Another Cold Hard Truth brought to you by the Shuck 'N Jive

We have a growing problem in this country.  Belly Itchers.  Nobody wants them.  We seem to prefer pitchers over Belly Itchers almost universally.  From little league all the way up to the major leagues, it seems as if Belly Itchers have no place in this world.

BI's have been around for centuries.  Not a lot of people know this, but prior to 1845, Belly Itchers were a well respected people with a rich history and a lot to offer the various towns and cities that they occupied.  Of course, we all remember what happened in 1845.  The amount of negative Belly Itcher propaganda at that time would be considered excessive even in today's world of 24 hour news cycles and the internet.  Just look at this old anti-Belly Itcher flyer I found in the Shuck 'N Jive Archives:

It boggles the mind how these kinds of hate crimes start, but it's never to late to end the mistreatment of a group of people and prove that the human race is really decent and kind and should not, I repeat NOT, be wiped out by Alien with superior technology/morals.  I'm challenging all of you to be a better person and befriend a Belly Itcher today.  I think you'll find that they aren't as disgusting as you've been led to believe.  Once you've done that, go ahead and print out the picture below, use a safety pin to attach it to your shirt like you're a 2nd grader bringing home a note to your parents and take a photo of yourself wearing said picture in front of a well populated area so that I can see you spreading the word.  Post that picture online somewhere and leave a link in the comments.  I'll chose the best one and give the winner a prize*.  Please don't photoshop the picture unless you're really good at photoshop.  I don't want to look at any poorly photoshopped pictures.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's topic: Broken Ladders and their unacceptable use as a replacement for a batter.


*There's a well above average chance that the prize will consist of a series of "attaboys," virtual high fives and a picture of me giving you the thumbs up, but you never know, if enough people bend to my will, I may actually send you something.

Vices (oddly enough, that's not even what this post is about. I really should have called it Addictions.)

Everyone has vices.  I have surprisingly few.  Actually, I have annoyingly few.  I think that's why people punch me in the kidneys when I walk by.  Something about the way I walk.  Whatever.

While I may have few vices, I have a ton of addictions.  Let me list them for you in no particular order: Air, Basketball, Baseball, Football, Tennis, Guitar Hero, not dying, not watching commercials about foot disease, washing my hands, sunflower seeds, good music, love, pens, triangular shaped paper clips, iPhones, cherry swirl coffee cake, television, monetary compensation, learning about nose blowing etiquette, the number 9, puzzles about left handed scissors, custom made earphones and compressed natural sunshine.  That's the short list anyway.

These addictions have had a profound effect on my life, but none more than my addiction to sunflower seeds.  Let me show you a picture I took of my sunflower seed room the other day (yes, I have a room dedicated just to sunflower seeds.  I imagine it's similar to the rooms alligator addicts* have.).

As you can see, I have two giant piles of sunflower seeds.  My love of sunflower seeds is so great that I feel the need to swim around in them Scrooge McDuck style.  The fact that I am unable to resist the urge to swim around in my giant pile of sunflower seeds necessitates a second pile just for eating.  Swimming around in my sunflower seeds means that some of them will touch my feet and that's just gross.  I have a rule about how once something touches my foot, or anyone's foot for that matter, it is no longer eligible to enter my mouth.  If you don't have a problem with that sort of thing though, go ahead and help yourself to the swimming pile.

I know what your thinking.  The answer is 3.  I bring in 3 truckloads of sunflower seeds a week.

*Word to the wise, you do not want to be at an AAA meeting when someone relapses.

Another bad idea brought to you by the Shuck 'N Jive

Some of you may know that awhile back, I took some improv classes.  I cannot recommend this enough to anyone and everyone.  You don't have to want to be a professional improver (in fact, I recommend against that as it doesn't pay jack squat), you just have to have an open mind.  I think the benefits of improv in your everyday life would make it worth your while.  You will spend several hours a week with other people that will create a safe, nurturing environment for you.  You will learn to treat everyone as though they were a genius and in return, everyone will treat you like a genius and you'll feel a sense of support I've never found anywhere else.  You'll also get to make a lot of dick and fart jokes, that's worth the $200-$300 price tag alone!

Ok, now that I'm sure all of my readers have signed up for an intro improv class, I'll move on to tell you about one of my favorite improv books.  It's called Improvise: Scene From the Inside Out by Mick Napier.  There's a lot of improv books out there and they say a lot of different things.  Nobody is right and nobody is wrong.  People are different and some books help certain people more than others.  I happen to do well with this one.  One of the things I like about this book is the exercises it gives you to help you train your mind.  One of my personal favorites is the Dada Monologue.  The basic idea behind it is to not make any sense.  This helps you work on free association.  To get started, just look at something and start talking about it, but don't try to make any sense.  In fact, the second you feel yourself starting to make sense, turn it around and crazy it up a bit.  I find this helps me when I'm in a writing rut.  I almost never do it, but when I do, boy does it work wonders!  Here's an example:

Pine tar is often used in the elaborate recreation of tombstones for monkey lemons.  The best way to fight cats is to use broad words and mannerisms most often tickled by the idea of a sandwich making a hot dog eat frugal mints.  Often lost is the hasty retreat of the television gone shopping at the colloquial benchmark brought to the staple of a timely diet.  Champion telestrators are one of the many philosophical differences between keyboards and typists.  Among all glass fixtures surprised by the lack of intermittent markers is the jump rope of my best friends lost dynamo.  Paper clips seem like harmless hamsters compared to the finite amount of cheddar ice cream in the world of Walt Disney.

Ok, I screwed up.  I feel like the sentence, "Champion telestrators are one of the many philosophical differences between keyboards and typists." actually makes sense.  And if it doesn't, I don't want to hear about it, I just want to draw a picture of what I think that means.

I'm pretty sure that picture will crystallize it for you, but for those of you that don't quite get it, let me explain by saying that keyboards, by there very nature, are logical.  Typists on the other hand, are an extremely sad people.  You'll notice that the typist in the picture above doesn't even have a flat panel monitor.  In this day and age, it's demeaning to be forced to use a CRT monitor.  You can't even give those things away.

I'm glad I could clear that up for you.  I'm going to go play Guitar Hero 5 now.

The Stanky Leg

I have recently been alerted to a threat I believe everyone should know about.  It's called Stanky Leg.  I don't have any idea what it really is, but I do know that there is a song about it that I've never heard.  I have no choice but to make something up and accept it as truth.

Stanky Leg, or the get-away-from-me-your-leg-smells disease as it's known on the street, is an illness affecting more than 17 billion people today.  You may not have it yourself, but chances are everyone you know and/or are related to is infected.  There is no known cure, but there is an intern with a C+ average that has been assigned the task of creating a chart to track the average lifespan of those currently engulfed by this disease.  He's at lunch right now, but I'm sure as soon as he gets back, he'll be all over it.  Until then, we'll just have to wait and hope for the best.

Symptoms of Stanky Leg include foul odors emanating from the leg area, crazy bad arthritis in the shoulder, left handedness, ankle bearding, Chinese checkers infatuation and purple burps.  It can affect either leg, but not both at the same time.  It has a one leg Stank rule.  You may notice your friends walking away from you and pointing at your leg as they cover their mouths with any available gas masks or bandit style handkerchiefs they may be wearing around their neck.  It is most commonly transfered through diaper sharing, but you may also catch it from shaking hands or open mouth talking.

Please distribute the flyer below to help spread awareness.  It's up to us as a community to stomp out this vicious disease.  I'm counting on you.

The Unavoidable Truth

So last night I was with my fiance heading out for dinner when we saw a group of people in costumes walking down the street.  I wish I could say that it was to be expected due to the Halloween holiday, but sadly, it was to be expected because that's what people in downtown Chicago do.  Every day I go to work, I see people dressed up as "business men/women" and "students" and "homeless people."  It's fun for the first few months, but after awhile, you think to yourself, give it up!  Especially all those homeless people.  They lay it on thick.  Always asking for change for food/bus fair/clothes/investing.  I get it guys.  Nice costume, but leave me alone, I have to go tend to a blind lady.

Last night was different though, there was a lot more variety.  I will attribute that to Halloween.  Most of it was pretty standard fare, girls dressed as nuns/various-other-uptight-prudish-women, guys dressed up as women dressed as women who don't know how to dress like women because they're really men.  The usual.  But then there was Death.  Normally Death is a standard outfit, but this guy took it a step further.  He was on stilts.  This made him approximately 10 feet tall.  Awesome.  Or so I thought.

Sure, a 10 foot tall Death costume is great, but really, where are you going with this thing?  Outside works out well, but as soon as you get to your destination, you're screwed.  The best part of the costume is towering over everyone.  As soon as you lose that, you're just another guy in a Death costume, only you're tripping over your pants because they're way too long.  Then there's the stilts.  What are you going to do with these?  You can't just leave them in the corner, they'll get stolen.  I know that because I was looking into stilts a few years ago as an alternate means of transportation (I figured if I got long enough stilts, I could cut my work commute down to three steps*.  Who wouldn't want their commute to work to be three steps?!?!?) but I stopped looking when I saw the cost of insurance would be five times more than owning a private moonship used only for recreation and the occasional escape from interplanetary apocalyptic collapses.  The theft rate is nearly 95%.  It's almost impossible to hold onto stilts.  They're difficult to store and a giant pain in the butt to carry around.  You ever see anyone carrying around their stilts while not using them?  Exactly.

* I saw this ad in the paper a few years ago.  Looking back on it now, I don't know why the poor craftsmanship of the ad didn't tip me off to the "too good to be true-ness" of it.

32nd Anniversary

For thousands of years I have struggled with the same question. How can I tell people that it's my birthday without actually using audible words or sock puppet miming?

The fact that I haven't answered this question in thousands of years is a little on the pathetic side, but maybe that's all in my head since I'm only 32 years old. That's what all the legal documents say anyway.

As of today, this is no longer an issue. My oldest sister, the one with the PhD, has given me the solution to end my misery. Enjoy!





I'll be sporting this fine new fashion accessory every Halloween. It is ok to be jealous.

-- Posted From My birthday iPhone. Birthday checks welcome!

Dinner

I made a sandwich for dinner tonight. It was simple in its construction. Bread, black forest ham, Cajun turkey, mustard, mayo and pepper jack cheese. It was toasted and delicious. As you can see below, I did have to take one unusual step in order to complete this mouthful of happy sunshine.



First of all, yes, I do have amazing arm strength. Second, no, this was not dangerous. The photograph clearly shows that I am holding my iPhone. It has a built in accelerometer. There's no conceivable way my iPhone allows me to make a mistake without alerting me with a vibration, text message or custom ring tone. Third, false, the cheese is not on the ground, that is gross. In reality, I am about to slice down with such force that I am actually hovering above the ground at countertop height.

It is for that third reason that I cannot advocate using a knife of this size to cut cheese. Is it cool? Obviously. Is it easy? Not at all. Turns out, cheese posseses an unusually high friction coefficient. It's almost impossible to slice even the smallest block of cheese without summoning the strenght of seven men. Fortunately I took a summer course at the local junior college in order to master that very skill. I'm just not sure everyone will have the same forethought as I did to register for that class. It's an elective, but it fills up fast.

If you've got a normal sized knife though, I highly recommend this sandwich for your next lunch or dinner meal.

-- Posted From My iPhone using the strength of only four men. I save the seven man variety for special occasions and crime fighting.