I'm a Terrible Friend

I think we've established that, when it comes to being blog friends, I, well, suck.

This has been terribly evident over the past couple of weeks as I've only posted sporadically (if at all), and how I hadn't really been reading as many blogs as I once did. I've rectified the latter part (though I haven't left as many comments lately), but still, I've been a terrible friend.

And now, this.

I've been cheating on you.

It's true. I've been having some posts pop up elsewhere. To be honest, it's been some of my best work, too. Short, succinct, a bit of etymology and/or history thrown in on top of it. And all of that accompanied by snark and wit unlike what I've been slapping around here lately.

In case you're unsure of what I'm talking about, I've been popping up over at Sully the Urban Hillbilly for the past couple of weeks, wherein I've been insulting every nation on earth whose name begins with "B".

I first stumbled upon Sully while looking for pictures of the Polish women's curling team at the Winter Olympics. What I found--alongside the pictures of the Polish women's curling team--was witty humor, fine musical tastes, and a healthy appreciation of blonde, busty Slavic women, regardless of their abilities to slide rocks on ice.

Shortly after the Olympics ended, Sully embarked upon a truly noble quest: insulting every member of the Senate. It was arduous, to be sure, but also quite entertaining--especially for someone (like me) whose maturity level ceased developing sometime around fourteen.

After that, Sully decided to move on to insulting every nation in the world, and asked if I'd like to join in. Since I had some choice words for Belgium, I offered to pick up with the B's and we could switch back-and-forth from there. He agreed and, well, we're down through Burma. The insults have been aplenty, and it's been truly enjoyable.

So, check Sully out if you're of mind to. I'm a bit ashamed that I haven't talked Sully up before, because someone who brings me this much joy on the internets really should be acknowledged as such.

Speaking of the Winter Olympics...hmmm...that was almost a seamless segue...I won a contest...a long time ago...on Words³ site for offering up a caption for a picture he had from these very same Winter Olympics. I was sent a marvelous little gift package with souvenirs from Vancouver: An official Winter Olympics refrigerator magnet and--more importantly--and official Winter Olympics shot glass.

Since my camera isn't talking to my computer currently, I can't get a picture. Besides, when the shot glass comes out, my pants come off, and, well, I'm already a bad enough friend without subjecting you all to that mess.

So, thank you, Words...Words...Words...and do not think that I let it slip my notice that your return address was affixed to a Ziggy sticker. Quite awesome, sir.

On top of all that, I haven't taken the time recently to get out and meet many of my new followers and commenters. I'm terrible, I know. I'm getting around to it now. I mean, what else am I going to do while stuck in the house hiding from 102 degree heat? Pay attention to my family? Psh.

And, to anyone else whose friendship I have shirked recently on these here innerwebs, I apologize humbly. And if this apology doesn't suffice, well, then I direct your attention back up to the statue at the top.

The Wrong Side

A certain social networking site has been hitting me over the head with the fact that today is my friend Amber's birthday. Like me (and most of you), she's a fellow blogger and like me (and most of you), she's also a frustrated author.

And, while Amber is definitely a very attractive young lady and she's also quite talented and funny, these are not the traits that originally attracted me to her blog and such. Well, it didn't hurt; I'll be honest there. However, the thing that made me sit up and take notice? Her love of college basketball, specifically the lowly and woebegone Indiana Hoosiers.

Hold it. This isn't a sports post. Don't go screaming into the darkened alleyways.

Also like me (but not many of you), Amber is a displaced Hoosier. Where she grew up in the "hills and hollers" of southern Indiana (as my mother is wont to describe the southern part of my home state...as if it's an entirely different nation), I was a northern Indiana brat. While we certainly have quite a number of good to decent teams in the north, Hoosier Hysteria was born and sustained in the southern part of the state. The model for Hickory High School from Hoosiers fame? A southern high school.

Anyway, these days, Amber calls Louisville home. I've been to Louisville a few times, but my very first time in the city that no one knows precisely how to pronounce was quite memorable.

When I was a freshman in college, I was on the Mock Trial team. If you are unfamiliar with this notion, a Mock Trial is a competition wherein teams are handed a case and each member of the team then assumes a character, either a defense attorney or a prosecutor, or any number of witnesses that can be called by either the defense or the prosecution during the course of the case. You are then judged by how well you know the case, how well you act out your part, and how well you convince the judges as to the guilt or innocence of the plaintiff/defender.

It's all great fun.

Now, the mock trial team at my undergrad was headed up by a man who was the very definition of a gregarious extrovert. Spend five minutes sitting in the same room with the man and it felt as if you had known him most of your life. He was a sitting judge in the city town village where my college was located as well as a professor of law at the school. He was also a Lieutenant Colonel in the army and had turned a tour of duty in Iraq during the first Gulf War as well as serving in the Philippines when Mt. Pinatubo went up. In all, the man had done some living, and he was willing to tell you pretty much anything you wanted to know. Or not know.

So, our first real competition took place at Bellarmine University, which is in Louisville, KY. It's on quite a scenic plot of land. Our first night there, we were going against a team from Tennessee Tech. We felt pretty good about this, since most of us had never heard of Tennessee Tech, let alone worried about their law school. I don't remember much about them specifically, other than that they had one girl who was a bit of a strawberry blonde and was cute, and there was a tall, lanky guy who, I think, wanted to punch me at some point during the trial.


Anyway, I was called to the stand. I was serving as a professor of physics and an accident reconstructionist. The case was a civil suit, wherein someone had gotten drunk at a party, drove home, and was hit by a train, and she was suing for damages to her car and her injuries (the train clipped the back of her car, spinning her off the tracks and into a field). Well, not only was I able to play a convincing physics honk, but I was also able to pretty clearly prove that she actually tried to speed across the tracks and beat the train. I drew a pretty convincing picture on the board behind me, and when I sat back down, I looked up to where the coach for the team was sitting in the back of the room. He had a big, dopey, happy grin on his face, and when we made eye contact, he started pantomiming like he was masturbating.

I about fucking lost it.

So, we went through the case and all and we scored pretty good marks. It was our only competition for the day, and so we retired to the hotel room. Everyone decided (since the school was paying for it, anyway) to eat downstairs in the hotel restaurant. Which also happened to be a bar. Which didn't really check for IDs.

And, the night quickly spiraled out of control from there.

The coach, he didn't really care, as long as we paid for our own drinks and didn't make too great of a scene. In fact, he was in there, too, drinking with us. Hard stuff, too. Not just beer. And the man sat there at the table, not so much talking to us as he was serving court.

Finally, during one momentary lull in the conversation, I turned to him.

"Say, just what the hell were you doing in the back of the room after I retook the stand?" I asked him.

"Oh, that!" he said, a twinkle burning his eye and a smile trying to sneak onto his face. "You had done such a good job that I was in the back, jacking off for you."

Holy shit, did I love this man.

We proceeded to get shitfaced drunk. At one point, I staggered into the bathroom, only to find the coach at the next urinal over a moment later (there were only two, so no real party foul was committed). As he began tossing his whizz, he leaned his arm against the wall and then his forehead against his forearm.

"Jesus," he groaned, "pissing like this is better than sex and only half as messy."

Holy shit, did I love this man.

So, we made it back out to the hotel bar where some cat had started playing the piano. So, of course we decided it was time to sing along and dance. While doing this, we befriended a older, Southern gentleman. A local. He looked pretty much like he had just stepped off the side of a bucket of chicken. He smoked a pipe and talked with a horse-country drawl that was maddeningly coy yet endearing all at once.

He enjoyed us. He told us stories of Loo-uh-veal. He talked about horses and told us that we needed to come back for the Derby.

Finally, he asked us, "So, where are you all from?"

"Oh, Indiana," I said. I was from Indiana, after all, and my college was in Indiana; many of my friends on the team, however, were from Chicago.

"Oh? What part?" he pressed. He seemed excited that we were from nearby.

"Rensselaer," someone said, "it's up near Chicago."

"Oh," the man said, puffing on his pipe, "you all is from the Darky side of Indiana."

You know that sound effect where the needle is pulled off the record player? I swear that noise went off in the bar when he said that.

"Excuse me," my friend Mark said.

"Oh, you know," the man said, clearly grasping for an out, "the Darky side. The southern part is closer to Kentucky, so it's the Sunny side of the state, and the other is the Darky side."

We all glowered at him, similar to a group of cats staring at a mouse in the middle of the room. A mouse that has just anally raped our favorite catnip toy and pissed in our saucer of milk.

"Uh huh," someone said.

And with that, we no longer were friends with the old man in the bar.

We ended up doing well enough to qualify for the national finals held in Des Moines, IA. But that's a story for another day.

So, there you go, Amber. I hope you have a happy, sunny side birthday. Because, apparently, that's the side of the state you live on.

Totally Blowing Stuff Up Tuesdays: Desperately Seeking Sponsorship

Don't run away, this isn't what it, at first, appears to be. It's not a sports post, I swear. It's a sports-related post. The fine hairs have been split. I admit it. Run away if you must, but know that you're missing one helluvan explosion later.

Fine, you can skip to the explosion. Just know that you're missing some decent back story.

I lied, the back story isn't that decent.

So, this was the first season for the Dallas Cowboys in their new stadium. You know the Cowboys, right? America's team, except everyone I know hates the Cowboys, and those people who don't hate the Cowboys that I know, well, I'd rather say that I didn't know them. Unless you're one of them, Bored Neo-Classical Eric, and then I'd say you're the exception to the rule. And I think that we can all agree that you are a rather exceptional individual.

The Cowboys moved into a $1.15 Billion Temple of Hedonism this past fall, which seats 80,000 comfortably, with the ability for another 31,000 people to mill about and stand and watch the game. The stadium is replete with Blue Stars, an enormous high-definition video screen stretching from one 20-yard line to its opposite, hundreds of high-definition television screens littered throughout the expanse, so that you don't have to actually watch the game on the field, and cage dancers dressed as Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders.

With the Cowboys moving into the new Cowboys Stadium, the city of Dallas had to do something with the old Texas Stadium, where the Cowboys used to play (you know the place with the hole in the roof so that God could look down and watch?). The most obvious solution is to blow that fucker up...which is exactly what the plan is.

Ah, but here's where the story takes a bit of a twist. Because it's the Cowboys and they are, after all, America's team, someone had the bright idea to get a sponsor to sign on to help defray the costs of the destruction. Sounds insane, especially during a period in our economic history that can best be described as "woeful", right?

Enter Kraft foods. They have decided to pony up $150,000 to have their name on as sponsors for the destruction of Texas Stadium.

Of course, the destruction of Texas Stadium (and the clean up afterwards) is going to cost the city of Irving, TX about $6 million. Oh, and the money Kraft is donating is to be split evenly, with $75,000 going to various charities in the area, as chosen by the city of Irving, and $75,000 worth of its products are being distributed to area food banks and homeless shelters and such. So, while Kraft is officially sponsoring the event, most of the money being traded is actually going to help people in the area. You can read about it all here.

And that got me to thinking: I could totally use a sponsor for totally blowing shit up Tuesdays. And while I would willingly distribute money to area charities, I think I could do without $75,000 worth of Kraft macaroni and cheese. See, when I was doing that whole "work in the bookstore" thing between undergrad and grad school, I ate a lot of Kraft macaroni and cheese at the bookstore. A lot.

Look, I was living cheaply, trying to pay off my student loans, and then I bought an engagement ring. So, I had to cut back, and macaroni and cheese was cheap. So I ate a lot of it. Like, I ate so much that I can't really cook it now without getting a little sick to my stomach. Just thinking about it has kind of caused me to get queasy here at my seat. So, perhaps it's best that these foodstuffs are headed toward Texas.

Anyway, that's a nice story and all, but we're here to see shit go boom, so I found another video compilation of buildings being imploded. Enjoy the art of explosive entropy:

Yes, I know that was Yanni playing in the background. The buildings falling on themselves and the relative close-ups of the explosions should offset any unmanliness inherently brought on by the mustachioed and well-coiffed Greek.

Plus, admit it: when that large part of the bridge dropped straight down into the river below, you got a little aroused. It's okay; you're among friends.

The Most Couch-Loungingest Time of the Year

Well, we are fast approaching another Christmas, my friends. I've bitched and I've parodied my way up to here, but this past weekend's snow and the extra twenty-five pennies I found in my car this morning so that I could buy coffee at work have put me in the moodiest of holiday moods. And so, I thought maybe I'd set aside the dick jokes and the drooling over large breasted women for just a moment and reflect on what the season is truly about: Holiday specials.

Now, my friend Joshua, Master of the Technical Parent and all-around nice fellow, has a little Tuesday event he calls "Top Five Tuesday" wherein he lists five things that he likes and gives a short description of them. Since Tuesday was reserved for me electronically and mentally stroking myself talking about my birthday and the end of the world, I was too full of myself busy to participate.

Well, better late than never.

Unless we're talking about ovulation cycles.

Anyway, since I'm a day late on the whole Top Five Tuesdays thing, I thought I'd break my top five down into two categories: favorite animated holiday specials and favorite holiday specials.

Five Favorite Animated Holiday Specials:

5.) Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: There's just something about clunky stop-motion animation that gets me. Well, at least here. The rest of the Rankin-Bass stable kind of sucks. Except for their version of The Hobbit and The Return of the King, but those aren't stop-motion animated. Anyway, there's probably a lesson to be learned in there somewhere when Rudolph takes the high road and doesn't rub it in everyone's faces that he saved Christmas. Way to be an exemplary humble little reindeer, Rudolph. Especially since your name means "famed wolf".

4.) Mickey's Christmas Carol: While I'm not a big fan of the Disneyfication of stories, this one works for me. Probably because Mickey himself is just a supporting character. Oh sure, it's his lame little kid that melts Scrooge McDuck's heart, but we all know that it's really Pete's cigar smoke what changes Unca Scrooge over from the miserly old bastard to the generous and lovable grandfather figure in the story. Tragically, the story of Tiny Tim drowning when he tries to swim in Scrooge's Money Bin is buried on the back page of the papers.

3.) A Charlie Brown Christmas: I know I might have given Chuck the old run around a couple of days ago, but at the heart of it, Charlie Brown just wants us to remember the spirit of the season. And he's got a point. Everyone's pretty dickish the other eleven months of the year, can't we at least be decent during the month between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day? What's that? Not while we're stealing each other's parking spots at the mall? Fair enough.

2.) How the Grinch Stole Christmas: Boris Karloff's voice really makes this for me, but overall it is the ultimate story of redemption that doesn't involve lightsabres and big, black breathing apparati. I wonder what it would sound like if Karloff read it in Latin! *shivers down my spine* Not to mention, my favorite color is green and I think Max is perhaps the ultimate name for a dog. Put all that together and stir in some Chuck Jones animation and that's a recipe for awesome.

1.) Phinneas and Ferb Christmas Vacation!: Maybe it's that the shine hasn't come off this new holiday special, but I sat and laughed through the whole thing. Whether it was Frosty getting his smarmy ass creamed by a snowplow in the opening scenes or the little cut-scene references to A Charlie Brown Christmas or the not-so-subtle O. Henry "Gift of the Magi" subplot, I loved the whole thing. I even got a little teary-eyed when Perry the Platypus gave Doofenshmirtz some almond bark. Okay, so the tears were because I was laughing so much. Bait and switch, baby. Bait. And. Switch.

And now for the live-action holiday specials! Bring on the eggnog and brandy!

Top Five Favorite Holiday Specials:

5.) White Christmas: No holiday list is complete without the Binger's White Christmas on it, be it holiday special or favorite songs. It's charming, it's heartwarming and it's just a fun movie to watch. It sort of gets your right here. And by right here, I mean in the "...sisters, eh? Why don't you ladies drop those feather things and let's get going" gland. Plus, thanks to White Christmas, every year, I aspire to have the hap, hap, happiest Christmas since the Binger tap danced with Danny fucking Kaye.

4.) Miracle on 34th Street: This makes the list because I watched it a lot as a kid. Back then, the miracle of this thing called a "VCR" was new, and my father, being too tight economically-minded bought blank video tapes and then we recorded the Christmas specials off channel 55 out of Fort Wayne. Problem was, he didn't want to deal with those commercial bullshit (my dad, so Charlie Browny), so I would have to sit there with the remote and push pause to avoid having the commercials in the recording. So, yeah, I watched this a lot. Nice to see the USPS can deliver a shit ton of letters to the courthouse but they can't get my wife's fucking last Christmas present to me on the day that they promised. Cock knockers.

3.) National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation: Did I mention something about the Binger tap dancing with Danny fucking Kaye? I sure did. And when Santa squeezes his fat ass down the chimney, he's going to find the jolliest bunch of assholes this side of the nuthouse. I've seen this movie a lot, too. It's stuck with me. Now, if you'll pardon me, I've got some work to do. The shitter is full.

2.) Die Hard: What? It's Christmas effing Eve. There's an exploding helicopter, a platoon of dead Germans, plastic explosives tied to an office chair, Alan Rickman playing an evil German (as if there's any other kind), and Notre Dame playing football against USC...though why we're playing the Trojans on Christmas Eve still kind of confuses me. Let it Snow... is playing as the end credits roll. Plus, you know that the kid Reginald VelJohnson shot was Urkel! I'm so fired up, I'm going to have to go find this DVD somewhere. Yippee-ki-yay, motherfuckers.

1.) A Christmas Story: Could it have been any other choice? We dorky white kids with glasses growing up in Indiana have to stick together, and while I didn't grow up during the depression nor did I ever ask for a b.b. gun for Christmas (I got a .22 when I was 12), I just have a connection with Ralphie that's primal, gutteral...maybe it's the blond thing, maybe it's the glasses, maybe it's the hounds (my brother had a pack of hounds), maybe it's the love of romance languages (fra-jee-lay), maybe it's just that the family kind of reminds me of mine, but I love this movie. The building where I went to kindergarten could have doubled for Warren G. Harding elementary, and while I grew up outside of da Region where the movie was set (before it became the armpit AND asshole of creation), I can still appreciate the story. Plus, I had a friend whose last name was Farkas when I was a kid. No lie.

So, there you have it, folks. My top five animated specials and holiday movies. Feel free to dissect and discuss all you want.

I would be remiss if I didn't add this little bit for your viewing pleasure, however. Given the year we just went through, I think this is a touching tribute to a fallen star. Plus, it mixes movies and puppetry, so it's kind of like this post.

And, if I don't see you before Friday, Merry Christmas.

Award Winning Sesquipedalianism

Finally! All of this crap hard work that I put into this blog has paid off, especially on the Sunday slot. Okay, sure, there's the 131+ gorgeous followers and then of course Some Guy telling me about how I helped him with Jeopardy once. Oh, and Soda & Candy giving me a golf clap whenever I use the word "paucity".

But now...now I have something to polish up and put in the trophy case.

Have you guys met Travis? He likes to fish. He's also a big fella who doesn't like sleeping in the back of Mitsubishi Outlanders, and he wonders if there will be bacon in heaven...a curious query, to be sure, since God was pretty cut-and-dry on that whole "don't eat the flesh of pigs" thing, and Jesus was the King of the Jews. But then, there's a company called Blue and Gold that makes delicious peppered bacon, and Blue and Gold just happen to be Notre Dame's colors and God loves Notre Dame, or so I was led to believe while I was there. Therefore, with Blue and Gold getting God's blessing, there probably is bacon in Heaven.

Can you see why I like reading this guy?

Anyway, Travis skated in here one day on a TMI Thursday (I think the one where I was kissing Margaret and puking at the same time). I went to see what he was all about, found discussions of bacon and a color-coordinated dissection of his...ampleness...and was like "I'm following this guy."

I'm even able, as I am with so many others, to overlook the Twilight references to see the truth and beauty behind the writer and the exquisiteness of his blog. But, seriously, people, stop with the Twilight obsession, okay? I mean, Christ, you don't find me obsessing over poorly-written stories, do you?

Oh.

Touche.

Anyway, Travis saw fit to saddle enrich my life with an award, and this one is one I can actually be less ashamed proud of: The I Use Big Words... Award.


I was relating the whole saga of not wanting to turn on the heat in my poorly-insulated house the other day in his comments section and trotted out the word "parsimonious" (you know, just like I did yesterday when I recycled the not-wanting-to-turn-the-heat-on story?). So, I figure that's a good one for my Sunday bout of wordly edification:

parsimonious: adjective frugal to the point of stinginess, restrained, sparing. Exhibiting parsimony.

It comes from Latin parsimonia from pars-, part of the perfect tense of the verb parcere meaning "to spare, to save" and -monia, which is a suffix denoting an action or condition. Like pneumonia (a condition of the lungs).

I've described a couple of characters in the big story as being overly parsimonious, which allowed for them to, in times of war, hire more knights for their personal protection. So, it's already been used, but I'm too lazy to look up where I've written it in.

So, there you have it. A brand new award and a how the word parsimonious secured it for me. Plus, you have a new blog you may or may not want to read, depending on your opinion of bacon and Heaven.

Also...I wore a green shirt yesterday. It was the only long-sleeved t-shirt I could find. That's why Notre Dame lost. It has nothing to do with the fact that our defense still can't figure out how to tackle. It was my fucking green shirt.

*sigh*

Asses are Made to Bear...

...quoth the Bard. It's true. In Taming of the Shrew, upon the initial meeting of Petruchio and Katharina (Kate), Petruchio invites Kate to come sit upon his lap. The Bard was such a dirty old man. Anyway, Kate responds to Petruchio's request with "Asses are made to bear, and so are you." I'm sure there was a little of that famous Shakespearean double-speak going on here, where Kate was not only pointing out that Petruchio was an ass, but he was also telling us how we should see more shapely buttocks flaunted in the open.

This all brings us to today's word. It's one of my favorites. I'm sure you've heard it before, maybe even used it. I know I've written it here. I must thank my friend, Asian Jim, for teaching me this word. This one is for you, Asian Jim (if you still read this).

callipygian: "kal-uh-pidge-ee-uhn" adjective pertaining to or having beautiful buttocks.

This word comes from Greek, kalli meaning "beautiful" and puge meaning buttocks. It shows up in the middle of the seventeenth century (so, well after Shakespeare tells us that asses should be bared) and originally was used in reference of a statue of Aphrodite, the Ancient Greek goddess of love, beauty and desire. In Rome, they called her Venus.

You can probably see why this is one of my favorite words in the English language, and why I thank Asian Jim so much for teaching it to me. Thanks, buddy.

Anyway, I know exactly where this is going. There's a certain young princess that will have her "callipygian curves" described, most likely in reference to the spray of sea water on her garments, causing them to cling tenaciously to her skin. That is, if she's wearing clothes at all at that point. I haven't decided yet. We'll see.

So, the next time you see some attractive young woman walking down the street with "Juicy" written across her ass, now you know how to describe it--providing she's over 18, that is. Pervert.

But wait...there's more!

In the course of looking up the etymology of the word, I stumbled across a few others, and I just have to share them with you. Mostly because I'm twisted like that.

The opposite of callipygian is cacopygian, meaning "having an ugly buttocks", coming from kakos meaning "bad, evil" and the aforementioned puge.

A related form is steatopygous, meaning "having a prominent or fat buttocks", this time coming from stear or steat, meaning "tallow, fat" and puge.

And then there is possibly my new favorite word that I've learned in the past ten minutes, dasypygal, meaning "having a hairy buttocks", coming from Greek dasus with the meaning of "hair, dense" and puge. Awesome.

So, there you go. Four words for the price of one, all of them related to your sweet ass. Wait a second. I'm not sure if this word exists or not, but I'm going to try and take credit for coining glycopygian, meaning "having a sweet ass" (glycys being Greek for "sweet").

Words are awesome.

TMI Thursday: Sparkle Belly

NOTE: I thought I set this up to post at 9:15 am this morning, but apparently I didn't change the time, so it was set to post at 9:15 PM. Since I typed the whole thing out AND since I still wanted to wish Will a happy birthday, I went ahead and let it post, but it's too late to tie into Lilu's TMI Thursday. As such, I'll be pushing the Latin lesson back a few hours. Enjoy.

I will give you a little bit of a warning here: this isn't my usual brand of TMI Thursday fare. You see, yesterday, while I was beseeching you all for your pity (and entertaining myself with pictures of nurses)...I mean...beseeching you all for your pity for my sick children *shifty-eyed*, I failed to remind everyone that it was Big Willy's 32nd birthday. You might remember Big Willy from such birthday shout outs as this one.

So, I'm going to tell you a story that took place featuring Will. While it has a definite lack of bodily fluids, I does feature me naked and on film.

That caught your attention, didn't it?

While a senior roaming the hallowed halls of Saint Joseph's College, I lived in a single room on the first floor of Gallagher Hall. It was the "healthy living floor", which is hilarious considering I lived there. Some of the other perks of living on Gallagher first were Kody Hooker puking on your window nightly, a lovely view of the coal-fueled power plant, and all the watermelons you could smash. The other perk was that next door lived my good friend, Will.

As my days of being a Puma were winding down, my friend, Young Bob, faced a dilemma. You met Young Bob briefly here. Anyway, Young Bob was a Communications major, and in one of his classes, he was given a song and told to comprise a video to go along with it. Unfortunately, Young Bob is a bit like me: morbid and sarcastic with an eye toward the symbolic. The song was in-your-face-chip-chip-chipper-sugar-rush-sweet-and-happy. This was not going to be an easy task for him. The most footage he had was of a puppy chasing itself around a yard and a Wal-Mart greeter waving to him from the front of the store.

This is where I came in.

Young Bob knocked on my door with camera in hand. "I need help with this. I need you to...do...something...anything. It just has to be...fun."

"Like, bottle of chloroform and a black van fun?" I asked.

"Uh, no. More like something I can use for my video fun."

"Oh, right. Video evidence of the other would be dangerous." I thought for a second. "It is getting kind of late, though."

"I'll buy you Steak 'n' Shake."

"Deal. But, I can't do this alone."

So, I pounded on Will's door. Half-drunk on Russian history, I ripped him from his room, threw him into my car, tucked away thousands of dollars worth of expensive camera equipment, and we were off. Where? We didn't have a fucking clue, but we were off.

Forty-five minutes later, we were in Lafayette, IN. Our first stop was a sprawling Meijer store wherein resided a purple dinosaur kiddy ride that, I knew from a previous late-night trip, would support my frame. Digging through my pockets, I found a handful of pennies that I fed into the machine (it was one $0.01 per ride! Can you believe it?) and began lurching up and down, back and forth upon the back of this prehistoric mechanical bull.

And then I started to sing.

(to the tune of "Help me, Rhonda" by the Beach Boys):

Hump the dino!
Hump, hump the dino!
Yeah! *clap*
Hump the dino!
Hump, hump the dino!

It was at this point that a surly old woman, freshly escaped from some retirement home, shambled up to us and growled "What are you doing?"

"Humpin' the dino. What does it look like?" I responded, the ride still bucking feebly under me, the camera still rolling. "Mind you, I paid good money for this ride, and I intend to enjoy it."

"Not you," she uttered, a fog of smoke and halitosis belching from her maw. She pointed a gnarled finger toward Young Bob and his camera. Her nails had the sheen, texture and color of unpolished granite. "Him. What are you doing?"

"This is for a school project," Young Bob returned.

"You can't film in here," she shot back. A moth flew from her disheveled and misshapen coif.

"Seems like a good waste of perfectly free advertising," I stated. "Not to mention, all the money you're making off this sweet ride."

"Get out," she hacked, spittle flying over her lips. A froth formed at the edges of her mouth, and suddenly I wondered if she had had all her shots prior to escape.

Because Jesus hates a conflict, the dinosaur ground to a feeble halt, and I swear I heard it sigh audibly as I clambered down from the saddle. I patted it on the snout. "That'll do, Pig," I projected just loud enough. "You, too, dinosaur." A look of unbridled fury was shot to me by her sickly yellow eyes; I doubt she picked up on the literary reference.

Undaunted, we pushed forth toward the summit of Caradhras. Because civic planners drip with genius, a Wal-Mart hove into view as we left the doors of Meijer. A few quick moments later, and we were there. A quick tour of the facility showed there were no dinosaurs to hump ride, but there were unattended lawn tractors. Digging around in my trunk, I found a wide-brimmed straw hat that I stole from the costume shop after filming a western-themed TV show earlier in the semester. Plopping it on my head--and Will with his John Deere hat (or maybe it was Caterpillar...I don't recall)--Will and I sat on two lawn tractors and pantomimed driving and riding. We did this for a good fifteen minutes while Young Bob went about getting different angles and such for the shot.

As it was late, not much was open. We soon found ourselves in downtown Lafayette (such as it is), where the Tippecanoe County courthouse stands. Also, there is a cannon on the lawn of the Tippecanoe County courthouse. For some reason, Will and I thought it would be fun to spend ten minutes chasing each other around the cannon, giggling like school boys...all while being filmed. Finally, since Young Bob was not saying "Okay, that's enough!", I ran around to the fuse end of the cannon and straddled it. Sure enough, seconds later, Young Bob told us he had enough footage, and we could continue on.

Back in the car, we drove around for a while, unable to locate anywhere else to wreak havoc. I decided that, since we were in Lafayette anyway, I should do a psycho drive-by of an old girlfriend. Will, in a moment of inspiration, stripped off his shirt, and folded it around his head into an Instant Ninja Mask. I say inspired because my old girlfriend happened to live on the same street as a bunch of the Purdue frats...who were, of course, busy doing frat stuff. So, Will, bedecked in his Instant Ninja Mask, hung out of the car window and screamed "Behold, Infidels, the Gleaming Sword of Islam!" We were greeted with the typical drunken "Woo! Islam!" from the frats. Awesome.

After having soiled some memorial cannon and successfully stalking girlfriends of day gone by, we returned to St. Joe, but Young Bob still had half a tape of film that needed to be recorded. Trying to come up with some inspiration, Will and I both sat on my two-seater couch, arms folded, seeking something that would spark a creative bit of genius in us. What happened then was a good fifteen minutes of me cocking my head one way, and Will doing in the same, so that the two of us looked like our heads were connected by the same string.

Finally, unamused by that span of my life I'll never retrieve, I said, "We could do something with the grill."

This is where things went...weird.

Young Bob said, "Whatever you want." So, for some reason, I took off my clothes. And then I put on the same straw hat that I wore earlier for the lawnmower scenes. Decency got the better of me, and I wrapped a towel around my waist. Not to be undone, Will also stripped and wrapped a towel around his waist. Instead of a dopey straw hat, he put Instant Ninja Mask back on. Having nothing else at our disposal, Will grabbed a Wisconsin hat and we plopped that on the grill.

Some of the alumni of Gallagher Hall had put together some donations and made a really nice patio area for all of us right outside the west entrance to the hall. There was a deck and a nice brick patio which had a gas grill set up on it. This was the scene of our little display as Will and I stood there, acting for all the world like we were grilling the aforementioned hat, both still wearing only towels.

That's when this guy named Eric Schneider showed up. Schneider was a good guy, lived above me somewhere, but was originally from Chicago. And on this particular night, he showed up drunk. After a quick explanation of what was going on, Schneider started giving us directions like he was the director. Only thing was, he acted like he was directing porn.

"Will! Will, I need to see both nipples," he started. "Okay, good. Good good good. Now, I need a look of despair! LOOK OF DESPAIR! That's the money. Now, give me Sparkle Belly! Yes, yes, that's right. Sparkle Belly." And then Schneider started to sing.

"Sparkle Belly. Sparkle Belly.
Sparkle Belly, rub my nipples.
Sparkle Belly, rub my nipples.
Sparkle Belly. Sparkle Belly."
Of course, being the professionals and veterans of the stage that we were, we followed our directions perfectly. This went on for a few minutes. And then, the coup de grace: Schneider yelled, "And now, run off into the night!"

So, Will and I turned (still wearing only towels) and took off running into the night. We went about fifty yards, and then we heard "Now dive, DIVE!" So we did. In only towels. That didn't stay on so well.

Picking ourselves up, laughing until our sides hurt, and reaffixing the towels, we returned and Schneider and Young Bob gave us slow claps. "Excellent job! Well done." Schneider praised us. And then Young Bob: "The perfect thing was that, as you guys took off running and then dove, the tape ran out."

"Then, I guess this means we're done, right?" I asked.

"Yes," Young Bob confirmed.

"Alright. I'm going to go put some underwear on," I said.

"Jesus, dude, I didn't know you were naked under there," Schneider said. "I wouldn't have had you dive like that."

"It's alright. It was my choice," I offered.

"Whatever. I would have had you rip the towels off first and then go tearing off into the night."

So, there you go. There's the tale of my time spent on the camera naked. Like I said, it's not the usual sort of bodily-function-saturated Thursday post that you've come to love, but it did feature nipple rubbing. Young Bob offered to digitize the video and send it to me (he still has a copy, naturally dubbed "Sparkle Belly", which he watches from time to time for nostalgia and comedy's sake), but since I didn't ask Will, and I didn't feel comfortable slapping his nipples on the internet without his permission, you got the verbal story.

Painting the Town Polka Dot

I'm not really here today. Instead, I'm on a plane, headed to Springfield, to view the famous Springfield Tire Fire and the now defunct Springfiled Monorail (too late, mom, the crowd has spoken...). Hey, it worked for Ogdenville.

Oh, what? Wrong Springfield? Ah, silly me. I wondered why no one was yellow with big bulgy eyes. Anyway, I'm having a coffee with fabulous blogger friend Sass. And then we're going to get mo.stoneskin (kinky) and we're all headed off to meet up with Scope and see Cowguy's band play. Ah, fuck it. You can read about my adventures yourself.

You should also cue up R.E.M.'s Losing my Religion for when you read it.

Aren't I clever?

Anyway, I shan't leave you without a fun little story while I'm off to Springfield, painting the town with Sass et. al. So, I'll tell you a little tale of what happened to me yesterday.

I got an email from my wife, the Comely and Buxom and Ailurophobic Boudicca. She was telling me about her lunch, and how she decided a pickle would go perfectly with her sandwich and chips. So, she reached into the pickle jar and pulled out...a pickle. But it wasn't just any pickle. It was a pickle that reminded her...ahem...of me.

Now, there's a euphemism for masturbation one uses from time to time: "jerkin' your gherkin". I had no idea how dangerously close to real life this could be. See for yourself.

Nice, huh?

Though, I have to worry if my wife thinks something so small which is green, spotted and knobby reminds her of me. What's that I feel? Oh, it's the beginnings of a complex. Fantastic.

And just for your personal edification: she ate it. Popped that thing in her mouth and swallowed it right down.

Now I know she was lying when she said it reminded her of me: she didn't even dip it in mayonnaise first!

Pop the Champagne! It's Celebration Time!

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.