Monthly Archives: December 2011

New Year’s Resolutions Are Bullshit.

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Oh shit it’s gonna be 2012 in a couple of days, kids! Come Sunday everybody will be all hungover and talking about all the improvements they’re going to make in their life this year. 2012 is gonna be the year that we’re all going to do it right! According to wikipedia, the five most popular resolutions this year are

*Be financially-savvy.
*Read at least one book per month.
*Eat properly.
*Get enough sleep.
*Keep a journal of awesome moments.

Alright. If the way you’re going to improve your life is by sleeping more you either have no problems or hate putting effort into things and keeping a journal of awesome moments sounds exactly like something a person that is the exact opposite of awesome would do.


New Year’s Resolutions are supposed to be making an actual change in your life for the better, not napping. If you want some actual resolutions here’s some suggestions.


Become addicted to crack. Beat crack addiction.
I feel like if you can overcome crack addiction you can overcome pretty much anything.


Beat up Chuck Norris.
Think about it. He’s 71 years old. I’m pretty sure you can take him by now.

This picture was taken in 1910. That's why it's in black and white. He had to stand like that for ten minutes for the camera to take the picture.




Get a Guinness World Record in something.
Breaking a world record sounds pretty hard but you can probably just make a world record nobody’s thought of yet like “most pencils in nose” or “longest bellybutton” (I actually don’t know how you’d go about making your belly button longer). this guy holds the record for most records set at over 300 and most of them are just stuff like “underwater pogosticking” and “doing front rolls (somersaults) for 12 miles”.


Build a Zepplin
All you need is some helium balloons and a lawn chair. That’s what Larry Walters did. Be careful though. He ended up committing suicide several years later so maybe he saw something up there in the clouds…

I have actually wanted to do this for a long time.




So there you go, people. Do any one of these or, even better, do them all! When your local newspaper reports that “Former crack addict and world record holding balloonist (insert your name here) assaults Martial Arts legend Chuck Norris” you can cut it out and put it in your journal of awesome moments. Have a happy new year.

Some Pictures From My Phone!

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So I got Punch-Out! for the Wii and was all set to do a blog about how incredibly racist it is (the Lisa Lampanelli “it’s okay because I’m racist towards all races” racism) but after a bit of googling I found that it was pretty well worn territory.

Seriously after I TKO'd Piston Hondo I'm surprised he didn't pull out a fucking katana and commit seppuku.




Well, since that horse has been beaten to death here’s some pictures from my phone!



Master hypnotist and Boris Karloff impersonator Brad Garrett!

It’s like the photographer asked him to do a big line of coke right before the picture was taken.


Actual size.

I walked up to it and a british guy with a bowtie stepped out and asked if I wanted to travel with him.



MISMATCHED STEAK KNIFE WOLVERINE!




Fucking creepy.

At a friend’s house. Creepy as hell but wait! There’s more! Let’s zoom in on this.


Oh shit.

He’s reaching for the knife!


Sex-Murder is the worst kind of murder. Murder by sex.

I saw this on the magazine rack at Savers. It’s like if episodes of Law and Order: SVU were written by the people who worked on The Weekly World News. I kind of regret not buying them but I doubt anybody’s snatched up those literary treasures.


The Cover for my new detective novel, "The Mystery of the Murderous Mariachi Mannequin".

At least he’s not a sex-murderer. I hope.


If you’d like to see what I was taking phone pics of in 2006, check out this old myspace blog!

Kim Jong-Il: A Look Back

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Today marks the funeral for Kim Jong-Il, the Supreme Exhalted Glorious Infallable Handsome leader of North Korea. According to his official biography, his birth in 1942 was foretold by a swallow and heralded by a double rainbow in the sky and the birth of a new star in the heavens. The Korean Central News Agency, North Korea’s state run and obviously objective news service, reported that during his death “a fierce snowstorm paused and the sky glowed red above sacred Mount Paektu.”. Here’s some of the other highlights of his life according to KCNA news.

KCNA file photo of Kim Jong-Il, 2010


1950: Attended Hogwarts Academy and defeated Voldemort.

1954: Won the Korean war single handed at the age of 12. Decided to not tell the South Koreans out of a sense of humility.

1972: Beat the Harlem Globetrotters 120-0 (all dunks) in an exhibition game played on an active volcano.

1982: Scored 1,064,501 in Donkey Kong.

1990: Was given the nickname “Dear Father” by Korean media after he made all the women in North Korea pregnant.

2002: As part of his 60th birthday celebration, ate 7 saltines in one minute and washed it down with a gallon of milk in a half an hour. Had a tablespoon of cinnamon for dessert.

2005: While lecturing in Paris, is framed for murder and discovers through a series of convoluted clues in Leonardo Da Vinci’s paintings, the location of the holy grail.

2011: Dies.



For more DPRK sanctioned information on Kim Jong-Il’s accomplishments, just go to chucknorrisfacts.com and replace “Chuck Norris” with “Kim Jong-Il”.

Ghetto Shopping

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Hey kids- I hate to be the bearer of bad news. I really don’t want to tell you. But since Bill is on his mini-vacation from the blog, and because it’s a thing that’s happened in the news, I’m going to have to be the one to tell you of this tragic event.

Sears Holdings (parent company of Sears (duh) and K-mart) will be closing 100-120 of its stores due to a large drop in holiday profits.

This is horrible for two reasons. 1) Where are all those poor people going to go for their poor people things? Like clothing that doesn’t fit right and/or is skanky, bulk generic Ramen, or toys that will fall apart the instant they try to play with them? Are we going to see poor people flock to Targets like a perpetual black Friday (not a race joke)? AM I GOING TO HAVE PROBLEMS CUTTING THROUGH THE MASSES OF GHETTO GIRLS TO GET TO THOSE ADORABLE TOE SOCKS WITH THE STRIPES THAT ARE HALF OFF???

Don't come between me and reduced price toe socks.

I might have to mingle with people with less money than I have. I might have to acknowledge their right to shop along side me, as if their socio-economic class meant nothing to who they are as individuals.

No. Fuck that. I’m going to continue with my class warfare. I’m going to fight for my right to feel superior to others based on their income. I’m going to march for my right to look down on others because a person’s financial situation is never affected by outside influences, because people live in vacuums where their hard work is all that contributes to their income, and bad luck never affects anyones standard of living.

I’m going to march those poverty stricken so-n-sos out of my store and into a Wal-Mart. Where they belong.

Oh! The second horrible thing? Sears thought people were still shopping there. I’m pretty sure no one’s set foot in a Sears store in years, and any shoppers there are just the ghosts of old people looking for appliances and socket wrenches.

A Moving Christmas

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Christmas has passed, and while you’re thinking about or playing with all the shit you got, and while you’re sitting in your bathroom passing yesterday’s Christmas feast, I’d like you to take a moment to think on how shitty the holiday season can be.

Very specifically, I take you to Catalonia, where they have a Christmas tradition of feeding a log full of candy and nuts over the course of several days, and then beating it with a stick until all the candy is “pooed” out the logs “butt”. Known as Tió de Nadal (Christmas Log), or the less formal Caga tió (shit log), this log has a cartoon face, two legs, and is wrapped in a blanket that both acts to keep it warm, and provide a little privacy as it’s getting the shit beat out of him.

What is it with Spanish people beating things with sticks for candy?

On Christmas day, all the children gather ’round the log with sticks, and hit him while singing this song: “Shit log, shit turron, hazelnuts and cottage cheese, if you don’t shit well, I’ll hit you with a stick, shit log!” Then they remove the blanket to show the log’s shit, along with other presents left there by the Three Wise Men. Apparently after the Baby Jesus gig, the Three Wise Men took to delivering presents in Catalonia. It *is* nicer there than that run-down hovel of a town Bethlehem.

Speaking of, the Catalonians have another shitty tradition- the Caganer. See, in Catalonia, just doing the small little nativity scene isn’t enough for them. They have to do the whole town of Bethlehem, with all the villagers doing their villager thing- spinning wool, cooking a meal, sleeping. And off in the corner, one little little guy, shitting. Modern day Nativity scenes can even include celebrity Caganers.

Christmas tradition or political statement? You decide.

The Caganer is a big deal to the Catalonians. He’s such a big deal, that when the City of Barcelona dropped him from their Nativity scene in 2005, the people started a campaign called Salvem el caganer (Save the Caganer) that restored him to his throne in 2006.

Apparently, it was quite the movement. Ahem.

Lest we think that the Catalonians are the only ones with shitty Christmas traditions, I present to you an American favorite: Mr. Hankey, the Christmas poo.

Howdy Ho!

Mr. Hankey’s tradition goes back farther than the Season1, episode 10 of South Park that most people remember him from. Apparently, Trey Parker had problems flushing the toilet during potty training, so his father told him that if he didn’t flush, the poo (named Mr. Hankey) would come to life and kill him. Years later, before Parker and Stone started South Park, the two creators decided they wanted to do a short on Mr. Hankey. They didn’t do that, but elements of the outlined show were used in the infamous Season 1, Episode 10 Christmas special.

And again before South Park, Parker and Stone tried to sell Mr. Hankey as the main protagonist in “The Mr. Hankey Show”, which included 4 children, but FOX Executive poo pooed the idea. So instead, Parker and Stone created a show called South Park that used just the 4 children. They knew they were going to want to introduce Mr. Hankey in the series at some point, however. So when they pitched the idea of the show to Comedy Central, Parker is said to have said “One thing we have to know before we really go any further: how do you feel about talking poo?”

Really, that’s my comedic dream. To some day pitch talking poo to an executive producer. Maybe I will ask the three wise men for it next year. In the meantime, I’m going to beat this log til it shits candy. Here’s hoping you all had a very shitty Christmas!

Happy Festivus and Holiday Greeting Butthurt

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Today, according to Wikipedia, is Festivus. Festivus was an “actual” holiday made up by the dad of one of the writers for Seinfeld. The actual Festivus and the Seinfeld one are pretty much in name only but let’s not let that stop us from erecting the Festivus pole, airing our grievances and wrestling on the floor. A Festivus for the rest of us but enough about that. Let’s talk about Christmas.


I celebrate Christmas. I really don’t consider myself a Christian (I consider myself a conscientious objector when it comes to religion) but most everybody in my family is Christian and I like presents and cookies so fuck it. Merry Christmas. Or happy holidays. Seasons greetings. Whatever.


It seems like I can’t win with some people on how I wish them a happy whatever (I’ve actually started using “happy whatever” as my holiday greeting). This stupid issue about people being offended over holiday greetings has gone on so long that it’s been satirized in fucking cellphone commercials

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73vcbde8Cb8?rel=0&w=420&h=315]

That was from four years ago and I still see news stories on Merry Christmas vs. Happy Holidays bullshit.


It really sucked when I worked in customer service. I was always encouraged to say “Happy Holidays” but would always offend a few old people (it’s always fucking old people) because I didn’t wish them a Merry Christmas. Here’s how the end of a typical conversation would go down.

ME: Thanks for calling whatever company I’m working for at the moment and Happy Holidays.
CUST: Happy Holidays? It’s Christmas! You know, you people used to be able to say “Merry Christmas” before you went all PC. Don’t you celebrate Christmas?
ME: Yes I do, sir.
CUST: Then why don’t you say “Merry Christmas”?
ME: Well, I can’t be sure if you celebrate Christmas, sir (I actually had to have a meeting with my manager once because I responded by saying “you could be a Satanist for all I know”. Turns out you don’t get in less trouble if you piss off the customer in a funny way).


It goes both ways, too. I’ve offended non Christians by saying “Merry Christmas”. It’s a fucking zero sum game with you jackasses.


Here’s the deal. When I say “Merry Christmas”, “Happy Holidays”, “Merry Whatever” or “Hanukkah Mattata” (my personal invention. Trying to get it to catch on. Spread the word), I’m just trying to be nice. That’s all it is. Anybody giving whatever kind of holiday greeting is just trying to be nice and the people who are offended are all missing the fucking point. I’m just trying to be nice to you.


It’s alright, though. I’ve come up with a solution and anybody who has watched stand up comedy before knows that comedians always have the best solutions for social issues. The next time I offer any holiday greeting and somebody bitches at me because I didn’t offer their specific holiday greeting, I’m going to hug them.


No words. I’m just going to walk up and hug them super hard. Both arms. Not even the “guy hug” where you pat them on the back while you do it. Full on hug. Just gonna keep on hugging until I get a reaction. Sure, I’ll probably get a few people that shove me off and call me a fag or something but I’m guessing most people will be too thrown off by the surprise hug to react at first. After they realize what’s happening to them they’ll probably start crying. It takes a lot of hurt inside somebody to bristle at a stranger offering a nice greeting and once that all finally comes to the surface there’s gonna be tears. I’ll just hug them harder and say “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays” or “Hanukkah Mattata” (seriously I think Hanukkah Mattata could work. Please use it as often as possible).


I want you to do this, too. The next time you offer out a holiday greeting to a stranger and they get all pissy with you just hug them. I honestly feel like if everybody does this we can eradicate Holiday Greeting Butthurt in our lifetime. Then we can all get back to celebrating Kwanzaa in peace.

I Was a Business Professional

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Did you know that before I was a full time stay at home mom / unpaid blogger / sometimes comedian I was a sometimes comedian that worked in low level corporate jobs? It’s true! I still own a few pairs of khakis!


One of the jobs I worked at was as a glorified receptionist at a large insurance company. I answered calls, entered data, shuffled papers and sorted mail. It was when I worked at this job that I made this little blog ditty for MySpace so sit back and enjoy some honest to goodness Dilbert-style office humor!



I remember sitting in class after class in high school thinking “This doesn’t apply to me. I will never use this knowledge in the real world. I’m not going to grow up to be a historian/chemist/algebrarian/professional dodgeball player. Why do I have to sit here and learn shit that I’ll never apply?”



Looking back, I now realize that by forcing us to learn stupid, usless, inapplicable things that school was truly preparing my generation for the real world. A world where most of us would end up in low level corporate jobs sitting through two hour long meetings learning things that have absolutely nothing to do with our jobs.



My public education experience really came in handy today when I had to sit through two hours of fraud training. I’ve never committed fraud. I never will. I’m not in a position where the opportunity for fraud is available and if it were, I wouldn’t know how to go about committing it. The company knows this but one time a guy committed fraud and now we all have to suffer.
No biggie. I can take it. I took advanced algebra and if faking it in high school taught me one thing (and it did only teach me one thing) it’s to take a lot of notes so you look like you’re paying attention. Here’s a scan of the notes I took.

Only practicing good business ethics can save us from Fraud-Bot!





*CSI: Corporate Security Investigator. The people that investigate fraud in the company
**Rocket Skateboard: Like a skateboard but with rockets instead of wheels. Allows flight.



Moral of the story: I probably should have stayed in college. I’ll bet chemists or algebrarians don’t have to sit through yearly fraud training.
p.s. In my perfect world, every robot has antennae on the top of their heads with a small stream of electricity constantly flowing between them. It’s just how it should be.

Payroll Tax Cut: What Does $40 Mean to You?

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CNN reports that the House rejected the Senate bill to extend the payroll tax cut, set to expire on Dec. 31st. Once expired, the average family would see their taxes raised about $1,000 per year or roughly $40 per paycheck. CNN.com is asking it’s readers what $40 dollars means to them so here’s what $40 means to me.


160 PACKETS OF RAMEN

Maruchan means "Round child" or "1,660 mg of sodium"

Frankly I don’t care for the stuff but Jena likes it and the boy goes crazy for it so we usually keep a few on hand for a quick cheap meal. They’re 25 cents each so $40 will get you 160 packets. That’s a lot of Ramen. I’m getting varicose veins just thinking about all that Ramen.


ONE BOTTLE OF REALLY GOOD BOOZE, TWO BOTTLES OF DECENT BOOZE OR THREE BOTTLES OF SHIT BOOZE
If I’m feeling lazy there’s actually a liquor store in my neighborhood that delivers for $5 but their booze is a little pricier so more like one bottle of decent booze or two bottles of shit.


FOUR MONTHS OF NETFLIX STREAMING
We downgraded our cable tv to basic so Netflix is where we get almost all of our home entertainment now. Don’t take away my Netflix, John Boehner. I just got into Dr. Who.


A TOTALLY RAD PIZZA PARTY
$40 could get you a couple of awesome pizzas, some wings or breadsticks and a couple of two liters of soda.


As you can see, $40 can get you a lot these days. Movies, booze, pizza or four blowjobs from House Speaker John Boehner’s mom. Boom!



p.s. The editor of the “Dear Me” book emailed me about my blog from Monday and asked if he could put it in the readers letters section of his website. Check it out here!

So Much Funukkah: A Goy’s Guide to Hanukkah

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Tonight marks the first night of Hanukkah and while people of the Jewish faith light the first candle of their menorahs, give gifts, play games and recite prayers Christians all over America scratch their heads in confusion. Where’s the Santa? Where’s the tree? This isn’t Christian at all! What’s with the funny candleholder and the spinning top game?

It can all be very confusing to those of us on Team Jesus and let’s face it, ignorance of other cultures is kind of an American tradition but fear not because below is a handy dandy guide to the “Festival of Lights”!


SPELLING
You’ve no doubt seen it spelled more than one way in your lifetime. While Wikipedia prefers the spelling “Hanukkah” but recognizes Romanized spellings like “Chanukah”, the blog joemaller.com compiled a list of 16 different spellings according to google hits –

Hanukkah
Chanukah
Hanukah
Hannukah
Chanuka
Chanukkah
Hanuka
Channukah
Chanukka
Hanukka
Hannuka
Hannukkah
Channuka
Xanuka
Hannukka
Channukkah
Channukka
Chanuqa

According to wordpress spell check, the only two of these that are acceptable are Hanukkah and Hanuka (Hanuka Mattata!).


HISTORY
Way back in toga times, the Syrian Empire was slaughtering the Jews for the same reason any group of assholes slaughtered Jews throughout history, for being Jewish. They banned the practice of the Jewish faith and even went so far as to desecrate the Temple of Jerusalem by sacrificing pigs at the altar in the name of Zeus. This led to a wide scale revolt led by Judah Maccabee (who earned the badass nickname “Judah the Hammer”). They beat back the invading forces and rededicated the temple. The temple was cleansed and the menorah was lit. The menorah was supposed to burn every night but there was only enough oil to burn for one night. The menorah, however, burned eight nights, just enough time to get more oil. Hanukkah celebrates the freedom this rebellion provided and the miracle of the oil.


MENORAH
The menorah or, as many Christians refer to it, the Jewish Christmas tree, is the most recognizable symbol of the holiday. It has nine candles (eight for each night and one to light the others) and a prayer is said as each one is lit at nightfall. The menorah can come in many different designs and while most are usually understated and humble, even Hanukkah isn’t safe from the horrors of American consumerism.

from the blog randomhandprints. She does a whole series on ugly menorahs. click for the link..




GELT
Chocolate coins! This started out as a Hanukkah tradition where parents would give their kids gifts of money. The American chocolate company Lofts started making chocolate gold coins in the 1920s when they noticed the Jewish communities weren’t really buying a lot of chocolate Santas. Gifts started to be given in place of gelt in America in the 1950s as the baby boomers turned Christmas into a child’s wet dream and Jewish families didn’t want their kids to feel left out but gelt is still a part of the holiday and available at most stores. I even remember getting some in my Christmas stocking as a kid (I think they’re labled “holiday coins” or something at Wallgreen’s).

What's the holidays without a little diabetes?


DREIDEL

Come on, gimel!


The dreidel is a four sided top with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet on each side. Nun, Gimel, Hei and Shin. Together they form the acronym (in Hebrew) for “A Great Miracle Happened there”. You play by gambling with the chocolate gelt or real money if you’re not a wuss. Each player puts a piece in the pot and takes turns spinning. Actions are taken based on how the dreidel lands face up –

Gimel: You get everything in the pot
Hei: You get half the pieces in the pot
Nun: You get nothing
Shin: You put a piece in the pot

I haven’t worked it out yet but I’m pretty sure this can easily be turned into a drinking game.

I just googled "dreidel hat" on a whim. It exists!





For more information on Hanukkah, ask an Adam Sandler song.

A Letter to my Sixteen Year Old Self.

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Checking out the “Freshly Pressed” section of wordpress last night I came across a blog entry entitled “Dear Me: A Letter to my Sixteen Year Old Self”. It talks about a book that recently came out by the same name in which a bunch of celebrities write letters to their sixteen year old selves. J.K. Rowling, John Waters, Rose McGowan, even Jim Belushi writes a letter to his sixteen year old self (you think the letter would say something like “Hey your much funnier older brother is gonna die in 12 years of a drug overdose so do something about that” but it just talks about how he’ll do well in a school play or some bullshit). The sentiment rings a little hollow since these are all celebrities writing to their younger selves (just be you! It’ll make you millions of dollars tee hee!) but it’s still a pretty nice idea.


Reading about this inspired the blogger to write her own letter to herself at sixteen. There’s actually a section on the book’s website where you can submit your own so I thought I’d give it a try and write a letter to the person I was thirteen years ago.

Young, thin and a head full of hair. Damn your beauty, younger self!




Dear me circa 1998;

Okay, I’m going to need you to stop masturbating for like five minutes to read this. Please, just stop. I know what you’re doing in there. It’s you from the future. Listen, just stop jacking off for two minutes. That’s all I need. Two minutes. I KNOW YOU’RE NOT GOING TO THE BATHROOM IN THERE. Just stop it, I’m begging you. I traveled back in motherfucking time to give you this stupid letter so could you just for once hold off on spanking it?

I know it’s not easy. You’re sixteen, it’s going to be an hour before anybody gets home and the new Frederick’s of Hollywood catalog just came in the mail but you have a whole life of whacking off ahead of you. Pretty soon you won’t even need that Frederick’s of Hollywood catalog! You’ll have actual porn!

You can totally almost see her entire boob. Thank God for Victoria's Secret's trashy sister.

Jesus Christ are you even listening to me? I”m from the goddamn future! You could learn so much! Oh, for fucks sake running the shower doesn’t help. I know what you’re doing in there!

Aren’t you even curious about what happens to you? You get laid someday, how about that? It’s true. You end up having sex! With women! For free! You even get married and not even in the shotgun marriage situation that you always assume is going to happen! Sex! With multiple women! Most of whom are actually pretty hot! Followed by a happy marriage!

I will tell you that you don’t lose your virginity until you’re twenty but it doesn’t have to be like that. You could probably get laid in high school. Look at you! If you would just pull up your pants for five seconds and come meet the trainwreck that your body becomes and realize that you can get laid looking like I do you might actually get the confidence needed to talk to girls instead of SPENDING ALL AFTERNOON USING THE CONDITIONER FOR PURPOSES THAT IT WAS NOT INTENDED. Seriously. If you just had the confidence and stopped styling your hair like a young Ted Koppel you could cut a swath of hedonism through that goddamn school.

You’re seriously still in there? Holy shit. Here. I have last week’s winning Powerball numbers. How would you like to be a multimillionaire in thirteen years?

…

Whatever. Fine. I’m just going to slip this letter under the door. It’s about being true to yourself or some bullshit. Have fun wasting your teenage years jacking off and playing Final Fantasy VII.