No, it’s not the “Oprah” studio audience. It’s Shark Week!

For those guys who are so unbelievably effeminate that you don’t know what Shark Week is, stop reading my blog, set down your white zinfandel, and go
look up the lyrics to some Enya songs. Fairies.

For those of you who are female, I will explain what Shark Week is, and what it means to a man.

Every summer, the Discovery Channel takes a break from its inane programming of giving trivia quizzes in a taxicab to people who were too stupid to hire
a limo, busting the myth that holding an Alka-Seltzer in your mouth while administering oral sex will make your partner squeal with anything other than
revulsion and pity-laughter, and trying their best to make grimy, illiterate fishermen seem like they are doing something adventurous with their lives
(when, in fact, we all suspect that after being out chasing their deadliest catch for about two weeks with no women, they probably start trying the
Alka-Seltzer thing on each other), and dishes up an actual MANLY series of programs that actual MEN are interested in: the fury of nature’s perfect
predator, the shark, with semi-pornographic voice-overs by Sigourney Weaver.

Why do men love sharks? Because we envy them. They eat the way we wish we could eat. They mate the way we wish we could mate. Then there is the
tiny, rudimentary, prehistoric brain. The sharks wish they had one. Like mine. Sharks are the briny equivalent of ninjas, and you KNOW how men love
ninjas. If you happen to walk into the room while the man in your life is watching Shark Week, and he is grimacing, it isn’t because he is disgusted by
what YOU perceive as a repulsive, gory, frenzy of destruction. It’s because he is practicing making a shark face to use with you later in the bedroom.

Granted, most of the videos shown during Shark Week were shot in the late 1980s and feature men with tufts of gray chest hair that are so long they stick
up out of their wetsuits against their throats, like geriatric chinterbush, but we tolerate that in order to see the sharks, man, the SHARKS!

To guys, sharks represent freedom and rebellion. Sometimes, in a fit of shark-like frustration and rage, I will gnash my teeth, thrash my head wildly from
side to side and make a noise that I think sounds like a shark*. This rarely makes the waitress bring my petite bruschetta appetizer any faster, but it does
usually make my wife agree for us to leave the antique shop/jewelry store/nail salon sooner.

Since women are not so much into sharks, they really don’t understand them. Here are some shark facts to bring you ladies up to speed:

Other fearsome creatures that a shark would beat in a fight:
Bull rhino
Bengal tiger
Ryan Seacrest

Things that a shark would say at a cocktail party:
“wrorrrrragh!”
“blubglupbuhlup”
“Does this Ryan Seacrest taste funny to you?”

Things you could make out of a shark’s extremely rough skin, if you could kill one:
Scary wallet
Ferocious underpants
Truly unpleasant condoms

So, let your man revel during this year’s Shark Week. Let him dream. Let him indulge his inner shark.

Just don’t let him near you with an Alka-Seltzer.

*According to women, it actually sounds like I am choking on bad clams.

(Just kiddin’, guys, I only put that up there because I figured your wives were reading over your shoulders right now. At this point, though, I think it’s safe to assume that she is off attending to some important cleaning behind the refrigerator, or ordering ridiculously expensive “window treatments” (what you and I call “bed sheets”), so we can now talk openly.)

Don’t get me wrong, I love women, but there is a sure-fire indicator that a wife has driven her husband totally nuts: he starts sentences by saying “Don’t get me wrong, I love women, but…”

As far as I can tell, there are only two problems with marriage:

1. There are too many women involved.
2. Those women are reluctant to wear the sexy Little Bo Peep costume that you rented from “Whores D’Oeuvres”.

Mickey seems to have a big problem with the fact that wives can become ex-wives, at which point it costs you half of your hard-earned money. But when you consider that women make up over half of the work force, half of every penny that you currently earn and spend goes straight to them anyway. The women then spend that money on purchases from diet and fitness infomercials featuring Suzanne Somers. The difference appears to be that when you hand your money to a cashier (or waitress, or stripper), you get satisfying goods and/or services in return; whereas, when you hand your money to your ex-wife, you get stories about how her new boyfriend Todd managed to convince her finally to try anal sex, and now she can’t get enough of it.

As far as grounds for divorce goes, Florida appropriately treats it like car insurance: we’re a no-fault state. We should thank God for this, guys, because, in other states, your wife can divorce you for using the ice dispenser while Grey’s Anatomy is on, or for not refilling the potpourri containers in a timely manner. In those states, YOU, an innocent bystander in your marriage, can have the blame placed squarely on your shoulders for not seeing mediocre, quarterly sex as sufficient motive to get out of bed at 3am to check the house, because your wife dreamed that lawn maintenance workers had invaded the living room and were putting their muddy feet up on the chaise lounge while smoking cigars with no ashtrays.

Mickey’s vision also contains a crapload of paperwork. I hate paperwork more than you will someday hate Todd.
I went paperless in 1998 and, apart from some bathroom scenarios that I’m still working on, it has been smooth sailing ever since.
My solution is simple: don’t get married by a minister with a bible, get married by a judge with a video camera. This way, if there is ever any question about what the expectations were going in, you can just call up the judge and say “Your Honor, did she or did she not agree that it is perfectly allowable for me to throw my boxer-briefs NEAR the hamper, not necessarily IN the hamper?”
Case closed.

My best advice to you guys is to wait before getting married. This means two things: you should wait until later in life, when your schedule is not so much driven by which Playstation games were released that week; and that ,you should wait until later in your relationship with a woman before deciding to get married. Remember, every day that you are with her and DON’T get married is another day that you have at least a CHANCE of saying or doing something right for once; a day that you have at least a CHANCE to convince her that a threesome with the hot, busty receptionist at her office would really be a treat for HER; a day that you have at least a CHANCE of discovering a reason that you two should go ahead and break up now, while it’s still free.

I’m going to let you guys figure out the rest on your own. I’ll be over here hacking Todd’s Facebook to make fictitious posts saying how much he likes little boys. And lawn maintenance workers.

…I was awakened from my idyllic vision by that sound that every married man has come to dread: the crisp rustle of parchment as my wife unfurled her “Spring Cleaning Chores” scroll that she had painstakingly compiled all winter while I was snoring in my cave accumulating body fat and trying not to expend a calorie.

She was already dressed in her combat fatigues as I groggily pulled on my sweatpants, the sweet smell of sizzling pork and smeared lipstick from my dream now just a mournful memory.

I have to give her credit. She never shrinks from taking on the toughest jobs first. This year, the festivities began with The Biggie: cleaning out the two-car garage. Or, as she calls it, written in calligraphy on her scroll, “Operation: Get Rid of All of J’s Unused Athletic Equipment And His Beloved Technical Books That Are Too Ugly To Display in our Luxuriously Appointed Living Space Because They Were Not Written By Oprah Book-Club Favorite Nicholas Sparks, So We Can Make Room to Store More Bins of Scrapbooking Supplies”.

As I surveyed the vast expanse of crap we’ve accumulated over the past year, I realized that, even though it was piled from floor to ceiling, it was nonetheless still organized. Near the front was the “paint brushes that never got washed out and two thousand screwdrivers, not a single one of which is Phillips-head” pile, the stack of “unworn women’s shoes that were on sale but don’t match any outfits made since 1989″ and the continuously-growing area for “Things Made with Green Tea”.

Little Known Female Consumer Fact: Women will pay extra for any product, including motor oil and nasal spray, if it contains Green Tea Extract or Cucumber Oil.

Off to one side, I uncovered what I thought might be the parts for building a dog house or small wooden shed. Plywood, metal, tools…but I knew we had never planned to build a dog house because we spend most of our monthly gasoline budget in driving our stoopit yappy daschunds out into the wilderness, dropping them off, and hoping they will learn to forage, instead of always finding their way back to our house and pooping on our welcome mat to show their displeasure. Finally, I realized what this pile of construction materials was, which leads us to:

Widely Known Teenaged Son Fact: Any object, regardless of shape, size, construction, monetary or sentimental value, that gets relegated to the garage for more than three days will immediately be fashioned into some sort of skateboard ramp. My last “yard sale” was a disaster, mainly because nobody is interested in purchasing things like a bust of Voltaire with a sheet of plywood nailed to his head.

So, I lifted and carried and stacked and sweated and cried and swept and boxed and whined and loaded and smoked and drove to and from the dump, all day long and well into the night.

Finally, exhausted and covered with sticky patches from where the paramedics had applied the EKG sensors after I had tried to lift a box marked “Don’t ask J to lift this”, I stood back and surveyed my handiwork, satisfied with the knowledge of a job well-done.

And also with the knowledge that there is still no way in hell that we will ever be able to fit even ONE car inside that %*#?@! garage.

Well, don’t YOU look foolish now.

For some reason, I could never quite get the hang of talking dirty during sex. While some guys can be quite comfortable ordering their sexual partners to “Take it like a dirty whore! I’m gonna rip you to shreds!”, the nastiest thing I have ever managed to say to the Mrs. was “I hope this is equally unpleasant for YOU!”.

Once, when she was out of town on business, we decided to try having cyber-sex chat on our computers. I sucked at it, because of my tendency to always crack jokes at exactly the wrong moments:

[SomaCowJ]: Oh, baby…yes, baby…do it just like that…a Priest and a Rabbi walk into a bar…
[MrsSomaCowJ]: gah

So, I turned to my good, good friends Geoff and Mickey for some guidance on this topic, and asked them for their best dirty-talk lines.

(You know how, in cheesy horror movies, everybody in the WORLD except for the stupid person on-screen knows that it would be a terrible idea to open that closet door, because there will undoubtedly be an axe-weilding homicidal maniac inside? I was like that stupid person.)

Geoff, having control issues, is very demanding in his budoir babble: “You dirty girl, I’m going to f…why is there no coffee ready?! I’m risking a heart attack to give you mediocre sex, and you can’t even have a pot of WaWa brewing for afterward? Put a dollar in the jar! UHHNNNGH! Whew! Ok, I’m done. That was GREAT!”

Mickey was little help, since the only time he talks to people is while we’re recording the show: “Oh, baby, you are like a cascading style sheet that functions perfectly across multiple websites without debugging”. Yeah, I wish I could help him.

On a related note, I was recently researching my family tree, and was quite surprised to discover that several of my great-great grandparents had been porn stars in the late 1800s and early 1900s. I was able to track down some of the “dialog” from these early attempts at silent moving-pictures which CLEARLY demonstrate that my dirty-talk deficiency is genetic. Keep in mind that the language in these films was considered a vile and filthy obscenity in its day:

Yeah. That explains THAT.

If you have any ideas to help me improve my pillow talk, please let me know.

Until then I’ll be boning up on my Priest and Rabbi jokes, as it were.

By “streamlined” I mean that we don’t actually bother to count a lot of the votes, resulting in fewer tax dollars being wasted on luxuries such as accurate election results. I am certainly no political pundit, but I suspect that part of the problem with the voting system here in Florida may be due to the fact that most of our election officials, as well as election day volunteers, appear to be employed by bait shops during the rest of the year.

So, today I joined the ranks of Americans who gather, once every four years, to engage in that uniquely American pastime of voting on important government offices and issues that we know nothing about.

Fortunately, the media, and crowds of overzealous patriots at the voting locations, are quite happy to educate you on the issues under consideration, via the techniques of mindless speculation and blatant lies.

You can easily spot the McCain propagandists by the dollar sign insignias on their chauffeurs and the filigreed chains on their eelskin wallets. They also frequently wear t-shirts printed with pictures of themselves. They quickly informed me that I should vote for Senator John McCain for President, rather than a candidate who, they say, is known to enjoy poking babies in the eye and pushing old people down stairs, due to lack of political experience. How they say this with a straight face is beyond me, although I suspect that their faces have been pretty much straight since birth. I decided to test this hypothesis by seeing how one of these wild-eyed morality-dictators responded to a simple joke:

Me: Do you know the difference between Sarah Palin and an auto mechanic?
Rich, white McCain supporter: I’ll make sure you are never allowed to wear a thong in the privacy of your own back yard ever again. Or have sex in your bedroom with the lights on.
Me: No! It’s “dipstick”!

Well, so much for that.

The Obama supporters were just as fervent, if a little less stodgy. They merely accused McCain of having harvested the organs for his last five personal transplants from unborn fetuses, ripped from the wombs of middle-class mothers. Then they sang a medley of Barbara Streisand songs. Badly.

But, armed with my driver’s license, since my voter registration card is probably tied up in some kind of bureaucratic bait shop red tape, I strode confidently up to the “Our Lady of Iniquity Catholic Church and Spa” (the voting location for my precinct) and proceeded about the task set forth by our founding fathers: finding out where the refreshments were located. After failing to locate any orange juice, fruit punch or cookies, it occurred to me that I MIGHT have confused voting with giving blood. The two processes are similar in that when you’re finished with either, you’re a little bit pale, sort of dizzy and you try to get out of work for the rest of the day.

But I got through it. I cast my secret and sacred ballot for the individuals and issues of my choice. I even voted for one constitutional amendment that was particularly trickily worded:

“Do you support the reversal of restrictions preventing the legislature from lifting the ban on allowing the negation of existing prohibitions of re-instating the policy of not allowing the State to decline recognition of currently rescinded vetos of the law supporting the denial of applications for coastal easements?”

Knowing me, do you think I voted for or against this amendment?

Yeah, I couldn’t tell, either.

How to describe Kingdom of Loathing? It’s an adventure game, to be sure, but it is a “minimalist” adventure game. No sounds. No animation. No “Gore Level” settings. No warning that it might induce an epileptic seizure from flashy-lights. You just click on things to do, or places to go, and you are presented with a description of the results, along with a picture of what happened. Well, “picture” is not exactly the right word. More like “sketch”. No. More like “Etch-a-Sketch”.

“ZOMG, J, that sounds more boring than that time you blogged about your trip to Mitten World!”, you may be saying. But, as usual, you would be wrong.

Don’t let the simplicity fool you. This is probably the most clever and creative game since “Victoria’s Secret: The Stubborn Understains”. The characters are funny. The weapons and armor are funny. The places are funny. I guarantee that you, the player, will be the only possible unfunny aspect of the whole experience.

Let me give you an example of how a mighty battle might take place.

Let’s say that you have combined your “Fortune 500 Cookie” with a “Glorioski” in order to create the “Fortune and Glory”, an object which allows you to pass through the “Glory Hole” into the “Unsanitary Toilet Stall”. You are armed with the mighty sword “Formercalibur” and wish to engage in combat with the “Flagrant Homosexual”:

“A garishly-clad man with a hypnotic ascot leaps guiltily up at your approach. He draws his Meat Sword, but you counter with your Sly Wink spell. You have vanquished the fairy, but the aroma from the toilet does not promise treasure. It promises a prescription for antibiotics in your immediate future. You gain 2 GayBashiness.”

What could be more fun than that?!

I was a little frustrated, at first, that I played and played and played and could not progress above level three. But, then Mickey pointed out that what I was playing was actuallythe instructions for the game, so that was my fault, really.

Try KoL out for yourself. I promise you’ll love it.

And if not, you can kiss my “Glistening Mushroom Cap of Swollenness”.

As we all pull together the shattered remnants of our lives in the wake of the carnage and destruction wrought by TropiCane Fay, I look back and see how I could have better prepared to withstand Mother Nature’s onslaught. Though the misadventures I report below may be nerve-shattering, I hope that they might help you fare better than I did through future stormy disasters.

• Ensure that all playing cards are stored securely in their cases! I overlooked this obvious preparation, and stood helpless as I watched several cards whisked away by the fierce winds. I now face the reality of enduring whatever may come, in the form of nature’s fury, bereft of the Six of Clubs and the Jack of Diamonds.
  How the hell am I supposed to play Texas Hold’em with no Six of Clubs or Jack of Diamonds?!
• The floor lamp on my patio will never again shed its warm, comforting light on me.
  At least, not until I replace the bulb that was shattered when the lamp tipped over and smacked against the side of the house.
• At one point, my son opened the French doors in order to check on the unspent fury of the storm. Though the doors were only open for a brief moment, it was still long enough to blow the pages of my desk calendar ahead by four days. Those are four days of my life that I will never get back.
• Why, oh why, did I not bring inside the People magazine with Christina Applegate on the cover.
  Now, her beautiful face is blurred by the pelting rain, and the cologne sample cards inside are of no use to anyone.
• Our beloved family pets, dachshunds Blitzen and Riley, whom we now lovingly keep outside because they lovingly pissed all over the carpet when we had them inside, may never be the same. Long-haired Blitzen was slightly dampened, resulting in an unsightly matted ear, while Riley was devastated by the loss of part of an old trash bag that he had been chewing on. Lovingly.
• The coupon, left on my front door by Mama Mental Pizza, is no more. The anguish of that missed opportunity is unbearable.
  Maybe we could order Chinese. See? Already I am looking bravely to the future.
• The little red plastic flag on my mailbox was blown from the up position to the down position, despite the fact that I have outgoing mail.
  How will I communicate with the outside world?!
• At one point, as I endured the fierce gales, my hair moved.
  I have no words.

PS: Does anyone have instructions on exactly how to go about unhunkering down?

For example, people who really enjoy Scrabble should never be trusted to place a 911 call:

911 Operator: Nine-one-one operator, what is your emergency?
Scrabble Whiz: Incipient recalcitrants have acquired perfunctory ingress to our zayat!
911 Operator: I’m sorry, I am not authorized to dispatch emergency personnel in order to provide a triple word score.

On the other hand, if your girlfriend is out partying with her hoes and needs a ride home, there is nobody safer than a guy who is interested in LARPing (Live Action Role-Playing, with fake swords and armor and stuff), since he will spend the entire drive talking about his hand-sewn leather gauntlets instead of trying to feel up the carload of drunk chicks.

We here at SomaCow have our own preferred games, too. Of course, our favorite is the “Fire J” game, in which, oddly enough, I actually hold the high score.

Geoff, being the cerebral type, likes a mentally-stimulating challenge. His game of choice is the “Rubik’s Cube”. He even had one custom made, complete with Scratch-n-Sniff technology, and regularly astounds us by solving it in record time (clicky each pic-y):

Mickey, of course, is a more “hands-on” kind of guy. It should come as no surprise that he is a big fan of the game “Twister”, although he puts his own personal spin* on it:

Me? I like the classics. No, not chess or card games. More like “Ker Plunk”, “Don’t Break the Ice” and “Ants in the Pants”. But, for bringing out the artist in me, only one thing will do:

*Spin! Ha! Twister! Ok, that’s not funny.

Don’t get me wrong, the hosts and staff here are great, as far as that goes. They just aren’t well-acquainted with ego boosting. Rarely have I arrived at the studio to hear Mickey say “Have you been working out?”, primarily because I have not been working out. But that is not the point. Would it KILL Geoff to throw out a little ass compliment from time to time? Nothing earth-shattering, just a “You know J, I could walk behind you all day without getting bored” or something.

Well, an organization that DOES know how to toot a man’s horn is Playgirl (”Want to connect? We’re semi-erect!”). And I am immense and proud to announce that Playgirl has selected me as their “Man of the Month” for August of 2008.

Hurry and go download a bunch of different web browsers until you find one that will show you the picture below without screwing up the whole WordPress blog page, including our archives on the off-line servers.

Click the picture for a more biggerly picture.

But they…it’s just…they can’t…they always have to…

WHY CAN’T THEY MAKE UP THEIR FREAKIN’ MINDS?!

So, you buy a house. By which I mean you visit every one of the 1,800 model homes in your area, pretending to be interested when the woman says “I love the vaulted dormer soffits” or “this would make a perfect breakfast nook!”. Look, I’m a man, I have no idea what a “breakfast nook” is. It sounds like a kind of English Muffin.

Then, you move all your furniture and crap in, which is a seven-week process, during which you nearly lose a finger in the footrest of the recliner and, even if you never set foot in the attic, you somehow always wind up with fiberglass insulation in your hair. The point is that you haul your years of accumulated “treasures” into your brand new house. Then, exhausted and most likely bleeding, you collapse onto the chaise lounge (for which the cushions have not yet arrived) and you think to yourself “Finally this is over!”.

Ha! You are a foolish little man.

Why? Because, what is the very next thing the woman in your life wants to do?

“Christen” the house by having sex in each and every room, including the closets, pantry, attic, garage and various crawlspaces in the ceiling?

No.

She wants to redecorate and remodel!

You can plan on spending every Sunday for the rest of your life moving furniture in a circular pattern around each room, until it finally winds up back where it was to begin with. The tons of furniture that you moved in by hand will, of course, immediately need to be replaced with more expensive furniture because your college beanbag chair “looks ratty next to the elegant armoire”. Hey! When we loaded up the trucks, there WAS no armoire. Suddenly, one has appeared, complete with knick-knacks (which she will now complain about having to dust). Men don’t have knick-knacks! We have old copies of Playboy! I have never dusted mine once and they are just fine!

Now that you’re $24,000 in debt with “The Home Furnishing Decor Salon Parlor and Bistro”, you can finally relax and enjoy your new home, right?

Seriously? You’re going to fall for that again?

No, now you have to open an account at “The House-Fixing Depot” because the “perfect love nest” that SHE chose has inexplicably become a “fixer-upper”. Dammit, woman! The house is only eleven hours old!

I just don’t know how to cope with the standard female trait of never, ever being satisfied with anything they have.

You want to know what I would do? You want to see my idea of “redecorating”? Do ya?!

This is a diagram outlining the most convoluted redecorating plan I could POSSIBLY ever concoct, even after twelve beers (click the pic for full-sized image):

A man’s man; a guy; a d00d.

As such, I am cursed with a very simple, rudimentary brain, a very short attention span and a trouser-dwelling companion who thinks he’s running the whole show from down there.

I’m not complaining, exactly. Most of us men eventually learn to adapt to these limitations. It becomes second nature, like parallel parking or being able to kill a spider without standing on a chair screaming. Or not caring when people at the mall catch us scratching our junk.

But it sure would help us out in the bedroom if you ladies could see your way clear to not complicating matters for us.

I’m talking about your G-spot.

Where the hell do you women keep your freakin’ G-spots?!?!

Do you always bring them along, or do you sometimes leave them in your purse? I have personally found the legendary Holy Grail four times already (including once in a castle in England and once in a Sharper Image store), and I can tell you where Waldo is in an instant (he’s usually behind the concession stand), but locating the apparently migratory G-spot is usually way tougher. Is there any adequate device for achoring the G-spot into position? Having to chase one around the living room during foreplay is not very romantic.

Maybe you sometimes forget to provide a G-spot, and are then too embarrassed to mention this to your partner. Have you ever locked your G-spot in your car? Did you have to call Triple A? Triple G?

I have no idea what proper “G-spot etiquette” is. Is it poor etiquette to be the only partner having a G-spot? My Mom always used to say “If you didn’t bring enough G-spots for EVERYbody…”

If we go out to dinner first, do you expect me to open your G-spot for you, check your G-spot with the coat attendant, or pull out your G-spot for you as we’re being seated? A tiny little clue would be nice.

I think you women perpetuate these mysteries as just another tool in your “Convince Men That They are Inferior” toolbox, which I find highly unfair. Men will give YOU a four-page, double-spaced script, with notes in the margins, diagrams AND a PowerPoint presentation describing EXACTLY what we like, what we want you to touch, and PRECISELY where it is located. We leave nothing to chance. We don’t ask you to guess. I think this is very generous of us.

So, if you would like us to be your knights in shining armor in the bedroom, a trail of breadcrumbs leading to YOUR own personal Holey Grail would be very much appreciated. Or a trail of tater tots. Or Fritos. And bring some dip too, please. And some beer. In fact, let’s just go out to the sports bar.

Umm…what were we talking about?

I repeat:

WTF?! (This will become a recurring theme in this post)

I got mail this week from freakin’ AARP (formerly the American Association of Retired Persons).

WTF?!

AARP is for old people. People like Senator John McCain and my Mom. And Ted Danson. It says, right in their mission statement, that AARP is “delivering value to people age 50 and over through information, advocacy and service.”

WTF?! I’m nowhere NEAR 50!

I’m in my thirties. Ok, I’m in my extreeeemely late thirties, like, thirty-twelve, or something. Still, they have totally jumped the gun on this. I don’t need to know about retirement communities in my area. I have no need for colonoscopy coupons. I couldn’t care less which restaurants serve dinner at 3pm. I have no idea what a “truss” is.

WTF?!

I can clearly demonstrate that I am still too young and cool to be contacted by AARP, for the following reasons:

• I am down with the hippity-hop music.
• On the dance floor, I can still bust out a mean “Cabbage Patch”.
• I know who Milly Cyrus is.

Although, to be fair, I can also think of some reasons why I might SEEM old enough for AARP membership:

• I have received four traffic tickets for driving 10mph, or more, below the posted speed minimum.
• I used to be able to drink a 12-pack of beer before having to pee. Then, a few years later, I could only make it through a 6-pack before “breaking the seal”. Nowadays, it seems like I have to go after each mouthful, and I have, on two occasions, actually consumed beer while standing at the urinal.
• I also have to stand closer and closer to the urinal each year. Shut up.

So, a big SomaCow EFF YEW! to AARP, and to anyone else who thinks I’m old.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to slip into some support hose and enjoy an evening with a good, vintage bottle of Phillips Milk of Magnesia.

WTF?!

I don’t mean just common sense education, like teaching them not to eat what looks like a giant Sweet-Tart that’s freshening the toilet bowl, or to stop petting the puppy’s tummy if its “belly button” starts to poke out. I’m talking about real life education about the harsh and terrible world around them. How will they cope with all the hate in the world, and still become successful in their lives? It’s up to you, Mom and Dad.

So, the first books you choose for your newborn can make the difference between your child growing up to be a doctor, astronaut or engineer, and growing up to be a rodeo clown, truck stop shower stall cleaner or lawyer.

I went shopping for books for the little ones in my life, and found a few that I may recommend to Geoff and Jen for the SomaCalf. I include some excerpts below, to help you decide which books are best for YOUR little genius:

My First Book of the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Junior
“See the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Junior.
The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Junior is a good man.
The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Junior is a smart man.
The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Junior likes to help people.
Oh, oh! Here comes Whitey!
Whitey is not a good man.
Whitey is not a smart man.
Whitey likes to keep people down.
Bang, bang, goes Whitey!
Down, down, goes the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Junior.
Now everyone is sad.
Jesse Jackson is extra, extra sad.
Don’t be like Whitey!”

Children’s Dietary Health
“Spaghetti is good. It can make you happy!
Pizza is good. It can make you strong!
Cheeseburgers are good. They can make you run fast!
Asparagus is garbage. If Mommy and Daddy make you eat
asparagus, you have been bad. Bad, bad, bad!
Brussels sprouts are a punishment sent from the really mean man
who is in charge of Hell.
If you have to eat squash, try to throw up right after.”

The Impact of the Petroleum Industry on World Economics, 2nd edition
“Vroom, vroom, go the trucks! Beep, beep go the cars!
Slurp, slurp go the SUVs! Sputter, sputter go the hybrid engines!
Which would you like to play with today?
Better decide fast, because little Timmy el-Had has all the oil,
and he doesn’t like to share. He will make you give him your
best Hot Wheels car AND your iPod for enough oil to make two drops of gasoline for your toys. Timmy el-Had laughs at you when you give him everything he asks for. Sometimes, when people are mean, you have to go into their country and blow them up. But make sure Mommy and Daddy give you a viable exit strategy.”

Sociology in the 21st Century
“Today I visited my neighbors, Sherman and Nate. Sherman is a nice man. He lets me pet his dog. Nate is a nice man, too. He makes good cookies. Sherman and Nate like to practice wrestling all the time. Sometimes I can hear them next door, practicing and practicing. They must be very good wrestlers! They have many pictures on their walls of other wrestlers. Mommy loves Sherman and Nate. She thinks they are very funny. Sometimes, she drinks wine with them. Daddy does not like Sherman and Nate. He calls the police many times when Sherman and Nate go out into their swimming pool to wrestle. Sherman and Nate have a nickname for my Daddy. They call him “Breeder Home Phone”, or something like that. This makes Sherman and Nate laugh and laugh, but it makes Daddy’s face get all red, and he whispers something back to Sherman and Nate that I never get to hear. Then Sherman and Nate go back into their house and wrestle extra loud. Hmmm. Maybe my Daddy is really their wrestling coach!”

MP3 Streaming Over the Internet (with applications)
“I love songs! Do you like songs?
Some songs make me dance. Some songs make me sing.
Sometimes, I need a special song to be played at a certain time.
But when I go to The Hopper, it does not have any songs for me.
‘Oh, Mickey!’, I cry, ‘there are no songs in The Hopper for me!’
‘Just a second, I am looking at a boobie!’ says Mickey.
‘Ha ha ha’, I think to myself, because I know that Mickey is really
looking at Charlie Sheen memorabilia on eBay.”

Obviously, nobody wants to be there. Normally it means that a loved-one is suffering, and you sit surrounded by other people suffering. That’s why I always try to make the best of a bad situation and liven things up a bit. By following my tips below, you too can turn a dull, uncomfortable, interminable E.R. wait into a dull, uncomfortable, interminable E.R. wait where everybody stares at you like you just consummated your gay marriage on the gurney by the entrance.

Strangers are just friends you haven’t annoyed yet. I like to go around to each adult and ask them if they have change for a hundred dollar bill. If someone does, I stare at them with squinty eyes for a few seconds too long, then say loudly “I THOUGHT you would!”, pretend to write down something on the back of my visitor pass, and leave without exchanging any money. This doesn’t happen very often, of course, because rich people don’t wait around emergency rooms. They merely purchase new limbs/organs and have them installed at the salon. The people whom you usually find in E.R. waiting rooms are more likely to be wearing ratty houseshoes and beads in their beards. Even the men.

2. Make friends with the security staff early

These guys can make or break your visit, so it’s important to establish a rapport with them as soon as you walk in. I usually pucker up when they take the picture for my visitor pass, so they know that I am a fun-loving jokester. These guys don’t carry weapons, but at the hospital I went to they each had a can of antiseptic hand-foam in their holsters, which they made everyone use before they could go back to the actual emergency rooms. If a crack-crazed addict were to run amok and attack us while we waited, at least we would all die with nasty-smelling, germ-free hands.

3. Helpliness is next to Godliness

Once you finally make it back to the room where your loved one is stretched naked on a table, except for their socks, with the curtains wide open, be sure to offer any assistance necessary to the E.R. doctors and nurses. I try to speak their language, to let them know that I am on their side, by saying things like “If it’s a subdural hemoglobin infarction, we’re gonna sue you for every penny you’ll ever make for letting him lie here naked, except for his socks, with the curtains wide open for 14 hours”. I also offer to hand them anything they need during their examinations, mostly because I like to check out all the cool hospital shit they have in those unlocked cabinets. Will an arm-sling help reduce my loved one’s blood loss? Probably not, but you can also wear it around your waist and put one leg behind you in the sling and pretend to be a one-legged pirate. I have forgotten for the moment how this was supposed to be helpful.

So, as you can see, the Emergency Room need not be a tedious, dreary place.

And, it’s very convenient, since you’ll need to be treated there yourself after the foam-squirting guards get through with you.

Being well-versed in the ways of child-rearing (which is the creepiest parenting term ever invented) as a result of raising the twenty-eight kids in my house (including the eight Vietnamese kids), it is only natural that Geoff would come to me for advice for the new Dad. What is not natural, is that he now calls me every three hours, including 1, 4, and 7 am. I don’t mind the 1am and 7am so much, because I’m up at those hours anyway, watching “Matlock”.

Don’t get me wrong. Geoff will make a fine father. It just takes a little bit of breaking in, at first.

One of the most

*brrrrring*

Oh, hang on. Geoff is calling me right now.

Me: Yello?
Geoff: Hey, J.
Me: What’s up, d00d?
Geoff: Oh, nothing. I’m just wondering…I’ve tried several different farming implements, and she can’t seem to operate any of them.
Me: Maybe a rattle or stuffed toy would be more appropriate for, say, the first six months?
Geoff: Ok, thanks. *click*

You’ve got to give him credit. He tries so hard.

But I was going to say that one of the most important things about

*brrrrring*

Hang on…

Me: Yo.
Geoff: Hey, J.
Me: What’s going on?
Geoff: Chunky peanut butter, or smooth?
Me: No peanut butter, Geoff. No peanut butter at all.
Geoff: Ok, thanks. *click*

Ha! He’ll get the hang of it, don’t worry.

And along the way, he will learn that one of the most important things about being a father is to always

*brrrrring*

BRB…

Me: What up?
Geoff: Hey, J.
Me: Whatcha got, man?
Geoff: Well, is there any situation in which sparks should be shooting out of the baby’s rect*click*

I gotta go.

But, sometimes, my mouth works faster than my brain.

This has happened to me many times in my life, and I am unclear on why I haven’t been shot yet.

About an hour ago, I was driving to the grocery store. I’m in the left lane, and a big-ass pick-um-up truck pulls up behind me, riding my car’s ass.
I look down and see that I’m doing 50 in a 40. I can’t get into the right lane without speeding up even more to get ahead of those cars,
and given my recent traffic citation issues, I am loathe to do that, so I stay where I am.

I miiiiiiiight have even slowed down just a tiny bit.

So the guy continues riding my ass. I turn left at the light.
He turns left at the light.
I turn into the grocery store. He turns into the grocery store.
I pull up into a parking space. He pulls up behind me.

I get out of the car, pretending that I don’t see him, and that I haven’t been watching him the whole trip.

He rolls down his window, and says “If you wanna drive slow, you need to do it in the right lane.”

Helpful, informative, succinct.

But then I say to the guy “d00d, I was doin’ 50 in a 40. If you need to go faster than that, you might need to choose an alternate route.”

He starts to say “You ain’t…”, but I interrupt.

“In fact”, I say, “I’ll even find another route FOR you”, and whip out my cellphone, flicking it open and pretending that I have GPS and am pressing buttons.

I say “Yes, here it is, right here. It says…you can go to hell.”

I flick my phone shut and walk into the store.

True story.
WTF is wrong with me?

It’s not that I can’t muster a thought, it’s that I muster eighty thousand thoughts at the same time. I blame my ADD. ADD is widely why dont i ever see any fireflies in florida misunderstood, so, in an effort to increase your awareness of my affliction, I have recorded the entire, UNEDITED thought process I went through i dont understand why guys want women to shave down there its like a built in bib in writing this blog. Think of it as a trip into my mind, except without beverage service. And no that guy on that sitcom looks exactly like i picture mel gibsons dad would look concierge.

TV or not TV, that is the question

I don’t watch TV much anymore. I don’t yeah baby take it oprah take it have time for it. How can I sit there and stare chickens have really scary feet where did i hear that at the TV for a couple of hours at a time when I have so much to do? I have my Invasion of Grenada Re-enactment Club meetings to attend, people krispee chrispy krisspea krispy chrispee to correct on the internet, and I have started seeing a speech pathologist in order to learn how to roll my Rs youre from south fucking carolina stop trying to sound fancy british or gay by saying everything in meters instead of feet.

Plus, it’s a big pain was i married dora the show where dora was a witch or was she the latino housekeeper in the ass. I have three Universal remotes. One for the TV, one for the DVR and one for the DVD player. Why? yeah baby take it charo take it I don’t know why. Apparently “universal” means “versed in operating one unit” avoirdupois.

There are so few new shows that entertain me. i hate those white tube socks with colored stripes around the top they are made out of zigzaggy material how do they do that Everything is a reality show these days, from “So You Think You Can Farm?” to “America’s Next Top Mime” to “Whittlin’ With the Stars”. I don’t like game shows, and gambolPUDDY gambolPUDDY gambolPUDDY I flat out refuse to watch any show with an ampersand in its title, so there goes Rob & Big, Will & Grace, Hope & Faith, Dharma & Greg and Sex & The City (which doesn’t really have an ampersand, but if I pretend that it does then I don’t have to watch Sarah Jessica Parker’s unfortunate facial tragedy). yeah baby take it mrs cleaver take it

Reruns of the older shows holy shit i thought that was a spider that I did like are never on when I can see them. And my DVR is full, so I can’t record them. We have, i wish i could paint as well as wile e coyote so i could paint a mural of a tunnel that looked so real that people would try to walk into it and smack their faces against the wall like, 500Gb of surgery shows, baby shows, wedding shows and home improvement shows starring hot gay carpenters, so there’s no room for me to record “Columbo” or “Whose Line Is It Anyway?”.

So, I guess I just hang out on the interwebs with you guys. and maybe they were running really fast when they smacked their face into the wall and they collapsed flat and then slid down the wall and then stood up and when they walked away their body went up and down like an accordion

As long as you let ME hold the universal remote. yeah baby take it Sharon Puckett former wftv news anchorwoman in nashville back in the 80s take it

That’s right, this past weekend we gathered all the loose change out of our sofa and hit the long, thin parking lot that is Interstate 4, bound for the fabulous Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Tampa.

If you’ve never been to a Hard Rock property before, it’s like going to a rock concert and somebody decides “Hey! We should build a hotel here and never stop partying!”. And then somebody else yells “Yeah! And we could get the Seminole Indian tribe to run it for us!”. And then everybody kind of mopes around because cheap cigarette prices are not enough incentive to hang out with Indians for any length of time.

But there is music everywhere! Even song lyrics posted around the hotel. Like, when you pull up out front, huge block letters proclaim “Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends… – Emerson, Lake & Palmer“. And over the the front lobby exit doors it says “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave. – The Eagles“. And on the movie-ordering screen on the TV in the room it says “We’re sorry, but you have reached the daily limit for ordering porn. – The Management“.

One thing that was really cool, to me, was the display they had of actual costumes worn onstage by KISS. You cannot consider yourself a real “player” until you have come face to face with the stains on Gene Simmons’ codpiece.

We gambled until five o’clock in the morning, primarily playing the Tabasco videoslot machines. Imagine the electric excitement of putting money into a flashing, beeping, throbbing slot machine, pressing the “Bet Max” button, waiting five seconds, and then doing it all over again! I can finally understand how people get addicted to gambling.

Speaking of which, the casino very responsibly offers a “Self-exclusion program”. This allows people with gambling addiction issues to say “I am unable to control myself, please do not allow me to gamble at your facility”. Then, if you try to gamble there anyway, armed security guards gently and respectfully escort you away from the gaming tables and shove your face in Gene Simmons’ crotch. The program has a 100% success rate.

The hotel also houses “Floyd’s Nightclub”, one of the most popular hot-spots in all of southeast Tampa. You can tell how good a nightclub is by the number of women’s nipples you get to see during your visit. I stopped counting at twenty-three, although I assume there must have been a twenty-fourth nipple that I was too drunk to notice, otherwise somebody there was a freak of nature. Most of the girls at the club must have been professional gambling instructors, because they would leave with a guy, then come back about thirty minutes later with a whole bunch of the guys’ money, and the guys seemed very happy. I think it’s very decent of these ladies to try to help out such obvious beginners.

The dining was excellent, if a little pricey. Dinner for two at the seafood buffet was seventy bucks, plus gratuity, but that was still less than the cost of the King Size Snickers I got from the mini-bar fridge in our room.

Would I recommend the fabulous Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Tampa to you, dizzy reader?

Oh HELL yeah.

I think the “gambling lessons” alone would be worth it.

10. Finding out the name of that chick who was in that movie with that guy who was in that other movie with that other guy.

9. Correcting people who say “your” when they really mean “you’re”.

8. Finding the “Schnitzel Hut” location nearest you.

7. Getting really good deals on Viagra, Home Mortgage refinances and Viagra.

6. Purchasing a radish on eBay that looks just like Howey Mandel.

5. Getting rid of pesky acquaintances by forwarding them 1,800 emails that threaten to render them impotent, homeless and audited by the IRS if they break the chain by not forwarding them to 10 friends by midnight tonight.

4. Ordering the GREATEST consumer product EVER invented: Mighty Putty!

3. Using Google Maps to look up the exact spot where you lost your virginity:

2. Watching/Listening to SomaCow, live on Sundays from 2-5pm eastern, podcast on M-W-F.

And the number one Most Valuable Use for the Internet OTHER Than Porn:

1. Finding pictures of nudist camps, birthing videos, bra and girdle catalogs, breast augmentation before and after pictures, topless feminist protests and animal husbandry videos that, technically, are NOT porn.

10. Dolly Parton’s Dixie Stampede

9. Kelp, Kelp, Kelp!

8. Sinkholes of the Rich and Famous

7. The Central Florida Dermatologist’s Association art exhibit: The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World Modeled Out of Peeled Sunburned Skin (May 19th – 25th at Regent’s Hall)

6. Sandal World (merging soon with “White Sock World”)

5. Confederate Flag Mart (next door to ‘Splodin’ Stuff fireworks stand)

4. Central Florida Zoo Exotic Animals Pavilion (this month’s exotic animal: Weiner Dogs, Canines of Mystery)

3. ‘Possum Junction

2. Ted Bundy Memorial Park & Petting Zoo

And the number one Worst Central Florida Tourist Attraction:

1. Sweaty City Aroma Experience

I love the piña colada scented suntan lotion on drooping, bronzed grandmothers; I love the lycanthropically hairy  European men in their mini-Speedos; I love the snowcones.

Ok, mostly I love the snowcones.

We had a family outing at the beach this past weekend. Despite my recent weight loss and increased fitness, I still found myself trudging through the white-hot sand with feet that felt like calloused snowshoes. If I lived at the beach, my daily exercise regimen would consist of carrying a towel to the edge of the water
and back to the house. I figure I would lose around nine pounds per day. And it would have to be a very light towel.

Everyone except me experienced second-degree sunburns, because women, in particular, can’t be bothered to apply any more sunscreen than it takes to make them smell like a delicious tropical beverage. I, on the other hand, spent roughly an hour and a half applying mayonnaise-thickness SPF 170 to the 4.2 hectares of body surface with which I grace the alluring beach environment. I would just keep my shirt on, but that is tantamount to having a “Can you believe how amazingly fat I am?” tattoo across your whole abdomen.

I got to frolic in the typical, east coast, half-foot surf, which is not even enough to knock the prescription sunglasses off of my head, even without one of those little neon-colored dork-straps to hold my glasses on.

I tried to body surf, but I appear to have major buoyancy issues. I believe this to be due to the density of the mayonnaise-lotion I had applied, but others have suggested that it may actually be due simply to my gross tonnage. Those are the people whom I retaliate against by offering to apply suncreen to their backs, then,
when they turn around and hunch their shoulders over in the “ready to scream from the cold lotion” position, I quickly shove my lotion-sticky hands in the sand and give them an unexpected exfoliation.

I can’t think of many things that I do (without being naked) that tire me out as much as pitting my body against the aquatic forces of mother nature, unless it’s the dragging of my waterlogged, respectably knee-length swimming-trunked ass out of the surf and back on to terra barely firma. This is the point in the beach trip where the snowcone guy makes his fortune.

As usual, I was so exhausted that I slept most of the 100+ miles home.

The passengers whom I was driving were so tired themselves that they barely noticed.