Hey Pig Piggy Pig Pig Pig

I've come up with another plan to make myself filthy rich. While this idea probably won't generate as much income as the Tweaker-on-the-Go Meth Kit (described here, and seen here), it's bound to bring in more than I'm making right now. After all, with this idea I'm going to take the fashion world by storm. I have to admit that I shouldn't take full credit for this idea, since I'm basically just stealing it from one of the craziest guys I've ever worked with (crazy in a good way), but I'm totally keeping all the money to myself.

What is this grand idea you ask? I'm going to design a pig purse.

I mean, why not? They've done it with armadillos, bullfrogs, lizards, snakes and other animals. I don't see why pigs should be exempt.

So, here is the preliminary drawing. Done in MS Paint so obviously it's not as good as it would have been had I used my "skills of an artist" but good enough for now:

I'm especially pleased with the zipper that goes along the abdomen. Of course, that will come in many colors (gold, silver, black, etc.) and each purse will be unique because each will be made of an entirely different hollowed out (i.e. gutted) fetal pig. Some will be pink, others black, some white with black spots, or stripes. You name it, the possibilities are endless. Plus, since each one is so unique, we'll be able to charge more money for each one.

Here's a photo of the first prototype, modeled by my lovely assistant (it'll look much better with a zipper installed):

You're the reason why I've run out of metaphors

A few days ago I had lunch with the girl I have a huge crush on. It goes against my master plan of trying to let the crush wither away, but, when an attractive girl asks if you want to have lunch with her you'd have to be a fool to say no.

I realized that I probably spend a little too much time with the guys, and not enough time with the classy ladies, when the food came out and I had to fight the urge to ask her if she'd like her salad tossed (I refrained - what a gentleman, right?).

It's a weird situation because I enjoy every minute I spend with her, but also get periodic reminders of why it won't work. I've never been in a situation before where I wanted to kiss someone so badly, yet at the same time, not wanted to kiss them.

I was talking to one of my friends about it and she asked, "Why didn't you kiss her?"

I answered, "Because I'm a big fat chickenhead."

She immediately burst out laughing and said, "Well, that explains a few things."

Mama's in the kitchen with onions - 2

And now it's time for a few more cooking tips from the Native Minnow.

Bean and cheese burritos are nowhere near as good when you don't include the cheese.

Keep that in mind the next time you're "cooking."

You're welcome!

Do you wanna be just like someone on TV?

Me: What do you want to be when you grow up?

My four year old: A rock star!

He's already got the look down.

Note that this picture was taken just moments before he jumped off the back of the couch to "crowd surf" even though he had no crowd. The next time he did it he was shirtless. Now we just need to teach him how to play the guitar.

He's the one they call Dr. Feelgood

Thanksgiving was good. I left town for about five days and basically did nothing but hang out with my family and eat my mom's good cooking. I feel like a huge slacker for not doing anything work related (other than a meeting with my outside committee member for a few hours), but I suppose that's what holidays are all about.

I know that it's a time when you're supposed to consider everything you're thankful for, and there's a lot I am thankful for, but I had an experience that reminded me about how much I hate doctors.

I was out in the yard raking leaves, and in an attempt to get my kids away from the playstation, told my ten year old son to come outside and help. As luck would have it, just as we were about to call it quits, a huge gust of wind came up and blew something into his eye. We went inside and flushed it out with water for about 15 minutes, and gave him some eyedrops to flush everything out. I looked in his eye, and couldn't see anything, but he kept saying that hurt really bad so I took him to the emergency room.

Of course, it wouldn't be a true trip to the ER without having to wait for a really long time once you were in a room, even when there's nobody else around. I thought about Flieswithoutwings' old rule about taking one rubber glove for every five minutes the doctor makes you wait, but decided that I didn't really want to transport that many gloves back to Las Vegas with me at the end of the weekend.

Eventually, the doctor came in took a look at my son's eye and declared, "Oh yeah, he scratched it pretty good alright."

I replied, "Oh really, because that's not the eye that's bothering him."

He then looked at the other eye and declared that it too was scratched up. Thanks Dr. Why don't you tell me something that I don't already know?

It just annoys me that I'll have to end up paying this guy hundreds of dollars when it's something that probably could have been taken care of with a bottle of Visine and a twenty minute nap for my son. I guess I should just be happy that nothing happened to my son's vision, but who wants to be happy when there's something to gripe about?

36-24-36?

Sorry to inundate you with all the funny things that my youngest has been saying, but that's the way it goes when I'm visiting my parents and I've got my kids.

Hey, it's a small town. Nothing else happens.

When I picked my kids up the other day, my four year old enlightened me with the following information:

Him: Dad, Mom's got boobs.
Me: Yes she does.
Him: [My sister]'s got boobs too.
Me: I know.
Him: I just have little mipples, see?

(that's not a typo)

Live baby live

Last night one of my sister's friends stopped by my parents' house for a little while. She and my sister were playing with my four year old and she asked him to give her a kiss. He did.

Me: Are you kissing girls?
Him: Yeah.
Me: Alright, give me a high five.
Her (while he's giving me a high five): But you can only kiss the pretty ones.
Him: That's you.

The kid's about a million times smoother than his dad.

My sister and her friend then took him driving around for a while. I'm not sure where they went, but this morning my dad asked him if he'd kissed any girls last night.

Him: Three cute ones.

I win. One to nothin'.

My parents had the following conversation after we had finished with Thanksgiving dinner:

My Dad: Did I tell you that joke?
My Mom: What joke?
My Dad: That funny joke.
My Mom: I don't think I've ever heard you tell a funny joke.

She should have followed that up with an "Oh, Snap!"

Put another dime in the jukebox baby

What exactly does it mean when you're driving with kids in the car, and the one yelling "TURN IT DOWN" because the music is too loud is the four year old?

So tell me Mrs. Rita, what's it say in my tarot?

The other night at my friend's birthday party she broke out a deck of tarot cards. I think that's a sure sign that she's a witch, but I can't be sure because we didn't throw her into the water to see if she floated or not. Maybe next time.

She was doing readings on people for fun, and she handed cards out to everyone in the room. She then went around and told everyone what their card meant. As we were waiting for her to get to us, my friend showed me his card. It had three girls dancing around some kind of plant. He said that it meant three hot girls were going to get him drunk and take advantage of him. Another friend showed me his and said it looked pretty scary. It had one of those dudes that looks like Pan (you know with a human head and torso and goat legs), but it didn't have a flute. It did look pretty scary, probably because it looked like the devil, but I cracked up when he followed that up with "it also looks kinda hot."

My card was the pinnacle of something or other, I don't really remember, but it had a person sitting cross-legged with three balls floating over their lap. My friend the witch said that it meant I was "holding on to some serious shit."

I personally don't think it took a tarot reading to see that. One look at me and anyone could pretty much tell that's the case. But really, isn't that pretty much the case with everybody? That's the problem with fortune telling. All it takes is for someone to make a very general statement, and someone who wants to believe it will be able to find something about themselves.

To be honest, I was kind of hoping that my tarot card meant that the most beautiful girl I had ever seen in my life was about to walk through the door and start making out with me, but I guess that was too much to ask. Maybe that'll be next time too.

How can I convince you it's me I don't like?

Yesterday was a long day for me. I went to a symposium put on by many of my fellow grad students, and afterward had a couple of parties to go to. The first party was a going away party of sorts for a friend of mine. He's not actually moving until January, but he's leaving in a couple of days to get married, and won't get back into town until a lot of people have already left for Christmas. The second one was a birthday party for a friend of mine. There seem to be a lot of those these days.

Of course, each of these events had a lot of food that was just begging to be consumed. And who am I to turn down food that is begging to be consumed? If there's one thing that graduate students everywhere have in common, it's that we take full advantage of free food whenever it's available. I ended up eating about twice as much food as I would normally eat in a day, maybe even more, and as a result I began to feel a wave a nausea. It hit me at the birthday party while I was talking to the birthday girl:

Me: I've eaten so much tonight that I feel like I'm going to puke*.
Her: Are you serious?
Me: Yeah, I'm bulemic.
Her: I can't really see you as a bulemic.
Me: What, are you saying I'm fat?




*I puked

If dreams are like movies, then memories are films about ghosts

The other day a friend of mine asked me if The Royal Tenenbaums was my favorite movie of all time. It's a great movie, one of my favorites, but I don't think that I could give it favorite movie of all time status. I told my friend this, then he asked what would be my favorite movie. I said that I'd probably have to go with Gladiator, and given more time to think about it, I'm sticking with that choice.

Why Gladiator? Because I can't think of any other movie that got me so excited for its release, and then delivered by exceeding all of my expectations. I watched it several times in theaters, and even bought the DVD as a Christmas present to myself before my wife and I owned a DVD player. I also own the soundtrack, and after the conversation with my friend, I went home and played it. It still got me excited after all this time.

Could it be dethroned? Absolutely, it just hasn't been yet. But I'm curious now. I want you all to humor me and tell me what your favorite movie is and why.

But he's driving and striving and hugging the turns, and thinking of someone for whom he still burns

Here's the story about how my friend had a birthday and made me get a speeding ticket (what a bitch that friend is for doing that, I know).

She sent me an email a few days ago asking me if I wanted to join her at an Irish Pub last night. I have to admit that I wasn't too keen on going (since I've been working my butt off this week - literally, it fell off), but then I found out it was for her birthday celebration so thought I'd stop by for a little while. What could go wrong with that?

Well, I'll tell you what can go wrong with that. Plenty!

First, I drove out there with another friend of mine. We'll call him BJ (even though it has very little to do with his real name and he hates it when I call him that). BJ and I left campus in my car and drove out to meet the birthday girl & Co. When we walked into the place, they came to seat us and we told them we were looking for a group of people. Just then the birthday girl let out a big laugh, and the hostess said, "Can you hear them?" We obviously could so didn't need her to show us to our table. We sat for a while, beverages were consumed, jokes were told, and many laughs were had. It had all the makings of an enjoyable evening. They even had an Irish band playing, and let me tell you, you haven't truly lived until you've heard the up-tempo Irish version of Radiohead's Creep. I would normally hate that Irish band for ruining one of my favorite songs, but I actually know the fiddle player, and she's so nice that I can't hate her (no matter how much she might deserve it).

Unfortunately, I really was tired, plus it was a weeknight, so BJ and I left after being there a little more than an hour. I drove BJ back to campus so that he could get his car. After dropping him off I pulled off of campus and onto one of the major streets around campus. Little did I know that I was accelerating quickly. Quickly enough that Officer D. Devitte was horrified by my speed. Or maybe he was just looking out for the safety of that one other driver that was about a mile ahead of me on the road because you never know what a crazy guy like me is going to do when he's driving out of control. I ramped through my gears so fast that I was doing 48 mph within about two feet of the place that I turned onto the road. You had no idea that my car could go that fast that quickly did you? Neither did I. I always thought that it was powered by about seven hamsters running on a wheel, but there's no way that seven hamsters could crank out that kind of speed. Maybe the last time I took it to Jiffy Lube they upgraded me to seven squirrels or something. Everyone knows that squirrels run faster than hamsters.

Anyway, I also didn't have a current proof of insurance card in the vehicle with me so Officer D. Devitte wrote me a ticket for that and the speeding. In the time that it took him to write that ticket seven Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift type cars zipped by us, but those guys couldn't have been going as fast as I was. I'm also pretty sure that within a five block radius of where we were about 700 drug deals went down, 87 stereos were stolen from cars, 3 children were kidnapped, someone was raped and murdered and a drive by shooting was planned, but check the news to make sure.

So the way I see it, the birthday girl now owes me about $190 after I prove to the court that I do in fact have insurance on my car (that in no way shape or form is capable of accelerating as fast as Officer D. Devitte says it is) because if she didn't have to go and have her stupid little birthday party, then I would have gone home my normal way, at my normal time, and wouldn't have gotten pulled over because they can't pull you over when you're just one of 500 vehicles that are moving that fast on the same street. Sure, you might be saying that it's all my fault because the speed limit there is 30 mph so I should only drive 30 mph, but, I'm here to tell you that nobody can drive 30 mph on that street. Do you hear me? Nobody. I know because I've tried it about a million times, and I can never do it. Ok, maybe not never, but every time I do I get rear-ended because I'm going too slow (ok, so that only happened once, but then again, I've only driven 30 mph on that road once, so it really is every time).

I hate cops. But you know what? I say, "Screw you Officer D. Devitte. I'll drive the way I want." The people who come up with speed limits are all stupid anyway. They should really just be suggestions. That way all the stupid morons that don't know how to drive will kill themselves in fiery auto crashes and clear up the road for the rest of us.

Does anybody know if Ticketbuster people really can get your ticket reduced every time? I may have to look into that.

There's a whole new generation waiting to be wrecked by you

I got an email from an old friend the other day. I hadn't heard from him for a long time, but he wrote to inform me that he is getting married in a couple of weeks. The wedding's in Alberta, Canada, so I won't be going, but it was still good to hear some of the latest happenings of his life.

When we were undergraduates, this guy pulled off one of the best practical jokes I've ever seen. It still hasn't been corrected to this day. He used to work in a library, and one day when he was bored at work he created an imaginary book and entered it into the library catalog (although how one could ever be bored while working in a library is beyond me). As he was doing so he gave it a list of subject terms that would ensure it would appear in many different catalog searches. It was a subject list to be envied by all other books.

I searched for it after receiving his email, and the information is still there. Here it is, I especially like the 'General Notes' about the book:

Personal Author:
Fish pseud.
Title:
Fishboy rides again : anatomy of freshwater teleosts, autobiographical / Fish.
Publication info:
Abingdon, VA : Icthyo-Publishers, 1996.
Physical description:
xxvii, 382 p. : col. ill., maps, graphs, tables and charts ; 27 cm.
General Note:
"a collection of stories found in a green box near some trees, by a creek in Angel Fire, NM"
General Note:
book almost completely written without capitals. alternate spellings frequent.
Personal subject:
Picasso, Pablo, 1881-1973.
Subject term:
Atlanta Braves (Baseball team)--Collectors and collecting--Juvenile literature.
Subject term:
Accordian--instruction and study.
Subject term:
Airplanes--Piloting.
Subject term:
Animal psychology--Fish.
Subject term:
Architecture--Modern.
Subject term:
Artists as authors.
Subject term:
Australian football.
Subject term:
Cowboy poetry
Subject term:
Predatory animals.
Subject term:
Basketball.
Subject term:
Child psychology.
Subject term:
Children's literature.
Subject term:
Conservation biology.
Subject term:
Costume--England--History--16th century.
Subject term:
Deer hunting.
Subject term:
Drawing--Technique.
Subject term:
Ecology.
Subject term:
Fishes--Migration.
Subject term:
Folklore.
Subject term:
Freshwater fishes.
Subject term:
Gazelles--Behavior
Subject term:
Glass painting and staining.
Subject term:
Green.
Subject term:
Guitar--Instruction and study.
Subject term:
Landscape gardening.
Subject term:
Marine mammals--Cetacians
Subject term:
Mathematical physics.
Subject term:
Gauchos--Argentina.
Subject term:
Plants--Identification.
Subject term:
Geographic Information systems.
Subject term:
Neuroanatomy.
Subject term:
Oceanography--Northwest, Pacific.
Subject term:
Origami
Subject term:
Phrenology.
Subject term:
Bluegrass music.
Subject term:
Mythology.
Added author:
Betts, David J. (fish)
Added author:
Selin, Erma Margaret
Added author:
Hughlett, Jared S. P. (Samuel Peck), 1974- editor.
Holdings HBLL

Copy
Material
Location
927 F27
1
Juvenile Literature Collection
Juvenile Collection

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Last night I was walking with two of my friends, and we passed a store that was already decorated for Christmas. The following conversation ensued:

Me: Can we please wait until after Thanksgiving before people start putting Christmas ornaments in their store windows?
Friend 1: That stuff started going up before Halloween even.
Friend 2: They already have the lights up in Sunset Park. Do you have your two dollar coupon?
Friend 1: Yes, of course. I go to that every year.
Me: So is the coupon so you only have to pay two dollars to get in?
Friend 1: No, it's two dollars off the price.
Friend 2: It's pretty expensive, [Friend 3] tried to go through there on his bike one year and they wanted him to pay like $20.
Friend 1: It's not that much. It's only like ten bucks.
Me: Ten bucks for that is a rip off.
Friend 1: Where's your Christmas spirit?
Me: Where's theirs? They should let people see that for free.
Friend 1: Whatever. It takes them about a month to set up all those lights. They have to pay for that and the electricity.
Me: Well, they probably have more lights on Temple Square in Salt Lake City than they have at Sunset Park, and they don't charge people to go see those.
Friend 1: Whatever. They make you pay for that your entire life. It's called tithing.
Me: That's just for those who are members of the mormon church, but non-members don't have to pay it.
Friend 1: Oh, the two mother fucking non-mormons in Utah can go see that for free. Is that what you're trying to tell me?
Me: Yes, I think it is.

Riveting, I know. But if I didn't tell you that story you'd have been left with nothing today. Leave me alone.

I'm unconsoled, I'm lonely, I am so much better than I used to be

There's a girl that I have a monster crush on. I know better. It's a relationship that wouldn't go anywhere even if it did blossom, but that doesn't stop me from wanting it to. I guess it's true that a person doesn't always get to choose who they fall for.

It used to be that I'd talk to her on the phone almost every night. I'd also get to see her several times a week, if only for a few minutes at at time. Unfortunately, she got busy, then I did too, and things just kind of came to a stop. That was a few months ago.

I don't see or talk to her very often any more, just enough to keep the crush alive. I saw her twice today though. Both times I was talking to someone else, and couldn't really break away to go talk to her. I know she saw me both times, and probably thinks that I'm giving her the cold shoulder or something. Part of me wants to call her to make sure that she knows I wasn't. The other part, the logical part that knows I don't have the time or energy to put into a relationship even if it did have a chance of going somewhere, thinks I should just let it go, let her think what she will and see if I can get the crush to dwindle.

Once every hundred-thousand years or so when the sun doth shine and the moon doth glow and the grass doth grow

Last night I saw Tenacious D in concert. They're touring for the first time in a few years to promote their new album and their movie, The Pick of Destiny. The show was sold out so we got their early to try and get close to the stage, but everyone else had the same idea and the best we could do was the back of the floor directly out from center stage. That was still close enough for me (I'm tall so I was able to look over everyone else and see the stage just fine).

The opening act was a comedian named Neil Hamburger. If you ever get a chance to see this guy perform, DON'T. It was the worst act I've ever seen in my life (If you clicked on the link you saw that's part of the goal. It doesn't make sense to me either). Most of his jokes didn't even make sense, and most of them were fairly repulsive to boot (example: Why did Madonna feed her baby Alpo dog food? She didn't have a choice, it was the only thing that would come out of her breast; this was one of the cleanest ones too). He only told one joke that I thought was funny (Q: What do you get when you cross Elton John with a saber-tooth tiger? A: I don't know, but keep it away from your ass), and the highlight of the show was when someone in the audience threw something and hit him in the forehead as he was getting ready to deliver one of his "punch-lines." I think it was the first time I've ever seen someone literally get booed off the stage.

The night got much better once Tenacious D took the stage. Those guys really put on a good show, and it really was more of a show than a concert as it had a story line intertwined with all the songs they played. They began the show with the stage set up like it was Kyle's apartment, and they were both sleeping on the couch (under a giant superman blanket). Once the crowd 'woke them up' they started playing. Eventually they decide that the band needs to take the next step and "go electric," but when they plug in the so-called electric guitar (a toilet seat with orange strings and a piece of cardboard attached) they get electrocuted and end up in Hell. There they decide to form a rock band which includes Charlie Chaplin, Colonel Sanders and the anti-Christ. I don't know who the people that were dressed up really were, but they could play. The rest of the show was a mixture of heavy metal songs and the traditional Tenacious D sound. There was even a "Rock Off" between them and the devil as they tried to cancel out a contract that KG had signed to benefit their careers.

I laughed almost the entire time. Watching Jack Black's facial expressions while he was singing was hilarious. The guy showed so much energy. They played most of my favorites off their old album as well as some stuff from the new one (I'm going to have to pick it up when it's released). I enjoyed the show even more than I thought I would. I guess you could say they 'rocked my socks off.'

Bouncing here and there and everywhere

I meant to write this post about a month and a half ago, but somehow it just didn't happen. I was reminded of it today when I read my friend's post about giving his kids a better childhood than he had. He's certainly had to make some sacrifices in order to do this, and I admire him for it. Had I been willing to make some of the same sacrifices, I might still be living with my kids.

One of the things that is a given at his house is that there are always sweets. I love it, and I'm sure his children do as well. It'll probably be one of the things they look back on fondly when reminiscing about their childhood. I love it because, let's face it, I'm a sugar-holic, and I'm bound to get my sugar fix when I'm visiting him without having to leave his house to drive to the store for it.

The last time I stayed with him I heard him call to his wife from the kitchen:

Him: Hey, you only cleaned up the part of the fridge that you could see.
Her: I can't help it if I'm short.

I went in to see what they were talking about and saw this:















Apparently she had been trying to put some things away when the big bag of Gummy Bears ripped and spilled all over the kitchen. She was trying to keep the kids from picking them up off the floor and eating them and didn't realize they had spilled on the top of the refrigerator when she was cleaning it all up.

It was probably one of those moments that you had to witness to know how funny it was. It was funny to the three of us even if it wasn't funny the way I presented it here. Deal with it.

I enjoy being a boy

I owe a special thanks to my father for donating his Y chromosome to me rather than his X. There are many reasons why I am happy about this, but I will only list the best two here:

1. I can pee pretty much anywhere I want to.
2. I never have to give birth to a child.

Need I say more?

This one is dedicated to my one true love, the ladies

The other night I went out with my friends and one of them asked for a cup full of cherries to go along with his drink. Another friend of mine took the opportunity to demonstrate his ability to tie a cherry stem in a knot with his tongue.

Our waitress (to the friend who requested the cherries): You just tied those in a knot with your hands didn't you.
Him: No.
Her: You did it with your tongue?
Him (nodding toward my other friend): I didn't, he did.
Her (to my other friend): You can do that? Who knew?
Other friend: The ladies knew.

The guy never misses a beat.

Satan is my motor

Here is a list of personal slogans that I've come up with, but for some reason or other have failed to catch on:

• Lice free since Tuesday
• Shootin' blanks: I'm snipped baby!
• Hanging out with me is a vomit inducing good time
• It's nothing a good Kleenex can't fix
• Smells more like feet than feet
• It's not really a cult per se, it's just the only true way to get into heaven
• I can quit any time I want, it's only heroin
• Explosive diarrhea is really only funny in the movies

Feel free to chime in with some more.

I could spend three dollars and 63 cents on diet Coca Cola and unlit cigarettes

I'm not completely sure, but I think that Hell might have frozen over yesterday. I always thought that Nevada would be the last place that would vote to ban smoking, but apparently I was wrong. I'm happy about it, but certainly didn't expect it.

I have to enjoy this while I can. It's not likely to last for too much longer, although a guy can dream can't he?

Thriller

I just got this email from my ex-wife:

"Your kids are singing karaoke to Thriller. [The youngest] is break dancing alongside them. I’m scared."

I am too. But at least it's not Billy Jean.

I need a hero

It's election time again! I wish I could really be excited about it, but I can't (it's not like we can get rid of our retarded president this time). In fact, with election day coming up I've been constantly reminded of how much I dislike politicians. The focus always seems to be on what the opponent did or didn't do rather than what a good job the candidate in the ad will do if elected. I get tired of mud-slinging rather quickly, and there are actually some offices that I may not vote for either candidate simply because that's all they've been doing. That'll learn 'em.

Mud-slinging has gotten to be too popular in advertising as well. I find it interesting when a company will advertise about how bad another company's product is rather than come up with something creative to illustrate how good their own is. It always leaves me with the feeling that they must not have anything good to say about their own product when they do that.

Last night I saw a Subway commercial that talked about how much fat was in McDonald's food and I was slightly puzzled. For one thing, I don't even consider these two restaurants to be direct competitors. I guess they're both vying for our lunch dollars, but it really depends on what someone is in the mood for. If someone's not in the mood for a sandwich they aren't going to eat at Subway regardless of whether or not they get a crappy hamburger at McDonald's. Secondly, I thought I told Jared from Subway to go away. Obviously he didn't listen.

Just ego tripping

I've always said that I'd rather be rich than famous. If you're rich and famous, then you have to deal with a bunch of people wanting financial favors from you just because they married your great-aunt's brother-in-law's third granddaughter's second cousin twice removed. That and the paparazzi. Those guys seem like a real pain in the ass.

Anyway, there are a few circumstances where it would be good to be famous, even if one wasn't necessarily rich. One that comes to mind right away would be crowd surfing in a giant plastic bubble as Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips does here:

Unfortunately, I didn't take this picture, a girl I know did. I've never seen The Flaming Lips perform live, but I hear that they put on an awesome show. I told her that I was jealous of her for getting to see them in concert, and that I'd really like to crowd surf in a giant bubble, but alas, I don't have the fan base for it. She offered to be my fan base, but crowd surfing by definition requires more than one person (hence, the reason why fame would be beneficial). When I pointed that out to her, she came up with the following:

"I have a solution. It involves lots of drugs and alcohol. But I promise it'll give you the illusion of having a fan base!! And when you crowd surf into that group of 5 yr olds at the zoo, having the "I was high" defense will be totally valid."

Now I just need to get my hands on one of them plastic bubbles.

I couldn't chew my meat real good

A friend of mine took his comprehensive exam today, and passed, thus demonstrating his intellectual superiority over me. I'm happy for him. I think he was more nervous about it than I was, so I'm glad that his didn't end with the same result as mine. I just have to secretly think he's a bastard from now on.

So, even though I think he's a bastard, I accepted his invitation to go out to dinner tonight so that we could all celebrate his bastardliness. Besides, it's not every day that you get to start secretly thinking that one of your friends is a bastard. Plus, I wanted to hang out with another friend of mine who is not a bastard. My friend who is not a bastard was in town because my friend who is now a bastard put my non-bastard friend on his committee at the last minute. Also, my friend who is not a bastard is flying out of town first thing in the morning, so this was my last chance to see him for a while. Still with me? Good.

We went to dinner at a Mexican restaurant. It was good, and even better once I found out that my bastard friend's father (now there's a conundrum) insisted on paying for us all. He's also leaving tomorrow, so even though I just met him two days ago (even though I've known my friend who I now secretly think is a bastard for eight years), this was my last chance to see him (seriously, how often do you get to have dinner with a living conundrum?).

Why am I telling you this? Because my friend who is not a bastard ordered tongue (he's from Spain, they like to eat weird stuff over there. In fact, pretty much all they eat is tongue and anchovies and sardines, all they drink is Sangria, and they're all matadors, if not professionally then at least in their spare time). So anyway, I've never tried tongue before, and I was feeling adventurous, so I asked my non-bastard friend for a bite. He obliged and cut me off a piece (after all, he's the one that's not a bastard), and I ate it. It was a very difficult thing to do, not because it tasted weird, but because when I was in high school I worked in a meat packing plant, and all I could think of while I was chewing was a big hairy cow's tongue hanging from a meat hook. It just took a little bit of determination to get it down, and then everything was fine after that.

At least until now. Now I'm feeling ill. It's not from the food, I actually felt like something was coming on while I was at the restaurant, but was hoping it was all in my head. I'm kind of hoping that I'll puke before I go to bed. If I do, I'll probably think that the tongue tasted about the same coming back up as it did going down.

The piece of tongue will probably think the same thing about me.

I say don't you know. You say you don't know. I say take me out

From time to time someone will ask me about the 'type' of girl I tend to be interested in. I used to think that I didn't have a certain 'type,' but one day I was telling someone my list of the five best looking actresses and realized that they all kind of looked the same. I guess that means I have a 'type' after all.

I don't really ask for much. A girl just has to be smart, funny, attractive and thin (those last two generally go hand in hand). Oh, and she has to like the same music, movies and t.v. shows as me. She also can't have children, nor want them, yet must be willing to accept that I have three (does that make me a hypocrite? of course. do I care? not really). She must also be ok with the fact that I don't want to re-marry. I already did that one time too many. And one last thing, she has to be available, and interested in me. Therein lies the dilemma, and is the reason why I've come to terms with the fact that I will remain single for quite some time.

Anyway, back to the part about skinny girls. A lot of my friends think that I like girls who are way too skinny. I remember pointing out one girl that I thought was cute to one of my friends, and all he said was, "That chick needs a hamburger."

A little while ago I was looking at a girl while I was having dinner with a few of my friends (hey, I'm well on my way to being a dirty old man, it's what we do). One of my friends said that the girl I was looking at was way too skinny for him.

Him: You know, curves are ok on a girl. It gives you something to grab onto.
Another Friend: He likes girls that make his penis look big in comparison.

I guess that's one more thing to add to the list.