Moving On

I've hit a few troubles lately. What with my car crash on Tuesday, no leftovers from the pizza I ordered last night, basketball players moving to Europe, and puppies dying everywhere, it's all becoming a bit too much. I spent the last couple days trying to figure out how I was going to cope, and I think I've finally settled on a solution.

I'm going to buy my own island and live there for the rest of my life.

I have no idea which island I'm going to buy yet. Turns out there are some islands that are just mountains, which weirds me out. Then there are some islands that are just sand, but I'm now convinced that I can't live without coconuts. And most of the islands with coconuts are not for sale (thanks to Mark Cuban, I'm sure--is there anything he hasn't bought yet?).

If I can't find a good enough island, I might go the way of Dubai and build my own. Nothing like a custom-made personal island, huh? Maybe I'll get it shaped like the Thundercats logo. That'd be sweet. Of course, the Thundercats logo might date itself fairly quickly, and people would probably think of me more as a billionaire nerd with lots of cats instead of an exciting young billionaire ninja magician.

But it doesn't really matter what people think. Thundercats Island, here I come!

Graham Crackers

Here, for your mild amusement, is a list of reasons why I like graham crackers:

-They taste like honey and you avoid all the sticky mess, like when you cover a piece of carboard in honey and let it sit outside for about a week.

-They no longer contain trans fat, as far as I know.

-They go on the top and bottom of those gross marshmallow and chocolate things that everybody has at campfires.

-They're way better than getting your car smashed up in a hit-and-run accident, which happened to me yesterday.

-They don't taste like sand.

Shiva

This is definitely the coolest thing I've ever seen.


Yep. That's a rocket car driving into a wall of TVs.

Apparently, a group of people decided to get together about 45 TVs and a rocket car, stack up the TVs, and drive the car into it. Whoever those people are, they are brilliant, and I would like to meet them and get their autographs.

There is something about creative destruction that makes it one of the most admirable of human pursuits. Right up there with being an astronaut and trying to stay up for 72 hours straight.

This is like traveling into another dimension. Like skydiving onto one giant mirror. Or digging a really big hole.

Villainy, part 2: Terrorism

This whole enemy thing has gone too far.

Somebody blew up my ant farm.


This is the work of none other than Jose Canseco. I'm sure of it. With all the taunting I did, I should have seen it coming. As I doused his house with buckets upon buckets full of urine, a small part of my conscience warned me that inciting Canseco's wrath is probably not the wisest idea. But I had already eaten like a ton of Red Hots, and there was no turning back.

I loved that ant farm. I loved that ant farm like I loved a juicy hamburger on a cold winter's night. I loved that ant famr like a joey--a baby kangaroo--loves that gooey stuff in its mothers pouch. I loved that ant farm like the ground loves dirt and ants and being walked on. Plus those ants helped me blog, and they were funny. Or they would have been funny if they weren't too busy serving The Queen to develop a sense of humor.

You don't just crush a love like that and walk away easy. Jose Canseco, you just started a war that you won't be able to stop. You thought that urine thing was bad? What you've got coming is gonna make that seem like I planted flowers in the cracks between your toes. I'm gonna eat so many Red Hots--at least twice as many as when I poured the urine on your house. Then we'll see who blew up whose ant farm.

You haven't heard the last of me, Jose Canseco.

Villainy!

I seem to have made a few arch-enemies in the past few weeks. I don't know what I did to get all these people against me--especially considering that they seem to have very personal vendettas--but like everything else, you just gotta roll with the punches, right?

Here's a rundown on what I know about these newfound villains. At least they all sent me pictures, so I at least have some frame of reference.

Let's get rolling with the least-threatening-looking guy. He didn't tell me his name, so I just call him "The Mustache."


Honestly, I am not surprised that one of my enemies has a kingly mustache. It seems like people with amazing mustaches tend to be more evil than people without mustaches. Maybe we should do an experiment. Anyway, The Mustache sent me a letter claiming he stole the year 1983, the year I was born. I was worried at first, but I'm beginning to doubt the veracity of that claim. Still, awesome mustache. In another life, perhaps we could be friends.


Next we have Captain Dan. We also have his sidekick, Mr. Toodles, the First Mate, but he seems to be nothing more than a point to emphasize Captain Dan's toughness. Every now and then he'll say, "YEAH!" after Captain Dan says something, but if you kick him in the shins he cries like a baby.


Captain Dan hasn't taken this arch-enemy thing very far yet, but that's a big "yet." Most of our encounters have been based on well-articulated threats and narrow-eyed glares. I think he's going to drive his boat into my house, much like that scene that I barely remember from that trailer for Speed 2. But it's more about the suspense than the boat-ramming with this guy, and I can sort of respect that. He also may or may not have taken one of my friends hostage. It's possible that friend just isn't returning my calls.


And lastly--as far as I know--there's Jose Canseco. Now this is definitely my fault. I sort of stole a helicopter (I returned it, so I still don't consider it stolen) and dumped about 100 gallons of urine on Jose Canseco's house.


I regret nothing. I mean, he's wearing a transparent shirt in front of a poster for The Man. That speaks for itself. Do your worst, Jose Canseco. I think I can take it.

Smooth Operator

Hello, friends. Glad you stopped by. Life's going pretty swell. And in case you didn't know, I'm a smooth operator. That's right. A smooth operator.

I can tell that you're curious. How does one become a smooth operator? Well, let me tell you.

Actually, let me not tell you. Because I have no idea. I just am one. But I can tell you that it has nothing to do with the song, which is surprisingly dirty.

Did you know that my digestive system produces soft-serve ice cream? That's just one of the benefits of being a smooth operator. Don't worry, it's just vanilla.

Smooth operators aren't very common. And most of the time they're hiding. There could be one behind that haystack over there. Or maybe there's one in the bushes outside your house right now.

See if you can identify the smooth operator in the following pictures:

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.


Answers:
1-the guy in the green sweater vest
2-the bald guy on the left who isn't Churchill
3-Neptune, and possibly the guy pointing at him
4-TRICK QUESTION! Robots are not smooth operators! The people in that picture are not coarse operators, but they're not smooth either.
5-the camel
6-George Washington and Thomas Jefferson
7-The sun
8-The guy with the monocle and the grandfather clock

Kermit the Guru

I've learned a lot of things over the years. The alphabet, multiplication, how to play video games, to name a few. But the most important things I've learned I learned from Kermit the Frog.

Kermit recently reminded me of his great wisdom when he told me that it's not easy being green. I can relate somewhat, since I have like four or five green shirts, but I think the depth of his pain is greater than mine. Also, I don't especially feel any difficulty when I wear my green shirts--two of them are more comfortable than the rest of my shirts, actually. So maybe I don't relate to the song at all.

Still, I respect where Kermit's coming from. He's had a difficult life being green, and I do think I can learn something from that. Life isn't easy, after all, whether we're green or not, though apparently it's a little harder if you are green.

Except that I just listened to the end of the song, and it turns out that Kermit ends up wanting to be green. What a cop-out. I always cried through the first half of the song and had to turn it off because Kermit's suffering made me so sad. I feel so emotionally manipulated. Screw you, Kermit.

Only Books and Art Museums From Now On

Today, thanks to a good friend of mine, I'm considering giving up all television and movies (and some internet) for a period of 40 days. Who knows, maybe we'll stretch that out into forever. I'm so unpredictable. You never know what I'll quit and for how long.

This may seem like a horrifying and even life-threatening idea to some of you (and I'm not just talking about the Blogulator), and I can't blame you. After all, television and film represent the best of what our culture has to offer...some of the time. You may ask, what more could there be to life beyond these media? Here's what I expect to find or learn more about in my entertainment fast:
-friendship
-God
-tacos

While I considered turning this blog into a periodic journal of my televisionless life, I decided that would be boring and lame. So I present to you a sampling of what my journal may possibly look like, should I decide to do one at all, and if I would ever have posted it.

Day Four: Doing OK. Life's not that much different. I learned about the cheese chemistry in chicken tacos today, but I still don't think I'll eat chicken tacos. Somebody once asked me if I wanted a turkey taco. What were they thinking? Of course not! So I said no, and they threw it at my car.

Day Ten: Remember that episode of The Simpsons when Homer imagines his life in the woods like Thoreau? He's sitting at a lake, and he writes in his journal, "I wish I brought a TV. Oh God how I miss TV!" I don't think I laughed at that moment. It wasn't that funny. Or when he was like, "No TV and no beer make Homer something something." I guess it's not as funny when I write it down.

Day Twenty: Tried to discover the cure for AIDS today. No luck. I thought since I wasn't wasting my time in entertainment I'd have a better chance. Turns out I need to be a scientitian or something. I forget what they're called. Maybe I'll look into that whole science thing and give it another shot tomorrow.

Day Thirty-three: The government's trying to get me. I saw a white van parked outside, and I know it's them. I better slash their tires and go to Canada. Before it's too late.

Day Thirty-five: Canada is not nearly as bad as TV always said it was. I get to spend the whole day dancing in the forest and talking to the trees. One of them is pretty cute. I might ask her to marry me. I know it might seem like I'm moving too fast, but marrying a Canadian will also get the US government off my tail. Do trees count as Canadian citizens?

And Another Thing

Take your child to work day is coming up later this month. In general, I'm totally indifferent to it, as long as no one expects me to say anything to anyone less than half my age (you're OK by me, 13-year-olds). And having kids around makes it feel OK to nap at my desk.

But this year my company is planning some activities for the kids. I work for an insurance company, so you can pretty much guarantee that these activities will be boring and/or pointless. These activities include a tour of the building, practice job applications and interviews, make your own powerpoint presentation, and hip hop dance lessons.

I'm almost getting tired of doing commentary on absurd things like this. An insurance company teaching hip hop dance lessons. Oh, the white people!


Not to mention these are going to be kids--they just learned to walk four or five years ago. And may I reiterate that we're an insurance company and have no business teaching any kind of dancing, let alone the least insurance-company-y kind of dancing there is.

Worst of all, apparently the kids don't even get to use this whole go-to-work day to get a day off of school anymore. What a cop-out.

Getting the Aitch Out

Normally I'm not one to point out signs of the Apocalypse and give warnings of our impending doom, but this is too much. OK, so maybe it's not Apocalyptic, but it's enough to convince me that this country is thoroughly entrenched in a path to its own destruction. There is no way out, America. Better git up to Canada.

Why? Because apparently McCain is more popular than Obama among pet owners. A real poll was carried out, and it came in favoring McCain 42% to 37% (and 21% being too sensible to participate). Equally horrifying is the fact that Obama leads among people who do not own pets.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is what the United States' electoral system is all about. Finding obscure demographics and polling them. Once upon a time we would have elections in this country that weren't 14-month dog-and-pony shows. Remember when only wealthy, land-owning males could vote? Those were the days. Whoever gave pet owners a say in this process ought to be considered an enemy of the state.

I wonder what they'd think about this poll in Zimbabwe? Or anywhere else where pet owners don't matter because the election process is just a sham to make people think they live in a democracy? I bet all the pet owners in those places wish they could express their opinions in meaningless polls. That is, if there were any pet owners and the people weren't starving to the point where they have to eat the stray dogs, which are also starving.

So I guess I was wrong. It's not just America that's screwed, it's the whole world. But at least we're deluded enough into thinking that a poll of pet owners is an important source of information, which is a good thing, yes? I'll be counting my blessings from now on. #1: Don't have to eat starving dogs.

Independence Eve

Today we celebrate the fact that our nation's independence was declared tomorrow. This day is no different from most of the days preceding our Independence Day, as the American people tend not to do much specialy until the actual day itself. At best, this day is one of anticipation, though it's most likely not even that.

So allow me to propose that we actually start to celebrate July 3rd as a national holiday. Just as our Founding Fathers were on the verge making a bold statement to their oppressors, so we should spend our days remembering their anxiety over an upcoming war (though war had technically already begun at that point) and their bitter division against Loyalists within the Continental Congress that would soon be resolved (though the vote on declaring independence had already occurred as well, and the motion was carried) to much rejoicing.

Until the government decides that July 3rd should be a paid holiday for all citizens (and illegal immigrants, sure), let's all sleep with copies of the Declaration of Independence under our pillows and dream of impassioned, boring speeches (even though no one from the Congress was actually allowed to speak; they communicated by notes), the signing of the document (though it wasn't actually signed until August), the outraged reaction of the king (who must have received it even later than that), and the Phillies winning the World Series.