Vita Brevis

Synchronicity

2011-11-29T07:56:00.000-05:00

Alright, people. Listen, I've had a shitty summer. Literally, though that part was more in the fall than the summer. But the summer sucked some pretty big sweaty balls, as well. Unfortunately, it wasn't MY big sweaty balls being sucked.

But, dammit, Winter is almost upon us, with its long nights, chilly days and randomly designated holidays commemorating the births of demigods--try as you might, you're not going to find a damned bit of blasphemy in those words. It's time for things to start looking up.

And, by golly, would you look at that? The Winter Solstice for 2011 is on December 22nd. Isn't that just the bees' knees? Because my birthday is also on the 22nd of December! What a co-inky-dink, no? My fake French accent is believable, no?

You know what they say, right? That Winter is Coming. They, of course, being the Starks (or what's left of them...oops, spoilers!) from Game of Thrones. Remember back about three posts when I translated the mottos of the houses in Game of Thrones into Latin? Well, Hibernum venit, fututrices! And with it approaches the anniversary of me sliding out of my mother's birth canal.

*visible shudder*

This is all coming together so well that I think--nay--I feel that I must get this shirt for my birthday:

Via: http://www.snorgtees.com/t-shirts/winter-is-coming

I mean, I am a fan after all. And I really don't have enough black and/or charcoal gray t-shirts. Plus, my birthday is the winter solstice this year!!! The old gods of the North are trying to tell me something, and I believe that something is to con my friends into buying me a t-shirt.

I'm down to an X-Large, by the way.

Friday Morning Latin Lesson, Vol. CI

2011-09-23T07:00:00.000-04:00

Oh, what a week. I had to do some of that "parenting" thing that's expected of me. Apparently, if you sire the children, you're expected to raise and discipline them. What the hell fun is that? None, says this very grumpy old man.

Anyway, I was putting the kids on the bus on Wednesday morning when the bus driver pointed at me like she needed to speak with me, and then pointed at the boy, indicating that it was about him. Or that's what I interpreted it as, anyway. I stepped closer to the door and she then informed me that my seven-year-old son had, on the previous day, been "cussing up a storm."

Oh really? Do go on!

My son, of course, burst out into tears. Because he's seven. But, you know, a seven-year-old with a sailor's mouth. I wonder where the fuck he learned that (hint: it's college football season).

I get the boy calmed down and tell him to sit and then I reassure the bus driver that I would take care of it. She continues to go on, telling me that it was his first warning and the next time he'd be off the bus and then reiterated that he had been "cussing up a storm" and that he was mad at his sister or something (this is key for later) and that she heard "every word in the book."

At this point, I'm kind of annoyed and the first thing that I wanted to say was "Did he say 'cunt'? Because that's certainly in the book." And then as she continued on, my next thought was "Look, it's not a big deal. It's a string of letters that you have assigned an arbitrary meaning to which just happens to be one that offends you and your religious tenets based on the mythology of a wandering tribe of escaped slaves formulated over four thousand years ago."

Somehow, though, I didn't think that the bus driver would have understood what I said, nor would she have appreciated it.

Finally, she closed the door and was off. I then let this percolate through the day in the back of my mind and I decided it would be totally hypocritical of me to punish him for something I say every thirty-four seconds on football Saturdays. I got home that evening and sat him down for a good talking to; I refused to yell at him, though, because, you know, hypocrite and all.

Basically I told him that we live in an area where a lot of people get easily offended by words like that and if he's going to say bad words, he should do it where people aren't going to hear him and get upset. Because I remember being in the second grade. I remember learning a whole new lexicon. The kid's going to say it, whether I tell him to or not.

I also said that he shouldn't let his sister bother him like that and cause him to get upset to where he's yelling out swear words. At this, he got defensive. "Why would I call her a BEEEEEEEP? She's my sister!"

At which point the two stories did not seem to line up. Later that same evening, my wife came home and said, "Yes, he got in trouble for saying 'bitch' on the bus."

Oh really? He got in trouble for "bitch"? That's "every word in the book?" What kind of fuck-knuckle thinks that "bitch" constitutes every word in the book? Two things happened then: one, I felt better about the talking-to I gave the lad, telling him to be smart and strategic with his curses and oaths; and two, I became really fucking annoyed with the bus driver. I realize that "bitch" is not the first word you expect to hear coming from a seven-year-old's mouth, but don't fucking make it out like he was doing a George Carlin routine.

I thought maybe I should teach the boy how to swear in a foreign language, so that he would get in less trouble. While French or Spanish or German would be more practical--and hard hitting; every word in German sounds like swearing--perhaps we should with Latin first.

That almost wasn't a hamfisted segue...

Edite verpas, fututrices! Proficiscor!

Pronounced: "Ay-dee-tay ware-pahs, foo-too-tree-case! Pro-fee-kee-score!"

Say what you want about the movie, this is one of my favorite Homer Moments. Ever.

Hovertext for the translation.

And now for the actual "lesson" part. In a deliciously ironic twist, the word verpa that you see above is a slang (vulgar) Latin term for "the penis" and would most certainly be equivalent to our "dick" or "cock". Or Pedro. The funny thing is that verpa ends in an "a" and is therefore a first declension noun, and almost all first declension nouns are feminine. As being a dick isn't really a job, verpa ends up being a feminine word.

The word fututrix, fututrices means "one who is fucked" and the -rix ending makes a female noun. It is the Latin equivalent of "fucker" or (probably a better translation into modern usage) "bitch". Though it is used as an insult, fututrix does not imply "whore", as you might be inclined to guess based on its literal translation. But that's a Latin lesson for a different day.

Oh, and if you're curious, fututor is the male equivalent. And the best application that I can think of is fututor matrum as "mother fucker" (literally "one who fucks mothers").

Anyway, pax fututores matrum. Proficiscor! Have a good weekend.

TMI Thursday: In the Out Door

2011-09-15T08:52:00.000-04:00

It is with a heavy heart that I share this story of misdeeds I've done with my dick. No, no...it's okay. I'll make it through. I just have to be strong. Like bull.

Yesterday, my friend Nick ~~became dead to me~~ advanced his career, taking a different position with a different company. Since I'm a jealous asshole, I shall miss his presence here within the hallowed halls of my main job, though I am happy for him. As Nick is a regular reader to this blog--as regular as you can get for something that never updates--I thought I would finally piece together the story that I promised back in the dog days of summer. It's called that because I was as hot as dog balls on thigh humping night.

I'm not sure what that means, either.

Anyway, this one is for Nick, who not only is far smarter than I, but is also far better looking. Not to mention he's been banned from nude beaches because the other bathers are terrified of the beached sea serpent that unfurls itself when Nick lays out on his towel. I'm not saying he's massive or anything, but he's better hung than the jury for Phil Spector's trial.

Enough about Nick's anaconda (as a note, it don't want none unless you got buns, hon!); we're here to read embarrassing stories about what I've done with my pecker. And it certainly is interested, even if you don't got buns. Hon.

When it comes to sexual encounters, I've certainly had a few. Unless, for some reason you're my mother reading this. In which case, please, continue lying to yourself and believe that I've only had two. Ever. And none of them were upstairs in my old bedroom. *shifty-eyed*

While my encounters are many, it seems that the greater number of sexual foibles and/or follies took place with She-Who-Cannot-Be-Named, otherwise known as ~~Sheila the Buxom~~ The Ex.

If you haven't met The Ex before, feel free to peruse old TMI Thursday posts, as she and her lovely breasts and perfect ass show up there quite often. I feel that, if I compliment her, even these many years after the fact, it will soften the blow should she someday discover several of her sexual misdeeds have been recorded in electronic media. Because it's not like that shit's forever or anything. Oh, internet, what would we do without you? THANK YOU, AL GORE!

Anyway, let's cut to the chase. One night after working at the old bookstore, I went over to the Ex-Fiancee's house. Instead of watching a movie or going out to eat, we decided to probe each other's bodies with parts of our own. This happened on a fairly regular basis. You'd think that, with all the food I wasn't eating, I would have been thinner. Hmm. Go fig.

We were back in her bedroom and I had just worked her out of her clothing and, admittedly, I was had removed my own garments. We were making out pretty hard, hands and lips were moving over every part of each other's bodies. I cupped her breasts, ran my hands down her sides and slipped my fingers between her thighs and into her. Once I felt she was ready, I kissed my way down to her nipples and trailed my lips and tongue down her body as I slipped off the bed. I nestled between her thighs and went to town. After thoroughly enjoying a bout of oral, I decided that I'd try to last as long as possible and just enter her while she was moist and ready.

As a taller man, one of my favorite ways to do the deed is to be standing at the edge of the bed, clasping her thighs, and thrusting into her while her ass is essentially hanging off the edge of the mattress. As I had just finished cunning her lingus, not only was she basking in a post-orgasmic bliss, but she was wet and lubricated and ready. I stood, pulled her willing thighs apart and entered her. Her green eyes flared open as she gasped, she started moaning, and I was off.

Being a gentleman, I started slow, letting her natural juices envelope and lubricate me (this is an important point, so pay attention; re-read that shit if you have to), but as time passed and I things became slicker with her body's essence, I began to lose myself.

It's also important to note that the Barenaked Ladies song, "One Week", had been pretty popular around this time. If you're unfamiliar with the song ~~shame on you!~~, it features the lyric "Like Sting I'm tantric!" It's a reference to a rumor that Sting is all about the tantric sex and can go on for something like four or five hours worth of sex. It's not so much that he's tantric; it's just that he's motherfucking Sting!

Anyway, this got me to investigate what tantric sex was. With all that "last as long as I can and unearthly glow of awesome sex" reading in my mind, I decided that this night, the night I was with my fiancee, I was going to try the tantric moves. So there I was trying the shallow, shallow, deep shit. And things were going well. This might be skewed slightly because I was having sex, which means that, in my mind, things were probably going pretty well to begin with.

All that aside, I was trying the alternating shallow and deep thrusts. As I mentioned earlier, my fiancee was pretty wet from our foreplay, and by this point all of me--shallow or deep, doesn't matter--was pretty well-lubricated. So I tried the shallow, shallow, shallow, shallow...thing when my mind was like "Put it in her! Hard! Motherfucker!"

Which is what I did.

Except...as I was doing the shallow thing, not much of my penis was actually in her, so when I pulled back for a deep, hard thrust, I kind of slipped out of her. This did not deter me when I went for the deep thrust.

BAM!

I was in her.

Guaranteed to satisfy

Except...I wasn't in her. When I went for the deep thrust after all the shallow bullshit, I kind of forgot to aim. The next thing I knew...I was in her ass, buried up to the hilt. I knew this because those green eyes that had gotten wider when I entered her now goggled out of her head in a fashion that can only be described as "cartoonish". Her body also started contorting and shuddering in a not good, not so sexy way.

Oh, and she screamed. Loudly.

Unsure of what was going on, I looked down as she was rolling onto her side and feeling around her ass with her fingers to see if she was bleeding. Me, being the suave and debonair lover, did manage to ask if she was okay before I started giggling.

"Well, I'm okay. It's not that I'm opposed to that...it's just...that was the first time...and I kind of wasn't ready for it."

And my loving and caring response?

"I understand. It sure did feel tight. But I understand."

I'm such a prize.

After I washed myself up, we resumed with normal, vaginal sex. However, the butt-cherry had been popped and it was only a few weeks until curiosity got the better of both of us and we returned to the tacitly taboo sport of anal rompage.

How very apropos

But (heh) that's a story for another day.

I Blame Time Warner Cable

2011-07-28T13:10:00.001-04:00

My home internet is fucked. That's why this space has been mostly blank. Plus, I have been busy trying my best not to sweat. Epic fail on that part.

I also have to replace my entire air conditioning unit from the compressor to the air handler. And that's been...joyously stress free! I can't tell you just how pleasant this whole situation has been.

Tomorrow is going to be 104, maybe 105. And then Saturday is going to try and top Sunday.

My coinpurse is already sagging a bit more.

I think "In the Out Door" was the winner of the poll (pole...heh). I'll get that taken care of next week. It's not the kind of story you write up on the work-based computer.

And yes, it is probably exactly what you think.

Perspirationally yours, mgj

TMI Thursday: Choose Your Own Adventure!

2011-07-20T23:11:00.004-04:00

I'm hot, and I'm a bit exhausted, and I'm trying to finish writing a chapter in one of my books, so I'm not going to give you a story today. Stop bitching; you've gone months in between posts from me. You can wait a little while longer.

The other problem is, I have a lot of stories I can tell in the TMI vein. So, I'm going to let you decide, based pretty much solely on their titles. Here are your options:

The First Time
Colorado
The Pearl Necklace
Cyclops
Who Let the Dogs Out?
In the Out Door
After Hours Fun

I'll leave the voting up to you. Next Wednesday night, I'll put together whatever it is that you all have decided upon. For reference, all of them are about sex.

So, you have that to look forward to. Better pick the right one.

That's Not Cool, Dude

2011-07-20T08:21:00.005-04:00

I could write a country song about air conditioning.

It started back in May, when we turned the air conditioner on and warm air came out of it. I run a heat pump for my house, which is apparently "exactly what I need". Only thing is, it wasn't warming us much during the winter and in May, when we had this first bout of ball-stickingly hot weather, it wasn't cooling.

Unimpressed and ready to burn the house down, my best friend, Joe, gave me the name of a guy who had serviced him...er...his air conditioner...in the past. I called the guy and, because it was the first real wave of heat that we had in the summer, he was pretty booked and couldn't get out to my unit for two days. Remaining unimpressed, I waited. And sweated. Or made my own gravy. Or whatever.

Finally, he arrived, changed out some rusted pieces and recharged my unit with coolant. And then he put freon in the air conditioner--hiyo! Anyway, the air was running fine for a while. Things were cool. Not frosty, but I didn't need to wring my pillow out at night in order to shuffle off to dream land.

Not so my car, however. Er, well, the loaner car that I'm borrowing from my wife's grandmother. It probably needs a coolant recharge, as it is slow to finally cool the air, and once it starts cooling the air, it doesn't do a fantastic job, especially when the heat is 90+. When it's enough to melt lead, as the next few days are threatening to be, it just says "fuck it" and doesn't even try to cool the air.

This is fine, since I'm not in my car that much. Just from getting to home to work to other work to home, and half the time I'm not driving in what could be called "the heat of the day." Unfortunately, with the current weather forecast, despite my best efforts, I'll be driving in the heat of the night, too. And I'm not calling anyone "Mr. Tibbs."

To make matters better, the book store has a long history of air conditioning units not working quite right. Apparently, if half of them are working, it's a good day. A great day, in fact. This summer, there have been very few great days. Exacerbating the matter, I spend most of my time standing near the front door. When people come in, not only do they drag in their git along with the acerbic, clinging stench of second-hand smoke, they also drag in the hot air from outside. This air just sort of settles over my position and, despite not moving, I still stand there and sweat.

Which brings me back to the lab, where the air chillers fail, spectacularly, every summer when it gets hot. Let me assure you, ninety humid degrees in a lab coat is not nearly as sexy as one might imagine. At least the lab coat hides the pit stains, but it's more difficult to surreptitiously jangle my ballsack away from it's adherence to the insides of my thighs.

To bring this bitch full circle, last week, the air conditioning unit was running, but no air was being moved in the house. The fan in my air handler, which blows the air around and moves the cool air into the house and pulls the hot air out, was burnt out. It needed a new motor. So, I called the same guy who had done a coolant refill for me. He changed the fan out and air was moving again.

Now, the fan works great. The air is moving, I hear it humming, and there's a generally decent flow of air through the house. Bad news, though, is that the air that's moving isn't cool. It seems as though the "leak test" for the air conditioning unit wasn't exactly aced, apparently, and the coolant has leaked out. I know this because it's 90 degrees in my house at night when I go to bed. 90 degrees at midnight is not cool, in any literal or figurative sense.

I'm loath to call this guy back, if only for the fact that I'm not sure I won't be liberally sprinkling my questions to him with the word "fuck" and "dickhead". However, I don't like sleeping in a puddle of my own drippings. And the other thing is, I've already paid him $700 for his work this summer, which has basically netted me zero, as I'm right back to where I started in May. Plus, I don't really have $300 for the service call.

So, I could totally write a song about the painful misery of summer's heat without the joys of recirculated air. It'd either be country or the blues, and if it was a blues song, I would so change my name to Boiling Waters.

Totally Blowing Shit Up Tuesdays: This Is Why It's So Effing Hot

2011-07-19T07:03:00.002-04:00

I probably should not be whining about this, since it's not three million degrees in North By God Carolina...yet. Or again. Or however you'd like to put it. However, I've said it before and I'll say it again: the coinpurse is hanging mighty low.

I guess the price to pay for one very nice weekend is that we'll soon be thrust deep into the bowels of a very certain fiery hell. Some people (Texans, mostly) call it "summer". It's summer, so let's crank the motherfucking heat all the way to 11, right Mother Nature?

Who knew Mother Nature was such a fan of Nigel Tufnel?

Anyway, this whole ungodly heat wave that has been melting butter all across the Midwest and Great Lakes region--and which is headed straight for the east coast--is just more fuel for the fire for the global warming crowd. Any stretch of hot weather causes them to scream about carbon footprints and cow farts and such. Just like balls-deep snow causes the extremists on the other side to squawk just as loudly against global warming. Whatever it is, global warming or not, I know that I have to wring my pillow out around 4:20 every morning, and that's just not good eats.

I need to slow down my typing: my knuckles are sweating.

Anyway, global warming, celestial alignment, God's hot little prank on all of us--whichever reason you can come up with for this ball-saggingly hot streak, there's no denying that the temperatures are cranked up. Grab yourself a cool glass of ice tea or iced water or scotch on the rocks and check this shit out:

By the way, when I hit 45, scotch on the rocks is all I'll be drinking. You've been given ten year's warning, Scotland! Time to up the manufacturing process!

As you can see in the video, the sun doesn't get along too well with Thai food, either. That big, galactic fart was a solar flare coupled with a massive ejection of charged plasma particles. Fortunately, that was pointed anywhere but toward the Earth. If it had been pointed here, well, we wouldn't be having the conversation, now, would we?

Here's another clip, a closer view but also viewed at a slightly different wavelength of light so you can see the shit falling back into the sun. It's pretty awesome to see the light flaring when the sun's own ejecta lands back on its surface.

Now, run that back and pay special attention to the place where the flare originates and watch it as the flare erupts. Did you see that dark circle running away from the epicenter of the explosion? That's a blast wave. On the surface of the sun. From where part of it blew out.

*takes hat off head and fans self*

Pardon me. I need to catch my breath.

Here's something cool, though. If you look at your keyboard right now, everything you see--the carbon that makes up your flesh and bones and the plastic keys to your keyboard, the aluminum that forms the frame, the hydrogen and oxygen that makes up most of that delicious cup of coffee sitting on your desk, even the calcium and phosphorus that makes up the ceramic of your coffee mug--all came from shit like this. The sun--or any star--burps out the atoms that make up pretty much everything (elements heavier than iron, though are made when the sun truly gets surly and goes supernova) when it ejects material out of itself like this. Most of that stuff fell back to the sun's surface, it's true, but some of it went floating off into the deep, dark nether regions of space and may, someday, turn into the coffee mug or ballpoint pen of some future denizen of Earth. Or it could go further out and be incorporated into some alien life form's civilization.

That's pretty fucking beautiful, if you ask me (and I know you did...why else would you be here if you didn't want to know?), even if the sun could, tomorrow, point one of those blasts directly at the Earth. If it happened, we'd have about eight minutes to call our loved ones and hurry to the shelters where we can bend over and kiss our asses good-bye.

Kind of warms the heart a little, right? Well, good. Now that your heart is warm, it matches the rest of this hellish weather, doesn't it?

Where's my damned scotch and water?

The Towers Twain

2011-06-22T08:38:00.007-04:00

I went and saw the one-night-only special release of the Two Towers last night. It's the extended version that was reformatted for Blue Ray release, so it had all of the good stuff in it that was left out in previous theater releases. And, I learned a couple of things from the movie last night.

1) My bladder just isn't cut out for an extended-cut version of a movie. Toward the end, I was like "Yes, okay, Sam. We get it. Songs and saving the world. Now shut the fuck up and get your chubby little Hobbit ass into Illien. I've gotta piss!"

2) Miranda Otto has some very fine freckles across the bridge of her nose, upping her "DAWWWWWWW" factor by about ten million.

3) Aragorn, as portrayed in the movie, is a shitty general and commander. Why anyone would follow him into battle is beyond me. I guess it's a sense of duty to the aged houses of Numenor, but that doesn't make sense, either. Your kingdom is crushed and you spent most of your life hiding out in Rivendell? Well, sure, I'll blindly follow your instructions and get myself killed. How noble of us all!

I'm speaking of the battle for Helm's Deep. Or Helm's Derp, as I dubbed it last night while the movie was running. I realize that the whole thing is set up for Gandalf to sweep in at the dawn and ride down the orcs and break their ranks and send them scurrying off into the forest where they get crushed. I get that. But, Aragorn was seriously Herping the Derp during that whole battle.

"I see a force of ten thousand coming!" he tells Theoden. Then he just hangs out and broods. He doesn't actually fucking prepare for battle. No one was out digging trenches to keep the orcs away from the walls. No one was pounding stakes into the ground to herd the orcs into smaller gaps.

We don't have enough men to guard the walls! Well, here's an idea: don't allow the orcs to attack across the entire face of the wall! Take away their access! Walls are supposed to keep people out. Use them like they should be used. Dig some trenches. Pound some wooden stakes into the ground before the wall. Hoardings, man! Build some fucking hoardings! Throw some caltrops on the ground: the fucking orcs don't wear boots! Take advantage of that!

And, for an impregnable fortress where the people of Rohan flee when under attack, Helm's Deep was sorely lacking in defensive weapons. We have a horn! That will scare them! Much better than any trebuchet or catapult or ballista to frighten off the bad guys! It's a horn! Scary! *trembles*

The whole Elf thing bothered me, too. I mean, aside from the fact that the Elves were all about unassing Middle Earth and leaving it to men to sort out, how the hell did they get to Helm's Deep all the way from Lorien (or even Rivendell)? It took Gandalf five days to find Eomer and bring him down to Helm's Deep, and Lothlorien is even further away than that.

When they get there, our buddy Aragorn commands the archers on top of the walls. Instead of barking out quick orders, he gives out long commands in strings of Elvish. "Draw your arrows! Fire your arrows! Have a cup of tea! Does this cloak make my ass look big?" This is war, Aragorn. You need to kill more of them faster than they can kill you. Quick, short commands are best. "Knock! Draw! Fire! Knock! Draw! Fire!" The beauty of the longbow is that it can fire about twenty arrows a minute, and that's if you're slow and taking aim. You're supposed to flood the air with arrows, dude, not wait for the attackers to start scaling the walls.

Anyway, they made a big deal about the one culvert in the wall that could be breached. If Wormtongue knew about it, how did Theoden overlook it? Why weren't there a couple of guys down there with crossbows defending the culvert? Oh no, scary rats! Aiee! Better yet, why wasn't the drainage diverted into a moat? For a dude who wrote this while fighting in the trenches of World War I, Tolkien was kind of fucking clueless about siege warfare.

And then the real kicker comes after they blow up the bombs under the wall. The wall has been breached, which should have sounded an immediate retreat to the keep, but instead the Elves just stand there with their thumbs in their asses. Orcs are pounding through the hole in the wall, and yet they stand there dumbly staring at them. No wonder their race is failing; it's Middle Earth Darwinism at its finest.

Aragorn finally comes to and sees that the shit has hit the fan. He commands the Elves to fire one volley into the onslaught of orcs, and then, rather than sound a retreat, he gives the archers a command to charge!

Buh?

Dude, archers are there to support your ground team. They aren't the ground team.

It's a great movie, and the battle is visually stunning, I just had a hard time swallowing why anyone would willingly fight for Aragorn other than trying to curry favor with him if he ever did manage to find his way to Gondor and claim his inheritance. You'll notice Gandalf took control of the defense of Minas Tirith, and now I think we can see why.

At least Miranda Otto is fucking cute. I still wouldn't dump Liv Tyler for her, to be sure, but a little Ned Stark by-blow wouldn't have been a bad thing. Amiright?

Happy Father's Day

2011-06-19T07:50:00.000-04:00

My wife and I eloped.

We got married on a Friday afternoon in the fall back in 2000. It happened to be that we got married on a football weekend, but fortunately, Notre Dame was playing at West Virginia. If it hadn't been an away game, there's no guarantee that I would have shown up for the ceremony. There would have been less chance that I showed up sober.

I'm a real catch, I tell you what.

Anyway, we didn't tell any of our families that we were getting married. We decided to do it and enjoy our honeymoon--which was really just sex in the top room of the Holiday Inn in lovely downtown South Bend. There was even a duck flying around the top floor of the hotel--or at least something that sounded like a duck. I swear it wasn't my ass.

The following day we decided we needed to call our families and tell them about our nuptials. I decided to go first--only after I watched the first half of the West Virginia/Notre Dame game.

My father was not at home at the time--he was out running some errands or something. So, I got my mother. I broke the news to her, and then suffered through thirty minutes of questions as to why I would do this, why I would take a chance with my education, and why I would marry someone that I had just met a few months prior and whom I barely knew. Fortunately, my father came home toward the end of my mother's aural attack, and she called him over to talk to me.

Mom: Your son has something to tell you.
Dad: Hey, son! What's up?
Me: [Mrs. MJenks} and I got married yesterday!
Dad: Huh. So, you, like, eloped then, huh?
Me: Yeah, we sure did.
Dad: Alright. How's Notre Dame doing?

This is why I love you, dad.

Happy Father's day.

Snap into the Jedi Council!

2011-05-23T13:05:00.005-04:00

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

2011-05-21T21:18:00.003-04:00

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!

2011-05-21T06:00:00.000-04:00

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

2011-05-20T07:40:00.001-04:00

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

2011-05-19T07:24:00.001-04:00

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...

2011-05-18T07:08:00.000-04:00

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

2011-05-17T07:49:00.003-04:00

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

2011-05-16T07:23:00.003-04:00

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!

2011-05-04T12:55:00.006-04:00

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.

TMI Thursday: Stickage

2011-04-28T07:12:00.000-04:00

Since Lilu decided to dispense with the whole TMI Thursday hosting, we haven't heard a whole lot about my junk, what I've been doing with it, or many of my bodily functions of late. I've decided to pick that back up since they were some of my more popular posts. Plus, why deprive the world of these ~~miserable~~ marvelous life experiences? I shouldn't be the only who ~~suffers through~~ is blessed to enjoy these foibles of my body.

I'm not a big fan of spring. About the only thing I like about spring is the storms, and I like those only because I haven't been injured in any of them, had any property destroyed (despite parking various shitty cars under trees hoping the wind brings those tall pines down *angry glower*), or the like. I guess I also enjoy the fact that the college girls dress extra slutty in these days leading up to summer break. Yes. Yes, I like that very much. *taps tips of fingers together*

The spring brings the return of mowing my grass, it gets hot, and the atmosphere is suffused with pollen. This hasn't affected me too badly since I've moved South, but the rest of my family suffers from allergies, which makes me miserable. Because I commiserate with others so well.

Now, long before I was the svelte, dapper motherfucker you see before you, I've had a problem that springs to life round this time of year. I tend to suffer from a lot of stickage.

You know, stickage.

Don't tell me you're unfamiliar.

Okay, so "stickage" is when my scroat adheres itself to the silky smooth flesh of my inner thigh. Alone, or even with the love of my life (television), this is not a problem. I reach a hand down there, fish around for a bit, fumble away, and peel the soft, velvety skin away from the inside of my groin. However, when the children are present, it's unseemly for daddy dearest to have it hands down his pants, no matter how surreptitiously I'm peeling one layer of dermis away from another.

And, besides, I'm only home and awake for a few hours of the day.

Let's think about this for a moment. I work in a lab, one that prides itself on safety (Our motto: "Everyone has ten fingers!"), we're required to wear lab coats when working in the lab. This is to go with regular work attire. While the labs are fairly well ventilated (Noxious fumes? Send them outside!), they air-handlers have issues cooling the air as it gets turned over so much. This results in winters being chilly (not a problem; I have a lab coat!), but spring, summer and fall are uncomfortably warm.

As the level of uncomfortable warmth rises, so does the occurrence of stickage. And, when I'm at work, people really from on you sticking your hand down your pants and fumbling your nuts away from the inside of your thigh.

And here's the curious thing: about 90% of the time, the stickage is on the right side of my sack. I don't know what the deal is, but this is the side of my body where my Balzac is most likely to meld with my leg. There's nothing abnormal about that side; my right nut hangs lower than my left (apparently, that's common, since I'm a righty). That's the only thing I can find that's different about the right side of my manhammer; believe me, I've investigated. At length.

When the stickage happens at work, it's most unpleasant because I can't manually extract myself from myself--though I am typically wearing gloves, so at least I have the correct protective equipment. I'll be standing there, working on the next wonderdrug, when suddenly I'll feel that unwelcome tug on the inside of my shorts. I then spend the next five minutes gyrating and hopping from one leg to the other, trying to part my thighs far enough that my coinpurse peels itself off the inner portions of my leg.

Annoying hardly

Thusly, spring is not the time of rebirth for me. Spring is the time to invest in yet some more talcum powder. Because, you know, it's always good to be caught with a large amount of an unknown, white, powdery substance...

Oh, the things I'll do to avoid my nutsack from annealing itself to my inner thighs.

Totally Blowing Shit Up Tuesdays: Isn't it Ironic?

2011-04-26T07:31:00.000-04:00

Recently, in the lab, I've been working with a lot of iron powder. The stuff is great in that it does exactly what I want it to with minimal side reactions. For a chemist, that's like getting a lap dance with a happy ending. There's very little mess, it gets the job done, and the only danger is leaving some of the iron in your sample when you take an NMR. That's the equivalent of lipstick on your collar and an angry wife.

Anyway, aside from its electron-donating capabilities (making it a reductant...remember kids, LEO the lion goes GER!), iron is pretty cool stuff, chemically-speaking. Of the myriad of reactions I've done in my day, the ones involving iron seem to work the best. It might not be the sexiest metal to throw into your reaction, but it sure is reliable and it gets the job done. Iron is kind of the Pittsburgh of the periodic table.

Now that I'm done with metaphors for iron and its chemical potential (I see it as a metal with HUGE upside!), there was one thing that caught my eye on the side of the bottle when I cracked it open and started slinging the fine, steely-gray powder around the balance area. It caught my eye because it was colored over in pink highlighter: CAUTION! Highly Flammable!

Flammable? Iron? Oh really?

And then I thought on it some more. Iron, by its very nature, enjoys coupling with oxygen. A lot. In fact, iron and oxygen get rather kinky: two irons and three oxygens are known to bind up and share one another freely back and forth. We tend to call it rust.

So, it only makes sense that iron would be more than happy to react with the oxygen in the air. And, as I hope I've shown you time and again, fine powders love to react explosively in the presence of an ignition source. And if you don't believe me, well, here is a safety video about iron "fileings" (it hurt to type that) that you may tickle your eyeballs with:

Despite the lack of production quality, the terrible misspellings (which I shan't repeat here) and the diligent commentary...I actually like that video quite a bit. I'm being quite honest here. Essentially, the reaction was the one I described above, iron + oxygen + flame = fast rust.

Fe⁰ + O₂ ---> Fe₂O₃

Kinky.

Now, if you're like me (that is to say, "girthy"), you've used those heating pads before, where you open the pad up and put it on your body and you eventually begin to feel it warming up. It's supposed to help loosen "tightened" muscles, and provide all the relief that icy hot gives, just without the burn and the cloying aroma of menthol. Usually, I start to purr like a kitten about five minutes after they're on and then scream like a banshee thirty minutes later, because they've become too warm. I'm a sensitive little spanker.

It's the same reaction, though. The pads are packaged in nitrogen, which won't bind to the iron, meaning no reaction. Once exposed to air, and the 21% oxygen therein, the iron begins to rust, releasing energy in the form of heat. The heat is then transferred to your muscles, where it acts like a topless Thai massage therapist, working away all the tension and soreness that a spate of failed reactions in the lab can leave you with. Science can be sexy!

Oh, and then there's that other thing about iron being reactive and explosive. We've seen it several times before, just under the a different name. When we mix iron(III)oxide (rust) with aluminum powder, we get one of the formulas for thermite.

Thermite always leaves me a little worked up after watching it do its thing.

The lesson here is, yes, even iron can be flammable. And you should totally read and believe the labels on the sides of the chemicals and practice the utmost in safety in all lab settings. Nothing good will ever come of an accident in the lab.

Shut up.

Head. Desk. Repeat.

2011-04-25T12:33:00.005-04:00

There's a guy at one of the establishments where I find succor at the teat of employment who thinks he's clever. On the door to his office, he posts little "jokes" and "witticisms" that are supposed to be humorous, but most of the time are just dumb. Plain. Fucking. Dumb.

A lot of the things aren't even his. He posts stuff like "Why do we park on driveways and drive on parkways?" Hur hur hur. Hilarious. He's definitely one to forward this email around to his friends and family, and they'd all be like "That guy...he's so damned clever!" You're only encouraging the assholes, people! Cut it the fuck out!

Now, I like English. In fact, I like language as a whole. But, since I speak and write in English most often, I consider it "my native tongue". Therefore, I like it. I also understand the uses of it. I might not follow the rules all the time, but most of the time when I ignore things, it's for effect.

I realize I'm in a minority with this. I'm sort of okay with that. Sort of.

Some people, however, really don't fucking care. Over Christmas, this guy posted on his door: "Propaganda: a gentlemanly goose".

Okay, fine. "Gentlemanly" can be an adjective (acting in the manner of a gentleman), but that -ly on there does give it the ring of an adverb. And, the adverb completely changes that sentence. It was the first time I ever giggled at something that he posted on his board. Unfortunately, it was my own youthful sense of butt-fondling exuberance that brought the joke to life.

And, honestly, to make that joke work, you need to throw in a Red Sox reference or something.

But now...now, he has a completely different one on the door. And, it's as mind-numblingly dumb, for different reasons. And I quote:

I thought I had discovered a book for tracking down magical creatures--but it turned out just to be a fairy tail!

*audible sigh*

I am tempted to hang a sheet of paper on his door--neatly typed--that reads "Look, I'm not one to judge, but is this really the place to air your trans-species fetishes?"

Because you people are all brilliant, you see the error right away. A fairy tale is a story about mythical, magical beings. A fairy tail is a sweet piece of three-apple-high ass.

But that's not the end of it. This is probably splitting hairs--and when have you known me not to get all pedantic on someone?--but a fairy is a mythical being. A unicorn, dragon, gryphon are all mythical creatures. So, yeah. Strike two, Mr. I'm So Clever.

This is all beside the point. Here is someone who prides himself on twisting the English language into terrible, awful puns and he can't even get the correct noun in the joke to make it work. Instead, it just makes him look like a bit of a perv.

Hmmm...perhaps that gentlemanly goose wasn't so innocent after all...

Happy Easter!

2011-04-24T12:30:00.002-04:00

I just wanted to take a moment and wish everyone a hip-hop-happy Easter. May you find all the creamy goodness inside a chocolatey egg and marshmallow shapes encrusted in sugar that your little heart desires. And can take before it shuts down.

In case candy isn't your style, I hope you find her.

Happy Easter to all, and to all, a Cadbury-riffic night!

Friday Morning Latin Lesson, Vol. XCIX

2011-04-15T08:57:00.010-04:00

Sunday evening, something that I've actually been looking forward to is being released on HBO. I'm talking about the premier of the Game of Thrones television series. It's based on George R.R. Martin's book by the same name. And, in case you haven't read the books...well, villain, allow me to give you a short preview. It's harsh. It's dark. It's gritty. And don't get too attached to any characters.

There's also a lot of sex. A lot! And there's also a lot of bloodshed. In the first fifteen minutes, as one review put it, we're "treated" to two beheadings. It's pretty violent.

Essentially, the story is set in a mythical land and a bunch of nobles are vying for who has the power to rule over said land (it's called Westeros, or the Seven Kingdoms). It does have a nice medieval theme to it (knights, swords, horse shit). We'll be following the twists and intricacies as the major noble families all try to curry favor with the throne, or just attempt to gain the throne altogether.

Plus, it has Sean Bean as Ned Stark. You know, the dude who played Boromir. And Peter Dinklage plays one very awesome and very convincing Tyrion Lannister (though I can't tell if he has two differently colored eyes or not).

While I've often given Martin shit over the years for taking five years to write books (says the guy who started a book in college and STILL hasn't published it), his work is fucking brilliant. I love it. He's been a huge influence on my writing, moreso, perhaps, even than Tolkien. One thing that Martin's books has taught me is that no one is purely good or purely evil. Everyone does something for a reason, and that's usually to improve their lot in life. There are no white knights. There is no dark lord who does things for the pure power of evil. Instead, there are cruel people with power, good people with power, and, in the end, all they want is to make sure they wake up tomorrow morning. How they attain that goal and the motivation behind it is where people begin to be "good" or "evil".

For instance, in Game of Thrones (or, more properly, the entire series, A Song of Ice and Fire), two of my favorite characters are probably best classified as antagonists. And, one of the protagonists, I hate. I hate her more and more with each page I read. And I'm not talking about Sansa.

Anyway, since we're talking about a medieval-themed world, there are, of course, nobles and commons and peasants and all that. Each house--great or small--and all the free knights have their own heraldic crests and sigils. And with most of them, they have mottoes that describe their house: short phrases that either inspire trepidation in their enemies, or abide by the honor of their traditions.

One branch of my family, the Gordons in Scotland, had a couple of mottoes, as well. One was in Scottish: Bydand, which means "Remaining, Abiding". The other was in Latin: Animo non Astutia, meaning "By Courage, not Craft".

Since I'm an incredible dork, and because I actually could do this without much difficulty, I translated some of the mottoes of the noble families of Westeros into Latin. All the heraldry shields were "borrowed" from Westeros.org, which is a huge compendium of everything dealing with George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire.

Hibernum venit.
Pronounced: "Hee-bare-noom way-neet."

Frosty translation in the hovertext

Familia, Officium, Honor
Pronounced: "Fah-mee-lee-ah, Oh-fee-kee-oom, Hoh-nohr."

Fishy translation in the hovertext

Furia nostrae est
Pronounced: "Foo-ree-ah noh-stry est"

Regal translation in the hovertext

Fremo, me audi
Pronounced: "Fray-mo, may oh-dee"

Golden translation in the hovertext

Some of the translations are straight forward. Others, like the Lannisters' motto, is a little difficult because I had to figure out which "roar" to use. Plus, word order can be kind of tricky when going from English to Latin.

Any way, have a good weekend, all. And remember that the first episode of Game of Thrones comes on Sunday night at 9 o'clock pm on HBO. Or, if you're like me, you'll watch it on Monday night on Hulu. Man, I can't WAIT for Monday.

*blink*

I think I need to go vomit after having said that...

Down to Nine

2011-03-24T13:20:00.005-04:00

We had some weather last night.

Hur hur hur. We have weather every night.

Last night, however, we had WEATHER, the kind Jim Cantore stands around in and masturbates to just out of the camera's eye and under a thick, blue Lands End jacket. And don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about; I know you've seen the video.

Holy smoke, Robby! Bring me another towel! I've gotta wipe up! This shit's gonna freeze and then I'll have to sandblast it out of my underwear!

After I got home from Otherwork last night, my wife and I were snuggling down into bed, she on her back, me with my hands in places they ought not to be. Bands of heavy rain had been lashing the house off-and-on for hours, sprinkled with intermittent flashes of lightning and dull roars of thunder. In short, it was a perfect rainy night in early spring.

As things were getting more sexytime in the bedroom, there was a brilliant flash of light. It was the kind that announces that a deity of some kind has just arrived and you better sit up, pay attention and write this down: There's some serious news about to be imparted from on high.

This was followed almost immediately by a crack of thunder like the world was splitting in half, and the house shook tremendously for a period of at least fifteen seconds. The roar of thunder slowly spread out across the sky, rolling away through the rain-soaked heavens, reminding others that the fury was just coming toward them and they, too, had better be ready to receive word from above.

We immediately heard the shufflings and snifflings in the hallway, and I gingerly removed my hands from those places that might lead to trouble. A moment later, a child was in the room, and a second child was standing in her room, wondering just what the fuck had happened and why is my father scribbling things down in Aramaic so furiously.

The wife returned the children to their beds, tucked them in. I looked out the window to ensure that the house was not ablaze. This seemed like enough at the time. I turned on the television, hoping to get an update on the weather. Our oh-so-reliable Time Warner Cable...was out. It took the internet with it, as we soon discovered, when the wife tried to pull the radar up on her laptop. We called Time Warner Cable, told them what happened, and then decided it was time for bed.

I carried the laptop back over to its roost. The lights were extinguished. Perhaps sexytime would start again, after Thor/Zeus/Quetzalcoatl had rudely interrupted earlier. As I was returning to bed, it happened.

I kicked the clothes basket next to the bed with my bare foot. More, I kicked the side with the open slots for vents with my pinky toe. Immediately, pain shot up my leg as my pinky toe was ripped off by the plastic edge and thrust up the side of my calf. I screamed in agony, stumbled, zombie-like, to the bed, and fell, my foot aching a sweetly sharp ache, phantom-limb-pain confusing my foot and its sudden lack of toe.

After forcing back tears--I'm a man, dammit!--exhaustion finally got the better of me, the pain finally ebbing enough for me to sleep. When the morning's light shone, I examined my once proud right foot now it all its mangled glory. A nasty gash, a toenail bent back, possible infection with gangrene. And a low, dull ache that is my new, constant companion.

Someone bring me some whisky and the bolt cutters: it's time to end this pain once and for all.

If You Give a Jenks a Cookie...

2011-03-23T12:12:00.008-04:00

So, I've been pretty absent for a while, popping in from time to time to update you on the lives of holy people who lived countless centuries ago. Wait, what? You hadn't noticed? Oh, well, I see.

Oh, oh, so you did notice? How kind of you.

Anyway, I'll just cut to the chase: I'm a very busy man. Don't believe me, do you? Well, for starters, I work. That takes a pretty big chunk out of my week. And that's just my nine-to-five job. See, last fall I decided that crippling debt was not something I wanted to necessarily live with anymore. Ramen noodles and Hamburger Helper--while both very, very delicious--aren't really what a man hurtling toward middle age should be feeding his family of four. In that spirit, I picked up a part-time job at a certain bookstore with an ampersand in the name. And no 'S' on the end of the name, goddammit! You're standing in a bookstore! Presumably that means you can read!

/rant

I haven't made much of a to do about this because 1) who wants to admit that they're working two jobs? and 2) the store is just off the interstate, and I don't want any of you crazy fuckers showing up and shooting me with a shotgun.

As for the job itself...I actually kind of like it. For starters, the goals are pretty clearly-defined (sell books, don't piss off customers). The other added bonus is that I'm sleeping with one of the bosses. Heh heh heh. How many of you can say that?

It's true, though; my wife got promoted up to manager after I had started working there.

But, this isn't about her. This is about me, dammit.

The other nice thing is that the job comes with a lot of perks. For instance, the employee discount is teh awesome. There's also the added advantage that the store is wedged--conveniently--between Duke and UNC. Oh, look! The cafe is filled with nubile young women, and none of them have sense to put on something other than shorts and a tank top when they come to study! My my. I'm feeling thirsty. I think I'll just wander over and get a cup of water...

And then, there's the big advantage. Usually on the first Saturday of every month, during the 11:00 story hour, there's a character who comes to the store to greet the kids and wave at them and hand out cookies. When the costume showed up, there was no one on the schedule who was willing to put the costume on...except for me. I jumped at the opportunity, especially when I heard it was Mouse from If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.

Now, here's the thing. I'm six-foot-three-and-a-half inches tall. And, well, I'll just say that my metabolism has slowed a bit since college. Yes, we'll leave it at that...The instructions for the mouse costume was for someone who is 5'7".

Comedy was sure to ensue.

Undaunted, I strapped myself into the costume. Unfortunately, when I hoisted the suspenders up over my shoulders, it pulled ass-end of the costume up with it. After much wriggling around, I was finally able to get the costume into the most comfortable crevices of my ass crack. Once the body portion was on, I was able to get the rest of my costume put on. The sleeves and feet just barely made it so that I was completely covered. And then I had to put the head on.

This fucking thing was massive, and some brilliant engineer thought "You know what? It's not enough to make it dark and hot and echo-y in here. Let's put a giant aluminum hook in it, right where it will meet the back of the costume-wearer's skull." Fucking engineers. And believe me, it was hot. And sweaty. And close. And smelled...like hot and sweaty and close with a side dish of hospital antiseptic spray. Mommy! Mouse smells like debauchery and lysol!

But you know what? It was fucking awesome.

I showed up and little kids everywhere began to scream in ~~horror~~ delight. There were even some brave souls who decided that waving at Mouse wasn't enough; they wanted to hug Mouse! Which, you know, was cool and all, except that these little shits barely came up past my knee, which meant that to hug them, Mouse had to bend at the waist.

Now, two things here. One, I've already mentioned that the backside of the costume was riding up my ass pretty badly. Fortunately, Mouse's ass is padded and has a tail dangling down to hide any backside moose knuckle. Two, the head was just sort of precariously perched upon Mouse's shoulders. I had to do my best to bend my back and waist just enough so that the ass-end of the costume didn't bifurcate my backside any further and so that the head of Mouse didn't fall off and roll across the kids' department. Because, you know, that's not going to be traumatic or anything. And I did this all with an aluminum hook jabbing me in the back of the casaba, threating to poke a hole in my brain box and letting all my smarts ooze out the back of my head.

In the end, however, I emerged from the Mouse costume sweaty yet gratified, my underwear half-shoved up my ass, the back of my skull battered and bruised, and my entire being carrying a slight aroma of sour body and antiseptic spray. However, there were no children crying or screaming or otherwise traumatized.

I just wish that some of their MILF mothers would have wanted a hug, too.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day...Again.

2011-03-17T11:02:00.007-04:00

Yeah, yeah, I'll get to that soon enough.

But, here, today, right fucking now, it's Saint Patrick's Day! And, in case you missed the other parts of the series, here they are in reverse order? Why? Fuck Clemson, that's why.

Part the Third
Part the Second
Part the First

Patrick kind of got things rolling around here with my modern, tangentally historical interpretations of the hagiography, so at this point it's kind of a let-down if I don't talk about him on Saint Patrick's Day. Right? Right. Let's start drinking.

At this point, though, I've pretty much tired out the legend of Saint Patrick. With that in mind, I'll try and touch on other things linked to Saint Patrick. He was probably the first missionary for the Christian world, bringing the Word of God and Teachings of Christ to the illiterate savages on the edge of the world. That last part is a fancy way of saying "Ireland".

Patrick's work in Ireland was pretty amazing. The Irish went from a people who had very little in the way of what we would think of as civilization: they didn't write many things down, they didn't have vast, sprawling cities, they painted their bodies and were savagely fierce fighters. About the only thing that they did have that we consider "civilized" was an oral language (they were fantastic story tellers) and an organized religion. As luck would have it, three happened to be a rather sacred number in the Celtic religions of the island. A lot of the gods came in threes, or had three aspects or faces. And if this sounds mildly familiar to you, imagine how the Trinity sounded to the Irish.

The Irish are also inexorably linked in with Celtic civilization, and the large numbers of Irish immigrants who showed up in Boston is probably why the Celtics play basketball there. However, the Celts did not originate in Ireland. Their culture came from the middle of Europe, around the areas of southern Germany, Austria, northern Italy and Switzerland. They spread out from there, and they adopted various different names that were somewhat linked. The Greeks called them Keltoi, and had various run-ins with them as they moved down the Balkan peninsula and on into Turkey into an area known as Galatia. Paul's letter to the Galatians is an epistle aimed at the descendants of these Celts.

The Celts also descended into Italy, where they attacked Rome in 353 BC, sacking it and nearly bringing an end to Roman civilization and dominance in the area. However, as I mentioned above, the Celts were a nomadic people by nature and so they didn't stay in Italy long. They eventually moved out and inhabited an area known as Gaul. Of course, Old Blue Eyes, Julius Caesar, exacted revenge for the sacking of Rome when he conquered and subsequently divided Gaul into three parts. Granted, it wasn't revenge that drove JC, but a desire to get some of the better wine-growing lands around the northern Mediterranean.

The Celts also descended into the Iberian peninsula and set up shop in Galicia in Northern Spain and spread out into Lusitania, as well. Lusitania incorporates a lot of central Spain and Portugal. Again, the Romans conquered this area around the time of the Punic Wars and brought them under the umbrella of Republican Rule. This wasn't because of any sort of desire to exact retribution on the people, but more a desire to get their lands and keep out any Carthaginian influence.

Finally, some of the Celts moved on to the islands of Great Britain and Ireland. Once more, Trajan brought the Roman rule to Britannia, chasing the Gauls into Wales and back across the Irish Sea to Ireland. Ireland's position as being at the very edge of the world (in Euro-centric histories) was perfect for the last vestiges of the free Celtic peoples: it was flat, had many navigable rivers, and the weather was pretty mild, as well. The Romans tried, but never could conquer the Emerald Isle, partially because there was no where else for the Celts to flee to so they were forced to savagely defend themselves, and partially because it was so fucking far from Rome.

However, enter in a young slave, a Roman citizen by birth, who was captured from the western coast of Britannia about the time that Rome was exiting the area and who fell in love with these people who captured him. He escaped, made it back to Rome where he converted to Christianity, and then set out to spread the Word of Christ. Being that he loved the Irish people so much, he returned and taught them how to read and write, showed them the three faces of God by allegedly using one of their sacred native plants, and spread Christianity across their island. His name was Patricius.

And, in a way, the Romans finally conquered the last of the Celtic peoples.

Happy St. Valentine's Day!

2011-02-14T07:33:00.001-05:00

Today is St. Valentine's Day, who is a saint who may or may not have actually existed, and if he did exist, he could have been one of fourteen different men. We're not even sure if we're celebrating the one guy or everyone named Valentine (a popular name at the time because valens is Latin for "strong, worthy, powerful"). Traditionally, it is said that Valentine was martyred because he would not deny Christ before emperor Claudius II (not to be confused with Cl-cl-claudius, Caligula's uncle and the fourth Roman emperor). Tradition states that Valentine was beheaded on February 14th, 269 AD.

There is a problem here, though. Claudius II (or Claudius Gothica) has no record of being a great persecutor of Christians. In fact, the rulers prior to Claudius Gothica had been rather tolerant of the Christians; it wouldn't be until Diocletian took control of the empire that Christians would be ostracized and summarily persecuted (about twenty years after Claudius Gothica). Now, most people think that the feats of "St. Valentine" were completely invented by Geoffry Chaucer. There are others who cling to the notion that the Catholic church had to create a holiday to offset the Roman Lupercalia, which was a springtime fertility celebration. You know how those Romans liked a good...or bad...holiday. Or at least you should by now.

Speaking of Romans, let's talk about one of their gods! Cupid is inexorably linked with Valentine's Day (which is kind of funny, if you think about it) as being the bearer of ~~bad news~~ love. Cupid, of course, is the Roman God of love, desire, and lust, and he is the son of Venus (the goddess of love) and Mars (the god of war). Never mind that Venus was married to Vulcan. Oh, those saucy immortals!

Cupid is often--and mostly erroneously--associated with Eros, who was an embodiment of the power of love and sprang forth from the primordial ick known as Chaos. Hesiod, the other Greek poet, tried to backtrack and make Eros a son of Ares and Aphrodite, which would line up with the Romans (he did this prior to Roman influence). Cupid's name comes from the Latin cupido, which means "desire" or "lust" whereas Eros simply means "sexual love" in Greek. Eros, however, gives us the words "erotic" and related terms.

Cupid himself did not make it into too many of the ancient epics. He appears briefly in the Aeneid, wherein he causes Dido some added torment before she sets herself on fire (spoiler alert). The most famous myth in which Cupid appears is Cupid and Psyche. He was, however, widely worshiped as a fertility god and a god of sexuality, which sort of lends a certain delicious irony to him being associated with a Christian feast.

The depiction of him carrying a bow and arrow goes back to ancient times. His arrows, at one point, were only used to incite lustful feelings within one or more people. Eventually, he started carrying two quivers: one filled with golden-headed arrows for the love-making; the other was filled with lead-tipped darts and were used to cause war. This could be another reason why Hesiod rewrote Eros' parentage, so that he had both the power to cause love and to cause war, like his immortal parents. Despite this, he was not considered one of the ~~fifteen~~ twelve Olympian gods.

Of course, these days, if something is fun or "too mainstream", some assholes have to come along and try to ruin it for everyone else. Enter AntiCupid, who I can only assume is blue and needs to be trapped away in a special holding field. AntiCupid is the brainchild of all those people who feel spurned or unloved on Valentine's day. All failed relationships and dating problems are AntiCupid's fault, because, you know, it's not you, loser, it's clearly the work of some nefarious godling. AntiCupid's arrows lead to hours of whiny music, cutting and a predilection toward wearing black clothing. His Greek counterpart is "Emos".

Claudius Gothica would be proud.

Friday Morning Latin Lesson, Vol. XCVIII

2011-02-11T07:57:00.005-05:00

Today, moviegoers, is the opening of the new Roman epic movie, The Eagle. In case you were wondering, in Latin, the title of the movie would simply be Aquila, that being the Latin word for "eagle". That might seem familiar to you if you're an amateur astronomer, as Aquila is the name of the constellation of the eagle. It might also be familiar to you if you have a particularly beaky, hooked schnozz, and we tend to describe such noses as "aquiline". To bring this crap-fest full-circle, the Romans were reputed for their aquiline features.

The Eagle is a movie adapted from a book by Rosemary Sutcliff titled The Eagle of the Ninth about a young man seeking the truth about the disappearance of his father's legion, the Ninth Spanish, in northern Britain.

Wait...the Roman legion named the Spanish disappeared in Britain? That sounds like a story!

The Roman legions were divisions in the army (unless you're a lazy fuck; if that's the case, you simply refer to the entire Roman army as "the legion"), usually varying in size, but they could be up to 6000 men. They were usually comprised of Roman citizens, but occasionally there would be men from outside the Roman state fighting in the legions in hopes that Roman citizenship would be granted to them and their families should they survive long enough to retire honorably. Wait, that sounds familiar...

Strictly speaking, legions were infantry units--the typical disciplined bands of soldiers that we envision when we think of the Roman army. They could be supported by cavalry, ranged troops, and skirmishers, who were essentially guys with spears who were sent out onto the field to die. Typically, the auxiliary troops were comprised of provincial soldiers. A typical legionnaire would have a spear (called a pilus), a sword sword (the gladius) a shield (scutum) and some light chain mail (lorica hamata).

During the years of the Republic, legions were created and disbanded as needed. This is how the Celts could sack Rome in 353 BC--the Romans had to hastily assemble a defensive force that was ill-trained and ill-prepared to face the onslaught of bands of wild savages from the north. It wasn't until the time of a fellow named Marius that anyone thought to create permanent, standing armies to serve the Roman Republic (this was late in the second century, BC).

Marius created a permanent army--again, divided into legions--and had the brilliant idea of paying them for their services. Soldiers were expected to serve for a minimum of six years (less in case of such things as dismemberment, permanent injury or death). Marius also saw fit to praise the soldiers, rewarding them for acts of bravery on the battlefield. In short, this led to bands of soldiers who became faithful to one man as opposed to Rome itself (though the man would often claim to be doing things for the benefit of Rome, to make his actions seem legit).

The legions were numbered...but since there had been so many legions created and disbanded, they took to giving themselves nicknames. The nicknames could come from any number of sources, such as where they were headquartered, i.e. Hispana (Spain), Macedonica (Macedonia, north of "Greece"), or Italica (ur, duh, Italy); from the emperor (obviously after the Republic turned into the Empire), i.e. Flavia, Augusta, Traiana; from the Gods, i.e. Minervia (Minerva), Iovia (Jupiter) or Herculia (Hercules); from some adjective describing them, i.e. Felix (lucky), Victrix (victorious), Fidelis (faithful) or my personal favorite, Rapax meaning "Devourers". Or there were the ones, like Aquila or Alaudae (larks) which were taken from animals.

So, to answer the question, the IX Hispana was a Roman legion stationed in the province of Hispana Terraconensis and sent to the island of Britain for support of the troops there.

As for what happened to them, perhaps this is the answer:

Veni, vidi, territus sum, curcurri.
Pronounced: "Way-nee, wee-dee, tare-ee-toose soom, coor-coor-ee."

I'm sure someone will get the subtle meaning here...hovertext for the translation

As the legions became faithful to the more powerful men in Rome, there began to become some strife among those men who collected power around themselves. One was obviously Marius, the dude who created the permanent legions. Another was a guy named Cornelius Sulla, who was a rival of Marius. Another was Marius' nephew, a fellow named Gaius Julius Caesar. The faithfulness of Caesar's soldiers allowed him to cross the Rubicon (a question on Final Jeopardy earlier this week) and, essentially, capture Rome. Since Rome was in a state of civil war, and the laws allowed for it, Caesar set himself up as dictator for life. This, in turn, allowed for his nephew (and adopted heir) Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus to seize power in the wake of Julius Caesar's murder on the Senate floor. Augustus, of course, would consolidate power, kill his two rivals, and become the first Roman Emperor.

And that, as Paul Harvey would say (if he weren't dead), is the rest of the story.

Plague of Frogs

2011-02-09T07:40:00.001-05:00

I apologize for the length, but you and I both know that it's not the first time in my life I've had to apologize for my length. *tips cap* Anyway, most of the bulkiness of this post I blame on the pictures. It's still a pretty quick read.

The scene opens upon an idyllic vista of clouds, blue skies, flower-strewn meadows, and soft, yellow sunlight shining down. A warm and gentle breeze blows in through the windows, tossing the sheers gently upon its freshly-scented streams.

Jesus: Oh, man, what a delicious breakfast! I sure do love bagels. I could eat those for...eternity! smacks lips And the orange juice this morning is simply divine! You know what? He leans forward and takes another sip, setting cup on the table and smiling You were truly inspired the day you made oranges, pops.

God the Father: Well, you know, I had a feeling. folds hands behind head and leans back, propping feet on the table Why they insist on still eating grapefruit down there when they've got perfectly good citrus fruit that doesn't taste like ass, I'll never know. And that's saying something, coming from me.

Jesus: Whistles, impressed I don't get it either. So...waves hand, breakfast dishes disappear...what's on the docket for today?

God the Father: I dunno. I'm thinking about stirring things up down there a bit. You know, shake the ant farm. See how they respond.

Jesus: Oh, another snow storm for the northeast? God the Father shakes his head Oh, you sly old fox, are we going to threaten snow in the southeast? Watch them lose their collective shit?

God the Father: Think more...international. More...in our backyard...

Jesus: We finally going to take down Ahmadinejad? Calls over shoulder Death!

Angel of Death: You rang?

God the Father: No, I was thinking something a little more fun than killing that bearded bag of gas.

Jesus: We're finally taking out Favre?

God the Father: No, nothing that direct. Just a little chaos, a little fun. I was thinking about doing something to Egypt.

Jesus: Egypt? But...why? Wait a minute! This isn't a hold over from that whole Pharaoh thing, is it?

God the Father: ...

Jesus: But I thought...points at either wrist...I thought you were over that.

God the Father: I have a long memory.

Angel of Death: Wait...is there anything I can do?

God the Father: Well, stay close. You know how the Egyptians are, always taking it to the next level. I'm sure you'll have something to do.

Jesus: Alright, then. We'll do Egypt, but you have to promise no smiting.

God the Father: ...

Jesus: Dad?

God the Father: ...

Jesus: I mean it.

God the Father: I make no promises.

Jesus: Fine!

Holy Spirit: thick Cockney accent Is there anything you need from me?

Jesus: Holy me! Will you stop sneaking up on people?

Holy Spirit: Sorry, it's in my job description. Besides, shouldn't you know where I am at all times?

Jesus: Look, I don't even let my right hand know what my left is doing. I don't have time to worry about what you are doing.

Holy Spirit opens his mouth, smug look on his face

Jesus: Don't you dare drag Mary Magdalene into this.

God the Father: Boys. stern look

Jesus and Holy Spirit: Together Yes, father.

God the Father: That's better. Now, let's start with a little civil unrest.

Jesus: Ah, chanting and sloganeering, the two signs of a good, unruly mob.

God the Father: And...cue the rocks.

Jesus: Things are getting a little rough down there. Oh, is that Anderson Cooper getting beat up?

God the Father: Let's see if he remembers who I am now...

Angel of Death: rubs hands together

God the Father: No, let's just put the fear of me into him. Ah, son, did you see that? Shit just got serious!

Jesus: You know things are getting hot and heavy when guys on camels wielding scimitars show up. Ah, this is good theatre! I haven't had this much fun since the sacking of Rome. rubs wrists Bastards got what they deserved...

Rumble from God the Father's side of the table

Jesus: Dad, no.

A brilliant flash of light from God the Father's side of the table. He emerges, wearing different clothes and looking cantankerous.

Jesus: You said you'd behave.

Old Testament God: I made no promises. Now, let's get down to some smiting! We're back in Egypt, where I've done some of my best work!

Jesus: No first born slaughter this time. You're God Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth, of all things seen and unseen! You're not Anakin Skywalker!

Old Testament God: Please. I make him look like the puss he is. Now--wiggles fingers--it's plague time! flips through rolodex How about--

Jesus: No.

Old Testament God: shoots Jesus a dirty look Okay, fine. What about--

Jesus: No!

Old Testament God: I see you're going to be difficult. How about...number two?

Jesus: You're set on this, aren't you?

Old Testament God: ...

Jesus: I can't believe you'd be so cruel as to do that to them. What did they ever do to you?

Old Testament God: Capturing and enslaving my people and being general bag of dicks wasn't enough for you? How about I remind you of Osiris, who basically copied your act but without your special flare for the dramatic.

Jesus: Yes, well...fine.

Old Testament God: So, we're in agreement. Number two it is?

Jesus: Number two it is. But I don't like it.

Old Testament God: Nobody likes it. Think of two birds with one stone. pauses dramatically Release the Frogs! claps hands

Jesus: Hopefully they'll smother inside their invisible boxes in the desert heat.

I Haz a Happy

2011-02-07T07:27:00.000-05:00

Hooray! Green Bay won the Super Bowl. Hat tip to the Steelers fans: I don't hate the Steelers, but I sure as hell did not want them to win last night. In the mean time, let's toss some cheerleaders in the air to celebrate!!!

A word, if I may, to all the Green Bay fans who still would fall on their knees and worship the fucking ground that Favre walks on and have him start this fall, eat dick. Let us never speak his name again.

To the rest of the Packers fanbase, let's not let another quarterback get bigger than the franchise, kthanxbai.

Also, I would be lying if I didn't kind of want the league to be in lock out next season that I can enjoy a Super Bowl title for two years. Selfish, I know, but in a league that prides itself on parity, I might not get to celebrate another two titles in a row. Ever.

Anyone have any word on whether Antawn Randle El has finally shut the fuck up, or is he still yapping about the only two marginally decent plays that he completed in his stellar professional career?

I Heart You, Chemistry

2011-02-04T14:47:00.002-05:00

There are not enough creative and inventive uses of the word fuck to amply describe the day I am having. I refuse to go into too much detail here, but it's a strange state of affairs when I actually go into the lab and do reactions in order to calm my murderous rage.

Retreads are Fun, Right?

2011-02-02T09:37:00.005-05:00

I'm too lazy to actually write a new post, mostly because the bus didn't show up this morning, so I ended up driving the kids to school and then, on my to work, nearly got collected in two different head-on collisions. I love living here.

That will not deter me from celebrating my second favorite holiday on the calendar, not to mention my revisiting of the desire to nestle myself down between the thighs of one Betsy Hagar for a good six weeks of winter slumber. And by winter slumber I mean fucking until I pass out from exhaustion, waking up and going at it again.

I was a horny little cuss in high school. Horny, and guilty. *sighs*

And, apparently, our plucky, portly little pal, Punxatawny Phil did not see his shadow, which means there will not be six more weeks of winter! Huzzah! I'm sure that makes you guys in the northern tier of the nation feel better, right? That two feet of snow? Didn't happen. Flowers should be blooming any moment now.

Wait.

You guys know what today is, right?

Okay, yeah, sure, it's Groundhog Day. It's the day when we celebrate the prescient powers of Marmota monax, which is a mixture of Latin and Greek meaning "lonely fatass ground squirrel". In case you were curious (and I know that you weren't), if it ends in an -x, it's typically a Greek word.

Today is also Candlemas, which is traditionally viewed as the day that Christ was presented at the Temple. Mary also had to go to the Temple in order to perform rites associated with recovering from childbirth, a sort of purification, if you will. It is observed 40 days after Christmas. Hey, only 324 shopping days left, slackass!

Also, Candlemas is supposed to be the very last day that you're supposed to have your Christmas greenery up. If you happen to be my neighbor and reading this then...*hint*hint*

And how are the two related? I'm glad you asked! Now, sit down, shut up, and listen: back in the old countries, the English and Germans and other various northern European peoples used to believe that, on the 2nd of February (which is halfway between the Winter Solstice and the Vernal Equinox), bears, badgers, wolves, and weird uncle Lute would emerge from hibernation to inspect the weather and determine if they should go back to sleep or not--which is very curious, considering wolves don't hibernate...

While settling the New World, the tradition was carried over and, apparently, since black bears just didn't cut it, the settlers adopted...the groundhog...as the midwinter mascot. Isn't that...just...awe-inspiring?

In case your awe isn't inspired enough, one of the nicknames for the groundhog is the "whistle pig".

All of this shit is just filler. Most important of all, today is Betsy Hagar's Birthday!!!

Now, I've mentioned Betsy Hagar in the past on here. Several times. And usually it was with one hand in my lap and the other slowly tapping out words like "whipped cream" and "tall blonde goddess" over the keyboard. Hey, one-handed typing is not easy. I see some of you nodding. Don't think I'm not on to you. *mouths the words 'Call me'*

Some of you might not be up on the list of young women I lusted for during my high school days. Betsy Hagar was at the very top of that list. She is the one about whom I would write long, involved, erotic stories and then, being that I was so turned on by my own lustful creativity, I'd crank one out while still fantasizing about Betsy. Upon climax I would breathlessly begin to feel crushing guilt over my carnal tendencies and I'd take the paper on which I wrote the story and I'd burn it, supposedly (in my sick mind) as a way of burning the lust out of my mind for Betsy and all the other women on the list.

And it was quite an extensive list...

But, Betsy was different. As I mentioned here, there was a lot of crushes that came and went during my high school years, but the one constant throughout the time was my seething desire to part Betsy's thighs. Despite how badly I wanted her, my mind invariably forgets about her until Groundhog's Day/her birthday rolls around. She's kind of my portal to the "good old days", when things seemed a lot simpler, and I didn't have so many fucking bills to pay. Yep, less debt and long, sexy, gorgeous legs. That's what thinking of Betsy Hagar reminds me of.

So, Happy Groundhog's Day. Let's hope that lonely little Whistle Pig enjoys his day in the sun. And Happy Birthday, Betsy Hagar: you fill me full to the brim with lust and nostalgia.

Friday Morning Latin Lesson, Vol. XCVII

2011-01-28T07:17:00.003-05:00

I grew up Methodist. Or, actually, I grew up United Methodist. There's some very fine hairs that need splitting when discussing the various wings of the various Protestant religions. As a youth, I was very active within my church. I made a lot of friends, attended nearly every week, volunteered, spent time around the church, blahblahblah.

As with most people in the Protestant wings of the Christian Kingdom, the United Methodists like to look upon the Catholic church with a wary eye. Not an evil eye, of course, because that would just be inviting the devil in. However, the United Methodist church likes to intimate that the Catholic church is really just a thinly-veiled disguise for the Devil's minions.

This sure didn't stop them from rooting for Notre Dame on Saturdays, though, I would like to point out.

As the Catholic church had a long history of holding masses in Latin as well as writing and translating sacred texts into Latin, this meant that Latin was akin to the black tongue itself. This was not just merely insinuated; it was actually brought up at a Youth Group meeting once.

One night, we were discussing the merits of the various foreign languages offered at my high school: French, Spanish, German and (for many of the people in my backwards slice of the world), English. If enough people were interested, they offered Russian. There was no Latin, though one of the neighboring school systems offered it.

When the debate, which was about as lively as a debate centered upon foreign language courses could get, died down, my youth pastor, Chuck, offered a story about how we needed to be careful of foreign languages and why he was glad that my high school did not offer Latin. It seems as though one of his seminary friends was doing some research in order to get her degree, and was sitting in the library, alone, at night, flipping through a ~~book of spells from the forbidden section~~ text of some sort when she came across..."something in Latin". As Friend-of-Chuck wrote down the..."something in Latin"...for her research paper, she read the words out loud.

Suddenly, as she finished transliterating and speaking the words aloud, she got up from the desk and ran through a window! She doesn't remember anything until she woke up in the hospital much, much later (a week, a month, seventeen years...I don't remember the duration). It was a valuable lesson never to recite anything that we didn't understand or could translate when it comes to a foreign language.

Now, allow me to put my Mask of Disbelief on for just a second...

I'm not sure where to start with this one. How about...if she didn't understand what she was translating, how could she have pronounced the words correctly for the possession or the spell or whatever brush with evil she had just endured to have been fulfilled? If you can pronounce Latin correctly, chances are you're going to have a fairly decent grasp of the meaning of the words. Hell, you can surmise what most of the meanings of the words are based on familiar strings of letters that show up in modern English.

Second, just why the hell would it make any sense at all that Satan or Beelzebub or Lucifer or the Devil or Old Scratch or whatever the hell name he's going by this week would speak Latin? If I have my Biblical history correct, then Lucifer rose up against God thousands of years prior to the creation of the universe. Right? Because once God got to creatin', he didn't stop in order to stave off a usurper and his cronies, and the serpent was in the Garden by the time Adam and Eve began gallivanting around. Therefore, the language in Heaven (and Hell, if Lucifer took it with him after the fall) wouldn't be a language that wasn't developed until thousands of years after the creation of Man, right?

But, then again, this is religion, and logic doesn't always have a place in the sacred texts. So, apparently, Latin is spoken all over Hell, no matter how little sense that makes. With that in mind, here's a little phrase that is sure to come in handy:

Diabolus fecit, ut id facerem!
Pronounced: "Dee-ah-boh-loose feh-kit, oot id fah-kay-rehm!"

Diabolical translation in the hovertext

The word "devil" actually comes from Greek diabolos, which means "slanderer, accuser", ultimately coming from "one who throws something across". "Demon" also comes from Greek, daimon, which means "lesser deity", and picked up its negative connotation thanks to an old root "da-" meaning "divider". It gradually came to be known as anything that divided the believer's attention from God (it was used as a translation of the Hebrew word for idols).

"Lucifer" means "light carrier" and was used as the name for the Morning Star. Biblically, at least, Lucifer was actually a reference to a King of Babylon who fell from Grace, but Christians believed that any fall had to be a reference to the Devil, and so decided that Lucifer was his proper name. Finally, "Satan" comes to us from Hebrew--the Greeks adopted it, gave it to the Romans, and then it was passed off into English, all with very little change. It's actually a Hebrew word meaning "adversary" and was used as a reference for angels sent by God to block human activity.

So...with all this information...what is the Devil's real name, and what language does he speak?

In Which Our Hero Becomes an Unintentional Stalker

2011-01-27T07:18:00.000-05:00

It all started with a dream.

Well, er, sort of. The other night, I had a dream about a girl that I had a huge crush on back in high school. It wasn't a sexy time dream; it simply featured her on some talking tour and she happened to be coming through North Carolina, so I met up with her and had lunch.

Not much of a dream, I know. There were no flying monkeys or pork knights or lusty babes in it. Except for her. She pretty much still is a babe. She was a babe back in high school, and, according to her profile on the Book of Faces (I looked just to verify and stuff *shifty-eyed*), she's still Babe-a-licious. Schwing!!!

Anyway, this girl's name was Elizabeth and I had a major thing for her in high school. She was blonde and had a killer body; she played soccer and she was very good at it. Good enough to be invited to the US tryouts. I would have paid really good money to see her score a goal and rip her shirt off in celebration. Schwing!!!

Okay, enough with the Wayne's World references. Party on.

To make a long story short, I asked her out, she said no, and we went on our separate ways happily ever after. The end.

Not so fast, my friend. Since Elizabeth was pretty smart, we ended up in a lot of the same classes, which is kind of how I got the crush for her in the first place. We had English, Trig/Pre-Calc and French together, and I think we had a semester of typing together. The way she worked that keyboard was mesmerizing. And that was all mostly in our Junior year, the year in which I had asked her out and was met with ~~derisive laughter and finger pointing~~ a gentle rejection with a sweet, soft smile.

And then, our senior year arrived.

As I was hellbent on getting into college, I was taking all the courses necessary to both graduate and look good for college application: calculus, physics, AP English, Government and Econ. I threw in French IV and Drama for shits and giggles (but mostly shits). It was a pretty good little schedule, if I do say so myself. I had Calculus and physics in the morning, and then wrapped up the day with English (which you might have noticed is one of my better subjects) and Drama.

The best part of all this?

Elizabeth had the exact. same. schedule.

Except she had government first semester when I was taking economics, and she took economics second semester when I had government. Everything else was exactly the same. Calculus, Physics, French, Econ/Government, English and Drama.

As the first day of senior year progressed, I found it amusing that we were in the first three classes together. By the end of the day, I wondered what sick-and-twisted master of the universe had done this to me? Here was the object of my desire dangled in front of me, sweet fruits tantalizingly out of my reach, and there she was in every class of the day. Since our class schedule was the same, our lunches also coincided. Fortunately, she didn't live near me, otherwise we would have ridden the same bus together.

Yes, I was a loser who rode the bus all four years of high school.

I imagine that Elizabeth had the same reaction as I did: what sick-and-twisted master of the universe decided to put this goofball mooning over me all day in each of my classes? I'd file a restraining order if I could.

And that's when I realized that I had become a stalker...but not just a stalker. I had somehow unknowingly, unwittingly, unintentionally transcended mere stalking and made an entire new art form out of it. And I had nothing but the Huntington County School Corporation to thank for it. It was almost like I was beyond a stalker...like a ninja stalker or something. Yeah, I like that. Ninja stalker.

Wanna see my katana?

Totally Blowing Stuff Up Tuesdays: Darwin Awards

2011-01-25T07:43:00.003-05:00

Oh good Lord. Whoever decided that we shouldn't have any three-day weekends between the beginning of the new year and the end of May should be publicly horse-whipped, perhaps even nude, somewhere in Vermont. We haven't even made it through January yet, and I'm looking forward to the holidays, 2011 style.

Or, if not the holidays yet, at least a weekend where I can be somewhat lazy and not wrestle dead flora out of my living room and into the woods next to my house. There's no need for the Ents to come mooting around this place; I let that tree live the life of Riley for at least two weeks after it should have been relegated to compost. House guests and fish smell after three days; Christmas trees get dry, brittle and leave rings of needles everywhere for you to sweep up later.

Fortunately, the house is ~~mostly~~ recovered from the holidays. I sure haven't recovered yet. Something about my ass and the couch becoming one for a period of nearly two weeks puts the damper on that whole "ambition" thing. So, I don't know about you, but I need a pick-me-up. Since I don't really drink anymore, and I have all the naked women I ever need lying in my bed right now, I guess I'll have to exercise some other vice.

Oh, hey, videos of explosions!

Here's one of someone who...didn't know what he was doing, or at least has a hard time figuring the heat of enthalpy of a reaction. He also didn't realize that constricting the area for the explosion to take place in was a very bad idea.

In case you missed it, he's lighting a mixture of acetylene gas (the stuff they put in blow torches) and oxygen. Oxygen is there to support the combustion of the organic gas. I'd write out the balanced equation, but you guys don't come here for science, you come here for videos of shit being blown up and egregious use of the word "fuck".

I want you to pay special attention to how the hood sash ends up after all is said and done in the video. To say it was left askew would be an understatement; homeboy's lucky he still has both hands, use of his eyes, or even that he still has a head.

Granted, at least he tried being safe with his explosion gone awry, unlike this dumbass:

Too bad that ugly-ass shirt didn't get taken out in the explosion, Mr. Goggles Would Ruin My Fashion Sense.

Well, it's still a long time until May, but watching these videos does take away the pain of the long slog through the ass-end of winter and the opening weeks of spring. How long until college football starts back up again? Nine months? Fuck.

I Don't Hate the Steelers

2011-01-23T18:53:00.002-05:00

But I've got two weeks to learn!

Friday Morning Latin Lesson, Vol. XCVI

2011-01-21T07:27:00.000-05:00

In 1985, a great travesty was afflicted upon this nation. I am speaking, of course, of the discordant din that bled forth from our radio speakers, piercing the ears of the nation's youth, insinuating itself into their brains, and poisoning their minds.

Some people called it "The Superbowl Shuffle."

I call it "Six Minutes of Hell."

As an aside, let's not ask my wife what she calls "Six Minutes of Hell."

*ahem*

Anyway, if anyone has every been curious as to how some gangly kid from northeast Indiana could become a Green Bay Packers fan, this is it. Before this travesty of ear rape was unleashed upon the greater masses, prior to this cacophony of musical masturbation, I was fairly ambivalent toward professional football. After being constantly assaulted by this auditory pack of Dickwolves, I knew only one thing: I would, from henceforth, hate the motherfucking Chicago Bears.

Because of my location, most of my classmates climbed aboard the Bears' bandwagon that year--you know, like most Bears fans--and this song was played, over and over and over. Ad nauseam, which is Latin for "I'm going throw up if I hear that fucking 'Super Bowl Shuffle' one more time!" Just searching for it on the interwebs has incensed me in ways that I didn't think possible, or at least in ways that had slumbered deep within me since...Thursday afternoon.

And so, if you must know, gentle sportsfan, why it is that I am a Green Bay Packers fan, this is it. I knew nothing more than that I hated the Bears. In order to make that hate deliciously complete, I sought out their greatest rivals and rooted for them. The hapless Lions couldn't allow me to fully embrace my hatred; no more could the Minnesota Vikings, though I would pull for both teams against the Bears.

The logical answer to my Bears hatred was the Green Bay Packers, and this was long before Purple Voldemort poisoned the air with his camera-whoring and 5,000 season-ending interceptions. Before the Ole Gunslinger was out there, like a kid, just having fun. Before the Packers even remembered that there was a post-season. I rooted for them.

And so that's why, this weekend, this Sunday afternoon, my hatred will be focused like a finely-honed blade, focused solely against Jay-sus and his band of soft-brained miscreants, this wretched hive of scum and villany. Oh sure, it was nice to see the Packers destroy the Vikings and Purple Voldemort twice this year. It was delicious to see their season implode. It was most satisfying to see him slink off into the sunset, his tiny peezer between his legs, but all of that will be moot come Sunday afternoon. Then it will be full, unadulterated Bears hate.

And I'll be saying this. Early and often.

Futuite Ursos!
Pronounced: "Foo-too-ee-tay Oor-sohs!"

Delicious hate in the hovertext

Aside from the football team, however, bears are pretty fucking awesome.

What I Should Have Said Wednesday: Shop Class

2011-01-19T10:08:00.004-05:00

I don't know if this is the start of a blogging meme. I don't know if anyone else would be interested in this. I don't know if I have enough stories to generate momentum to keep this thing going.

What I do know is that this story has been dancing through my mind for a while, and I wasn't sure how to tell it. It doesn't really fit into a TMI story. And the story just kind of peters out if told any other way. Plus, I just finished reading Mike Birbiglia's book, and I remembered that he had a bit where he would tell a story and then pause and then say "What I should have said was nothing." Well, this is a bit of a twist on that.

Okay, I'll also admit that I shamelessly threw Birbiglia's name in there so that he would find my blog while he's Googling himself while eating pizza in bed. Maybe then I can crack into the comedy world and I, too, can have women ask me backstage if I think their boobs are two different sizes. I'm daring to dream today, friends.

Back to the story.

In middle school, specifically seventh and eighth grade, we were compelled to take shop class. One whole semester was dedicated to doing nothing but making stuff with our hands. Crappy stuff, but we were supposed to make it nonetheless. In seventh grade, we worked with plastics. In the eighth grade, it was all wood.

I was terrified of eighth grade shop class. Not so much because I wasn't used to working with wood (I was in the eighth grade, after all, I had been working with a specific kind of wood for a couple of years at that point), but because the previous semester Stu McDaniel had had a...we'll say "lapse in judgment"...and had tried to stop a band saw with his forearm. The band saw would have none of that, and filleted Stu's arm open, from wrist to elbow, all the way to the bone. By all accounts, it was fucking nasty, and three people passed out. One of them while running one of the buffing machines.

This did not seem safe to me at all.

When people weren't dismembering themselves with large pieces of ancient woodworking equipment, we were expected to work at these high, square tables. Before we went to work, however, the teacher gave us a five minute pep talk about the latest waxing technology or what a certain saw was for, and then he'd unleash us upon the world of woodworking.

During the lecture, we all sat on the tables, which were about four feet above the poured concrete floors. One afternoon--shop class was right after lunch--we were sitting on the tables and the teacher was droning on and on about coping saws versus keyhole saws versus jigsaws and my attention...lagged. Most of the time, my attention was solidly focused on Mindi Rhamy's shirt, but today, I let my head wander off into the clouds.

As such, I began to drift off to sleep, wherein I lost my balance and began to fall. Not wanting to have my head come in contact with the concrete floor, I did what any logical person would do: I woke up. It was too late, however, and there was no way to stop my momentum. I grabbed a hold of my friend, Joe to stop my fall. He jumped and said, loudly, "What the?" This caused everyone to look over and they all realized that I had fallen asleep and nearly killed myself. Everyone laughed.

I loved the attention.

As everyone quieted down, I turned to my friend, Ron, who was sitting beside me. "Oh man," I whispered, "I think I just shit my pants!"

Ron laughed. I don't know why, but making Ron laugh was something I really enjoyed. There was just something satisfying about making him laugh. Then Ron asked the follow-up question that begged to be asked: "Are you serious? Did you seriously shit your pants?"

Now, what I should have said was "No, man, I was just trying to be funny. You know, maybe flash a little of that sardonic humor of mine, show the ladies how witty I am, make them laugh. I hear they like that kind of thing. I didn't really shit my pants. That would be disgusting."

What I did say was "Oh, yeah. Just a little, but man, I think I shit in 'em."

*sigh*

You know, middle school is hard enough as it is. You've got a crush of emotions coursing through you, hormones are racing, acne, grades, and you've got a reputation to maintain. Well, it's really tough to maintain that reputation when suddenly, because of one feeble attempt at comedy, you've suddenly become known as the guy who shit his pants in shop class. The title, much like the shit-filled drawers that you've imagined into being, sticks with you for the rest of the year. And "news" like that...it spreads through the school. Fast. I had second-graders giving me shit about...shitting my pants. And you can't haul off and punch a second-grader in the mouth for being obnoxious.

Trust me, friends, you don't want to be known as the guy who shit his pants in shop class. Fortunately, the ignominy of that particular title has faded with history, but it sure as hell made my life rough for six months until I got to high school.

And it's kind of sad that high school is your escape from the embarrassment of middle school.

Me and the King

2011-01-18T12:19:00.005-05:00

Earlier today, hyperactive terrier and noted ND alumnus Regis Philbin announced he was retiring from his show. While I've never watched a single episode of Regis' show, I am familiar with his body of work. And the body of co-host. *rimshot*

I am, however, a fan of his interactions with David Letterman. I've always trended more toward being a Letterman fan, mostly because of the slacker Indiana doofus connection we share. I like Jim Gaffigan for much the same reason. Anyway, back when I watched Letterman faithfully, I always enjoyed the nights when Regis was a guest because Regis and Dave made for some wonderfully goofy interactions.

And I told Monsieur Philbin this once, while shaking his hand.

Unfamiliar with this tale? Let me fill you in (that's what I said to her...hmmm...doesn't hold the same amusement, does it?).

When I started my illustrious career at Notre Dame, I joked with anyone who would listen that I would really enjoy it when I finally got to meet Regis. Once there, I upped the ante to proclaiming that I wasn't graduating from Notre Dame until I met Regis.

As an aside, I also boasted that I was going to steal a bike and ride it through the main corridor of the library...which I didn't do. Epic. Failure. On my behalf.

My time was winding down at ND, and in the spring before would eventually graduate (I left in the fall and graduated the follow May), the opportunity presented itself. At the time, my daughter was about nine months old, and I would go home for two hours at lunch to watch her until my wife came home from teaching Latin at the local Catholic high school.

It just so happened that Regis has donated a large sum of money to ND to open a media center for students wishing to get communications and theater arts majors and the like, and he showed up for the groundbreaking ceremony. The campus was abuzz--"Holy shit, Regis is here and we're getting a new building! Huzzah!"--but I didn't think too much of it. I was wandering through the main corridor of the library when I looked up and saw a bunch of people decked out in their fanciest clothes standing near the exit.

"Oh shit, it's Regis!" I said to myself. And then I wondered if I was man enough to celebustalk him. And then I decided I had nothing to lose.

They were all gathered outside the exit and I kind of hovered on the periphery until Regis noticed me. We made eye contact and I kind of dove in, hand extend. "Mr. Philbin, I'm a big fan. Especially when I see you on Letterman."

He took my hand enthusiastically, pumped it a couple of times, grinned in his big, dopey Regis grin and said, "Oh, then you're in for a treat in a couple of weeks, young man! I'll be on Dave's show!" And then he gave the date, but I forget now. It's been nine years.

After shaking hands, I smiled, thanked him for speaking to me, wished him safe travels, and left. In all, he was very friendly and very congenial. I then passed his limo on the way home (I lived close to the airport). Instead of honking and waving or some stupid shit like that, I smiled. I had actually met the man I had joked about meeting for the previous four years. For some strange reason, I felt a sense of accomplishment.

I watched him the night he was on Letterman. It was funny--his typical antics--but there was no mention of the gangly, goofy fucker at Notre Dame that shook his hand and talked about how great it would be to watch him on the show again. I should probably also point out that Regis is on the short side--he only came up to about my nipples. A nipple-high guy, we called them in college.

So, here's to you, Reej. May your retirement be filled with good sleep and dreams of large women.

A New Hope

2011-01-17T09:04:00.007-05:00

The scene descends upon a dimly-lit, black-and-gray control room. Three figures are in the room. Wide windows open to a sweeping vista of the inky darkness of space, a thousand stars thrown across the velvety blackness. To the right, the glowing arc of a blue-and-green planet can just be seen. One of the figures is sitting in a chair above the other two. The two lower figures' attentions are fixed on the figure sitting.

Palpatine: Now, young Skywalker, behold the power of this fully-armed and functioning battle station! Palpatine presses a button. You may fire when read--

Off-camera, there is a persistent, hollow, metallic knocking.

Palpatine: What the? Guards, open the door.

Two red-cloaked Imperial Guards move to open the door. Two doors slide apart mechanically. Revealed are two girl scouts in full uniform, eyes bright, smiles wide

Girls in unison: Good afternoon, sir. Would you be interested in helping fund our Girl Scout troupe by buying some delicious Girl Scout cookies? They are only $3.50 a box. You can even donate boxes of cookies for troops stationed on the front lines.

Palpatine: apoplectic What the? How did you get in here? Who let you in?

Girl Scout 1: We were just making the rounds, sir. Your chamber was next.

Girl Scout 2: Someone named 'TK-421' let us into this hallway.

Palpatine: groans Oh, that guy is always missing his assignments. Anyway, go, shoo, begone. I want none of what you're selling.

Girl Scout 1: big eyes fill with tears, low lip quivers But...but...

Palpatine: No. No! There will be none of that. Get out of here and don't try making me feel guilty.

Girl Scout 2: My mom was right. You are a big jerk!

Luke: Hold on just a second. I'd like a couple of boxes. Um, why don't you put me down for two boxes of Thin Mints and...aw, heck, a couple of Peanut Butter Patties as well. You take Republic Credits?

Girl Scout 2: Hey, if it spends, we take it.

Palpatine: to Luke Stop that! You'll only encourage them. Turns to girls Look, girls, this is a really bad time right now. We're in the middle of a sort of 'this ends here' thing. So, why don't you come back in a little while and we'll sort this out.

Luke: Oh, and a box of Lemonades, too. 3PO loves those things.

Vader: What? Someone's been tinkering with his programming I see.

Luke: No way. He's got this whole yellow fetish thing. It's really...well, we'll just say it's messy. I've never seen someone spring so many 'fluid leaks' when we're on Naboo with their stupid yellow fighters.

Vader: Oh, God, those things are ugly. I can't tell you how many times I tried to get your mother to get someone to change the designs on those things, but she wouldn't budge. She said it was her planet, she'd run it how she saw fit. shakes head

Vader and Luke simultaneously: Women!

Palpatine: Will you two take this seriously? Turns to girls: Like I said, if you just come back later.

Vader: Hold it. Before you go, I want some Thin Mints, some Peanut Butter Patties and a box of Thanks-a-Lot.

Palpatine: What? Not you, too. That doesn't even make sense! You eat through a freaking tube!

Vader: waves Palpatine to silence ...and about five boxes of Samoas!

Girl Scout 1: Actually, they're called Caramel Delights. Apparently, the Island People didn't like being associated with all that coconut, caramel and chocolate. They said it was 'offensive' or something.

Vader: Man, that's weak.

Luke: Oh, I can't believe I forgot the Samoas!

Girl Scout 2: Caramel Delights!

Luke: Whatevs. I'll take three boxes of those. No, make it four. I do like the coconut. You should totally try the Lemonades, too, pops.

Vader: Oh, I don't know. I'm buying a lot already. Ah, what the heck. I'll take a Lemonade, too!

Luke: You won't be sorry!

Girl Scout 1: And would you like to donate any cookies for the troops on the front lines, sir?

Luke: No, no, that's alright. It kind of helps me out if those guys have low morale, if you get where I'm coming from here.

Palpatine: sputtering Alright. Stop it. I told you to cut it out! You've forced my hand. stands and holds hands out in front of him, firing purple lightning at Luke Actually, you've forced both my hands! cackles

Luke: Ahhhhhhhh! It burns! It burns! And your puns are terrible.

Palpatine: You're not in a position to be judging my jokes, boy. shoots him with lightning again If you won't join me in not buying the cookies from the Girl Scouts, then, young Skywalker, you will die. more lightning and cackles

Vader looks from Palpatine to Luke to the Girl Scouts back to Palpatine then to the Girl Scouts and down to Luke and to the Girl Scouts...scene goes on longer than it probably should before he steps over, picks up Palpatine and chucks him into the power core shaft

Luke: slowly climbing to his feet Man, this place is just chock full of design flaws.

Vader: Again, no one consults me on these things. So, are we done here? looks over to Girl Scouts

Imperial Guard: Yeah, so, two boxes of Thin Mints and two Samoas, please.

Girl Scout Two: Caramel Delights!

Everyone: laughs

Vader: So, wanna go get a drink? We've got some catching up to do.

Luke: Sure, I'm good. It's not like I have to get back down there shakes head in direction of Endor, looming in the window or anything. Damn, I've felt so dirty since Obi-Wan told me about that whole sister thing.

Vader: How is old Obes these days?

Luke: Well dad, you kind of killed him...

Vader: Oh, right...

Six weeks later

Vader and Luke are sitting in the old Jedi temple on Coruscant, surrounded by boxes of Girl Scout cookies

Vader: Confound it! That old bastard was right. This is impractical! Luke, help me get this helmet off.

Luke: But, father, you'll die.

Vader: holding up a Caramel Delight These things are worth it, boy! Now, help an old man out, would ya?

Luke helps Vader take off his helmet, revealing a scarred, pallid face beneath it. Vader promptly pops a Caramel Delight into his mouth and chews, smiling. His breathing stutters, and his eyes look pained

Luke: Come on, father, let's get you some help.

Vader: shoves another cookie into his mouth It's too late for me, my son. shoves two Lemonades into his mouth and chews Oh, these are delicious. You were right, Luke. Tell your sister, you were right. dies

Luke: Oh, father. sighs Well, I guess that means more Samoas for me.

Girl Scout (off camera): Caramel Delights, goddammit!

end

If you want Girl Scout cookies, let me know. I'll even mail them to you.

Friday Morning Latin Lesson, Vol XCV

2011-01-14T07:12:00.000-05:00

If you're anything like me, you've just spent nearly three very...long...weeks...trapped in a house with your children. And, if you're like me and have no fucking backbone at all, you don't tell the screaming little shits to go clean their rooms or to shut the fuck up, Daddy's not got his special drinky juice yet, when they've stepped out of line. Which is hourly, in my house.

And, if you're like me, you sort of just let your eyes unfocus and you stare through the television screen for hours-long marathons of iCarly and Wizards of Waverly Place when you're home ~~on guard duty~~ with them.

Occasionally, though, the long periods of Tweenage Tomfoolery is broken up by commercials...for more Tweenage Tomfoolery. The one of which I speak this morning is the most recent incarnation of the Kidz Bop franchise.

If you are unfamiliar with the Kidz Bop franchise...then I envy you. I envy you so much I hate you. *dark glower* If you are familiar, then, well, you know my pain. It is, for the unenlightened, a series of CDs sung by squeaky-voiced pre-teens who have been suckled on Hannah Montana and weened with the Jonas Brothers, each thinking that they will be the next big thing to come down the pike and make millions that they can blow in their early twenties on alcohol, hookers and blow.

It's better to burn out than to fade away, kids.

The commercials feature the kids singing and dancing around, Terpsichorean moves abounding, and there is usually one or two young ladies dressed as if they were going to hit the clubs hardcore. You know, their outfits consisting of a full-order of slutty with a healthy side of Lolita. And I look at the screen and I think...Jesus, Self, you're a terrible person.

The most recent Kidz Bop features an amazing new talent that no one over the age of sixteen has heard of named Hunter Pecunia. And when I first saw this, I laughed my ass off.

How Hunter became a name, I don't know, but lots of cultures have names for boys meaning "hunter". How Hunter became a name for a girl I don't understand. Unless you have a daughter named Hunter. In that case...oh, it's a beautiful name. Did you name her after the horse or the dog? Because, obviously, hunter means "one who searches for something" or "a dog or horse used for hunting".

Pecunia, though, you might not recognize right away. Pecunia is a Latin word meaning "money", "scratch" or "wampum." So, this young lady's name means "One who searches for money", and if that doesn't summarize the Kidz Bop phenomenon perfectly, then I don't know what does.

Without further ado, I present to you this week's money-themed Latin phrase:

Cunicula, ubi mea pecunia est?
Pronounced: "Cue-nee-cue-lah, oo-bee may-ah pay-cue-nee-ah est?"

Translation in the Hovertext.

Pecunia, pecuniae gives us the word "impecunious", which means "my dad". Okay, so it really means "cheap, tight with a dollar, I have a coupon for that". Interestingly enough, pecunia has its roots in an older word, pecu meaning "cattle". In the early days, after the domestication of animals and before the rise of, let's say, the car, cattle were seen as a sign of wealth. The more cattle you had, the more likely you were to make it rain. Granted, you'd be throwing cow shit in the air instead of c-notes, but *holds hands up in front of himself* do as you see fit.

If you've ever read the closest thing that the Irish had to an epic, The Tain, the entire story revolves around an argument that Queen Medb (pronounced "Maive") had with her husband Ailill (pronounced "Steven") over who had more cattle, and the war that was started over the theft of one of the cows. The argument was had when the two were in bed together one morning, and it occurred during some pillow talk right after they got done fecking. I'm not lying. If you're looking for an epic story to read that involves as much gratuitous flesh as there is gratuitous violence, I heartily recommend Tain Bo Cuailnge.

Also, yesterday, while commenting on Bev's blog, I got the word verification "potojack". This amused me because poto, potare means "I drink booze" (as opposed to bibo, bibere, which means "I drink"). So, "poto Jack" would obviously mean that I am drinking a certain delicious Tennessee Whiskey.

Poto Jack, indeed.

Jiggity Jig

2011-01-10T09:58:00.008-05:00

First off, big thanks to everyone who helped out with the voting for J.R. Salzman's video entry for the Vail, CO trip. I think we got them up to ninth place, which doesn't get them the trip, but it did get them a nice prize. Thanks again to everyone. It doesn't amaze me anymore when people do nice things, mostly because I kind of know you all now, in a way, and I know that you're all good--no, great folks. Thanks again for the help.

In other news, I'm home. I've been home since Friday afternoon. It was a whirlwind tour of the southeastern parts of the United States. As promised, I saw a lot of Interstate 40. My favorite part of it? Altus, Arkansas, but only because it's a Latin word meaning "high, deep" and also because I didn't go to Jenks, Oklahoma.

So, I flew out Wednesday night, and the flight from Raleigh-Durham to Atlanta was fine. I had my own bank of seats with no one pressing in around me. I was behind the stewardess' station in the back of the plane, so I didn't have to look down the cabin at anyone. I was basically alone in my own little world, reading my book and staring out the window.

The flight from Atlanta to Tulsa, however, was not as pleasant. The plane was full, and it was a smaller plane, to boot. When I was lining up for my tickets, the person in line behind me was one of those people who doesn't respect personal space. She was right on my shoulder and hip and I turned to stare her down and mentally tell her to back the fuck off. She couldn't understand my mental clues.

We boarded the plane, and as I made my way down the aisle to where my seat was, she was still clinging to my backside like a fungus. I went to stow my bag in the overhead, and she pushes past me...into the seat next to mine. "I have the window," she said, in slightly accented English. Fuck you and the window seat, I fired back at her, mentally.

She sat down and promptly dialed someone on her cell phone and yammered for thirty minutes about some guy who invited her to come to Colorado and how she slept on the plan from Moscow to New York and--SHUT THE FUCK UP ALREADY!!! Fortunately, she slept on the ride from Atlanta to Tulsa. Unfortunately, she farted the whole way there, too. I was calmly sitting in my seat, reading, when something would reach up and assault my olfactory sensors. Being that I wasn't tooting, I knew it had to be her. And then she would shift and her leg would be brushing up against mine and...well...if we were in a car, I would have reached over and opened the door and let her roll out. Unfortunately, we were in a plane, and I did not have the escape hatch seats.

I got to Tulsa with no problems, helped my mother-in-law with some stuff and talked with my wife's grandmother. Then it was to bed. The following morning, I got up and out the door and, after leaving my grandmother-in-law's house, I promptly got lost. I made the wrong turn--or didn't turn enough--or something and I was headed toward Joplin, MO instead of Meskogee, OK. I knew something was wrong because the sun wasn't in the position where I knew it should be if I was traveling south and east. I was able to cut back through some scenic Oklahoma countryside (read: flat, scrubby, brown) and find my way back to I-40. From there, it was simple: head east.

I'm terribly sorry that I didn't bring my camera with me, because I would have loved to have taken a picture of myself visiting Toad Suck Park in Arkansas. Alas, since I had no reason to, I didn't stop. I'm going to regret that for a long, long time I fear.

I was able to outrun the snowstorm that's now targeting the southeast and I was just ahead of another storm dropping from the north that hit Nashville shortly after I drove through it (no time to go to the Parthenon this time...). I made it to my wife's aunt and uncle's house and stayed the night there in Knoxville. They were calling for a good snow storm, too, so I got up early so I could find my way through the mountains (which was being forecasted to get 5 - 10 inches of snow overnight and into Friday) without incident.

And, it was largely without incident. I continued on my merry way, stopping for gas occasionally, but then I had to stop for a restroom break and I pulled off into Conover, North Carolina.

Never, ever stop in Conover, North Carolina, if you can manage it.

I swung into a BP station so that I could use the facilities. BP shit on the US last summer, so I thought I'd shit on them. Only thing was, I knew it was a mistake almost the minute I put the car into park. I went into the restroom and was surprised when vermin didn't flee before the light being turned on. I sat down, looking at a floor that I didn't want the bottom of my shoes touching, let alone my pants. I hurried along and left quickly, my entire being feeling touched by the uncleanliness of the establishment. I then caught the furious stares of some of Conover's finest citizens, envious of my upright posture, my full set of teeth, and...I don't know what else. I was just not very comfortable in that village.

After a twenty minute wait to pull back onto the road, I headed home. No further incident. I stopped off to see my wife at work and then home to see the children and try to work on cleaning up the house some more. So, I once again have wheels, which is a nice feeling, to be certain.

And, as usual, whenever I'm on long trips where I'm mostly just listening to the voices within my head, I generated another story that I want to write. I've gotten some notes written down at home that I came up with over the course of the trip and I've got a couple of lines of a prologue written. I basically started coming up with the idea on the flight from Raleigh to Atlanta and then further refined it on the flight from Atlanta to Tulsa. I had a few characters that that I had been kicking around in head for a while that fit into this story nicely.

Now I just need to finish what I'm working on now and then the three other stories that I want to refine and finish before I get to this new one. If only the house would clean itself...

Do Me a Solid, Wouldja?

2011-01-05T13:26:00.007-05:00

I'm not going to be around much over the next few days. You know, the whole flying to and driving from Tulsa, OK. *stares blankly into the distance*

Anyway, while I'm cruising down Interstate 40 in my shiny Saturn coupe (it almost fits the cadence of the song...go with it, he's rolling), I'm going to bother you all to help out a friend. Er, a friend of a friend. So you'd be helping out a friend of a friend of a friend, and then if he wins, you've got a hilarious anecdote you can use at parties for small talk.

Plus, you get to feel all better about yourself for doing something nice for someone.

So, the background on the story goes here: There is a contest where people submit videos of themselves explaining why they should get a free trip to Vail, CO. It's a Facebook thing, so you know there are lots of self-centered bitches with their spray-on tans and collagen-inflated lips and troweled-on mascara throwing around some pitiful Jersey-shore excuses as to why they should be granted permission to ruin the beautiful Colorado mountains (and I can personally assure you, them mountains in Colorado is beautiful).

But then, there's J.R.

J.R. is a veteran from the war in Iraq. Unfortunately, while his heart and soul are here in America, he left a little piece of himself in Iraq; namely, his right hand.

You can watch his video testimony here, which is also the place where you can vote for him.

So, let's do this up Chicago-style, friends: vote early and vote often. You can vote once every 24 hours. Voting runs through Saturday, January 8th.

Do it, or I'll be forced to eat this bowl of ~~delicious~~ charmingly adorable kittens:

Oklahoma Bound

2011-01-04T07:24:00.007-05:00

I'm hell on wheels.

No, really. I'm hell. On wheels.

More specifically, cars. See, because they're on wheels and I'm hell on cars.

It seems that every car I've ever owned has tried to one-up the previous vehicle in terms of cataclysmic reasons for it no longer working.

My first car--which I loved, by the way--was a 1992 Pontiac Grand Prix that I got while in college. It was awesome. I used it to smuggle all the cheap beer I could from Illinois into Indiana when I was in college. My friend, Big Willy Style, nicknamed it "Smugglah", since I was all about going to Scotchman's East AND West in Watseka, Illinois. 32 ounces of Old Milwaukee never tasted as sweet as when they were delivered by the loving, cushy backseat of Smugglah.

Smugglah, unfortunately, died in a parking lot of a Ryan's in Mishawaka, IN while I was in grad school. I was able to get it to limp down the road to a dealership where I traded it for a lemon of a Ford Contour that was such a terrible car, it deserved no nicknames. That car got me to North Carolina where it decided that it would start eating timing belts. Smugglah liked to eat alternators, but those were $100 to fix and would last for about three years. Timing belts are five times as expensive and the Ford tore through those in about two weeks.

I finally traded the Ford in for a Saturn Vue a little over five years ago. About a year into owning it (and, naturally, after the warranty wore off) it developed a rattle in the engine. It was nothing big, but it was a touch annoying. I didn't think anything of it. I got it serviced, it ran, so I continued driving it.

Until last week. Last week, I got the car serviced. The rattle had become more pronounced so, in my blissful ignorance, I thought it just needed a service tune up. The day after I got it worked on, it died. Battery failure. Again, not a big issue, however I had to get it towed--almost literally around the block--for a little over $100 and then put $100 worth of battery and labor into it (I had them do a diagnostic on the electrical system, in case it wasn't just an old battery). I started the car up, it sounded great, and so I drove it.

And a week later, the rattling was far worse. It was accompanied by a popping sound, almost like when a soda bottle expands when its laying on the floor of your car under the heater. A lovely, reassuring sound when you're driving down the road, to be certain. Then a loud, screeching squeal would sound intermittently from the car. Unpleased, I took the car to the same place that had serviced it prior. I explained what was going on and they said they'd look at the catalytic converter, see if that was the issue or not.

Apparently, not would be the correct answer. The guy who looked at the car was nice enough to shoot straight with me. He told me I needed a new engine; something inside was broken and they couldn't fix it. He went on, blah blah, something something, get some quotes, blargh...but I didn't hear him. I was quietly weeping, wishing that just once in my life I could pay a car off before it decides to die on me.

If you're keeping score at home, thats a service, tune-up, tow, battery replacement and a diagnostic test--about $300 worth of work--for a car that is now all but undriveable. What a happy fucking New Year this is turning out to be.

Because I had to, I reclaimed the car, driving it home about as fast as I possibly could--which is to say "not very". The car runs, but loudly, and it doesn't like driving in first gear (you know, something that is kind of important in city driving) and doesn't like driving up hills (again, something important in North By God Carolina piedmont driving). The car now sits at the top of my yard, quietly watching the world go by. I dare not drive it very far, as I'm unsure of if or when it will die and not restart.

Which means, I'm without wheels for a while.

A short while, as it turns out. Shortly before Christmas, my wife's grandfather passed away. He was a man who had several cars, and my wife's grandmother, out of the kindness of her heart, is going to lend me a car for, essentially, as long as I need it. The trick is, I have to figure out a way to get it from Tulsa, Oklahoma, to North By God Carolina.

Which is why I'm Oklahoma-bound. I'm flying out either Wednesday or Thursday, taking care of what I need to out there, and then driving from Tulsa to my home here in North Carolina. The plan is to stop in Knoxville and bother my wife's uncle and aunt for a night's rest, and then the drive home after that. I'm going to see a lot of America. Specifically, I'm going to see a lot of I-40.

And unfortunately, I'm not going to be driving a big old pickup truck.

Driving Down Highway 40 In My Big Old Pickup Truck

Skyler | Myspace Video

I guess the good news is that I won't have Freddie Prinze, Jr. in the car with me.

It Came Upon A Midnight...Not So Clear

2010-12-27T13:09:00.003-05:00

The snow came Christmas night, giving us the first White Christmas (maybe not Christmas morning, but we'll take it) in six decades.

By tomorrow, it will probably be all but gone. Such is the ephemeral nature of snow in the North Carolina piedmont. But, hey, we'll take it, because snow is fucking awesome and puts me in a good mood whenever it arrives.

Plus, I was able to make a new friend, Albert, the Dapper English Snow Gentleman.

Friday Morning Latin Lesson, Vol. XCIV

2010-12-24T10:57:00.002-05:00

Felix dies Nativitatis!
Pronounced: "Fay-leeks dee-ace Nah-tee-wee-tah-teese!"

Translation in the hovertext.

You should be able to figure out now why Feliz Navidad is Spanish for Merry Christmas!

Friday Morning Latin Lesson, Vol XCIII

2010-12-17T07:03:00.000-05:00

As promised, I went and got the family's Christmas tree last weekend.

*sighs*

I ended up going to Lowes...which, as I've mentioned before, isn't a suitable place to buy things like plumbing supplies, wood screws or light bulbs. Naturally, a Christmas tree is a perfect thing to buy from there, right?

Well, it seemed so. The tree didn't look too bad. Of all the ~~twigs~~ trees left, the one I selected was the best-looking one. So, I hefted it up, much to the delight of my children who were impressed by my feat of strength, and carried it up front. An old man asked if I'd like it trimmed a little bit and if I want the bottom branches cut off. Well, sure, I would, I said. I set it in the holder and then watched as the old man picked up an electric chain saw and could not figure out why it was not working.

"You may want to plug that in," I pointed out to the old man. He chuckled, plugged the saw in, and cut my tree. He then proceeded to mutilate the bottom part of the tree as he chopped off smaller branches with all the grace and dexterity of a drunken rhinoceros.

I took the tree, paid for it, and headed out to the car where I had to toss it in the back--Lowes, help you tie something to the roof? Perish the motherfuckin' thought. We drove home and I prepared lunch for the children and then decided to try my best to get the tree on the base. However, there's no hole in the base, so I have the bash the fucking base onto the tree, which doesn't go so well because all I can find is a rubber mallet and a flooring hammer. At this point, I'm a little incensed, but I finally get the tree on there far enough I feel it won't fall over.

I brought the tree in and watered it, twisting and turning it so that the thin spots were as hidden as possible. At that point, my hands were covered in sap and rosin, my arms and face were scratched by the needles, I had hit my head on the back hatch to my car, and my patience was at an end.

The following day, after letting the branches of the tree settle, I sighed at how shitty the tree looked. It's not that it's a bad little tree, Charlie Brown, it's just that it's not very wide. And it's a bit...uneven...gappy even. But, it's a tree, and it's indoors, and that's what it's about, right?

So, I started to put the lights on the tree when I suddenly realized that the outlet in front of which I parked the tree doesn't work. I didn't swear--too much--at this miscalculation on my part (read: boneheaded mistake because I didn't remember that half of the outlets in my living room don't work). I finally found an extension cord, plugged in the lights and strung the lights around the tree. Unfortunately, my glasses are so old and so bad and so scratched that it actually hurts to look at the lights of the tree because they are so blurred. My wife fixed the lighting issue for me.

I left the decorating to the kids, and they did an admirable job with it. It might not be the White House Christmas Tree or the Rockefeller Christmas Tree, but it's good enough for us. I'm sure Santa Claus will find it suitable for present deposition on Christmas morning.

That is, if I can find where I put the tree skirt after I washed it last year...

With all that in mind, I think this might be my last real tree, as this could be the most annoying one that I've had to buy and set up so far. And when the time comes to take the tree down, you can be damned sure that I'll be firing this little phrase off when I need to dispose of the body. Or bough. Or whatever the fuck it is.

Neca igni!
Pronounced: "Nay-cah eeg-nee!"

Hot translation in the hovertext.

Just the tree. She can stay.

Legend has it that the Christmas tree became a symbol of Christianity when one Saint Boniface (his name is Latin for "doer of good deeds"--see how that works out?) decided that he'd had enough of the pagan symbol of Thor's Oak tree. So, he did the logical thing: he cut it down.

The reasons for cutting down the tree were many, but they mostly revolved around getting rid of a site sacred to a pagan god. He also wanted to show that Thor wasn't all that, and that his mighty oak could be destroyed. When everyone saw that Thor did not strike Boniface down for felling his mighty tree, they converted to Christianity.

Boniface then noticed that, among the roots, a tiny fir tree was growing. Being the opportunist that he was, Boniface said that the fir tree should become a symbol of Christ. He then began to spread Christianity throughout the German world, including Bavaria, making him the Patron Saint of Brewers.

Germans and Swedes had for a long time been decorating evergreen trees during the darkest part of the winter in order to welcome the coming spring. They would hang candles and apples and paper stars and all sorts of shit from the trees in a midwinter celebration. Some of the trees were left in the yard, some were cut down and propped up next to the door, and some were brought inside. Eventually, the two traditions were combined, and the modern-age Christmas tree was born. The Germans eventually brought the tradition to America in the 18th century, about two hundred years after the practice of decorating a fir tree became widely associated with Christmas.

Despite all this, and his connection to the Christmas tree, St. Boniface's day of veneration is June 5th. Makes perfect fucking sense.

Felix dies natalis Christi.

The Greatest Christmas Picture Ever?

2010-12-16T10:47:00.003-05:00

I've already switched my Facebook profile picture to reflect my esteemed opinion of this photo. I don't know how they could make this better or more Christmas Card worthy. Maybe put a Santa Hat on the walrus? A Christmas tree in the background? Mistletoe over his head?

I don't know, but I applaud the people who did this. It's comedy gold. It works on so many levels. It's genius.

Okay, it's a walrus eating the hell out of some cake in the shape of a Christmas tree. I think it's made funnier by a) it being a walrus, an animal with a name just as silly as its appearance and b) the fact that the walrus has no thumbs, and therefore must dive face-first into his snack.

How I long to be the walrus...

If I had time, I'd print this out and slap a Merry Christmas on it and send it out as a Christmas card. At the very least, it's a helluva lot better than a cartoon drawing of a puma fist pumping his excitement over my birthday.

Screw the snowy chapel picture, Saint Joe. Next year, I want funny walrus pictures in my electronic in-box.

Or, better yet, funny walrus movies...

All I Want for Christmas

2010-12-15T07:11:00.000-05:00

Is for you to shut the fuck up.

I like Christmas music. I honestly, actually, truthfully do. I don't mind at all when a couple of the local stations fire up ye olde carols in the middle of November and don't stop until Christmas evening. I'm fine with it.

I'm not fine with the fact that the programming manager at the local station doesn't realize that more than five Christmas songs exist. Yes, I, too, love me some Trans-Siberian Carol of the Bells. I don't love it seven times an hour. I don't love Dan Fogelberg's Same Auld Lang Syne at all. Well, maybe once, but that's only to remind me how much I don't like it.

And, please, Baby It's Cold Outside is a Date Rape song, not a Christmas song. She wants to go home, and Dino slips something in her drink. She finds it hard to resist. When Dean's saying "it's cold outside", he means his dick is cold outside of his pants.

But...but...if he's singing it to Zooey Deschanel...well...I totally understand.

I just wish--my one, true holiday wish, Santa--is for these radio people to understand that there's more Christmas music than the same ten songs that they play over and over and over and over again. Dean Martin is great, when he's not drunk and/or trying to slip a little something something into baby's drink, or ass, or both. Frank Sinatra has more than just one song. And while I do enjoy the smooth jazz stylings of the Merry Christmas Charlie Brown soundtrack, it gets old. Fast. Especially when it's on repeat.

You guys ever hear of the Binger, Bing Crosby? He's like Dean Martin, except not drunk all the time and--as far as I know--doesn't try to drug some young woman into a "white Christmas" and his "holiday inn", if you know what I'm saying. If you don't, well, you need to catch up on your classic Christmas movies. Commie. Also, what the hell? Barenaked Ladies made one helluva Christmas album a few years ago, with new songs and traditional. And it's awesome. Try throwing that in every once in a while instead of another rendition of Frosty the Snowman.

The one, however, that galls me the most is Mariah Carey. *shudders visibly*

It seems every commercial break, those slow, stupid notes are picked out on a synthesized keyboard and she starts in with her bad porn moaning. I scream. I curse. I switch the channel to the other Christmas station, only to catch the ass-end of "All I Want for Christmas Is You". It's time to go Oedipus on my earholes.

I finally shut the radio off in the car the other day. I only listen to the Christmas music now when I'm driving with the kids somewhere. Otherwise, I have audiobooks that I listen to, and some of the subject material is a little...coarse...for their tender ears. That same day I stomped into the house after enduring Mariah Carey three times in the span of an hour's drive. I had had enough. My nerves were shot. My ears were bleeding. There wasn't enough alcohol in the house.

Trying to escape the merry jolliness of the holiday, I went to the kitchen to start making dinner. My kids were flipping through the stations on the television and turned to Nickelodeon. I stepped into the room for a second to ask a favor of one of them.

What should greet me, but Miranda Cosgrove singing..."All I Want for Christmas Is You". I fell to the floor in the fetal position and wept. Openly. My daughter had the kind grace to change the channel.

You know who Miranda Cosgrove is, right? She's the "star" of Nickelodeon's tween show, "iCarly". Personally, I don't watch "iCarly". The judge was pretty specific in his ruling about that. *shifty-eyed* He also said I couldn't really discuss it openly. *polite cough*

In what I assume is Nickelodeon's answer to Demi Lovato, Miranda Cosgrove also sings. Naturally, she decided it was imperative that she pollute my airwaves with another rendering of that abortion of Christmas music. And while I'm sure she's a fine singer and all, I just wish that she had chosen...well, anything else.

So, basically, all I want for Christmas is for that fucking song to die. To go away. To disappear and never be heard from again.

Like the chick that Dino slipped the mickey to shortly before realizing he had overdosed her and that someone had better help him move this fucking body else there would be hell to pay. And while you're at it, freshen his martini. It is Christmas after all.

Friday Morning Latin Lesson, Vol. XCII

2010-12-10T00:30:00.008-05:00

This is the weekend when I finally go and get a Christmas tree. As we support the wholesale slaughter of evergreen trees, I'll be picking up a "live" tree. This is why I'm getting the tree only three weeks before Christmas. It's an attempt to lower the potential of the tree bursting into flame (always a damper for the holiday celebration) and to slow the inevitable dumping of needles onto the carpet in my living room. I'm thinking, however, that I might invest in a nice artificial tree next year as well as an evergreen-scented candle. Not only will I have the smell of a tree, but I'll also have a cozy light of a candle to warm myself by during the cold, dark weeks leading up to the arrival of winter. Plus, then I'll be able to turn the heat up a little bit and not freeze my ass off quite so much. *rubs frostbitten cheeks*

Of course, the Christmas tree isn't the only bit of vegetation we invite into the home during the holiday season. Mistletoe is also a popular sprig of greenery to hang over doorways and zippers, all in a hope for a quick kiss stolen beneath it's green leaves and white berries.

Don't laugh at the notion of the mistletoe hanging over the belt. Mistletoe, despite being a parasitic plant, has always been seen as a sign of virility, romance and fertility. The Celts used to think that it would help cure barren animals, and mistletoe berries were often baked into cakes used for religious ceremonies. Most likely, the reason for the connection to fertility and virility is because the white berries of mistletoe look like drops of semen.

Mistletoe also figures prominently in the mythology of the Norsemen. Odin sired twin sons by his wife Frigg, Baldr and Hodr. Baldr was the most beautiful child ever born, mortal or divine, and Hod happened to be blind. Frigg doted on Baldr because of his beauty, but Frigg also had a problem. She had a bit of a Cassandra complex (see what I did there?) in that she was gifted with the ability to predict the future, but no one would believe her if she said or did anything about it.

One night, Frigg had a dream that Baldr would die (one thing about the Norse gods: they were quite mortal, yet they did not die of natural causes nor did they age after they reached adulthood...but that's a different story altogether). Upset that her beautiful son was slated to sleep with the lutefisks, Frigg went around the world and asked everything to make a pledge that it would not harm Baldr. As everyone loved Frigg--she was quite beautiful, herself, and is an archetypical Mother Earth goddess--everything promised it would not harm Baldr. However, when she came to the mistletoe, it seemed too young to be of any worry, and so Frigg didn't bother to get an oath from it.

By this point, Loki had eaten a witch's heart, thereby gaining the blackness of her soul. Loki thusly changed his attitude toward the gods of the Norse pantheon--it was they who had killed the witch and burnt her corpse, and apparently her resentment lingered in her heart after her death. Mmm. Delicious hate.

One night, in Odin's mead hall, all the gods had gathered and started playing a game wherein they threw things at Baldr. Since he could not be harmed, nothing damaged him. Rocks, arrows, swords, hammers, all of it bounced harmlessly off Baldr. It was great fun. Especially if you're drunk off mead.

Out of the cold came a stooped and bent old woman--Loki in disguise--who also enjoyed the fun. As the festivities continued on, however, poor Hodr, Baldr's blind twin brother, kept trying to shoot arrows at Baldr but missed. Because he was blind, and couldn't see to shoot straight. Kind of like a Storm Trooper.

The old woman stepped up behind Hodr and helped him aim at Baldr. She then gave him an arrow forged out of mistletoe, which had not sworn not to harm Baldr. When Hodr released the arrow, it struck Baldr in the chest and killed him instantly. Frigg was devastated, Odin was enraged, and the closest thing to all Hel breaking loose occurred (see what I did THERE?).

Odin immediately sired a son with the goddess Rindr (presumably, Frigg was too distraught with grief over Baldr's death to put out...Frigg spent the rest of her life weeping over the loss of Baldr) who sprang from Mama's loins and grew into adulthood. Vali was his name, and his sole purpose in life was to kill Hodr for murdering Baldr, accident or not.

Odin then sent another god, Hermodr, into Hel, the realm of the dead to ask for Baldr's return to Asgard, the home of the Norse gods. Hel, the goddess who presides over her eponymous realm, said she would release Baldr if everything in the world wept for his death. Hermodr returned and reported this, and Frigg went about getting everything to weep. She was successful until she came to one giant--again, Loki in disguise--who refused to weep. Thus, without that giant's tears, Baldr was relegated to living in Hel until Ragnarok. At that time, he would survive (as would Hodr), and rule over the reborn world. If I remember correctly, Vali survives, as well, which ought to lead to some rather awkward times in their post-apocalyptic world.

Because of mistletoe's role in the death of Baldr, Frigg declared it a sacred plant, and deemed that it should no longer be a plant associated with death. Instead, she wished it to be considered a plant of love. Whenever any two people would pass under the mistletoe, they were to lay down arms and have a truce with one another. This eventually morphed into kissing beneath the mistletoe--either to seal the truce or as courting ritual if a man and a woman passed beneath the mistletoe.

And, if they were from a bit further south on the continent and were fully, lusty lovers, perhaps they would utter something like this to one another upon passing beneath the mistletoe:

Osculare mea praedulcia labra!
Pronounced: "Oh-skew-lah-ray may-ah pry-dool-key-ah lah-brah!"

Exceedingly sweet double entendre in the hovertext

Traditionally, mistletoe can be kept over the doorways in the house either until Candlemas, when the last of the Christmas greenery is traditionally taken down, or can remain in the house year round. The mistletoe is supposed to also help ward off lightning strikes and fires for the house, bring good fortune, and--naturally--help bring babies to the house. However, if you keep mistletoe up all year, you should take it down on Christmas Eve and replace it with a new sprig. This helps re-up the good luck and fertility invocation of the plant.

Another tradition is to remove a berry every time you kiss someone under the mistletoe. When there are no more berries, there are no more kisses for you, buster. I'm sure there's also some lore connected with the kiss corresponding to the final berry will be the kiss you share with your future wife.

Mistletoe also is typically shown with three berries in a clump, which makes perfect sense. With its symbolism hearkening back to semen, an average man is only good for about three white showers a day, if you know what I mean. Not that I would have first hand knowledge about that. *shifty-eyed*

Um...Thanks...

2010-12-09T09:02:00.008-05:00

December is my birthday month. As I have been around these here internets for a few years, I've signed into various forums boards and community sites and created accounts on several retailers' sites. A lot of places, mostly to be nice, will send me birthday greetings and electronic well wishes on my birthday.

Not so, however, with a few places. I wasn't born until the waning days of the month, but that didn't stop Best Buy from sending me birthday greetings on December 1st. To celebrate my birthday, Best Buy invited me to shop at their store, to buy a little something for myself to reward myself for the hard work of living another year. No special offers. No special deals. No coupons. No sales. Just come into our store and spend your money on you. It's your birthday (eventually)! Why wouldn't you?

Now, that's quite a concept. I had never thought of indulging myself in an hedonistic, electronic manner! Why, I can feel the warmth of your birthday greetings glowing all the way through my screen, Best Buy. That's really kind of you to think of me and to invite me to shop at your store where I will give you my hard-earned cash for some shitty gadget that you will naturally want me to buy seven other gadgets for, not to mention the extended warranty on these things. This is how it always goes with Best Buy, and usually gets played out something like this:

I just wanted a box of batteries. Really? For $50, we can insure those batteries. Will they never run out of electricity? No, they'll run out, about an hour after you put them into the device. Will you replace them? No, you'll have to buy all new. You can insure those for another $50, or you could go ahead and insure these AND those for the low price of $125. What say you?

Fuck off, Best Buy.

The other entity that decided to send me birthday greetings, because it's my birthday month, was my alma mater. Not Notre Dame. This was from my undergrad, St. Joseph's. And, well, I could almost feel the warmth and love that the nourishing mother was trying to spread as she enfolded me within her loving arms with this dandy of a birthday card:

*sigh* Really? This is where my donations go? Not to scholarship, not to improving facilities, not to building new dorms, not to raising the professors' pay or to buy books for the library. The money goes to design and draw a shitty cartoon puma with slapped-on clip-art balloons and mixed font text. And what the hell is he leaning on? Invisibul fyrplace mantel? Is his tail made of reinforced steel, and that's propping him up? I guess with the way his right hand is held, his feet could have gotten tangled when he tried to escape after someone caught him masturbating.

Whatever the story, this card and picture are truly awful. Way to step into 1995, St. Joe. This horrific rendering of an anthropomorphic puma truly embodies the ideals of Catholic education proclaimed by the college.

Here, St. Joe, because it's my birthday month, I'll help you out, and for free even. Next year, send something that looks like this:

It's a rather lovely tableau, one of the most recognizable aspects of the college, and it's quite fetching with the snow cover and the frozen fountain. For spring birthdays, send one with the trees in flower. For summer, the trees can be leafed out, the sky blue, the grass green. For the fall birthdays, send a picture with the trees in full autumnal regalia. You can even move the camera around so that you can capture the chapel at different angles. Just don't send anymore of this cartoon puma shit, okay?

If that doesn't strike your fancy, just send us old Calvin and Hobbes cartoons.

Click to embiggen

Hat tip to Sully for the Calvin and Hobbes idea.

Now, Don't Get Me Wrong

2010-12-08T09:42:00.003-05:00

It occurred to me that some might misinterpret my post from Monday, the one wherein I was taunting and making fun of the local weather forecasters and their inability to get anything right. I was just making fun of those who cast their lots with oracle bones and tea leaves...or satellites and thirty-year statistical averages. Actually, for the weather shamans around here, oracle bones and tea leaves might be a step up.

Here's the thing, though: while I enjoy taunting the weather people about how much snow we would get and how cold it is, I really love this weather. I like cold weather. I love the bracing burn of the cold air on your cheeks in the morning (either set) when you step from the cozy warmth of the house...or the temperature comfort of my house (*grumbles something indecent about insulation codes in the early 80s*).

Granted, I did live in one of the snowier parts of America for four years, which might lend itself to why I love this time of year so much. Although, one year we got 48 inches of snow in December. That may have been a little too much. I'm a tall man, but 48 inches of snow is well past the bottom of my scroat, and that's the cut-off level for tolerance in my world.

So, naturally, this past weekend when it was snowing, it was awesome. For one, I love the snow. For twosies, it doesn't snow too much down here in North By God Carolina. And for threesies, the snow makes my friend, JoeZone, cry. Not that I like seeing Joe cry; the snow just makes me think of his sadness and how I can tease him about it on Monday.

>However, as much as I enjoy the snow, the cold, the gloomy, overcast skies, there are two other things that I enjoy more than anything about this time of year:

Tight sweaters and knee-high fuck-me boots.

Tradition!

2010-12-07T09:11:00.006-05:00

The holiday times are upon us once more, and that means it's time to crank up the old family traditions. You know, those things that you don't really want to do, but you do them anyway because you'd feel guilty if you didn't do them? Right. Those things. The holidays are steeped in them.

Growing up, we had a tradition of going to my grandparents' houses on Christmas Eve. Early in the afternoon it was my paternal grandmother's house, and then it was my maternal grandfather's house for the evening. I enjoyed grandpa's house more, mostly because it was bigger and he had a larger, nicer tree. My grandmother's tree was small and white. It felt more holiday-ish at my grandfather's house. Also, my grandmother was a woman who was a bit more prim and proper and so you couldn't hike up on one ass cheek and let fly with a ripe, juicy fart. It just wasn't done. My grandfather would actually applaud you if it was a good one.

High brow lot, my family.

There was also the chance that a game of Trivial Pursuit would break out, which would eventually devolve into a lot of swearing, and when you're a kid, hearing your elders cursing over their lack of trivial knowledge is damned funny. The adults would play the game, the kids would play with our toys or watch the marathon of shitty stop-action animation holiday specials that was broadcast on Channel 55 for the three days prior to and including Christmas Day. It was bliss.

As I got older and my grandparents died, we would just gather at each other's houses for a meal on Christmas Eve, more games and swearing, and more shitty television. The gatherings would just rotate between my mom and her two sister's houses. Now, however, our families are so far-flung (North Carolina, Oregon, Indianapolis, Fort Wayne) that a holiday get-together isn't practical.

Plus, I'm married. Which means that I have a whole new set of traditions to absorb and work into my holiday repertoire. For instance, one tradition my wife and I have is that we don't have the sex for the last three months out of the year. Of course, this doesn't really differ from the other nine months, but now it's more festive because I can hide inopportune boners under Santa hats.

Love ya, puddin'!

The other major holiday tradition that she brings to the table is a heaping, steaming helping of holiday guilt. Traditionally, her parents start layering it on really good and solid starting in about July. It goes something like this:

"I know that it would be inconvenient to you, but we really want you to load up all your family into the car, drive seven hours to a small, cramped house that's not heated and doesn't have cable and has insufficient beds for everyone and uncomfortable furniture and two showers and nowhere for the kids to play. Leave your kids' Christmas presents at home and, even though your husband has nothing in common with the rest of your family, that sonuvabitch better not bring a book or a video game or anything like that to entertain himself with. That fat bastard is going to sit on those uncomfortable couches in that cramped house and be forced to watch marathons of 'Keeping up with the Kardashians' until he wants to go Oedipus Rex on himself with a pair of hat pins or--if he can't find those--corn cob holders, and he's going to like it or else we'll have an intervention where we try to talk you into divorcing him. We don't care if you have to work. We don't care if you don't have vacation. We don't care if your children would rather stay home and play with their new toys. We don't care if you don't want to be here. You will be here or else you'll be further ostracized from the family."

Or something to that effect. Every year. Starting in the summer. Usually, the guilt starts being applied in the hopes that we pick up and drive somewhere for Thanksgiving but then it really gets ramped up to eleven for Christmas. Because nothing says "Praise the birth of our Lord and Savior" like being surrounding by people drinking shitty beer, playing Hearts, sitting on crappy couches in a cold house with no television to watch. God was made flesh to enhance our misery, right? Right.

Fortunately, we now have an ace in the hole: my wife has been promoted to manager, and so she has to be at the store during the holidays. Yahtzee! No driving to Atlanta for us! Ka-loo, Ka-lay!

Granted, this misery could all be alleviated if I simply rented a hotel room whenever we showed up for holiday family functions. That shit's expensive, though. Yet, if I was a rich man...

A Few of My Favorite Things...

2010-12-06T12:27:00.005-05:00

As you may have picked up on here over the past...how long has it been? Four? Yeah, let's go with four years, is that I love to make fun of how inept weather forecasters are. A lot of my vitriol is directed toward the boobs on the Weather Channel--Jeff Morrow, I'm looking at you. Not really. You have a huge head and it angers me. But the rest of you are on my list.

But not you, Maria LaRosa. I couldn't be angry with you even if you ate live kittens on national television...which might actually be good theater. Admit it. You'd tune in just to see how that went.

Anyway, I was watching the local forecast on Friday to get an idea about how the weekend would shape up since I was planning on doing some outdoorsy type work and putting up Christmas lights. That's when I heard the local forecast say there was a slight chance for some flurries or some light snow on Saturday night during the overnight, but any accumulations would be confined to the areas near the Virginia border.

Oh cool, I thought, A little bit of snow would set a lovely background for the holiday season.

I even told my wife. "They're calling for some flurries on Saturday night. Just to let you know." She had to work, so I thought I would warn her. We both then laughed, because, if they call for snow, it's more likely that it'll be 90 degrees and sunny. Even at night.

Saturday arrived and I took my son with me and we went and got our hair cut, we did some Christmas shopping for my wife, and then we grabbed some lunch--McDonalds, the Lunch of Champions! Well, he's a champ. I'm a tubby white guy hurtling toward middle-age.

On the way home, I noticed some shit flying by the window. "Hey, buddy!" I said, "I think that's snow!"

"It is! It is snow!" he said in his gleeful, charged-up on McDonalds six-year-old voice! "Oh, it's going to be awesome!"

See, told you he's a champ.

I didn't want to crush his little heart, though, by telling him that the few flurries we saw sail past the windshield would probably be it for the snow. It stopped after a few seconds, and he wondered where the snow went. I explained it to him that there's probably some bands of snow moving through the clouds, and he understood.

We made it home with only a few more flurries and got inside. I started up another load of laundry, and saw a few more intermittent flakes float past the window, so I ran into the living room to open the blinds so that the kids could see it. I returned to my domestic chores and looked up to see actual snow falling from the sky. No more of this flurry shit. This was actual snow.

I went back into the living room and pointed it out to the kids. They were enthused and watched it for a few seconds and then I went to make my daughter some lunch (she's a champ, too, but I didn't bring her any lunch because it would have been cold and everyone knows that cold McDonalds only tastes good when you're hungover and ALREADY filled with remorse). The kids were talking about playing in the snow and my heart sank because, well, we weren't getting any kind of measurable snowfall out of this. The weather men had forecasted a few flurries, and, to be honest, I was surprised it snowed at all.

Imagine my further surprise when I dished up a bowl of soup for my daughter and saw that the backyard was white-ish already.

Holy Shit! I thought, This could be for real!

And, it was. We ended up with about two inches of snow on the ground, which the kids got to play in and enjoy. I do feel kind of sad, however, because if I wasn't there for them to pelt with snowballs, I don't think they'd get any enjoyment out of life.

The truly funny thing about the snow shower event was that the local hacks were still on the television, saying that there might be a slight chance of snow, but there shouldn't be any accumulation. The National Weather Service then popped up with a Winter Weather Advisory (because if there's anything that frightens Southerners more than diversity, it's snow), and yet the locals were saying that accumulations would only be significant in the counties bordering Virginia.

Morons.

*sigh* It was fun, however. I had forgotten how great it is to look out the window in the gloaming of nightfall during a solid snow event, when the edges of everything sort of blur into the background and the flakes drift through the picture. It's quite lovely.

Not as lovely as Maria LaRosa wearing a pair of fuck-me boots, but lovely nonetheless.

I Have Not Gone...

2010-12-02T14:28:00.004-05:00

...I have simply been busy.

Well, that's not entirely true. It's not like I haven't wedged a lot of midget porn into my daily routine.

However, at home, I'm without the internets. It's a scary and daunting thing, folks, mostly because it's tougher to find midget porn without the Googles to help me. Oh, sure, I can go downtown, but the weather has turned colder and now the street performers are asking for two quarters and a bottle of Thunderbird to service a goat to the cheering approval of onlookers. That, quite frankly, is exactly two bits more than I'm willing to part with.

Of course, this being the modern era and whatnot, harumph harumph, my phone is tied into my internets, so I can't even call each and every one of you and apologize for the lack of posting and/or simply leave some heavy breathing and the occasional grunt and sigh of exaltative release in your voice mail.

What makes this doubly damning is that I had to dedicate a large part of my lunch hour to sitting on the phone being told the merits and greatness of Time Warner Cable's many options that you can't get anywhere else in the world. Oh sure, they forgot to mention "spotty coverage" and "shitty customer service" in their litany of incredible services, but whatever. Since I'm not at home, I couldn't tell the tech service man if the light was blinking on my device (nothing like vagueness in your trouble-shooting questions. Which light? Which device? No, I don't think the vibrator is supposed to light up. Why do you ask?). His advice was to go home, turn it off, turn it back on, and then call advanced customer support if this does not remedy the situation.

Which I, of course, can't do if the internet no longer works as the phone remains dead.

I apologize for any lack of...whatever it is you get from this slice of the FORTRAN pie...but, for the time being, my hands are tied. How? Together. To the bedframe. In a Gordian knot. However you like it. I just thought this blog needed more Toni Braxton pictures.

Friday Morning Latin Lesson, Vol. XCI

2010-11-26T09:23:00.001-05:00

Oh, dearest Ceres...sign me up for the third circle of Hell. *pats sides of voluminous potbelly* I certainly put the celebration in the harvest celebration this year.

If my non-American friends will excuse me for just a moment...yesterday was Thanksgiving, of course, and I'm feeling a bit lethargic. Is there a holiday that's any more American than Thanksgiving? I mean, where else would you celebrate the largess of the fields to the extreme like here in America? Oh sure, Fourth of July with it's mayonnaise-based fare and explosions is theoretically more American than Thanksgiving, but we're a people who love to eat. By God, yesterday was the pinnacle of the celebrating-by-eating holiday.

You know who else enjoyed celebrating holidays by eating too much? Yep, the Romans. And the Greeks. And the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Ethiopians and...well...pretty much every civilization that's ever thought twice about setting aside days on the calendar for purpose of a party. In fact, civilization itself might have begun because people liked getting together and eating. Either that or folks were just fucking tired of wandering around all over the place and said "Here! I'm building a city here!"

I hope you all had good holidays. All four of us got involved in the cooking this year for the Thanksgiving holiday. We had ham and turkey, mashed potatoes, cheese peas, deviled eggs, cranberry salad/relish, dressing, crescent rolls, a dish from Emeril involving bacon, apples and squash and Guy Fieri's sweet potatoes. Oh, fuck, it was good. And then there was butterscotch pie, lemon chess pie, and my wife made me one fucking awesome pumpkin pie. Smooth and creamy and my my my, was it delicious. Every year, I promise myself I'm not going to make an ass of myself when it comes time to eat. Last year, that was not a problem. This year, the fare was much better and, well, holy wow, did I spend the afternoon in a bloated state of lethargy that brought a broad smile and a touch of indigestion to my lips. It was a Bacchanalian orgy of carbohydrates, fats and deliciousness.

And, of course, when it was done, I uttered this mouthful of happiness:

Non possum credere me totum edisse...
Pronounced: "Nohn poh-soom cray-day-ray may toh-toom aye-dee-say..."

Bloated translation in the hovertext

The other nice thing about this Thanksgiving is that I'm not going out to fight the crowds for "deals" on Friday morning, nor am I driving back from any extended family members' houses after the holiday. I'm home, where I can lay on my couch, rethink all the bad decisions I made yesterday (Oh, yes, I'll have some more!) and be the worthless lump of humanity that I am.

That's what long weekends are for, right?

Happy Thanksgivin, Y'all!!!

2010-11-25T11:10:00.004-05:00

As my wife and I are preparing a genuine (pronounced "Jen-yew-WINE!") southern Thanksgiving (read: Everything fried), I'm taking time out from ~~surfing Thanksgiving porn...and wow, did Squanto ever show those Puritans the proper way to "bury a fish for fertility"~~ getting last minute candied yam ideas just to wish you, my friends, family and complete strangers from the internet, a Happy Thanksgiving.

Let us celebrate the fertility of the land...and the loins of a gobbler and hen turkey...with a festive feast, good cheer, family togetherness, and pie. Lots of goddamned pie.

Now, please, for the love of God, would somebody lock Al Roker away in a vault somewhere and throw away the key?

Fie! A Pox Upon Me!

2010-11-17T07:13:00.000-05:00

Last Friday, despite the best efforts of Duke's only attractive undergrad female and her...otherworldly...attributes, I began to fall ill. It was one of those illnesses that had an onset of about thirty seconds. One moment I'm bipping along, happy as can be, the next it feels like one of my eyes in drooping into my sock and my head is suddenly filled with a highly viscous, putrid yellow jelly.

It was the normal type of illness: stuffy head, lots of mucus, sore throat, lots of mucus, rattling cough, lots of mucus, sneezing. I'd touch on the mucus factor again, but I don't want to beat a dead horse, mostly because dead horses get turned into glue which just reminds me of more mucus.

The big thing, however, was that I was just drained of energy. I spent a lot of time in bed and on the couch. Okay, so I spent more time than usual on the couch and in bed. Smartass.

I am now, if not fully convalesced, at least doing much better. I feel pretty good, truth be told. I've still got the gummy, semi-dry boogs stuck in my nose, which are actually kind of fun to pick out and flick at my kids. The thing that's annoying is the ever-present smell of stale piss that seems to permeate snot as it dries into drywall putty inside your nose. I blow it out, and suddenly everything smells of stale urine. I know it's not me, because I haven't pissed myself in the past couple of days (at least), and I'm bathed. It's the stupid, lousy mucus clinging to the insides of my nasal and sinus passages. It has to be.

*changes underwear just to be safe*

However, it's not the thick, gummy paste stuck in my head that is the most annoying thing about being sick. Sure, it's annoying being sick, but at least my kids are old enough they can entertain themselves when I'm down like I was over the weekend. Also, they bring me medicine and drinks. I suspect it has something to do with the proximity of Christmas and not so much any great love they have for their father.

No, this most annoying thing of which I speak is a distinctly male issue. When I start to run a fever, everything is cold. I shiver. I feel an annoying cold that I just can't seem to shake. My entire body starts going into cold mode. I shiver. I shake. I huddle close.

However, my scrotum doesn't. It recognizes that the brain has cranked the old internal temperature up a few degrees and, in an attempt to protect the optimal sperm-production temperature, my scrote dives. Oh, sure, Captain Longsword turtles up into his hidey-hole, but not my Balzac. The old coinpurse dives for my knee. I have to hitch it up over my shoulder in order to walk to the kitchen.

As you can imagine, this leads to some rather embarrassing moments for me personally. While trying to sleep off the affects of cold medication and to recover from the heavy fatigue that was weighing down on me, my wife slipped under the covers with me and patted my thigh. Brushing the massive bulge on the inside of my thigh, a look of wonder twinkles in her eye and she draws near.

"Oh," she purrs into my ear, "are you happy to see me?"

I look over through a haze of cold medications and muster a beguiling smile.

"No, sorry, dear, I'm just feverish."

Fortunately, I'm feeling better now, so my wife can return to her regularly-scheduled disappointment.

A Crudely-Rendered Latin Post

2010-11-12T08:34:00.005-05:00

Hiatus is Latin for "an opening, a gap in something".

It's what you've been seeing here for the past few days. A hiatus, an opening in the somewhat daily parade of posts that, for the most part, decorate this little piece of the internet.

Normal posting will resume next week. I hope. Until then, enjoy this picture of the one attractive girl on Duke's campus.

Suum hiatum volo videre...
Pronounced: "Soo-oom hee-ah-toom woe-loe wee-dair-aye..."

You know where to get the translation...
It's relevant because it's basketball season.

Friday Morning Latin Lesson, Vol. XC

2010-11-05T07:34:00.004-04:00

Salvete, Omnes!

Here we are again, a Friday morning upon us. And a cold, damp and dark one at that, for those of us in the northern hemisphere. At least around my little part of the hemisphere, that is.

A lot of Latin phrases have survived from antiquity into the modern era, mostly because their meaning is not lost on us in modern times. In vino veritas is one of those phrases. It's also one of those phrases that we need to infer part of the phrase for it to make sense in English. It means "In wine, (there is) truth." The "there is" is implied for we speakers of the barbaric English tongue.

It means that, when one is deep into his or her cups, the speaker is more likely to tell you what they actually feel rather than what they think you want them to say. It's a pretty good summary of the affects of alcohol loosening the tongue, and seemed to be just as common in Roman times as it is today.

However, truth isn't the only thing that can be found in a bottle of wine...or beer.

In cervesia, pulchritudo.
Pronounced: "In care-ways-ee-ah, pool-kree-too-doh."

Boozy translation in the hovertext.

Really, this was just an excuse to use my favorite advertisement for Olde English malt liquor. You can substitute vino in for cervesia and get the wine version of this phrase.

Got time for a fun little story that's only somewhat related to the text?

Sure you do.

Vino isn't only the ablative and dative form of the word for wine in Latin, it's the name of this Indian dude I hung out with in grad school. Vino was from Dekalb, IL, born and raised here in 'Merica. Despite this, he still lived up to every Asian stereotype there is about bad drivers. We knew this, and yet got in the car with him because he was willing to drive us around, especially when the rest of us--me, Dr. Assy, Captain B., the Vulgar Bulgarian--were drunk.

One night, we were drunk and we absolutely needed some Taco Bell. This was after we had all been in South Bend for about two months, so we didn't really know where things were, aside from the campus and the closest City Wide Liquors. However, Vino had a rough idea where the nearest Taco Bell was (turns out, it was the second nearest, but, hey, he was willing to drive).

We loaded up in Vino's car and drove toward Taco Bell. Unfortunately, we drove past the intersection, so Vino decided he was going to turn around in someone's driveway. Problem was, Vino kind of turned in front of an oncoming car. The bigger problem was that Vino didn't pull into the driveway right away, and instead held his car perpendicular to the rush of on-coming traffic.

Dr. Assy and I began screaming as certain death bore down upon us, flashing headlights and honking horn included. Finally, Vino pulls into the driveway of some dentist or doctor's office, narrowly missing being T-boned by some angry South Bend driver. As Dr. Assy and I laughed off our near-death experience in the way that the sudden rush of adrenaline co-mingled with the sweet sense of relief of not dying brings, Vino voiced his displeasure with our screaming.

"Chill," he said, "I didn't want to drive on the grass."

Vino did not make it to his second semester in grad school. He left ND and returned to Dekalb to do God only knows what. I hope he found something that involved minimal driving to and from work; he was a great guy, just a shitty driver.