On Honors and Societies

I was going through a stack of papers today trying to clean off my desk–which incidentally I only use for storing my desk supplies and to hold up my printer–and I came across part of a short story I'd written.

It was only a few pages from a rough draft; to save paper I'd print out a copy, edit it and then stick in back in my printer when I needed to print something unofficial like a coupon or a new edit. In any event I flipped a few pages to ensure there wasn't anything else mixed in with it. The phrase I read which verified this was describing a character as "Phi-Beta-something or other."

Incidentally, immediately beneath that in my stack of crap happened to be my induction ceremony programs, memento catalog and framed certificate from, you guessed it, Phi-Beta-Kappa.

Under that was my bachelor's degree.

Man, I gotta get around to hanging that shit. For the time being I've compromised; they're sitting on top of my printer. You know, at least until I need to print something again.

A Series of Ill-Conceived Children's Books

"Jack and Jill went up a hill to fetch a pale of water. Then Jack met this really cool guy named Steve and Jill officiated their civil union because this was that one big twisty hill in San Fransisco and Prop 8 hadn't been passed by backwards-thinking old men yet. Then they opened an art gallery where they sold Jill's photography, which despite being mostly still-lifes and landscapes always managed to remarkably resemble genitalia, and that was actually really good for her sales." THE END.

I found my old idea notebook filled with every unused idea I've had over the last 5 or 6 years. Now you all will pay the price for it.

A Series of Ill-Conceived Children's Books

• "Why I Was At Your Mother's House Last Night" by your gym coach
• "Fun With Earthworms"
• "Why It's Okay to Be Afraid of Clowns"
• "Why You Don't Have to Be Afraid of Clowns"
• "Why I Am Once Again Afraid of Clowns" (part III in the Clown Trilogy)
• "Where Do All My Lost Socks Go?"
• "Why Mommy and Daddy Don't Get Along Anymore and Live In Separate Houses"
• "Who Is the Corpse In the Attic?"
• "Why Do We Keep Grandma In the Basement?"
  
• "It Has Nothing To Do With You: Why Mommy & Daddy Still Love You But Can't Put Up With Your Whore of A Sister Any Longer"

This has been your dose of A Sound A Doggy Makes for the day. If you experience any side effects such as outrage, nausea, partisanship or a complete lack of a sense of humor, please come to the realization that you are an asshole and patiently wait for tomorrow's update, when we will likely return to dick jokes.

On Cover Songs

Most people associate cover songs with absolutely shitty versions of something they used to like, at least until it started getting played by every pissant garage band full of mop-headed high school students capable of playing a power chord. Thus, you're probably imagining a bunch of songs that got ridiculous airplay in 1997 like Bush and some Weezer tracks.

But to me the cover song is something special. They said of the process of getting my degree in creative writing that I was essentially being taught the appropriate rules for how to use the English language, that way when I was finished I would know how to break them properly.

Cover songs are the same. Most garage bands will only do a sloppy job of imitating the original piece. Every rock guitarist learns how to play the first few notes of "Stairway to Heaven," if only because he's seen Wayne's World. It's a learning process. First you learn how to make notes and chords, then you learn to structure them by placing them in a familiar order. The same way we teach children to speak and read and write, we inundate early musicians with songs familiar to them which they can easily replicate. Eventually these musicians are supposed to master the basics of a song and move to another, building their vocabulary and ultimately creating a full lexicon by which to express themselves originally.

Sadly, something like 300% of all teen guitarists will fall short of this goal. (I'm estimating. [If you couldn't tell.]) Many youths believe that the goal of a young musician is to replicate to replicate the original piece and nothing more. If they can passably perform "Blitzkrieg Bop" then they can get a gig playing a bar-mitzvah. Granted, The Ramones were awesome, but they also only kept maybe a half-dozen chords in their talent sac. People buy tickets to see your band, not someone else's. Short of becoming an official cover band there is no money or prestige in playing other people's songs live, and even then there isn't any money to it and the prestige isn't really yours.

No, my friends, the cover song is something to be cherished. It is an amusement among the musical elite. Like a poetic ode it can be a tribute ("I'll Be Missin' You" - Puff Daddy feat Sting), like a myth it can be told a million different ways ("All Along the Watchtower"), like The Aristocrats joke it can be traded amongst musicians for fun (Neil Diamond's version of Adam Sandler's "The Chanukah Song" or pretty much anything originally done by Weezer before 2004). Therein lies the joke. Covers are something taken by talented musicians and toyed with and performed again for their own sake. They bring honor to the creators and the performers who manage to rearrange them and create something new and interesting. Cover songs are not played to entertain the audience, they are played to entertain the band.

Personally, I tend to loath mass-market pop and country, and while I respect the talent of the lyricists in spittin' rhymes like it ain't no thang, I tend to dislike rap and R&B. The reasoning being I just prefer music in which the vocalist is in harmony with the instruments, not dominant over or subverted by it. As for country, well that's just annoying, twanging garbage.

Anyway, the point is I tend to hate these forms of music, but there are many covers which originally were written for these genres that I have come to love because the artists who covered them did something interesting.

Jonathan Coulton took Sir Mixalot's only hit "Baby Got Back" and transformed it into a comedy-folk masterpiece. Julia Nunes turns the hits of yesteryear into ukulele masterpieces. The Angry String Orchestra/Quartet regularly releases string arrangements of classic rock, pop and alternative Top 10s. Life On Repeat has made Miley Cyrus' "Party in the U.S.A." bearable for me (though you might also want to try the Biggie Smalls/Miley mash-up "Party and Bullshit In the U.S.A." by Hathbanger).

Basically, I'll take any ridiculous cross-genre cover that ends in pop-punk, light metal, a cappella, folk rock or ukulele. FACT: The ukulele is the best instrument for any cover, ever.

On The Lovely Bones

I was actually disappointed by the fare when I Googled "The Lovely Boobs." I feel like that's a completely untapped softcore remake. Also, untapped. lol



I like to think of myself as an aficionado of good literature; that's why I keep The Lovely Bones on my bookshelf.

Not the god-awful book, mind you. I just feel the scattered remnants of their ilk will keep under-read teenagers away from my Star Wars first editions.

On Party Lines

Driving around today I saw a bumper sticker that actually read "NOBAMA 2012."

I can't say I agree with whatever republican was driving that Mazda SUV, that Japanese car with low gas mileage and high rollover built in America to avoid paying import tariffs, but damn it that guy certainly has an ear for puns.

On Christmas Presents

This guy knows shit.


Though I'd be loath to actually reveal the inner workings of my brain case, I feel like giving you a smattering of what my family and I received this Christmas would enlighten you both to the kind of person I am and the kind of family I was raised by.

That said, yesterday's offerings included free weights, some clothes and books I asked for, a new guitar capo, scratch-off lotto tickets, bacon bubble gum and a ukulele. Also, a cookie. Oh, and an absinthe glass/spoon set. And cash. My family knows me so well.

My grandmother got Gone With the Wind on DVD (my idea) and some new ugly nightgowns because she absolutely loves ugly nightgowns. My mother got the laptop tray she wanted, chocolate which she always wants and a DVD of pirated software so she doesn't have to complain about the open-source equivalents anymore.

Grandpa got plaid flannel shirts and money/gift cards to Nathan's Famous and Panera Bread.


Honestly, if it weren't for seeing nothing but uninteresting, violent, mean-spirited morons who by their very continued existence offend me it was pretty much one of the best days of the year.

But then again, what's Christmas without family?


Now here's Hanukkah Harry for the rest of my family:
















Honestly, the only time of year a half-Jew feels more conflicted is that whole Passover-Easter debacle.

On Nocturnal Santmissions

I think I'm going to stay up and wait for Santa this year.

I'm not saying I want to see him, it's just I can't seem to sleep more than 4 hours at a time anymore.

On Changes

Back in high school I was pretty much the only kid with significant facial hair. I was short, scrawny and for the most part just way too smart for my own good. But now everything's changed.

Everything but me, I mean.

Now everyone I knew back in high school is older, fatter, more out of shape and fully cognizant of how stupid they used to be.

I, meanwhile, am in the best shape of my life and have the wonderfully downplayed smugness of vindication years after the fact.

I'm actually planning on getting old and fat now, mostly because I'll know that everyone I know will just look older and fatter and I'm gonna have the pick of the retirement home hotties.

On Gnostcism

"HMM…. Did I remember to turn off the trebuchet when I left? Crap this is going to bother me all century."



You may remember from my previous rant that I am not one for people complaining about Christmas being coopted by "nontraditional forces."

Interestingly, however, I am also not one for the 837,000 (approximate) History Channel specials every December about Who Was Jesus? Now you might question this logic? If I am by no means Christian, what is my beef against science-izing the crap out of the whole Jesus story?

Simply: it is pride.

I liked being the only guy around who thought the Council of Nicaea was a bigger traitor to Jesus than Judas. I enjoyed having all kinds of wonky Gnostic parables kept up inside my head. The point is, I liked causing trouble for the Catholic church. You know, in my own small little way, at least.

But now even the everyday lapsed Christian knows that Dan Brown stole all the juicy bits of The DaVinci Code from Holy Blood, Holy Grail, and that half the canonized gospels are based off the other two, neither of which was likely written by the supposed authors and both of which are known to have embellished or removed certain unseemly details.

Nowadays, pretty much everyone knows Jesus had siblings. Granted, most people only know this from watching Kevin Smith's Dogma, or Tom Hanks' blank-stare-fest, but a few people can actually find them in the Bible. ('Course I'm still the only one who remembers Jimmy Christ was one of the first cardinals of Rome.)

Frankly, everyone learning all kinds of cool, forgotten history is taking the fun out of having held that super secret knowledge all these years. It's like the Templar Knight from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade; where the hell did he go once the mountain fell in on itself? You stay there for a thousand years guarding the Holy Grail, ostensibly using it to stay alive until someone worthy can arrive and just take it from you? Who's more worthy than a Templar? Nazi dude? Nope, he died predictably. Harrison Ford? Really? You were just gonna let Harrison walk off with the grail? He needed a frickin' cheat sheet just to get in. Then everyone's an asshole and the magic cup is lost forever. DUDE. Step in and maybe do something? Don't let these little posers walk in and steel your good shit, man.

Sucks being a religious hipster, is all I'm saying.

On Brittany Murphy

I guess she just couldn't handle the cancellation of King of the Hill.

So Brittany Murphy died today. Not to beat a dead horse but …

I actually liked Brittany Murphy. Like, to look at, I mean. In Clueless. Not after that, really. Or before, I guess. I'm told she was Topanga's best friend on Boy Meets World.

Honestly, Brittany Murphy was like the 5th most fuckable person in Clueless. It goes Brittany Murphy, the Asian girl who had like two lines but a bigger roll in the T.V. series, Dione, Alicia Silverstone (if you ignore her character and the fact that she later was in Batman & Robin), and then obviously Paul Rudd at the top.

Interesting fact, like 90% of people I talked to today had no idea who Brittany Murphy even was. My go-to was Clueless, but I backed up with "Luanne on King of the Hill" and "The stripper in Sin City that wasn't Jessica Alba," but that really got nothing. The Topanga line got more recognition. Honestly, one kid only remembered Clueless because it had the black kid from Scrubs.

Well if there's anything we can learn from Ms. Murphy it's

a) Years of anorexia can seriously damage heart muscle, and

b) Never fuck Ashton Kutcher.

On the Weather

I love that everybody in my town pretty much spent yesterday giving the weathermen shit for not being able to decide if we were getting 2-4 inches of snow or 3-6, or tell us if it was starting at noon or three.

Mostly because they spent all day today bitching about the HORRIBLE SNOW stalling out and not starting until late. I guess they were lamenting all the extra shopping they could have maybe possibly tried to do in between everyone else driving to do the same thing.

Now they're telling us 12-18" because the storm's moving so slowly.

And there's like 2-4 inches in total. Marvelous.

On Hometown Bars

Going out to a local bar when you come home for a holiday was tonight compared to a live version of a person's Facebook feed.

The only difference is I can't click your forehead to make you disappear and stop talking at me.


I mean I've tried but that surprisingly doesn't have much of an effect. Besides getting punched, I mean.

On Life Choices

I'm sitting here watching reruns of Daria and my first thought is that not too long ago television, television for people under twenty no less, made a Kant joke. The very idea that any show today – save perhaps The Big Bang Theory – could make a joke about Emanuel Kant is preposterous.

My second thought is how to make a dirty Emanuel Kant joke that's still hilarious. So far I've come up with "Yo' mamma's like the the philosophy rack at the local library: not much to look at but some dry, dusty Kant."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHH *SNAP*


My third thought on the other hand is the notion of sex on T.V. Basically, I want to see a show where they do the requisite "Am I Really Ready?" episode, but when all the family gathers around and hug each other, having given varied and often insane advice and having just now learned their loved one made what they believe to be the "right" decision, right then the character says, "Oh, no, we totally did it." And then maybe the show ends. I just want the episode to progress normally and the entire end speech to be one of those embarrassed speeches where the protagonist, resignedly, explains to her family how she weighed the options and everyone's opinions and only after much thought decided what to do. I want to see the audience really led to assume she didn't, but in a way that doesn't actually perjure the character.

Let's look back on the long line of terrible virginity plays on television:


Fresh Prince - Will fakes a wedding to bone his girlfriend, who discovers this, punches him and steals his car. Also, I'm pretty sure Carlton lost it to a cougar. Rather forcibly. DECISION FAIL

Grounded for Life - Lilly agonized over whether or not to do her boyfriend, who was a huge dumbass/jerk, making a terrible decision to do it on the night of her Sweet 16. Under pressure she wants to wait, her boyfriend douches off. The weird neighbor kid, Brad, who's always loved her treats her right and then they have some good good lovin'. DECISION FAIL

The Nanny - Maggie got caught having sex in the last season, three seasons after Grandma Yetta. Several episodes later she married that boy, a successful Jewish underwear model. FORCED TRADITIONAL MORALITY FAIL

Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Let's see. Eliza Doushku's Faith, an established bad girl, very nearly raped Xander, before asphyxiating and almost killing him during rough sex later. Buffy lost hers, also unprotected, to a vampiric Angel, giving him one moment of true bliss and breaking the gypsy curse that returned him his soul and kept him from being the evilest, most sociopathic vampire in history. Willow, meanwhile, also had an unprotected hymen extraction at the hands of Seth Green's Oz, because the world was going to end the next day. Buffy's mom and Giles later had unprotected sex on the hood of a police car, Buffy got played her first week at college, boinked a super soldier and then Spike, who also boinked Xander's ex-demon ex-fiance on a store display, and Dawn – played in the show by Michelle Trachtenberg – in the comic series sequel is temporarily cursed into a giant, a centaur and a rag doll for getting in a fight with her boyfriend and then fucking his douchebag roommate. All-in-all, Joss Whedon hates virgins. HORRIBLE DECISIONS ALL AROUND.

But with all this fun out there, what I wouldn't give to see Zoey 101 … Hannah Montana … The Jonas Brothers … SOMEBODY do an episode of "We weren't sure if we were ready, so we thought it over really hard and decided yep. Yep, we were ready," and then scratched their itch.

It'll be like rescinding "Abstinence Only" sex ed in one glorious hour of prime time entertainment.

Granted, this would probably turn everyone who thinks "But, Dawson, I'm just not ready for it" is a catchphrase into a Jamie Speares clone, but if we're airing my show we must also be living in a world where stem cell research is funded through taxing government-overseen semi-privatized HMOs and contraception grows on trees. Mysterious trees. Trees funded by the government. And tended by unwanted pregnancy orphans.

On Modesty

Throughout most of my life I've valued calm, classy awesomeness over any other outward display of power. Frankly, it's not a sense of superiority if you are superior but don't act like it. Additionally, the more awesome skills you develop the more opportunities you have for nonchalantly being kickass in public. And I assume this gets you women or some such thing.

But today I decided I'm tired of that.

From now on I am going to find life's gonads and do many a violent thing to them in metaphoric displays of aggressive purposefulness. I want to make a living as a writer and that means everyone needs to know who I am and read my books. That means they need to pay money and I need to become well-off and well-known. FAME AND FORTUNE AWAIT!


That said, I assume I will be asked in interview at some point

A) Where do you get your inspiration from? and

B) What do I need to do to be a great writer?


As a soon-to-be famous author I will be well-qualified to answer these questions, which is why everyone is going to ask me them constantly. Thus, I have developed answers beforehand in order to save time and make for some good press.

Q: From where do you get your inspiration?

A: The beard. Seriously. All great men knew this. Sampson's hair applies to all genius. Einstein's mustache, Abe Lincoln's chin pubes, Da Vinci's face mop, even Hitler's toothbrush, all seats of tremendous power. Most of my friends know me as snarky and sarcastic, which I can only attribute to the goatee I've had since I was fourteen. Let the rest grow in a few days for real genius to sprout, then trim it back as needed with clippers. If you have to go clean-shaven at any point, be prepared to sacrifice two days of brilliance until you get the requisite stubble back.

Q: What do I need to do to be a great writer?

A: Get Hungry.

And I don't mean like a metaphorical hungry, hungry for adventure, hungry for success and fame and money. No. I mean literally get hungry. I don't know why, but it seriously helps. Maybe blood sugar shifts. Maybe you're just trying really hard to concentrate on anything but food. Maybe you think of getting to eat as a reward for your hard work. Maybe it's just no one wants to hear from any artist who isn't starving. If you're full and content what the hell do you have to say that anyone is going to be interested in reading? Skip a meal. Get a sandwich when you're done.

ATTENTION VANCOUVER-ITES!!

Hey, if you live in Vancouver or the surrounding area, please leave a comment here.

You are totally and completely the place outside the U.S. my site is the most popular and I need to know if I should engage in some sort of road trip to encourage this type of behavior.

Also, I can start catering to your humour needs. (Like spelling 'humour' with a 'u' and such.)

On What Everyone's Problem Is and Why you Should All Listen To Me Always

My friend Dean is of the belief that mankind's one problem is that people can have the conviction that they know something exactly and the truth is that no one knows anything.

No one knows what happens when we die, no one living knows for sure where Jimmy Hoffa ended up, and no one has flow there and back with a piece of string to tell us how far away the sun is. Basically, everyone should stop acting like they know shit about shit.

The problem I see with this logic is that it finds fault in the transmission of information, not its quality. We can tell you what happens to the body when you die and their are literally hundreds and thousands of ides about what happens to your consciousness at the same time. Jimmy Hoffa, under Giants stadium or wherever the fuck he is, is pretty certainly dead and it's a safe bet anyone directly involved in that is also dead, so unless you want to delve into one of the thousand opinions I just mentioned and call him up on a crystal ball, it frankly doesn't matter to anyone. As for the sun, there's a whole lot of math that says it's 93,000,000 miles away, which we've decided to call one Astronomical Unit because we are an incredibly vain species and there's no one around to tell us otherwise.

But I haven't explored every religion, I haven't died, I haven't dug up the 50-yard line and seen the bones, and I haven't got an enormous ball of twine and a starship.

Frankly, the problem is that you just have to trust me.


Now I'm a reasonably good source. I am well educated and since we are a vain species, I feel comfortable for the purpose of this discussion saying I am of incredibly high intelligence. It is literally not credible the kind of ridiculous things I know, so as far as we concern ourselves with the topic of knowing any things at random, let us simply say I am qualified to lead the meeting. Also, I'd make serious bank of game shows.

The problem is that not every person is as good a source. I am not even a good source in many places, and this is because no one person can know everything. Thus, we as learners and listeners have to choose the people to listen to when we ourselves cannot prove something to our own satisfaction.

How far away is the sun? It's 9.3•10^6 miles or 1 AU. Ask an astrophysicist, read a book about stars or check Wikipedia.

What happens to us when we die? Don't ask an astrophysicist, because odds are he'll give you some crazy speech about the infinitesimal nature of man and the eternity of matter and quite frankly you can hear the same speech much shorter from a Buddhist monk who, incidentally, is someone qualified to answer the original question.

So yes, it's our job as individuals to pick who we believe to be believable. The problem with that obviously is that all people might not be very good at the job. Or maybe they choose to believe someone and something other people do not. Or maybe they don't like anything they hear at all and decide not to believe anything they don't look into themselves. It's what people do, they diversify, innovate. Sometimes a crackpot idea manages to work even though every credible source says it shouldn't.

In the end the only problem is that being of the mind that everyone has a right to believe whatever they want means you can't do anything but scream into the wind when some other people come to the conclusion that this is a right that you simply just don't have.

On Happy Holidays

I'd fins the concept of a "War on Christmas" absolutely hilarious if it didn't empower stupid people and, frankly, certain high-profile people with whom I strongly disagree on most matters.

The arguments are old:

1. December contains several holidays for Americans including Kwanzaa, a holiday made exclusively for African-Americans in the early twentieth century and rarely celebrated outside the States. And as a lapsed half-Jew, I can assure you that Chanukkah was never intended to be a big holiday. It's more like Easter, which incidentally should really be more important than Christmas since it's when Jesus rose from the fucking grave, not got splatted out his mother's extra-tight verjay.
   
2. Separation of Church and State means one religion cannot be promoted over an other, and should ideally be excluded from practical governmental operation.
3. "Holiday" comes from the Old English haligdæg, meaning literally "holy day," just in case the camouflaged i/y sound fooled you but linguistic etymology makes sense.
4. Jesus was born at like the end of April and the celebration of this birth was moved by truthfully agnostic Roman imperials to coincide with the old holiday of Saturnalia and usurp its Pagan popularity.

To be honest, I'm tired of fighting the War Against The War On Christmas, so I'll just start making a new point:

People who think there is actually any type of antagonism to the well being of Christmas are the same people who think that gay marriage somehow affects the relationships of unrelated straight people miles away. Christmas is in fine shape. It is by far the most popular December holiday, even amongst non-Christians. Its traditional values are actually somber and reflective and quite frankly so not-fun that the only people who have it right are the Amish, and they don't celebrate anything at all. The Japanese don't even really involve Jesus, because the spirit of love and giving is enough to sustain an entire holiday on it's own.

More to the point, Christmas begins the moment Thanksgiving does. It's not even afterwards, anymore. We eat Thanksgiving dinner in anticipation of being able to start Christmas immediately after. We watch Santas parade down Main Street in the Macy's Day Consumerism Parade. We completely ignore everything else in our lives to wake up at the ass crack of dawn and buy the fuck out of clothing and high-end electronics for somebody and start The Holiday Spirit right then and there.

I went to Walmart on December 10th and there was a person and an old shopping cart in the closest parking space, which was pretty damned far away. Even though it wasn't hers, this woman moved the cart so I could get into the space. As I got out of the car I thanked her for being so courteous, and her response was, "Oh, it's nothing … it is Christmas."

No, no it wasn't, but God bless that kind of attitude around this time o-

Hold on.

This woman was actually implying she wouldn't move a fucking shopping cart that was also in her own way unless it was Christmas time? If only she herself were inconvenienced she would have walked around this regardless of whether it was a problem for someone else? What a fucking bitch.


So no. No I do not believe there is a war on Christmas. I believe their is a consumer-driven conspiracy to lengthen Christmas as long as possible. Despite every complaint I hear about stores putting Christmas decorations out earlier and earlier, before Halloween now, I don't see any of you baby Jesus humping dollar sign moo cows putting your wallets back in your pockets.

There is no war on Christmas. Christmas spreads farther and wider than any holiday, infecting everything it touches with non-denominational joy and good will, making every asshole in existence a nicer, decent human being if only for a month or so. Christmas will not fade or be glossed over.

After all, you will never hear children singing "It's be-ginning to look a lot like Easter."















Also, there's no sexy angle associated with Easter, save Muscly Bondage Jesus.

On Advertising

Body Man cologne is trying to tell me something.

Being astute, I have decoded that message as "If you wear the scent 'Body Heat' two very attractive women will want to grope you and have an interracial three-way. They will lick you."

Unfortunately I think the message includes a condition that I have to be a 6'4" half-black body builder first.

So yeah, that's definitely for me.

Of Asian Women

Notice I didn't say "On Asian Women."

Honestly I can't believe I haven't discussed this here yet, but that's the beauty of 6 a.m. epiphanies.


To begin: Asian women are very attractive. This is indisputable. Many women are very attractive, from every ethnic grouping and of every nationality, and many in very different and often exotic ways. There are also very unattractive Asian women, just as there are old shriveled grannies in every other demographic.

However Asian women have something special that entitles them to more than just the average lusting. A young, nubile Asian girl can, on the standard 1-to-10 Male Bias Scale, rate a solid 6, when in fact her American counterpart might rate a 5 or even a 4.

How is this possible?

One possibility is that Mongoloid bone structure and traditionally held ideals of beauty among people of Asiatic descent have, through natural selection and what is essentially eugenics among the more noble classes throughout history, genetically cultivated a predisposition for high cheekbones, small noses, oval faces, straight dark hair, shorter stature and clear, glowing skin that would appear "tan" to those with a Caucasian bias. Similarly, Caucasians might find Asian women to be "smiling with their eyes" as resultant from the further anterior position of the lateral orbital rim and the extra layer of fatty tissue separating the skin of the eyelid from the muscles and tarsus, a feature which might actually be an adaptive trait related to vision on the Asian Steppes. The fact that most traditional Asian cultures are extremely male dominated has resulted in a mindset for "classy" women to be demure, servile figures who retain honor and humility, which incidentally has also spawned a tremendously repressed and hypersexualized sex trade throughout most of Asia.

Another solution could be that it is a natural result of something I've talked about previously in On Post-Colonial Theory and Colonialism By LEGO, that being the fetishization of The Other as something exotic, an identification of people from the Orient as being either opposed to Western culture or a curiosity to be studied from a distance, thus yielding biased conclusions which further subvert true cultural understanding and equality, in this instance literally yielding commodification of sensuality in a Sex Industry which is based in fetishizing everything.

Or!

Or, we could say it's the metric system, guys.


So the way to calibrate the Male Bias Scale (or MBS) is pretty relative, depending much on the individual male in question: what his ethnicity is, how racistly he was raised, the local diversity and whether he is currently dating anyone, her ethnicity and if she is standing next to him right then.

For example, as an American, if I were to see a hot girl, say a 7, I would think she was a 7. However because Asian girls are hotter to me, I would see an Asian 7 and being roughly equivalent to an American 8.5. The basic MBS metric conversion for American-to-Asian is typically +1 to +2. Japanese and Koreans frequently lead the pack on average, though the absolute most attractive women are in all cases skewed completely away from any calibrated norm.

Interestingly, Asian men are around Asian women so constantly that there is a bit of a fetishization of American women, chiefly as the stereotype seems to be all our women are farm-raised, corn-fed buxom blond whores in cowboy hats, which sounds really great on average but, again, if you had to live with them, annoyances do tend to creep up.

What I find fascinating is that the Metric Conversion does not truthfully carry into other cultures which happen to use metric measurements elsewhere.

Case in point: Asian girls are a +1 to +2, while Australian girls average a +1, due to their propensity for athleticism, tans, adorable accents and outgoing, adventurous personalities. This conversion factor is almost solely personality-based, as Australians are essentially the British, who typically convert with a -1. More if they open their mouths, even more if they open their mouths to talk. It makes you wonder how the British could improve if only they got some sun.


One should also note that these conversion methods are accurate in most cases, but are only approximation based on the fact that Special Relativistic Hotness equations are far more complicated than need be for daily computational copulation. For True Count hotness one must account for the Observer, she he is observing, their physical distance, the rate at which they are passing, her ethnicity processed through his ethnic biases and personal experience, and the fact that 99% of "Perfect 10s" are celebrities who have had work done. (While it is possible to encounter a Natural 10, her personality must be weighted in this as well, as such in standard practice a 10 ranking should be reserved exclusively for famous women, thus making the idea woman a smart and funny, kind Natural 9.)

A completed SRH equation would follow this form:

P + O•V_o ± M_c
X = d•t E_b+ e

where P = Personality, O = Observer's reasonable mating potential measured in "Leagues," V_o = the Observer's Velocity, M_c = the Metric Conversion, d = Distance, t = Time elapsed in the observation, E_b = Ethnic Bias and e = experience.

Of Wingmen

So tonight I had planned to stay in, relax, and otherwise try to prepare myself for the gauntlet that will be Christmas tree shopping with Mom followed by Hanukkah with Dad + Stepfamily, followed by drunken shenanigans followed by depressing nursing home Hanukkah with Grandma the next day. All within normal waking hours, which I can assure you I have very nearly defenestrated out of the Prague that is my life.

Obviously, my plan failed as a friend sent the instant message "hey wat you up to tonight" and since there was no question mark something big was clearly going to happen and there was no time at all for frills and extravagances like punctuation.

Donning my recordedly unlucky but still favorite Santa hat, I set off in my car to this friend's house with the belief we would be going to our regular bar and shoot a few games of pool, and just otherwise let good times congeal around that.

Oh, but did I not mention my unlucky hat? Well, the Unlucky Hat is a wonderful Santa hat. The red and white faux-fur are both their perfect respective lengths, the poofball at the end is just the right size, it is warm but not sweltering, and it fits just so. Also, I have never one a single competitive anything while wearing it. For some reason it simply stops anything from working in my favor. I would stick pins through and through and burn the wretched thing if I did not love it so ridiculously much.

So obviously as I'm driving my friend calls me and says that no one else was up for the bar so I shouldn't bother coming. I told him I was already on my way, so there was a bit of an awkward situation there.

What we resolved was that I should wait five minutes and then call him. He had in his attempts to set something up this evening been invited to go see the movie Avatar, though I'm not sure if either he or his inviter realize that film's still a week away. Maybe they got a preview showing or something, whatever.

The point being, if this had been a group invitation surely I was also invited, but if this had been a date-ish invite, then my presence would be out of the question, more awkward even than the manner in which any friend of ours would say they were "going on a date." We are hangers, chillers, not usually daters.

I decided to pull over in a nearby bank and give it a few minutes, but maybe only a minute later I was called back. Got to love the immediacy of texting someone who actually checks their messages.

It was a date-ish invitation. My friend apologized for bailling but, dude, not that sorry. Nor should he be. Though it's never helped me, the Unlucky Hat has given much of my money to my friends over poker games, has given my honor up over beer pong, and so why now should it not give up the night out I had not planned on having if it could get my friend into see a great movie before the masses?

Also, he's probably getting some mouth sex. Not great mouth sex, but definitely fair to good. Certainly not mediocre mouth sex.

Anyway, the point is I'm thinking about hot gluing the Unlucky Hat to my friend's head. IT'S NOT LIKE HE FUCKING NEEDS IT, GEEZE. The only problem with being a wingman of my caliber is that it's like a natural wonder. All of my energies go into making everyone else look good, but I can never use my powers for personal gain. I'm like Superman in the Fortress of Solitude. You know how it feels in the Fortress of Solitude? Solitary. You know what games we play? Solitaire. Because it's just me.

On the other hand if Superman were to meet a nice girl, I fall in the camp that believes he would in fact rip her to shreds mid-climax without the aid of red sunlamps, so you know, the analogy falls flat on that point. Any mishaps I encounter would not hypothetically be sunlamp-related.

On Thriftiness

My mother told me the other day that we need to start spending less so we can eventually move to a cheaper place and allow her to quit her horrible job she hates but which pays for a very nice apartment.

Her main talking point was the need to buy generic and plan more meals in advance, things like entire roasted chickens which could yield multiple meals. Additionally, we should eat less fast food. I suggested we cut back on the fruit, because she has been going fruit crazy lately, paying upwards of $4 for a 1/2 pint of raspberries. Outrageous. She proceeded to tell me that this was to encourage me to eat healthier.

Tired of the conversation, I casually informed my mother that I only but berries when they are ripe and under $3 a package, that I eat far better than she does, that I restrict my fast food diet to $10 every two-to-three days, that my daily meals are based in non-perishables and bulk perishables that are always in the house (rather than costly one-time items), that most of my ingredients are off-brand already and that over the last 6 weeks the only time I've allowed my mother's money to pay for my meals out was on the day when she was being incredibly condescending to me.

Oh, also I told her she still owes me $305.67 for going grocery shopping for her all the time.

Granted she was a tad miffed, but most of that was her not getting to go through with her frugality speech as planned. Nothing like getting a lecture on responsible finance planning along with a bill. From your son.

Of Stereotypes

I like to consider myself a tolerant person.

Frequently, the most racist worry I have is wondering if it appears more racist to avoid eye contact with minorities or actively hold it, because one could be misconstrued as aloof and the other as scornful. Usually, I race my mind into a P.C. fervor and end up adopting a stupid, blank stare with the hint of a smile, which I still worry would be taken as a sign of mocking superiority, but only by militant black guys who'd jump down my throat anyway just for being white. [Please note the sarcasm here, minority reader. Oh come on, it's not like there's two of you.]

For the record, I self-identify as an asshole, but nationality wise I can trace my lineage to Irish, Italian, Albanian, a smattering of French and Welsh, German, Polish, Russian, Latvian/Lithuanian/Estonian (intermingled Balkan) and, oh yes, African. About the only things I'm not are Spanish, Nordic, Asian and Pacific Islander.

That said, I fully admit the African thing is only circumstantial, resulting from a Southern Italian uncle having a genetic African blood disorder that is not Sickle Cell.

That said, my dominant gene expressions are Western European Jew, so yes, I do have a firm understanding of racism and intolerance. It was drilled into me for three years of Sunday classes my mother paid for at my local Temple in Westchester, NY.

But I digressed.

The point is, I firmly believe that hating people for nationality or religion or skin color is just dumb. Frankly, it's just idiotic. I mean it's a terribly inefficient system for gauging the criteria by which to hate someone. If a guy's black he's not a monster. He could be a dumbass, but that's who he is as a person. Don't hate a Jew because you think his people secretly control the government and killed your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ; hate us because we openly control Hollywood and major media organizations. Have you seen Israeli military operations? Short of guilting you and that whole Mossad thing, we re not a very surreptitious people.

Hate a person for who he is on the inside. Give everyone a chance, a chance to prove they really are a complete ass, and then if they prove your first assumption right, well then, you're not a racist at all, you just have a very good sense for who a person really is. Go you.

All things considered, though, the only people I really instantly hate are fashionista posers (for obvious reasons) and the few backwards individuals who reinforce stereotypes against their own heritages.

FOR EXAMPLE:

Women who actually are very poor drivers - You are just awful. You have a civic responsibility to improve how women are perceived in the workplace but apparently that doesn't kick in until you arrive in the parking lot. Do you want to know the reason you make seventy cents for every dollar I earn? It's because the other $0.30 is being paid to keep your insurance down!

Cheap-ass Jews - Seriously, guys? We've got the money. I've seen it. It's in that big secret vault under the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. That's where we horde it all, right? So guys, leave the loose change on the ground. If it won't hold up foot traffic, sure a quarter is fair game, but can we at least agree to keep restaurant tips above 15% from now on? Please?

Racist Rednecks - Come on, fellas. Last year I flipped to the Discover Channel and found Billy Ray Cyrus narrating a show about the history of "The mountain People of the Appalachians." That's not the kind of publicity you want. Hell, if there were more minorities in Nebraska I bet you'd be able to qualify for more government funding, and I'm sure if you got over your little "Colored pepuz smell funny" bullshit you'd be able to marry someone other than your cousins. LOOK HOW TINY MILEY CYRUS IS. Now look at your inbred hound dog with the hip problems. It's the same thing, guys. You need to expand your minds to expand your gene pool.

Food Industry Asian People - You guys are really good at math, which is actually super cool, and you're mostly very good drivers, but the one thing you all need to work on is not hating each other. Look at us Jews: we all hate ourselves, but we don't rip on each other. An Orthodox Jew, a Conservative Jew, a Reform Jew and a lapsed Jew walk into a Chinese restaurant on Christmas, and do you know how that joke ends? With the girl up front who speaks Mandarin yelling and being mean to the Cantonese guys locked in the back. Not cool, food industry Asians, not cool.

Hot Asian Girls - Actually, keep on doing what your doing. You- You're doing such wonderful things. For everyone, really. Thank you.

On Anal Sex

WARNING:

This blog post contains graphic material not suitable for my mother or any of yours either.



I'll let people save face, but someone reiterated a movie line that the most romantic thing a girl can do is legitimately enjoy anal sex simply because her guy likes it. It's the idea of getting off on you getting off. Sweet, really.

However this same person – and everyone in the room, really – also admitted that this has never been discovered to be the case in real-world applications of sexy times.

One guy said that there seems to be this ill-defined line that's not okay to cross. You can be down there doing your thing and diddle your finger around a bit and she loves it, but graze your junk across something during basic field maneuvers and BAM! She's all "WHOA THERE, SAILOR, WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU'RE GOING?"

To put it bluntly, this is the same type of girl who calls the police because she saw two black guys in an old Chavel driving all slow through her neighborhood.

I mean, yeah, okay, it's a little weird, but those guys have every right to just be hanging around out back as long as they don't try to bust in your backdoor and fuck shit up.

Maybe they're just passing through and stopped for a look around. Nothing wrong with that, with just looking. Maybe one day you could stop and actually talk to them, see how they're doing. Maybe even invite them in and see where things go. They could be really nice guys, after all. Who knows? God, maybe you'd actually enjoy their company if you weren't such a bigoted bitch all the time. Gosh.

On George Lopez

You know, the George Lopez Show is actually terribly convenient. Tonight they've got Kathy Griffin and Sean Paul.

It's like they're convening all the people I don't like in one place so there's only one thing to avoid.

On Twilight

My friends, I'm sorry.

I've had a realization. You see, Twilight is my fault.


Today I wandered out of Walmart and passed someone who was clearly one of the People of Walmart. She was a flabberly 280 pounds of pure girl (not woman) in an all-black sweatsuit, matched with black horn-rimmed glasses, pasty skin and a tight mouse brown ponytail. In fact the only color I could really see was the enormous graphic on her already sizable full-zip hoodie.

The days of the Lone Wolf T-Shirt are over, my friends. This girl's jacket was actually a sharp-jawed sparkled jockey staring absently into space, superimposed over an unnaturally large green moon and an anorexic redhead. The words TEAM EDWARD were emblazoned across the region I would generally refer to as a woman's breasts, but for the fact that on this specimen they were rather more like one part of an already almost spherical torso which, I assume functioning much like solid-body planetary masses, bulges outward noticeably at the equator due to rotational velocity.


That was the moment I longed for the return of crazed Harry Potter enthusiasts. Goddam, those kids were hardcore by comparison. Hell, I've caught up on the movies, and though I still refuse to actually read a Potter novel I still know the gist of it, and that shit gets harsh at the end. I'm not exactly positive on this, but I'm pretty sure in the last book Harry Potter drops out of school with his two friends and cruises the world in his dead uncle's car looking for pieces of an evil wizard's soul to kill. Shit is tight, son.

And let's face it: when Harry Potter first came out it was intended for the 9-12 demographic, but after 7 books those kids are legitimately pushing the definition of teen now. Harry Potter fans can drive. They're punks and skaters and play in ska bands. Some of them are actually attractive women, guys. This is insane. But kind of awesome, too. These weirdos grew the hell up. Daniel Radcliffe's got a beard now; what's up with that?


And sadly, I wished them away. I spent so much time hating them for annoying me that by the time I'd accepted Harry Potter fans as a mere annoyance at there worst, all that hatred and desire for a distraction came to a head sprang forth an epic Big Bang of Awful Writing in the heart of some undersexed Mormon housewife named for her father.

I wished upon a monkey's paw, my friends, and I got fisted.

On Tech Support

Whenever I have to deal with tech support I tend to run into three classes of people. The first are the stereotyped guys in India who read from a script and don't realize I'm more tech savvy than anyone short of having a CS degree, who obviously I don't like but i still feel bad for them because it's not their fault their job got outsourced so far away from the clients they have to deal with.

The second type of person is the asshole who actually does reside in The States and simply treats me like an idiot because I have a problem setting my new wireless printer to sync with multiple Macs, one wired desktop and a wireless Laptop running Windows XP with firewalls put in place by AT&T to disallow wireless connectivity and prevent corporate espionage.

You know, child's play.

But happily there's the third class of tech supporter who, much like an athletic supporter, don't override but rather cradle and support you to help you do your job better. I have been raised to cherish, praise and even reward this type of behavior, usually with baked goods.

I had an issue with an iPod accessory this week and after trying what I could think of n exhausting the online technical documentation, I called a help number. Took maybe 5 minutes. Dude on the other line heard my problem, laughed and said, "Well that's not right!" (One of my favorite phrases.) Got some advice, did a soft restart and boom, everything was fixed.

I have not had that experience with my mother's printer. AT&T is an evil, evil company and their software will randomly decide to delete all your added printers. Also, their tech support is in India and you need to go through three levels of management to get approval to ship it out; their are no "tech guys" at your semi-local office branch. They've set back every business they've purchased 20 years in policy and practice and as we continue to say, they are trying to run an internet telecommunications company like a phone company.

I will give up this writing nonsense and go back to school for my MBA, just so I can become powerful enough to buy AT&T and fire every asshole on their board of directors.

On the up-side, my mom seems to value my tech support services for this project at 5/3 my estimated rate, so, awesome.

On Purple Drank

Tonight was a good night. There was drinking, there was gambling, there was me actually winning for a change, and when we went to get some food there wasn't Dean peeing in Lou's deli.

Mazel-tov.

Sadly, I was informed of something as I stood cradling my coveted Stewart's brand grape soda, which I laughingly referred to as my purple drink.

I was informed of this.

"Drank." Purple Drank, in fact.

Let's break this down. It is a grape-flavored soda product that is legitimately named DRANK. As in, "Hey, nigga, get offa mah drank. Get cho own drank. That's mah drank." And yes, it has to be said like that, because this is honestly the most offensively racist drink ever. You remember that"Cocaine" energy drink? This is worse. By far.

"How?" you ask? How could a drink be so offensive to merit my crass and bigoted deconstruction?

How about the fact that this is marketed as the very first "Extreme Relaxation Beverage," an anti-energy drink? A drink with the slogan "Slow your roll?"

Who needs an anti-energy drink? According to the 'Community' tab on the Drank website the top consumers are "Our Favorite Rappers" and "Athletes and Work-Out Freaks."

So what is Drank? From there video it "tastes like grape soda actually," "but it's light and refreshing." The Old White Guy On the Street said "I don't know what it tastes like, but it's good." Glowing reviews. A headline seen in the same video reads "Sit Back, Relax, Chill Out and Pop A Can of Drag-Ass." So ass is involved somehow. Of the three ingredients listed on the site's 'Our Product' tab – Melatonin, Valerian root, and rose hips – I'm going to assume the former is a generic term for ass. For the record, the sub-heading blames hip-hop culture for this beverage.

So let's see, it is a grape-flavored, purple drink created by and for 'urban' populations with a reputation for and even a delight in being lazy.


Sometimes you just wonder how a man can walk, what with having balls big enough to literally prey on the marketability of stereotypes.

Luckily I was raised Jewish. The only thing like that I have to watch for are loose banking regulations and limited-time-only sales that really are too good to pass up.

On Getting It Together

The following U.S. states have not yet viewed my blog and it is now my mission and all of yours to get it read by people in:

• Alabama
• Alaska
• Idaho
• Iowa
• Kentucky
• Maine
• Mississippi
• Montana
• Nevada
• New Hampshire
• New Mexico
• North Dakota
• Oklahoma
• Rhode Island
• South Carolina
• South Dakota
• Tennessee
• Utah
• Vermont
• Wyoming

New Zealand, Israel, Finland, Laos and the United Arab Emirate are fine, though.

On Probable Cause

Ever since my grandfather went into the nursing home we've been helping my grandmother get all the finances and insurances and assorted paperwork in her name.

Most recently, it was decided that she needed somebody new to have joint access to her checking account, in case there is an emergency and she is out of town or in a coma or otherwise incapable of reaching her money.

Her daughter, my aunt, can't legally do it as she has power of attorney over that account and that would represent a conflict of interests. My mom can't do it because she works at minimum ten hours a day, six days a week. Also, she divorced my dad twenty years ago.

So guess who got signed up for the job, due to his complete unemployment and total availability (assuming you count nocturnalism as availability)?

That's right, boys and girls. If my grandmother drops dead from any mysterious accident, I have to hope no major transactions were made recently, because I can expect a call from Lenny Briscoe et al wondering what the neerdowell grandson was up to, worming his way into grandma's pocketbook.

This is in fact what the little Hispanic lady working our transaction thought. I was cool with handing over my ID, and the phone number was fine and I even recognize that doling out my social is perfectly acceptable now, there are just vague dystopian sci-fi elements to it. Once she asked me what my annual income was I was livid. I hate that question. Apparently it's the most important question any advertiser can ask you because it breaks down who buys what, but you know what? Fuck you. What fucking right do you have to ask me about how much I earn? That's none of your goddam business, assholes.

Eeeexcept if its a bank asking. That's, uh, kind of all their business is, in fact.

I swallowed my outrage and moved forward, butfor me moving forward entailed me saying, "Well, I just graduated, so I'm unemployed." Technically I'm six months unemployed, but she didn't ask that. What she did ask makes her a bitch-and-a-half. Maybe five-eighths.

"But you must do something…," she said.

Fuck you, whore, I'm a mutherfuggin writer. I write books an shit you ain't heard of. Sooo I told her I'm in the process of writing a book so I make nothing right now, but I thought a really angry face at her. Hopefully somewhere in her head she saw me being really angry and the words "Que malo, puta."

But I showed her.

Soon after she looked at her screen, puzzled. "Is this right?" she asked. "You have zero credit?" Now I had actually been wondering about this. I have a check card and a copy of my mom's credit card for emergencies. I also have no student loans, which is unheard of. Not 'I paid them all off already,' I literally have never had a student loan.

"Oh, yes, I wanted to check that but, yes, that's right. No credit at all."

"You don't have, like, a credit card?"

"Nope."

"No student loans?"

"Nope. That's how I can afford to be unemployed." Face!

Bitch just let out "Lu-ckyyy…," and shut the hell up. So yeah, she thinks I'm a spoiled little Jew heir, but that's probably an apt comparison since I'm pretty sure she grew up in some Venezuelan fishing village and everyone in this country seems rich.


Down side: New York shot down legalization of gay marriage 38-24 today.

Up side: Today I made the best Christmas gift ever. After having to wake up when it was still light out made me insanely productive. Got some Hanukkah shopping done and made something cool I will post some time soon. (It's a surprise.)

Even More Astrophysics Jokes!

• String theorists do it with very tiny bondage rope.

• Heisenberg can only tell you where he's doing it or how fast, not both.

• Quantum physicists do it up or down as a bottom or a top with strangeness or charm.

• Stephen Hawking does it in a chair.

• Once an astrophysicist does it with dark matter she never goes back.

• Unified Field theorists wish they only had to do it one way.

• String theorists do it in eleven dimensions of spacetime, but seven of those are curled in on themselves and are negligible to an outside observer.

• Twin astronauts do it at different rates, relativistically.

• Astrophysicists require more energy to do it as they asymptotically approach C.

• Astronomers studying supernovae do it with a long build-up and then a big finish.

• Astronomers studying pulsars finish quickly but can start up again in a few minutes.

• Astronomers do it in the dark of night.

• Carl Sagan does it in a turtleneck.

[Stemming from this blog post with more over here and here.]

On Domestication

I have perfected the art of making the perfect sandwich. It involves mayonnaise on both slices of whole wheat bread, but spicy brown mustard only on the top piece. Lettuce is beneath the meat, while tomato and cheese, preferably Swiss or American, above. Sliced meats should be rolled before placement, hunks of meat can simply be arranged for best coverage. Serve with a crunchy kosher dill pickle and your preferred flavor of potato chip. A glass of iced tea to wash it down with is lovely.

Now all I need is to have sex with someone who doesn't respect me and I'd make the perfect woman.

(Get it. It's because I spend lots of time in the kitchen making sandwiches, which is typically viewed as an acme of feminine gender-performance in Western cultures. More so if you spell it "sammich.")