Quick reminder

In today's modern economic times, a lot of core values can easily get left in gutter.  That is why I am taking a few moments today to remind everyone about what is really important.  At least you don't have to lick your own eyeballs in order to keep them moist.

Sorry guys

It just ain't happening tonight.  It's like they say, some nights you eat the bar, and some nights the bar eats you.  Or something like that.

The one where I break a lot of unspoken rules I may have made up myself.

I'm positive I'm going to get in trouble for this.  I don't care about that though, what I care about is getting the truth out there.

I know what you're thinking, you're in your late 20's and you can finally grow a mustache.  Congratulations, that's no small feat.  Every year, dozens of people walk around in shame with a naked lip.  They can't help it, their either genetically incapable of growing one, or they're not in their late 20's.  All those high school kids you see walking around with a mustache?  Fake.  The lip toupee industry is the second largest toupee industry behind wrist wigs.  Of course, all of this is common knowledge.

What I'm about to tell you now is going to get me killed.  Not "maybe" get me killed, absolutely, positively will get me killed.  Fortunately, these mustache types really take their time.  They might not get to me until I'm in my mid to late 150's.  What nobody wants you to know about when growing a mustache is that after a certain point, those mustache hairs curl back inside your mouth.  Think about that.  And while you're thinking about that, now would be a good time to look at this:

See how that picture ties in to what I was saying?  Aren't you glad you listened to me and looked at the picture?  Out of context it might not have made sense.  I didn't want that to happen, so I purposefully drew attention to it at the appropriate time.

As the picture demonstrates in amazingly accurate detail, most of the mustache hair curling inside the mouth occurs at the corners.  It's actually more annoying than you'd think.  I feel like it's my job to dispense this information to the future mustache growers of America/Finland (those are the two countries I feel would most benefit from this knowledge.).  Be prepared for this guys (and girls, I don't want to discriminate here).

Ok, now I have to go wait for my death.  See you in 120+ years Mustache Mafia!

The one where I offend mean spirited smokers and don't care about it.

The most honest thing I can say to you as a fellow human being is that I'm a bit if a fast walker. I also hate cigarette smoke. These two happened to be related. See, whenever I walk anywhere, my main goal is to avoid inhaling someone else's second hand smoke. In general, it's pretty easy to out pace these wheezy, inconsiderate smokers. But every once in awhile, I run into this guy:







As you can tell by the wind whipping past his feet, this guy is fast. He's never fast enough to speed away from me, just quick enough to stay one or two steps in front of me. This guy makes my life a living hell. I'm constantly in his wake of smoke. I can't slow down because then I'd be back with the pack of regular speed smokers and I can never seem to outrun him. I lead a very tortured life.

The worst part is that these guys seem to show up by the thousands when the weather is any kind of decent. Back in California, I never had to deal with this because we have a law that allows us to throat punch anyone walking too fast while smoking. Anyone smoking really. California is good like that.

Just look at this guy. He's obviously the type that says he only smokes when he drinks, so he's constantly walking around with a martini like he's James Bond or something. The only thing this guy excels at is being a poo face. Yeah, I said poo face and I mean that in the most offensive way possible. I'll be lobbying for an Illinois throat punching smokers bill this year, so please send in your donations. I'm going to need a lot of money to get past the Anti Smokers Suffering Hand Onslaughts Located at the Esophagus Society. They have a lot of pull around here and nearly unlimited funds from several lung cancer law suits. I won't give up though.

-- Posted From My Smoke Free iPhone.

The one about nachos

I'm not telling you how to live your life, I'm just giving you pointers on how to make it much more enjoyable and less like an episode of "The Good Wife."  Ok, I haven't actually watched that show, but I assume it's based on a normal, everyday person's life that happens to be pretty boring.

I'm willing to bet a substantial amount of monopoly money that most of you out there get hungry.  I'm willing to bet an even more substantial amount of fake One Million Dollar bills that when you get hungry, you're not really interested in waiting 7-10 days to design, shop for and prepare a 16 course gourmet meal that will surely cure that hunger of yours.

That's where nachos come in.  You take some chips and some cheese and you make your life a whole lot less hungry.  That's all well and good, but let's take a look at what you're using to make these nachos:

Really guys?  That's the choice you make?  I won't pretend like I'm not disappointed, but that's why I'm here.  Let's clean this mess up, ok?

The key to great nachos is superior ingredients*.  First, ditch the generic bag of terrible chips.  I know they look good in the store, but every time you bring them home, they never meet expectations.  We're going to replace those with some Original Flavor Sunchips. You're mouth will thank me later.  Second, please stop buying that Kraft Mystery Cheese™.  It tastes like plastic (because I'm sure that's what it's made of) and I'm reasonably certain that it causes premature hiccups. Let us be very clear on this point, if you're going to hiccup, you want to make sure it's nice and mature when you do.  Also, I hate Kraft.  Instead, pick your favorite cheese and buy several blocks of it from various manufacturers.  Grate up some cheese and find out which brand you like best.  For me, it's Tillimook.  I'll eat whatever they're making and I will like it.  You may have noticed that I said to buy a block of cheese.  Then I said to grate it.  This is an essential step.  Freshly grated cheese is required in order to make your life better.  If you're not grating your own cheese, at least have the decency to pay a small child to do it for you.  You won't regret it.

All you have to do now is sprinkle some cheese on the chips, microwave for about 25 seconds and start feeling superior to everyone around you.  The End and You're Welcome!

*If you're having trouble remembering what kind of ingredients to use, try this helpful little mnemonic:  Simply Using Plain Elderly Rubbish Is Only Rude. Instead Never Go Running Errands Donning Inside Evening Nightgowns Too Soon.

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.