How my wish to be the characters on Heroes would backfire on me if it came true

7:30 am: I'm the Japanese guy who can bend the space/time continuum

My alarm goes off, and I could use a couple more hours of sleep. I tense my face up and freeze time. I fall back asleep, lose concentration and it's back to real time.

Plan B: I teleport myself back three ours back into my own bed. The problem is, I'm laying on bed next to myself from three hours ago and I/he is snoring like crazy. I nudge him/me and the snoring stops long enough for me to fall asleep. I wake up on my own accord, but myself from three hours ago had rolled over while I was asleep and was spooning me.

Completely creeped out, I take a shower and get ready for work.


7:50 am: I'm the cop that can hear people's thoughts.

I'm in line at QuikTrip, waiting to pay for my breakfast sandwich. There are lines to each of the three registers. A guy in one line is trying to remember how much change he has in his pockets to pay for his twenty dollars worth of stuff. A woman in another line is repeating her lotto numbers to herself to have the clerk key them in by hand. The third line is full of people with completely blank minds, typical for this early in the morning, so I get in line with them.

While in line, I hear a woman thinking "Hey, that guy in the suede jacket (that's me!) has a cute butt." I look over my shoulder to the attractive redhead behind me and flash a smile. Her thought: "What the hell are you looking at?" Then I catch a glimpse of the sixty year old woman with the thinning hair standing behind the redhead, and she's thinking "Mmmmm...yummy..."

Again, completely creeped out, I leave and go to work.


10:30 am: I'm the cheerleader with the healing powers.

I'm walking through that hallway at work where everybody keeps stacking all their extra crap. I trip over a box and hit my head hard on the concrete floor. I can't feel anything below my neck. I start to panic. My God, I'm paralyzed. I've told these people time and time again that someone's gonna get hurt with all this shit stacked up everywhere. Well, maybe a big fat lawsuit will teach them a lesson.

Just then, my head feels a lot better, and I can move again. Shit. I could've used that money.


12:05 pm: I'm the guy who can fly.

I head out the door to go to lunch, and remember that my car is low on gas. Oh, well, I'll just take to the skies then.

Able to fly at sonic speeds means that great sandwich place downtown is about three seconds away. When I get there, the line is out the door. Too bad I wasted my time/space continuum powers this morning. I wait in line for almost an hour. Not a real problem, I can eat on the way back to the office.

Unfortunately, a French Dip is really difficult to eat at Mach 1. I had to stop at home to change shirts and was late getting back to work.


2:00 pm: I'm the artist who can see the future.

Sitting at my desk, I start absent-mindedly doodling a picture of one of our more troublesome clients boring me close to death in a meeting. When I snap out of my daydream. I look at my drawing and and decide to go get a soda from the break room. Somthing tells me I need to stay there for a while.

After about fifteen minutes, I head back to my desk. I hear my boss calling for me to come into the conference room, where that client is ready to talk my ear off for the next hour and a half.


4:00 pm: I'm that spooky chick that has some sort of split personality/She-Hulk thing going on.

I get ou of my meeting and get back to my work. It is now that I find out that there are some major problems with that big project I thought I was finished with yesterday...the one that's due tomorrow!

My boss finds out as soon as I do, and he proceeds to rip me a new asshole. I kinda black out for a while, but when I wake up, my work's all done, the project is back on track, my desk is clean, my boss is nowhere to be found and there's a small blood stain on the wall.

I shrug it off, clock out and head home.


7:00 pm: I'm the guy that can absorb other people's powers.

I can't decide whether to cook dinner at home or go out to eat. I figure I'll just drive around for a while to try and make up my mind, and I wind up at my favorite restaurant. Even though I'm already at the restaurant, I can't make up my mind if I want to stay. I mean, I'm craving those fajitas they make here, and I've got stuff to make them at home, but I can't make them as good as they do here.

Then, it hits me: I can just stand next to the kitchen and "absorb" the cook's ability to make the fajitas just how I like them. All it takes is just standing near the people with real powers, right?

After about ten minutes of standing around the kitchen door, I feel confident that I've got all I need. I head home to my kitchen and go into some sort of a trance...like I'm standing outside of my own body watching me cook this meal.

However, I get less and less hungry as I watch myself use the bathroom without washing my hands and spitting in my own food before I snap out of the trance.

I puke and decide to go to bed early.

The angry ballerina

I showed up a little early to work at the bar last night. When I go tthere, it occurred to me that most of the people coming to the bar would be in their halloween costumes. I had a enough time to run back home and break out the inflatable fat ballerina costume I had from last year. There were several concerns I had with wearing the costume:

1. Having a huge ballerina with a goatee taking money at the door might hurt business rather than help it.

2. Sitting is a real problem in that costume, so I faced the prospect of spending all night standing.

3. No pockets. All the door money would have to be in my hand the whole time.

4. I pretty much lose all street cred as a bouncer when I'm dressed like that.

5. It was daylight savings last night, so I had to work for an extra hour.

Well, it turns out it helped business. People came to play with the ballerina's tits and stayed for the band. Although, this is one of those moments that I wish I wasn't such a nice guy because I soooo could've asked so many of the women that were feeling me up to let me return the favor...a tit-for-tat, if you will.

It wasn't so bad having to stand for most of the night. Once Larkin started playing, I actually started a little Irish jig in the costume that made everybody laugh, including the guys in the band. I kept a close eye on the money the whole night. Being able to stick my arms inside the costume allowed access to my jeans pockets.

When it came to doing my job, I didn't let the fact that I looked rediculous get in the way of doing my job. I yelled at a couple bums for begging from our customers, I had a couple assholes come close to crossing the line, but I kept order. About the worst interaction I had all night came around midnight.

This one girl came to the door. I asked for her ID, and she fiddled around for a couple minutes and gave me her license. She was nineteen...not even bothering to hide it. I told her she couldn't come in, which prompted a pouty "Why not?"

I replied, "Gee, I dunno, maybe it has something to do with this sign next to me saying "No one under the age of 21 allowed on the premises.""

"Well, you let me in last time I came down here!"

"Not on my watch, you didn't. Unless you used a fake ID last time."

"I'm pretty sure I did."

There were so many stupefying levels to that statement that I couldn't find the words to point out just how much of a moron she was. She then went into this whole diatribe of how she was meeting her boyfriend who was already inside, and that she would NOT be drinking, and how she doesn't understand why I was being such a hardass about not letting her in.

I asked her, "Does this boyfriend of yours have a phone with him?"

"Yeah, but I don't have my phone with me. Can't I just go in for five minutes and let him know what's happening?"

At this point, there were ten people behind her waiting to come in. I know I shouldn't have done it, but I caved. I told her, "Look, I'll give you two minutes. After that, I will come in there looking for you."

"Great, thanks!"

After that, I got swamped at the door and didn't get a chance to go after her after the agreed upon two minutes were up. As soon as I got someone to cover for me at the door, which was about twenty minutes later, I found her sitting in the back room, chatting it up with her friends. As soon as she saw me, she pretended not to notice me.

I got right in her face and said, "Let's go...NOW!"

At this point, her boyfriend came and went right into ass-covering mode. "Hey, man. Everything's cool. Look, she's not even drinking."

I put on my mean face. "Doesn't matter. She's not supposed to even be in here. I did her a favor to let her come in here and tell you she wasn't staying, and now, she's leaving. This is not negotiable. Let's go."

The boyfriend tried to keep this argument going all the way out the front door. Once I got them outside, I heard the girl say as she was walking away, "I'm never coming back to this place."

I yelled at her as she was walking way, "Not until you're 21, you're not!"

So, that settles it. No more favors at the door, ever. No more Mr. Nice Guy.


I gotta say, the costume was a bigger hit than it was last year. Toards the end of the night, a friend came up to me and leaned against my costume and told me that she was tired. I told her that it probably didn't help that my costume was essentially a giant pillow. She rested her head for a moment on my inflted shoulder and rested her eyes. At that moment, I got to thinking about my job as a bouncer, and how you wouldn't see this in the deleted scenes from the movie Road House.

Mixed signals

I've been a bit of a wanker when it comes to the blog this week. I've been busy at work and at home.

At work, I had a huge project come my way with a tight turnaround time. In my office, you know a job is rush when we clock it's due date in hours instead of days. The good thing is all the information was supplied to me. All I had to do was put it all together, which only took a few hours. Binding the book together was an all-hands-on-deck situation, so I literally saw this job from concept to completion. I got pulled away at the last minute because there was a schedule change in the program. We didn't have time to reprint, so we had to put together an insert.

The day before, the client had asked me what they need to do to make the job easier next year. I told them flat out that they just needed to finalize all of the information a week sooner. Not that I mind the overtime...

Friday was an interesting day. I lost my cool with one of my bosses and he threatened to fire me as a result. He's the kind of guy that likes to push people's buttons because he thinks it motivates them. Well, he was pushing all of my buttons like he was playing the Track & Field Arcade Game; explaining to me what I need to do three time, each time more condescending than the next. He needed proofs right away, and all of them were outputting on the color printer as he was scolding me. I finally just snapped and yelled at him, "THEY'RE OUTPUTTING RIGHT NOW! I'LL HAVE THEM DONE IN TEN MINUTES!"

The rest of the day was spent only speaking to the man when I had to, and even then, I said no more than I had to. The ironic thing is my other boss told me he was giving me a raise to offset the rise in medical insurance costs. I almost got fired and got a raise in the same day, for completely different reasons.

In my five years at this job, I've been threatened to be fired three times including Friday. The first time was shortly after our film stripper, a man who had saved my ass several times and was a intregal part of our pre-press operations, had unexpectedly died. The second time was soon after my boss found out his teeneage daughter was pregnant. I began to wonder about Friday's episode because my boss was leaving early to attend a funeral. So, I guess you could say that the fragility of my job security is a matter of life or death.


Thursday night, Candy and her boyfriend came to town for a visit and they stayed over at my place...and slept on her/my couch. She kept worrying about Chuckles to the point that I'm starting to get worried. I'm now overly aware of how much he's scratching and that spot on his back that causes him to meow and lick his shoulder (which causes him to sound like a tauntaun from Empire Strikes Back), could be a tender area where he's been chewing and scratching too much. The concensus seems to be that he may have fleas, so I'm going to the store today to get him a flea collar.

A couple friends called me to see if they could come to my place to hang out that night. I explained to them that they were morte than welcome to come over, even though I had overnight guests. When I told them who those guests were (my ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend) they almost said how weird that was, but then they said, "Well, this is Fritschie we're talking about."

This was one of those statements that could either be a great compliment, a completely innocuous statement or a massive insult...trapped between the three extremes. I know they didn't mean anything about it, but it did get me thinking. Have all of these women dumped my ass in the past because they knew I would be their friend afterwards? Did they decide to date me for the sole reason that they'd have an easy out?

Something to ponder, I guess.

The Wednesday night caption contest

It's caption time again! Post your captions in the comments section at the bottom of this post.

I'm only gonna go with one this week to be more fair to the other participants:

"We go live now to the 100-Meter Mashed Potato Freestyle, already in progress."


The winner of last week's caption contest was Toni with "Not making enough money on the Latino wrestling circuit, Enrique (aka Dia Del Muerte) moonlights as a beer guzzling referee on the weekends."

What can I say, I'm a sucker for Mexican wrestler humor.

An open letter to the dickwad that broke into my car last night

Dear dickwad,

First of all, thank you for recognizing that a Ford factory stereo has practically no resale value. That was at least a small comfort when I got out to my car and saw that you my window was shattered into a million pieces...at least I still have tunes as I'm driving to work in 30 degree weather.

Secondly, you're welcome. Due to the fact that I cleaned out my car Saturday afternoon, and brought inside everything of any material value, I'm saying "you're welcome" because now instead of being a thief, legally you're just a vandal. If you had done that just two days sooner, you would have gotten every CD I've purchased over the past six months, most of my pay stubs and deposit slips from the past few weeks, tons of Camel Cash and about five bucks in change. You would have had to dig through a pile of fast-food sacks, but it would have been more valuable to you than what was in there when you broke in...which was absolutely nothing.

For future reference, try looking in the window before breaking and entering...dumbass.

Lastly, another thanks to you for solving that mystery of what to do with that extra $250 I had in my bank account. Man, oh man, I've been pondering that one for days now. Mystery solved. Any time you wanna pay me back for that would be great. I'm not holding my breath.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go wash my car, so that the dirty old windows at least somewhat match the crystal-clear new window I just had installed.

Sincerely, with middle finger upraised,
Fritschie

I'll forgive any "I've got wood" jokes

I took it pretty easy at Oktoberfest. I didn't spend a lot of money, but I had a lot of fun. I had my one pitcher of Spaten Lager, I had my bratwurst, a pretzel and an apple strudel. I even went for a ride on the ferris wheel...with the wind chill at 37 degrees. Do you know how hard it is to say "I can see my house from here." with your teeth chattering?

I went there with some of my greatest friends here, and I had a lot of fun. However, I had a weird feeling all night. You see, every year when Oktoberfest comes around, I'm in a weird state of uncertainty when it comes to relationships. Half the time I'm stinging from a breakup, half the time I'm in the very beginning stage of what I hope is a new relationship.

This year could qualify as column B, although that someone couldn't make it. A shame really, because I was feeling particularly charming and confident last night. On the other hand, that could have been a bit too much, given the circumstances.

Now comes the usual bit in this blog where in lieu of details, either unknown to me or not willing to divulge at this point, I speak in metaphors.

The kind of women I find myself attracted to me are a lot like oak trees...very strong, very stubborn, and every one of them with some form of damage. Not that I've actively sought out the damaged ones, it's just been my luck of the draw. I've seen it all: Split trunks, Dutch Elm Disease, some of them completely uprooted. It's in my nature to try my best to nurse these trees back to health. And in the end, they've either stood strong and no longer need my care, or they show me as much regard as a bag of fertilizer.

In this present case, the damage isn't nearly as bad and it will heal on its own. In my opinion, she's much stronger than she thinks she is. All I can do is give it time. I've learned enough from past experiences to be patient. This time, I'm in no rush.

Cleaning up

I was originally planning to go to Oktoberfest tonight, but I got in a groove cleaning up my apartment and I couldn't stop, didn't feel like showering and didn't want to hang out with my friends smelling like Pine-Sol.

I'll have some dishes left to do tomorrow, as well as a shitload of laundry and cleaning out my car (where I have more than a couple McDonald's sacks are starting to get a little funky). I go the bulk of the cleaning done tonight at least, so I can sleep in. I wanted to call in sick today due to my head throbbing from drinking last night, and the fact that my bed was like a womb this morning. The alarm clock going off was like contractions every nine minutes.

Work was alright. My boss was on a bit of a tear. I made a couple mistakes on a job, but thankfully he didn't go into his usual fit of micro-managing every little detail of how I do my job, which is like replacing every electrical wire in your house to fix a light bulb that burned out. I didn't let it bother me too much.

But I've got the entire weekend ahead of me. I'll go get my German culture fix tomorrow, and I think I'll catch a matinee of The Prestige on Sunday.

Life is good.

The Wednesday night caption contest

Here we go again! Post your comments below:

Here are mine:

1. Penalty Man's costume instills extra fear in his enemies because no one wants to get beaten up by a guy wearing a tutu.

2. Ironically, Penalty Man got a ticket for drinking a beer in public.

3. If he doesn't get you, Grave Consequence Woman will.

The winner of last week's caption contest is Ol' Kel with the caption: "oooh...a touch lamp." Bonus points for simplicity there.

Life imitating art

I have yet to finish my fictional blog. I kinda wrote myself into a corner there. I haven't forgotten about it...it's just that I was so close to the end and I everything I've come up with has felt reeeeally cliche and/or anti-climactic. I've had five endings come to mind for it, but nothing really fits.

It kinda stuck me how my life is, in a way, imitating my art. The themes of revisiting the mistakes of the past and making peace with it have come to me in spades lately. Meeting friends from high school via Myspace, family things, but most importantly, relationship issues.

I've learned from experiences in the past what not to do, but I'm still in the dark about what TO do. I've had it up to here (Fritschie now indicated a height about a foot above his head) with the trial and error process. I want results this time. I've been riding a wave of good karma lately, and it's high time that this area of my life follow suit.

Who knows, it might inspire an ending I hadn't thought of yet.

Shaken, not stirred

There was a 6.6 earthquake in Hawaii this morning. I'm watching the coverage on TV right now. It's kinda fun to watch the newscasters try to find some horrific news out of this, but everyone they speak to are reporting no serious injuries and no fatalities as of yet. Hell, the Mayor of Maui was just on the phone saying, "Thanks for your concern."

That's good news, but the reporters are trying to fill airtime with their usual gloom and doom, but they forget they're talking to Hawaiians. These are not people who are prone to panic. They're all saying that sure, it was scary, and the power was out for a while in some areas, and there's a little structural damage, but other than that, the blenders are still running and fruity drinks are still being served.

If this had happened in California, they'd have all sort of footage of people running in the streets dodging chunks of falling concrete. So far, all they got of this earthquake are photos of a rockslide in the middle of a beautiful landscape. The reporters almost sound disappointed when they say that there's no tsunami as a result of the earthquake.

There's something to be said about a culture that understands that their island was formed by a fucking volcano. There's footage of about twenty or so folks patiently waiting outside a convenience store wanting to get supplies for the next couple days or so. One lady they just spoke to was saying she wanted to maybe get some bread and some candles, maybe some water. The camera pans over to a huge Samoan guy who tried to plug the food and beverage convention across the street before they cut back to the studio.

I'm just waiting for Bush to chime in on this whole thing. He'll probably call this a huge success story for our emergency preparedness strategies, not acknowledging the fact that these are the kind of people that unless lava is flowing through their living rooms, it's not really that big of a deal.

At the bar last night there was a moment that clearly gauged how bitter and cynical I have been recently.

The bottom line is, I was happy. No pressures, no stress, not a complaint in the world...I was out with my friends having a great time. I even had a few beers in my system making the warm and fuzzy factor even higher. There were other reasons for my overtly jovial nature, but I'm not gonna get into that right now.

The "moment" I speak of came about half-way through the night, when my perma-grin was at its highest. I was standing near the front door with my friends Heather, Amanda and Kelly. I quietly looked over at Heather, and it sparked the following dialogue:

Heather: What?

Me: What?

Heather: What's with all the smiling?

Me: Uh, I'm happy.

Heather: How come?

Me: I just am. Why?

Heather: I just usually don't see you like this.

Me: Jesus, have I really been that much of a cynical, depressive little bitch, lately?

Heather: Well...

Amanda: Kinda.

Kelly nods.


Not that it dampered my mood that much, but it does make me want to apologize to everyone I've been in contact with here lately. I think I'm through all that now. I can't promise that there won't be a relapse every now and again, but I'll do my best. Deal?

The Wednesday night caption contest

It's caption contest time again! And due to the funny as hell responses last week, I'm making it a weekly thing.

Post your captions in the comments section at the bottom of this post.

Here are mine:

1. "This happens every fucking time I go into that pizza place!"

2. "I want a hat that says, 'I flunked out of pottery school.'"

3. The latest fashion news from Milan: Teepees, Teepees, Teepees!

The winner of the last caption contest was One Charmed Motherfucker with the caption, "Seriously, if you shove colored felt up your ass, you'll crap a Fraggle out of your mouth."

Moving right along

OKay, the problem with the internet at work has been solved. Turns out the big blue cable that I thought ran through the ceiling to the main router instead went back to the shipping and receiving computer in the back of the shop. The one that ran the internet was the one in the wall I thought was a dead end. I was able to get my computer to connect to the net wirelessly, but Shipping and Receiving has to come up front to print off FedEx labels. Oops!

I went down to Mercury Lounge tonight to listen to some music and have a few beers. I sat alone for most of the night and quietly reflected on the things in my life. One thought that occurred to me was that in the past year or so, my serious problems suddenly became "issues", and now I simply refer to them as "things in my life". If you graph the way things are going, strictly on terminology, I'll be refering to them as "oh, that".

As always, it seems that every question is answered with another question. However, the time between questions are less and less each time nowadays. A much-welcomed domino effect.

The money thing is on track, ten payments to go on the loan, and 25 on the car. I've got everything I need to live, and just enough left over to not go nuts about having no money to do anything else. My work is going well, partly because I'm trusted to do my job and partly because I've got them by the balls because they have no one else to do it.

Love life, that's another matter. I'm getting better every day, like I'm close to being completely operational emotionally. I'm thinking less about hardships of the past, worrying less about the future and feeling much more positively on the present. I know now that I'm not bulletproof, but then again, I'm not asking to be shot, either.

So, the question I face now is, what do I want? The answer is, what am I willing to work for? I can work and save for any material possession I want. Any love I want out of life is somewhere out there..whether it's around the corner or miles away is not important to me right now. All in all, I'm doing good.

New office, no new computer

I now have a new office at work. I went in today and moved everything in and re-routed the network cables over the suspended ceiling. After seven hours, countless references to the six-foot salami joke from The Breakfast Club, two full vacuum bags and five sneezing fits from all the dust, I'm 95% done. All that's left is to re-configure the internet settings (somehow they reset themselves) and figure out a place for the color printer.

I got home covered in a mixture of dust, fiberglass insulation and lemon Pledge...not to mention sore as hell. A hot shower helped a lot. The pizza I just ordered combined with a night of digital cable will help even more.

Yesterday, I went online and figured out how much a new Mac system would cost me for home. I went pretty much brass tacks but with a few frivolous items (maxed ram, 80GB video iPod, screenwriting software, etc.). Altogether, it was about $2,300. I noticed they had a monthly payment option with no payments for six months. I called my folks to have them talk me out of it. I now know that they suck at that. They thought it was a good idea to rebuild my credit. Fortunate for my self-doubt on this idea that the credit company that handles this special offer is the same company I owed seven grand to until a few months ago. How about that, I'm on a blacklist!

It'll be best to just wait a while on the new computer. I got one at home that works okay and one at the office that works great. On the other hand, that 80GB iPod would be pretty sweet.

Remembering a better time when seeing a girl's breasts required a little effort

I read an article that the guy behind the Girls Gone Wild videos has settled a lawsuit over the lack of proper documentation of the "models" in his videos. Turns out a lot of these girls mat have been underage and lied about their age. Gee, you think?

The main reason he settled (for $500,000...mere pocket change for this guy) was that he can't be bothered knowing if an ID might be fake, and apparently his staff can't be bothered either. If the issue is whether these girls might not be 18 yet, why haven't these assholes been charged with providing alcohol to minors?

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for nudity and having a little fun, but this stuff just does not arouse me at all. These guys have made millions exploiting girls with low alcohol tolerances and even lower self-esteem, while at the same time perpetuating the viewpoint that all college girls are nothing but horny skanks that'll do anything if you give them enough to drink and maybe offer them a little cash.

I think part of the settlement should have been that they would only be allowed to put out "public service editions":

The Girls Gone Wild 10-Year Reunion - Where they have to track down the girls they have videotaped in the past, years later when they are married, have kids and have worked their asses off to put that whole experience behind them. Either that, or the girls have continued down the path to total skankiness, sucking dick for money to pay the gas bill and might serve as an example for future college girls who are approached by these sleazy scumbags.

Girls Gone Wild Stone Cold Sober - Let's see them try to talk these girls into this without any alcohol involved. I'm thinking the only ones they'll get to go along with this wouldn't qualify for their cherished "First-Timers" category.

Butches Gone Wild - How about one where they only show the most masculine of REAL lesbians. Instead of the naive, drunk straight girls without a complex thought in their pretty little head, they show large, muscular, heavily-tattooed, short-haired women who not only know how what their doing (not just "experimenting"), but also might have something interesting to say to the immature dickhead frat guy with the camcorder about the exploitation of their way of life.

Girls Gone Mild - Filmed in Quaker country. You might just catch a glimpse of an ankle or an elbow!

Girls Gone Wild's Less Attractive But Much More Interesting Friends Caught On Camera - Every group of girls at these parties have that one girl who is not as skinny, not as hot, and is only there to feed some deep-seeded need to be accepted or to be the designated driver. These are the average looking, slightly overweight girls who represent the other 95% of the female population...you know, the ones that actually want to do something with their lives and nine times out of ten, have something special to offer a guy.

Crack Whores Gone Wild - Edited the same way the videos are done now, with the girls being egged on my horn-dog cameramen at a night club and then cutting to a sleazy motel room for the real action. The only difference is, the girls are strung-out, with sunken eyes, eroded yellow teeth, harsh shadows casting on their rib cages, pale skin, nappy hair and that lifeless look on their faces that they've done this kind of thing so many times before for money that they can't even feign interest in it anymore. Kinda like the last half-hour of Requiem For A Dream stretched out into 90 minutes.

Girls That Went Wild Last Night - Filmed the morning after, complete with hangovers, puking and deep regret.

Parental Consent Outtakes - Clips of the camera crew attempting to ask these girls' parents for permission to film their daughters, then getting the shit beat out of them.

75 of my favorite things (in no particular order)

1. Vietnamese iced coffee
2. Seeing a woman confidently wearing a blue swimsuit
3. Midnight movies
4. Foreplay
5. The "Worst Person in the World" segment on Countdown with Keith Olbermann
6. Old Elvis Costello albums
7. Tetris
8. Arnie's Bar
9. Making a total stranger laugh his/her ass off
10. Hearing that a poster I designed has been stolen
11. That moment when a really stupid person becomes aware that they're being stupid
12. Dr. Pepper
13. The Empire Strikes Back
14. Peter Gabriel's So
15. Legend of Zelda
16. Grey's Anatomy
17. Legos
18. Mint chocolate chip ice cream
19. Sleeping in
20. Reading unusual trivia stories
21. Walking a woman to her car
22. A properly poured Guinness
23. People who are neurotic (but in that funny, nonsensical way)
24. Looking through old photos and postcards at an antique store
25. Sushi
26. Anything written by Steve Martin
27. That moment when self-righteous people get called on their bullshit
28. Any coffe drink that can be ordered in less than six syllables
29. Before Sunrise
30. Convincing my friends to let me buy them a drink
31. Air hockey
32. Blade Runner
33. Anything served open-faced
34. Robot Chicken
35. Watching a good movie in a deserted movie theater
36. The Daily Show
37. Feigning a cracked rib when my friend Mary' daughter Ivy gives me one of her bear hugs
38. Candlelight
39. Hearing from an old friend
40. Making a sarcastic comment and getting zinged back
41. Green tea with brown sugar
42. Happy Meal toys
43. People-watching
44. Sitting in those massage chairs at the Sharper Image and watching people pay five bucks to use the massage chairs out in the hallway
45. Getting the job done
46. Waffles
47. Incense
48. Best Week Ever
49. Jelly Bellies
50. Cooking something I've never cooked before
51. Sitting front and center listening to my friends' bands
52. Better Than Ezra
53. Campfires
54. Talking to my mom
55. My cat Chuckles suddenly deciding he needs to be in another room
56. CSI:
57. My friends back in Arkansas
58. Lord of the Rings
59. Homemade wine
60. My neices using me as a human jungle gym
61. Playing Monopoly
62. Movie Trailers
63. Mars bars
64. Super Mario Anything
65. Hearing that a shitty TV show has been cancelled right in the middle of an intricate story arc
66. Chili Fries
67. Jaws
68. Beale Steet in Memphis
69. Hearing people call me a goofball
70. Chocolate Pepsi
71. Mystery Science Theater 3000
72. Cajun food
73. Frozen peanut M&Ms
74. Moments of quiet at a loud party
75. DVDs on sale

The "because I'm bored" caption contest

Here we go again, folks. Post your captions in the comments section.

Here are mine:

1. "I would like another Big Gulp...NOW!"

2. You should've seen this guy when he did cocaine.

3. The sad thing is, this is not sanctioned. He just does this because he thinks chicks dig it.


The winner of the last caption contest was Anonymous with the caption, "Laundered for her pleasure."

Political cures that may be worse than the disease Vol.3: Oversight

Gee, this whole Mark Foley scandal gives new meaning to the term "Politics makes for strange bedfellows", don't it?

For those of you keeping score at home:

The head of the Congressional Committee on the Enviroment belives global warming is "the greatest myth perpetrated on the American people." James Inhoffe R-OK

The man in charge of the committee that oversees regulation of the internet thinks the "internets" (his word) is a "series of tubes." Ted Stevens R-AK

The former House Majority Leader doesn't understand the fighting between the Shia and the Sunnis in Iraq because "They all look the same to me". Trent Lott R-MS

And now, the head of the Congressional Commission on Missing and Exploited Children has now resigned in disgrace because he was seducing 16-year-old boys in online chat rooms. Mark Foley R-FL


Think back ten years. At least the woman our president had sex with was 22 at the time (I'll take adultery over pedophilia any day), our vice president actually gave a shit about the environment (and could distinguish a seventy-year-old man from a game bird), and any military action we involved ourselves in came with an exit strategy (okay, to be fair, Somalia didn't work out like we planned, but at least we left when we realized it was a lost cause).


Here's my idea:

The trouble with politicians today is that their mantra is that it's more important to look like you're doing a "heckuva job" than it is to actually do a good job. What they state in press conferences is nothing like what they decide to do behind closed doors.

What's my solution? The same thing you do to a spoiled child. Take away everything they always get that perpetuates their arrogant behavior.

When a politician shows up at a disaster site, don't allow cameras and instead hand him a shovel and tell them to get to work.

If one of them visits Baghdad to see how swimmingly things are going, have him walk around outside the Green Zone with no security detail.

I've said this one before many times: Outlaw teleprompters. In addition to that, eliminate notes as well. Let's see these pricks wing it for a while.

Revoke all diplomatic parking privileges and car services. Have them drive themselves to work and find their own parking space like everyone they supposedly represent.

Call off all rules of conduct in on the Senate floor. There's nothing more pathetic than seeing these guys arguing back and forth and can't refer to each other as anything other than "the representative from the great state of (insert state here)". If they want to bicker like five-year-olds, let them do it without all this courtesy shit. This way, we'll see these nozzleheads for the cry-babies they really are.

Election day: April 15th. We decide who gets the job on the same day we pay their salaries.

The higher the rank, the fewer staff members they are allowed to have. Hey, with great power comes great responsibility. Act like it.

I hate to admit I've reached that age where I realize the world has officially gone crazy. Fortunately, these feelings are limited to specific themes. Today, it's high school.

Now, I'll be the first to admit that high school was utter hell for me. I felt like I had to audition for the groups I hung out with back then. By the time graduation came around it felt like a play was over and I wasn't told where the after-party was. Many of the friends I had were fairweather at best and back-stabbing assholes at worst.

It was also the grunge age, and it really pisses me off that I reached and passed my supposed sexual peak in the era of baggy flannel. Today's teenage girls wear clothes that hookers would have passed on in my high school days. Not that I find myself drooling over teenage girls, but i do feel great pangs of resentment that I may have been born ten years too early.

The problems I had with high school are now long gone. Partly due to attending my ten year reunion a couple years ago and making my peace with those I saw there. Another major factor, strangely enough has been Myspace. It has warmed my heart to hear from people from high school that, whether I find them or they find me, are actually glad to hear from me. It feels good. I realize now that it was four years of my life that ended twelve years ago. A lot has happened since then to all of us and it's great that we remember each other as people rather than all the stupid shit that happened back then.

But despite my problems and fears I remember from those days, at least it was safe. I mean, the worst I had to expect was the occasional book dumping. I read today about the school shooting in Pennsylvania's Amish country. This is the third shooting in a week, and the thing I've noticed is that these things always happen in small towns. Granted, this kind of thing wouldn't happen in the inner city because A) they most likely have metal detectors, and B) if they don't, there ain't gonna be a stand-off with the police, but instead it's gonna be the climax of True Romance in the Biology lab.

This latest one proves my point perfectly. An Amish school, for crying out loud. Think about that. This goes against every rule here.

First of all, it's the Amish. What the hell did they ever do to this guy? Defective quilt? Bad batch of fudge? Could they have possibly made fun of his buttoned shirt? I'm just wondering about the motive here. This is like holding up a Buddhist temple...on the other hand, keep in mind that Stephen Seagal is a Buddhist.

Secondly, the report also said that he nailed the doors shut with 2X4's. So, he had a gun AND lumber?!?

Lastly, the first tactic in the FBI's hostage situation handbook is to cut the power...Okay, plan B: Let's get the guy on the phone. Shit...Plan C: Trade supplies for a hostage or two. Oh, they live a meekly existance, devoid of want or need for anything they don't work hard for and earn for themselves.

I'm not meaning to make jokes about such a senseless tragedy. My point is that today's events prove that when it comes to man's violence towards man, nothing is beyond imagination. There are so many horrible things that are past our ability to plan for or deal with when they happen. Four girls died there. Four girls whose faith teaches them to reject the world that produced the weapons that caused their untimely deaths.

And despite all of the law enforcement protocols, and all of the things we tell ourselves and our children to give some sense of security and safety, there's always that x-factor. That one guy who decides that this is the final option for him. And as much as I want this to be a perfecty world, it isn't and probably never will be. My greatest wish is that the next time someone out there thinks that the only way out is to kill another human being, a child no less, that better judgement will cause him to direct the gun at his own head. A school graduation is no place for a memorial.

Okay, you're forgiven for "Your Body's a Wonderland"

I went and picked up John Mayer's new CD "Continuum" over the weekend. I gotta say, the parts I love I really love and the parts I don't are really growing on me.

I'm so glad he took some time away from the pop stuff to experiment with blues and jazz. It works out really well on his new album. The lead single "Waiting on the World to Change" kind reminds me of 60's R&B. Plus there's a lot of good blues riffs all over the place. There's even a pretty good cover of Hendrix's Bold as Love that simultaneously fits in with the rest of the album and doen't trash the original version.

This is a turning point for John Mayer, in my opinion. In the liner notes, he praises Eric Clapton for being his idol. Wise move, because most of today's artists that have openly tried to emulate their idol's careers have really missed the mark. Case in point: Kid Rock playing with Hank Willimas, Jr. Sorry, Kid, but the only wisdom Bocephus has to offer anyone is limited to football preparedness and drinking bourbon without using a glass.

There's one song on this new album that I've had to leave on repeat for a while today. It's called "Slow Dancing in a Burning Room" The song is amazingly well-produced, but it's the lyrics that just killed me. It sounds like it came from a devastating heartbreak, one that we all can relate to.

They played a snippet of it on this week's episode of CSI:, and while the tone of the music fit, the lyrics felt really out of place. Do the producers of that show even listen to the words anymore? Read this and tell me if in a million years you'd have someone singing this while Marg Helgenberger gives herself a sexual assault examination:

It's not a silly little moment.
It's not the storm before the calm.
This is the deep and dyin breath of
this love that we've been workin on.
Can't seem to hold you like I want to,
so I can feel you in my arms.
Nobody's gonna come and save you,
we pulled too many false alarms.

We're goin down,
and you can see it, too.
We're goin down,
and you know that we're doomed.
My dear,
we're slow dancing in a burning room.

I was the one you always dreamed of,
you were the one I tried to draw.
How dare you say it's nothin to me?
baby, you're the only light I ever saw.

I make the most of all the sadness.
You'll be a bitch because you can.
You try to hit me just to hurt me
so you leave me feelin dirty
'cause you can't understand.

We're goin down,
and you can see it, too.
We're goin down,
and you know that we're doomed.
My dear,
we're slow dancing in a burning room.

Go cry about it why don't you?
Go cry about it why don't you?
Go cry about it why don't you?
My dear, we're slow dancin in a burning room.
Don't you think we oughta know by now?
Don't you think we shoulda learned somehow?