Chicken causes Mass Chaos

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.