Snap into the Jedi Council!

I stole this from Every Day Should Be Saturday. That just moreorless confirms the awesome.


Rest in peace, Macho Man. I'd eat a Slim Jim in your honor if, you know, those things weren't heart attacks wrapped in cellophane.

Enraptured

Dear Harold Camping:

Damn, and I was so ready. I guess you really can't believe everything you read on the internet.

I guess the Whore of Babylon will have to keep her thighs together for another nineteen months...

Let's All Get Our Loot On!

It is kind of funny that the song starts with "it starts with an earthquake" and then the next verse after the refrain starts with "six o'clock".

There's also a line in there about "trump tethered".

I wonder if Saint Stipe has had any other visions of the future.

Hedge your bets, say a little prayer, and then join me tonight after it goes down as I tear this mother up looking for some free stuff.

Friday Morning Latin Lesson, Vol. C

This is the end, beautiful friends. This is the end, my only friends, the end of our elaborate plans, the end of everything that stands. It's all over. Kaput. Finito. Done. Signed, sealed, delivered. Finished.

This will be the last Friday Morning Latin Lesson post. Fitting that I end on number one hundred, no? Or that someone has decided to end it for me.

I speak, of course, of the doom descending upon us tomorrow. If I may suggest something, let us gather together and sing Track 6 from Document, and no, it is important that you do more than just scream "Leonard Bernstein!"


That's right. May 21st marks the be-all and end-all of our time together, friends. Or so spake Harold Camping, the crackpot who has developed this crazy notion of the world crumbling to an end. Curiously, Camping's vision of the End of Times starts with a massive earthquake. This is eerily similar to the end time in Norse mythology, wherein Loki breaks free from his tethers beneath the Earth, and the surface feels it as a quake.

Camping, however, has the power of math behind him. He's basing all of his calculations on the founding of Israel after World War II. The numbers are clearly there in the Bible. Plus, there's the fact that Jesus clearly stated that 7000 years after the Great Flood of Noah, He would return. And we all know that the Great Flood of Noah took play on May 21st, 4990 BC, right? RIGHT??? I mean, 40 days and 40 nights were crammed into that little span of 24 hours, you know. I mean, math, people! It's all right here in numbers (a book of the Bible, don't forget!).

You know who else had math to support his End of the World thesis, right?


In case you needed a reference, here is the site where I got these sweet facts of Biblical truth: Coming May 21: Apocalypse 2011

Oh, and here's another awesome website (really, no sarcasm) about all the failed predictions of the world coming to an end: A Brief History of the Apocalypse.

Anyway, this shit is old hat to me. When I was about nine years old up through at least my sophomore year of high school, every day during summer break was a living nightmare. I say that because I would get up and, while trying to eat my Aldi-brand cereal, my mother would lecture me on all the prophecies in the Book of Revelations. Every day, I would hear about the second coming of Christ, the Rapture, the Tribulation, the thousand years of peace followed by the Devil breaking free from his chains once more before finally getting tossed in the Lake of Fire.

Every day. All summer long. Until I was fifteen.

This was one of the reasons why I would write passionate confessions and apologies for lustful actions after fantasizing about one of my classmates. I was always terrified that Jesus would be returning to Earth while I was in the middle of a good stroke. You don't want to meet the Lord with your cock in your hand. Shit like that can weigh on a young man's conscience.

Of course, I never thought to question: my mother was telling me these things, and she wouldn't steer me wrong, right? RIGHT? So, essentially, for the first eighteen years of my life, I lived in fear of the imminent return to life of a sanctified demigod and the subsequent culling of souls that he would harvest in the wake of his trumpet blasts.

In light of the imminent demise of the world, what with such "evidence" laid out before us, I think this is the only thing that can be said:

Credo quia absurdum est.
Pronounced: "Cray-doh kwee-ah ab-soor-doom est."

Final translation in the hovertext

I have to work all day on Saturday. Fortunately, the book store has big windows, so I can watch as all the shit goes down. Unfortunately, Monsieur Camping does not provide a time. Hell, it's already May 21st in Australia!!! I'm personally hoping that the college girls are hanging out in the store, because when shit goes down, I'm taking full advantage of the confusion. My go to line? "Well, you're fucked anyway, so..."

The damnedest thing is...May 21st in the Rapture, or the Second Coming of Christ, when He pulls the faithful souls from the Earth. First will come the rising of the Dead who were faithful, and then the living will be harvested. That marks the beginning of the Tribulation, where the entire world will erupt into war and the Anti-Christ will begin assembling his minions.

I told you had this shit down pat.

According to Camping, however, the Tribulation only lasts for five months. So, God will then destroy the world on October 21st, 2011...which is one day after my wedding anniversary. So, not only is the world going to Hell in a handbasket, I still have to remember to buy an anniversary present!

Fuck my now-abbreviated life.

And, I don't know about anyone else, but I'm wearing my Notre Dame sweatshirt all day on Saturday. If the Simpsons have taught me anything, it's that Catholic Heaven is so much more awesome to be in than regular old boring Protestant Heaven.


So, it's been fun, friends. We've had some laughs. We've shed some tears. But, you know what they say: "That's great, it starts with an earthquake, birds, snakes an aeroplane and Lenny Bruce is not afraid"

An earthquake? Ah, shit, R.E.M. was right, all along.

TMI Thursday: A Touching Story

One day, sometime around my freshman year in high school, while digging around through a box of books that my dad had stored in what we called the "back room", I found this non-descript story about baseball. I thumbed through it, and, not having anything better to read, I decided to read it. The story itself wasn't terribly intriguing; the book was not very well-written. It had a definite Bad News Bears vibe to it: some middle-aged guy, going through a mid-life crisis, decides to coach his son's baseball team or some bullshit like that. The guy who sponsors the team doesn't come through with the money, mostly because he's an old cocksucker, until they reach the (insert shocked face gasp here) championship game, which they, predictably, win.

Like I said, nothing too interesting. Except, the dad, who is having some trouble at home, meets one of the other kid's moms, who is, apparently, quite the milf. He tries to play it off all cool, but he's totally staring at her tits the whole time he's talking to her. Inevitably, he has to take something over to the other kids house, and the mom, who happens to be a smoking hot divorcee, invites him in and then they fuck.

If the book wasn't particularly memorable and terribly well-written, why do I remember it so well? For one, the Milf reminded me of a girl I had a crush on at the time (you know, minus the whole "middle aged single mother" thing). She had blonde hair and blue eyes and--shocker--so did the girl I was crushing on. So, Milfy Divorcee Mom who kept getting naked in the book and doing all sorts of sexual things to the Coach held my attention between her mysteriously still-pert breasts.

The second reason that I remember the book so well is because it was the first time I had ever encountered sex in the written form. And I liked it. I liked it a lot. In fact, I remember dog-earing the first time when they bone because it was sexual in great detail, including Milfy Blonde taking her clothes off and desperately pulling at Coach's zipper until she got his cock out and started sucking it.

I'm 99% sure that the author of the book was a guy.

I'm also 99% sure that this dude never coached a youth team in his life. At least, not one in North Carolina. *glower* Not that I'm bitter or anything...

I dog-eared the page because, sometimes, when I was feeling randy (and, apparently, like writing out my guilt in my Guilt Journal), I would open that page and read the passage and, inevitably, I'd get rock hard. I'd set the book aside, and go to town on myself.

Now, despite the fact that I have my hands down the front of my pants nearly 24/7, I've only ever been caught beating off twice, and one of those didn't really count. I remember, it was a particularly hot summer, and the air conditioning in my hundred year old house didn't work too well upstairs. Neither my brother or I (we shared a room) could sleep. My brother went downstairs to enjoy the cooler air; I turned the fan on myself and suffered. Eventually, I decided that I should rub one out, hoping that the rush of endorphins and such would make me sleepy. So, I turned on my light, read through the passage where the Coach banged his Milf friend, turned the light off and began the deed.

A couple of seconds later, I hear something moving in the room. I look over, and there's my brother. Thankfully, it was dark; I could only see the outline of his form looming near the doorway. He comes over to the bed; I have a sheet pulled up over my rigidity.


"Dude, the Reds got into a huge fight with the Pirates tonight," he reported. "It was massive, all over the field. You want to come see the highlights?"

Well, I do want to cum... I thought. "Nah, I'll catch them in the morning."

"Okay," he whispered back. He then turned and left.

Relieved, I returned to the task at hand (heh) and finished. I fell asleep and rose refreshed in the morning. And, he was right: that brawl was massive.

The second time, or the true time, I once again turned to my faithful tome and read through my favorite passages. I wish I had some idea as to the title of the book, or the author, or the names of any of the characters. Anyway, fully aroused, I pulled down my pants and began going at it, hoping like hell that I would finish ere one of my family members came up the stairs. Besides, I thought, I could hear them on the steps. It was an old house and most of the steps creaked.

"Having fun?" my brother asked, and, mortified, I looked over at him standing in the doorway. Stammering for something to say, I pulled my pants up and panicked. It had been just a few months earlier that this dude, Danny LaFollette, had been caught jacking off in the bathrooms at school. It had ruined what little social life he had. And this other guy, Donny Rousch, had done the same thing a week later. And his social life had fallen further. Oh dear God, what if my brother told everyone at school?

I'll never know. My brother told no one. It never got out that I had been pounding putz that fateful Saturday evening. He could have told any number of people, and yet he didn't.

And that's when I knew that blood was truly thicker than semen water.

And Father of the Year Goes To...

So, on Monday, I told you about how I sucked it up and started coaching my little boy's soccer team. For most of the year, only nine of the ten kids on the team have shown up to play. The tenth happens to be a classmate of my son's, so I knew that he was in Nicaragua. I thought they were there for missionary work (and they might have been), but it turns out that the kid's mom is doing research on various strains of rotavirus, and there's something unique about the population in Nicaragua that makes the work interesting.

Because nothing screams "interest" like little kids shitting themselves days and nights.

I learned all this on the first night that they were back and at soccer practice. After practice was over, this guy kept talking and talking and talking and talking to me. I just wanted to get to Wendy's so I could buy the kids (and, perhaps, myself) a Frosty. Finally...an hour after practice was over...I was on my quest for the Frostys.

Since the Easter holiday fell in the middle of the soccer schedule, they did not have any games that weekend but resumed the following weekend. However, there was an event at the school where the fields are, and so the Saturday games got moved to Sunday, and some of the older kids' leagues were played on Friday night. Stick with me here; this is backstory.

Unfortunately, since I'm the coach, my phone number is listed as the contact. This means that any of the parents can call me. So, Sunday morning before the game, I'm slumbering away. My wife was out of town, so I had stayed up late the night before...reading...and...not...playing video games.

The phone rings, and it's this guy from the soccer team, who spent half the season in Nicaragua. Worse, it's not even 9:00 yet! You can imagine my frame of mind at the time when my daughter brought me the phone.

The guy was calling me to tell me that his son wouldn't be at the game that day. The game that wasn't being played until 1:00 in the afternoon. Color me unamused, dude; this is news that could have waited until at least eleven o'clock. The reason why his son wouldn't be playing? The little guy broke his arm.

I reacted appropriately. "Oh no! That's terrible! I hope he's going to be alright! Is he feeling okay?"

Now, at this point, right here, they guy should have said "Yeah, he's good. He's a little trooper. He'll soldier on through." Things would have been cool.

Instead, this guy proceeds to tell me the story of how his son broke his arm. Turns out, his older daughter had a game on Friday night, so while she was playing, this guy and his son were messing around on one of the other practice fields. His son was playing goalie, and his was kicking the ball at him.

I think you can see where this is going.

Apparently, this guy drilled kicked the ball so hard so that it hit his son with the force of a meteor striking the Earth in such a manner that he just happened to break two bones in his wrist.

Buh?

And then the guy laughed. Like, "Heh heh. Isn't that just the darnedest thing?"

I'm still like Buh? Maybe I didn't hear this correctly. I've had...a few hours sleep...since I was up late...reading...and...not...playing video games...and my head is a little foggy. Did this guy just call me up and tell me that he broke his son's arm by kicking a soccer ball at him? And then try to laugh it off?

Why, yes. Yes, he did.

Now, I played goalie. I've had the ball drilled at me where I'm pretty sure a sonic boom accompanied the shot. I've had the ball hit me so hard it hurt and I wanted to fall on the ground like the pansy-ass that I am, and bawl my eyes out. Never, however, have I ever broken a fucking bone in my wrist, arm, ribcage or anywhere else from a soccer ball hitting me. Those things have give to them! How the hell hard do you have to kick a ball--at your own six-year-old son--to break not just one but two fucking bones in his wrist?

That's not the best part of it, though. Apparently, when the ball connected with the son's arm, the son fell to the ground screaming in agony. And what does his dad do? Picks him up, ignores the kid's cries of pain, and watches the rest of his daughter's game. The whole time--according to the story--the kid is whimpering in pain. They go home. They eat dinner. They go to bed. Finally, the next day, after the kid gets up and complains about the wrist still hurting, they go to Urgent Care for x-rays.

Jesus Christ, dude, at least Darth Vader tossed Palpatine down the shaft after a couple of seconds of the blue lightning. You let your kid suffer for twelve hours or so.


And this guy just chuckles about it. Heh heh. Well, what do you know?

At this point, I've kind of tuned him out. I really don't want to listen to this guy chat me up. So, after giving me the rundown of his son's injury, he then begins to talk soccer strategy with me, since hr won't be at the game. Because, you know, I haven't handled the team for the first six weeks of the year.

Insert annoyed eyeroll here...

There are two kids on the team, David and Michael, who are very, very good players. Michael even has slide tackling down almost perfectly, but this guy wanted me to stop him from doing that. He shouldn't be doing that in this league, Mr. Smasher of Wrists tells me. My response was, "The kid has a talent. I'm not going to tell him not to use it."

He then went and lectured me on not letting David and Michael play in the game together at the same time. So, at this point, I was already confused, pissed off and a little bit perplexed by this conversation. And I was thinking, "Wait, you want me to not use my two best players in order to...you know...win the games?" As he was rambling on, I was thinking about anything else. Finally, there was a pause and I finished the conversation with "Well, I should get the kids their breakfast. Sorry about your son's arm. Don't worry about bringing him to practice for a couple of weeks. Bye."

Sweet Jesus. The only good thing, though, was that I suddenly didn't feel so bad about yelling at my kids to clean their rooms. I might get annoyed and frustrated with them, but I've never broken any bones in their arms. Or anywhere else, for that matter.

Perhaps I might just win that Father of the Year trophy yet!

Totally Blowing Shit Up Tuesday: The Little Rocket that Could

Avert your eyes, space travelers, because we're going to get this explosions going early and you are going to swear off your intended mode of travel in about thirteen seconds. Behold the mighty spectacle of your GPS not working quite so well as it could:

Now that, my good people, is what blowing shit up is all about! *pauses for a second* Let's completely forget about the amount of money that went up in one incendiary flash of rocket-fuel and liquid oxygen. Did you totally see how that shit was raining down from above? All fire and brimstone and you'd think Loki had picked his flaming sword back up and was going all Sodom and/or Gomorrah on the Cape! Destruction of that magnitude is the most exhausting thing anyone can engage in, aside from soccer.

Think about this for a moment: you're an average Joe rocket scientist. The world to you is all force vectors and Greek letters and silly shit like that. You drive to work, minding your own business, proud of the fact that you're going to put a new GPS satellite into space so that fathers driving their families on vacations don't have to stop and ask for directions when--WHAMMO!--you've been knocked on your ass by a concussive shock wave tearing through the sky five times the speed of sound. Your ears are bleeding from the force of the noise that just ripped through your skull like a bullet through wet tissue paper. The sky is on fire, and it's headed toward you. You're dazed. You're confused. And every year, they stay the same age!

Well, damn, you think. Chalk one more up to combustion kicking the living hell out of potential energy today. I guess it's back to the drawing board! This is, of course, after you've jammed wadded-up kleenex in your ears to stem the flow of blood and pulled your eyes out of your hippocampus where the force of the blast wedged them. Firmly.

I think I'll just go to lunch and we can sweep this thing up and start anew, you continue thinking, gathering the charred remains of your briefcase. You blow out one piece of paper which is still, comically, aflame. You pull on the tattered remnants of your blazer and you head out to the parking lot where you climb into your car only to realize that the wheels are melted to the ground. And Steve Martin is riding shotgun.

"Hello, Bob," you say, after dialing your cell phone and becoming mildly peeved that you're getting less than ideal reception, tiny pieces of GPS satellite slowly spiraling around you, "yeah, I'm going to need you to come out to the parking lot of my place of employment. I think I've totaled my car. Yeah, see you soon. Buh-bye."

And this is just, to quote the dispatcher, "an anomaly of the Delta II launch vehicle." Imagine if a real meddlesome headscratcher had occurred.

Granted, this can be turned amusing based on no one getting injured, which is fucking amazing. In case you missed the cause of the explosion, they determined a seventeen-inch long crack in one of the boosters caused some fuel to leak, a flame to get in, some oxygen to comingle up in that bidness, and then BOOM HEAD SHOT!

I guess it's true what they say: Crack kills.

Living the Dream

I wrote some time ago about how I'm working two jobs to help pay down bills and pay for extravagances, like washing machines from Craigslist and groceries. I'm still working the two jobs, and it is just about as much fun as you can imagine. I'm also, you might remember, trying to write another book, publish one of the ones I've finished and "fix" a couple of others that I want to publish. Oh, and I'm teaching myself Latin. You know, easy shit. Plus, I've been trying to lead the glorious Roman armies into Egypt and conquer them, but that's been slowed a bit by Egypt's development of atomic weapons. Civilization is very much historically accurate, why do you ask?

But, because I've had so much free time on my hands, I decided I should coach my son's soccer team. Because nothing says "I've got WAY TOO MUCH TIME ON MY HANDS" like directing a bunch of 7- and 6-year old kids to run around like fools on a field of grass every Saturday.

I had originally signed up to be the coach in the beginning of the season, but someone screwed up (probably me, but I'll never take the blame!) and had me set for Wednesday night practices. This, at the time, was impossible because I had to work at the book store on Wednesday nights, pretty much every week. When I told the people in the league this, they said fine, found someone else, and then, for reasons that are still a mystery to me, rescheduled my son to be on a team that practiced Thursday nights.

Oh, and they made me assistant coach. Without letting me know.

So, the first Thursday rolls around, and I'm not there (because I'm working two jobs) and my wife is fielding a thousand angry phone calls from people wondering why the fuck no coach has shown up to teach their kid how to kick a ball. Because, let's be honest, Under-8 Youth Soccer is not exactly the UEFA cup; kicking is about all they do.

I wrote to the league commissioner, wondering what the fuck was up, and he said that, since I had expressed interest in coaching before, he thought I would positively love being an assistant.

Now, I positively love tits. I positively love blow jobs. And I positively love rum. Coaching soccer? Not so much my thing.


Oh, sure, I played soccer. I was good at soccer. But, when I was playing, I was a goalie. I went through goalie drills. I didn't go through all the drills for midfielders and forwards and defensemen. Yes, I knew what they were, but I couldn't really teach them.

So, the commish took me off being an assistant coach. There was much rejoicing.

And then...the coach quit. You could also read this as "And then...the universe decided to have itself (another) good laugh at my expense (once more)."

Reluctantly, I kind of took over the coaching of the team. I mean, someone had to think of the children, right? For once? Since I had been through the "coaches clinic" (three hours of my life which I will never get back and for which I was not nearly drunk enough), I figured I could step up and help out. It was...almost...fun. Some of the kids actually showed up to practice. Some of them came to games, too. It was...actually...nice. I made friends with some of the other coaches on other teams. I actually got along with the referees--mostly because they were high school kids who were volunteering their time. Also, they were pretty cool and they weren't douchebags with the calls.

There is one guy, though, who is an A-Prime cocksucker. He's bald and I'd wager 2-1 that he's got a dick like a sparrow poking out from between his thighs. He also only calls handballs on the kids wearing the green jerseys, despite the fact that one time I actually saw a midfielder grab a ball and spike it to the ground like a fucking volleyball and play on. Since we were up several goals, I was able to contain my rage and not get asked to leave the sidelines.

I still mentally insulted several generations of his ancestry, convincing myself that they were all tiny-dicked, bald cocksuckers. Apples don't fall far from trees, you know.

I was worried that the kids would kind of suck, like not skills-wise, but be little assholes. Because I'm crotchety like that. Get off my lawn and all that.

Pleasantly, the kids are all pretty nice; it's the parents that I can't stand. They talk about "Soccer Moms" and "NASCAR dads" in political circles, but I haven't seen any of those. Mostly I've had to deal with Douchebag Dads and Methlab Moms.


One of the first practices, I had the kids trying to pass the ball back and forth to each other, about five yards apart. I looked over, and one of the dads was on the sidelines...doing push-ups. Uh...you see...he was...bored...I guess...and...yeah.

He's since stopped with the upper-body exercises to pass time; instead, he sits on the sidelines dicking around with his iphone throughout practice. Fine. Whatever. Just keep your douchery away from me, sir.

Overall, it's been fun. And, this past weekend, my kid almost scored a goal. He even started having fun and said that he wishes soccer season would never end. Ha, little scamp...I see someone has been getting into daddy's rum supplies.

And now my daughter thinks that she might give soccer another go. Joyous.

I just wish that the parents would remember to bring snacks for the coach, too. It's a little embarrassing to be standing there with my mouth watering over the rice crispy treats and Capri suns. Cherry is my favorite flavor (hint hint).

If only I had a second source of income where I could purchase such luxuries as marshmallow and puffed-rice snack treats along with foil envelopes of flavored juice drinks...

Happy Saint Florian Day!

Today is May the Fourth, which is Star Wars day. It's also the day the Catholic Church has opted to celebrate the life of a man whose name was Florianus, which as far as I can decipher, means "flowery butt".

Florian was alive during the times of the Roman Emperor, Darth Diocletian, who was enemy Numerus Unus as far as the early Christian sects were concerned. Florian served in the Roman imperial army stationed in Noricum (modern day Austria and Hungary, see map above), where he commanded the legion. He was also in charge of training the men as firefighters within the division.

Now, Darth Diocletian is known for a lot of good things, but he was also a real prick when it came to persecuting Christians in the empire. In fact, recent archaeological discoveries point toward Diocletian secretly building a powerful weapon that he could use to wipe out the Christians in a single, all-powerful stoke.

As he couldn't make the trip himself, Diocletian sent one of his apprentices, Darth Aquilinus, to Noricum to help...advise...the soldiery there on how better they could improve themselves. Upon his arrival, Aquilinus told the Roman legion that they better start killing some Christians, or else.

Florian refused. This did not sit well with Aquilinus, and so he commanded the troops to turn on Florian. Florian took the abuse as the Roman soldiers punched, kicked and beat him soundly with staves. Seeing that this wasn't doing enough, they tortured him with fire. And then, to be really efficient, they tied a big ass stone around his neck and tossed him in the Enns river, where he drowned.

Death, however, could not hold Florian. He returned in a vision, telling a young woman to go to the Dagobah system, and that he didn't like having his body left on the bottom of a river. He was eventually dredged up and buried near his childhood home, which is now called Sankt Florian. Sorry, I don't know what it was originally called, but we'll just say it was "Tatooine".

Florian is the patron saint of Upper Austria. More importantly, he is the patron saint of firefighters, chimney sweeps, and soap boilers. He is depicted as a Roman soldier, usually with a pitcher of water, pouring water over a fire. His name is invoked to stave off fire, protect against drowning, and making improbable shots down tiny holes in an enormous megastructure without using your targeting computer.

So, Happy Saint Florian Day, y'all! And vis vobiscum!

To add insult to injury (and to completely break with the underlying theme), the Catholic Church does not recognize any Saint Guilder. So much for love, true love.