now (take that Steamboat Willie) and are focusing on problem solving, instead of general hijinks. Pete, from the Beagle Boys, has been reduced to an oppotunistic antagonist, and Donald Duck thinks things out, instead of having the giant spazzes he's known for.

Guess it shows me that I'm getting old, because I'm finding fault in cartoons, but screw you, ours were better...

2009-10-07T11:16:00.000-07:00

Skotes' Wedding Reception

2009-09-18T12:35:00.000-07:00

So since I've been requested to write about Skotes' wedding reception, I figured I might as well break it down by the minute, as I remember it. If you remember something differently, chances are you were drunk.

7:30 PM: I leave my house. I ask Amy to read the directions to the Gale Mansion on the invite. She looks at the invite. There is a small, rudimentary map drawn on it in colored pencil. It says, "For complete directions, look on the internet." This angers me.

7:47 PM: Driving aimlessly around South Minneapolis, hoping to avoid gang wars and crack dealers. The invite says that the Gale Mansion is in the "Mansion District". I didn't know there was a mansion district. I am lost.

7:58 PM: Accidentally find the correct mansion. There is no place to park nearby. Amy suggests we use valet. I am convinced the Valet drivers will steal my truck and go joyriding, a la Ferris Bueller's Day Off. We drive around the block.

8:01 PM: We are on the next block. There is a small insane asylum on this block. Insane people are milling around the front of it, most likely doing very insane things. There are parking spots by the insane people. We do not park there. KT does and apparently lives to tell about it.

8:04: We park a few blocks away by a park. We begin to walk to the mansion. I get paranoid that my lights are malfunctioning and will not turn off and my battery will die and the insane people will boil Amy and I alive in a large cauldron as we are leaving. I stand and stare at my truck for 3 minutes until the lights go off.

8:07: We enter the mansion. The first thing I notice is that I am the most casually dressed person in there. I mention this revelation to Amy. She tells me I am ALWAYS the most casually dressed person anywhere. I am somewhat hurt by her candor.

8:08: We run into Little Ras. I told him beforehand that I was wearing a yellow shirt and khakis and that he should do the same because then we'd look like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito in Twins. Obviously he has not taken my advice because he is dressed more nicely than me.

8:11: I learn that we are not being served dinner. I am hungry and angry about this. A waiter carrying a tray of meatballs walks by. I grab many meatballs and eat them quickly. They are spicier than I had assumed. I say, "That's one spicy Meat-za-ball!!" to no one in particular. The waiter and Ras laugh at me. I notice that the waiter is actually a waitress with boy hair. This confuses my loins.

8:17: Goose is looking bald and dapper. He's telling a story about how a kid he coached at Hamline is doing well in Rookie Ball. I tell him the kid is in "A" ball. He says something snotty along the lines of, "I think I know my own players." I tell him he is an idiot and we bet two dollars. He text messages the kid. "A" ball. I now only owe Goose 48 dollars which he may or may not ever receive.

8:19: Matty G calls someone and says he'll be there in 10 minutes. "10 minutes" is a Matty G euphemism for "A really long time from now." We all will be surprised if he makes it by 9.

8:25: I spill a bunch of water on the floor and then blame the pitcher it came in. I also eat some item containing seafood solely because it came by on a tray carried by the boy/girl waiter/waitress.

8:30: Amy and Jane are sitting on a couch talking about uninteresting things. I tell them they are sitting on a fainting couch. They tell me I am wrong. Screw them. Like they know much about fainting couches. It was a fainting couch, deal with it.

8:31: Deets arrives and apologizes for being late. We tell him he beat Matty G. He takes absolutely no solace in this fact.

8:40: Still haven't met Skotes' new bride. We begin to openly question whether or not there is a bride, or whether Skotes just gave up and married Matt B.

9:02: Matty G arrives with much fanfare, looking very satisfied with himself.

9:10: Matt B and the maid of honor give speeches. Apparently there are numerous people in the crowd who got married on Sept 11, including Matt B which lends further credence to the now oft repeated rumor that Matt B and Skotes are married to each other. I am trapped behind many women and a glass door so I can't see anything. I try to duck down and stand up on my tiptoes so I can see the two people giving speeches by staring underneath a lady's armpit or over her head. I notice that another woman is doing this as well. We notice each other. I laugh and remark that it's like we're on a teeter-totter together. She either does not understand, or she thinks I'm creepy. She moves away from me.

9:15: The lobby is crowded. Someone mentions that there is a porch upstairs. We decide to form a clique of old baseball players and their wives and girlfriends and head up there. I load up on appy's first along with Little Ras. The appy's consist of millions of different kinds of cheese, crackers, and little racks of lamb. I grab a pound of cheese and crackers, and 2 little lambs. I shove Little Ras forward when he gets distracted by something shiny because I don't want to walk up the stairs alone with that much cheese and crackers.

9:16: The porch we heard about is filled with many people laughing obnoxiously. I sit down in the lobby in a fainting chair (Screw you, that's what it is) and begin shoveling cheese and crackers into my mouth. Amy comes over and steals one of my baby lambs. I look at her with utter contempt but continue eating cheese and crackers. One of the cheeses smells exactly like feet. I eat it anyway. It's not bad. Goose begins channeling his inner bartender (or inner bitch) and fetching drinks for any and all who request them.

9:40: We move to a different upstairs room, painted pink and with many frilly, lace valances topping the windows. Half the team turns gay.

9:45: Food begins telling an outrageous story that nearly justifies becoming a level 3 sex offender in his mind, about a young-ish girl who stripped naked and asked him to "fuck her brains." We are all perplexed at this. "Did she say 'out'?" I ask in horror. Laughter ensues, but I am thinking that doing anything to anyone's brains is at best gross and at worst criminal. The picture in my mind frightens me all night.

9:50: Goose is on his 3rd beer and mentions how drunk he is getting. We roll our eyes at him. He then begins to tell many stories, some funny, but most only partially relevant. I learn that he hit a guy in the leg with a golf ball and didn't even have the decency to yell "fore" or "look out" beforehand. He also mentions he wants to have a party where everybody hangs out and gets really drunk. No one pays attention to him.

9:55: I go looking for a place to pee, preferably a bathroom. I find one but Goose is outside banging on the door and the pee zips back up into my kidneys. I tell him to stop, but once he's had 3 beers, apparently it's a waste of time. I finally pee and leave. He goes in and stays in there for a while. Nobody knows what he is doing.

10:00: Someone keeps trying to open the door behind the wives and girlfriends. This scares them.

10:05: A cameraman comes in and starts taking many pictures. People are annoyed by him for some reason but he is oblivious to this. Hoping to distract them, I take a circular cracker from the large plate of cheese and crackers, say "Body of Christ", and place the entire thing in my mouth, like communion. It barely fits and my mouth gets all dry from chewing it up. People are confused by my behavior, especially Jess, who begins questioning my sanity.

10:15: I go to get more baby lambs since Amy ate 50% of my lambs before. To my horror, the lambs have been replaced with cake. I look all around for more lambs, even under the table. I find none. I am sad to the point of crying. We bring up a lot of cake.

10:16: We couldn't find any forks. Food goes away for a while, and returns with many forks. He is hailed as a hero/sexual deviant.

10:20: Matt B comes into the pink room and continues an argument that has been going on since Skotes bachelor party that Skotes throws harder than Matty G, but with less command. This argument has gotten tiresome. We still have not met the bride so it stands to reason that Matt B. is sticking up for Skotes in this argument because they are married.

10:40: We finally meet the bride. She is very pretty and seems to genuinely like Skotes. Myth, busted.

10:45: 3 conversations about fantasy football break out simultaneously. The girls start yawning. Goose is near a coma. The end is near.

11:00: Everyone abruptly gets up and leaves including Natron (who hasn't been mentioned yet), and his girlfriend (who is cool because she went to USD, like me.)

11:01: I give the photographer a friendly pat on the butt as I walk out. I'm not sure why.

11:05: We say our goodbyes and walk to our cars. I tell KT and Jess to scream loudly if they are attacked by a roving gang of lunatics on the way to their car. I hear nothing so I assume they're OK.

Congrats Skotes. It was a fun and entertaining night.

Brian goes to Victoria's Secret

2009-09-17T10:36:00.000-07:00

I've figured out over the years that I'm not that much of a fashionista. I'm usually the most casually dressed guy at a wedding, I'm not sure where my dress socks are, and I wear a t-shirt and shorts to work every day (unless it's really cold, then I wear jeans and a hoodie), and one time I forgot to wear shoes. I'll probably be called a sexual predator before I'm called a metrosexual.

Sometimes I go to Victoria's Secret though, to pick out clothes and stuff for my wife, and when I say "stuff" I mean underwear that shows your whole butt (but not your butthole). You'd think this would be a recipe for disaster, and that I'd come home with stuff 8 sizes too big, and garments that were just plain goofy looking, but you'd be wrong.

For some reason, and I haven't quite figured it out yet, Victoria's Secret employees love me, like straight, done-a-bunch-of-ecstacy love. Perhaps it's all about the sale, and these employees are nothing more than clothed prostitutes selling things other than space in their various orifices, but I tend to believe I'm actually really likable because of how naive I act in the presence of hot chicks and skimpy butt huggers.

I've developed a foolproof method for getting help picking out items at Victoria's Secret. It goes like this.

1.) Wander into the store looking overwhelmed, but excited, like you just tripped and fell into a pile of naked ladies.

2.) Grab a pair of underpants and hold them up to a light, like you're trying to see through them. This will let people know that you're serious about being in the store, and you aren't just here to ogle the mannequins.

3.) Look around for an employee that is approximately the same size as my wife. I can't for the life of me ever remember her measurements, the only thing that comes to mind is 4T, and I'm pretty sure that's for my son, and I had a really awkward encounter about 5 years ago at Sears with a chunky sales girl.

Me: I need a blue shirt for a girl.
Chunky Sales Girl: Like a sweater?
Me: No, with buttons and stuff, you know, like a button shirt or whatever...
CSG: Ohhhh Kay. Um, what size is she?
Me: I don't know, is little a size?
CSG: Not really. Is she like me?
Me: Not really. I said little. (This qualifies as one of "those things" that accidentally slips out of my mouth periodically)
CSG: Well, look over there. (Points ambiguously to a large section of the store and angrily stampedes off)

That's why I look for somebody the same size.

4.) When you find her, begin stalking around her looking at items, even if she's in the socks section. Eventually she will ask you if you need help finding something.

5.) I usually reply to this by saying something like, "I need some underpants. For my wife. She's a girl. Like you."

6.) She'll bring me over to the underpants area and ask what size she is. This is one of the only times, outside of the strib club, where it's perfectly acceptable to stare at her goods for a long time, before you reply, "about your size."

7.) Victoria's Secret employees really like this. The girl will then go out of her way to describe various articles of clothing, and why they are or are not sexy. This is fun for everyone. She might even bring other girls over for their opinions. This is the closest I will ever get to one of those "naked slumber parties" with pillow fights and serious girl-on-girl action that I see on Cinemax periodically, so I will milk it for all it's worth.

One note of warning here. Occasionally there is a guy working at Victoria's Secret. If a guy ever comes over and tries to help you, punch him in the crotch as hard as you can and then quickly, and covertly, leave the entire mall. For security purposes, it may be a good idea to never return.

Again, this method is foolproof, if you do it correctly. If it doesn't work for you, you are obviously a gross pervert and you should go directly to jail.

Paul Returns

2009-09-04T08:51:00.000-07:00

I used to have this little "friend" at the gym. His name was Paul, and he liked to follow me around and talk to me about things he'd done over the weekend, like go to a bar and ogle girls butts, and drink red bull vodkas and be loud and obnoxious, and all the other usual stuff guys talk to each other about.

He was a little guy, maybe 5'6", and he usually wore T-Shirts with beer logos on them, or the names of obscure restaurants that I'd never heard of or been to before (Shakey's Fish Lodge, home of the $7.99 tuna melt). He looked somewhat similar to Sven Sungaard, and he smelled like lotion and hair gel.

He was a fairly pleasant, upbeat person, but I just wasn't really interested in listening to him prattle on about stuff I didn't really care about, so I began actively avoiding him, and ignoring him when he pranced on by, and even hiding in the handicapped toilet for 45 minutes (much to the chagrin of the paraplegic guy who had to take a massive dump) until he left the locker room. Eventually, he got the hint and I stopped seeing so much of him, which was refreshing, because then I could spend my time doing the things I enjoyed, like lifting weights, and sitting there trying to look marginally cool.

About a month ago, I started noticing him around a lot again however. He was just as cheerful as ever, but I could see he'd added about 25 pounds directly to his stomach which was now poking out from under his beer t-shirt like a girl in her 2nd trimester of pregnancy. The thought of Paul being pregnant amused me, but I assumed that even little Peter Pan guys aren't capable of that so it had to be one of two things. Either he got a desk job for the first time ever (Side Note: I have no idea what his occupation was before, I just assumed "greeter" at Wal-Mart), or he met a girl. I found out because he found me.

Paul: Dude what's going on??
Me (acting distracted): Hey, what's happening?
Paul: Haven't talked to you in for EVER!
Me: (staring at the drinking fountain): Yeah, what happened, did you die?
Paul: Yeah, and went to heaven. I met my fiancee!!

Bingo! Aaaaaaand you're gay for saying you died and went to heaven when you met a girl. This is not a movie from the 40's. Guys shouldn't say stuff like that to other guys, especially since he had worked so hard in the past to cultivate his image as a cool party guy to me. Not that I was buying it anyway, but still...

Paul: Hey, you wanna meet her? Rach, come here babes.

This was not part of the deal. I look around for a fire alarm to yank. I am stuck. Now, had you asked me to picture the type of girl that would date Paul, I would have said petite and perky and chipper, kind of like him. I figured the two of them would skitter around and pollenate flowers and sprinkle pixie dust on people or something, I don't know.

I don't know how to describe the girl that came over. Instead of a happy pixie, she looked more like the ass end of a chupacabra. She was very tall, and very pale, almost to the point of being gray, and she had one of those noses that bends out and down, so it looked like it might eventually grow right into her mouth, which would at least make for a conversation starter. She looked like she was having a dreadful time at the gym. I started to wonder about the dynamic of that relationship. Cheerful, bouncy Paul and sad, chupacabra assed face Rachel whose nose is slowly growing into her mouth. The strange thing is, they'll probably get married and live happily ever after. Who can predict relationships?

Stop Saying It!!

2009-09-03T13:34:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I find myself using the adjective "Gay" a lot to describe most everything happening around me. It really is kind of an apt description for any person, place, or situation that I deem less than acceptable. Some examples:

-Mushrooms are gay!
-Hornets stingers' are gay!
-Running up a hill is gay!
-Your face is really gay looking.
-This pasty smells gay.
-Your giant scab is way gay.
-I got a ticket for urinating in public. How gay.
-This manta ray feels really gay.

And on and on and on, ad nauseum. Every so often, somebody, usually a girl somebody, will come up to me and say one of two things. She either says:

1.) "Brian, calling everything gay is disrespectful to gay people"- I usually reply, "You're gay for saying that." I disagree with this assumption for a few reasons. First, I am in no way biased towards homosexuals. I think they should share the same rights as everyone, and if they want to get married or whatever, go ahead. Not my business.

Secondly, why would gay people feel disrespected by me calling my friend gay because he trips and falls down a hill and lands in a big pile of mud and cigarette butts? Clumsily falling down a hill, and being attracted to someone of the same sex aren't even close to the same thing, so how could anyone draw enough of a parallel to be offended? That's right, if you think gay people are offended by the adjective gay, you are insulting their intelligence, and that's just racist!

or

2.) Sometimes people say to me, "You should spell it "Ghey" so it can be differentiated. This is perplexing to me. Do I have word bubbles coming out my mouth like a comic book character and just not know it? Plus, I don't want to spell it "Ghey" because people won't know what I'm talking about. They might think I mean Curds and Ghey or something, and who wants to eat Curds and Ghey. Not me!

Besides, changing the spelling of a word doesn't change the word. If I go around emailing girls and referring to them as "Kuntz" I think the impact will still be the same. It's the intent and the person behind the word that determines whether it's offensive or not. Always has been, always will be, and since I have now proven to be of quality character I'd like to leave with this final thought.

It's gay when your bones itch!

Why I love Amy

2009-08-25T09:06:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I take for granted how lucky I am to have found a nice girl who puts up with the strange things that periodically force their way out of my mouth. We just got back from a vacation to Michigan, and there were numerous things I said that would make the average person run away screaming. A small sample:

- Me: Did you ever wonder how close you've been to being eaten by a bear in your lifetime?
Her: No. Not really.
Me: Why not? You should.
Her: How would you measure something like that anyway?
Me: Ummmmm, probably in feet.
Her: Hmmm...

- Me (Talking about a poop I did): Ugh, you should have heard it. There were so many different noises. It was like I had a butt harmonica or something.
Her: Hmmm.

-Me: I think from now on I'm going to name all my boogers.
Her: Um... OK.
Me: Yeah, and I'm going to do it in alphabetical order, like hurricanes. Booger Arnold is fast approaching.
Her: Hmmm.

Pretty much she always just says "Hmmm" at the end. I think she might be compiling a list.

Me (after a long time driving): You know what would be a crappy name for a boy? Muriel.
Her: Hmmm.

Me: Check that out. Is that a bridge?
Her: There's no bridge.
Me: I see this. Must have been a mirage.
Her: You can't see a bridge mirage!
Me: Yuh-huh. I just did. Oh, and I think the kids are asleep.
Her: No they aren't.

Me (Driving thru Gay, Michigan): HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Her: Let's get out of here.

Me: I WANT A PASTY!!!!!!!!!! (Yelling this while honking the horn) (Side note: I have no idea what a pasty is, but I wanted one. BAD! All the pasty stores were closed Sunday and Monday which was confounding and angering me.)

Me: See that guy walking over there. I'm pretty sure he's dead.

Yep, that was me. And she still loves me. Which is nice. I love you back. Thanks for listening to this nonsensical prattle for 12 years. By the way, I bought a chinchilla. SURPRISE!!

Mr Gray comes to town

2009-08-10T09:13:00.000-07:00

One time, when I was about 12, I took a gray shit. I don't what in the world I had been eating the past few days, but I assume I wasn't gnawing on sheetrock or anything. Anyhow, I got done poopin', looked in the toilet, and my poop was totally devoid of color (except gray).

So naturally, I was thrilled. We had this camcorder we had borrowed and I was going to tape my gray poop, but the camcorder wouldn't turn on. This was possibly because I had accidentally whacked it against the front door super hard when I was sprinting outside to tape a squirrel or something the day before.

In retrospect, I probably should have been concerned about my gray poop, because as far as I can tell from the internet, only baby poop is supposed to be gray. But whatever, I was 12.

The reason this story even comes up is because I was talking to this guy this morning, and he was talking about how the insulation from his attic leaked out the other.

Guy: Yeah, so I went upstairs and there was this gray shit all over the floor.
Me: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Guy: What's funny about that?

This is why I get funny looks a lot of times...

I Suck at Projects

2009-08-07T08:17:00.000-07:00

There's a lot of stuff I don't like all that much about being a grownup. Responsibility, achy breaky body parts, and extra backfat are just a few of them. But one thing I really enjoy about being a grownup is that I don't have to do projects ever again. I sucked at projects for two reasons.

1.) I never did them until the last minute-The teacher would say, "Your grade will hinge completely on this 15 page paper due in 4 months." Then I'd do absolutely nothing, until one day I would awaken to panic because the stupid paper was due in 7 hours. So I'd cobble something together using huge font, and making a bunch of stuff up because this was before the internet wrote your papers for you (i.e. It's a well known fact that Abraham Lincoln invented the steam powered locomotive.) Then I'd barely get it done, print it out, run to class, and forget my disk in the hard drive. I forgot my disk in the hard drive like 46 times in college. I hated that.

2.) Projects were dumb- It's hard to get enthusiastic about dumb things. It's a simple matter of choice. Let's say you were 11, and your choices were either write a paper about the Pilgrims, or..... play tackle football at the park all day with your friends, and then go egg Old Man Fran's house, what would you choose?

With that in mind, here's a small sampling of dumb projects I had to do throughout my life:

-Kindergarten- Make Smokey the Bear out of a brown paper sack. I couldn't cut with scissors yet, so this complicated things, plus I glued the Smokey head on the wrong part of the sack. So instead of being proud, I crumpled up my Smokey the Bear, shoved him in my backpack, and cried on the bus. (Side note: The only two times I cried in school were both on the same day in Kindergarten. The first time was because I rammed my shins really hard into some cubbies.)

-2nd Grade- Draw a picture of the USSR- The USSR, in case you didn't know, is the hardest fricking thing to draw in the world and I could barely draw a concentric circle at the time. So my USSR wound up looking like a giant booger. I hated the USSR after that. I was glad when Communism fell for different reasons than most.

-5th Grade-Write a story about a leaf- This was supposed to help us think abstractly or something. Instead, I wrote an extremely pointless story about this leaf floating around. To make matters worse, I got in trouble because I named the leaf "Senor Dildo" because I thought this would make the story better. I didn't even know what a dildo was, I just thought it was a synonym for "jerk".

7th Grade- Make a Solar Collector that would cook a weiner- This was in Shop Class, and everything I did in that class was a giant failure. I spent forever trying to get this thing to look like everybody else's, and then the weiner didn't cook. I was so mad! The only consolation was that there's a picture in the 7th grade yearbook of me pointing at my weiner.

8th Grade- Long report on Dogs- I don't remember how this became the subject I had to report on, but I know I cut out a bunch of pictures of various dog breeds from one of those old Encyclopedia Brittanica sets from the 50's. This set was old enough so that it mentioned that the Korean War was an "ongoing conflict", and there was a large section in it on "The American Negroe". Anyhow, after I cut a bunch of dog pictures out of this old encyclopedia, I realized that all we had in my house was double sided tape. But being that the report was due that morning, I had to use it. So of course all the pages stuck together. It was like a Hustler magazine, except the gratuitous beaver shots were replaced with German Shephards. It was so bad that I even had a teacher who didn't even teach the same subject come up to me later that week and say, "I saw that dog report you did. Jesus, that was terrible."

9th Grade-SLUDGE- Everybody from St Louis Park remembers this because it was mandatory, and gayer than Kevin Spacey. I believe the object of this project was to take a big beaker of crud, and determine what it was made of. This took many weeks to complete, and at no time did I have any idea what I was doing. I was fortunate to have had a partner who had a little bit of aptitude in this area, so he dragged me along like a fat girl stuck in a bus door. At the end, I turned in this long drawn out report that I did not understand. The teacher came by and shook my hand. "Congratulations Brian, you've completed SLUDGE." I wanted to punch him in the balls and make him drink the SLUDGE for this comment.

College-Create a fictional shoe company-This was in the last business school class of my college career. It was a class called Business Policy and Strategy, and basically the success of the shoe company determined your class grade. The problem was that there was no discernable "strategy" in the whole exercise. You made your shoes either crappy and inexpensive, or nice and pricey, or somewhere in the middle. Then you put your specs into a computer and it spit out your results. The first two times we went cheap and did terrible. So then we switched to expensive shoes..... and did terrible. Finally, for fun, we made shitty shoes at a really expensive price. Jackpot. Made tons of fictional money. This was supposed to be a Business School student's most important college class, the one that tied the rest together, like The Dude's rug. This is why I don't go around bragging about my degree.

So yes, being a grownup is sometimes not so fun, but at least there's no more projects. Whenever you feel like killing yourself, just recite that mantra.

This one guy

2009-07-31T09:07:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I get phone calls in the middle of the night. They are sort of prank calls I guess, but also really weird too. I've been getting them since I was about 19. I think there's some guy out there that really enjoys pranking me, but he only enjoys it every once in a great while. It's a little disturbing. The first time this guy called me I was in college.

Me (Totally asleep): Um... Hello?

Guy: Hello. Your arms aren't long enough to touch God.

Me: What?

Guy: Your arms aren't long enough to touch God.

Me: OK.

Guy: OK, bye.

What was that all about?

So then periodically he calls and says strange things which leave me confused. One time he called and said "Jackrabbits" over and over. One time he called and farted into the phone. One time he left me a message and the only thing I could hear was "The Magnificent Seven" in the background.

Anyhow, I want to catch this guy and interrogate him. I'm pretty sure that one day he is going to try and kill me and I want to be ready. I'm also sure it's the same guy who breaks into my furnace room at night and makes weird groaning noises that scare me. I'm going to get him.

Helpful Dating Tips

2009-07-15T11:52:00.000-07:00

As a man who has successfully navigated the shark-infested dating waters and come out with an intelligent, beautiful wife, I feel it incumbent upon me to pass along my foolproof dating tips that will help out even the most hopeless dork. One caveat: If these tips somehow do not work well for you, it is definitely your fault. The tips are flawless.

1.) Go for looks over brains- I know this runs contrary to other advice, which says someday you're going to be old and funny looking and you want somebody you can talk to, but if you really need somebody to talk to that badly, just get another friend. If you're so desperate that you're willing to make "personality" a viable criterion then you should probably just give up and work on being the best masturbater you can possibly be.

2.) The First Date- Drive around forever, then take her someplace really stupid, like a Pizza Hut 40 miles away in a bad neighborhood. If she is still impressed with you, you're in.

3.) Other Girlfriends- Never talk about them, and if you do, do NOT refer to them by their real names. Instead, devise a complicated code of letters and numbers so you can talk about them without her knowing.

X5J14 = Susie
Y9?12 = Megan
????? = That one girl

4.) Meeting her parents- Meeting her parents is a symbolic, if not special occasion. It proves that she likes you enough to show you to somebody who matters, not just somebody who would be impressed with the tattoo of the marijuana leaf on your neck. When you meet her parents, act exactly like Eddie Haskell from Leave it to Beaver except with a 2000's flare to it. You should try to say things like:

"Damn, Mrs Jones, you look smokin' today in them elastic waistband jeans. Can someone say 'Cougar?'" or

"Can I help you put out those bitch ass plates Mrs Jones?"

Don't try to say anything to the Dad, because chances are he's plotting your death.

5.) If she starts talking about getting married and you aren't ready, immediately bring up Brock Lesnar, and/or Mixed Martial Arts. This will at least make her pause for serious consideration. If you start talking about getting married and she isn't ready, she is NOT your girlfriend, and you just don't know it.

6.) If you feel like the relationship just isn't working out, you might want to say something like,

"Um, I'll probably call you tomorrow or um....nrnnririerih (trail off)"
"I have a really contagious STD"

If those don't work, then try.

"I'm gonna eat my own poop later. Wanna help?"

With these 6 flawless tips, you should be able to attract the most classy, intelligent, attractive women that are out there. If you don't, it's because you are dumb.

The Correct Way to Handle Other Families Issues

2009-07-13T13:12:00.000-07:00

Here's a situation that I never quite know how to react to. Maybe you can help.

Last weekend I took my kids hiking, and then on a picnic. There were a lot of other little kids there. When it comes to interacting with other families, I'm never quite sure where you draw the line.

For instance, I was watching this little kid playing by my kids at the park. He was kind of fat, and he had on a tiny hat. He looked a little bit like "Spanky" from The Little Rascals. Suddenly, Spanky decided he had done just about enough playing and so he left and began walking towards what I assume were his parents. I watched him go because I was making fun of his hat silently to myself. ("Fat Guy in Little Hat" "Is that a Twins yarmulke?") etc. As I was making fun of him, he abruptly stopped walking, dug his hand into his pants, and began furiously picking his butt. I wanted to tell somebody but there was nobody within earshot, so I just kind of told myself, "That kid sure is picking his butt!" So he picked his butt for a good 90 seconds. Then he ran over to his mom and dug a giant handful of fritos out of the bag with his butt-picking hand. Then he started chomping the handful, not even bothering to extract the fritos one by one. Finally, he shoved the fritos in his mom's face and she started eating them.

I wondered to myself, should I tell this lady she is eating poopy fritos with kid saliva all over them? I thought that if anybody ever told me that, I would be thankful, and I would discontinue eating the fritos. Ultimately I chose not to tell anyone, because I had to pee, and by the time I got done peeing I had forgotten about the whole ordeal, and I didn't remember it again until we were driving home.

Maybe I should have told her, or maybe that would have been invading that families' space, I'm not sure. I know that one time I saw this lady and she had 3 hornets crawling around on her thigh. I said, "YOU HAVE 3 HORNETS CRAWLING ON YOUR THIGH!!" So, I don't always sit idly by and watch bad things happen to people. But I'm also really scared of hornets so that might have had something to do with it.

I guess in situations like that, you just have to decide on a case-by-case basis whether or not to mention something. Most of the time I would say don't interfere with the show though, especially if the person probably won't be any worse off because of the situation. Or if somebody is waving an uzi and/or machete around.

Brian takes his Family to a Ghetto Ass Zoo

2009-07-07T10:52:00.000-07:00

If you scout around a little like I do, it's really easy to find small zoos all over the place. Most people don't know this, but there are like 400 small zoos in Minnesota, or possibly less. So, last friday, I decided to take my family to this hiking area down in Southeastern Minnesota, that also had a little zoo.

When we got there, the first thing we noticed was that this was definitely a ghetto ass zoo filled with mainly retarded animals, which was a bonus. I mean retarded, retarded, like real retarded animals. It was sweet. Here are some things you might see at a ghetto ass zoo with real retarded animals:

- A retarded wolf that looked like it was having a constant heart attack. It's tongue was too big and it's eyes were all swelled up. It was nightmare inducing

- A badger whose cage was a large bin of sand with chunks of concrete sticking out. He dug a big hole and popped out every once in a while to look menacing. In this case his enclosure was retarded.

- A cougar who, in plain view of everyone, slurped his balls for at least an hour straight. This prompted many people to remark, "Awww, the big kitty is taking a bath." Why is it whenever people see an animal slurping his balls they always think he's bathing? He's not taking a bath. His elbows and paws and head are very dirty. He is slurping his balls. Every so often I'd peek over at his cage and there he was, with his foot up in the air, still slurping his balls.

- A deer that pooped every 30 seconds. He was like a pez dispenser.

- A bunch of rusted out, empty cages. Whenever you're in a ghetto ass zoo filled with real retarded animals and you see a bunch of rusted out, empty cages, it means the retarded animals are dying quickly. A bird had flown in one of the empty cages. Doesn't that make you uncomfortable? You know, like maybe you're looking at the buffalo habitat, but there's also a duck in there. It makes me feel like the duck is some kind of a burglar, burgling space in other animals habitats. I always yell, "Jerkface Duck, go back to where you came from!!" People stare at me when I yell this.

-Ghetto people. Either skinny, hyper people with track marks up and down their arms and 10 little kids each running around and screaming at nothing, or huge fat people with bib overalls and floral print pants and mesh NASCAR hats with 12 kids running around and screaming at nothing. And smoking. Who smokes at the zoo?

- A Raptor Center- All ghetto ass zoos have a raptor center. Somehow between Jurassic Park and now, raptor went from meaning "dinosaur" to "bird of prey with bad wing injury". All the birds there still look like they could rip a bunny to shreds, but they'd all have to run after the bunny to do it. There was an eagle with no wings there. He couldn't even imitate the back of a quarter

-An Interactive Learning Building- Another staple of the ghetto ass zoo. This is a building that has snakes in it. It might have some bones and fossils too, but mostly just snakes. You're supposed to learn from the snakes I guess. Some of the snake cages were empty. This is probably because the snakes are retarded and/or dead.

-A naturalist who looks like a carnie and smells like she sleeps next to the retarded wolf- Only one though because the Ghetto Ass Zoo relies solely on donations and meth heads and morbidly obese people generally would rather steal the donation box than contribute to it.

Ah yes, I love the Ghetto Ass Zoo, so look around, chances are there's one within walking distance of your house

Brian and Family Attempt Ladder Golf

2009-06-24T13:35:00.001-07:00

So for Father's Day, the kids all got jobs so they could make some money to be able to buy me a gift. My daughter got a job as a mattress tester, which meant for about two hours a night she tested her mattress, and for the next 8 hours, she tested mine, and drooled all over my pillow, and shoved her doll's pointy feet into my vertebrae. My son got a job as a Carpet Tester, which meant that he ran around the house spilling things on the carpet to see how well it would absorb those things. The dogs even got internships as urine distributors, but we'll talk about that later...

Anyhow, they got me this nice gift called Ladder Golf, which goes by a whole host of other names which generally denegrates the Polish. It's this game with two golf balls attached together by a thin rope, and the object of the game is to fling the golf balls/string thing and get it to wind around one of the ladders. (Side note: If you're a severe idiot about putting things together like me, and I mean like one step above being-in-a-coma type of idiot, putting together the ladders can be so frustrating that you just want to throw the whole thing in the fire while running around screaming and raping strangers.) But eventually I got it OK. I'm grown.

So we get everything set up, and are ready to play. Me and my son, versus my wife and my daughter. Let me interject for a second here and say that as the game began I was still a little on edge and tense and also feeling very competitive since I had actually won the fight with the stupid ladder thing and not started screaming or raping anybody nearby in the process.

The kids are all excited. I'm excited too, yelling things like, "We're gonna whup your asses!!" and "Boys rule, girls drool," and other such taunts which were sure to inspire my 5 and 3 year olds to play their best and have fun all the while respecting the idea of good sportsmanship.

My daughter steps up to throw. She has never played this game before. This is the first ladder golf throw in her entire life. She throws.... and being 5 she greatly overestimates the "oomph" you need to put on golf balls and rope to get them to go 15 feet in the air. Greatly overstimates this. The ball/rope thing flies over the ladder. The ball/rope thing flies over the backyard fence. The ball/rope thing lands on the neighbor's roof. The ball/rope thing rolls down the neighbor's roof and sticks in the neighbor's gutter. I stare at the gutter. My daughter and wife stare at the gutter. My son stares at the gutter. There is silence. Finally my son says,

Son: The balls are stuck.

Everyone looks worried about this. I try to ease the tension.

Me: What the crap kind of a throw was that???

The game of ladder golf has taken on a completely different meaning. My wife gets the real ladder and begins to walk over to the neighbor's house to retrieve the balls. I sit in the grass and pout, and swear softly, and rip grass from in between my legs.

Finally after 20 minutes, we get the balls down (notice how I say we, like I had much to do with it.) My daughter is extremely gentle after that. Her next few throws go like this.

Really short
Really far left
Really really far left
10 minute stoppage in play because balls are all tangled up. I get mad because I have no patience for knots either, so instead of carefully untangling rope, I yank fiercely at the balls in all angles, and stomp around when they won't come undone out of fear.
Really short again
Backwards

My son, on the other hand, doesn't even pay any attention to the ladder, instead choosing to fling the balls as hard as he possibly can. His first few throws go like this.

40 feet left, rolls under the big pine tree
50 feet right, rolls right up by the back door
10 feet right and way too far, smashes high chair we have left outside for no good reason
Way too high and far, smashes into outside of porch
Way far left, smashes dog in lungs. Dog makes a "Buhhhhh" noise, then goes and hides under the trampoline and whines

So, sufficed to say, our first attempt at ladder golf did not go according to plans. We're probably playing again tonight. Watch out for your lungs, Burnsville.

Bikers, Locker Rooms, and Perverts

2009-06-16T13:21:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while the stars align, the planets revolve in perfectly concentric circles, and the child predator's internet connections go bad all at the same time. When this happens, you can really see some entertaining things. It happened the other day when I was at the gym.

I was walking in, when I noticed that they had switched the locker rooms around. The Men's Locker room had become the Women's Locker room, and vice versa. I immediately had this thought.

"Hmm, it would be really hilarious to me if some idiot walked into the wrong locker room."

No sooner had I thought that when a big surly biker guy walked up and started shuffling into the women's locker room. Now, the two ladies folding towels nearby saw him too, but they only saw his back, and he had a big, long, braided ponytail hanging off his head. So, from the back, it was difficult to tell if he was a big, surly biker guy, or just a big, fat, stinky girl.

The two towel folders were looking at each other, in an obvious state of concern. I couldn't take it any more so I said:

Me: A dude just walked in there.
Towel Folder: Good LORD!!!

About one second later there was a bunch of screaming. It was like one of those old cartoons where a mouse walks into a circus tent full of elephants. I am jumping up and down in place and pointing at the locker room hole by now. What a great show!!

About two seconds after that the biker guy sprints out covering his eyes. He runs right into the large bin of towels that is on wheels. The towel bin falls over and makes a loud noise. The entire gym stops doing anything. The guy is almost crying, he's so upset.

Biker Guy: There are.... WOMEN in the men's locker room!

I start to cry, poop, and pee my pants simultaneously because I am laughing so hard. Then, a gym manager type guy quickly walks up to the biker guy. He looks angry.

Gym Guy (Incredulously): Why did you go in the women's locker room?
Biker Guy (Nearly Hysterical): The Men's room....there were women!!
Gym Guy: This is the Women's Locker room. You can't go in there ever again! OK?

The biker guy takes off. He just runs out the door and leaves. I am really happy to have seen all this.

Here's the kicker. As the smoke starts to clear, I find myself walking back next to the gym manager guy.

Me: Geez, poor guy. He must have been really embarrassed.
Gym Guy: Shit dude, that's the third time he's done that this week.

Let me reiterate. So happy I saw all this!

News you never Hear

2009-06-04T12:29:00.000-07:00

Doesn't it get tiring to hear about some guy that gets fed up and goes on a shooting rampage? It's just tedious. You know why? It's because it's always one of two people.

1.) Some guy who just got fired or dumped by his girlfriend runs into his or her work and kills everybody.

2.) Delusional nerds who never talk to anybody except online where they spew violent rhetoric with a screen name like "ZombieSpockBallhairs13" and then one day they run into their school and kill everybody.

Always the same. You know what I want to see? The star player on the basketball team walking around shooting dorks just because he gets peeved at how unbelievably unobservant they are. Didn't you ever want to do that.

Maybe not shoot them, but, didn't you ever see some kid that was always getting picked on, and want to just go over to him and give him a good hard shaking, and say, "Why are you such a freaking dork? You walk around in the same halls I do, you see the kind of stuff that's going to get you picked on, why do you insist on still doing it?? Look at your dandruff! Your shoulders are completely white. Get a better shampoo!! Your breath smells like inside buns left out in the sun. Brush your teeth!! Not that hard."

How about a Janitor that pops out of broom closets and rapes the lunch ladies. That would be interesting huh? How about a guy with multiple personalities raping himself. Now that would be newsworthy. There's all sorts of things like that that you never hear about that would make really great news

-A tornado that touches down in a valley and can't get out so it bounces around in the valley like a pinball forever.
-A talking sheep
-A man who is addicted to slamming his penis in a door
-Joe Mauer gets busted smoking crack at the bus station
-Catholicism and Satanism are basically the same thing.
-Every single person in Rhode Island has at least one testicle.
-A man gets arrested for pooping off the Empire State Building Observation Deck
-Listening to classical music in utero makes your baby 10 times more likely to hate you as a teenager.
- 95% of wizard sightings are actually just women in Burqas.
-People's buttholes start spontaneously and mysteriously growing over.

That would all make great news. Someone needs to make sure all of these things happen. Not me though.

Brian and All his Visitors

2009-05-28T10:48:00.000-07:00

I must live in a huckster's paradise for a neighborhood, because there are always people walking around door to door trying to get me to do something. Usually they fall into one of 4 categories:

1.) People trying to get me to worship their god.

Usually the exchange goes something like this.

(When Mormons come)
Mormon: Hello Sir, how are you today?
Me: AAAAAGH!! Mormons! (Slams door and hides in basement for half hour)

(When Jehovah's Witnesses come)
Jehovah's Witness: Hello sir, would you like a copy of the Watchtower?
Me: AAAAAGH!! Jehovah's Witnesses! (Slams door and hides in basement for entire hour)

(When I am fooled)
Person: Hi Sir. Say, that's a nice truck you've got.
Me (Suspiciously): Yeah.....thanks. (Slowly reaches for baseball bat to crush skull of certain home invader)
Person: You look like you have most everything you could want.
Me (Thinking): Is this guy coming on to me?
Me: Well, I'd like a pool table...
Person: But do you really have everything?
Me: No, I want a pool table, remember?
Person: Do you have Jesus Christ in your heart?
Me: Yes! (Always answer "yes" to this question, even if you worship the devil)
Person: God bless you. By the way, I'm a 7th day adventist. I go to church on saturdays. Neat huh?
Me: I still want a pool table.

2.) People selling windows:

First off, windows are really expensive, like 25 thousand dollars expensive. Do door to door salesman think people are just going to give that up on a whim? This is Burnsville, not Neverland. Plus they use really faulty logic that I feel the need to correct them on.

Sales guy: So, with the Energy Tax credit, and the money you'll save on your heating bills, they practically pay for themselves.
Me: Yes, if I live here for the next hundred years.
Sales Guy: No, that's not right.
Me: Yes, if I pay $25,000 for windows, take off the $1500 tax credit, and apply the savings I'll get on my monthly energy bill, and then take the future value of money that I would have received had I merely invested this money, it will take me a good 114 years for these windows to pay for themselves.
Sales Guy: I said "practically" pay for themselves. Pay attention. Now buy the windows. I need my commission check to buy meth.

3.) Fat, unenthusiastic high schoolers selling things for various activities:

"Hi, My name is Jasmine and we're raising funds for our cheerleading trip to Ballsack, MO. Would you care to purchase something from this catalog? While you look at this amalgam of overpriced items, I'm going to fiddle with my Ipod and swear in front of your kids."

I remember when we did fundraisers for Little League. Good old Park South. We sold candy bars. For a dollar. One had nuts, the other did not. For a dollar. Let me repeat that for posterity. One dollar! It's all about the Washington's baby.

Now, this catalog that Jasmine the fat cheerleader gave me had all sorts of things in it. Candy, and candles, and wreathes, and incense, and dog toys, and ice cream, and silverware, and sexy negligees, and pooper scoopers, and, my personal favorite, scented wallpaper paste. All of it was way more than a Washington. But since I'm nothing if not helpful to the causes of fat cheerleaders everywhere, I bought a $17 box of Peanut Butter Chocolate Buckeyes. They'd better be the best fucking buckeyes this side of Ohio, that's all I know.

Me: I want these buckeyes.
Jasmine: Those are $17.
Me: Yes. Buckeyes!
Jasmine: Do you want to pay now?
Me: When do I get my buckeyes?
Jasmine: I dunno, June?
Me: I believe I will pay COD for my buckeyes.
Jasmine: Who's that?

4.)People who want me to donate to strange charities:

I will donate to the ones I've heard of and believe are for good causes. But a lot of times the causes are too bizarre to even consider. Here is a list of organizations I will not be donating to:

-The American Association of those Wrestling With their Sexual Identity.
-The Massachusetts Chapter of People born without anuses
-Burn the National Parks
-Ku Klux Kats
-The Center for Abominable Snowman research
-The Make-A-Wish Disruption Foundation
- The Society of Booger Eaters
- A large group of people who wants money for crack
-The Morbidly Obese Gymnastics Troup of Western Dakota County.
- Save the Mosquitos
- The National Association for the Advancement of Horny Pedophiles (NAAHP)
- The MS Masturbate-A-Thon
-Proposition 62-Kill all people named Brian
-The United Federation of Albanians Who Like to Bone Pandas.

I wish normal people would come to the door. Or better yet, no people.

The American Girl Near Debacle.

2009-05-22T08:32:00.001-07:00

My daughter has this doll that Santa Claus got her for Christmas. It is an American Girl Doll and I've spoken of the lunacy associated with having an American Girl doll before. But regardless, she loves the doll and drags it around with her everywhere she goes. Let me just illustrate how much she loves the doll.

It's 3:00 in the morning, my daughter has climbed into bed with us hours earlier, and is now proceeding to slowly shove me off the bed so that by 6:00 I will be resting with my head and one of my arms on my nightstand, and my butt and legs will be dangling precariously off the side. This is a nightly occurance and not even a Sleep number can save me.

Anyhow, I'm asleep, when all of a sudden I am awakened by somebody peeling one of my eyelids open with their fingers. I am dazed and confused.

Me: Huh? What's wrong? A fire? A burglar? Somebody pooped their pants? Gay ninjas entering through the porch windows?

Daughter: Daddy, move it! You're laying on Abbigail's arm!

So there you have it. My daughter loves her doll so much that she is perfectly willing to pick my eyeballs open and wake me from my blissful slumber to tell me that I am sleeping on her doll's arm. I tell her, in no uncertain terms, that I am going to throw her doll out the window (and possibly hit some ninjas) if she wakes me up by pulling my eyelids open again.

So the other day we were playing in the backyard: Me, my wife, my daughter, my son, the dogs, and Abby with her dad-layed-on arm, all playing and picking up the occasional rogue dog turd. The next day, we can't find Abby. We look all over, can't find her. My daughter is sad, but leaves to go to daycare without her. I check around more thouroughly, knowing that not finding her will undoubtedly cause a spaz of epic proportions sometime in the near future. After 15 minutes of searching I spot her laying out behind the trampoline. She has been outside all night. And it rained!!

I rush out to get Abby. She is very wet. She smells like rainwater and old leaves. I panic. I call my wife, tell her I have located Abby, and remark that she is soaking wet and smells like a homeless guy from Seattle.

Me: I just tossed her in the dryer. I hope that helps.
Wife: What? What if the dryer melts her head or something?
Me: Um.....

I am worried now. I think to myself that it would be much worse to have a dry doll with a melted head than a wet doll that smells like October. Thinking quickly, I pull up the American Girl website, and send them this email:

"Hello,

My daughter left her doll out in the rain yesterday. Now she is wet and smells like leaves. I was going to put her in the dryer, but then I got scared that her head would melt. Is it OK to put her in the dryer? If not, what can I do?

Brian Jensen

P.S. She smells funny"

I got this response back.

"Dear brian,

We are sorry to hear that your daughter left her Bitty Baby out in the rain. Please do not put her in the dryer. Her plastic parts may melt or become warped. Instead, you can put her in front of a fan that blows cool air and try drying her that way. If all else fails you can send her to the Doll Hospital"

That's how I learned about the Doll Hospital. You can actually send your doll to the special American Girl doll hospital. You have to fill out an admittance form, where you list the doll's issues (i.e. Smells like leaves, missing torso, melted head, etc) and they will fix her up and send her back with a hospital gown and hat, a good health certificate, and a band-aid (although I'm not sure how relevant a band-aid would be if the doll had a missing torso.)

As it turned out, Abby just kind of dried on her own and stopped smelling like old leaves and things went back to normal. But it was a close call. Just another example of what a goofy world we live in. The Doll Hospital. I wonder who works there.

In case you get bored...

2009-05-13T13:28:00.000-07:00

Here's something really fun to do that I bet you've never done. Go into the library and grab a book. Then, instead of reading the book quietly and not drawing attention to yourself, do the following:

1.) Scream at the top of your lungs, "OH NO, IT CAN'T BE TRUE?!!"

2.) Throw the book in the air and begin loudly vomiting on everything and everyone you see. (Side note: You'll have to actually vomit for this to be really cool, so prepare for that too.)

3.) Strip naked and sprint around, bumping into bookshelves and knocking them over, all the while lamenting about the lack of card catalogs in the library.

4.) Sprint up to a librarian and ask her a question that makes absolutely no sense, like, "Does Air have wings?" Or make up your own.

5.) Microfiche your butt, and then make people look at it. Mock and ridicule them if they don't know how to use a microfiche.

6.) Calmly put your clothes back on and explain your actions by quoting a secondary character in the book you just threw up in the air and vomited on.

7.) Run, you are going to be arrested.

If you pull it off, you are officially awesome.

Brian Takes a Stand.

2009-05-08T08:21:00.000-07:00

Most of the time I like to think I'm pretty passive about things that bug me. If you read this consistantly, you know there are quite a few things that bother me, but for the most part, I try to be understanding. I'm far from perfect, so I try not to let things like common decency, and acting like a human being from this planet cloud my vision. I just assume that most people are mindlessly shuffling around in their own lives and forget about things, like other people, and I'm OK with that.

Occasionally though, I get very irritated at something. Today it was a really fat, ugly woman. She incurred a little wrath from me, and I feel a little bit better. I think I balanced out the world a little. It started when I pulled into the gas station, to get some Dill Pickle sunflower seeds and a Faygo. I got around the gas pumps, so I was in between the store and the pumps, when I was suddenly cut off from the parking spaces by this woman who had decided that it was a good idea to park on a yellow curb right next to the store, even though there was a real parking space 10 feet in front of her.

I am stuck now. I am puzzling over what to do, when she lumbers out. She is morbidly obese, with greasy slicked back hair, a t-shirt that looks as though she cut head and arm holes in a parachute, and, of course, floral print pants where the flowers are stretched and faded because she has an ass the size of a vending machine. She has a permanent sneer on her face, although it may just be that the weight of her cheeks pulling the corners of her mouth down. I am aggravated. It occurs to me that had this been an attractive woman I may not have said anything. I feel conflicted about this realization. I roll down my passenger window and speak anyhow.

Me: Hey, you can't park there. How am I supposed to get through?
Her: I don't care.

Now I am mad. I would have harpooned her on the spot. Thankfully, my harpoon is at home, stored safely under the children's bed. I have to back up and drive around to get to a parking spot. I march into the store looking for revenge. I see her. She is looking at pre-made salads. I think she is trying to confuse me. I am not fooled. I walk up to her. I try to be composed.

Me: You know, it's fairly rude to park illegally and create a bottleneck for others. There was a spot like 10 feet in front of you.
Her: I'll only be a minute.
Me: I think you're missing the point here. You've already caused an inconvenience for me.
Her: I don't care. Go away.

I am about to say many mean things when something weird happens. She begins coughing, and coughing, and coughing....furiously. Then she hocks up a big piece of inside lung, pulls out a purple napkin from her pocket, spits the inside lung into her purple napkin, and puts the purple napkin back in her pocket. The whole ordeal takes about 30 seconds. I realize I am staring at her with no expression whatsoever. She looks at me like "What? So, I got a big chunk of inside lung in my pocket, what's the big deal?"

I get my food and leave. I think it's an appropriate metaphor. Sometimes it's best to just get your food and leave.

In case you didn't know...

2009-04-28T11:38:00.001-07:00

I was driving the other day when I smelled what had to be the worst, most disgusting thing I've ever smelled. I have no idea what it was, but I think it may have been 400 rotting elephant corpses or something similar to that. Really, I almost barfed all over the inside of my car, which would have hurt the trade in value.

The actual sentence that came out of my mouth was, "Gaw, it smells like inside buns out there!" The guy that was riding with me said "What's inside buns?" I was incredulous. I figured everybody knew that the grossest thing in the world was inside buns. Apparently it's just my family that knows this.

When I was younger my sister and I used to play this game. One of us would say, "I 1 the (Insert disgusting thing)" then the next person would say, "I 2 the (disgusting thing)" up until somebody would have to say "I 8 the diseased cow butthole" and then we'd laugh because somebody just admitted to eating a diseased cow butthole, which was funny to us, and passed the time well while my dad was getting us lost on some gravel road 10 miles east of nowhere.

So one day we were playing that game, and the disgusting thing du jour happened to be "inside buns" which, as you might imagine was the inside of the butt, which for a 17 year old, and an 8 year old is pretty gross. Then we prefaced "inside buns" with Grandma, and low and behold somebody had to eat "Grandma's Inside Buns" which we immediately realized was by far the most disgusting thing on planet Earth.

It's funny how stuff like that becomes a lasting part of your lexicon. "Inside Buns" will now and forever represent anything gross or funny looking or weird. It's definition has expanded over the years.

(To my sister at Prom)
- "You look like inside buns."

(Commenting on a weird smelling bowl of soup)
- "This soup smells a little inside buns-y."

(Reviewing Coldplay)
-"They sound like inside buns."

(When my son fell out of the van onto his face)
-"Nice going, inside buns."

There was even an offshoot of "inside buns" that I used for a while but then I stopped. "Inside Lungs." As in, "Quit choking on that string bean. You're going to cough out your inside lungs!!"

So anyway, this ought to settle the centuries old debate regarding the grossest thing in the world. It is, was, and always will be inside buns.

Chicken causes Mass Chaos

2009-04-24T09:29:00.000-07:00

This week I saw what may be one of my favorite news stories in a long time. My wife and I were watching TV the other day when we saw an add for Popeye's Chicken. This prompted the following exchange:

Her: Why are they doing an add for Popeye's Chicken when the only Popeye's Chicken is in the ghetto on Lake St?

Me (Slobbering, in a gross voice with a perverty look on my face): Cuz chicken iz Guuuuuuuuud!!!

Her: Ewww. Get away from me.

It took my a long time to get out of "Level 3 Sex offender for Chicken" mode, and back in to "regular old pervert" mode.

Anyhow, Popeye's was advertising a special for cheap fried chicken on Earth Day, which is a promotion that still makes no sense to me, but that's beside the point. The point is, I was not the only one to see that advertisement and get all hopped up for chicken. According to the reports, hundreds upon hundreds of people came down to Lake St to get discount chicken. Lines of cars were stretched around the corner and out into the street, all of them filled with people with Chicken Jones'es.

There was only one problem. The only Popeye's restaurant in the state of Minnesota was not participating in the chicken discount. As you might imagine, chicken fueled chaos ensued. There was fighting and cars honking and yelling and mass hysteria after a short period of time. It got so intense, that the police had to come in and help restore peace to the chicken melee.

This whole story makes me happy for a number of reasons.

1.) People are still willing to fight about chicken. I think this has to be categorized as a good thing. Put aside the gang stuff and drug stuff for a day and fight about chicken. If nothing else, it's a refreshing change of pace.

2.) Some dispatcher actually had to say something like "Unit 1269, repeat, Unit 1269, we have an unauthorized chicken riot going on over at the Popeye's. Please advise." Then some policeman arresting a guy for murdering his family heard it and said, "CHICKEN RIOT!! DEAR SWEET LORD!! You're off the hook this time fella, but don't let me catch you doing that shit again. Murder is NOT funny." Then he zoomed off.

3.) Some guy took a cab from Burnsville to get chicken. That probably costs at least 80 bucks, and he was complaining about the extra 5 dollars he had to pay since they weren't conducting the Earth Day promotion. Awesome.

Finally, something of note. This particular Popeye's used to be owned by Dr. John Najarian, renowned Heart Transplant Surgeon at the University of Minnesota. You think he was fattening up his lambs for slaughter, so to speak?

Brian gets his Holidays mixed up

2009-04-22T13:03:00.000-07:00

You know what's really disappointing? All day today I kept thinking it was the glorious holiday of Arbor Day, when in actuality it's the stupid holiday of Earth Day. Isn't that messed up? It's like confusing Christmas with the day you humped a fat girl on a dare.

This morning I went out and was hanging out with all my tree friends that live in my backyard (even the punk ass Cottonwood tree that always inundates my yard with branches when a thunderstrom comes by). Yes, it was truly sublime. Trees are very giving. They should make a book about how giving trees are. You can pick their fruit, whack their bark off with a hatchet, throw rocks at them, pee on them, shake them so that your cat falls out, hide from the cops in them, uproot them and crush your enemies, harvest their sweet, sweet maple syrup, and always beat them in a race.

But instead it's Earth Day. Earth Day sucks for a few reasons.

1.) It reminds us how destructive we are as a people. The reason there even is an Earth Day is because of how poorly we've treated the Earth. Kind of the same reason there's a Black History Month. Do you ever hear about "Wealthy Oil Tycoon" month? Neither do I.

2.) The only people who get excited about Earth Day are losers. I have no specific facts to back up this substantiation, but I defy you to find somebody who is even remotely cool that's excited about Earth Day.

3.) It was invented by a guy named Gaylord. That one reason alone would make it a dubious holiday.

You know what would be a better holiday? Pickle Day. Pickles are pretty great. I think everybody could get into that.

Fun games to play with kids

2009-04-13T17:14:00.000-07:00

The other day I played a game with my kids that we'll call "Daddy Jumprope." It involved me laying on the floor and the kids jumping over me screaming nursery rhymes and other things that made no sense. It quickly evolved into a dangerous game of "Hop on Pop" where the kids tryed to land directly on my solar plexus with their sharpest body part (i.e. elbow, bony hip, exacto knife protruding from their jammies). The more bruises I accumulated, the more I began to think of better games to play with your children.

1.) Who can run the farthest- Find a street corner and............................................................................. let em go. Some kids will run for hundreds of miles before looking back to see who's watching. The one on the milk carton longest is the winner.

2.) Extreme Frogger- Remember how fun it was to play that game, avoiding the various cars and semitrucks that were driving by. Well here's the extreme version of it. Use real traffic. Little 13 year old Timmy and Tommy will have something to Twitter about after that. (Note: For realism purposes, its best to use a real highway, with real half-asleep truckers)

3.)The Amazing Race- Drop them off 20 miles from home and see who makes it back first. The winner get cupcakes, the loser gets brussels sprouts. (Note: I haven't even put this out and already Parents magazine is on my dick.)

4.) Swords can be anything- Have your child find ANYTHING that could potentially be used as a sword and fight other children with it. A fishing pole, a table leg, a giant icicle, your grandmother's wooden arm, a backscratcher, a giant concrete dildo he accidentally found, a divorce summons rolled up in a scroll, anything can be a sword. Then go duel, and have fun.

5.) Crazy people in the roost- Say, "Hey, crazy people have taken over our house!!!!!" Then see what they do. This should give an accurate description of how things run at your house. IF they shrug their shoulders you are in trouble. If they methodically work towards getting your house back to normal, you're OK. If not, run to the nearest homeless shelter, and catch a good bed, because those are tough to come by.

There, go to work. Otherwise, look at this at a worst case scenario handbook.

Brian's Bucket List

2009-04-09T12:06:00.000-07:00

Recently I met a 35 year old woman who had a "bucket list" that she would show to anybody unfortunate enough to look at it. I didn't quite understand why someone that young was already pondering death, but that's her prerogative I suppose. It was filled with lots of boring things like "Go to Hawaii" and "Bungee Jump". I felt sad for how dumb her list was. So I made a great list, and here it is.

1.) Hunt a person for sport.
2.) Throw stones at an old lady
3.) Do a drive-by shooting with an arrow.
4.) Bungee hump. (Note: I'm not sure if this is possible)
5.) Travel through time (Less sure about this one)
6.) Eat some poison.
7.) Play backgammon with a brain-damaged person.
8.) Ride a tiger.
9.) Meet a giant fish.
10.) Get arrested for exposing myself to a blind person.
11.) Eat an entire train.
12.) Cross breed a dog and a cat.
13.) Play the cello naked
14.) Fall off the Empire State Building and live
15.) Scream at a mime
16.) Smoke crack at a nursing home
17.) Win a prestigious daytime award.
18.) Get a boner and then walk around scaring people with it.
19.) Set Dog the Bounty Hunter on fire.
20.) Have a hornet for a pet.
21.) Adopt an African village and then give it back up for adoption
22.) Open a mill of some sort
23.) Make something explode just by thinking about it
24.) Flap my arms really, really hard and fly a little.
25.) Make a baby with Bristol Palin
26.) Sexually assault an entire community
27.) Make origami that comes to life
28.) Rid the world of cyborgs
29.) Throw things at the moon
30.) Force someone to get married to a sheep
31.) Sell a meth lab on Ebay.
32.) Call someone a "papoose"
33.) Keep peeing in a swimming pool until it's filled up
34.) Bury a worm alive.
35.) Get my weiner stuck in the couch.

That's about all I could come up with so far. It's a pretty cool list I think.

Crazy People Walk Amongst Us.

2009-04-02T13:28:00.001-07:00

I love crazy people. Love them to death. I wish the world was filled with crazy people and everybody just walked around acting crazy all the time. I would just kick back and watch them and smirk. That would be my job. I would get a couch, and a porch, and a 40, and sit on the couch on the porch and watch crazy people interact amongst themselves.

I especially love crazy people who look really normal. Isn't that great?? It's like a surprise birthday party with hookers and old friends and nachos. The reason I bring this up is that today I found a normal looking crazy person in my midst. He's this guy from the gym I mentioned a while ago. I call him GI Joe.

GI Joe and I have always had a good sort of acquaintanceship going. I say "Hey" to him and he says " Whattup" to me. We're pretty tight like that. So this morning I got to the gym at the same time as GI Joe, and GI Joe is driving what else? That's right, a soon-to-be-obsolete Hummer. So I see him in the parking lot and he sees me. I say:

Me: I should have known you'd drive one of those. Ha.
GI Joe (Nervously): Why? What do you mean?
Me: You know, a Hummer. You wear army shirts. You know?
GI Joe (Still Nervous): Oh, I thought it was because you knew about my missions from above.
Me: Um....
GI Joe: Yeah, you don't know about those right? Cuz nobody does!!
Me: Um...

So then I quickly walked inside and I realized that a crazy person with a crewcut and an army shirt who drives a Hummer was walking behind me.

Like 10 minutes later I see him in the gym and get a "Whattup?" from him, like the whole crazy conversation from 10 minutes ago had never happened. Did I mention that I love crazy people?

Shine on you raving lunatics, shine on!

Jimmy Fallon is going to get Fired

2009-03-31T10:51:00.000-07:00

I watched Jimmy Fallon's monologue last night for the first time and it was fairly obvious to me that he won't be around long. It wasn't just that his jokes weren't very funny (they weren't, it was like Weekend Update without a desk and without Tina Fey writing your material for you), it was more that his delivery was like when a telemarketer calls you and starts delivering a long, boring speech and keeps losing his place in the speech so there are a bunch of strange unnecessary pauses while he re-finds his place. There were even a couple of times when he delivered a punchline and nobody laughed. At all. So then he stared out at the audience, perplexed and afraid, and then a couple people would laugh because they got unconfortable with all the silence.

This whole thing doesn't surprise me very much, I've never been a fan of this guy. He's the only guy in TV history who creates an entire blooper roll by himself every 20 minutes. Breaking character and laughing during 65% of your sketches isn't appropriate. I don't care how funny you think Horatio Sanz is. (Also, Horatio Sanz isn't very funny either, but he probably would have done better than Jimmy Fallon because he has that whole "Fat and Jolly" thing going for him. You ever see a really fat dude lumbering around? Doesn't that make you smile?)

Anyhow, the sun is going to set on Jimmy Fallon pretty soon so I'd like to offer up this suggestion for a new host. Norm McDonald. He wouldn't even need guests. I think I'm a television visionary.

My Friends at the Gym

2009-03-09T10:31:00.000-07:00

I go to the gym at about the same time every morning. It's become part of my morning routine which right now looks like this:

Wake up

Stretch kinks out of body from 5 hours of sleeping in contorted position because kids are in bed too

Poop

Get everybody dressed

Let the puppy out 800 times

Put the puppy in his kennel and listen to him shriek in anguish

Go to the gym

So since this has become part of my morning, I've noticed that there are other people who are always at the gym at the same time as me. They are my friends even though they don't know it.

American Girl Guy- Goofy little guy with glasses. Runs around doing many exercises very quickly. Always steals people's machines unknowingly. Finishes workout by doing 5 million deep knee bends while staring at himself in mirror.

Weird Exercise Guy- Does every exercise while standing on one foot. I can't figure out which part of his body he's working out. Has a Tom Selleck mustache. Wears old Converse All Stars.

The Grunter- Very large, strong person. Let's us all know how strong he is by loudly grunting when he does any lift, even calf raises. Always chewing on a myoplex bar.

Hot Milf with fake boobies- Always doing cardio and looking hot while doing it. Amy says she saw her spraying hairspray and putting on makeup before she worked out. Probably has very high self esteem.

The Talker- Attractive, muscular fellow who hangs out talking to girls and never seems to actually work out. Probably the dude equivalent of Hot Milf with fake boobies.

GI Joe- Guy who wears the same stupid camouflage shirt every day. Maybe he has 10 of those shirts, who knows.

Funny looking guy with Giant Head- This is me.

Old Man who Hates Me- This old guy who always asks me "are you going to use that?" when I'm resting in between sets, then when I say yes, walks away disgustedly. I hate him. I hope he suffers a prolapsed rectum while dead lifting. Wears black socks and looks disheveled

Paul- This super cheerful guy who tried to be my best buddy for a while until I ignored him for months and he gave up. Wears shirts with beer logos on them. Looks like Sven Sundgard.

The Farter- I don't know who this is but once a week he stinks up the entire workout area. Everybody hates him and wants to kill him. His farts smell like diseased roadkill.

David Crosby- Guy who looks like David Crosby. Wears short shorts. Makes sure that every exercise he does incorporates an exercise ball somehow. Once had a fork in his pocket while lifting.

Canteen Boy- Carries a canteen-like thing instead of a water bottle around his neck like he just came from the BWCA. Lifts girlish amounts of weight.

Suspicious Guy- In between sets looks around suspiciously at people. Always wears black. Leaves his towel laying around instead of throwing it in the laundry. Meticulously writes down everything he does while staring around to see who is looking at him.

Crazy rapping IPod guy- Guy who loudly raps along with his IPod so that everyone can hear him. Scares women with his loudness. Also dances a little bit. Can do many pull-ups.

So there you have it. Many different types at the gym.

I am a little bit psychic

2009-03-05T11:53:00.000-08:00

Did you ever just get a feeling about something that was going to happen? Your sixth sense starts to kick in. Isn't that fun when your sixth sense is right on the button. For instance, have you ever been walking in a busy area, where there are anonymous people all around you, and suddenly for some unknown reason your brain locks in on one specific, normal looking guy and you think to yourself "I betcha this guy is a fucking lunatic." Then as the guy walks past he says, "ramilargghhanationstationdogshitleaveawaydonniewahlberg!!" to nobody in particular, and you wonder how you could have possibly known the guy was crazy before you heard him rambling. That's a lot of fun.

I had a sixth sense moment today. I was about to enter Chipotle when I noticed an older man walking with a younger man. The older man was probably about 60 and the younger man was probably about 25. I looked at them and thought to myself, "I bet the old man has sex with the young man." It was kind of a disturbing thought. Right as I thought that, the two men kissed each other. I felt like the smartest man in the world. I also felt kind of grossed out. I hope my sixth sense tells me what stocks to buy some day.

Pointless News Stories

2009-03-04T12:49:00.000-08:00

Recently I read a story on the online version of the Star Tribune. It was a headline story. Basically the story was this. Some guy was mad at the city of St Louis Park because he had to wait at a stoplight on Excelsior Blvd for what he thought was an excessive amount of time to take a right to go visit his mother at a nursing home. He wrote the city an angry letter telling them this. Their response was, essentially, "Stick it up your ass buddy, it's a long light on purpose." He was disgruntled.

That was the lead story on the Strib online for a period of time. I cannot for the life of me figure out why this was even in the news, let alone the lead story. I think about 1% of the general population cared. But, because I've always wanted to be a columnist for a bankrupt newspaper, I'm going to write my own pointless story and submit it. It will probably win a Pulitzer prize.

Fat Guy Loves Eating

By Brian

Not many people can polish off 2 pizzas, a Chicago dog, 14 glasses of Clamato juice, and a bucket of chicken gizzards without a big long nap in the middle, but Seymour Jones, 41, of rural Butte County, is not many people, although he weighs as much as many people.

Tipping the scales at 562 pounds, Jones lists his favorite activities as buying food, chewing the food, swallowing the food, and then searching for more food. "It's an all consuming passion," remarked Jones, in between handfuls of Triscuits.

Jones has always been large, even when he was a baby. "My mother had to put an ironing board underneath me to breast feed," he chuckled. "And my dad, well he slapped me around a lot because he knew I couldn't catch him, but that's sort of beside the point."

To keep up his massive girth, Jones must take in over 22,000 calories a day, enough to feed an orphanage for a February (not including the leap year day). It's not just normal, store bought food that Jones eats either. In 2007 he managed to eat and fully digest the entire contents of his attic, a statue commemerating the life of Anna Nicole Smith, and the entire 1968 Harlem Globetrotters basketball team. "They squirmed a lot, and I couldn't get 'Sweet Georgia Brown' out of my head for a month afterward," he remarked.

Just recently, Jones was inducted into the Eating Hall of Fame. "It was the happiest moment of my life," he said. Yes, the world is Seymour Jones' oyster, and he's always hungry.

Now I send this to the Star Tribune and wait for the accolades to come pouring in.

Brian is an accidental Jerk.

2009-02-26T11:20:00.000-08:00

So I was at the store this morning buying lemonade and vaseline, and when I'd finished browsing and texting people strange messages, I got into line at the checkout aisle. There was a lady in front of me standing by the check writing board so I stood back about 5 feet from her. Gave her a wide berth. Didn't want her to think I was trying to steal her banking information or anything (especially since I was).

All of a sudden I could literally feel a person standing behind me. He was standing way too close to me. I could feel his hot breath on my neck. This made me very uncomfortable. I like my space. So I moved up a little bit. The person moved up too. This was getting weird. He was like one inch behind me. So I moved up a little bit more. He moved too. Now I was upset. I couldn't move up anymore because then I'd be infringing on the territory of the lady in front of me. That wouldn't be OK.

After about 30 seconds he still hadn't moved back. I could still feel his breath. This would not stand. I turned around to face him.

Me: Can you just back off a little!!??
Guy: I only got THREEEEEEE Dollars!!

I had just yelled at a retarded guy. Great. Now I am the world's biggest jerk. People were looking at me with expressions of shame.

Me: Oh, um..... nevermind.
Guy: THREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

I took my lemonade and vaseline and left. I'm a jerk.

Brian is scared of crack.

2009-02-25T08:04:00.000-08:00

I have a confession to make. I'm really scared of illegal drugs. I'm not just afraid of taking them and then freaking out and running naked through a carpet store, although that would probably be less fun and more consequential than it sounds. I'm even afraid of seeing drugs just laying around.

I've seen pot lots of times so that's not so scary anymore although it still makes me pause a little in apprehension. It reminds me a lot of this kid who was a scary bully back in Elementary School, but then I grew up and by 10th grade I had like 6 inches and 50 lbs on him. Even though he was now this little weinery guy, and I could have easily whooped his butt, there was a little part of me that was still cautious around him. He's a lot like pot.

But one time I was at a party and I saw some crack. It was just a little pile of crack laying on this table. There were some people I knew at the table, and some I didn't know, and presumably, they were going to smoke up that crack. I hadn't figured out it was crack yet, so I didn't know to be afraid.

Me: What that stuff on the table? Peanuts?
Crack Dude: Dude, it's crack!
Me: Oh.
Me (thinking to myself): Ohmigod it's crack! Let's get the hell out of here!! AAAAHHHHH!

It was pretty scary. I was kind of worried that the crack could like, jump up and get me or something. I suppose that's a somewhat irrational fear, but just to be on the safe side I quickly went to a non-crack part of the party.

Then one time I went into a house that had supposedly at one time contained a meth lab. Now I've read stories that say if there's a meth lab in your house that the meth sits in your walls for 500 years before it comes out. So that didn't make me very happy. I was worried that each breath I took, I was inhaling a little second hand meth. I was trying to breathe into my sweatshirt but if meth sticks to a house for 500 years it can probably penetrate a sweatshirt. So I got out of that house fast.

Yeah, I guess you could say I'm really scared of drugs. So, when you invite me over, please make sure to put your crack, heroin, meth, pot, sherm, quaaludes, coke, silver paint, peyote, opium poppies and toads that you lick away so that I don't see them and get frightened. Thanks.

From the Desk of Tony the Idiot.

2009-02-23T07:53:00.000-08:00

Here's something that really bugs me that I bet a lot of you can relate. Did you ever do a contract hit on a guy, and then afterwards you gotta put plastic down in your trunk and secure it real good so he doesn't drip all over, and then you gotta lug his big heavy body up into the trunk, and then you gotta drive for ever out to some random place. Ugh, it's already taken up like 4 hours.

So then you get there and you start digging this big hole for him and that takes like 2 hours, and you're all sweaty and dirty and tired, and you always forget to bring some Aquafina or something so your mouth is all dry and you can't do anything about it, and then you finally turn around to get this guy out of the trunk and he's gone!!!

Isn't that irritating?? You do all this work and the guy runs off. Don't you always check under the car and in the back seat? The guy is never there though. Then you always think to yourself, "I shouldn't have my Ipod on full blast when I'm digging graves." But you know the next time you'll wear your Ipod again. You can't dig a grave without a Ipod.

So then you kinda half heartedly search through the corn, but corn hides guys pretty well, so then you just give up and drive back. Jimmy TwoLegs is always so pissed too when you tell him. It's not like he never made a mistake. What about the Tranny in Hoboken Jimmy, what about that huh?

Aww, life is tough sometimes. It's a good thing I can crochet, that's all I know.

Some Fat Dude Gets Really Mad

2009-02-18T11:43:00.000-08:00

Here's something I don't quite get. Why is it that people feel like it's OK to throw big temper tantrums at the grocery store? Maybe this is just something I've noticed, but I can think of at least 5 different instances that I can bear witness to, where a grown human being, possibly at least partially educated, went bonkers at the store.

What makes me wonder about this is that it just happened yesterday afternoon. I was at SuperTarget, buying super ropes and freezies, and when I got near the checkouts I heard a big, loud commotion. Being the curious fellow that I am, I snuck over to hear the drama. There was a very large, angry man berating some Target worker. He was very overweight and his face was beet red. He looked as though he would probably be in a big coffin sometime soon. From what I could gather, he was incensed about the price of a big fire truck he was buying and he wanted to make sure God and everybody knew about this injustice. The whole thing was a little absurd.

Angry Guy: It said $7.99, I want you to honor your stated prices.
Target Guy: Sir, this item is $19.99, with tax the total is $21.29. I apologize, this item must have been placed on an incorrect shelf.
Angry Guy (Getting Angry): That is NOT my problem! Your error should NOT cost me $13.
Target Guy: Again, I apologize, but $19.99 is the price of this product.
Angry Guy (Really Angry): GOD DAMMIT!! So you're just the law when it comes to everything now? How much are these tic tacs, 4 million dollars? GOD DAMMIT!!

Now I begin giggling. That made no sense.

Target Guy: Sir, the tic tacs are $.79.
Angry Guy (Super Angry): JUST LIKE IT SAYS!! I WANT THIS TRUCK FOR $7.99, GOD DAMMIT!! JUST LIKE IT SAYS!!
Target Guy: Sir, I can't give it to you for that price.

I thought fire was going to shoot out of his nose. This was getting fun.

Angry Guy (Way too angry): SONOFABITCH FUCKER!!

Then the coolest part happened. He threw the fire truck way high up in the air, like he was doing a basketball granny shot. Everybody stared at it but nobody did anything. It landed with a big crash on the floor. Nobody moved, even the angry guy. Everybody was staring at the fire truck, including me and some other people that it had landed nearby. Then at the exact same time everybody turned their heads and looked at the angry guy. He looked like he had accidentally murdered somebody. Without a word, he took off out the door. Evidently the realization of what a crazy idiot he was had hit him pretty hard. Everybody began to try to get things back to normal but the interesting thing is that nobody even glanced at the fire truck, let alone came to pick it up. It was like it had ceased to exist.

This angry guy had managed to make about 1000 square feet of people feel awkward all at the same time. It made me wonder some things. Why did he decide to throw the fire truck up in the air? What good could have possibly come from that? Did this guy have some little kid he was going home empty handed to, because he wouldn't shell out another 13 bucks for a fire truck? Did he yell at his family the same way? Is this his first supermarket fit? He seemed like a seasoned pro.

As I was standing there pondering all this stuff, I noticed that my freezies were leaking freezie juice out the bottom of the container. I got very mad. I considered throwing my freezies high in the air to express my displeasure. I held back my urges. I felt I've learned a valuable lesson.

P.S. Whenever anything goes wrong from now on, I'm going to yell "SONOFABITCH FUCKER!!" really loudly. It just seems like a fun thing to do.

A plea to Child Molesters

2009-02-16T07:22:00.000-08:00

I've been worrying a lot about child molesters lately. I'm not certain why, but it's even gotten to the point where I've not only pictured a scenario where one of my kids gets taken by a child molester, but also how I would get them back, and then how I would torture the child molester after I got them back.

"Let's see, first I'd crush his balls with a tack hammer, then I'd take a big railroad spike and nail his scrotum to a chair or something, then I'd rip his entire package off using a complicated system of levers and pulleys." Usually it's about that time that I realize that I should probably concentrate on driving.

The argument I've heard is that there are 10 times more child molesters out there than there was 20 years ago because child pornography is 10 times more accessible via the internet. Apparently the world is filled with wannabe perverts who just hadn't found the proper inspiration point yet. I wonder if that's true, or if really there is the same amount of child molesters as always, we're just 10 times more aware of them because of things like the internet, level 3 sex offender registry, and To Catch a Predator.

I hope it's the latter of the two scenarios because the whole thing is just horribly creepy. I understand that some people are unfortunate enough to have kids as their main sexual target. You like who you like, I don't believe it's a matter of choice. But why on earth would anybody ever go through with it? The risk/reward equation is dramatically skewered to the risk side. You win, you get to molest a kid. You lose, you go to jail for a long time, you get beat up and raped in jail because even the deviants of society hate you, and when you get out everybody knows where you live and what you've done forever and people probably hate you more than in prison.Not to mention you've either ruined a family's life or seriously altered its intended course. For ever. I don't get it. You have a really simple option that means that you get to keep your freedom, you'll never get angrily gang-humped, and you can live your life without the fear that somebody's going to burn your house down with you in it in the middle of the night.

This option involves lotion, tissues, and your brain. It takes about 2 minutes and then you can go on to whatever other activities you have planned for the day. It's a much better option, because believe you me, I will come find you and pull your junk off with a sophisticated system of levers and pulleys, and you don't want that. See, you listen to me and that douchebag Chris Hansen has to get a real job. Solving problems, that's what I do.

The American Girl Store Memoirs

2009-02-13T06:40:00.000-08:00

I want to tell you that as a parent I've gotten an induction into a culture of all sorts of goofy stuff that I never thought I would before. Diapers and bottles and Dora the Explorer and Hannah Montana and youth soccer and the mysterious attraction of 8000 tiny trucks laying on the floor. But even I was not prepared for this latest object of my daughter's affection; The American Girl.

The American Girl is a high end line of dolls that markets to everybody over the age of 2. Apparently they have some sort of cheating, telemarketer database that has the names and addresses of any girl actually born or found on a train, and the day she turns 2, they start sending out these catalogs en masse. I know this because they began constantly appearing in my mailbox every month around the same time as my Barely Legal showed up. Wait, scratch that last part.

Anyhow, as my daughter grew, she began to really fall in love with these dolls, just like everybody falls in love with stuff that costs more than it's worth, like the toddler equivalent of a coach purse. So, schlums to the almighty corporation we are, we bought her one for Christmas. It came with a bunch of stuff, so that we wouldn't feel too terribly cheated. Diapers, and a backpack, a hat, a blankie, a couple of outfits, etc. OK fine, I can live with that. She really loves the doll, it's become like a tiny siamese twin joined at her arm, it's a reasonable investment.

The thing that got me is that there is a store at the Mall of America called the American Girl Store, where you can buy additional accessories for your doll. So, one day, we went there. And this place was basically a shrine to the excess everything we give to our children. It was unreal. It was packed to the gills with women and girls with their noses turned up collectively at the rest of the world. You could tell which side of the tracks they were from, and if, by some miracle you couldn't tell, you could hear it.

8 year old: Mom, you said last time I could get these 47 things. MOMMMMMMMM!!!!????
Mom: Hold on Kelsey, I'm on the phone with my life coach.
8 year old: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

I unsuccessfully tried to fit in.

Me: (Speaking in the general direction of a woman): Wow, this is kinda like Cabbage Patch kids if they were Kennedy's, not orphans huh?
Woman: I highly doubt it. (Stalks away)
Me (Sadly to myself): Slut.

Also, there were at least 8 employees behind this extremely large pack of people whose sole job....was to.....wait for it..... do the doll's hair. That's right, for $20, you could have these people give your doll any kind of hairstyle you wanted which was inspiring a frenzy that I just stayed away from because I figured all that would happen is I would wind up smooshed in between two people even more plastic than the dolls themselves.

So before I start patting myself on the back too hard for railing against the bourgeous snobs inhabiting the store, let me just remind myself that I was there too, I bought something too, I rationalized the prices too, and you know what? I'm pretty sure I'll be back too.

Last thing. I saw this nerdy guy there who I always see at the gym. He looked like a member of Devo. He recognized me and I recognized him. We said nothing to each other. The following monday he walked up to me at the gym. He said, "Were you..." and I blurted out, "ISAWYOUATTHEAMERICANGIRLSTORE!!" I now refer to him as "American Girl Guy." He is OK with this. I am at peace.

Jasper goes to the Doctor

2009-02-11T07:29:00.001-08:00

I took my dog to the vet the other day. As usual, this turned out to be a weird experience. In case you didn't know, dogs don't like going to the doctor. I felt kind of bad about this, Jasper thought we were going someplace fun, so he was really happy to get into the car with me. I tried to tell him over and over, "We're going to the vet, the VET, the VET dummy!!" but he was too busy sticking his snout out the window and panting really hard for no good reason.

This all changed the instant we pulled into the vet parking lot. Some little dog radar went off in his head and his mood switched from "euphoric to the point of insanity" to "What the crap are you doing to me dad? I thought we were friends?" in like .2 seconds. His tail went between his legs and I had to yank him out of the car. He smelled funny.

When we actually got inside the office he started shaking like he had Parkinson's. He tried to crawl in my lap and I noticed that his paws smelled a lot like crackers. Isn't that something? Smell your dogs paws sometime. Crackers. Then he peed on a potted plant. I said nothing because I didn't want to clean up urine.

Finally we got called in to see the doctor. By this time Jasper was so scared he wouldn't even eat, which is one of the things he's good at. He just layed on the floor and whimpered. After some serious petting and cajoling, we got him upright because the vet tech had decided she wanted to take his rectal temperature. Since I've never seen his rectum because of all the fur, I was pretty sure this would be difficult. I had no idea how right I was. It took a good 2 minutes of this girl randomly jamming a butt thermometer into his chasm of butt fur before she got it. (Actually, I have no idea if she got it, she might just have given up and guessed a temp.)

Vet Tech (Jabbing blindly): He sure has a lot of fur. (Jab, jab)
Me: Isn't there a more scientific method than that?

Then the actual veteranarian came in and gave me the bad news. Jasper is fat! I tried to cover for him.

Me: He's getting a little old. Maybe it's seasonal. It's been cold.
Vet: You think it's OK to be fat in the winter?
Me: Um.....

Then she did a battery of tests on him. One involved listening to his heartbeat. Only problem was that he was breathing so loudly, she couldn't hear anything. It was pretty loud.

Vet: Can you, uh, shut his nose so I can hear his heart? He's panting too loud.
Me: Shut his nose? Um, what good will that do?
Vet: Then I can hear the heartbeat.
Me: Uh OK.

She wanted me to clamp his mouth shut, but instead I tried to plug his nostrils on his tiny nose on the front of his big extendo bird beak mouth. Obviously this did no good.

Me: I can't shut his nose, it's too gross and slimy.
Vet: Huh. His whole mouth, not just his nose. I need to hear his heart.
Me (Feeling dumb): You said his nose.

We were fighting. Anyway, Jasper needs to lose 5 pounds. I'm not sure how that's going to happen since he eats garbage all day when I go to work. I've taken to calling him Fatty Arbuckle when he walks by in the hopes of shaming him into losing the weight, but I also tell him not to eat garbage when I'm at work. Maybe I need a better plan.

I'm inventing a Holiday

2009-02-02T07:50:00.000-08:00

Today marks the dumbest holiday we celebrate in America, Groundhog Day. All over the country, mostly on the east coast, somebody whacks a groundhog on the butt with a stick, causing him to run out into the open. Then he sees a bunch of people, gets scared, and runs back in. Then the townsfolk all get together, skin the groundhog and serve him to the nearest homeless shelter. Then we have 6 more weeks of winter. It's a really fun tradition. Here's some other facts about Groundhog Day you may not know.

- A groundhog and a woodchuck are the same animal. I learned this yesterday. This has really ruined everything for me. Here I thought we had this majestic, mysterious rodent that predicted weather like a furry Paul Douglas, and really all it is is a woodchuck. Have you ever seen a woodchuck? They suck!!

- In Punxsutawney, PA, as many as 50,000 people show up for the celebration at a place that really is called Gobbler's Knob. I think there's a gay bar in Uptown with the same name, although it may just be an alley. I won't disparage this celebration anymore because I'm afraid if I do I'll have to live the same day over and over again.

- In years that the groundhog sees his shadow, signaling 6 more weeks of winter, suicide rates go up. Not dramatically, but enough so that I can make the argument that some people may actually be pushed over the edge by the prognostication of a rodent. That, my friends, is why I love people. If you are willing to end your life because Punxsutawney Phil tells you to, I'd really like to meet you.

-If the groundhog sees his shadow and jumps into the crowd and bites the shit out of people, it is a sign of the apocalypse.

- If the groundhog comes out and dies of a heart attack, it means a cold spring and that summer will bring a plague of locusts.

I'm just lying about those last two of course, but being that Groundhog Day has developed such a loyal following, doesn't it make you optimistic that anybody could just make up a holiday and get people to congregate somewhere?

I'd like to invent a holiday and call it Idiot Day. We'd find some little park someplace, get an empty cage, and put it on a table in the middle of a gazebo. Then a bunch of people would come stare at the cage, waiting for something to happen. After an hour, I'd get up on the gazebo, take the cage, and go home. Everybody still standing there is an idiot. I'm telling you, based on the number of idiots walking around, this could be the most popular holiday ever.

25 Things

2009-01-29T08:11:00.000-08:00

I keep getting these emails with these 25 random facts about people on them. I don't know about you, but I don't want to know 25 things about anybody, even my own family. I figure the less I know about people, the less likely it is that they will kill me in my sleep. With that logic in mind, I'd like to give you 25 things that are not true about me, so that perhaps I won't have reason to choke you while you sleep someday.

1.) I was born with a prehensile tail. Sometimes I still use it to strangle people if my arms are tired.
2.) My favorite cereal is Urkel-O's.
3.) I like to sprinkle crack on my Urkel-O's.
4.) When I was 4 I was abducted by a homeless person but he let me go because he had no place to store me.
5.) I once dated a girl with antlers.
6.) I have an uncontrollable fear of the Constitution.
7.) My sister is imaginary.
8.) I caught a giant squid while fishing off the coast of Lake Superior. The bait? Urkel-O's.
9.) I have nightmares about Germans.
10.) I would drink my own pee on a dare. I would drink someone else's pee on a Double Dare.
11.) When I grow up, my biggest goal is to become a mammal.
12.) I once made love to Marge Schott. Schottzie watched.
13.) I have Restless Head Syndrome. Sometimes my head flips all over the place.
14.) I saw Satan buying Chamomile Tea at Cub Foods.
15.) I think rabid animals make the best pets.
16.) I Nair my taint hair once a week. It sure hurts.
17.) I have a tattoo on my back but I have no idea what it's of.
18.) I once ate an entire Unicorn, even the horn.
19.) My fourth grade teacher tried to drown me in the drinking fountain.
20.) One time I put out a house fire just by blowing on it really, really, super hard.
21.) If I was a serial killer, I would make sure the papers all called me "The Minneapolis Strangler" even if I just stabbed people.
22.) I believe "hard kick to the crotch" would be a better means of introductory greeting than "handshake"
23.) Cats follow me everywhere when I play the flute.
24.) My buttocks aches when tornados are nearby.
25.) I hate cockfighting because my pants always get all ripped.

Sometimes I Lie All The Time.

2009-01-26T07:45:00.000-08:00

Do you ever lie for no good reason? Sometimes I'll be talking to somebody and a bunch of lies will just come spilling out of my mouth. I have no idea why this happens, but it can be pretty fun to see how many things you can lie about before the person you're talking to figures out that you are a big, giant, horrible, evil, lying lieface.

Usually when I start lying it's to somebody I barely know, like some girl cutting my hair or the clerk at the gas station. That way after I finish lying to them I don't have to remember the lie because chances are we'll never have another conversation. That's a risky part about lying. Sometimes you forget your own lie and then the person you lied to asks you something a month later pertaining to your lie and you have no idea what they're talking about.

Person: So, did your aunt ever receive that baboon uterus she needed?
You: What? Her uterus is fine.
Person: But you said her uterus fell out while she was driving on that bumpy road in Antarctica.
You (to yourself): Uh oh, you have forgotten your lie..... lie some more to cover up!
You: Um, they found it perfectly preserved in ice and put it back in. Everything is OK now. She just needs special anti rejection underpants.

That's a little scary. But most of the time lying can be very fun and rewarding.

Stylist: Pretty cold huh?
Me: Yep, must have brought it with me when I got back.
Stylist: Where'd you come from?
Me (Lying): Uh, Patagonia.
Stylist: Where's that?
Me (Lying more): Near the Isle of Lesbos.
Stylist: Oh. What was there?
Me (Lying a lot): My brother's girlfriend was raised there by a kindly shepherd who also started a world famous rock band. Ever heard of U2?
Stylist: He started U2??
Me (Still lying): Yep. He also invented V8. He liked the whole letters/numbers combination thing.
Stylist: Wow, that's fun.
Me (Over-the-top lying): Uh huh. Did I mention he did all this even though he was born with no skull? He has to paper mache his brains in every day.
Stylist: Um, I think you're done...

Lying is a great way to pass the time, you just have to make sure to find the right person, otherwise you'll wind up looking like a liar, and that is embarrassing, because some people can just tell.

Person: Did you see Rambo II?
You (Lying): Yep.
Person: YOU LIAR!!!!

Don't lie to that person. Most everybody else is OK though.

The Gym Bathroom Dilemma

2009-01-21T07:52:00.000-08:00

I don't like the bathroom at the gym. I was wondering what was causing this uneasy feeling I get after I'm done with my workout, and I believe I've finally pinpointed it.

First off, the locker room, as we already know, is filled with fat, naked people with nearly absent penises who have absolutely no understanding of discretion when it comes to doing things like contorting themselves so they can see around their stomachs to do a testicular self-examination while they are 18 inches away from my face, and I can't move away because on the other side of me is some naked guy who's talking nonchalantly on his cell phone while he smells his own underpants before putting them back on. So right away I am on edge.

Then there's the bathroom, which is loaded with design flaws. Let me explain. From left to right we have handicapped toilet, regular toilet, urinal, urinal, urinal, urinal, as places you could potentially pee. You can immediately forget the two toilets, because that's where people go to poop, and that's just too creepy to even think about peeing in.

Then you have urinal 1. It might be OK to pee there, but only if there's nobody in the toilets, especially the regular toilet. You could accidentally touch feet with a pooping person, or somebody trying to pull a Larry Craig on you. That would be terrible.

Urinals 2 and 3 are automatically out because they are middle urinals and some crazy unaware naked person might come pee right next you and violate the Urinal Proximity Doctrine. The Urinal Proximity Doctrine states that you shall not pee in a urinal directly next to another urinal that already has a person peeing in it. Should you be forced to wait for an acceptable urinal, it is perfectly fine to wash your hands and look at yourself in the mirror. Just don't stand around doing nothing because then you'll look like a person who just likes to watch other people go to the bathroom, and that might get you beat up, or gang-raped or something.

Urinal 4 is definitely your best option. On one side is a wall, which is always good, and even most clueless, nondiscrete, fat, penisless naked people won't trap you between themselves and a wall. But some will, so always be aware, and plan your escape route accordingly.

Another problem with this bathroom, is that it seems like every time I walk in, the air freshener thing goes off. I wonder if it's set to automatically spray every 5 minutes or whatever, or if it's somehow programmed to spray whenever something foul smelling enters the bathroom. So then I'm concerned that I stink and don't know it, like an old person.

So out of 6 places to pee, there's really only 1 halfway decent choice there, and even then, you can't be sure you'll be completely safe. Compound that with the fact that you may or may not smell bad enough to make the air freshener take decisive action, along with the knowledge that there's a large cluster of naked men milling around 10 feet behind you waiting to scare you, and using the bathroom at the gym can prove to be as difficult as the actual workout.

Should I tell her?

2009-01-19T07:05:00.000-08:00

The other night I had a dream that I was standing in my house when I heard loud pooping and farting noises coming from the bathroom, like, loud enough to make the cat run away. I thought to myself, "Wow, which one of the kids is doing that??" Then out of the bathroom stepped this person who I only know a little bit. She looked at me, did a weird little dance, and said, "God, I'm glad it's not my birthday on Thursday." That was the dream.

Now, I know that eventually me and this person's path will cross again. My question is, should I tell her about the dream? I really want to but I'm concerned the exchange might go like this:

Me: Hey, remember me, your friend's sister's husband?
Her: Sorta.
Me: Good. Anyhoo, I dreamt that you were crapping loudly in my bathroom, and then you danced around and said you were glad your birthday wasn't Thursday. Isn't that funny?
Her: WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT, YOU PSYCHO??
Me: Um, uh oh.....

I'm pretty sure that's what will happen. But I still want to tell her. Hey, you don't want to hear it, quit coming into my dreams to take a dump. Seems pretty logical to me.

Bedtime Stories

2009-01-16T13:44:00.000-08:00

Occasionally my kids will ask me to tell them a bedtime story. Not read a story, but actually make up something that passes as a suitable transition from running around like hyenas on meth to being unconscious. I am always supremely confident that I can pull off this herculean task, but usually I wind up sucking. It's like my creativity slinks out of my body, perhaps via my butt, whenever I begin. The kids don't help much either

Me: Ok, um, once upon a time there was a little girl.

Daughter: No, a princess.

Me: Uh, ok, once upon a time there was a princess and a prince named...

Son: No, a garbage truck.

Me: Right right, so there was this princess and this garbage truck and they lived in a faraway kingdom

Daughter: No, they lived in Minnesota
Son: They lived in Radiator Springs.

Me: Um.....sure, so one day they were walking...

Daughter: No, the princess was riding in the garbage truck

Me: Ok, they were riding in the garbage truck

Son: Into the forest

Me: When they got lost. They were very scared until they saw their daddy...

Daughter: No, they saw a scary monster.

Me: Uh, that would make them more scared.

Kids: Yeah!!

Me: Fine, but then the monster exploded and died and the princess and the garbage truck found their way out of the forest where their daddy was smiling and waiting to hug them.

Daughter: No, it was Hannah Montana.

Me: And they all lived happily ever in Radiator Springs, Minnesota. The End. Now go to bed.

Kids: No way! Go get Mommy!!

Brian runs over a Bird.

2009-01-15T08:48:00.000-08:00

How many animals have you run over in your life? The reason I wonder is that this morning I ran over a bird and I'm thinking that has to make about 10 things I've run over in my life. I'm wondering if that's a high number or a low number or just about par for 15 years of driving. I've never run over any people yet, I guess that's a good thing, but one time I did a U-Turn and almost hit a brown guy on a bike. He was not pleased with me.

So after this bird I think I have run over the following:

A few birds- It's hard to tell sometimes because birds are little and usually the same color as the street.

A squirrel or two- This happens because squirrels do this stupid thing where they sprint past your car and then do a quick 180 to wind up back under your tires.

A Canadian Honker-It was early one morning and I was driving and a car was stopped in the middle of the road and I couldn't figure out why so I went around her and crushed a goose she had stopped for. Oops. I felt really bad and this lady compounded things by screaming at me that she wished somebody would run me over. I responded with a stream of profanities that shocked even me. I'm glad she didn't call the cops because I probably could have been busted for whatever the law's equivalent of being really scary and gross was.

An Opossum- Maybe he was just "playing himself" and fooling me though.

A Deer- This inspired a really bizarre confrontation between me and the deer afterwards. I was driving home from college, when this really depressed deer decided to commit suicide using my car. I remember seeing him and saying "OHOHOH" as I smashed into him. In retrospect, maybe trying to avoid him would have been a better strategy. Anyhow, I stopped the car and started walking back towards him to make sure he wasn't suffering. At some point on my walk I thought, "What am I going to do if he is alive?" A deer is too big to step on and squish. I decided that I'd have to choke him. So here I am, walking along Hwy 90, fully preparing to choke a deer, and I didn't even have my choking gloves with me. Luckily he was dead.

A Baby Lion- At least that's what it looked like, although when I went back to find it nothing was there. I will tell you that I was intentionally covert about searching for it just in case there was a pride of angry lions out stalking around near Waseca.

Also one time I saw a dead cow on the side of the road which was pretty unusual. And I heard that Dick Cheney ran over a panda once. So is that a lot of things to run over? I hope not.

The Best Mexico Information Guide Ever.

2009-01-12T10:57:00.003-08:00

I just returned from Mexico and I've developed a list of very poorly thought out generalizations about Mexican culture and Mexico in general. So if you've never been to Mexico, you should use this list as kind of a guidebook to help you through your travels.

1.) Mexico serves your kids food at the same time as the appetizers- This is without a doubt the dumbest fuckin' idea in the history of people or food. Here's a little test of your knowledge about kids at restaurants.
-At a restaurant your child will most definitely:
a. Eat all his/her food and then sit and have pleasant conversation with the rest of the table until all are finished
b. Politely color and enjoy the scenery
c. Hide under the table, throw napkins, scream intermittently, horde sugar packets like they had crack in them, and spill at least 4 things until you want to hurl them off the veranda.

If you answered "C" you have kids. If you answered A or B, your kids are actually cyborgs and you should run away fast. So Mexico compounds this little problem by serving the kids 20 minutes before they serve the adults. I am confounded by this logic. I want to eat my Dog Burrito in peace.

2.) Mexicans want to sell you junk you could find at Goodwill- The beach is littered with tiny little people selling t-shirts with beer logos on them, costume jewelry, toys that break if you touch them, serapes, partially used sunscreen, and the kicker; shrimp on a stick. Why on earth would you buy any of this, but especially food?? Yeah, let's buy seafood that's been out in the sun all day and eat it. I'd rather eat turds. Then there are some people who walk around selling nothing. A guy walked by with a little ventriloquist's dummy on his shoulder that had cymbals for a mouth which clanged every 4 seconds or so and he proceeded to sing "La Bamba" in it's entirety (including some verse that I never heard come out of Richie Valens' mouth) and then he wanted money. Again, I'd rather eat turds.

3.) I can't speak Spanish for shit- Here is a conversation I had with a person I wanted towels from:

Person: BLBLBKLNJAJDJADBNJA <- (That's Spanish that I don't understand)
Me: Um... Si?
Person: WFHUJWDBUWDNWIDNW
Me: Uhhhhh... Dos.
Person (Emphatically): BABBDADBNJUNDQUIDNQUIDN!!!!!
Me (Panicking): Uh....I don't know!!?.... Mi Vida Loca??
Person: Dude, just say towels already....

4.) Mexican waterslides are scary- I went down this waterslide that was completely dark and enclosed like a toilet paper roll. It was really fast and it went on forever. I tried to slow myself down by grabbing the top of the waterslide but all I got for my troubles was a nasty waterslide burn on my fingers (it stings). In the process of trying to slow down and burning myself I accidentally flipped over so I was now flying ass first and on my face. Not good. My taint hit the pool at like Mach 4 and I didn't even know to brace for it. Also, not good.

5.) Mexican pirate ships are poorly constructed- We went on this pirate ship for a day of raping and pillaging people, and kayaking. Even though the seas were very calm the pirate ship still made cracking sounds all the time and it bounced around like a fat girl on an exercise ball. People were getting sick and even the pirates were falling over. But we did get to rape and pillage, which is legal in Mexico.

6.)If you go into the jungle, there are machetes laying everywhere- I can say this because I went into the jungle and I found a machete laying there. Then I killed a bunch of stuff with it, mostly plants. I'm glad there were no people around though. Machetes make you want to kill things.

7.) There are approximately zero Mexican people taller than me- I felt like Manute Bol.

8.) Mexican candy tastes like sweaty throw up- It is made from tamarinds (whatever they are) and is billed as tasting "sweet and spicy." What it actually tasted like was a biopsy of my armpit skin if I had puked all over it and then left it in a dead man's butt for a week. It was worse than pickled okra.

Anyhow, that's the list. Now go to Mexico.

Fun With Initials.

2008-12-29T07:47:00.000-08:00

Here's a fun thing to do. The next time you are addressing a person, either via e-mail, or in a face to face conversation, only refer to them by some random initials. I've found, to my absolute delight, that if you call somebody by random initials, they always think that you are making fun of them in the meanest way possible.

Person: Hey there, how've you been?
You: Pretty good B.A., I've been doing pretty good.
Person (thinking): B.A., what's B.A.? Oh no, he's noticed how big my ass has gotten lately! He's calling me "Big Ass!!" AAAHHHHH!!

So then Big Ass runs down to the nearest Big and Tall store and buys out all the muumuus, just because you called him B.A. His self esteem is shot and he now only dates really mean, unattractive women who all call him "Big Ass" because he made the mistake of telling them that people call him B.A. which he thinks stands for "Big Ass" but it actually stands for nothing. See how fun this can be??

When you get bored with using only two initials try using more. See what dirty secrets you can cull from them. People usually have a lot of dirty secrets..

Person: Hey there! Long time no see, Hombre!
You: What's happening M.A.C.? Good to see you!
Person (thinking): Uh oh. Is it possible that he knows that I Molest Autistic Children?? Or that sometimes I go to the zoo and Munch Animal Crap?? Or that I am the one who Murders African Clerics?? Does he know about the embarrassment of my Muddy Anal Caking?? AAAHHHHH!!

One note of warning. Don't do this to a person who might be mentally unstable enough to kill you if they believe you know their dirty secrets. That would qualify as a joke that backfired. Otherwise, go forth and multiply.

How badly do You want a boner?

2008-12-22T07:55:00.000-08:00

Here's a good party question for you. Let's say that you suddenly stopped getting boners (this question only works if you are a boy) and you turned to Viagra, or Cialis, or Ramitall or whatever for help. Then let's say you started getting the serious side effects occasionally associated with these wood inducing pills. Would you still use them, or just give up and be a bonerless wonder?

What if you started getting a painful erection lasting more than 4 hours, sometimes called a priapism? Would you stop taking the pills or would you just block off a large portion of your day where you avoided all people you didn't want to scare or have sex with, or, at least, wear Zubaz or MC Hammer pants all the time so people wouldn't notice your out-of-control erection?

What if you started getting more serious side effects? I saw an ad that said to call a doctor immediately if you start having loss of vision or loss of hearing. Would that make you stop taking them. What's more important to you, seeing and hearing, or boning Helen Keller style?

What if there was a 1 in 1000 chance that after you took the pills your penis would spontaneously explode off of your body and fly around the room deflating and making a high pitched squealing noise like a balloon with the air being let out? Would it still be worth the risk?

Finally, what if there was a very miniscule chance that in taking the pills you could accidentally open the gates to hell and all sorts of scary monsters would leak into our world and eat your family + the people you wanted to hump? Would that make you think twice? Would it even make your pill induced Viagra boner go down?

This is what I was wondering this morning. What were you thinking about?

Brian sees a Labia.

2008-12-18T07:31:00.000-08:00

I was at the gym just now. I had intended to lift some weights but mostly what I did was sit around and yawn and listen to my IPod. Not very productive. Anyhow, while I was lifting and yawning and listening to my Ipod, I noticed a woman nearby me.

The reason I noticed her was because she was dressed like Jane Fonda from those 80's workout videos. She was wearing a spandex wrestling singlet with a white leotard or something underneath. The spandex wrestling singlet was pulled tightly up almost through her crotch in the shape of a "V". Also she had really pointy hair. It pointed downwards and out from her head, sort of in the shape of an upside-down "V".

So while I'm not lifting weights, but instead staring at this woman and trying to figure out which geometrical figure she most closely resembles, she sits down and begins doing that one exercise where you sit on a machine and open and close your legs several times, and that's the exercise. It's called the "Hip Adductor" or "Thigh Abductor" or something like that. It's an exercise that is only done by women and 80-year-old men, so my knowledge of it is fairly limited.

Anyhow, when she begins this exercise, I notice something. Every time she opens her legs to flex, her right labia pops out. (Notice I said "labia". Thanks to Wikipedia, I now know correct terminology. Before I would have said her "right crotch" or "that puffy thing.") Now it doesn't actually pop out through her leotard (that would be impossible), but still, you can definitely tell that something funny is going on. Then when she contracts, it goes away. After about 5 reps of this, I look to my left and see that another woman has noticed this wardrobe malfunction as well. I am much more inconspicuous than her. She is staring slack jawed at labia woman, while I am merely staring with a regular type jaw. The strange thing is, labia woman seems totally oblivious to all of this. I can tell you with a pretty good degree of certainty, that if my ball kept popping out of my underpants, I would notice and correct the problem.

Eventually labia woman stops doing that hip exercise and leaves. And me and the slack-jawed woman glance at each other with a look that can only be interpreted as "Damn, that bitch's puffy thing was popping out!"

Stupid Cliches.

2008-12-11T09:00:00.000-08:00

Recently a person told me that my daughter was "cuter than a bug's ear." At first I was offended, and I almost responded to the women, "Well, you're about as cute as a dragon's taint!" But then I realized that she was being complimentary so I didn't say that. But when you think about it, bugs don't even have ears, at least visible ones. The closest thing to ears they have are probably those feelers things that are sticking off their heads (I think they're actually called antennae, but in my family they were feelers), and those aren't cute. They're actually kind of creepy. I got to thinking about how many stupid cliches there are just zooming out of people's mouths from time to time.

She's as happy as a clam- Am I to believe that we are so enlightened as a scientific community, that we can actually tell the moods of mollusks. I don't believe so. Clams aren't happy or sad, they're just clams. If the cliche was "happy as a bearded clam" that would make a lot more sense because, as we all know, they are always smiling. Or at least gaping.

Any publicity is good publicity- This is dangerously untrue. Let's say, for instance, you get arrested for raping puppies. It's all over the news and the papers. From then on, you are known as "Steve the dog pounder." You get scornful looks wherever you go, and some overzealous group of PETA enthusiasts burns your house down so you have to move to the projects where people rob your house every other day and sic their pit bulls on you. That is not good publicity.

No news is good news- Sort of goes with the one above. Let's say you were passed out in your room after a night of drinking Everclear and shooting heroin, and your rolling meth lab explodes and starts your trailer on fire. If nobody tells you that news, you suffer a fiery death, and I don't think that can ever qualify as good news.

Don't cry over spilt milk- What if you're in a bomb shelter with your cat, and the cat's company is the only thing keeping you alive while World War III rages on above you, and the only thing keeping the cat alive is milk? Then you spill all the milk which dissolves into the ground because you were too lazy to build a bottom to your bomb shelter because you incorrectly assumed that the only thing you'd ever use it for was to store beer in. Wouldn't you start to cry knowing that, in essence, you had indirectly doomed yourself by spilling milk because now your cat was going to starve to death, which in turn would make you die because the only thing keeping you alive in this post-apocalyptic mess was the companionship of your stupid cat??? I would definitely cry. Then I'd probably eat the cat.

That rubs me the wrong way- Ish. That's just gross!

A "Call for Action"- This is one of those things people say when they are too lazy to actually do anything about a problem.

Guy: I can't believe people keep stealing my children.
Other guy: I'm putting out a call for action right now.
Guy: Good, let's go home. America's Biggest Loser is on.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder- No it doesn't. Absence makes the heart forget about you eventually. You ever know anybody that died? The longer they stay dead, the less you think about them. By the time they've been dead for about 6 months, you barely remember who that person even was. A better cliche would be "Abstinence makes the weiner grow fonder." Everybody knows that's true. Some people will hump a hole in the couch after about a month of abstinence.

So there you have it. Let's all come up with some new cliches that actually make sense. You will be doing your language a great service if you do. And I'll be happier than Michael Jackson at a Jonas Brothers concert.

The Crazy Baby Sneeze Phenomenon

2008-12-09T11:34:00.001-08:00

Here's a strange phenomenon I can't quite explain, but I have a really well researched theory about. I have a few kids (2 I think) and as we were sorting pictures the other night to stick them into albums it struck me that in the vast majority of pictures of the kids when they were babies they look like they are either about to sneeze, or just finished sneezing. Then I looked at some other pictures of babies (did you know they have a bunch of random babies' pictures on the internet? What a country.). Same thing. What's the deal with that?

I think it has something to do with the flash. My kids have this disease where whenever they turn lights on in a dark room they begin sneezing voraciously. I think babies have some sort of baby ESP that allows them to know that a bright light is about to be flashed in their eyes and so their brain automatically activates the sneeze reflex. I think this phenomenon is closely related to how I automatically start to gag when I am near smelly old ladies before I even smell their smelly barn odor.

My Brain: (Uh oh, checkered red pants stained brown with a confused look on her face. ACTIVATE GAG REFLEX!!)
Me: HACK KACK BRRRACK!!
My Brain: (Target out of range. Cease fire. Cease fire.)

Anyhow, if you ever cut a baby's head open (which you shouldn't do under most circumstances) I would bet that you would find that a large section of the brain was solely responsible for sneezing. I would imagine the breakdown would be 40 percent sneezing, 30 percent pooping, and 30 percent crying. Again, I'm not a pediatrician or a pedophile so I can't really be certain that these percentages are accurate, but I bet I'm close.

Don't EVER listen to me.

2008-12-04T07:51:00.000-08:00

So I've been reading Wikipedia a lot lately. It's a pretty helpful source for just about anything, although I'm not sure how accurate it always is because the other day I was reading about Roger Clemens and under "Personal" it said that Roger Clemens sucks a fart out of his own butt every day, and I don't know how anybody could possibly accurately know that, with the possible exception of Roger Clemens himself, and I doubt he'd want that information made public. (Although it might deflect the attention away from the steriods allegations.)

Anyhow, via the vast knowledge of Wikipedia, I have found, to my shock, that I don't know anything about most everything. Let's take, for example, female anatomy. Man they got a lot of stuff in there. I didn't know what any of it was for. I always just assumed all these different names were just synonyms for the word "Crotch." Not true. Before I boned up (heh heh) here would have been my definitions for the following body parts assuming I was taking a test or something:

Cervix- No idea. Possibly something skinny and slimy. It's a good thing if yours "looks great!"

Clitoris- (Too busy giggling to provide answer)

Phillipine Tubes- Everything has a tube. It probably diposes of waste and stuff. I'm pretty sure these are the "horns" from that Junior High sex education class drawing. You know, the one where the female reproductive system looks like a Texas Longhorn head.

Labium- Rock & Roll group from the 70's. Bee Gees sold better.

Ovaries- Either an enclosure that a bird lives in, or I don't know. But I think I have 4 or 5 of them because they hurt sometimes, especially after I eat burritos.

Uterus-I think this is where fetuses live, maybe all the time, or maybe just when you're pregnant. I'm not sure.

Vagina- Hmm, it's Vagina and not Bagina? I'll be darned.

Vulva- A crappy Swedish car?

So anyway, I guess that what I'm trying to say is that I have no idea what I'm talking about most of the time, so when I talk to you, you'd be better off staring out the window, or humming a song in your head. Whatever you do, don't assume what I say is based on anything factual, and maybe you'll wind up OK.