If you don't expect too much from me you might not be let down

Friend 1: [Friend 2] was jealous last time her boyfriend left town.

Me: Why were you jealous?

Friend 2: Because he met up with one of his ex-girlfriends while he was there. It was the first time he'd seen her in years.

Me: So why are you jealous?

Friend 2: Because she was the first one he ever, well, you know.

Me: No, I don't know. First time he ever what? Held hands?

Friend 2: No, he didn't grow up where you did where everything's all innocent.

Me: So, was she the first to let him put it in the butt?

Friend 2: Ew. No. That's not what you were doing when you were that age.

Friend 1: No. [Minnow] was making babies and getting married when he was that age.

Me: In other words, making some of the worst decisions of my life.

Friend 1: He'd have been better off if he had put it in the butt.

Husband's lost a lot of blood

Behold the most wonderfully depressing song ever written.

Pedro the Lion: Priests and Paramedics


(just click for sound - the picture never changes)

Lyrics:
Paramedics brave and strong
Up before the break of dawn
Putting poker faces on
Broken bodies all day long
The neighbors heard a fight
Someone had a knife
It must have been the wife
Husband's lost a lot of blood
He wakes up screaming "Oh my God.
Am I gonna die? Am I gonna die?"
As they strapped his arms down to his sides
In times like these
They've been taught to lie
"Buddy just calm down you'll be alright."
Several friends came to his grave
His children were so well behaved
As the Priest got up to speak
The assembly craved relief
But he himself had given up
So instead he offered them this bitter cup
"You're gonna die
We're all gonna die
Could be twenty years could be tonight
And lately I have been wondering why
we go to so much trouble
to postpone the unavoidable
and prolong the pain of being alive."

What the world needs now

I called my sister last night to talk to her about a favor she'd asked of me. After she answered my questions about that we ended up talking for quite a while. She mentioned that someone had stopped by her house and dropped off some cake, then called as they left to let her know it was sitting on her porch. When she got home, her cat had eaten a good portion of it.

Weak minded as I am, her simply mentioning the word 'cake' put a craving inside of me. I couldn't let it go, so, while I continued to talk to her I drove to the store to purchase a cake mix. Of course, then I had to purchase a few other things to go along with it (frosting, eggs, etc.). Once I had everything I needed I headed for the check out. As I did so, some Hershey's chocolate syrup caught my eye.

Me: Oh, I guess I need to get some chocolate syrup too.
Her: What do you need that for?
Me: To put on my ice cream.
Her: Ice cream? I thought you were making cake.
Me: I have some ice cream at home too, but I ran out of chocolate syrup to put on it.
Her: You're having cake and ice cream? What, do you think it's your birthday or something?

I was the expert then at taking off her clothes

Last night I was talking with a friend whose best friend just had a baby. I asked her how her friend was doing, and she told me that she was doing much better now that a few more days had passed.

She also told me that her friend had some difficulties being able to breastfeed at first, but that with my friend's help, she'd been able to produce enough to feed her son.

I asked what she meant by "with her help" and she said that she had to massage her friends breasts for about an hour to get the milk to come in. She said it was a little awkward when her friend's husband walked in the room to see what they were up to. Her response was, "Oh, I'm just playing with your girl's boobs."

What I want to know is, where can I sign up for that position? I sense a career change in my future if I ever get an answer to that question.

There is blood in all the things I say

Me: I just sent two packages today. One is for all the kids, and one is Togers' birthday present. Obviously he has to wait until his birthday to open that, but they can open the other one as soon as it gets there.

My Kids' Step-Dad: Of course we'll make him wait to open the one, but thanks for the heads up. We'll watch for them.

Me: Cool. Thanks.

My Kids' Step-Dad: I'm picking Togers up from school right now, so I'll let him know.

Me: Or you could just run over him.

My Kids' Step-Dad: Well, I would, but I'm parked.

Me: Wait, nevermind. Funeral costs would probably be pretty high and I don't want to have to pay for that.

My Kids' Step-Dad (handing off the phone): Did you hear that Togers? High funeral costs are the only thing that's keeping you alive right now.

Togers: That, and [Step-Dad]'s too scared to run over me.

I hate my generation, I offer no apologies

I was standing at the urinal, taking care of business, when another guy came in. He obeyed the unwritten rule of the men's room, and took the furthest urinal away from mine, but after standing there for a few seconds began to speak. "It's really raining here."

I thought to myself, "Great. Why is it that people feel the need to carry on cell phone conversations in a bathroom?"

A few seconds later he added, "The roads are really wet too. Everything's wet."

Slightly annoyed, I finished peeing and washed my hands.

I vaguely heard him say something else, but I wasn't paying enough attention to hear what it was. It wasn't until I turned to open and walk out the door that I realized he was talking to me.

I still didn't say anything. I just walked out.

If you don't know me, and see me peeing in a public restroom, go ahead and save the idle chit chat at the urinal for someone you know.

She's freezing cold and I don't have a blanket that's gonna' fit

Weather wise, this last week has been a little strange. We went from temperatures around 107 or 108 to cool and rainy in the span of a day. A friend and I were having dinner when a girl walked in wearing a trenchcoat, a scarf and a winter hat. The temperature was probably in the high 60s.

Friend: That's overkill, don't you think?
Me: Yeah, it's definitely not that cold out.
Friend: I saw a guy wearing a scarf earlier today too.
Me: That's never acceptable. The only time it's ok for a guy to wear a scarf is if it's January in Minnesota. That's it. When you live in Las Vegas, it's never cold enough to require a guy to wear a scarf.

My friend (who sometimes wears a scarf during the winter) didn't say anything.

Me: That's right, I'm talking to you.
Friend: To me?
Me: Yeah, Mr. I Sometimes Wear A Scarf Even Though I Live In Las Vegas Where It's Never Cold Enough To Warrant That.
Friend: Well, sometimes a scarf is fashionable. Like if you're wearing it with a nice jacket or something.
Me: You know what else is fashionable? Gay men.

So, allow me to modify my stance: It's ok to wear a scarf in Vegas if you're a gay man.

'Cause I know dreams are for those who are asleep in bed

It's a good sign that you're not going to have a very productive day when you're so tired that your eyes won't focus on your computer screen, but, you can't take a quick cat nap in your office because every time you start to doze off you snore and wake yourself up.

I'm just sayin'.

I need a camera to my eye, to my eye, reminding which lies I've been hiding

This isn't really my story to tell, but I don't care, I'm telling it anyway.

I have a friend who awoke one night with a literal pain in his butt. He felt as though he had a hemmorhoid, but didn't want to wake his girlfriend to make her inspect things for him. Instead, he grabbed the digital camera and snapped a picture of his anus. He looked at the picture and was relieved that he didn't have a hemmorhoid. Rather, he attributed the pain to the fact that he'd been eating a lot of spicy food.

Fast forward to later in the week when they had a small gathering at their apartment. He walked into the kitchen from the back room, and saw the camera sitting on the counter. He remembered that he hadn't deleted the picture the night he took it, so discretely picked the camera up and got rid of the file. Who could blame him? Shortly thereafter, one of the girls at the party motioned for him to come over and talk to her and her husband.

Her: Tell [Husband] he's crazy. He's trying to get me to believe that there's a picture of your butthole on this camera. He swears up and down that he saw one on there, but when I looked through your pictures there was nothing.

My friend had to come clean and tell her that her husband was right, that there had been one but he deleted it before she looked. I'm guessing her husband would rather have been wrong in this instance.

Do you wanna sleep with common people like me?

Not to dwell too much on this past weekend, but as we were handing out free ice cream to anyone with a backstage pass, we'd often get people trying to pay us even though they didn't need to. Since that goes against everything The Ice Cream Man is about, we had to tell them we couldn't accept tips or donations*. In one instance, I was standing away from the van throwing some stuff in a nearby garbage can when a fat hippie girl came up to get some ice cream.

Fat Hippie Girl: How much is it for an ice cream bar?
Crew Member 1: Put your wallet away. It's free.
Crew Member 2 (jokingly): Well, it's not exactly free. You just have to put out first.
Fat Hippie Girl: That's fine. I don't mind kissing someone for a free ice cream bar.
Crew Member 1 (pointing at me): Go see that guy.
Fat Hippie Girl: No, that's ok.

Spurned by a fat hippie girl**. Can I sink any lower?






*However, the ban on tips and donations didn't stop us from taking items in trade. I got a cool stone carving from one guy, another guy brought us a bag of fresh cherries to snack on, and some of the ice cream crew were able to use their status to obtain free pizza from one of the vendors.

**Did I mention that she was ugly too?

Let's leave behind these maps and handguns, we're on our way back to California

Why, hello there! Sorry about the lack of posting. I spent the weekend down Californey way, and when we got there we found the internet had all dried up.

Actually, I was at the Joshua Tree Music Festival, and there wasn't any time for blogging even if I'd had internet access. You see, I was too busy handing out ice cream to the masses.

Let me explain.

About a week ago, a friend of mine asked if I'd be interested in free backstage (all access) passes to the festival. I looked over the line-up, and hadn't heard of any of the bands save for Ghostland Observatory (they were all jam bands, some of which are kind of a big deal amongst the hippie crowd, but I'd never heard of them), but there was something about the word 'free' that caught my attention. I asked how it was possible that we could get free backstage passes, and my friend said that one of his friends knew a guy who knew a guy who could get them for us. There was just one catch. The guy who could get them for us is a guy who calls himself The Ice Cream Man. (If you're not interested enough to clich the link (which I assume is the case), the Ice Cream Man travels around to various functions, including many of the music festivals around the country, and hands out free ice cream to the performers. Well, it's really for anyone who is working the festival whether it be the band members themselves, or the sound guys, stage crew, ticket takers, security, etc.) The Ice Cream Man could get us free backstage passes for the festival, we just had to pass out free ice cream to anybody who came along asking for it. I was a little skeptical at first, after all I generally hate crowds, and dealing with strangers is definitely not my strong suit, but I figured it'd be something different, so told my friend to count me in.

We left early Friday morning, and got to Joshua Tree a little before the festival started. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), the ice cream truck was having some problems, and didn't arrive in time for us to do anything the first day of the festival. Of course, that gave us some free time to check out the festival itself, and to drive over to a place called Pioneer Town that was nearby. The music was cool. Pioneer Town was cool (I ate the best steak I've ever had in my life at a place called Pappy & Harriet's). Joshua Tree National Park was cool. The house we stayed in was cool. But the temperatures were hot! I'm not sure how hot, but it was definitely over 100 degrees outside. As you can imagine, the people were very excited once the ice cream truck finally arrived (around 2:00 p.m. on the second day). We handed out thousands of ice cream bars. While doing so, I experienced many firsts. I've never been called a "divine angel" before. I'd never had dozens of hippies tell me I was "heaven-sent. I'd never been invited to go to Huntington Beach to "get out of the heat, make some s'mores and do some fire dancing" by an attractive girl before.

I spent a good chunk of my time at the ice cream truck because we were only about 50 feet behind the stage and you could hear the music just fine there, but, when the music really caught my attention, I could just walk over and watch them from the side of the stage. I've only been backstage once before, and that was after the concert, but a guy could get used to going to concerts that way. It was cool to be standing ten feet away from the band, right next to the guy operating the switch board and the lights. Whether that makes me cool or not is up for debate (I'm guessing it doesn't), but I felt cool, and that's all that really matters.

All in all, it was a great weekend. Here are a few pictures so you can catch a glimpse of the experience:


The house we stayed in


Pappy & Harriet's



Joshua Tree National Park



The Festival





Back Stage

All alone in a dark room with a mouthful of prescription

My friend, Silentkid, works with a smoking hot chick. About a month ago she invited him to her birthday party. Unfortunately, due to medical reasons he was unable to go. He called me to express his disappointment.

Me: You should go to the party anyway. Not only will you have chance to get on her, but she's bound to have some hot friends.
Silentkid: I can't though. I'm in too much pain.
Me: Well, take some painkillers and go.
Silentkid: Take a bunch of vicodin and then drive to downtown Denver. That's a smart move.
Me: Well, drive first, then take the vicodin once you get there.
Silentkid: Then I'll need to grind it up and snort it so it gets into my system faster.
Me: Perfect! You can snort it off her ass or cleavage. Just tell her it's how the doctor prescribed it.


What? Am I the only person whose prescription bottles come with those instructions?

Don't rock bottom just listen just slow down

It might be time to give up when you try to do a little light jogging on the treadmill to help rehab your back, and you end up pulling a muscle in your calf.

I'm just sayin'.

Does anyone have Dr. Kevorkian's number?

This shit is bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S

Songs that wouldn't have been as popular if they were sung in morse code:

- Message in a Bottle - The Police
- Y.M.C.A. - Village People
- O.P.P. - Naughty By Nature
- Holla Back Girl - Gwen Stefani
- Glamorous - Fergie
- Method of Modern Love - Hall & Oates
- S-E-X-X-Y - They Might Be Giants

Take a chance on me

I called my ex-wife yesterday to wish her a happy Mother's Day. As we talked she said she had to tell me some of the funny stuff Mr. M's been saying lately. I particularly liked this one about playing it safe.

Ex-Wife: Mr. M, is it safe to go with strangers if they ask you to go with them?
Mr. M: No. Not if he has a knife.
Ex-Wife: Well, what if he didn't have a knife but had candy instead?
Mr. M: Candy? Yeah, that's safe.


He must take after his dad.

The longer you wait your decision will fade and wind up wasting this time

Because sometimes driving out to take pictures of the desert in bloom is more appealing than trying to write a manuscript on a Saturday:

C-c-c-c-c-cocaine

Student 1: Can we just play games tonight instead of doing the lab?
Me: What kind of games do you have in mind?
Student 1: Heads-up seven-up.
Me: Wow. It's been a while since I was in Kindergarten. I don't think I remember the rules to that one.
Student 2: How about we play [something I didn't hear correctly]
Me: I'm sorry. What did you say we play?
Student 2: Hooky.
Me: Oh. I think it might be time for me to get my hearing checked.
Student 2: Why? What did you think I said?
Me: I thought you said cocaine. It's good that you didn't. I wouldn't even know how to play that game.
Undergraduate Assistant: Well, we'll need a mirror, and a razor blade, and we're all going to do lines until somebody's heart explodes.


So there you go. That's how you play cocaine. First person to have their heart explode loses.

Are you dead or are you sleeping? God I sure hope you are dead.

I recently found out that one of the couples I know is going to be moving to Chicago this summer. I haven't talked to the guy for a long time, so I emailed him to suggest we hang out before they leave.

Me: We should do something once you guys are both done with finals. Definitely before you move. What else have you been up to lately?

Him: We should definitely have a game night once finals are over. Other than that, I've been playing Grand Theft Auto a lot, so I've been killing a lot more hookers than usual.


I'm not sure how many hookers he usually kills, but I'm going to tell him to make sure not to store all the bodies in the same place. One dead hooker in the closet is fine, but any more than that, and the stink is going to upset his girlfriend.

Black souls in the desert

A few things I learned while at the dry lake bed last weekend:

- My car will go at least 105 mph.
- Driving 105 mph on a road at night isn't safe when there are rabbits jumping out in front of you.
- I no longer have the heart to run over rabbits that jump out in front of me.
- Not all drivers can go on rocky roads without getting high centered.
- I can.
- My car can even go offroad.
- I know better than to drive my car across the desert.
- That doesn't always stop me from doing it.
- Creosote bush grows far enough apart that my car can fit between the bushes.
- Teenagers like to race across dry lake beds at night.
- So do I.
- That doesn't make me a redneck.
- Or a teenager.
- Drinking champagne straight out of the bottle = classy.
- Drunk people are really easy to amuse.
- Nerds are fun to mock.
- Chips Ahoy chocolate chunk cookies are a big hit with the drunk bonfire crowd.
- Fire can even make me tolerate some of the people I can't stand to be around.

Do you remember cooking roast on the sabbath with your dad?

Friend: You know, if we weren't in biology, we'd know a lot more hot girls to hang out with.

Me: True.

Friend: If I ever have a son I'm going to sit him down and tell him that biology's cool, but not to go into it.

Me: What'll you tell him to go into? Psychology?

Friend: It doesn't really matter. Psychology. Business. Hotel Management. Any of those are going to surround him with hot chicks. At least more than in bio.

Me: Fair point.

Friend: You should tell Togers and Mr. M. the same thing. In fact, call them up right now and tell them.

Me: I will. I'll say, "Togers, Mr. M., I really like what I do, but when you grow up I don't want you to be biologists. I want you to own a strip club." That should do the trick.

Born on a desert floor you've got the deepest thirst

I spent the bulk of Friday night out at the dry lake bed. Unlike last time, we didn't have a good old fashioned book burning, but we did have fun, even if we were killing diapause eubranchiopod embryos.

Here's what the carnage looked like:



Fire is cool.

Yo, watch the way I navigate, ha ha ha ha ha

According to my physical therapist, I am officially ineligible for the wheelchair basketball league.

Part of me is pleased that my recovery is going so well. Another part is a little disappointed. I so would've owned that league.