Worthless

There are certain things in life that really are worthless. The bag of rocks you traded your baseball card collection for, only to find out that they didn't have gold or diamond, or more baseball cards, in them and you could only use them to throw as projectiles at the person(s) you traded your cards to for them, only then to find out that not only can they run faster than you, they can also throw farther and harder than you. Rocks fights are fun, right up until you get hit in the forehead by a rock that sends blood cascading down your face, blinding your eyes and causing you to stumble down a flight of cement stairs into a dark and damp region that you seldom go because it's "scary" and there are real live spiders down there.

Spiders are worse than vampires. Vampires can turn into bats and fly about and hypnotize you with their eyes and make you fall in love with them, all so they can feast on your tasty blood (according to them, anyway, I've never tasted human blood, except my own, and I was too busy worrying about the blood cascading down my face to notice if it tasted good or not). Spiders on the other hand, they're small, deadly, etc. etc. etc. Did you know dandelions are more deadly than the black widow? It's true, but that's mostly because she's 90+ years old and they didn't have the technology to catch her back when she murdered her husband. Besides, who wants to drown to death in a vat of dandelions? I think I'd rather...I'm not sure what, but I'd rather not die by drowning in a vat of dandelions, and then be made into dandelion wine. That's one of my favorite books too, by the way.

Spiders have an exoskeleton that puts wolverine and his adamantium to shame. They're stronger than aunts, which have been known to lift cars off of puppies that are trapped underneath them. Don't invite them to the neighborhood book club meetings though and they lose all their magical defenses. Spiders can also spit sticky silk from their back end and use it to trap you. Then they wrap you in a coffin of sticky silk, inject you with stomach acid and let it work its way through you, while you're still alive, and then they suck out your insides. Though highly unlikely, I like to think that the last part happens while you're still alive too. Besides, how many vampires do you accidentally eat a year in your sleep? Chuck Norris might be able to do this, but not me, unless I've been eating garlic. The average person swallows eight spiders a year while you sleep. That means they're in your bed and crawling on your face and in your mouth while you sleep. Vampires are more polite than to invade your personal space like that. I woke up once with one crawling on my face. I know I was still tired because I reached up with  my hand grabbed it and threw it across the room, shuddered for a few minutes and then went back to sleep. Plus, if you get bitten by a spider you don't turn into a spider, unless your name's Peter Parker (my first and last name don't share the same first letter, so my hopes and dreams of being a  super hero are shot; being a super villian is another story though). I would much rather deal with a vampire than a spider, because at the end of the day when I have to choose between living forever and feeding off of the living or a swollen bump that is painful to the touch, the former will always win.

I know I promised a Christmas story, and I almost upheld that promise too (I have two ideas for picture stories and another for a short story, without pictures by me), but at the end of the day I am the drunk of a father that comes home, bleary eyed and confused, not knowing where my paycheck went and having to tell the children they have to go to bed hungry again because they're father is a louse. After which the wife picks up a pan and starts trying to bean him over the head, because that will help him remember to come straight home from work and not stop at the bar.

"Hey Herb, didn't you say your wife told you something really important?"
"Yea she did, but for the life of me, I can't remember what..."
"Want to go get a drink while you try and remember?"
"Sure, one drink won'r kill"

The last sentence will be the epitaph on his grave, and the wife will spend the rest of her life on the run because she couldn't cook off all the blood before the coppers showed up.

Speaking of worthless, my computer is acting weird (and it's a mac, gasp!). If Steve Jobs comes back as a zombie, do you think apple will hire him again? I mean, they've already hired him twice, so why not a third? Third times a charm.

"Sno-balls?"
"Yea, sno-balls."
"Where's the twinkies?"
"I like sno-balls"
"I hate coconut. Not the taste, the consistency."

I'd like to have a zombie as my butler. We would have to keep him muzzled most of the time, except when salemen come around. That would make getting replacement butlers a lot easier and cheaper. We would probably have to dip them in cologne every day though. Stay away from the fruit bats as well. Keeping the kids out of the cookies would be pretty easy though, "If you sneak into the cookies again we're  going lock you with Geeves XXIV in the garage without his muzzle on, and you don't want that, now do you?" As our kid soils themself and we have to have Geeves come clean it up. We could probably even get something going with the local animal shelter. SPAY AND NEUTER YOUR PETS!!!! unless you want to see them being fed to zombie butlers in the near future, and all because you were too selfish to chop off their manhood or take out their female parts. They will still love you and try to hump your face/leg when you're not paying attention.

I love my life. =D

Been a while

I have feeling it's going to be a long time. Yes Dexter, it will be a long time. Or will it be along time? Either way it makes some sense, other than nonsense and this is not in the present tense. Is your present tense? If I were a present I would be tense, all that excitement and build-up for the coming holidays!!! The sad part would be when I realized this meant I was going to be torn open by a person screaming at the top of their lungs as they dove in head first and disemboweled me and then discarded me without even stopping to say they were sorry. Then they would have moved onto the poor unlucky sap that came next. That kind of takes the fun out of it. My grandma used to (still does?) make us carefully undo the edge that had the tape on it of the wrapping paper so that she could save it and use it for next year. I have my suspicions that they really did this to collect a repository of the DNA of everyone in the family, that way they can track us down at anytime they so choose. My family is crazy like that.

You ever notice how pirates not only have a parrot on their shoulder, but they're also missing one eye? Real pirates have the parrot on the same side as the eye that's missing. If you don't believe me, just go find a real pirate that is missing an eye and has a pet parrot. If he/she has it on the opposite side, they're either from Hollywood, or they're a stupid pirate and probably has a peg leg and a pet gator they forget to feed. If I were a pirate captain I would make my entire crew wear speedos when we were attacking someone, that way they would either be mesmerized, horrified, or laughing too hard to do anything but give up. Being violent and bloody is highly overrated. Girls they like the kissing as much as we do.

This will be short, I just wanted to let those who were not traumatized or damaged permanently from last years Christmas story, I will be doing another one this year, and I'm pretty excited for it. I have the idea, and just need sometime to put it all together. I will probably do my terrible drawings and make a picture book like I usually do, but I will also probably do a longer story version of it this year, if I can pull it off.

Here's what I've been up to and why I haven't really put up anything for awhile (disclaimer: do not read while driving, taking care of children or operating heavy machinery as doing so may cause injury to oneself or others, intentional or otherwise):

 It's pretty boring to read. 

Making plans to rule the...pink pair of pants

Hot pink has to be the most awesome color ever to have existed. Awesome in the sense that it takes your breath away every time you see it-especially if that time happens to be an old man in a hot pink speedo thong at the beach. They never said awesome was good. Though, if you're that man and/or the wife of that man you probably think it's not that bad. I used to wear speedos. Then I got fatter than I used to be, now I have a hard time wearing underwear. The fact that I'm fatter than I used to be and that I have a hard time wearing underwear really have nothing in common, it just makes the latter sound better if I put it with the former. That's right, robots in disguise.

You ever have one of those super creepy dreams that make you wake up screaming and in a cold sweat? I know, they're usually called nightmares, though I reserve that term for Michael Jackson and Sarah Palin. I had one of those last night (not a nightmare, thankfully, I don't know if I could have handled that and would probably have offed myself if I had) and it was scary...at the time. Pam and I had moved into a new house, and she was in our bedroom watching TV. I came in to find her just sitting there with an odd expression on her face and staring at the little black and white TV we had in there. I asked her what was up. She looked at me and said, "The TV just told me I was going to die."

"You mean, someone on the TV?"

"No, the TV"

Just then, the TV screen shows a bunch of static and mixed in with the static is a very dark and sinister voice which says something along the lines of "We're coming to get you, there's nothing you can do to escape us. You're going to die."

This didn't really scare me much; the TV suddenly starts to show, from the perspective of the person on the TV, two hands moving down a hallway. In one hand is a very large knife. I suddenly realize that's the hallway that leads to our bedroom. That scared me, and I started to freak out, when I woke up. I think I might have actually called out in my sleep. Pam took a benadryl before going to bed last night, so I didn't wake her up. I think the reason why I had this dream was because I had to use the bathroom pretty bad, and just noticed it when I woke up. The only problem with my mind deciding this was the best way to wake me from an otherwise superb slumber was that it took another few minutes for me to convince myself it was okay to leave the safety of my chuck norris covers and venture into the bathroom. While there, I refused to look in the mirror out of fear that I might see something that wasn't really there. I'm a pansy, I know it and don't care-other than at 3:30am when I really have to use the bathroom and am too scared to get out of bed.

I'm not really sure what I dreamed about after that, but it was much more pleasant.

If I ever find a hot pink tuxedo I'm so going to buy it and wear it everywhere.

Teen Gangst

Wow, it's been awhile. Glad to see you again, how have you been? Good to hear. I'm sorry that your cat crawled into the microwave and turned into a hot pocket and your significant other ate it without giving any thought to what it might actually be. I do like cheese, though.

My wife and I have many things in common, most of all we both agree that she's amazing and the most smart, gorgeous and awesome person ever to have lived. We also have somethings not in common. One of these happens to be Twilight. No, I don't love Twilight. We keep the Twilight books (loosely called such) in an appropriate place, the bathroom. While taking care of some business the other day I read the first sentence on the back of the book, which happened to be an excerpt from the book. It went something like this: "Don't be afraid," I said though I was mortally wounded and terrified the other kids at school would make fun of me once they found out who I was sleeping with, "we're meant to be together." About this point I had to throw up. Have I ever mentioned that we have awesome plumbing in out house? It's true, the sink didn't even get plugged. I don't know much about plumbing, other than it used to make my father swear a lot. We were finishing our by ourselves basement while I was growing up, which was kind of like me "helping" my dad fix the car while I was a kid. One of these wonderful experiences that I haven't mentally blocked out to protect myself involves plumbing. We had run some pipe for either the toilet or the bathroom sink-don't get those confused in real life- and were putting up drywall over it so that no one could ever see out marvelous handy work that would never pass inspection. As I stood there with my finger in my nose and drool running down my face my dad proceeded to hammer in the nails (this was in the days before fancy things like "nail guns" and "hired labor"), and then suddenly yelled a word I had never heard before. I knew he didn't hit his finger, I recognized the word to signify that as "dammit" and he wasn't shaking his hand like he'd just burned it; I also knew he didn't put a hole in the drywall-the word to signal for that catastrophe was "shit." 

Did I ever tell you that my dad was a metal fan? Not things like iron, cobalt and praseodymium, but like Iron Maiden, Cannibal Corpses and his favorite Judas Priest; he used to mention Judas Priest all the time, though come to think of it I never did see any of their albums in his collection, just a bunch of disco and the doobie brothers (Jesus is just all right by me too).

This new word was uttered, and kind of like when you burp up a little bit of gastric juices and it leaves this burning/searing sensation down your throat, this word left my ears feeling a bit like that. I forget what the word is, but if I heard it again I think I could recognize it. The bigger issue was not this word though, it was that the word had scared the pipes so much that they began to have an accident and all over the nice new drywall. As I stood there drooling (finger was now out of my nose and almost in my mouth) my father was yelling some incoherent babble at me about finding a magic knob that would stop the water from flowing. I responding in like kind with my own incoherent and babble that sounded something like "Bbbbllakaskdjh, I askjhhjad don't lkajsldksjd know akljdsjlak where laksdlas the alskjdasdo magic wlkjoinasd unicorns woiasnasoidokl and alskdowiue this alkjsdlj fabled alksjdjlj knob alksdjlsa lay alksjda down alsdiouwnc to laskjd eat alkjasdlj cotton asoiwenf candy alksjdladj underwear alksjdasdl at alkjsdjla night alksdjlasjd!!!!" He said a few mores word that made me want to crawl into a black hole and hide ("I love you" was not one of them right then) and started yelling for my mom. 

Parents always tell you not to yell, especially if you really really really want something, but then when it comes to them the rules get thrown out the windows and they get to yell. "But it was an emergency" they say. Yeah, like me wanting a candy bar in target wasn't.

My mom, who can do all kinds of amazing things (she can walk up to random strangers and tell them not only their exact address but also what magazines they have subscriptions too) apparently knows where the unicorns eat cotton candy underpants and turned the water off; she works for the post office, and though she'll deny it, she also has access to a cold fussion bomb. "Teach you to cut mail service on Saturdays...."   BOOOMMMMM!!!!!! As millions of tiny particles go flying through space and ten billion light years from now on another planet scientists will discover us and what happened to us and the postal worker will be the new bogey man that even Chuck Norris would be scared of. I don't like the way that sentence is structured, but I can't think of another way to write it that doesn't make it longer-suggestions are not welcome. 

Once the water was off we found out that the word wasn't what made the pipe do its duty all over the wall, but rather it was having a nail driven into its bladder that released all the fluid. It's funny now.

The point is that in Twilight it's all about not just whiny teenagers falling in lust with thousand years old undead and the missing link, at the same time, oh no, it goes much deeper than that. It's about the challenges that we all have faced while trying to graduate from high school and figure out what we want to do for the rest of our lives. It's about, do I prefer un-necrophilia or bestiality? Apparently she went for the former of the two. Poor edward, and now his wife can't have kids. What ever will he do???!!!

I know! Eat some children. Long live the queen.

Mi compañera

"Where are you now, mi compañera?" I know where she is.

The best to happen to me, next to Ed McMahon letting me know I'd won a million dollars, all I needed to do was purchase 6 useless magazine subscriptions!, was/is/forever will be my wonderfully amazing and awesome wife. One of the greatest things about our relationship is that she's just as devious as I am, she just doesn't show it. This would come in very handy (and still does) because when we would go to a party or gathering of people, those who knew me better would watch me like a hawk to see what I was up to (still do actually, some people never learn to let things go). While they were busy watching me, Pam would go and do whatever mischief we had planned either before hand or once we had arrived. When they finally discovered what we had done they would know it was me, but couldn't blame me because they'd been watching me the whole time. I would do my part to make sure it seemed like I was trying to act innocent and not be. It's more fun to pretend to be something you are than something you are not.

The best of these instances was the Cookie Incident. In Lincoln, Ne (if you've never been there, watch Children of the Corn and you'll get an idea what it's like to live there, that or Zombie Strippers) I came to have the reputation of making super awesome snicker doodle cookies. There was a potluck dinner we had to make something for, and I decided I would make my special cookies. If you don't know what a potluck is, here's the general idea: it's like going to the UN for a peace accord. You show up with the best thing you can think of bringing, only to find out that everyone else brought nothing but inedible junk. In the end you eat nothing and have to go home and make yourself dinner anyway. They can still be fun, as I'll show. Snicker doodles are rolled in sugar before you cook them, and at first I thought it would be funny to roll them in salt instead, so that it would be just enough that you could taste it but not like eating that horribly misnamed strawberry play-doh, which tastes nothing like strawberries. Now if you were to mix play-doh, dog treats and strawberry flavoring together you might get something that tastes like strawberry flavored triscuts. Then I decided against it. I had mischief on my mind and would not be deterred, and so set my brain about thinking up something wicked and evil to do to these poor innocent leaches that brought things like week-old tuna salad in exchange for my awesome cookies. In a way, you could say I was Iran at this time.

As I sat in the darkness of my attic apartment, with the fires of my oven glowing behind me, my recipe laying in front of me. I could feel the demons of Bacchus, Hermes (not herpes) and Loki dancing about my apartment frolicking in the fumes of my otherworldly misl' as I videel the blank wall in front of me, a small seed of a thought was planted. At the outset I could feel it almost like a grain of sand between my toes that was there calling my attention every so gently like running your finger over the sharp blade of a knife, where the pain doesn't come until later. Slowly as it grew into conscious thought and filled the expanse of my head (which isn't much) I rolled my head back and began to let out a low and wily laugh, that started in the back of my throat, rolling over my tongue and past my teeth till the emanating sound filled my entire apartment. Outside I watched as mothers hurried their children indoors, drug dealers looking over their shoulder with an unnatural paranoia as if the boogie man himself were after them; in the distance the sound of warning sirens and the wails of the damned began to flit through the air as my laughter intermingled with them forming a tapestry where visions of their impending doom were interwoven for all to see and cry out in the agony of their souls as the futility of their position became apparent to their shrieking minds and soon blanketed the sky in blackness, overshadowing the sun and causing all within my realm to despair at my plan and plot for them. This laugh, oddly, reminded me of my high school math teacher. He would laugh like this occasionally during class. We were very well behaved when he would do this.

This wonderfully deciduous and malinki idea far surpassed any previous plans that came before in both brilliance, cunning, craftiness, deviousness and most importantly simplicity (I have yet to come up with one as brilliant or simple). I made up my cookies, making sure to pour in extra wholesome love, tenderness and care into them in the forms of spices and flavorings to make this the best batch of cookies that will have ever been made in the entire existence of the universe. I forbore my darker intentions from this initial mix of cookie dough, wanting only goodness, truth and prosperity to attend to my child that would soon bring destruction upon the unwitting taste buds of those foolish enough to trifle with my appetite.

The first batch of cookies were in fact the greatest achievement of my cooking career, and will likely never be surpassed. As I bit into one of them fresh from the cookie sheet I was transported into another realm of bliss and calm reassurances that nothing but peace and happiness would forever be my constant companions.

The time had come where the fruit was now ripe for the picking, and like death with his scythe I stood forth to hew down both those prepared as those caught unaware. It was then that I unlatched the door to the cage wherein my darkness lay, and unleashed the nightmare of a creature I had raised and tormented, locked behind bars thicker than redwood tree trunks, as nothing else would hold it back. The dark clouds of mischief and diabolical happenings began to swirl and foment from the tips of my fingers in a dazzling array of brilliant awfulness and spectacle that Barnum and Bailey have only dreamed of where emperors of the goons, freaks and geeks met to determine who would be supreme ruler of what we call earth. With the swish of my arms, the swirling of my cape and the taught stretch in my spandex evil-doer outfit my pernicious deeds were soon accomplished and I again unleashed my revelry in a torrent of wicked laughter that caused Charles Manson to weep in horror at the thought of what was coming for him and where such a thing might have come from.

When my now wife showed up at my apartment I was lazily relaxing on the couch as the rest of the batches of cookies cooked in the dark flavors of sin I had subjected them to. When she saw the cookies she got very excited (I told you they were good) and tragedy almost befell my beloved. As she reached for the blackness that lurked within the first batch of tainted cookies, I called out in panic and terror, throwing myself across the entire apartment (luckily I was still wearing my evil-doer outfit) I managed to place myself between her and certain doom (I could here death laughing his wicked laugh as he tried to double deal). The first thing she said to me was, "What on earth are you wearing?" then she wanted to know why she couldn't have a cookie (she gave me the sad puppy dog eyes and face). I then let her know of what had transpired prior to her coming over, and I directed her to the untainted batch of pure love and bliss that could forever unite the hearts and minds of all mankind if only they were allowed to be spread among all people. She ate one of these cookies in joyful rapture and wanted another, I told her we had to have enough to intermingle with the tainted to make the plan work.

She came up with her own addition to my plan. We bought some food coloring and once there we took pitchers of water and filled them, adding several drops of food coloring to make it look like punch. Have you drank what you thought was water, only to find out it's something like sprite? It's a pretty horrible experience, and that was the idea behind this part of the plan. Another friend of ours brought over some double-stuffed oreos and we proceeded to lick out the center of all of them. We were very sick by the end of this phase of our works of destruction. To make sure people were not fooled as to the intention of these now empty-double-stuffed oreos we even took bites out of a few and put teeth marks in almost all of them.

Then came time for the potluck. I quickly changed out of my evil-doer outfit and put on normal clothes (I still had the spandex on though, have you ever worn it? It's super comfy!). The tainted were mixed with the pure so that not even I could tell apart the one from the other. Once we arrived I helped to make the punch, making sure to keep my distance from the cookies, so as not to draw any attention to them.

The 'punch' was quickly discovered and replaced with real punch and regular water. The oreos were surprisingly a smash hit, even with no sugary center and bites taken out of them. I was more than a bit surprised at this.

During dinner I quietly sat and watched, waiting to see who would fall victim first to my malignant test of trust in fellow human beings. After about twenty minutes my patience was rewarded. I watched as at one table one of the occupants lauded the wonderful cookie they were eating. Having been told of the wonderful euphoric qualities the cookies offered, I watched as another at the table eagerly bit into their cookie. The look of utter horror, disgust and shock was priceless and can bring a smile to my face still, even in the darkest of times. The quietly and as nonchalantly as possible spit the bite of cookie out in their napkin. When asked, they quietly agreed with the other person that the cookie was marvelous (you could see them wondering what the other person was smoking). I watched this scenarios play itself out at almost every table, sometimes with someone going back for a second helping only to find that the first cookie was more of a dream than reality. Most people thought that some poor girl, being her first time away from mommy and daddy (it was with a group of college students) had inadvertently mistaken the sugar for salt, thus making these cookies that were not fit for the most vile, bottom of the barrel scum that ever crawled the face of the earth. I reveled in the anonymity provided by the potluck and would have escaped unknown to have defiled future potlucks without the knowledge of others if it hadn't been for the unfortunate encounter of a friend that was pouting because not only did he not get real punch, or real double-stuffed oreos, but he was also deprived from what he thought would be the crowning jewel of his dinner, the snicker doodle. As he pouted I couldn't hold it back anymore and began to laugh my same laugh. He used to be in the army, so this didn't phase him, instead indignation welled up in his chest and I was forced to flee the scene like the scoundrel that I am.

No one ever blamed Pam, nor our friend Jeff, for the oreos or punch, but they all remembered that I had tainted their cookies (after the first batch I conveniently added an extra cup of salt to the cookie dough).

To this day, I am blamed for all the ungood that comes from our mischievous escapades while those doing the finger pointing say that I have tainted Pam, if they think she has anything to do with it at all. It is a most convenient arrangement.

On another note, I'm awesome, but Pam's more awesomer and with our powers combined we are CAPTAIN PANERA!!!

What kind of fish are you?

I fill a sea ship theme going for the next few posts (by few posts I mean this one and the previous one).

For those who don't know, or don't care to remember, I'm a graduate student. It's not as exciting as some people seem to think it is. True, when all is said and done I will be a doctor, though not the kind of doctor you'll want around in case you need life saving support/skills. True, I was a boy scout (technically still am, but I don't tell many people that) so I know that if you get stung by a jelly fish I get to pee on you. That's the one thing boy scouts are really good at, peeing on things. That and blowing things up. Did you know you can make a can of campbells wholesome-goodness-soup into a full fledge campbells can of fiery-flying-death in less than five minutes? (I'm assuming someone, not a boy scout, already has a fire going) Batteries also don't mix well with fire and sometimes can be heard from over a mile away when they explode. Firecrackers and a slingshot seem like a good idea, but they're not. I think we can all safely say that the boy scouts are the second most reckless group of people on the planet. The first most being the US government (especially the military advisers) in all its glory. But yes, I will be a doctor, and I'll only have had to go to 14 years of college (not an exaggeration in my case-I was kind of stupid in some regards so it took me longer), plus once I'm done it'll be about another 3-5 years before I can apply for a position at a university. What's that you say, I'll be 40 and finally staring my profession of choice. That is true, which is why I have to be super-spectacularly-awesome by the time I get to that point. I still won't be awesome enough to save you if you're dieing, unless peeing on you or blowing up a can of soup will do the trick.

Beware the dread sea lice.

That'll scare your kids straight.

Child: "I don't want to take a bath!!!"

Parent: "Don't make me give the dreaded sea lice a call, I hear there's a lag in the work available near Somalia right now..."

Child: "Noooooo!!! I'll take a bath, see I'm even taking off my clothes right here in the street, so all you have to do is carry me inside kicking and screaming for all the neighbors to see, and I'll happily take a bath."

Too bad children learn you're lying to them before they're teenagers, you could definitely have some fun (at their expense). Captain Crunch is made from cardboard and tire irons, that's why it hurts to eat.

Yesterday I had a test in a class that is crucial for my research. It didn't go very well. I was given a blank copy of the test after and told to take it honestly at home. It took me five hours to finish. The really sad part is that someone finished, and did well, in 50 minutes. I told you graduate school was overrated.

I'm sad though, I appear to be losing my overseas friends somewhat by pointing them out. I think that's a sign I should stop. I've never been terribly great at picking up on signs. For example, did you know that getting hit by a car going about 30-40mph really isn't that bad?

A number of years ago at my undergraduate university, between classes I decided to go visit a friend who lived not far away. At the end of my visit I realized I was going to be late for my class, and so I took off. The traffic light where I would have to cross had changed red for me to cross before I was there. I probably could have just waited for it to change again and been fine, but in my mind I needed to get across the busy four lane street as fast as possible. I decided to wait until traffic stopped back where I was and then I would just run across the road. It was a brilliant idea and would have worked perfectly if it hadn't been for the left-turn lane in the center.

As I ran out between the two lanes of stopped cars I looked and barreling toward was a white chrysler le baron, okay I don't know what kind of car it was, other than it was a car with death on its mind. Two things went through my mind: 1) @#$(@#!!! 2) Jump. I did the second, instead of the first. I was thrown about 15 feet through the air, and almost made it to the crosswalk. The driver of the car was probably worried he was going to get sued for hitting a pedestrian, and got out frantically asking me if I was okay. In all of my brilliance I replied, "Sure, are you?" I was also trying to find my sandals that had been knocked off in the process of being hit and thrown through the air. I was not worried about possibly having a broken hip/leg (that's where the car actually made contact) which really hurt at this point, but rather I was trying to get out of there as fast as I could because I didn't want to get a jaywalking ticket. I've never claimed to be all that smart. Once I found my sandals I hobbled my way out of there as fast as I could.

I can't hobble very fast, especially in sandals where one is broken. Walking normally in broken sandals is a hard chore in and of itself. Doing it with an extremely sore leg is even harder. I was late for class, and it was more than a little hard to hide my limp.

Needless to say I never visited that friend again while he lived at that same place. Late we became roommates and would have wrestling matches in out living room. After the first wrestling match we learned to remove the furniture first.

If I were a fish I would be a land shark (not loan, but land).

The chef always goes down with the ship

All right Spain!!! I'm a fan of Spain. I've never been there, but I would like to go, I would even consider living there but Pam isn't sure they don't eat horses, and she doesn't want her babies to be eaten. I, on the other hand, am a fan of Cronus and his wonderful paternal instincts.

No fancy computer graphics (notice how he's awesomely naked and genderless). I do enough with computers all day, I need some good 'ol fashioned organic drawing. I'm not really sure graphite can be classified as organic though... hmmm. People eat weird things. I'm not talking about the glue, paper, rubber, gasoline, lead paint, cat litter, or any other of the many assorted goodies kids will eat for one reason or another-can you blame them, they have you for a role model? I'm talking about grown adult people that are supposed to know better. One thing that always strikes me as funny is people complaining that their food has been pesticized, furtilimized or, heaven forbid, originating in a lab. This is what they would like you to think that "organic" food (no pesticide, fertilizer or other man made thingums have 'tainted' it) looks like:

and what they would like you to think that an apple that has been fertilized, pesticized and other wise manipulated by man looks like:

If you were the hamburgler would you break into a house that had up razor wire and guard dogs, or the house that's unprotected? Me too. Hooray for all natural products!!! Besides, why do you think we're living so much longer? Preservatives! They're in everything including your toothpaste and designer underwear. This is also part of the reason they've had to invent cialis and viagra. Lesson: don't swallow the toothpaste; and you thought it was just an old wives tale. 

The first man to invent toothpaste used a mixture of mud, sand and cow dung. Needless to say he was drawn and quartered shortly after his product hit the medieval market. The prince was a bit upset over having cowdung-mud-sand breath when he went to kiss the princess (his cousin, with whom he was madly in love) instead of normal rotting dead flesh, death and all things doom breath he had been known for. Speaking of all things dead and rotting, did you know radiohead put out a new album? Even better, Oasis is still around (and recording music) and criticizing radiohead for not being original. I'm sad we left England to start our own boy-band-land. Imagine Alice Cooper with a british accent, or Ted Nugent swinging on a vine in a loin clothe (note the old-english spelling) while sipping a cup of tea. Even better, Neil Diamond with an english accent, or even speaking proper english. If I could be uprooted from the here and now and planted into that world it would be a laugh a minute, and the best part would be that no one would know what I was laughing at or why. Jokes seem to be more funny when other people look at you like you're crazy. Kind of like this one: Sabes por que la parte final de pan se llama la suegra? Porque nadie la quiere. Absolutely hilarious!! Unless of course you're a mother-in-law (and speak spanish). I learned another joke in russian that I still don't really understand (at all) but it seems to make russians laugh all the time. Anything that can make a russian laugh must be pretty good right? 

Back to Spain. They invented the toilet. That has to be worth something. 

Did you know there are over 642 different kinds of people living in your basement, and they all want to do bad things to you. We have a scary basement, and I figure that if it's true for us it must be true for everyone. I lost all my steam. I'm quitting, but will be back later. The People Under the Stairs looked like it was going to be an awesomely scary movie and the first part of it was pretty intense and suspenseful. Then you meet the people under the stairs and I was laughing pretty good. I love it when people try to make political statements and they know it's not going to go all that well, so they go all out and it's that much better. Here's to the people under the stairs. 

The next time you're bored you can call up a veterinary clinic and act concerned, but not panicked, and make up a story about your favorite pet and how something might be wrong but you're not really sure. Make sure that it's something completely ridiculous too. For example, this was my favorite I've done so far:

(Thick Utah Hick accent)

"Hey, uhm yea, my uh dog, he well, we were playin' fetch an' I was throwin' this ball fur 'im an', well it was like a golf ball size ball but not a golf ball, you know what I mean? Well, we was havin' all kinds uh fun an' then I throw it fur 'im and he come runnin' back an' I went tuh get the ball from 'is mouth an' it wasn' there or nuthin', and then he just like collapsed on me. Like, I'm not sure if he's gonna be okay or not, but at the sametime, I'm not really sure if I uh need to be, ya know, worried or somethin' about 'im." 

Make sure you're not panicked, act like it's normal and probably is nothing, but you're calling just to cover your bases. The sad/funny part is that they will believe you. Not because that's their job, but rather because they actually get calls like that. Try it, and make sure to pick something outlandish and odd and see what happens. The down side to this is the children's story of the boy who cried wolf. Don't get eaten. 

I've been working on this post sporadically over the last week or so. 

A good friend of mine is considering moving to Dragonville, England. Yes, Dragonville!!!! Nearby, he will have access to the mystical Ramside Golf Club, where he can slay evil fire-breathing dragons at his leisure while he plays a round of 18 holes. That would be a golf game I would want to watch. 

"He's four under par and if he can sink this putt that will put him right where he needs to be to take the cup...AND WHOA!!! Someone must have clapped a little too loudly because here comes the dragon from hole 13 and does she ever look pissed!! He's managed to mark the spot where his ball was and put his putter back in the protective custody of his caddy, while retrieving his double sided ax of doom, which he has lovingly nick named little Peety."

"Well, Harve, this looks to be a very eventful hole for him for more reasons than one. The main challenge he faces right now is getting his shirt off without being burnt to a crisp."

"You're right, Merv, this is what our lady audience lives for, seeing those wieldy golfers showing off their rippling pectoral muscles while they strike out for justice and slay the doom bringers."

From there it would turn into every other epically awesome man dragon battle complete with close and not-so-close brushes with death for both man and dragon. Forget an angry wife smashing out the back window of your car, you've got a dragon coming after you!!! It would be awesome to live there. 

I just scrolled back up to see what I was writing about before and I saw a picture of a rotten apple and the word naked in caps (it turned out to be a note to myself about the drawing of Cronus which I took out, but this comment is still relevant), realized it really didn't matter and have decided to end this post. 

Until next time, "If I can't out smart you, I will at least out dress you." -JJL