Please knock me unconscious until early November

Somebody please save me from all these political ads. I can't tell you how unenthused I am when an election year comes up simply because of this. Get me to November 4th right now. Some people would say "Just stop watching TV until then." OK, and maybe I'll just stop going to the bathroom too. Neither would work, and both would slowly poison me. So far, from this extremely intelligent rhetoric I've learned that:

Obama is a communist in kahoots with racist clergymen
McCain is a fascist who think war is "Awesome."
Biden is poor white trash
Palin is a backwoods neophyte with slutty children
Coleman doesn't care about me at all
Franken is an angry, smut peddling drug addict.

That about cover it? If I relied solely on campaign ads I'd never be able to vote for anybody. But that's not the real problem I have. If you want to be comically dirisive of your opponent then so be it, but if you lose don't cry when you have to go back into society knowing that person you called an idiot was smart enough to beat you. The problem I have is that it spawns a giant collection of halfwits who think they are now qualified to say the same things about the candidates. It's not just the guys who say "I'll give ya 3 reasons Barack Obama is stupider than my underwear drawer." It's more these pseudo-intellectuals who think they have all this brilliant insight as to why one candidate would kill us all while the other would most assuredly lead us to the land of milk and honey. Please! Just because you've read the Harvard Political Review does not make you a pundit. I've read it too. I'm an idiot. See my point?

Old Frank is my Hero!

I was thinking about Urgent Care from my last story and I remembered this little tidbit from another time I was there with my daughter who had an ear infection.

While we are waiting in the crowded waiting room to be seen, a woman comes in escorting a bedraggled looking old man who looked like he may have pitched over if she hadn't been supporting him. The woman says, "Old Frank here" (his name may have been Hercules, but for the purpose of this story Frank sounds better). She says, purposely loudly, as if she is frustrated with Old Frank (or Hercules) and wants a few people to know what she's going through "Old Frank here has been having violent diarrhea all week." Old Frank chimes in, "But only when I POOP!" I about lost in right there in the lobby. I love all the Old Franks in the world and I hope they spray violent diarrhea everywhere they go.

The Bursting Appendix Date Story

I've gotten a few requests for this, so I've decided to rehash it for those who haven't heard it so everyone who hasn't heard it can mock me.

I had just turned 19, and was getting ready to leave for college within a month. I was at Northwest Health club in St Louis Park which is now a Lifetime Fitness. Now, normally when I went to work out, I would spend 75% of the time actually working out, and about 25% of the time staring at girls. Not talking or anything, just staring from afar, usually at their butts. I apologize for that, but really, what do most people stare at? I bet it's not the elbows or the forehead creases.

Anyhow, the place was pretty busy that day and benches were at a premium. When I went to sit down on a bench I literally crashed into a girl's back, with my back. I turned around just at the same time she did (to see what sort of thing was back there that we weren't expecting) and her little dumbbell crushed me in the arm. It hurt a lot and I kind of wanted to punch her. She said she was sorry and that she hadn't seen me. I said it's OK, and I turned to walk off, but she kept talking to me. I have no idea what we talked about, except that her name was Jen, but it's a good thing her butt was all the way behind her, otherwise my cover would have totally been blown. This eventually led to this awkward exchange.

Jen: So do you want to do something later?
Brian: Well, I'm gonna go do incline flys in a bit, you can come if you want?
Jen: Uh........ no, I meant like later later?
Brian: Later later? Um...... (Lightbulb finally goes on) Oh yeah definitely. Sorry, a dumbbell hit my arm and it hurt.
Jen: HAHAHA you're funny!!!
Brian (thinking to himself): Seriously, my arm hurts...

So we went out a few days later, to a chinese place, and had a fairly normal date up to a point. She was a 23 year old nursing student at some place that churns out nurses like lemmings, and she had her own apartment. Now, bear in mind that I was still two months away from the complete and total freedom that is college so the concept of somebody with their own apartment was like Valhalla to me. Plus I was relieved that if we were going to make out or anything, it wouldn't have to be in the back of her mom's Yugo.

Things were going fine, conversation was pleasant, and the food was good. Then came this.

Jen: Can you reach into my purse and get my compact for me?
Brian: I don't have any idea what you're talking about.
Jen: It's a square thing with a mirror.
Brian: That just sounds like a mirror.
Jen: HAHAHAHA!!!

I reach into her purse (it was one of those big deep purses that you could keep a large cat in) and all I see is like 400 condoms. For a split second I panicked and thought that maybe I was running with a known prosty-toot and just had been too naive to notice. I brought out her square thing and said,

Brian: Holy Galactic Prophylactics! (Actually I didn't say this but it would have been cool)
Jen: Hahaha....yeah, I keep them around in case...

This was her not so subtle hint to me that she had cast her chastity belt into the metaphorical Mississippi River long ago. I was faced with an obvious dilemma. That's when fate decided to intervene...

I began to feel a little pressure in my stomach followed shortly after by some very serious pain. The pain was bad enough that I couldn't really concentrate on what she was saying (something about cats and jackrabbits I think). I started definitely believing something was very wrong. I had just read this article about some guy who had a bad stomach ache and then all of a sudden his appendix burst and he died right there at Sears. I knew it was my appendix, I just knew it. So I did the only thing I could. I said, "I have to leave right now! I think my appendix is going to pop." She was really pissed off like I made up the appendix thing because I thought she was boring. Whatever. I left and she stayed there alone.

When I got to the hospital I went to the front desk at Urgent Care and the woman seemed none too pleased to see me.

Woman: Yes?
Me: I think my appendix is bad.
Woman: Why do you think that?
Me: Because my appendix hurts really bad!
Woman: Well how do you know it's your appendix?
Me: Because I read about this guy and.....MY APPENDIX HURTS REALLY BAD!!!

So I got ushered from the first waiting room to the 2nd waiting room, the room that the doctor actually comes in. I felt like I was going to explode from my stomach and my guts were going to fly all over. I started looking for any medicine I could find, like an epidural or something. I would have drank an epidural if I could have found one. But there was no medicine in there, all I could find was paper towels and tongue depressers. So I started jabbing at my stomach with a tongue depresser. I don't know what I was trying to accomplish by this, but I was desperate. Just as I had about given up.....the pain subsided, first a little bit, and then completely. I was very happy about this but it also presented me with a strange problem. A perfectly fine person is now in the second waiting room. So, after sitting there for a minute staring at the tongue depressers, I just got up and left.

I called Jen later on to explain to her what had happened and she was still really mad. So that was that. I'd see her periodically at the gym for a while after that, but she never said anything to me. It was sort of pointlessly awkward. As it turned out, it was for the best.

(Side Note: I still have no idea what happened that night. My guess was the chinese food had no MSG but it did have some R-A-T in it. Someone suggested to me once that my brain conjured my appendix problem to save me from this girl. That's stupid!!)

The Decline of Minnesota Sports

After a particularly disappointing Vikings game last night, I got to thinking about the sorry state of affairs Minnesota sports is in general. It's really gross. It's making me seriously consider moving to a different state and adopting a whole new set of teams to root for. Just not Wisconsin. I'd rather root for cancer. Seriously though.

Vikings- Mediocre at best. QB makes poor decisions and seems to enjoy getting hurt so he doesn't have to play. Left tackle is more aggressive at South Beach nightclubs than on the field. Coach looks like Mr Noodle. Owner's name is Zygi. Bad omen. Most boring team in football.

Twins-Mediocre also but have played out of their minds for most of the year. Coming back down to earth at a very bad time. Bullpen is awful. Will need to be supremely lucky the rest of year for any postseason hopes.

Wild-Really boring. Best player wants out. Fans inexplicably jerk off to this team regardless of how they are playing. Doesn't make sense.

T-Wolves-Bad team stuck in an ugly arena. Drew more homeless vagrants than fans at many games last year. GM makes moronic moves daily, and then goes up to his cabin and acts smug while looking like Frankenstein. 40 2 guards, 0 point guards. Will struggle to be competitive for years.

Gopher Sports: Football team has gone 2-0 against the MAC and people are thrilled. Will probably finish 6-6. Pepperidge Farms Sweaty Ballsack Bowl in Omaha, here we come. Basketball team is perpetually young, may be good down the road but not this year.
Hockey team loses too much in state talent. Coach has really gay hair.

Lynx: Always suck. Ball looks stupid. Nobody on the team can dunk. Not enough scary lesbians.

Everybody else: Nobody cares.

See??? Right now we're swimming in a sea of mediocrity and apathy when it comes to
Minnesota sports. I'm going to have to move before more holes in my walls start mysteriously appearing. Maybe Boston, or Antarctica.

Brian is unintentionally creepy.

OK so I've come to the conclusion that my mouth acts about 20 times faster than my brain sometimes. This leads to some extremely awkward statements coming out of my mouth that make me sound, at best, like a big weirdo, and at worst like a crazy glue sniffing homeless derelict. It also prompts some of the strangest looks from the unfortunate people on the receiving end of said comments. I'm not trying to be weird here, it's just that my brain works a little differently from most people's, and the filter between my thoughts and my mouth is a little slow on the uptake at times. This is the same filter that helps you NOT tell your girlfriend that her best friend looks like a manatee in a sundress, or that her uncle looks like he molests most everyone he sees. Here is a very abbreviated list (what I can think of right this instant) of some of the bug-eye inducing things I have said recently:

To a woman in a Packers shirt today: "Watch out wearing that shirt! That dude (pointing at a Cub Foods employee pushing 20 carts) might choke you.

To a crowd of people: "If I was going to rape somebody, I guess I'd rape 100 people, give or take. It's basically a freebie after the first one. You're going to jail forever no matter what."

To a door to door vacuum salesman: "You remind me of this Tweety Bird cartoon where a cat tries to sell a vacuum to another cat.....(trailing off as he looks at me, bewildered) uh, nevermind."

To a woman wearing a big metal halo on her broken neck: " Ow, that looks heavy. I broke my pinky once."

To a guy admiring my truck: "It's big and black, like an NBA player."

To a co-worker: "I gotta pee. Gimme your garbage."

On my first job interview: "It smells like old wood around here. What's that all about?"

On a different interview: "You actually have to call people you don't know?? Ugh, who would do that?"

To a telemarketer: "I have to let you go. My kids are burning."

To a midget at Byerly's: "Were you on Seinfeld? You just kinda look like, uh, you know, the little guy." (Side note: The little person looked like he was going to somehow get me into a prone position and murder me slowly so I went to a different aisle, then I just left my cart there and took off.)

To a Vikings cheerleader at Buffalo Wild Wings: "I like your shiny underpants, I mean, um....."

To a men's room attendant: "I peed on my hands a little."

To a gay pizza store owner: "HAW. That guy just dropped a whole slice of pizza on the floor. What a homo!!"

And on and on ad nauseum. I hope to some day cure this affliction, but until then, feel happy that as many silly things as you've said in your life, I've probably said more.

Most of your pets suck.

Have you ever noticed how many really stupid pets there are out there? Not stupid as in low functioning brain capacity, we all know that pets are dumb (eating turds, chasing laser beams, peeing inappropriate places, etc). Rather, stupid as in pointless, as in "What possible enjoyment could you get from this?" The reason I bring it up is because I was at the beach the other day and I saw a guy walking an Iguana or something on a leash, and I just sat there and marveled at how retarded he looked. He also looked like the type of guy that probably went home and had sex with the iguana too, but that's his business, not mine. That's the way it is with me. If you want to hump a lizard, don't look for me to try and talk you out of it.

Anyhow, think how many stupid pets there are:

-Fish- Fish are perhaps the most boring pets in the world. You can't pet a fish, it won't cuddle with you, and fish die at an amazing rate. I bought my daughter a fish for her birthday and it died about 2 days later. So I bought another fish and passed it off as the dead one, and then it died. So I kept doing this over and over for about 20 fish and all they did was swim around and die. What a waste of 28 cents. Finally I wised up and bought a Betta fish, which is supposed to be less likely to die. True to it's word, it hasn't died. But it does even less than the dying fishes did. It doesn't even swim, it just hovers there. One time we forgot to feed it for 2 weeks and it still didn't die. It's like taking care of a piece of styrofoam.

-Gerbil- These are no good because somebody might break into your house and stick the gerbil up his butt. Having a gerbil is like putting out a welcome mat for perverts and buttophiles (I just made that word up.) Plus some gerbils are really ill-tempered and try to bite you any chance they get, presumably because they are concerned that you are going to stick them up your butt. In that respect, I don't blame them. But they still suck.

-Snake- Way more boring than you'd think. My roommate in college bought a snake and all the snake did was curl up in a ball. Stupid. Then my roommate was playing with him one night while he was drunk and he passed out on top of him and the snake died. That part was funny.

-Rats and Mice- Rats and mice are vermin. Why would you want to have vermin for a pet?That's like having a buttophile (see above) as a houseguest.

-Lizards-Lizards are about one step above fish in terms of boringness. Plus they are really hard to see so even if they are doing something cool (which they probably aren't) there's a good chance you'll miss it. And if you accidentally leave them someplace sunny while you go on vacation, they cook and smell really terrible. The only possible good thing is if people get a baby alligator, and then realize how boring he is so they flush him down the toilet and he grows to immense proportions in the sewer and starts eating city workers.

-Exotic Animals- Usually animals you shouldn't have in the first place. Chances are, eventually you'll screw up and the animal will either eat you whole, poison you, or spray stink all over you. Then you'll have to go to either the morgue, the hospital, or the bathtub. Doesn't sound fun.

-Tiny Dogs- Tiny dogs suck so bad that I'm not going to even explain why. Especially really tiny, very furry dogs that look more like troll dolls than actual animals. Ugh.

There are some other pets, like 98% of cats, that belong on this list, but cats are too obvious. Besides, a cat couldn't care less if you don't like him. If you died, he'd just be pissed that you were dead instead of feeding him, and then once somebody else fed him, he'd forget all about you and your good-for-nothing corpse.

The point here is this: Don't waist your money on novelty pets when you could be spending it on things like hookers and crank.