Experiment

I never really got into these rambling weblog entries that are so popular with the kids these days. You know, the ones where they write about the cute thing their fucking dog did last night, then follow that up with a pseudo-witty comment about the size of their floppy or something, and end with an acronym like LOL or ROFLMAO or maybe GBFFOAFITCOD.

So I thought I’d try it. Here’s my life for the last month:

Phoenix Cat
I have two cats. The elder of the two is The Right Honourable Sir Charles L. Rampant, Esquire (Charlie). The Kitten is Bunbury Wilde (Bunny). Charlie recently started spraying and had to be neutered, but that is not funny to anyone but Bunny, so we’ll not talk about it anymore. Bunny, however, is hilarious, mostly because I’ve never owned a retarded cat. Some of the things that attest to his retardation are that he breaths through his mouth, not his nose, he has serious inner ear problems so that he is constantly falling off of things or over stuff, and I have personally seen him run full-boor into objects like doors, walls, and other cats. Additionally, he likes to climb into the bathtub with Red and play with the bubbles (he has also fallen into the toilet and had to be pulled out and washed several times). But the thing that really cinches the deal is his uncanny ability to light himself on fire.

On numerous occasions, I’ve watched as a streak of orange flame barreled around the apartment. Each time, he has managed to put himself out without sustaining or causing any serious damage, but each time it happens I think that perhaps he has learned to not rub up against lit candles, and each time I am proved wrong.

Bankruptcy, Inc.
It seems like in order to be a customer of the company I work for, you have to file for bankruptcy protection at some point and cost us a shitload of money. Of course, we carefully screen all of our customers before we begin work for them, so I am not sure how this happens. I suspect that the screening process goes something like this:

US: I just need to ask you a few questions about your company, sir.
THEM: Okay, just let me finish burying my ex-wife and her lover.
US: Take your time….So, you like killing people, huh?
THEM: Almost as much as I like not paying people for work they’ve done.
US: Good, good.
THEM: Ready.
US: Okay. Tell me about your financial situation.
THEM: Well, once I sell this watch I took off the dead guy, I’ll have $100.
US: Good. So, we’ll put you down for $1,000,000 of credit, okay? Now, could I have the names of some other businesses you’ve worked with?
THEM: I did a deal with a guy named Beelzebub last week. Or was it Lucifer?
US: Doesn’t matter, we never actually call them anyway. Now then, would you be willing to accept 30 day payment terms?
THEM: No.
US: Sixty then?
THEM: I was thinking more like “Ragnorak” or “Just after the last trump.”
US: I’ll write down “A Cold Day In Hell” for payment terms, okay?
THEM: Fine by me.
US: Well, I have to admit that I’m not sure if this will work out.
THEM: If you take me as a customer, then I’ll send a hooters calendar every Christmas.
US: Deal.

Needless to say, we’ve written off several million in bad debt over the last few years.

The House
Moving Day is upon us. The Rats are crawling out from beneath the rosebush with their winches and pulleys, and Dom Deloise is flapping about, tangled in yarn, shouting something about a “shiny.” Soon I will be leaving my squalid apartment forever and entering my nice new house. Here are my reasons for leaving:

Current apartment has no insulation, heating bills are atrocious.
Downstairs neighbors like doing construction projects at 1:00am.
Landlord lets himself in whenever he wants to fix things I don’t want fixed.
Landlord never got around to installing little things like fire escapes.
Landlord scares me.
Absolutely no storage-space in the entire apartment.
No washer and dryer.
Rent is so expensive that I am moving out of an apartment into a three bedroom house and saving money.
Red wants to.

Well, that about sums up my major life changes for now. I’ll try to keep you posted on my goings-on from here on out, but it might be kind of sparse. After I get laid off today I have to go to my new house and put out my cat. GBFFOAFITCOD.

These Things Have To Start Somewhere

The other day I was in a conversation with some people. The conversation turned to matters of recreational pharmaceuticals, and before I knew what I was saying, I had referred to marijuana as "Mexican Catnip."

I personally had never hear this phrase before, and neither had anyone else that I was talking to, but I think that it is pretty good. So here's the deal: if you have heard it before, let me know. If you haven't, then start using it as much as you can in conversation.

Just remember that you heard it here first.

Professional

My landlord, God bless his kooky little soul, has decided to start a newsletter which he will send to all of his tenants whenever an issue comes up that he feels the need to mention. This would be fine, if it weren't for the fact that he's...well...just read this excerpt, complete with all the grammatical errors and typos:

If you don't have a dog this isn't for you. Now don't get me wrong. I'm not doing a DNA test on the "poo", but the piles of poo surrounding the building is becoming astronomical. There is more poo than grass, and for the 2nd time I stepped in poo that was on the parking lot. Now if it's not you great, if it's a neighbor please tell them to call me, or beat the person to a pulp yourself for stress relief. If it is you, I don't care, I don't live there. I don't mow the grass, but if the city, a cop, sees you then they will fine you. I'm sure you have seen those ugly signs, "pet defecation is prohibited by city ordinance #3876846378423.234289723987234.234. My personal request/suggestion is to go across the street in the park the hospital created with the mountain of dirt if you don't want to pick it up. This will keep my shoes clean.

I don't know. Maybe I'm being too critical, but if I were to write this, I would probably proof-read it. And I'd try to sound a little bit more professional. And I wouldn't publicly distribute something where I instruct people on how to break the law.

Unless you count that article I wrote on how to dispose of dead hookers.

Why Doesn't Anyone Ever Play With Me?

At my mother's annual Christmas Eve party, everyone always ends up wanting to play Christmas Charades. This usually involves my friend Steve sitting down and coming up with some Christmas Categories, then writing down a bunch of Holiday answers. These get put in a hat and pulled out by the players as they take their turns.

This year, I got to write the clues instead of Steve. Here are some of the categories and clues I came up with:

Category One: Things You Don't Want To Find Christmas Morning.
Grandma: Post-Reindeer
The Head of your Prize Racehose Next to You in Bed
A Foot In Your Stocking
A Dead Hooker
Satan and a host of ghoulish imps awaiting you in the flames at the bottom of a gaping pit, holding many fiendish devices of torture and laughing, laughing...
Matrix: Revolutions
In-Laws

Category Two: Christmas Movies That Will Never Be Made.
Frosty the Drag Queen
It's a Horrible Life
I Saw Daddy Kissing Santa Claus
Rudolph, The Red Nosed Venison
Perry Como's Christmas in Baghdad
It Was An Accident, Charlie Brown!
A Lovecraft Christmas
Santa's Dirty Little Secret

Now no one wants to play charades with me anymore...

A Merry Messy Christmas!

They say you can have too much of a good thing. I personally never understood that. I say “Everything in Excess! Moderation is for Monks!” How can there be such a thing as too much scotch? What about garlic? Who could ever honestly say that you can have too much garlic?

I guess the girl I took to senior prom could…and Lestat…but besides them….

Anyway, this holiday taught me the true definition of “too much of a good thing.” Families are good, right? Well I have four.

Four fucking families.

Actually more like six, but I only saw four of them this Christmas.

Here they are, in no particular order:

Red’s Parents and Siblings
My mother, stepfather, and siblings
My father, stepmother, aunts and uncles
Me, Red, and the cats

Here it is, the “KOTWF, Red, & Company Schedule For Manic Holiday Madness!”

Dec. 23rd : Faux Christmas Eve
7:00am Arrive at work, ready to fly through the day and have everything done so that I can be out of there and at my dad’s house by 4:00
12:00pm Realize that I’m completely fucked and will probably have to work late
4:30pm Raise the bar in the “Who Can String Together The Best Series Of Curse Words Contest” we have going at the office by using the phrases “Rat Piss Cancer Fuck,” “Grey-Turded,” and “Scat-Porn Watching” in the same sentence. Throw something and storm out of the office with a shout of “You can all burn in hell. Have a Merry Fucking Christmas!”
5:15pm Arrive at Dad’s an hour and fifteen minutes late, and three shots behind. Catch up in 5 minutes using flaming shots of 151.
5:20pm Borrow stepmother’s makeup pencil to draw singed eyebrows back on. Make mental note to blow out shots from now on.
5:45pm Finish applying burn cream, return to bar
8:00pm Stumble to table, gorge self on goose, sirloin, oyster stuffing, and scotch-cream. Drink a little more.
9:30pm Sit down to a calm family game of Trivial Pursuit.
11:00pm Stand up, shout obscenities, kick Trivial Pursuit board across room and go back into the bar to finish my Christmas Eve Vigil.

Dec. 24th : Real Christmas Eve; Faux Christmas Day

7:00am Open one eye, sit up, smack head into invisible, rum-induced wall of pain. Lurch towards coffee maker.
8:00am Finally realize where I am.
8:15am Red, Dad, Stepmom, Siblings all come into kitchen. They don’t look much better than me.
8:30am Open first bottle of champagne. Day is looking up.
8:45am Begin opening presents. Got a great power-tool set. Become excited about tools then realize that this proves I am getting old.
12:00pm Leave dad’s and go home.
12:30pm Arrive at home. Realize that I still have hours of wrapping to do. Open a bottle of champagne.
3:00pm Go to hospital to visit Grandmother who has pneumonia. Realize that being sick has not stopped her from being able to talk non-stop.
4:20pm Arrive at Mom’s house late for her annual Christmas Eve Party. Realize with horror that the party is dry.
5:00pm Remember the half bottle of rum in my trunk. Run out to my car giggling like Michael Jackson in a candy store.
8:00pm Off to Red’s parents. THEY HAVE RUM TOO!!!!
10:00pm Home again! Now I can start really drinking.
12:30am Red and I go to sleep.
1:00am Wake up to make sure that Santa has filled Red’s Stocking. Damn is it heavy!
2:00am Wake up again to make sure that the heavy stocking has not fallen from the mantle.
3:00am Ditto
4:00am Ditto
5:00am This is getting old. Decide to start a pot of coffee and open a bottle of Champagne, which brings us to:

Dec 25th : Christmas Day
5:30am Open another bottle of champagne
6:00am Start drinking coffee with rum, to save champagne for Red.
6:15am Start cooking eggs and bacon.
6:30am Wake Red up. Get bitched at for half an hour because I have the balls to wake her at 6:30 on Christmas morning. Hear her use the phrase “Jesus Fucking Christ” which strikes me as incredibly funny on this day in particular.
7:00am Finish breakfast. Open Stockings. Santa Brought Red, that’s right, another bottle of champagne!
8:00am Arrive at mom’s. Begin opening presents.
12:30pm Arrive at dad’s for presents with extended family.
2:30pm Arrive home. That champagne Santa brought is probably cold by now.
2:35pm Yup. It’s cold. It’s pretty damn good too.
4:00pm Arrive at Red’s parents for Christmas dinner and more presents.
5:00pm If I smoke all of these cigars that I got, I will immediately die of lung cancer. The only consolation is that I won’t have to wait for my liver to go first.
5:30pm Open huge poster of the Rat Pack. This makes me very happy for some reason.
6:00pm Eat still more stuff.
10:00pm Finally arrive home. Collapse in fetal position on living room floor. Refuse to be touched by anything citing “Yuletide Over-Stimulation” as my reason.
10:30pm Begin crying when I realize that I have to be at work at 7:00am the next day.

God Bless us, Everyone!

That's Not So Bad

Well, so far she has only found a problem with everything I've ever done. And I thought this audit would suck.

At least she brought lube...

Did I Mention That I'm Fucked?

Red's been out-of-commission with a particularly nasty case of the flu, so I've had plenty of time for introspection. While she lay on the couch moaning, drinking nasty-red-menthol-smelling-ass-tasting-heart-stopping-ball-crushing-flu-medicine-shit and watching 17 back-to-back episodes of Law and Order: The Early Years, I was staring at the wall in my office, railing silently against fate, fortune, and Pat Sajak, downloading every episode I could find of SNL Celebrity Jeopardy, and refusing to work. And here's why:

I don't know where to start!

I have a two day audit next week of EVERYTHING I have done for the last year. This auditor is going to dig through files, interview employees, read reports, wash behind my ears, and give me a really thorough prostate exam, without a reacharound. And this has me a little stressed out. You see, it's not like I haven't been doing my job for the last year, because I have. It's just that when it comes down to it, and you know someone has 16 hours to dig into every little detail, you just know they are going to find the "T" you didn't dot, the "Eyes" you didn't cross, and your secret stash of Forbidden Farm Girl Sex Acts (take that Google!).

So, now I'm scrambling around, trying to fit another year's worth of work into five days. How do I do it? Chex Mix, Ramen, Gin, Espresso, and a constant loop of that obnoxious song "He's Going the Distance" by Cake.

With any luck, I'll have a total breakdown and be committed before Monday.

The Service Sucks, But the Floor Show is Great!

“I know John Bobbit!”

This was how she introduced herself to me, as she stumbled from her place at the bar, lurching unsteadily toward my inner thigh.

“What?” I said.

“You know! John Bobbit. The Dick-Cut-Off-Guy.”

“Yes,” I said, “I know who John Wayne Bobbit is.”

“I don’t just know who he is, I know him!” she replied as her hand came to rest just a few inches from my wedding tackle. I glanced at Red, to make sure that she was not becoming angered at this woman’s unwarranted advances.

Red had her own problems. The hand that wasn’t digging its nails into my leg was massaging Red’s chest. Suddenly this was a more interesting conversation than I thought.

“How do you know John Bobbit?” I asked.

“They don’t believe me!” she shouted towards a couple of people sitting at the bar. Ah yes, the wonderful logic of tequila shots was working its magic on her already fragile brain. “I’m from West Palm Beach. Do you believe me?”

“Of course I do. How did you meet him?”

“After his wife or girlfriend or whatever did the choppity-chop on his Johnson, he got that prosthetic, or extender or whatever.”

“I thought he just had it stitched back on, I didn’t think it was prosthetic.”

“What the fuck do you know?” she snapped, “Anyway, he had his dingus stapled back on and then the first place he ever showed off his frankencock was at a strip club that my friend owns in West Palm Beach. I don’t know what’s so special about it though. He can’t even get hard now! Did I tell you I’m from West Palm Beach?”

“No.” I said solemnly.

Red couldn’t take it anymore and began laughing so hard that she couldn’t breath. She actually began to squeak as she struggled for air, and her face began to turn purple. That’s when the drunk began yelling, “Help! Help! She can’t breath! She’s having a heart attack. Somebody come do CPR! Somebody call 911. I’ll give her boyfriend mouth-to-mouth!”

This didn’t help Red. She began squeaking and laughing so hard that she fell out of her chair. That’s when people starting thinking that maybe she really did need CPR. The fact that I was laughing at her only made me look like a callous asshole (which I am) and it took quite a bit of reassuring through my guffaws to stop the bartender from calling an ambulance.

I finally managed pry her hand off of my thigh, and she lumbered off toward the bar to fetch another cocktail. On the way, she coughed so hard that she almost fell over, and righted herself only by grabbing the arm of a passing man and pulling herself up. In the process, she knocked him from his feet. She also spun around and landed back in Red’s lap, where she proceeded to use both hands and Red’s chest to bring herself back to full-upright. This started another laughing fit that nearly ended with the paramedics.

She talked about John Wayne Bobbit for about ten more minutes, but didn’t say anything new. Finally, she put her cigarette out in my martini, pulled the Christmas tree in the lobby over on herself, and left the building.

God I love my town.

Where Do I Come Up With This Shit?

Some guys at work were talking about a new Riding Mower that someone bought. As I walked by, I heard one guy say, "He Paid $8,000 for that thing." Another guy said, "Shit! How big is it? Does it have a bunch of attachments and extras and stuff?"

That's when I walked by and said, "If it doesn't make you a fucking cup of coffee and jerk you off, it ain't worth $8,000."

So Where've I Been Lately?

From the local Argus:

Local Man Sentenced in Bizarre Trial

Ohio: Trent Elliott, otherwise known as the "Flanders Pigeon Murderer," "KOTWF," and "Oh God Here He Comes," was found guilty today on charges of public lewdness, attempted suicide by scotch consumption, wantonly performing "Johnny B. Goode" and "Zuit Suit Riot" at shady karaoke bars, and endangering countless innocent marriages through his astounding good looks and charm.

Counsel for Mr. Elliott responded to the trial results: "Well, we fought the good fight, and we tried to get a fair trial for the KOTWF. Things probably would have gone better if we could have restrained him from bringing his hip-flask to the trial. And I don't think his constant winking at the Judge's wife helped. In the end, though, justice won out. I mean, let's face it, the little S.O.B. is guilty as sin!"

We managed to speak with Mr. Elliott for a few moments before the sentencing, and he had this to say: "I gotsa lotsa reasons t'be *$^#*ing &*^$ed off! Who th' %$&# do those #$%holes think I am? It wasn'nt 'tempted sewerside, I kin drink ten times asmuch scotch. Hand me tha' bawdle!"

The sentence that Mr. Elliott now faces is 50 lashes from a supermodel's tongue. When asked for comment on Mr. Elliott's sentence, Warden Claudia Schiffer said this: "Us girls are really excited about being able to bring someone like that to justice. We'll give him exactly what he deserves. In fact, I've already promised to extend his sentence for good behavior."

Ms. Schiffer went on to explain that the sentence would also be extended for naughty behavior, or "if the rumors are true."

Mr. Elliott has received a work release, and will be serving his sentence for two hours per night, over the next 50 nights.

Where Did That Come From?

Last night, I dreamed that I was on another planet, and I was learning about the alien race that lived there. I learned about their society, their way of life, and their physical and mental capabilities. All of this was run of the mill alien stuff.

Then I started to study their religion.

They were polytheistic, with a different god for everything. They had gods of the harvest, gods of war, gods of fertility, etc. All of these were no different than you'd expect to read in any book of Roman, Greek, or Norse Myths. But they had an "All Father" god. This was the god of gods, and he lived with god of the sun, inside the star that this planet orbited. If they behaved and lived their lives morally, then when they died, the All Father would let them "come on down" to paradise.

The All Father God, living inside their sun, was Rod Roddy.

I'm Still Not Funny

I was in Chicago's Midway Airport this week, on my way home from Saint Louis, and as I was walking through the terminal, I saw something that I just had to mention to my traveling companion.

"Look!" I said, "A nun! In an airport! Do you know what that makes her?"

He didn't even laugh....

Anyway, I saw some cool shit in Saint Louis (believe me, this is a feat. There is NOTHING in Saint Louis), which I will tell you about later.

Love to the kids,
KOTWF

Victorious!

Red and I just got back from a costume party. She and I won the "Most Original" category. Neither of us had a costume that was very original on it's own, but together we were great.

You see, Red went as the tiger, and I was Roy...

Poetry

This morning, I actually had to scrape the ice off of my car windows. In honor of the coming onslaught of winter, I'm posting a poem I wrote for Red last December, a few weeks before she moved in with me.

Snow Dream

I wake up in the morning,
To a blanched landscape of crystalline shards,
To a dreamscape of frozen wonder.
The trees bear their burden, groaning with the added weight,
As I slog through the waste to my inhumed car.

I wait for the ice to turn to water and run down my windshield,
And wish that she were here.
She’d be beautiful right now,
Her blue eyes flashing from beneath her toboggan,
Bits of water in a world of ice.
Her hair would dance across her shoulders as she ducked and dodged,
A slushball held tight in her mittened hand while she sought her target.
SMACK!
Cold water runs down my collar as I turn to stare at her.
She screams and we tumble head over heels into a snow bank
Where we land, arm in arm, lip to lip
And somehow,
We aren’t cold.

After an eternity that seems like minutes,
The cold has finally permeated our nest enough to freeze our toes.
“Let’s go home,” I say.
Inside, the smells of hot cocoa and woodsmoke fill the air,
Points of light glow off our coniferous houseguest,
And Bing fills our ears with a song about the first snowfall of the winter.
We strip our shoes and socks and sit before the fire,
Content to just hold hands and sip.

I can see out the windows of my car.
I slip into gear and begin the long, treacherous, snowy journey to work.

M I A

Sorry I've been a little out of touch lately. I've been having a few minor problems.

You see, it all started with my spleen. I've been drinking a lot lately, and I was beginning to feel bad for my liver. Trooper that he is, he never complained once, but nonetheless I felt like maybe it was time for some of those worthless vestigial organs to take up the slack. Because I had my appendix removed in a freak yachting accident a few years back, and because Red still hasn't convinced me that my brain is vestigial, it fell to my spleen.

A few shots of Bombay Sapphire later, my spleen started to be a real dick. He hadn't been exposed to ethanol before, and, quite frankly, he's a sloppy drunk. One minute, he's got delusions of grandeur about how important he is now that he processes the liquor, the next minute he's vomiting bile everywhere and ruining my shoes.

So I had him removed. "Goodbye Mr. Spleen! You lazy, good-for-nothing freeloader!"

Then it dawned on me! I hate dieting, but I need to lose about 10 pounds. I figured, "Hey! I could probably lose ten pounds of organ meat and not even miss it!" This was the best idea I'd ever had. I spent the next 3 days lying in a hospital bed having portions of my organs removed so I could get back down to my fighting weight. It wasn't until the infection set in that I realized something: organs aren't just dead weight. Do you have any idea what your spleen does? It filters out foreign organisms that infect your blood, removes your old or damaged platelets and red blood cells, stores extra blood and releases it as needed, and forms some types of white blood cells. And that's just your spleen! I mean, imagine how much some other organ like your heart or your stomach or your green squiggly thing does!

There was only one thing for it. I had to call up all those nice people that were using my organs and get them back. That wasn't too tough though, because the doctor said that my organs were in such a sad shape that they just threw them in the dumpster out back anyway.

Anyway, I've spent the last few days working double-overtime to try and cover my hospital bill, and sucking up to all my organs and apologizing for being so mean to them.

Now each of them gets a turn as the liver once a month.

And that's why I haven't been posting lately.

Wedding Day

Saturday was a turning point in my life. I woke up, threw down a few cocktails, and put on a tux. I then stood in front of many friends and family members as a beautiful woman dressed all in white walked down the aisle towards me. I stood there silently, sweating, as she said her vows. I smiled at her, then my friend said his vows and we all went to the reception.

The groom’s younger brother, Bill, was the Best Man, but I was assigned to give the Best Man’s Speech, so when the DJ announced, “And now our Best Man, KOTWF, would like to give a toast” I felt like I had to say something to make Bill feel better. The speech went like this:

Thank you, Jeff, although, just like at that nudist wedding I attended last week, I’m an inch away from being best man.

I’d like to start by making a brief announcement: I just saved 15% on car insurance!

When I was asked to give this speech tonight, I was honored. You see, I’ve known John for 24 years. I was there in fourth grade when he kissed his first girlfriend. I was there a few weeks later when she broke up with him using that classic line: “You look like a big red apple.” I was there the night he left for Army Boot Camp (My body was there anyway. My mind was at the bottom of a bottle of scotch). And I was there the night that John and Trisha met. In fact, I had been friends with Trisha for a number of years at that point as well, and I introduced the two, so, in a since, I’m the reason you are all here tonight.

In all those years, I’ve taken care of John. Even when we were babies, I had to show him which part of his mother was serving the drinks. I’ve given him countless hours of advice (which he hasn’t followed). And I can’t even count how many times I’ve bailed him out of—never mind.

The point is this: I am glad that John found Trisha, because I think that Trisha is the only person in the world who is beautiful enough, smart enough, and understanding enough to replace me. At this time, I’d like to officially retire from my position as John’s babysitter, and hand the title over to his beautiful, soon to be overworked, bride.

Trisha: Through the years, John has placed me in many awkward positions, but each one has been an exciting experience, and each one has helped strengthen our friendship. In the future, may you and John find yourselves in many enjoyable positions.

John: What can I say? I love you like the brother I never had (Shut-up, Tanner, you were adopted!). May your new life bring you happiness and joy. From now on, I promise that whenever I’m out, I’ll have a hooker for you.

Ladies and Gentlemen: To John and Trisha, and the amazing future that awaits them! (Drinks entire glass, heads straight to bar to refill it)

I think it went pretty well…

My Dog Is Dead!

You know that scene in The Man Who Knew Too Little where Bill Murray is trying to figure out how actors can make themselves cry on cue? And he says “What do you do? Do you poke yourself in the eye like this? Or do you think something really sad like ‘My dog is dead!’?” Then he proceeds to poke himself in the eye repeatedly and scream “My dog is dead!” over and over and over again until he finally stops and says, “Nope, nothing.”

You know that scene?

Well it’s kind of like that, but not as funny.

My dog, Acacia, had to be put to sleep Tuesday evening.

She was a Chow-Shepherd mix, which made her an extremely loyal, very protective, surprisingly gentle, overly stubborn, quite pretty, fuzzy German Shepherd with a black-spotted tongue.

She left hair everywhere, scared away the paper-boy, ate entire plates of steak off the counter when you weren’t looking, and woke you up at 5:00am to go out and pee. She was arthritic, had started to lose control of her bladder, and was horribly loud whenever anyone came to the door.

And these were her good qualities.*

Fucking dog.

She will be missed.

*Actually, she was one of the best pets. Ever. She would protect my baby brother from anyone and anything. She would follow you loyally wherever you went and wait patiently outside until you came out, no matter how long it took. She would let you rest your head on her and use her as a pillow. She never complained about anything. She was smart enough that she could understand and respond to human speech. And she was more a part of the family than my sister, who still doesn’t know she was adopted from a Vietnamese crack-whore that used to do this great act where she got DP’ed by two live donkeys. We love and miss you, Acacia.

Don’t You Hate That

You know, when you have a great dream in which you see something, or experience something, or go somewhere, and you think, “Damn that’s cool!” Then, when you wake up in the middle of the night you realize that whatever you dreamed about doesn’t exist, but it is so cool that you think, “Hey! If I build it, then it will exist and it would be so cool that I know it would succeed and make mad cash!”

And so you lie awake from 2:30 to 5:00 on the living room floor (that’s where you passed out last night) thinking through the whole thing, how it will work, how to build it, how to market it, etc. Finally, you get to sleep and tell yourself that you will put some more finishing touches on it in the morning, maybe draw a schematic of it, write up a projected earnings statement, and start your business plan.

6:45 rolls around, and you crawl through the painful mist in your head and begin to get ready for work. As the aspirin and the hair-of-the-dog take effect, you have a sudden, startling realization: You wasted two and a half hours of sleep last night. That was the stupidest fucking idea in the world.

What do you mean that never happens to you?

Hell Week

A haiku about my week:

Customer Complaints
For five days now without pause
Dirty Martini

A Bona-Fide Film Review!

My friend John came over to visit Red and I the other night. He walked into the apartment, sidled up to the bar, and quickly poured himself a tall scotch, which he downed. As he poured another, he said, “Help yourself. You’re going to need a drink.”

I found this odd, as it is my bar, but John is not one to question when he is visibly shaken, so I simply muttered, “Thanks,” and filled my glass. “What’s up?” I asked, dreading the answer like a 16 year old virgin dreads prom-night.

“This,” he said as he slid a DVD across the bar.

I glanced down, fearful that I was, once again, about to be exposed to homosexual otter porn. I was pleasantly surprised, however, when the cover of the DVD did not reveal photographs of colossal and hirsute members, but was flat black with a title written in white letters.

Rejected

I put it in, pressed play, and the following words flashed across my screen:

In the spring of 1999, the Family Learning Channel commissioned animator Don Hertzfeldt to produce promotional segments for their network. The cartoons were completed in five weeks. The Family Learning Channel rejected all of them upon review, and they were never aired...

Then I found myself face to face with a cute little guy, unblinkingly holding a spoon twice his size and standing in front of a very small bowl of something. Just as I started to think, "Poor guy, his spoon is too big!” he announced to the world at large, “My spoon is too big!”

I took a drink of scotch.

After a giant banana walked on-screen and, just to make sure I knew, said “I am a banana!” I finished my glass and had to pause the film in order to get a refill.

Just to recap, we’re now 30 seconds into the film and I am halfway to getting sauced simply through drinking as a means of escape and self-preservation. I imagine that the urge to drink generated by this cartoon is strong enough that, if I had been unlucky enough to be holding a bottle of liquid Drain-o when the film started, I would not be with you here today.

I don’t want to ruin the cartoon for you, gentle reader, so I will stop telling you anything more about the, for lack of a better word, plot and simply give you the statistics that I calculated upon the films completion:

Running time: Less than 10 minutes
Number of laughs: 97
Number of wide-eyed stares where I had no idea how to react: 4,230,911
Volume of scotch consumed while viewing: 32 oz.
Number of times I laughed so hard that scotch came out my nose: 1 (once is enough)
Number of times I have repeated lines from the film since I saw it Monday night: 208
Number of times Red has said “Quit saying that” after I’ve repeated a line: 207
Number of times I have looked at her like she had maggots crawling out of her eyeballs and said the line again: 1 (once is enough on this one, too)
Number of times I have watched the film since the original viewing: 4
Number of times I have pleasured myself while watching the film: 0
What you should do RIGHT NOW: Go buy it, rent it, borrow it, steal it, anything you have to in order to watch it. NOW!

I am a consumer whore.