Vs. Things That Go Bump In The Night

Here’s the deal. As children, most of us are afraid of the dark. After all, we can imagine a lot of different monsters that could be hiding there. Fortunately, most of us have adults around who can settle us down with some nice, calm, mature reason. When I was a kid, I couldn’t wait until I turned into one of those grownups who are magically unafraid of the dark.

Sadly, it never happened.

If anything, I’m now more afraid of the dark. Of course, I can still imagine all of those same monsters that I could imagine when I was a kid. In fact, the more you experience, the more creative you can be with inventing new monsters. And, as an adult, I’m now all too aware of all the real things in life that are truly worthy of my fear.

What I imagine when I hear anything at night.

Now when I’m lying in bed and I hear a creak or moan from the living room, it’s scarier than ever. And my Dad is getting sick of me calling him at two in the morning to assure me that there’s no such thing as serial killer, land-based, shark zombies.

For example, I was housesitting for a friend a few months ago when just such a situation arose. My friend has a miniature dog and elusive cat. The cat kept to herself the whole time (which is just how I like my cats). The dog, on the other hand, couldn’t have been more social. She’s a cute, pint sized pup who excels at toe licking. And I appreciated her company…until that night…

It was very late and all of the lights were off. I was lying on the couch watching TV when my pooch pal suddenly became very alert. She leapt up like a security guard responding to an alarm, took a few serious steps towards the living room, and began to bark into the pitch-black abyss.

And, I kid you not, I froze like a deer in the headlights. Because that was some freaky, scary crap. And I reasoned that if I didn’t move a single muscle, the killer who was clearly making his way through the living room might not see me. And this went on for some time.

The dog just kept barking directly into the unlit living room.

And I kept perfectly still, wondering how my obituary would read.

And this dog was roughly the size of a large tomato so, while she was doing a hell of a job of alerting me to my impending demise, she would certainly be helpless to defend me when the maniac made his presence known. Meanwhile, I have all of the self-defense skills of a frightened turtle and was just wondering at what point it would be appropriate to start wetting myself.

I jest now, but I was really freaked out. And I don’t remember ever being that scared of the dark as a child. Of course, I now know that the mini-mutt was just having some fun with me. “Don’t give me a second can of dog food?” the dog surely thought to herself, “Wait until later, I’ll scare the crap out of you, silly human.”

Eventually, I mustered enough courage to dash to the light switch and reveal the life-threatening living room sofa that had warranted twenty minutes of defensive barking. I then quickly turned on every bulb, lamp, and flashlight in the entire house and patiently held my breath until morning came, at which point I felt it was safe to finally get some sleep.

So if I ever have kids and they call me into their room late at night to check for monsters under the bed…screw that. I’m no child’s monster bate. I’m sliding right into bed next to my offspring and, just to be on the safe side, the two of us are going to lay perfectly still with our eyes wide open until the sun comes up.

The Invention of the Mini-Blog (Vs. Slow Motion Wet Fruit, Memberships, and Cheese)

Here’s the deal. We live in a fast paced world. Our nation’s attention span is getting shorter. Recent studies indicate that…no, don’t stop reading, I’ll skip that and get to the point.

You’re busy. I get it. Between uploading your ipads and downloading your ifloppy mainstreams, you don’t have time to read a blog. And it goes without saying that I don’t have the time to write it.

Problem solved.

I just invented the mini-blog.

It’s just like a blog, only shorter. And not as good.

Welcome to the future.

MINI-BLOG #1 – VS. SLOW MOTION WET FRUIT

Here’s the deal. I just saw a yogurt commercial that featured wet fruit being thrown, in slow motion, across the screen where it crashes into wet fruit being thrown across the screen from the other direction. I know this imagery is designed to make me rush out and buy their product, but instead of thinking, “Gosh, I’d like to get me some of that delicious yogurt,” I find myself thinking, “Why is wet fruit being thrown, in slow motion, across the screen where it crashes into wet fruit being thrown across the screen from the other direction?”

Surely this is not a necessary part of the food preparation. And yet I’ve seen this move in ads for any type of food that has fruit in it (or, in the case of hamburgers, they’ll sometimes toss lettuce and onions…what’s with these people?) That’s not how you make yogurt. Is it?

Fruit not being wet or thrown.

Why is that fruit so wet? Why is it being tossed about? Are they not concerned that it could bruise when it collides with the other fruit?

Just stop it. Please.

MINI-BLOG #2 – VS. MEMBERSHIPS

Here’s the deal. I went to buy a sandwich and they asked me if I had a membership. Why would I have a membership to a sandwich place? Why is this now a part of our society?

If I had a membership to every place that offers me a membership…I’d have way too many memberships. Like a lot of them. I don’t have a number for you off the top of my head, but I can assure you it would be a comical amount of memberships.

It’s becoming quite silly. No more memberships. Please.

MINI-BLOG #3 – VS. CHEESE

Here’s the deal. Cheese is way too delicious. If there is cheese in my refrigerator, I will eat it. Period. Sometimes I don’t even know how the cheese got in my refrigerator. But there it is. And then I consume it. I know it’s not the healthiest choice (I should probably try some wet fruit), but it’s scrumptious and I want it in my belly.

It’s so cruel that all of the delicious foods are the ones that we’re not supposed to eat and everything that will make us live longer tastes like a lawn.

I cannot resist you, cheese. So just stop being so tasty. Please.

Vs. Hacky Sack

Here’s the deal. Hacky Sack is ridiculous.

If you’ve never played Hacky Sack, the goal is to kick a small bag of beads around without letting it touch the ground. If you have played Hacky Sack, the goal remains the same.

The unusually capitalized website wikiHow offers the following steps for how to play Hacky Sack: (1) Use inside kicks, outside kicks and toe kicks to pass the sack from player to player, (2) Utilize stalls to help control the play of the sack, (3) Keep your feet low for better control, (4) Minimize knee passes, (5) Stay relaxed while kicking, and (6) Combine stalls and kicks for ultimate control to keep the sack from touching the ground.

And here are my own steps for how to play Hacky Sack: (1) Kick the Hacky Sack to the nearest player, (2) Pick the Hacky Sack up off the ground, (3) Repeat.

It may be pretty…but it ain’t pretty.

Because every time I’ve ever seen anyone play this absurd game, the majority of their time is divided between bemoaning the fact that their kick went astray (“Bro, so close,” “Man, I thought I had that one,” “Dude, sweet kick, oh, dang!”, etc.) and bending down to pick the sack up off the ground and start another short-lived round.

Here are three interesting facts about Hacky Sack. (1) Hacky Sack was invented in 1972. (2) There are no other interesting facts about Hacky Sack. (3) Even that first fact about Hacky Sack in no way qualifies as being interesting.

Unfortunately, if you do find yourself playing Hacky Sack, the odds greatly increase that there will be (a) less t-shirts worn and (b) more body odor present – mostly due to the fact that most sack circles are composed of 23 year old males who haven’t combed their hair since the 90’s. (Side note – in a gay bar, a sack circle is something far different…and much more enjoyable).

I have no idea why anyone would call this extended exercise in futility a game. Kicking a small lumpy sack in the general direction but just out of reach of the person standing next to you isn’t a game. It’s the definition of crazy. The result is always the same. No matter how many times you play, gravity wins. And everyone else loses.

Vs. Splash

Here’s the deal. Never has a TV show seemed more like a parody of a TV show. The first time I saw an ad for the new reality show, Splash, I thought it had to be a joke. I figured that perhaps it was just a typo for NBC’s drama Smash. But it wasn’t. It was all too real.

 
According to ABC, “Splash marks the first time 10 celebrities will train and compete in regulation platform and springboard diving at dizzying heights in front of a weekly poolside audience.” Really? How can this be? It feels like there have been dozens of times when ten celebrities have trained and competed in regulation platform and springboard diving at dizzying heights in front of a weekly poolside audience in the past. It can’t be just me. Come on, you’ve seen ten celebrities training and competing in regulation platform and springboard diving at dizzying heights in front of a weekly poolside audience before, haven’t you? The idea is so fantastic it must have been done before.

 
And what “celebrities” are featured plummeting to the water from dozens of inches in the air? How about Drake Bell, Rory Bushfield, Ndamukong Suh, and Katherine Webb just to name a few? Impressed? You should be. Because, yes, it’s that Rory Bushfield. Of Rory Bushfield fame. World renowned for doing those things which he is famous for doing. And Katherine Webb? Fantastic. ABC rants that she “finished in the top ten of Miss USA 2012.” That’s it. That’s enough to get her on a reality show. But, hey, if finishing in the top twenty percent of a competition people stopped watching twenty years ago isn’t the definition of fame, I don’t know what is.

No. They’re not going to look like this.

Yes, it’s pretty sad when your big gun is Louie Anderson. ABC brags that Anderson is famous for his “memorable role” in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Don’t remember that memorable role? Maybe that’s because he is essentially an extra, appearing on camera for less than fifteen seconds and not saying a word. I’m not sure how ABC defines “memorable,” but I’m sure that future generations will look back in admiration at the memorable debut of Splash.

 
But the most alarming thing about this show is not that it consists solely of a bunch of D list celebrities jumping into water, but that 8.8 million people tuned in for the first episode. Seriously. Close to nine million Americans sat down on whatever night this show airs and thought to themselves, “I have nothing better to do than to watch Rudy from The Cosby Show fall into a swimming pool.”

 
And I’ve seen another ad for it this week in which some woman stands, poolside, crying. What’s the drama here? Does she have an intense fear of not being dry? Was her family murdered by a rogue band of diving boards and she’s being forced to relive that trauma? Or did she just now learn that her agent signed her up to “star” on Splash?

 
We can’t let the networks continue to water down television like this. You’re telling them that you’ll be willing to watch even the least famous among us do anything if it’s made to slightly resemble a competition. At this rate, next fall we’ll be watching Andrew Dice Clay and Brigitte Nielsen battle to be the greatest department store cost cutter in Slash, Lindsay Lohan and Dustin Diamond struggling to be the world’s greatest celebrity short order cook in Hash, or Carrot Top vs. Erik Estrada in the greatest reality facial hair growing competition of all time – Mustache. And, sadly, all of these jokes seem like a better idea than Splash.

Vs. Constellations

Here’s the deal. I’m on Twitter. I would have done this sooner, but there was some confusion as to how it works. Every morning for the past couple of years I would wake up, say something clever to my computer and then shout, “Tweet!” at my monitor. I erroneously assumed that these comedic nuggets and insightful quips were being shared with the world. I was wrong.

So I started up this week in earnest and now I try to tweet something that will help make the Universe a better place every day. And I’ve been assuming all week that these comedic nuggets and insightful quips were being shared with the world. I was wrong again. They were only being shared with my eleven followers. If I recall, Jesus had around eleven followers and he did alright…but I’m shooting a little higher.

Thus, I’ve included a little twitter update on my sidebar and now you too can conveniently follow me on Twitter via the simple click of a button. Take a look. It’s over there. What’s in it for you? Well, the Lady Gagas of the world have over thirty million followers. And my plan is to overtake them by the end of the week. If you secure yourself as one of my first followers, you’ll be able to join me on this journey of laughter and learning (I, for example, just learned that there is apparently more than one Lady Gaga – weird).

Now…where was I? Oh, yes, constellations. I’ve always thought these things were ridiculous. Some Babylonians looked up at the night sky thousands of years ago, squinted their eyes and kind of sort of thought they saw a bull and somehow it stuck. Here’s my problem – none of the constellations look anything like anything. That’s not a ram. It’s a clump of five stars. And when you connect the dots you get…a bent line. A bent line that by no stretch of the imagination even begins to resemble a ram. Just stop it.

In 1922, the International Astronomical Union adopted the 88 officially recognized constellations. But who the hell does the International Astronomical Union think it is? No, seriously. Who the hell is the International Astronomical Union? Is that a real thing?

When they created the official list, they weeded out some of the wackier constellations. We used to look up at Hirudo (the leech), Polophylax (the guardian of the pole), Officiana Typographica (the print shop), Dentalium (the tooth shell), and Frederici Honores (Frederick’s honors). I have no idea what a tooth shell is, but I’m pretty sure it’s not up in the sky.

But they also left in some bizarre ones. Sure, we all know about Aquarius (the water-bearer), but who among us has heard of Antlia (the air pump), Caelum (the chisel), or Puppis (the poop deck). True story, those are all officially recognized constellations. I don’t know what kind of oddly specific imagination looks up at a random blob of stars and thinks, “Hey, that looks exactly like a quarter deck. Wait, no…more like a poop deck,” but they are incorrect.

And what’s with all the antiquated language? These things haven’t been updated in centuries. Today we’ve got constellations that translate as: the pendulum clock, the mariner’s compass, and the river Eridanus. Why can’t we bring our astronomy into the twenty-first century? I suggest we add the LOLcat, the iPhone 5, and the Beyonce.

Actually, were I in charge of naming the constellations, I would be much more accurate. I would name them exactly as they appear. Join me, romantics, and gaze up at the beautiful night sky. I think I see Humus (the cluster), Militus (the wad) and Astrum Nihilum (the group of stars that don’t look anything like any animal, person or thing).

Vs. Gun Control

Here’s the deal. There’s been a lot of talk in the news about gun control. But I say, talk is cheap…let’s shoot something.

The notion of even thinking of limiting any of the rights provided in the Constitution is decidedly un-American. These rights are absolute and cannot be infringed in any way. Take, for example, the first amendment. I’m a big proponent of our right to peaceably assemble. Anytime. Anywhere. (Last week, for example, I peacefully assembled inside the penguin exhibit at the zoo – it was awesome!)

You don’t see anyone trying to curtail that right. There’s no precedent. Except for the many precedents. When judges shut down Occupy movements they said that, “Government can make reasonable stipulations about the time, place and manner a peaceable protest can take place.” Like I said, the bill of rights is absolute. And, with the exception of when, where, and in what manner you may exercise these rights, no one has ever tried to put limits on them. But the first amendment right was limited for reasonable reasons. There are no reasonable reasons to limit our right to bear arms. During Occupy Oakland, for example, the mayor shut down the protest when a man was shot and killed near the sight. That’s sensible. Someone was killed, so you put limitations on people’s right to assemble. But I still can’t think of a single reason to put similar limits on guns.

Bottom line – guns don’t kill people. People with guns kill people. And there’s no way to stop that. Short of taking away their guns. But that would be crazy.

I simply don’t understand why those left-wing nuts insist on blaming the gun rather than the person firing the gun. It’s not as though a gun could kill someone if there weren’t murderous intent behind that trigger. Sure, you can talk all day about the five to six hundred people who die in the United States every year when guns are accidentally discharged. But so what? Do you know how many people die in accidental toaster deaths each year? Me either, but I’m sure it’s thousands. And no one’s yelling about taking away our toasters. And what’s five or six hundred accidental gun deaths? That’s nothing compared to the tens of thousands of intentional ones.

And yet Obama and his Kenyan cronies still want to take away our guns. Obama’s gun control proposal includes the following preposterous thingies:

(1) Criminal background checks for all gun sales. If I’ve said it once, everyone else has said it a thousand times…criminals, by definition, don’t follow the law so why are we trying to implement gun control laws that criminals will continue to defy? For that matter, why do we have laws against robbing banks or kidnapping or jaywalking? Why do we have any laws? If people aren’t always going to follow them then they’re pointless, right?

(2) Banning armor-piercing bullets. Absurd. I need my armor piercing bullets when I hunt bullet-proof elk and pheasants in shining armor. If I may humbly quote the second amendment, “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear light weight ballistic-capped, trinitrophenal-charged depleted uranium core, steel alloy piercing ammunition with fuse delay designed to explode inside the target, shall not be infringed.”

(3) Taking every single gun away from every single person. Oh…wait, that one’s not in there.

Look, there are a lot of reasons why the United States has far more gun deaths than any other country. Violent video games. Mental health issues. Liberals. Pretty much anything but guns. Blaming gun violence on guns would be like blaming mesothelioma on asbestos. Asbestos doesn’t kill people. People who use asbestos in construction kill people. Sure, asbestos is dangerous…but only when used a certain way. Like a gun. The government had no business regulating our asbestos and they have no business regulating our guns.

I feel safer already.

What these pinkos fail to understand is that guns are a crime deterrent. If your neighbors know not to mess with you or you’ll shoot them…and you know not to mess with all of your neighbors or they’ll shoot you…then soon everybody’s out on their lawns, guns drawn, shouting back and forth about who’s messing with who and who’s going to shoot first…safe and sound. In fact, the more lethal things you have in your house the safer you are. It’s just common sense. That’s why I keep Uzis, cobras, cyanide, switch blades, grenades, hemlock and puffer fish lying about the apartment.

 

Hey, if loving guns is wrong, I don’t want to be safe. And if you come for my weapons, you’ll find out just how unsafe I am. Allow me to close by quoting the slogan of “un-biased”, “independent”, “non-profit” “brain” trust – the National Rifle Association. “I’ll give you my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.” Which, because I own a gun, might not be too long.

Vs. Goats

Here’s the deal. What’s so great about goats?

For those outraged readers who are, at this very moment, leaping from their recliners and shouting to no one in particular, “What the fiddlesticks!?! We need goats!” I humbly disagree. I mean, come on, we already have sheep.

And aren’t goats just the sheep family’s black sheep? A goat is like the twenty-two year old sheep who, trying to find himself, comes home from their sixth year of college sporting a goatee, shaggy hair, one too many body piercings and ready to butt heads with any and all authority figures. Settle down emo-goats, you’re not nearly as hip or original as you imagine.

Allow me to counter every pro argument for goats.

PRO – Goats are valued around the world for their milk, meat and hair.

CON – Goat hair? What the hell am I going to do with goat hair? Gross.

And that’s it. Those were all of the known pro-goat arguments.

Speaking of hair, did you know that both the male and female goat have beards…that’s just freaky.

What’s the big deal?

Honestly, what is it that goats do exceptionally well? They’re coordinated and have great balance, which comes in handy…almost never, as they spend all of their time standing in remarkably flat fields grazing. Other than that…they’re known for eating almost anything. So is my Uncle Bobo. Big deal.

Goat lovers claim that they (the goats, not the lovers) are extremely curious and intelligent. Well answer me this – if they’re so smart, why did they choose to be goats?

Even history’s most famous goat isn’t really a goat. Pan is a well-known character from Greek mythology. You’d recognize him if you saw him. He has the lower body of a goat and the upper body of a cooking utensil.

Bottom line – everything goats do they do not as well as some other species. Rhinos laugh at goat’s sad little attempt at horns. Sheep baa their derision at goat’s attempt to create wool. Rams snort their disgust when goats butt heads as if they’re afraid they’re going to break a nail.

When people all over the globe enjoy their delicious stewed, baked, grilled, barbecued, or fried goat meat, each and every one of them are thinking to themselves, “I’m thoroughly enjoying my stewed, baked, grilled, barbecued, or fried goat meat…the only thing I’d enjoy more would be anything else.”

And what’s with the milk? Goats are all like, “Look at us, we’re making milk!” Uh, yeah, just like every other female mammal on the planet. Big whoop. I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, goats, but not that many humans enjoy your milk. Only two percent of the world’s consumed milk comes from goats (95% comes from cows and the remaining 3% comes from Pamela Anderson).

And what do goats call their kids? They call them kids. Real creative, goat-jerks. Way to steal our name for our offspring. Think of original names for your young much?

And what the hell is a bleat?

I’m sorry. Deep breaths. I need to settle down. It’s just…I hate goats so much. No, no, it’s okay. I’m okay. I just need to relax…I’ll be fine…I’ll just slip on my comfy cashmere sweater and enjoy a scrumptious slice of feta.