Adulthood Means Never Having to Say, "Don't Tell Mom."

A friend who moved to Colorado posted photos to Facebook of her shooting off a couple pistols in the mountains. This same friend is about 5'0" and a hundred pounds shopping wet with a backpack. And loves hellos kitty.

Meanwhile, in my neck of the woods, my buddy Jay and I started coming up with rules because I mentioned that now that we're adults, I'd rather like to play a big game of "Assassination" with our friends and high powered Nerf guns.

Because we're old enough to really make a go at this, damn it.


Start as team. Automatic alliances drawn from a hat, one trade per team by majority vote. When you're down to say a dozen, part ways and begin solo operations the following morning.

Ground Rules:

1. No operations my be attempted while target is at their place of legitimate business.

I say "legitimate" because online gambling and dealing weed do not constitute professional environments.

2. A weapon may not be fired from a moving vehicle, or within 30 seconds of the target having exited a moving vehicle.

This rules out for safety's sake and fairness drive-bys and ambushing marks while still technically in transit between work and home. You wanna stop for the mail when you get home? Hope you're a sprinter.

Guideline: Use Velcro darts. That just clears up 80% of arguments.

On a related note, mod the hell out of any weapon you like, so long as you don't mod the foam. No ball bearings, no needles or stickum, just darts. You wanna stretch a spring or yank out an air restrictor or supercharge the autofire motor? Knock yourself out.

Or your target. That's acceptable too, long as there's foam sticking off of them.

Sign Number 3,720 That I'm A Pretentious Asshole

"Stay Yellow! Stay Yellow!"

Mensa, the internationa organization for smartass intellectuals with disposable income and a pathological need to brag about themselves to anyone who may even tangentially be within shouting distance, gave the online version of their entrance away for free this month.

The actual test, mind you, must be taken in person, in a controlled environment, and it costs you $18 for the privilege.

Assuming you pass this test–and by pass, that means you score at or above 98% of humanity which is, sadly, not terribly difficult it seems–you are given the honor of being offered membership into a universal, multi-ethnic, multicultural, multifaceted club for hobnobbing and bragging rites. All for the low price of another $80 per year.

Now, I love collecting useless skills and titles. They're the easiest thing to store. Every time I hear him refer to himself as "The Reverend Sir Doctor Senator Stephen T. Mos Def Colbert, D.F.A., Heavyweight Champion of the World**" I giggle a little internally.

I'm racking up a solid chunk of credentials, but it's not exactly that impressive just yet. I think I'm around "Reverend David E. Zucker, B.A." Somehow I need to work in the Phi Beta Kappa "ΦBK," but it doesn't seem possible. Nor, would it seem likely I could add a Mensa honorific to my business cards without forcing it and looking exactly like the type of asshole who would superfluously put Mensa and ΦBK membership on his business cards. Still I'm considering it, and for this reason alone:

When I took that practice test, I had fun.

Clearly, if I'm the type of guy who enjoys taking an IQ test for an hour in between playing knock-off Boggle and Words-with-Friends on his iPhone, reading comic books, and creating vector art, I must be the type of asshole who belongs with other assholes who take tests for fun.

They should build a special camp for us. In outer space. They could call it "Asshole Camp."

New Da Vinci Code Sequel: Dante, Damnation, Another D-Word

Dan Brown has a new Robert Langdon "Da Vinci" book coming out, this one again an earnest sequel. It's called Inferno, so clearly it has some roots in the politically veiled Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri, but otherwise not much is known yet. So far, Langdon saved the world from impossible but still dramatic Ewan McGregor-based antimatter annihilation, and then proved a woman to be the direct descendant of Jesus of Nazareth and Mary the Magdalena.


Now, he'll prove that one pope really did end up in Hell, I guess. And Beatrice was a real person. And there's a hole in the ground in Italy that was a secret tunnel. If that last one is wrong I'll pay my friend Dean $10. Dean is a good proxy for all of you. He takes foolish bets and loves doing so.

A coworker and I got talking from this. Apparently, her daughter is in the process of preparing for the verbal defense of her dissertation, the topic being related to Opus Dei and secret societies and all the goodies Dan Brown writes so dryly about until you either fall asleep or lose track of the historical and fictitious elements in his stories.

I suggested she write for permission to access the Vatican Secret Archives, at least in passing and if only to say she had done so. It'd be cool to have that tucked under your belt when you get up in front of a gaggle of academics whose purpose is your judgement. "Oh, yes, I requested of the Vatican's secured archives materials related to my thesis, however you'll have to forgive me, I have surprisingly yet to hear back from them."

And then Robert Langdon runs into the chamber as a sniper's bullet casually pierces the air whence once you were standing, burying itself in the chest of the bald, aging historian wearing the grey tweed vest and big, round glasses who had been the first to laugh at your cute opener. As he slumped back in his chair and his associated dove for cover, Langdon's firm grip tugs on your arm, bringing the rest of you to follow out through the stacks and out onto the busy evening streets of Rue Sainte Catherine de Medici.

*yawn*

The Silence of the Llamas

So this is a real thing:

Which of course led to this at work:

Which led to my addition of this:


"A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some llama beans and a nice Chianti."


Is it terribly gory? Let's just say when I read it alpaca barf bag.


*rimshot*

What Is The Pro Bowl?

The Pro Bowl is like that scene in American Psycho where Patrick Bateman watches two hookers he's paid to fuck.

Yeah, it's kind of cool, but it's pretty obvious to everyone they're not trying very hard and everybody's just in it for the money.

Obama Announces 'Most Trusted Advisor'

Sorry, AP.

Obama has announced his new Chief of Staff, taking over for Jack Lew who the president has nominated for Secretary of the Treasury, as Denis McDonough.

The president has worked with McDonough since he was a senator, calling him, "one of my closest and most trusted advisers."

…

Quickly, someone tell him he'll never be as strong as Ted Kennedy.

Your Product Packaging Does Nothing to Instill Me with Confidence

Braun, what are you doing? How can a self-cleaning waterproof shaver be flammable?


Is it … is it the cleaner? Is that flammable? Like just an alcohol base? Or is it powered by a battery of raw, unshielded lithium that, if punctured and released into the environment, would instantly combust upon contact with water, a common bathroom phenomenon? If the latter, I would suggest "combustible" as a more accurate term.

Or maybe, just maybe it's worse. What if the shaver itself were somehow … unstable?

Quickly, everyone, test your Braun power shavers. Do they appear to be made of some otherworldly matter or phase in-and-out of reality when plugged in? Does the constant renewal of the blades appear a parlor trick? Perhaps covering for the truly ageless nature of titanium buzzers from before the dawn of our own universe, from whatever it was that came before time itself held meaning?

If so, I would recommend you find yourself a ninety year old Italian or possibly Armenian man to use a straight razor on you and just call it a day.

I am apparently a sexist, hypocritical bastard

People who look like this don't get jobs as waitresses.
They get a million dollars for talking funny and getting naked every three episodes.

I hate seeing so many pretty people on TV.

Alright, obviously that's a lie. Maybe vitriol, if I can save some face. I'm tired of seeing average people on TV dating or married to smoking hot individuals (The League, any family dinner-comedy, and every show where a fat comedian is married with the exceptions of Roseanne [giving her a hot husband would have been disingenuous and double-standards prevented it from seeming believable] and Mike and Molly [which I'll get to in a second]). I'm also tired of seeing gorgeous people having hard lives as if they didn't know they were gorgeous. (True Blood, The New Girl, Two Broke Girls, etc.)

Do you know what happens when you grow up pretty and outgoing?

You become a successful actress. Brooding and Tortured Guy doesn't hang around playing video games all day in his boxers, he grows up and works three jobs in between auditions until he lands a gig opposite Zooey Deschanel for a couple seasons making good money. And yeah, in his free time then he plays Call of Duty in his skivvies. But he's not clinically depressed about never meeting girls.

The nerds on The Big Bang Theory date gorgeous women. Haha, joke joke, everyone's pretty on TV. Yes. Everyone. Even the ugly people on TV aren't that ugly. Hell, Ugly Betty was pretty cute, they just did a major reverse-montage on her every episode, like watching a high school prom movie backwards. We're creating neurotic children with impossible perceptions of beauty because we just don't like to look at anyone who isn't uncommonly attractive in our leisure time.

And yet I don't like Mike and Molly. I don't like looking at Ron Howard's brother on The League. I have no interest in watching any of the women from Bridesmaids in any of the things they have ever been in, including that amazing film I still haven't seen, simply because I do not find myself enjoying looking at them.

I've been sucked into this scheme as much as everyone else, so all I can do is propose this:

Let us hold ourselves to a higher standard than we have, so perhaps there will be fewer obese, slothful, unhealthy people in the real world.

And let us hold others to a standard lower, so that we will see beauty in unaugmented human beings who genuinely try to be their best.



Also, let's murder anyone who starred in a reality show just because they were famous for being famous. I figure that's gotta give us a leg-up.

Who You Gonna Call?

Veeco - When it absolutely, positively has to be there before four guys and the Statue of Liberty snatch the baby away.



P.S. - I love that Vigo "the Carpathian" has a higher Google Search listing than "Mortensen."

Ride Hard

• One Harley-Davidson
• One dirt bike
• One speed boat
• One Power Wheels 4x4

Hell yeah. Go big or go home.

The 10-12% | Jedi, Economics, and the Hyperelite

One of my prized possessions.

Star Wars is one of those things nerds could–and do–argue about for hours. I'd be chief among them. You want to have one? Please do. I relish the opportunity, because instead of emotionally maturing as a child, I learned about Star Wars.

Part of the problem is that Star Wars became too big to be coherent decades ago. The expanded universe was fun, but with the release of prequels and now the promise of non-George-helmed sequels, there's new canonical information that has to be wedged into old B-grade canon, much of which was frankly better and more sensical than the new information.

Certain things get dropped by the wayside, however, and always have. Example: beings tend to need to buy things with money.

Star Trek has always maintained that its Federation is a post-scarcity society. Cheap energy is made freely available all as a common good, and combined with replicator technology, functionally all necessities and luxury items can be created by anyone with enough time and effort. Careers exist more for the betterment of citizens and at their own discretion than on any real need for goods. Functionally, it is a socialist paradise. Only backward, tangential worlds and the Ferengi maintain capitalist ideals.

Star Wars takes place in a galactic-scale capitalist culture. Banks have their own clans, Trade Federations start civil wars or tarif rates and embargo disputes. The capital of all known systems caters to the support of an upper-echelon elite, high above the lower strata of Coruscant. In the Outer Rim, slavery is a common and accepted practice, especially on worlds controlled by the Hutts, an entire species primarily devoted to being crime lords.

Perhaps this has something to do with the level of technology achieved in each universe. Star Trek has faster-than-light travel, dematerializing transporters, and the ability to replicate anything from basic elemental building blocks, themselves saved as pure energy as if via transporter. Star Wars, meanwhile achieves FTL transport, but transporters are relatively unknown and widely considered impossible, although short-range models have been demonstrated effective. Largely, however, means of production and distribution of goods remain in line with what we possess currently. Goods are produced either by hand or machine (sometimes both!) and curried from A to B by ship to be sold in stores for currency. Want a nice nerf steak and a cup of caf for a meal? Go to the ship's galley and heat up a couple. Principles of technology may be more advanced, but the long-and-short of it is Aunt Beru had to go to market to buy her blue milk that came from a dairy farmer.

Herein lies a problem for the narrative. In Star Wars we rarely get to see what the average being is doing in the galaxy. Dictation and data pads are mentioned somewhat frequently, credits as a form of currency as well, and "(re)freshers" exist so that gentlefolks can scrawl out an invoice or missive, buy a BlasTech DL-44 pistol, or take a sanisteam after a long hyperspace jaunt.

Except that's boring, and as an audience, we tend to follow the action. If protagonists ever involve themselves in a financial transaction, it's either illicit, or cover while surveilling. Consider primary characters:

• Jedi
• The Republic/Rebel Alliance/New Republic/Galactic Alliance/Galactic Federation of Free Planets and associated militias
• The Empire
• Smugglers

These are not the types to necessarily lament a lack of access to funds. Han Solo and his bands of rogues? They steal what they need, blast through security, and make a delivery to earn their payday. They've all won and lost fortunes a dozen times over–Lando Calrissian is famous for it. If a job didn't go bad, we wouldn't read about it. Federal governments don't exactly request expenditure reports during a war either. While the Rebels acquired their superior X-Wing fighters specifically through capture of the plans and defection of the creators, the Empire has entire worlds' resources at its disposal. It is an evil, tyrannical dictatorship, after all.

At the top of society, the Skywalker-Solo clan own multiple apartments, furnished many times over with expensive accoutrements and the highest, often illegal security measures. They are heroes upon heroes. Leia was Galactic President, for god's sake. Twice. The sheer volumes of riches lavished upon them necessitated teams of specialized accountants just to manage. The result is that none of these characters ever need to worry about money for the rest of their lives, and being appropriately paranoid for the eight most important beings in the galaxy, they have access to secret assets.

There is never any mention of these elites ever receiving spam mail.

Even the Jedi are above the need for funding. Between all the money funneled into the organization through Luke and his friends, government subsidies and "gifts" of tactical armaments during times of crisis, the Jedi are perhaps the most well-trained, well-funded, well-organized private army in existence, and yes I'm including the revived Mandalorian warriors. They maintain leagues of accountants whose sole purpose is to ensure that their investments allow them to function completely autonomously from any governmental oversight.They go to the laundry and are handed a new robe from the Coruscanti employed by the Jedi Temple. They travel to Ilum to pick their own crystals to construct their own lightsabers. If the cost of antimater and fusable material were not so expensive, one might almost consider this a green movement. Rather than living as ascetics, Jedi exist in a post-scarcity near-paradise simply because they have more money than some star systems.

As of 40 years post-Endor, there are approximately 400 known living Force users in the Jedi collective. Let us double that number to account for spouses and non-Force-wielding family members who enjoy the perks of residing within this hyper-elite group. Let us round off to an even thousand to compensate for the rotating cadre of bandits, allies, and planetary elites who operate within their bubbles of influence.

Of the 100 quadrillion sentient beings living in the Galaxy, that makes the Jedi and their surrounding parties civilization's top 0.000000000001%.

They are The 10^-12%.

A Million Dollar Idea

Hipsters love kitschy sweaters. Also putting animals in clothing. And yet again, meta-humor.

So I want to sell dog sweaters with humans in them. Little clothes for dogs so they when you take your "Awkward Family Pet Photo" you wear a shirt with your Welsh corgi on it, while your corgi wears a title person on hers.

Hipsters don't headbang because if you shake them too hard their parents' money falls out.


Photo credit: Christina Moculski.

Endless Asian

So we're watching an episode of Always Sunny In Philadelphia and the joke is that the little North Korean waitress is actually 12 years old.

The trouble is, we were all hedging bets on the actress' real age. I said 20. Mike said "at least 21." Jay's guess was a lowball around 18ish. It's completely up in the air. Could be anything.

The joke stands. There's just something about homo Sapiens of Mongoloid descent that just gives you such terrific skin and bone structure. It's phenomenal. Bravo, universe.

It's like my organic milk. That stuff stays good for months. I've never seen it go bad, but I know it happens eventually.

Asian women at eighteen until they're thirty, thirty until they're eighty, and then they're 104.

One day, Lucy Liu is going to become 4'10, 3 feet around, and lose half her teeth, and then she'll play the witchy great-great grandmother in Hong Kong sword-and-sorcery flicks for another two decades.

For the record, the actress who plays Sun-Li in "The North Korean Situation"? Her name is Tania Gunadi. She's 29.

Swamp Pawn?

What?

I'm sorry, did you just take the best rated shows from the History Channel and slap them together?

How about throwing the word "Ice" in there? Maybe some extras, too.

Who wouldn't watch Ice Swamp Pawn Boss Top Wars?

The Last Goodnight's "Stay Beautiful" Is Awful and Here Is Why

This song is the musical equivalent of what you write in a high school yearbook for someone you never really knew and never really cared to.

"Don't stop. Don't change. Stay beautiful."

 Fantastic. Why don't you just add "Have a great summer!" to the end of that and make this humiliation complete? At this point your just saying words that happen through sheer repetition of language to have acquired a culturally understood sensicality. There is no actual meaning to any of them in that order. You might have well better utilized the space under your senior class photo by simply scrawling your name extra large and the brief message, "Thanks for being polite. I'll never likely see you again and we're both alright with this."


HAGS!
- Dave

The First Time I Have Ever Been Truly Grateful for Autocorrect

My iPhone just corrected "tape" from "rape."

I am very happy about this, what with the conversation I'd been having about book publishers and retailers merging/warring, and creating "antitrust red tape."

I honestly don't want to think about MacMillan & Co. creating red rape any time soon. That sounds like more the self-published-mommy-porn cup of tea, if you ask me, and I'm still of the opinion those abuse fantasy whackjobs should have kept it to watching Hallmark Channel original movies like back in the good old days.

Before the Dark Times. Before the Grey. Now the Soccer MILF is all but extinct … seduced by the dark side of vampire romance and edgy, South Reno strip clubs.

Alright, I can't actually shoehorn any more Star Wars references into that idea. Actually I almost said "Wedge," but I don't think enough of you are nerdy enough to catch that one. And if you did, I'm sorry I just explained it. I feel like C-3PO now. I'll be in the corner if anyone needs me.

Have Low Standards

"Too sexy for this car," you say?

I must be inclined to agree with you, miss—and I say miss because you are driving an ivory white Chrystler PT Cruiser with Floridian license plates.

The PT Cruiser is the most disgusting, hideous, moronic, least inspiring, rage-inducing piece of garbage aesthetic design debacle since Herbert Powell-Simpson allowed his half-brother to design The Homer.






So yes, dear, I will agree that you are too sexy for that car.

Honey Booboo's fat, ugly, human refuse personification of bad decisions mother is too sexy for a PT Cruiser.

Actually, I'm pretty sure she is half PT Cruiser and that explains a lot, actually.

Broken Rules of Marketing

I passed a hair and nail salon the other day that clearly never bothered to put its business' name through any sort of peer review process.

I imagine that the "SoHo Salaon" was trying to evoke and idea of the South Hampton neighborhood, but someone really should have told the guy making their requisite neon window sign.

He just kind of smooshed it together so it read, "SoHoSalon," which–my mind being what it is– picked up on as "So ho," as is "So Very, Very, Ho(ish)."

As in, "Hey! Look at that ravaged, raving twatter of a slut. I bet she got her cornrows did at So Ho."

I wouldn't name my dog grooming service "Dirty Bitches." Although, actually, I might. That's the kind of edgy, New York thinking that gets a man ahead on the East Coast.

But not if he's running a hair salon.

On Mixing Parables

My family is not what you would call … good.

Actions and attitudes aside, sometimes they're just foolish and I'm left aghast. For example: Christmas decorations that don't have anything to do with that particular holiday.





Joy Noel Peace Joy Noel. Sounds like a poor decision parents make while naming their children three weeks after having just been Saved themselves. But fine.

The trouble is that damned little bird. It's a dove. Jesus never saw a dove. Not once in his life. To my knowledge, Doves are not endemic to the Middle East. In fact that is a dove, looking back, with an olive branch in its mouth.

That would be the story of Noah. The guy from Jewish folklore? From before Abraham so there really weren't any Jews yet even? Just nomadic and slightly less-nomadic peoples. The guy based heavily on the preexisting Mesopotamian epic of Gilgamesh? That guy.

Leave it to the Christians to mix up their own lousy stories. Sheesh.

Etch-A-Pope! | The Most Blasphemous Game Since Civilization

The Pope has a book out about the Infancy Gospels of Jesus, or rather his take on the infancy, less the apocryphal texts and the Council of Nicea muddying the waters. This is the back jacket of that book:

To amuse a coworker, I placed the book in front of my face and jostled it as I quoted Return of the Jedi:

 Good! Good! Now, strike me down with all of your hatred, and your journey towards the Dark Side shall be complete!"

Apparently, she always imagine Pope Benedict had a squeaky rat voice, which makes sense considering his name was Ratzinger.

Interestingly, since "Ratskeller" is the name of at east one dive bar in every college town, literally German for "rat cellar," it stands to reason that the German Pope's name means "one who [zing]s rats." I'm not sure exactly what German verb "zing" would be the root of, however. Cursory research reveals only that Ratzinger is Bavarian for "one from Ratzing," and there is a Southern Bavarian town called Ratzing. So, basically, the Pope is named "One from the place where rats and Zinged."

Anyway.

Somehow we also determined that the pope would need a new face to match his crazy voices, but since I couldn't come up with just one to waste my time on, I created this:

It's Etch-A-Pope!

Mix and match your favorite pope pieces, or create brand new ones using only a pen and the parts of a Post-It note closest to the sticky strip!

We have Cat Pope!

W. C. Fields Pope!

Derpy-Pope!

Terminator Pope! (Alternately "Robot Baboon Al Gore Pope" maybe?)

 Emperor Palpipope!

 Extra-Derpy-Pope! (Alternately "Hillbilly Pope" or "Pope Cletus.")

And PinochiPope! The Pope who always lies!

(Better known as "Regular Pope.")
Oh snap.

Pussy Riot | Don't Make Me Call Ken Jennings

Melissa McCarthy, Rosario Dawson, and Felica Day.
Get on it, Hollywood.

Roommate: "Until a few years ago, I didn't know Daylight Savings Time was a thing … that we did in America and not elsewhere."

Roommate's Friend: "Yeah. We don't even have it in Russia. They got rid of it. My Nana was telling me."

Me: "Mmn. Which is weird because Russian spans like six time zones. So it's 2 in Siberia and 8 p.m. in Moscow, but it's still 2 p.m."

Room: … [beat of silence]

Roommate's other friend: "…Yeah, but how many people actually live in Siberia?"

Me: "Uh, a few, actually. There's a lot of people still in gulags over there."

Room: …

Me: "Like Pussy Riot."

Roommate: "That's a … band?"

Me: "Yeah. They tried to protest so they got sent to-"

Roommate's Friend #3: "Pussy Riot?"

Me: "Yeah. When Vladimir Putin's presidential term was up, he created the position of Prime Minister which was more important than President, then basically took that job and appointed the new president. Now a term later, he's switching them back, but now Prime Minister is less powerful again. Russians decided to protest, and this political girl band Pussy Riot staged some protests, so they got arrested and sentenced to three years in prison."

Roommate's 4^th Friend: "…You know a lot of things."

Me: "And none of them useful to my daily life."



I kind of wish for creativity's sake that I wrote that, instead of merely transcribing it.

Communists Hate My Pants

I bought some new pants and I'm a little worried about how exciting I find that.


They're really nice pants which I got on sale, so they're way nicer than I'm used to. Like they're all soft and they never wrinkle, so every day I'm feeling lazy and don't want to iron, or I roll out of bed late and run out the door, I just say, "It's okay, I'll just dress in my fancy pants." Awesome.

Here's how you can tell these pants are too fancy, though: they have four ways of closing.

Four.

There's an inner button, a clasp, an outer button, and the zipper. These are, by far, the most secure pants I've ever owned that didn't put my penis on cock-down with a button fly.

Four? I mean four?? Time was a man was lucky to have a string to hold them up, and now I have pants with a quartet of closures. It's decadent, ostentatious, opulent.

Communists would fucking hate my pants.

On Rosy Outlooks

I made one of these at work a couple days ago to jokingly describe the experience of customer service, then promptly forgot about it.

Apparently it went over very, very well in my absence.

Days off are good for morale, but so are t-shirt sales. We may have something here.

On Love

Valentine's Day just keeps getting sadder and sadder, as industry cycles back in on itself and regurgitates a slightly adapted version of last season's commodities in light of cultural trends.

Example: this is a wooden box with a cute saying on it. People seem to like these, and display them about their homes. Seasonal boxes can be swapped out, and are a great product in so far as they are cheap to make and unlikely to be reused when next year's fad comes along.

This particular one borrows its quote from the Stephen Still song of the same name, "Love the One You're With."

…

Alright, I'll grant the notion that loving the one you are with is an invocation to appreciate every day the person you have chosen to be with, and that's a fair sentiment to invoke.

However, the full line is

And if you can't be
With the one you love,
Honey, love the one you're with.

Stills is saying to be kind and loving, or at it's most literal copulous, with whomever you happen to be because you're not with the person you really want to be.

This is a song about settling for Number 2 and making the most of it. How awful is that? Just what every guy wants to hear: "Well, you're not Patrick Dempsey, but I think I can make do.

Man, fuck that and fuck Patrick Dempsey. Using this line for Valentine's Day is akin to politicians including the Reagan campaign trying to use "Born in the USA" during the 1984 presidential election.

Squares just don't get it.

On Being a Tremendous Pansy

Feel the mild, slightly spicy warming sensation.

I've gotten upset over the last week as, after every meal, my stomach seemingly distends outward, granting me what appears to be a "gut." I do not like this. I like being so skinny any and all muscle matter I have is clearly defined, all without that disgusting thing I hear about called "effort."

But, it occurs to me that if I start working out now that it's Winter, by the time I get bored again, it'll be Summer, and there is a much higher chance of sexy ladies being impressed with how I look shirtless if the weather and associated recreational activities are more amenable to walking around sans-overthings.

You see, I weighed myself the other day, after weeks of living more by, "I can't have fast food two days in a row," more than actual nutrition, and I had gained five pounds. This is, quite sadly, a not-insignificant percentage thereof. Much to my satisfaction, I them caught a week-long cold, and promptly lost all that weight, but the impetus has set in. I need to start lifting a little and doing sit-ups again. I don't care if I'm healthy, or strong, mind you; I just need to look good.

Case in point:

I pre-made some sandwiches and salads and ravioli this past week, and did eight minutes of sit-ups and crunches last night. Now I look toned again. That was it. Fitness trainers would loathe me. However, today I went bowling and I feel like I got hit by a small economy-class car. Bowling. It was eight games of all-you-can-bowl from 12:30 to 4, so alright, I swung a 12lb kettle iron about a hundred reps, but my wrist and back leg feel like they're trapped in tar and I just feel like that says quite a lot about my overall physical abilities right now.

I'll blame it on repetitive stress motions, but I'm going to get yelled at by my doctor when I finally get around to making an appointment in the coming weeks.

Seem to have cured my own ingrown toenail, though, so your move, healthy people.

Pac Porn

After the NamCo money dried up, Pac Man found profitable employment as an erotic novel cover graphic designer.
Single objects in closeup on a monochromatic, usually black background. Mmm, that gets me hot. How about you?

On Amusing Monickers

Apparently Jackie Chans had the day off.

I just don't know how to break it to Chris Tucker.

Nerds Have Opinions | Also Whales Are Big

Ewoks. Deal with it.

A friend texted me at 9 a.m. saying that she has finally seen "all three" Star Wars movies (good girl; doesn't count I-III) and asking which was my favorite.

That is a question that cannot be asked without initiating a very long and very opinionated diatribe. There are only four choices, and no response is ever as short as just naming one. These choices are:

A New Hope
Empire
Jedi
and saying any prequel, animated, or made-for-TV Ewok Adventure just to be an ass.

Now, one cannot just respond with one of these answers for two reasons, the primary of which being that Giant Jedi Nerds must always differentiate their favorite installment from the best.

The best Star Wars movie is, objectively speaking, Empire. You can argue it, but you will always end up losing to a nerd who knows more about the Trilogy. Irvin Kershner's directing, the darker tone, the serious mix of both fantasy and sci-fi, Empire is the most balanced of the Star Wars films, and is inextricably linked to both Jedi and A New Hope, as well as the prequels through the revelation of Luke's parentage.

There I go again. ever get a nerd started on absolute qualities.

Your favorite Episode is entirely up to you. Women seem to prefer Jedi for the up-ending, the redemption of Vader, the tempering of Han's cocky badboy attitude, and–yes–the adorable Ewoks. Men frequently side towards the other two, with perhaps a very slight leaning towards Empire for the reasons listed above.

Personally, I like A New Hope. It's the only stand-alone Star Wars movie. It informs the others in the series, it is not informed by them. This is A) the reason George Lucas made this particular piece of the story first, when there was no guarantee he'd have the opportunity to tell the rest of the story, and B) what makes it the only reasonable place to initiate new viewers.

I am inclined to now attempt the Saga cycle in a IV-V-I-II-III-VI sequence since I have the day off, but since I kind of want to still be a little productive today, I may just decide to watch five hours of Doctor Who in between menial tasks.

That in itself being a productive task, so now all the Whos down in Whoville will stop yelling at me to watch their series.

I Was A 20-Something Teen Wolf

"Give me.…A keg.…Of Visine."
"Please."

I think I'm turning into a Teen Wolf.


Hey, some of us go through it a little later in life than others, alright?

And before the one person who watches MTV original scripted programming pipes in, no, I mean the Michael J. Fox Teen Wolf, where a legitimately dweeby, sweaty little dude sucks at everything until PRIMAL, ANIMALISTIC POWER is unleashed by his hormones and he turns into a total d-bag for a semester until he learns to control his shit and matures as a person. Not the version where a tall, skinny, beard-incapable male model with glasses gets mauled by a tall, skinny, sexy-stubbled male model asshole werewolf and turns into the exact same person but who occasionally turns into a werewolf and eats a deer or something.

See, I used to be socially awkward. Not Amazing Spider-Man awkward, but just awkward enough that I would sometimes think being just slightly more awkward could be convenient because it would bump me into the Asperger's range and I'd have an excuse.

But then I grew emotionally. I needed money and I needed to learn how to interact with people, so I took a job where I'd have to do a lot of people-talking. It did pretty well, as a therapy. I knew what I needed, I practiced it, and it helps. Now I can talk to pretty much anybody, at least for a bit, seem nice enough to them, no matter my actual mood, just generally leave a decent impression.

I also try to remain overtly honest so any self-deprication isn't viewed as covering for actual cockiness. I try to agree when people tell me positive things about me, modestly, so that I try to remember they're true things. This … works some of the time? Either I forget and appear to really not believe I'm awesome (usually true), or I agree too readily since it's a habit now, and I come off as cocky (only sometimes true, like 40%.…maybe 45).

The point I'm trying to make is, I'm trying to keep a handle on my douchey-ness and my preternatural manliness, but I'm getting really confused finding long, soft hairs in all my laundry, even the clean stuff. That never used to happen before I started getting girls.

But I don't remember getting that many girls recently, either, so I'm hoping I've just been secretly turning into a Teen Wolf every few weeks and remembering to redress and lock the door behind me when I come home near dawn.

Hopefully I don't eat those two cute deer that live out back.

Ben & Jerry's Will Never Make a Hitler Ice Cream

The idea came up maybe a week or so ago of creating a Hitler-centric ice cream flavor for Ben & Jerry's.

This is terrible. Awful. Unconscionable. And frankly unmarketable.

Now moving on, what flavor would it be? As a base, it would have to be pure vanilla bean, but without those little flakes of actual vanilla bean in it. Frozen yogurt, then. It would also have caramel and chunks of blondie batter swirled in, with blueberries. Honestly, it's those blue eyes that ruin the idea. Up until that, Hitler's Blaster Case Frozen Yogurt sounds mightily consumable. It would even go well with Mussolini Mint and Cookie Hirohit-Dough.

The trick is, though, you can never have it with multi-colored sprinkles.

No Judgements

Dear Everyone Who Survived Last Night:


I just want you to know I still respect you. I know New Year's is a crazy night. It's okay. I don't think any less of you, for any of those things you did. Really, it's okay. I promise.

I spent last night sick in bed, blankly staring at Ryan Seacrest, waiting for my NyQuil to kick in. At one point, I put chapstick on my nose because I was raw from blowing it so much. That's sad and embarrassing. Whoever you tried to make out with? Really, it's alright.

Dignity is a … relative process.