Please tell me old people don’t get zits.

When I was going through puberty, I was told that although zits can be a pain in the ass, it’s all a part of growing up and I’d be over them. The fact that my parents and health teachers could just lie to me like that with a straight face is sickening. What they should have said, if they had any balls or respect for me, was that I’ll still get zits, just not as many on my face. I’ll get them in exciting new places like on my back and inside my nose.

“Inside my nose?”, I’ll ask in confusion.

“Yes, inside your goddamn nose” they’ll reply. “You’ll never know exactly where it is but every time you touch one side of your nose it will hurt like a bitch. You can’t exactly shove a Cearasil pad up there so you just leave it be until it grows so much that you accidentally pop it blowing your nose or something. By the way, nothing’s more gross than the feeling of a zit pop inside your nose but at least it’s over”. I’ll ask them when the pimples will ever end and they’ll just look at me and shrug.

Why yes I do have a pimple in my nose right now and it’s driving me fucking insane, how did you know?

In this crazy political climate where people like Michele Bachmann are taken seriously as a presidential candidate and the state government in MN has shut down because it can’t come to a budget agreement, it’s nice to know that on the local level you still have some honest, good, not crazy stupid politicians that just want to work to make their town a better place.

Or, the local politicians are even fucking crazier than anybody.

Case in point, a city council member in St. Francis drove to Chicago and mailed a fake Grenade to himself. Once he received the package, he called the cops and said he received a suspicious looking package in the mail. He insisted the police open it for him, stating that it could be a bomb because he’s in politics and has a lot of enemies.

I don’t know how many enemies a city council member can have, much less a city council member in St. Francis, MN (located on the corner of “where the fuck are we?” and “holy shit is that a Casey’s General Store? We are really off the beaten path here.”) and the police shared the same thought because they refused to open it. Frustrated at the police’s utter disregard for a crazy person’s ramblings, he opened the package himself in front of the officers to reveal a fake hand grenade with a note that said “the next one will be real”.

The cops called him out on his bullshit and he admitted he mailed it to himself to get sympathy from the public. Which leaves me with a few questions.

1. Why a hand grenade? Don’t you have to pull a pin to make those work? Mailing somebody a hand grenade is more like a weird gift than a threat. Was he going to mail himself a fake time bomb but worried that a bunch of hot dogs taped to an alarm clock might spoil?

2. Why go all the way to Chicago? Nobody in Chicago knows that St. Francis, MN is an actual town. He would have been better off mailing it from Elk River. It’s close enough to be plausable and nobody trusts those shady Elk River bastards anyway.

3. How was that supposed to garner sympathy from the public? Was he going to have yard signs made that said “Leroy Shaffer: Survived a truly piss poor attempt at assasination!”

4. Why did he need sympathy from the public? It’s not an election year. Do you even vote for city council in small towns? I thought those jobs just went to any grown up who owned more than two suits.

Thank you, Concilman Shaffer, for proving that elected officials on any level can be completely fucking bananas.

The San Fermin festival occurs this weekend in Pamplona, Spain and it’s famous 8 day “Running of the Bulls” is already underway.  MSNBC reports that on day 2, an Australian man was gored in the leg. While injury isn’t uncommon in the dumbest sport in the world, this guy got gored at the end of the sprint by taunting the bull in the bullring and then slipping and falling down. I think at this point the bull gored him merely on principal.

The man will, thankfully, live and sadly, probably not learn from his mistake and be one of those idiots that isn’t going to let this stop him from coming back next year. While I’m glad the guy won’t die, I’m also glad that the bull was able to get in it’s licks. What some people don’t know is that the bulls that run are the same bulls in the bullfights that night. Anybody feeling sorry for the guy who got gored can rest assured that the bull was sentenced to death buy multiple sword stabbings in an arena surrounded by thousands of screaming bullfighting fans. Supporters say it’s cool, though because it’s, like, totally artful and cultural and stuff.

While I’m no fan of bullfighting, I do like the idea of the running of the bulls. It’s like giving them a shot at revenge. Like if you had a bunch of turkeys have a cagematch with a farmer on Thanksgiving or a chicken got to hide some babies on Easter. Sure, turkeys are notoriously bad wrestlers and babies are a lot easier to find than eggs because of all that crying but it’s the gesture that counts.

PETA, however, does not seem to care for the bullfighting or the running. In fact, they’ve set up a yearly protest for the two days before the festival called The Running of the Nudes. I immediately looked up their website… out of journalistic curiousity alone. While I was expecting this

Hey, Billophiliacs! I’ll be featuring at the Joke Joint Comedy Club(click for location, show times, recipes etc.) all weekend and this weekend is extra special because I have merchandise to sell! Stand Up! Records put together a compilation album to be released at CONvergence and I’m on along with the likes of Andy Brynildson, Pat Bauer, Mike Brody, Bryan Miller, Andy Erickson, Amber Preston, Pat Susmilch, Gus Lynch, James Moore, Brandi Brown, Chris Knutson and Nate Abshire! 

I was hoping to do a blog today on some random news piece because those are pretty easy but it’s hard to find any news today that doesn’t have to do with the Casey Anthony trial.   I can’t really do much with that because it’s a little hard (not impossible) to mine comedy from dead children.  Also, I know nothing about the whole Casey Anthony trial. 

Seriously.  I can’t be sure what happened.  I wasn’t present when it happened and I’m not one of the police who investigated the crime.  I didn’t hear everybody’s testimony and didn’t see all of the evidence.  The only real information I have is fed to me through media outlets which, this is going to sound really paranoid of me, seem to be sensaionalizing the whole thing for some reason. 

Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to join in the chorous of “Fry the bitch!” but I just don’t feel that I’m well enough informed on the issue.  Oh, how I wish I was standing outside the courtroom with hand painted posterboard or on facebook, posting that I hope she gets shivved in prison but I don’t have enough information to form an honest opinion. 

If only I was Nancy Grace I could say things like “As the defense sits by and has their champagne toast after that not guilty verdict, somewhere out there the devil is dancing tonight.” when in all reality I can’t be sure on what happened. 

The only thing I can be certain of is that we, as a naiton, need to put all this behind us so news stories like those steaks made of poop can get some headline space becuse I have a blog to write, people.

I spent three nights camped out in the Stand Up! Records party room at CONvergence performing, checking out other shows and parties, hanging out with friends and seeing costumes that ranged from amazing to downright disturbing.

Gonna get so much pussy this weekend with my sweet Gollum costume!

One thing I’m glad I checked out was the vendor room.  Vendors from all over the country were selling nerdy stuff like games, books, comics and weapons.  There were two different weapons vendors in the room selling stuff like ninja swords, knives and brass knuckles.  After seeing these, I decided that I’m going to ask Con to let me run a panel next year called “Why You Nerds Don’t Need Brass Knuckles”.  Here’s a few of the topics I’ll touch on.

1:  Brass Knuckles are for people who get into fights.  You’re an adult and, more specifically, a nerd.  You’re probably not going to get into a fight on your smartcar drive from your job at Geek Squad to the game shop.

2.:  Nerds are the last people on Earth who should be wearing brass knuckles.  Nerds are socially inept, have short tempers and love to play games with complicated rules.  This would normally be a volatile combination but most nerds are physically  unintimidating.   Now, with Brass Knuckles, a rules lawyering argument about D&D has now turned to a trip to  the ER with a broken jaw.

3.  Brass Knuckles are shitty weapons anyway.  They require you to know how to throw a punch to begin with, they extend your reach by half and inch and the pointy ones probably hurt to carry around in your pocket. The only weapon brass knuckles beats is no weapon. If you’re getting mugged by a guy with a gun you’re not going to be glad you have your trusty knuckle dusters on you. Hell, even in River City Ransom the only use for them was to throw at somebody with a better weapon.

Cory's barfing because he thought his Brass Knuckles were any match for Dragon Feet

4:  They’re probably illegal anyway.  weaponsuniverse.com has over 19 minutes of instructional videos that start with the disclaimer “You should not use Brass Knuckles because most likely you could have problems with law enforcement” and then go on for nearly twenty minutes about why you should and how you can use them as weapons. They even go as far to say how they disguise them as belt buckles and paperweights just so they can sell them to you.

Look for my panel next year!

Hey there, blogophiliacs! I’m busy running around trying to get ready for this nerd convention that I’ll be performing at all weekend so today’s blog is an old favorite from my ol’ MySpace page! Enjoy!

The following is a rough timeline of what the public school system teaches of Christopher Columbus. This can be quite a valuable tool for the hundreds of four year olds that read my blog and want to know what to expect over the next 12 years of their scholastic career.

K-5: In 1492, Columbus Sailed the ocean blue. He was on a voyage to show the queen of Spain that the world was round. During his voyage, he discovered America and met people who lived there that called themselves “Indians”. In exchange for some horses and the gift of Christianity, these friendly natives gave Columbus exotic vegetables to bring back to his delighted queen!

6TH GRADE: Actually, Columbus didn’t discover America. That had been done already by some Vikings a couple hundred years prior. Even earlier by the natives if you really want to get into the semantics of it.

7TH GRADE: Oh, Columbus wasn’t really trying to prove the world was round. That had kind of been accepted as scientific fact since the 2nd Century B.C. He was actually just trying to find a shortcut to India to get spices and opium.

8TH GRADE: Dumbass actually thought he had landed in India. That’s why we call Native Americans “Indians”. In an effort to cover his own ass, he brought back exotic vegetables and called them spices. That’s why we call jalapenos and the like “peppers”.

9TH GRADE: Yeah… about those Indians. The few he didn’t rape and kill he took into slavery.

10TH GRADE: Stealing a time machine from Leonardo DaVinci, Columbus travelled to 1908 Vienna where met young artist Adolf Hitler outside of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. When Hitler told Columbus of his latest application rejection, Columbus scoffed and said “Those damn Jews wouldn’t know art if it slapped them in the face!”. He then went back to his own time to rape some more Indians.

11TH GRADE: Remember that puppy you had when you were little that your mother said “ran away”? Christopher Columbus strangled it to death because it’s the only way he can achieve an erection.

12TH GRADE: Don’t ask me how, just know that Christopher Columbus was somehow involved with the cancellation of “Arrested Development”.

Note: Should you choose to go on to college after graduation, I highly recommend majoring in Columbus Studies. Then you can learn even more about this intrepid explorer like his involvment in the 9/11 terror plot, the Lincoln assasination and pretty much every Adam Sandler movie after “Happy Gilmore”.

When I last did an installment of Mark Trail Text Only Non Sequitor Theater, our hero was in his cabin talking on the phone to somebody. That was four years ago so something completely different is going on now!

Friday, June 24th, 2011. Our first frame shows three men standing outside. A man with a rifle, our hero and a bearded man wearing one of those brown shirts with the tassels on it like Billy Jack wore in the movie “Billy Jack”. All three men have blank, emotionless expressions on their faces indicating that they are engaged in a possibly serious conversation. With his hand on the shoulder of the bearded man, Mark asks the rifle weilding individual “Sheriff, what’s the meaning of this?  Why do you have a rifle on John?”

The second panel zooms out until the three men are blurred figures, even more indistinguishable from each other than before.  In the foreground and taking up literally 1/4 of the entire panel is a Chickadee perched on a branch proving, to the reader’s relief, that animals do still exist in the world of Mark Trail.  In the background the men continue their conversation which has nothing to do with the bird prominently featured in today’s comic.  The sherriff says, with a look that one could only assume is stern, stoic blankness, “I think this man has been robbing stores in the community, Mark!”  Mark, surprised that such an allegation has been made against somebody that is probably his friend or something replies incredulously with “He what?”

Our third panel zooms back into the three men, leaving us to wonder of the fate of the Chickadee.  Did it fly away to search for food?  Was it snatched up by a large predator?  Is it still perched on that branch, watching these events unfold with the rest of us?  We can only wonder on the fate of the Chickadee.

The three men look at each other with the same grim, determined, serious expressions that the wore on the first panel.  The Sheriff has now stepped between Mark and the suspected burglar and in a keen display of detective work worthy of his title, says “On the last robbery the thief was wearing Moccasins, and your friend is wearing Moccasins!”

What will happen to our hero and his friend?  Tune in approximately four years from now for the next episode of….

MARK TRAIL TEXT ONLY NON SEQUITOR THEATER!

CONvergence, Minnesota’s biggest yearly sci-fi convention is starting up this Thursday and I’ll be there all weekend long slinging jokes every night in the Stand Up! Records Party Room (128) and Saturday in the HarmCON room show (I think it’s across from the bar on the 1st floor).  This isn’t my first year performing at this convention and while there’s plenty of vendors, art, panel discussions and room parties to check out, the best fun is to be had watching 3,000 grown ups run around in costumes.  In honor of these and for the sake of fun, I’ve created the first ever (to my knowledge)

CONVERGENCE COSPLAY BINGO BOARD

Have fun!

The State of Minnesota will be closed for business on July 1st if the governor and legislature can’t come to an agreement on the budget. While this may seem a bit extreme to some people, it makes perfect sense to me. In fact, the last time my wife and I had an argument about the family budget I put myself into a medically induced coma until she let me buy more comic books. Sure, it cost thousands of dollars to care for me during the coma and caused irreparable brain damage but I got what I wanted.

Now this doesn’t mean that Anarchy will rule the streets and riots will break out (for the first couple of weeks) but this does mean that any state gov’t service deemed “unnesential” will be closed and all employees of said services will be laid off until an agreement is made.  Amongst those services is the Minnesota Racing Commission, meaning Canterbury Downs will shut down, laying off it’s 1,300+ employees and leaving dozens of Jockeys looking for work

Local Chapter of the Lollypop Guild