%%USERNAME%%    %%ACCWORDS%% %%ONOFF%% |
 |   The only blog that will put hair on your chest... |
|
** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Turning from the Dark Side ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** < This is where I'll insert a cool new blog description. Someday. > |
| Now before you start reading this, I want you suck asses out there to remember that this is NOT inspired by Baby Jack of Writing.com fame. Rather this is inspired by babies everywhere and my complete inability to fathom their widespread appeal. I want kids, I really do. Well, I want Mini-Mes that I can mold into little hellions to carry on my legacy. Since I'm not a cloner, that means having kids. Which also means having babies. Now granted we could adopt and skip the whole baby phase, but 1) Jodi wants a baby in the worst way, 2) part of my insidious charm is built into my genetic code, and 3) the baby-making part is fun. Having said that, when and if we do have a baby, I'll be eager for those first half dozen years to pass as quickly as possible. I don't see the big deal about babies. Puppies are cute and cuddly. Big-eared kittens are cute in that homely sort of way. Hell, even baby skunks are adorable. But human babies are not the least bit cute. I've never ever seen a cute baby. A pinkish blob with an occasional straggly mass of hair that too closely resembles pubic hair is not my idea of cuddly. A squashed nose, hamster-like cheeks, and a head as large as a torso is something out of a David Lynch movie, not a little bundle of joy. My inability to appreciate babies does not end with their utter lack of cuteness. Rather I can't find a single redeeming quality about babies. In fact, human babies are the lamest offspring of the entire animal world. With puppies you throw a ball, and it brings it back. With kittens you dangle a ball of yarn and it goes freakin' crazy. But what do babies do? How about throwing a ball for a baby? It will just sit there like a misshapen lump of mud and drool. With puppies you can roll around the floor and wrestle. With kittens you can wiggle your fingers under a carpet or blanket and hope you don't get shreaded. But with babies, you have to sit perfectly still and support the too-small necks beneath their absurdly bulbous heads. They're fragile and slow-moving. Basically, babies are total pussies. Even the sounds babies make totally suck. My new nephew makes weird whimpering noises when he eats. Want to know what sounds my once feral kitten made when we fed him? He growled. How freaking awesome is that? No pussy whimpers and gurgles. Continuing with the puppy and kitten comparison, they bark, growl, hiss, spit, howl, etc. What sounds do babies make? They coo. They fucking coo. If I had wanted a coo, I would have bought a fucking pigeon. At least they can fly. Oh, I forgot! Babies cry too. All the freegin time. When puppies whimper, it's cute as hell. When babies cry, you want to plug that yaphole up with a football. Then there's house training. You can house train a puppy in a few months. You can house train a cat in minutes! How long for a baby? Fucking years. Top it off with the fact that you have to wipe the shit right off their asses for those years and you having a winning combination. Dogs clean their own assholes from the moment you get them and cats even cover their shit up! Do babies do anything remotely like that? No, instead they piss in your face when you're changing their diapers, a throwaway article of clothing that costs you a small fortune. For dogs you have two choices for food: puppy chow and adult food. Simple. And it all costs $20 a big bag at WalMart. For babies, you have a whole freegin aisle of crap you have to buy. And what's worse is all the products show pictures of other babies. As if you weren't already sick of looking at your own hideous lump of flesh. But the cost doesn't end with the food, the clothes, or the diapers. Oh no, then you have to buy a stroller, a carseat, a swinging, bobbing, weaving, walking, my-baby-is-a-fucking-invalid mechanism that allows "play time." Then you have to push the babies around in the strollers, which completely exceeds my quota of involuntary exercise. Puppies just need a tennis ball and a leash. Oh, my baby will have a leash. Not one of those ridiculous ones new-age parents use that include a monkey-looking harness and a long monkey tail lead. Oh no, our kid will have a studded collar and leather strap, just in case he gets out of line or decides to wallow in his own puddle of drool for a minute. |
| That title says a lot considering I'm one of the most class-less people I know. Not the most class-less mind you--that title belongs to my sister-in-law--but still a close second. That was until I ventured into WalMart a couple weeks ago and actually paid attention to my surroundings. I've never felt so out of place in my life. I was the only man wearing a button up shirt that wasn't flannel. In fact, it was a delightfully tacky Hawaiian shirt, not a Big Johnson T-shirt or a stained AC-DC wifebeater. And my baseball cap was sporting an original NES controller, not a Jeff Gordon signature or a Budweiser logo. My sneakers were not boots, and my hair-style was not mullet. I was not there with "my baby's mama," nor was I herding a half dozen rugrats, all sporting different skin tones. And when I purchased the HDMI cable for my 50" plasma TV, I paid with debit card, not food stamps. Likewise, I didn't stuff it into the folds of my ridiculously poofy, black, winter coat or behind my Dukes of Hazard belt buckle and simply walk out the door. Seeing all this made me realize I'm too classy for WalMart. My revelation doesn't stop there though. I made another alarming discovery, much more terrifying than the first. I noticed the WalMart greeter, the quintessential elderly man with his stutter, his twitches, and his inability to communicate. I noticed the "cart retrieval specialist," with his teeth, or rather lack thereof. I noticed the man who is best described by the word "spherical" stationed at the exit and watching for shoplifters. And I noticed the cashier, whose resemblance to Cousin Eddie from National Lampoon's Vacation was uncanny, despite being a woman. I looked around and realized that they too were too classy for WalMart. That's a damn shame. Lots of people hate WalMart because it's a corporate entity that puts the old mom and pop stores out of business and is essentially on its way to ruling the world. I don't hate WalMart for that though, because I am afterall a cheap bastard. However, I do hate WalMart because I see something much more nefarious at work. As I gazed around and tried to stay afloat in this the shallowest end of the gene puddle, I realized that WalMart makes it possible for the seedy underbelly of our society to feast, make merry, and proliferate. Did I say the seedy underbelly? No, if I'm sticking with the body part analogy, it's more like that nether-region between the genitals and that puckered opening at the southern exit. Especially if that particular region is foul-smelling, like right after burrito-induced diarrhea, or on a particularly obese person that hasn't been able to wash that place in months with anything other than a rag on a stick. Yeah, that's the spot. WalMart and it's insanely low prices and cheap crap and fully integrated food stamp system make it possible for everyone to live comfortably. That means our population's dumbest can go on fucking like rabbits and popping out even more stupid rugrats. It means the socially, economically, and intellectually backward have got it made. WalMart has made it so there is no longer a reason to not be a malignant tumor on the community. It has made it so that even the dumbest decisions fail to bring down the stupid. In other words, WalMart is reversing Darwinism. Walmart is ensuring that the stupid with inherit the earth. To me, that's a much more horrifying revelation than simple capitalistic domination. That is, in a word, evil. |
| Wow, it's been a long time. I almost forgot I had this thing. Oh, I have plenty of material I could stick in here, but I've been lazy. And busy. And busy being lazy. I really need to start writing in here more, because let's face it, you people need me. I can see the level of hilarity dropping each day that I simply stalk silently. So I really do need to bring some offensive turd humor back into the mix. I probably won't do it though. I'm still too lazy. So in the meantime check out "Invalid Item"  . The author has finally returned to us, and he is pretty much the only W.com personality that would receive my personal badge of "Piss your pants funny." Not that I have need a reason to piss my pants, but when my wife notices the dark stain around my genitals it helps if I can say "that funny bastard made me laugh too hard." She's no longer buying my excuse that I'm so macho that I ooze man juice. Or if she did, she'd try to harvest it and impregnate herself. Ironically she's in an extreme hurry to procure herself a little PC-spawn, but that's a topic for another day, probably one far in the future when I've drummed up another ounce of motivation. Wow, I'm way off topic. I really do have a lot to talk about. But as the fat pilot in "A New Hope" kept saying "Stay on target. Stay on target." Just before Darth Vader blew him to smithereens. So back to why I feel like I owe someone a dollar. You've all seen women with just a little too much hair in the wrong places right? Like that too-dark fuzz that sprouts just above the lip and gives you that queasy feeling? Or that hint of sideburn that makes straight men wonder why the grotesquely manish are allowed out in public. Or maybe you've just caught your own chromosome-confused aunt waxing her chin. Whatever the case may be, we've all been there and we've all wondered the obvious question: "Why don't you shave that nasty shit?" Now suppose you saw something a bit more intentional. In fact, let's say you saw a woman who had not just a smidgeon of hair, not just a hint of sideburn, but was in fact sporting a neatly trimmed goatee. Not a swirl of testosterone-surplus five o'clock shadow mind you, but rather some man-styled chin hair. No mustache or connecting sideburn but some distinct, bushy, beard hair marring that faint line that marks the beginning of a second chin. Well, that's what I saw. It turns out an undisclosed fabric store in Albany, NY is hosting its very own freak show with the Bearded Lady taking center stage. Her arms were hairier than mine, her goatee was clearly biker-inspired, and her sideburns would have made Bubba down at the trailer part jealous (and probably turned on). Now at this point you're probably thinking this is some poor old lady, well past menopause, or whatever you call that girly thing, and maybe she's even taking some kind of steroid to combat some old lady funk. Not so. This manchick was in fact somewhere in her 20s if I had to estimate. And no, she was not some hippy girl with enough armpit hair to stuff a king-sized mattress so far as I could tell. In fact, her beard was better tended to than mine. Which of course begs the question: if she's already trimming her beard, why the hell doesn't she keep the damned thing shaved clean off? Now naturally I was intrigued and instantly felt guilty. The guilt of course came from the fact that I got to witness this once in a lifetime spectacle without having to buy a ticket. It should have cost me at least a dollar to see that exhibit. It was like I had snuck into the carnival and stolen some cotton candy too. That's just a metaphor for getting a free show though, because I assure you there was nothing sweet or candy-like about the resident yak lady. And the only thing she had in common with cotton is that both could be used to knit a sweater. A pubic hair-esque sweater to be sure, but you get the point. The beard itself was worth staring at with a slack jaw for several minutes. And I did. But it was the hairy forearms that got me to wondering. Was I possibly seeing my first ever in-person gender bending post-op freakazoid? I think it's entirely plausible. But was this a man trying to be a woman or a woman trying to be a man? And more importantly, what kind of mangled science experience was lurking downstairs? Granted I didn't ever want to see it, but you can't help but wonder. At this point, as the manchick waited on a geriatric customer who was quite obviously oblivious to the nature-defying abomination in front of him, I began to pace back and forth, striding closer with each step in a futile effort to discern the text on the nametag. I simply had to know what gender I was staring at. I half expected some frustrating name like "Pat" or "Chris" to be there, but I never got close enough to read it. I was a damn curious, but I wasn't willing to get any of that manpussy funk on me. My comrades, including my lovely wife who alerted me to the Bearded Lady's presence in the first place, tried to stifle fits of laughter as I embarked on my gender seeking mission. When at last I gave up and decided to look for binoculars instead, Jodi also tried to read the nametag. Again, no luck. Much like finding the center of the Tootsie Roll Pop, we may never know. So please, ladies, shave, wax, or gnaw off that unsightly facial hair. If not for me, than at least for the good of mankind. A paper bag over one's head is also acceptable. But if you really must bends the laws of nature, please only wear T-shirts sporting large, block letters that declare you gender. You owe it to us. |
| Yes, I am still around. I'm just addicted to XBox 360 lately. I put in a good 6-8 hours in on it today. Damn my boss for getting me so hooked. If anyone plays Gears of War online, send me your gamertag! Jodi is making her own scrapbooking buttons with modeling clay. So naturally I got creative. I was going to post my handiwork directly in here, but I realize that some of my more sensitive readers could be offended. Apparently I'm getting soft when it comes to that. So here's a link instead.
|
| Sisters must have some kind of freakish bond that straight men and their brothers could never hope to understand. Nor would we want to. From what I've seen from the "Thursday" leading entry and the daily conversations between Jodi and her sister Amy, I can only surmise that sisters absolutely revel in boring each other with mundane details of life that are seemingly unimportant and uninteresting to their male counterparts. Assuming they are on speaking terms--which isn't always the case because sisters are also infamously catty--the two female halves of a sibling relationship apparently swap constant communication to talk about virtually nothing at all. Amy calls Jodi every day. Several times a day. Sometimes I'm not even sure why she calls. If she calls and gets the answering machine, she immediately hangs up and tries our cellphone. If she doesn't get an answer there, she'll wait five minutes and try both phones again. She even called on the evening of Valentine's Day. We were watching a movie, and so we ignored the phone. She left a message saying "You guys are probably busy." Then the cellphone started ringing. Then the home phone again. So this time Jodi answered. I mean it must have been some kind of emergency, right? It was! It turns out Luke was fascinated by the fact that Amy squats to pee and... and... well, yeah, that was it, but it was important! A nice romantic way to cap the evening. Jodi says she calls all the time because she has funny stories about our nephew Luke. As someone who has painfully listened to all these stories, let me be the first to confirm that some are chuckle worthy and almost none of them are worth three or four calls per day. You know the saying "I guess you had to be there"? Yeah, that's how all these calls are. Unless you actually witnessed it yourself, it's just impossible to see the humor in it. Subconsciously I think Jodi knows this because her ensuing laughter is some bastardization of her real laughter, as if she is forcing herself to see the humor in it. I know she actually does think it's a hoot and well worth the call, so she's not literally faking her laugh, but at the same time it seems like some kind of conditioned response. That's not the only reason she calls though, just the most common one. Well, wait, no I think the most common reason is actually the subconscious one that drives her to make all the calls, and that is simply some ingrained desire to talk to her sister. It's as if they need to recap their days for each other. I can't figure it out. Are they just bored all the time? Or is there really some sister instinct that requires constant conversing about every detail of life, even if said detail is exactly the same as the details of millions of other uninteresting people in the world? I told Jodi if my sister called me like that all the time, I'd be totally annoyed with her and tell her to shut the hell up. And if my brother did it, I'd call him a pussy and tell him to stop being a little girl. Brothers don't call each other unless it's important. And by important, it's probably one of the following: something involving an imminent trip to the emergency room, requesting a favor that requires heavy lifting, or a tip that the new Jessica Alba movie has a side angle shot of her breast. I don't care how many times my brother took a dump today. I don't care that he saw so-and-so at the grocery store today. I don't care about his opinion of the ice storm. I don't want to know if he's late on his phone bill. I don't want to discuss the ever-rising cost of postage with him. If the phone conversation between my brother and I last more than two sentences on either side, I start getting this uncomfortable feeling that I'm turning gay. If we really must talk, it better damn well be while getting piss drunk or playing XBox, in which case neither of us is really paying attention anyway. Sisters... ugh. |
| I remember being a young lad rising early on Saturday mornings so I could rush downstairs, score myself a bowl of Crunchberries, and watch Saturday Morning cartoons until my brain turned to mush. That's where my story begins. Speaking of Saturday morning cartoons, has anyone noticed that they don't really exist anymore? FOX has a couple hours devoted to that weekend ritual, but it's a lame attempt at best and does not last the traditional 6AM to noon. I blame it on the 24 hour cartoon networks, like the Cartoon Network. I love cartoons at my fingertips at all hours of the day, but such an innovation has made that most sacred of childhood experiences an obsolete affair. Regardless, I'm getting way off topic here, so let's get back to those Saturday mornings, shall we? I remember sitting on the couch, vegging out to the animated version of the Ghostbusters or perhaps the first season of the Transformers, happily minding my own business and miraculously tuning out the loud hum of the vacuum cleaner as my mom made her weekend cleaning rounds. It was a typical Saturday as Saturdays went, but every once in a while the glorious and welcomed monotony would be broken by something so heinous I shiver just remembering it. It would begin with my mom switching off the vacuum and staring wide-eyed out the living room's picture window. Silence would fall over all of us, leaving only the mechanized rumble of Optimus Prime emanating from the ol' boob tube. My brother and sister would look up from their cereal, and we would turn to stare as one out into the front yard to share in her horror. Shining black and wood-paneled station wagons would meander up the long driveway and turn to the right, towards my grandparents' house. Though the sun glared off the tinted windows and hid the wagon's innards, we could imagine the menacing occupants, with their freshly pressed suits, sunglasses, and long trench coats. Neither my siblings nor I truly understood who these people were or why they came after us week after week. We had heard stories of them kidnapping people and brainwashing them though, people who were often never heard from again, and that was enough to be thoroughly frightening. Sharing a driveway with my grandparents back at that old house was most fortunate. It gave us the time we needed to prepare on these terrifying Saturday mornings. My dad worked most Saturdays, so it was up to my mom to protect us from those strange station wagons. Luckily they would always veer off toward my grandparents first, for reasons I still don't understand, before finally putting us in their sights. Those moments they spent terrorizing my grandparents gave my mom the time she needed to put her plans in motion and protect her offspring. She had several plans for dealing with these station wagons and their stranger occupants, and as the years went by she became increasingly inventive. Sometimes she would have us huddle into a windowless room somewhere and keep us deathly quiet until she was sure they had left. Other times she would pester the family dog until it became extremely agitated and apparently volatile to strangers. She would then post it by the front door and hope it looked sufficiently menacing. Only in rare circumstances, when caught completely off guard, would she have to shoo us into another room and face them with nothing but her bare hands. She was, and is, a very brave woman. On one particular Saturday though, she brought out a weapon that would henceforth keep the strangers and their shining station wagons away. When she saw them drive up to my grandparents' house, she rushed into the other room and scrawled something on a sheet of paper with a permanent marker. Equipped with only a piece of scotch tape and her watermarked weapon, she stepped defiantly towards the front door pasted the sign on the window. I still remember those courageous and hastily formed letters: No Jehovah's Allowed! |
AL  thinks our bodies are just "meat packets" for something presumably more meaningful and ethereal. Some people, depending on your religious beliefs, might call that a soul. Some might hypothesize that these souls are recycled in a variety of meat packets over the course of many lives. I don't know what I think.I wonder about that whole past lives thing. Some people claim they remember bits of their past lives in dreams. If that's the case, I was clearly Van Helsing or an equally kickass monster slayer in a past life. I pretty much only have three kinds of dreams: nonsensical ones involving my current life and those around me, sex dreams, and ones where I'm slaying monsters, demons, murderers, rapists, child molesters, and anything else that happens to be evil. I'm not even joking about that. I used to have nightmares in which monsters or bad men would chase me, but a while back that stopped when I turned around, ripped off the arm of some grotesque Swamp-Thing type creature, and beat it to death with its own severed appendage. Since that time, all my dreams that would be nightmares for most people inevitably end in me brutally killing my tormentor and actually relishing the violence. I wake up feeling vindicated and exhilarated. If those are indicative of my past life, I'm mildly scared. Or mildly disturbed. I don't really believe in past lives though. I don't think I believe in future ones either. I don't think I even believe in anything besides the meat packet. I think when this fatty meat packet expires, it gets buried in the ground so it doesn't stink, and that's the end of so far as humans are concerned. The meat packet's eternity is reduced to a feast of germs and worms. I wish I could believe in something greater, something beyond this life. People with faith always seem happier. I'd take some of that religious brain-washing if I thought the faith piece would stick. Ignorance is truly bliss, and if I could really believe in something greater, maybe I wouldn't be so scared of the inevitable. Sometimes I try to contemplate death, but I can't wrap my head around it. What's it like to simply no longer exist? If there is nothing after the burying of the meat (no euphemism intended), what is there? Our thoughts, our sensations, our emotions simply cease to be. Eternity is instantaneous and irrelevant all at the same time. It's the same as before we were born. I just can't comprehend that. I guess that's why people invited religion in the first place, to explain that which cannot be explained. Maybe there's nothing to it though, it just is what it is. Before we were born, we didn't experience nothingness. (Did we?) So maybe we won't after death either. I'd like to believe in something else. Some people believe heaven exists but have doubts that it may not. I don't believe heaven exists but have doubts that it might. I tend to think we die and that's it, but since I can't truly wrap my head around death, I begin to doubt that simplistic answer and wonder if maybe something else does exist. I was in the room with my grandfather when he died from pancreatic cancer. He was the toughest, bravest man I ever knew, and for the first time I had ever seen, he was afraid. Between ragged gasps and the impending death rattle he mumbled over and over, "But I don't want to die." Family gathered around and tried to soothe him, explaining between tears that it was okay for him to let go. Minutes later he did die, but I don't think he let go, I think he fought it to the very end. I don't know if he thought that was truly the end of existence or he just didn't want to leave us, but I do know he was afraid. And that scares me. Thinking about all this heavy stuff leaves me depressed and scared of my own mortality. That's why I like AL 's closing line so much. It makes me think of one I like to live my own life by: "Life's too short." Since I don't believe in some greater purpose or some joyful afterlife, the way I see it, this is the only chance we get, so we might as well enjoy it. You never know when it's your time, so why wait until tomorrow to enjoy today? |
| I've been putting in crazy hours with work lately, which I fully intend to blame on my lack of participation in Follow the Leader. Now I have to crank out all these following entries factory style to catch up. It's fitting that "desert island" be the first one, since it's inspired me to write about the very reason I'm so behind. Obviously being stuck on a deserted island would suck. I'm not entirely certain I could function without Internet, television, or even just electricity. My life has become entirely too dependent on the aforementioned. In fact, my livelihood is dependent on at least two of those. But maybe there's my silver lining. Being stuck on a desert island means never having to work for a living anymore. When I came to that realization, I began thinking of all the benefits of being tossed in a predicament where all measures of success are reduced to how long I could survive. It sounds intimidating and dismal, but in truth I wouldn't mind leaving the "real world" behind for a little while and just worrying about myself and those that happen to be marooned with me. It's almost a nostalgic adventure in which we return to a simpler time when we lived off the land, bartered for what we needed, and weren't hampered by laws, doctrines, and social mores. Imagine an environment where everything you work for is to put food in your family's mouths and to keep a shelter over their heads. No more losing double digit percentages of your income to some political machine ruled by pompous lawyers. No more busting your back so somebody in an office somewhere can get rich and fat while you struggle to make ends meet. No more 9 to 5s. No more long commutes. No more rising gas costs. No more insurance companies taking your hard-earned dollars and strangling you in red tape whenever you file a claim. No more concept of money and all that the evil that festers and grows from it. Granted survival means busting your hump all day foraging for food, cultivating crops, hunting woodland creatures, fashioning tools, gathering firewood, building shelters, and a whole slew of other mundane and exhausting tasks, and granted basic survival will bring you no closer to some higher self-actualizing goal, but wouldn't it be nice to escape economics just for once? Whether it's capitalism, socialism, communism, or whatever, principles only look good on paper, and eventually someone feels that stress of having their entire futures tied to a piece of paper the government deemed legal tender. In reality, I happen to be very fortunate in the world of economics and would probably be a colossal failure at desert island survival. You're probably better off in the reverse scenario, because at least then you can just go on welfare so you can be lazy and ride the coattails of lucky ones like myself. But if you're good at making money and lousy at survival, there's no one else to slay a wild boar and drop it off at your lean-to. So I probably shouldn't be wishing for a return to the olden days, especially since my unparalleled laziness is much better suited for sitting behind a computer all day than getting up at dawn to harvest the crop or set rabbit snares. Even so, I wouldn't mind escaping this devilish thing we call money once in a while. |
| There comes a time in each of our lives in which we witness something so horrifying, so death-defying, so utterly bizarre that we must document it. It is the car wreck we don't want to see, but we stare between our fingers anyway. It is a hallucination made flesh. It is our proverbial pink elephant, our elusive Loch Ness, our long sought after sasquatch sighting. As some of you may know, I've already seen my pink elephant. Frankly it was much more disturbing, and I half wished it was the product of some shroom-induced paranoia. But I don't take hallucinogens, or any other drugs for that matter, so I knew it for reality in all its ground-shaking footsteps. Like any good scientist and tabloid photographer I documented it: "Invalid Entry" Little did I know it was but the first of many "pink elephants."My most recent sighting of the incredulously bizarre came a couple weeks ago at the Tractor Supply Co. I was there to buy dog food, since it is the only establishment that sells that particular foodstuff by the 52 pound bag, a necessity when you have a 217 pound Saint Bernard at home. (It's a quick and easy snack too when I run out of Smarties.) As I walked towards the entrance's automatic doors, I witnessed a modern marvel in the check out line. The man paying the cashier was wearing one of those absurd half face Halloween masks complete with impossibly large bulbous nose, mustache, thumb-thick unibrow, opaque plastic-framed black glasses, and a strangled mess of thick black hair. The coup de grace to this masked master of mayhem sat very securely upon his tangled black scalp, none other than a pristine white sailor's cap, a la Donald Duck. I didn't even know people wore those! Completing the ensemble was a creepy knee-length trench coat, under which one could not help but wonder if he was buck naked. It was Groucho Marx meets Eugene Levy meets Saddam Hussein meets Don King meets Donald Duck meets crazy flasher dude. It was, in a word, genius. I paused outside the entrance and gazed in awe and respect. The sheer absurdity and pointlessness in wearing a ridiculous mask to the Tractor Supply Co made this man my hero. I wondered briefly at his intentions. Maybe he was trying to make some kind of political statement, a subtle protest no doubt lost on the Tractor Supply patronage. Or maybe he was a celebrity trying to escape the omnipresent paparazzi, which would explain his visit to this fine store in the first place. Or maybe, and this is the possibility that nearly made me wet my pants, he was just trying to get a few laughs. Maybe in some impossibly awesome world he was simply being a jackass for no reason other than to garner strange looks and uncontrollable giggling fits. The sheer audacity, the mighty ballfullness, of that act placed him atop a pedestal of comedic genius. Here I was, witnessing a moment of Candid Camera, Trigger Happy TV, and the Tom Green Show all rolled into one. Only better. I noticed the cashier, who looked exactly as you'd imagine someone working at Tractor Supply to look, wasn't laughing. In fact she wasn't even ogling him in an effort to discern his intentions. Either she was a total prude or Tractor Supply trains employees to ignore practical jokes. Either way, at that very moment I knew I hated her. Broken from my reverie of this inane joke by my own chuckles, I proceeded into Tractor Supply, hell bent on getting a closer look at this stud of practical jokes. That's when my metaphorical yeti became a pink elephant. For you see, this masked man was not masked at all! The absurd appearance, a ridiculous fusion resulting in something completely inhuman, was in fact human. The mask and wig was exactly his face and his hair. The little white sailor's cap was not some cheap vinyl Halloween prop but in fact the genuine article. Standing before me was quite possibly the most ridiculously looking person I've ever seen. It was like a cartoon come to life. Not a realistic cartoon mind you, but something like those over the top racist stereotypes in the old Tom and Jerry cartoons. Only this was no stereotype, because clearly no one in the world would ever postulate that a group of people could all look like this. Now you're probably thinking I started this anecdote by saying the man was wearing a Halloween mask just so I could finish in this manner. You're thinking that in fact I knew he was just an absurd looking fellow all along. You'd be wrong. In fact when I first spotted him, I turned to my comrades and said "Look at that guy! He's wearing some kind of Halloween mask. That's awesome!" Imagine my own shock when I discovered it was in fact his real face and hair. Or more importantly, that the sailor cap was not a joke! My jaw dropped and I turned to those same comrades. They too had thought it was a mask. "Oh my God, he's not wearing a mask!" By now you're no doubt having a hard time picturing this particular fellow in your mind's eye. Well, I assure you that words do him no justice. The simple fact that we mistook his face and hair for a Halloween mask is really all you need to comprehend. Just imagine for a moment if you thought someone was wearing a mask only to discover you were staring in a slack-jawed manner at that person's real face. Interesting feeling, isn't it? Now it turns out he was also the slowest man in the history of the world that was not a senior citizen. He was long since checked out, and yet we still grabbed our dog food, waited in line, and even paid before he finally left. Holding a 52 pound bag of dog food on one's shoulder whilst suppressing uncontrollable laughter is no easy task. I just stood there in line at the cashier mumbling to myself over and over, "That's incredible. That's incredible." |
| Running is anathema to me. I can sit with the best of them though. In fact, I'd actually consider myself a marathon sitter. Even folks confined to wheelchairs would be hard-pressed to match me minute for minute in sitting. Most people get butt sores and an inexplicable and overwhelming desire to actually do something besides sit on their ass all day. Not me, I'm no quitter. Once I plop that fat ass down it's not budging for anything. Except for maybe pizza or sex, and the latter is debatable. On those rare occasions that I leave the house, I sometimes drive by a jogger. Just watching them makes me hurt. For starters you never see someone jogging in nice weather. It's always either 100 degrees out or the middle of winter, and I always find myself thinking, "Look at that fool! Getting all fit like some kind of sucker!" I always wonder too how early joggers must get up each morning to be out jogging at 7AM and then get to work on time. They must have to get up at like 4AM. I'm pretty sure I could come up with better things to do with myself at 4AM, like sleeping for example. I wish I knew what that runner's exhilaration is all about. The only running I've ever done has always ended in spewing buckets of phlegm I didn't even know I had. I wonder if "runner's high" is anything like what I feel when I'm hacking off zombie heads or punching rhinos in the face. If so, I'd like to get in on that jogging thing. If only I could do it while sitting. |
| shannon wants us to tell her a secret. Clearly she forgot I was participating this round, or she would never have put herself in this situation. She's practically asking for a secret so vile it may or may not even be true. Let's face it, this just wouldn't be Follow the Leader if I didn't write about poo. (Please refer to it as poo, not poop, as I have an aversion to palindromes.) So I am about to tell you a secret, a disgusting, repugnant secret. Half of you will think it simply must be fake because even I'm not that gross. The other half will fully believe it, because you put nothing past me when it comes to poo. One half will be right and one half will be wrong, and I'm not telling which. Sometimes I get an itch in my ass crack. Nay, not exactly in the crack but actually buried deep in the crevice, usually on the inner side of the cheek and sometimes at the very tiptop where the cheeks converge into that "V" of gaseous glory. Sometimes, if I'm particularly unlucky, it feels like someone is tickling my puckered southern exit with a poison ivy leaf. I blame the butt-itch phenomenon on some stray sweat or bacteria or perhaps some leftover dingleberries from my last BM. But no matter the location or the cause, an itch needs to be scratched. So that's what I do. Jodi tells me any butt itch can be satisfied by rubbing it through your pants. Puh-lease, that's like trying to masturbate through your pants! She could not be more wrong. Nothing works better than sharp fingernails overdue for a clipping. (Or occasionally a crowbar or hammer.) So naturally I slip my hand down my pants, wiggle them through my underwear, and do the dirty deed. I'll admit sometimes it requires some significant finger spelunking to find that ore of the orifice. And as a result, my excavating fingernails will sometimes dig up more than just scratch relief. It's like digging for a new water line and inadvertently piercing the gas main. Or the septic tank. I did it more frequently growing up than I do it now. Plus since being with Jodi I wash my hands afterwards at least fifty percent of the time. Earlier in life I never did, so most of the time my father was yelling at me because I smelled like poo. He'd see the black streaks under my fingernails and get all pissed off for some reason. As soon as he spotted it, he'd make me go wash my hands like it was some kind of major ordeal. The joke's on him though because I just went into the bathroom and ran the water in the sink for a minute. |
| I think people can see signs in anything when they're looking for them. It's like that movie "23" where Jim Carey sees all kinds of evil coincidences with the number 23. I've never actually seen the movie, partly because Jim Carey can't make a serious movie and partly because the premise annoys me. People are so insistent on believing what they want to believe that they can twist any trivial coincidence into a fraudulent justification. The same could be said for some demon appearing in your room and chanting "11011," which as everyone knows is the number 6 in binary, and 6 is of course the devil's number. Besides the obvious shroom-induced problems with that scenario, there is of course the little problem of 11011 not actually being binary code for 6. In fact, 11011 is actually the number 27. Oh, now I get it! 2 + 7 = 9. Turn it upside down and you have 6! Whoa... creepy! My almost three year old nephew sometimes practices his arithmetic. He chants "1,2,3... 1,2,3." Waitaminute... 1 + 2 + 3 = 6... Oh my God, my nephew is the anti-christ! I mean I had my suspicions all along, so this really comes as no surprise, but I should have seen it earlier. I guess I need to find me some numerologist friends. I think if some Ghostbuster-esque hound of hell showed up in my room, I'd shit my pants. If it then proceeded to chant binary at me, I'd probably laugh my ass off. Seriously, Satan is losing his edge if that's the best he's got. Where's the head that spins around 360 degrees or all that fire and brimstone? No, if machine code is the best he's got, I'll become an exorcist tomorrow. I'll drive out those possessions with anti-virus software. I wonder if all demons talk in binary. Maybe some of them only use hexadecimal, or... *gasp*... octal! In truth if hell is full of computer geek apparitions I won't be too disappointed when I end up there. I mean it would be kind of cool to have the Mac vs Windows debate with Lucifer. Though in truth he's probably both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates in disguise, so maybe it would be a moot point. |
| My apologies in advance to my wife. Sorry I must tell spill these embarrassing details, honey, but you'll have to blame it on shannon. It was her prompt and her contest afterall. When Jodi gets drunk, she gets horny. For this reason, you'd probably expect me to keep the booze flowing at all times. Quite the contrary actually. Horniness does not equate to satisfaction, and in fact drunken horniness usually equates to hours of dirty promises and arousing contact, followed shortly thereafter by me carrying her collapsed form to a bed somewhere so she can sleep the booze off. Most often she gets drunk when we're not home, so the time it takes for us to leave usually includes all kinds of embarrassing moments that involve her groping me publicly. Or she'll give me a "come hither" sort of look and whisper all kinds of naughty things she wants to do to me. And then, almost invariably, by the time we get home, she's all but asleep and in no condition to do anything more strenuous than hold her head up. So in reality, booze does not equate to a lucky Ernie, but rather a blue-balled Ernie. She did get drunk at home once though and managed to maintain a loose grip on consciousness. She twisted my arm and got me into the bedroom. What followed was one of the most exciting and terrifying experiences of my life. I shan't go into details, but I will say I feared for the life of my little guy. There's something inherently exciting about a booze-induced aggression from your partner. But as said partner is ravishing you in ways you only dream about, you start to wonder how her alcohol-distorted version of reality will affect her judgment. After all, there's a reason we're not supposed to drink and drive. As her motor skills succumb to the alcohol, excitement becomes apprehension. And as the sucking suddenly becomes a bit toothier, apprehension becomes terror. You wouldn't let a drunk woman drive your Hummer, would you? Likewise, I'm not sure if a drunk woman should even give you one. Needless to say, that was the only time I was ever eager for the fellatio to be over. For a while there I was nervous she might pass out and I would need the Jaws of Life to extract her jaws. I'm not sure what happens with your jaw muscles when you pass out, but I do know she sometimes grinds her teeth in her sleep. I'm cringing right now, just thinking about it. |
| I had a great monologue on underwear planned for today's entry, which is fitting since the last time I wrote a leading entry for "Follow the Leader" it was about going commando. But today I'm kind of in a funk, so I'm going to write something serious. And who knows, maybe I'll get some reader wisdom out of it, like from my journaling hero Penemue . Jodi and I stopped the birth control a month or two ago. In my opinion that doesn't technically mean we're "trying" to conceive, because I still don't think of it as "babymaking," nor has there been any increase or decrease in said activity. Jodi's all about babies though, so she would disagree. Regardless of how you classify it, there may be a little PC in our not so distance future. Exciting. And incredibly terrifying. I'm sure everyone is scared about having a mini-PC running around, but not for the same reasons I am. I just keep thinking about having a baby, and it's giving me an anxiety attack. I want kids, but I just wish we didn't have to have them right now. Before I met Jodi I lived in an isolated box of my own making. Life was about working and then coming home to spend all night on the computer doing absolutely nothing with myself. Living involved little more than grinding through each day and drowning in self-pity and self-loathing. My only real joy was coaching youth baseball, an annual three month event that constituted my only form of "a life." I never really felt alive, and for a long time I wished I wasn't. Even when not depressed, even when feeling great, I found joy in very few things. I thought that's what living was about, and then Jodi came into my life. For ten years I frittered away my existence, and for the last two and a half I finally feel alive. I enjoy things now. I like going places, seeing things, meeting people. I like being social and being out and about. I want to do things with someone other than myself. I want to take all this hard-earned money and just have a good time. I want to enjoy everything I've been missing for all those years. I want to just be with her. I feel like having kids is going to put an end to all that. Having a baby means all kinds of new responsibility. No more going out. No more pissing money away to have a good time. No more spontaneous decisions. No more time for just the two of us. Life as I know it, the life I'm finally enjoying, comes to a screeching halt. It feels like a roller coaster at some theme park. I finally work up the courage to ride the coaster, get the thrill of the lifetime as it loops around, and then, as it stops 40 seconds later, wonder why I waited in line so long for such a short ride. I'm trying to ignore the financial aspect of having kids, and having a very difficult time doing so. I did the math today, and that's probably what put me in this funk. It's hard to get motivated for anything when you realize you make good money and you wont' be able to enjoy a penny of it. I wish we could wait longer to have kids, to at least let us enjoy life for a while first. But those biological clocks are ticking and that fertility window is shrinking. And besides that, Jodi wants kids yesterday. I want them tomorrow, as in waaaaaay tomorrow, but tomorrow is already today, so time to embark on that whole parenting thing. It doesn't help that I don't like babies. I love kids, but babies I could do without. I make no secret of that. I can't connect with anyone that can't hold a conversation with me. And don't tell me baby talk is a conversation. I find the whole baby talk thing immensely frustrating and off-putting. In general, when babies are around, I'd rather not be. For that matter, I've never seen a cute baby. Tons of cute kids, but never a cute baby. When old bald people drool and have their eyes bugging out of their heads, no one thinks they're cute, and I refuse to see how babies are any different. They make me just as uncomfortable as those old drooling people, more actually. Do I look forward to having a baseball catch with my kid? Definitely. Taking them to Disney World? Of course! Playing Santa Clause? You betcha. Sticking their "A"'s up on the fridge? Yup. Teaching them to do all kinds of crazy stuff that will make me insanely proud? Without a doubt. But I do look forward to holding that infant or rocking it to sleep or giving it a bath or even cuddling with it? Nope, can't say that I do. In fact, I'm pretty scared that I'll only do it because I'll feel obligated. Part of me hopes it takes Jodi a while to get pregnant so we can enjoy what we have right now. I feel totally rotten and guilty for thinking it, but I can't make it go away. The other part of me hopes she gets pregnant immediately so we don't lose the opportunity to have kids. I'll willingly give up everything to make her happy. It's an easy choice when it comes down to it; I just wish it was a choice I didn't have to make. Everyone says I'll feel differently when I become a parent. I guess I won't know until it happens. |
| If money was no object, I'd buy a castle. That's pretty much it. Not some castle in Europe or any other place where castles are commonplace though. If I was just another castle owner, then I couldn't gloat or be snooty about it. So no, it would have to be a castle somewhere around here. And if I couldn't find one to buy, I'd pay to have one built. Not a mansion mind you, but a castle, complete with gray stone walls, portcullis, and tower keep. Luckily there's a castle just down the road. It was built sometime in the 1800's, so it's not entirely the genuine article, but it's massive, made of stone, and menacing to trespassers and passersby alike, so it meets all the required conditions. It's currently used for some kind of academy, but "if money was no object" I could make whoever owns it an offer he couldn't refuse. I say "he" because only a man would purposely own a castle in this day and age. Maybe that's a sexist remark, but would anyone really argue with that? I'd take more of my immense bank account and build a moat around the castle. People can climb walls, so I'd need that added precaution to keep out the vagrants, gypsies, hippies, and Jehovah Witnesses. I'd fill the moat with soap and Catholics, so that should keep them all out. Granted if I had all that money I'd help my family out too. Well, only my immediate family. My extended family wouldn't see a penny, and if they walked to close to my castle walls, I'd shoot spitballs out from the turrets at them. Now don't go thinking I'm some kind of bastard; at least I didn't say arrows. But yeah, I'd help out my immediate family. I'd offer them rooms in the tower keep. The drafty ones sure, but still some posh rooms with all the comforts of an impregnable fortress. I'd have plenty of rooms, so of course I could spare a few. So long as they tended the grounds and cleaned the towers, I'd let them live them for free indefinitely. With oodles of money, I could donate to charity too. I've never trusted the bureaucracy of organized charity though, so I wouldn't throw my money away so easily. I would however hold audiences for petitioners looking for money. They could line up at my castle gates on a predetermined day each week and take turns pleading their case in my great hall. On especially warm and sunny days I would hold court outside by the fountains. I'd have security detail of course to keep the poor people stank off me, but I'd have a buffet of water and bread for my peasants... I mean petitioners. And oh yeah, I'd buy a jewel-encrusted scepter. |
| We're holed up here at my parent's house out in the country, but it's only a matter of time before they find us, and my father doesn't have enough ammunition for an extended siege. That means we'll have to head out while the back roads are still clear and hope we can find a sporting goods store that isn't overrun. Even so, we won't be coming back here. I don't know if we'll have Internet wherever we end up, but I can't lug this laptop around anyway. So this will be my last blog entry. By now, most of the east coast is wiped out. If you're on the west coast, gather up only what you can carry and head for the hills. Stock up on perishable goods and firearms. Find some fortified high ground, preferably with indoor plumbing but near running water at a minimum. You'll need to wait out the outbreak and possibly withstand a siege that could last months. If you happen to be some of my international readers, please don't panic. Your governments have probably hidden the news from you, and that's why I need to get the word out here. World leaders are no doubt contemplating full nuclear war on the US by now, hoping to wipe out the menace. Please let them know we have survivors! We're holed up in rural locations, trying to wait out the storm! So long as they guard their borders, executing precision head shots at anything suspicious, they should be able to contain the outbreak to these United States. We have offered aid to so many countries in the short history of our nation; it's time to return that favor. That's my last message to you, faithful readers. As soon as my katana is sharpened, I shall go apply these years of training. You all laughed at me, ridiculed me even. I wish I had the heart to say "I told you so" and be the one laughing now, but there's nothing funny about this. I've seen family members succumb to the sickness. With my own hand, I was forced to slay them. And I'll do it again, if need be. May God have mercy on our souls. |
| Quoted from the object linked below: I'm going to figure out some sort of graceful reentry... Well, as you well know, and as she well knows, I don't allow anyone any gracefulness. So here I am posting it, to let my esteemed readership, all one or two of you, that shannon (decapitalized of course) is back. Now go fill her new journal up will "welcome back's" and "missed you's" and "where the fuck have you been's."
|
| I'm so bored right now. I've been playing my new XBox 360 like crazy, but after like 6 hours of it today, I decided it was time for something different. That something different is of course sinking into a funk of boredom. Sometimes when I'm bored, I read some of my own stories, because let's face it, my writing is genius. Not the serious stuff of course--that's crap--but the crazy shit like I write in this blog. So I just got done reading my 2006 WDC Convention recap ("Invalid Item" ). In addition to making me laugh so hard I machine-gun farted, it got me to thinking. Which explains that burning sensation.Writing.com has changed so much in just a year and a half. Some of the people in that story are no longer on the site and others have been promoted and even demoted, either forcibly or voluntarily. Most of my closest W.com friends are either gone or barely around anymore. Scroll has turned into a virtual ride on the short bus, and much of what was fun is gone. Hell, my blog doesn't get hate rated anymore, and people are too stupid to realize when I'm insulting them. The journal wars are a thing of the past, and the new generation of moderators are caught up in being goody-goody project-oriented go-getters. I don't hear juicy gossip anymore, probably because there isn't any, and I've long since fallen out of the loop. I feel like a dinosaur, a stranded survivor of a long dead culture. The contour of the land has been rebuilt around me, and new online neighborhoods have supplanted old. I can feel the pull of those who have gone before, the sudden disappearance of familiarity and the desire to move on. Frankly I'm too lazy for that though. And I'm too stubborn to adapt. So right now I'm making it my personal mission to revitalize all that I enjoyed with this website. I will reshape the world around me with nothing more than my unrelenting personality. I will immerse myself in the seedy underbelly of Writing.com once again and give new life to a writing community that has sunk into a quagmire of writing and being civil. We will know what it means to be problematic once again, and we I will relish it! Ah, never mind. I'm too bored. |
| Last night I found myself watching coverage of the New Hampshire primary, including the New Hampshire debates and a town hall meeting with John McCain. The most interesting part was when McCain mentioned Chuck Norris throwing his support behind Huckabee. He announced that his own celebrity supporter, Wilford Brimley, had challenged Norris, and they were going to have a steel cage match. The Quaker Oats guy vs. Walker Texas Ranger. How cool would that be? Okay, not at all, but still more entertaining than a bunch of politicians throwing irrelevant shots at each other for having inconsistent stances on issues, which as far as I know is a prerequisite for being invited to a debate anyway. I say we throw all the politicians into a steel cage with baseball bats and barbed wire, and the last man standing gets the presidency. With any luck, none of them will be standing. Actually, no, I totally take that back, since Hillary is likely to win that sort of contest. And that, quite frankly, is terrifying. Don't get me wrong, I am in no way opposed to having a female president. I am, however, opposed to having a she-male dragon lady for a president. For some bizarre reason I find myself interested in the whole political process this year. Maybe I read Lorien 's blog too frequently. (Speaking of which, I missed the Republican debate; did Ron Paul even get a seat?) I don't even know who I could possibly support on either side. After hearing the front runners spew their typical bullshit, I have to confess that I'd be hard pressed to vote for any one of them. Maybe I'll write in Mickey Mouse. Even so, I feel compelled to watch. It's like a train wreck you just can't take stop staring at. You know it repulses you and scares you, but you can't help looking. However, if Huckabee is to win the Republican nomination and name Chuck Norris as his running mate, obviously I'd have to vote for him. At least then the Middle East situation would get resolved; Norris himself would take care of it with little more than a bowie knife and some camo paint. |
| I've seen so many blog entries that say something like "email me your address and I'll send you a Christmas card." I thought about doing this too, but then I realized I have too many adoring fans. Half the people that would send me their address would have to be ignored because I simply don't like them. Of the scant few that actually are worth my time, I'd probably get lazy after about the third card or so and eat a mint pie instead. It's a shame really, all that talent going to waste. Not surprisingly, I happen to make the best Christmas cards anyone has ever seen. I don't make them totally from scratch because I'm too lazy, but I do take store bought cards and embellish them with my special PC flair. Just ask darkin, who got a card last year. Winnie the Pooh was never so awesome. And likely never will be again since we didn't buy Pooh cards this year. I've gathered some addresses together, mostly ones I acquired for stalking purposes, but I don't know if I'll be able to take on any more. When I sit down with my cards and my permanent markers and an inspirational pair of stained undies, the genius flows out of me like a bad burrito and leaves me pretty drained. Already I've prepared six of the greatest cards you've ever seen. Or won't ever see, as is more likely to be the case. Those few who do get my Christmas cards are no doubt immensely honored, as well they should be. Maybe if you were more entertaining, you'd get one too. You know who you are. And as a closing remark, I want to share this fact I heard about Chuck Norris the other day... Once, while having sex in a tractor-trailer, part of Chuck Norris' sperm escaped and got into the engine. We now know this truck as Optimus Prime. |
 Log in to Leave Feedback |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
Tooo rich...Love the tale....Would make a great comic for a local newspaper!!
