People covet that which is new and shiny. This universal truth has been demonstrated once again in the south suburbs of Denver, Colorado on Tuesday when hundreds of people waited for hours in the freezing early morning fog as the first Krispy Kreme store opened. I find this entertaining not because people camped out the night before the grand opening or that the wait to buy doughnuts was still an hour-and-a-half at eight o’clock in the evening. The really amusing part of this story was traffic was so heavy around the doughnut shop that it clogged up the highways in the area the entire day.

A lot of people tell me that I have too much time on my hands. While I don’t disagree with that statement, I feel it is my duty to point out that I was not one of the thousands of people who stopped at Krispy Kreme on Tuesday. I would also like to point out there are many, many bakeries in the Denver area that bake doughnuts every day that can be visited without cashing in a sick day.

The story got me thinking about what kind of things I do to waste time. A lot of people seem to think that running the newfunny.com web site is clear proof that I have too much time on my hands. While I can’t totally disagree with that statement, I’m not the kind of guy who wastes time with a single activity. No– I like to think I am very diversified in this part of my life. To prove my point (and waste a little time in the process), I thought I would talk about one of my more memorable recent time killers.

Before I go into the details here, I would like to emphasize the point that not everyone who uses a vacuum to clean their patio has a mental illness. But I’m getting ahead of myself here. First of all, my patio is on the first floor and has a four foot high concrete barrier in lieu of a decorative railing. The concrete compliments the thorny bushes that block out 95 percent of the sunlight that attempts to get through. These architectural cues were borrowed from the beach front structures the Germans used to defend their positions in Normandy.

In addition to being a strategic location to mount heavy artillery, my porch is also a great place for dust and leaves to collect. If left unattended for a few years, the area would completely fill up with dirt and develop it’s own thriving ecosystem. While I’m generally all for allowing man and nature to peacefully coexist, I also would like to get back my damage deposit when I move out of my apartment. So every now and then I go out and clean up the area.

The leaves and random pieces of trash that visit my porch don’t really put up much of a fight when clean up time approaches. The real problem is the fine dirt– it doesn’t really sweep up very well since the area is not very large. The fact that the floor of the porch sits several feet below the ground means there isn’t anywhere to sweep the dirt. That was when I decided to bring out the vacuum cleaner.

Anyone who has known me for any length of time probably wouldn’t describe me as a “clean freak”. The whole point of vacuuming my patio was to get it clean with the least amount of effort. In all honesty, I didn’t think that using a vacuum cleaner was going to work very well. In fact it turned out to be a lot less effort than the half-assed approach I was initially going to use. Getting the porch cleaner than initially planned was just an added bonus to the entire situation.

I would like to encourage everyone who reads this to make sure to spend some time each day doing something that isn’t productive. You don’t have to look far to find such activities. Play a few games of “Minesweeper” on your computer. Think about what the sequel to “The Matrix” is going to be like. Sit around and imagine what Al Gore is doing today instead of running the country. And, if you are one of the many, many people who are wasting time waiting in line at Krispy Kreme, pick me up a half-dozen glazed doughnuts and a pint of milk.

While most people think of me as a mere computer geek, the truth is that my obsession with the less popular aspects of general amusement span the entire technological spectrum. I can entertain myself for indefinite amounts of time with the time honored tradition of poking at things with a stick. At the other extreme, anything that is shiny, contains a variety of colors, and makes funny sounds also captures my attention. This, of course, explains my life long obsession with Elton John.

I visit some of my friends on a regular basis and we will often times get together for an evening of Empire Builder– our favorite railroad board game. (It’s OK, Rail Baron– we love you too) The general idea is to build a network of railroad tracks across the board with different color crayons to connect various cities on the map. Once you have built up enough track, you earn money by acquiring and delivering different types of cargo (oil, wheat, steel, and so on) to different cities along your network of train tracks. A lot of things seem more amusing when it’s three in the morning and you have been drinking caffeinated beverages continuously for the past seven hours while staring at a bunch of crayon marks on a map of the United States. Having said that, our favorite type of cargo is oats because we get to use the phrase, “Hey everyone, I’m haulin’ oats”.

I thoroughly enjoy playing Empire Builder despite the fact I hardly ever win. I suspect my problem is I derive too much pleasure from building tracks just to get in the way of everyone else. They say that defense wins championships, but I suspect that particular philosophy is more applicable in the NFL. Another problem I have involves bringing out my anger from past experiences. I have a deep psychological need to build tracks into Pittsburgh after an embarrassing tactical error on my part in a previous game that allowed Brian to take control of the city. In the long run it didn’t really matter-there are more than two dozen cities on the map. I felt as though I let the city down in its moment of need. Kind of like when I was five and my mom would leave me in the checkout line at the store to pick up something she forgot to put in the cart and I had visions of the checkout guy taking me off to jail when they realized I didn’t have any money to pay for the groceries.

On the more “high tech” side of social activities, my friends and I are really into playing Laser Tag. I know that most people associate it with a bunch of sixteen year olds running around with nothing better to do on a Saturday night. While that described us rather accurately when we first discovered the game, it’s now ten years later; we drive better cars and have a more lenient curfew. The part about having better things to do on a Saturday night is really a matter of perspective. I enjoy playing Laser Tag more than I like taking part in excessive alcohol consumption while having to deal with abrupt changes in the directional flow of my upper digestive track.

While Laser Tag is a physical game that involves running around a large maze, one of the keys to getting a high score involves employing a good strategy. Running around like a chicken with its head cut off is generally not the best way to go. Following basic rules like, “Don’t stand in the same place if you are getting hit every five seconds” and, “You can’t sneak up on people very well if you are yelling at one of your friends twenty feet away” can dramatically increase your score. Despite the use of the word “laser” in the name of the game, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to be a decent player. I’ve seen quite a few thirteen year olds girls with neon color hair and various metal objects in their nose get impressive rankings once the scores were tallied. Being skilled at Laser Tag and longing for various members of N’SYNC do not seem to be mutually exclusive.

Now you know insofar as can be described in eight hundred and twenty-four words what I like to do for fun. This story would’ve used more words if I wasn’t so lazy with the use of contractions, or fewer words if I eased up on the tangentially relevant anecdotes. If you are the type to stay awake at night wondering about my entertainment habits, you are going to have to think about something else tonight. I suggest going into your living room, turning the television to some random cable channel, and start thinking, “Now how have I managed to survive this long with a kitchen that doesn’t include a restaurant quality portable rotisserie cooker?”

Today I was making a delivery when a helicopter landed about 50 feet from my truck. And not just a typical television news one either– if my extensive viewing of the Discovery Channel is any help, I believe this exact model is used to move large battleships around. Standing-next-to-a-landing-helicopter-hair is the worst, but fortunately I’m bald.

Joseph Black
Nina’s Captain log
October 12, 1492

In the course of fifteen minutes Michael incinerated all but one of my ships, killed half my crew, and effortlessly detained the survivors on shore. What really shakes me up, however, is that after talking to this strange man over the course of that first evening I held no anger towards him and realized my destiny exploded unimaginably beyond that of a ship’s captain. By dumb luck I was introduced to the most powerful man on the planet who revealed to me technology I could not have imagined just the night before. I move forward balancing on the knife’s edge of serving Michael and keeping the world from thinking I’ve gone mad.

Michael stole another glance at his wristwatch while sitting on the beach with the native population he recruited to his cause. “Any moment now.” he said to nobody in particular. His son, Michael Junior, had acclimated from the journey surprisingly quickly given the last minute change of plans. Despite being terribly exhausted, Michael worked nonstop to build the necessary defenses. While not perfect, he knew arriving any sooner would have potentially jeopardized their guest’s itinerary.

One of the younger natives jumped up and pointed out towards the sea. The excitement quickly spread throughout the group and everyone took up their preassigned positions. Four small groups moved out along the beach and the rest gathered at the newly constructed trebuchet. 

The three ships steadily sailed towards the beach utterly unaware of the danger ahead. The crew of the ships could hear a series of different pitched drum beats as they approached the shore, but they could not have imagined the sounds were trigonometrically isolating their position. Soon the crew realized that the sounds were occurring in a regular order– each drum was struck between one and five times. They theorized this was some type of local welcoming tradition and continued on course.

Their theory was disproved when all four drums were struck five times and an unknown flaming object was launched at them from the trees at the edge of the beach. It exploded approximately 100 meters directly above the ship closest to the shore. Before any of the crew could react to this new development the entire ship and most of the crew was covered in a flaming sticky mess. The remaining crew below deck were unable to abandon ship and quickly drowned as the ship retired itself with amazing efficiency. There were no survivors.

As the second fireball launched from shore the crew of the second ship were much more eager to abandon ship. While not a direct hit, the sails were solidly on fire and everyone on board realized any attempt to save the ship would be a fool’s errand. With the exception of a few severe burn victims, the crew was able to swim to shore.

As the Captain of the remaining ship, Joseph Black only had a few moments to decide on a fight or flight strategy. This became a moot point as an ever increasing percentage of his crew jumped overboard and began the trip to the shore. Not having resources to put them on trial for mutiny, Joseph dropped the anchor, gathered the remaining crew on the dinghy, and reluctantly headed towards whatever new fate awaited them on the beach.

After identifying Joseph as the leader of the group, Michael walked towards the Captain and slowly circled around him a few times before sitting down in the sand at what seemed to be a surprisingly intimately close distance given the recent events. “Whether or not you offer it, I accept your complete and unconditional surrender.” Michael explained. “Please remove the thoughts in your head of retreating to your remaining ship. Your crew is physically exhausted from your journey, you lack food and fresh water, and by now I don’t think I need to convince you that we can convert that last ship into a useless fireball before your first crew member could reach the dinghy. If one of my men is attacked one of your crew will be killed. If one of my men dies three of yours will lose their lives in a drawn out and very public manner. Can I trust you to convey this information to your remaining crew?”

Seeing no other viable options, Joseph kept staring out at the ocean and slowly nodded. While the ropes used to restrain his hands seemed be constructed from local vegetation with the potential of being worked loose over several hours, he reluctantly agreed with his new captor that, at least for the time being, any attempt at espace would significantly increase the odds of his crew becoming more dead than they already were.

“Every thought racing through your head at this moment in time is wrong.” Michael explained. “Suppose for a moment I tasked you with maintaining an earthen dam. During times of heavy rainfall the downstream village’s existence depends on you keeping the water from traveling over the top of the structure. Once the dam is breached the water quickly erodes the soil and an irreversible cascade failure takes place. The question I ask you now is this– are you angry with the very first drop of water that flowed over the top?

Disarmed by this new direction of the conversation, Joseph looked directly at Michael while considering his reply. “No,” Joseph answered. “The water didn’t intend to destroy the dam.”

“Exactly! In fact, if you splashed around in the water right beforehand it would be a completely different drop of water that went over first. But that small change doesn’t change the outcome. You still would have failed in your duty.”

Michael paused to take a sip of water from a canteen from his belt. “Now imagine another scenario where a single human had the ability to destroy all the people of a given religious orientation. Let’s call him Adolf.”

“Ok, but it doesn’t seem very realistic that one man could wield such power. And what would be the benefit of killing such a large civilian population?”

“Oh, no, not killing, I said ‘destroying.’ There is certainly dignity in death. But to destroy a race involves carefully planning a systematic method of arbitrary plunder, rape, murder, and enslavement. Allowing them only enough resources to reproduce and continue the cycle of humiliation. Yes, I killed most of your team today, but I’m not going to let history repeat itself and turn them into little more than livestock to serve my needs. 

Noticing his fingernails digging into the palms of his hands, Michael paused and took a deep breath. “So here is my dilemma– you are somewhere between a drop of water and Adolf. At some point in the past you chose to get on that ship. You chose an adventure with the hopes of acquiring something new at the possible or probable expense of someone you have yet to meet. How should I deal with this situation?

“I never really liked the word ‘should’. It seems like it was invented to give people a justification to do what they already had their mind set on in the first place.”

Many great philosophers have tried to isolate exactly what separates human kind from the rest of the animal kingdom. As a species human beings are not the fastest creatures, we do not have the most strength, and when it comes to flying through the air under our own power, well, it’s safe to say that we suck pretty bad there too. I sat on my couch the other night eating a half dozen tiny saltine and peanut butter sandwiches and realized we are the only species on this planet where the males spend quite a large percentage of their free time trying to understand the females. Which might not be such a bad thing if it did a lick of good.

I look back to my high school days and think of many things I regret doing and not doing. For example, I could probably track down my ninth grade algebra teacher in order to cover his house in toilet paper and put someone else’s license plates on his car, but my anger has dissipated over the years. Sure—I still firmly believe he took way too much pleasure in torturing me, but if I got caught throwing eggs at his house I would no longer have the luxury of being charged as a minor.

The biggest thing I would have NOT done in high school if I could do it all over again would be attending my senior prom. In fact, I use this as evidence I will never create a time traveling device. If I were to master time travel sometime in the future, the first thing I would have done is gone back to 1992 and physically prevented myself from going through with it. I bought into the hype that everyone should go to their senior prom. Not that I’m against the general idea, but I ended up asking this girl I hardly knew to be my date. The whole night was incredibly awkward. I spent the entire night asking myself questions like “Is this supposed to be fun?”, “Why did I pay 80 bucks so I could rent clothes that make me look like the waiter?”, and “I wonder who is on Saturday Night Live tonight? Maybe this time it will be funny.”

I learned many, many things during my time in college. Very little of this knowledge related to any higher understanding of women. My love for Taco Bell was at its peak during this time in my life, and I was always asking my friends if they wanted to join me on a run for the border. When I would ask my guy friends to go with me they would usually respond with something to the effect of “Omar, you are becoming a freak about Taco Bell—get a life!” They would never agree to go and then pout and be otherwise ill tempered the rest of the night because the mere thought of another soft taco and bean burrito made them gag. My girlfriend at the time, however, seemed to do this on a surprisingly regular basis.

Starting a relationship with a woman is a lot like buying an automobile. When going to buy a car it is usually quite difficult to know exactly how much the car costs. Sure, there might be a price on the windshield, but this is just a ball park figure. The final cost of the car is the sticker price plus a certain number of dollars determined by a complex set of factors that include rifling through all potential customer’s wallets for detailed personal financial information. The entire process is designed to be disorienting and confusing. Is the 500 bucks for rust proofing a good idea or a total scam? Should I buy a car that is entirely manufactured in Peru? Did the salesman just steal my wallet? In the end most people consider the purchase a success if they have any money at all left over and the vehicle they drive off the lot has close to the number of doors as the sales person promised.

Starting a relationship with a man is more like buying groceries. While lacking the new car smell and endless strings of colored plastic flags, grocery shopping is a very simple process. You can look at an item, pick it up, and use any other senses to determine if a given product meets your needs at the time. While trying to be helpful and courteous, employees at these establishments are for the most part apathetic about individual decisions made by customers. Nobody get fired based on, say, how many cans of soup are purchased on a given day.

If you happen to be a man, you probably find the behavior of women to be just as foreign and confusing as a crooked Mexican real estate time share scheme. For better or worse, that is just the way things are. And it helps prove how advance the human race has become over the years.

Since my pursuit of a traditional computer geek job has been about as successful as Paula Jones’ television boxing career, I’ve decided to expand my horizons and offer my creative talents to one of my favorite things in the world. I’m sure there are a lot of people out there thinking, “Reality check here Omar, nobody is going to pay you money for your stupid Taco Bell song!” I’m not abandoning my dream of writing meaningful burrito music, but rather putting it under the warming lamps until the right customer comes along to order it. In the mean time, I’ve decided to offer my creative talents to television networks in the form my new high priced consulting service.

How high priced? Well, lets just say I’m booked solid through the next 5 television seasons. Yes, I know that has absolutely nothing to do with my fee. My goal here is to alter the traditional logic of supply and demand by creating the perception I am incredibly busy. If anyone wants to actually pay me money, I’ll have a last minute and suspiciously convenient cancellation in my schedule. Hey, it worked wonders for Cabbage Patch Kids and Tickle Me Elmo, so I don’t see why the same principles can’t be applied to my life.

As much as I would like to, I can’t just say I’m a high priced television consultant and have the networks start shoving hundred dollar bills down my pants. So, to demonstrate some of my talents I’ve decided to put a few of my creative visions on the Internet so the network executives can feel comfortable when handing over briefcases full of money.

My first recommendation is for the Fox network and show “King of the Hill”. While this has proven to be a moderately successful animated cartoon, turning the show turned into a live action situation comedy for a season or two would improve ratings in the key demographics. Which, of course, is the “eighteen to thirty year old short attention span but attracted to anything that gets labeled as gimmicky” group.

Getting back to the “King of the Hill” proposal: Finding actual people who look and sound like the cartoon characters might be a challenge, but the end result would be worth the effort. After a full season of using live actors, other mediums could be considered. This includes—but is not limited to—claymation, Japanese Anime, interpretive Irish folk dance, and, of course, marionette puppets.

When MTV decided to stop playing music videos and instead started filming a house full of unemployed whiny people a lot of viewers were quite upset and annoyed—especially those interested in watching actual music videos. While this approach is exactly the opposite of what many “idealists” thought a cable channel called “Music Television” should be doing, the producers unknowingly lit a fire under the bandwagon of “reality” television and proceeded to give it a healthy shove down the road of good intentions.

Shows such as “The Real World” created a lucrative market for doing little more than going around and filming people in their daily lives. As the competition increased, the gimmickry factor was pushed to it’s limit. To succeed in this genre of television programming these days require, at an absolute minimum, a tropical island, a half dozen Playboy Bunnies, a medium sized team of professional pyrotechnics, and the threat that some or all contestants might lose one of their kidneys. And that is just for the promotions.

The next logical step in this progression is to have a reality show ABOUT reality shows. The title of the show would need to clearly identify itself with its predecessor—current working titles include “The Really Real World”, “The Meta Real World”, and “MTV’s Sex-o-rama Voyeur Cam.” Imagine all the creative potential in having a television crew following around the original television crew following around five young adults in their jobs as entry level accountants. Just kidding—they would really be in an elite group of disco rollerblading fire fighters patrolling the streets of a major metropolitan area.

Finally the general public could get a glimpse into the high paced world of reality television programming. Sure, it may look easy, but getting these kids to open up to the cameras can be a real challenge when they spend most of their free time discussing delicate issues such as the best way to download pornography from the Internet and planning spontaneous week long free trips to the Bahamas.

Making television not suck cannot be accomplished by any single person. We all have to do our part and work constructively together to accomplish this goal in peace and goodwill. If someone wants to go track down and savagely pummel the guy running around in the question mark suit explaining how to get free money from the government, well, I just can’t see how that would do the world any harm either.

These guys were hanging out at the entrance to our subdivision as I got home from work the other night.

I’m pretty sure that I’m not giving away any sensitive UPS intelligence when I say that my employer saves money by purchasing the cheapest coffee that doesn’t violate any Federal laws.  So the other day I took a small sample of coffee to a lab for analysis. It turns out that each packet of coffee contains 53% fine sawdust, 40% recycled toner cartridge ink, and three coffee beans.  I’m not sure I even want to know what is in the powdered creamer.

Now that I’ve lived in Loveland for a month, I feel a much stronger connection with the town. To be honest, when I first moved in, I knew little more than the two main streets in the area. Depending on my starting point, finding my way back home was at times quite a challenge. Thanks to my technique of randomly driving around town for little or no specific reason I have identified many, if not all, of the points of interest Loveland, Colorado has to offer.

One of the first things I did after moving in was to locate the nearest Walmart. Fortunately for me, it was only a few blocks away from the house. I drove over and stocked up on soda and other random items that seem to find their way into my shopping basket whenever I enter the store. Unfortunately for me, I drove to the exact same location a week later only to find it was gone. Well, the building didn’t go anywhere, but the essence of the company was nowhere to be found. After a few minutes of playing Columbo, I discovered a large note on the door, explaining that a new store had opened up on the other side of town.

But this wasn’t just any Walmart—- the new building housed a “Super” Walmart. Which means it is basically a traditional Walmart with a complete grocery store stuck on the side. And it stays open all the time. Given my well-documented erratic sleeping habits, this schedule was quite a welcomed change. To test things out, I drove over at midnight to examine the new structure. It literally has tons of stuff. I can’t say offhand exactly how many tons, but everywhere I looked I just saw more stuff. Having just moved all my stuff from Boulder, I was not really in the mood to acquire more stuff. But I did feel the need to buy something, just to be courteous to the Walmart establishment.

In order to make everyone happy, I bought a ninety-seven cent bottle of hair gel. While I’m still not sure if my hair needs the “ultra hold” or “maximum goo” style, the bottle I purchased does seem to be functioning within the expected parameters. And now I have one more item to add to my “ways to entertain myself at two in the morning” list. (Going to Walmart that is, not contemplating my hair gel needs.)

Now that Scott and I have cleared out all the unwanted vegetation from the yard, I have taken on the responsibility of mowing the lawn. For one thing, I haven’t had a lawn to mow since I was in high school. Secondly, the area covered by the lawn is so small it is not a big deal to fire up the lawn mower once a week. The lawn mower is one that mulches the grass instead of collecting it in a bag. In addition to being environmentally better for the planet, it keeps me in a much better mood since I don’t have to spend time hauling bags of dead grass all over the place.

One of my favorite aspects of living in Colorado are the two seasons. Winter and summer both make their presence felt throughout the year—- but not in any particular order. Sure, in December it is more likely to be winter and in June, odds favor the summer. I was mowing the lawn a few days ago when the sun was shining and all the other meteorological signs pointed to summer. By the time I had finished, the situation had completely reversed and it was quite clear that winter was stopping by for a visit. A few hours later it started snowing. If I had postponed mowing the lawn I might have had to shovel snow off it first. Fortunately, winter didn’t want to stay very long and things were back to summer status the next day.

After holding a brief funeral service to honor the premature demise of the raspberry bushes, Scott and I planted some new seeds in the garden. It turns out that world of genetic engineering hasn’t advanced to the point of being able to produce “seven-layer burrito” seeds. Given that limitation, I went back to the Super Walmart (which hadn’t been moved since my last visit to buy the hair gel) and bought various packages of seeds. According to the instructions, if planted correctly, the seeds will grow into various forms of vegetables. My specialty seems to be more in the area of killing vegetation, so I’m sure an attempt to grow a useful garden will be quite an adventure. (NOTE TO SELF: don’t run over the garden with the lawn mower.) But at least now I know where I can buy gardening equipment in the middle of the night.

Everyone and their dog is making themselves into action figures on the Internet this week, so I thought I would give it a go! Full disclosure– I used ChatGPT and this isn’t even my dog!

Here is the starting photograph of me and said dog on Halloween:

And the prompt I used for ChatGPT was:

Use this image to create a picture of a action figure toy  in a blister package from head to toe with accessories which include a two gallon red and white round water cooler with a white handle, a container of sunscreen, and a pair of sunglasses.  The package should read "UPS Driver" and below that "summer edition" The background should be three shades of brown in an abstract swirling pattern.

I happened to be walking through the wonderfully preserved open space on the Boulder path earlier this week. I’m not sure exactly why, but I realized that I was traveling at a slightly slower than usual pace. Perhaps I was preoccupied with the nature of the universe, the purpose of my existence, and the ultimate fate of humanity. In retrospect, the fact that I was hauling around a backpack containing a broken car battery might have contributed to my decreased velocity.

The whole situation started out quite innocently when a friend of mine bet me twenty dollars that I couldn’t juggle 3 batteries at the same time. I found it kind of odd he didn’t explain that he was talking about car batteries until after I accepted the challenge. Being a man of my word, we walked out to my car so I could drive to the bank to pay him the money.

This is where the trouble began. I tried to start my car and nothing happened. That’s not completely true—when I turned the key I could hear a slight clicking noise. I honestly can’t say if the clicking noise was supposed to be there or not. What I did know was that the engine wasn’t running, and you don’t have to be an auto mechanic to recognize this as a problem. Which is a good thing, because there are forms of algae that know more than I do about automobile design and repair.

At this point I wasn’t sure what to do, I didn’t have a lithium jump starter back then. The more I turned the key the more it was clear the car wasn’t going to start. I gave it more gas and nothing changed. I turned off the radio. Still nothing. Adjusting the rear view mirror, opening and closing the trunk, and topping off the windshield wiper fluid also didn’t have any positive effect on the situation. Having completely exhausted my knowledge on the subject of starting my car, I decided to let the car rest for the evening and check back on it later. Maybe it was possessed by some evil spirit and would return to a more normal state sometime in the future.

I went back into my apartment to research ways I could remedy the situation. In retrospect, watching a documentary on the Discovery channel about people digging tunnels under the English channel wasn’t very relevant to my automobile crisis. But I now I am quite well versed in state of the art tunneling techniques (which I hope to use sometime in the future). Being no closer to getting my car running, I decided to go to bed in the hopes the answer would come to me in my sleep. Unfortunately, the only dream I can remember involved a bunch of ten foot tall tangerines running around trying to explain basic concepts of algebra to anyone who would listen. I asked one of them how to fix my car, but it could only suggest that I employ the distributive property of multiplication.

Having found no solution from the Discovery channel or the subconscious part of my brain, I walked out to my car the next morning to see if it was in the mood to start. Nothing seemed to have changed from the previous night. Having decided that the situation wasn’t likely to spontaneously get better, I got a pair of jumper cables and called a friend of mine to try and jump start my car.

When I connected the clamp to my battery, the (prepare for highly specialized automotive terminology) “wire thingy” fell off of the battery. I’ve never designed or conducted failure analysis on automobile batteries, but I could hear this voice telling me that something might be wrong with this piece of equipment. The voice turned out to be coming from Scott, the guy who was helping me get my car started.

After agreeing that the battery was causing the car not to start, Scott went back to work. About two minutes after he left, I starting thinking that having someone to drive me somewhere to get a new battery would probably be a good thing. I went inside and did some research into getting a replacement battery. The Saturn dealership told me the battery was still under warranty, and if I could bring it in they would give me a brand new one.

This is the point in the story where, in retrospect, I didn’t really make the best decision. I have this habit of approaching situations with either total apathy or complete involvement. Moderation is not my strong point. Being completely obsessed with getting my car running, I took the battery out of my car, put it in my backpack, and got ready to walk the one and a half miles to the Saturn dealership. The fact that some form of liquid was leaking out of the side may have stopped a less determined individual, but I just wrapped it up in multiple plastic bags and started walking.

In case you are wondering, car batteries are heavy. I would not suggest carrying one in a backpack for any significant distance. But I did make it to the dealership, and I even managed to get back to my car with the new battery (which had the positive property of not leaking out acid into my backpack). When I installed the new battery in my car the engine started just fine. And the doctor said the large acid burn on my lower back will only take two or three skin grafts to fix. But that’s just the price of fixing my car.

Campaign Ad #1

The entire ad is shown in the form of dated black and white film. The scene fades in showing an elaborate 1950’s ball A full sized orchestra is playing Glenn Miller’s “Moonlight Serenade.” All the men are clean cut and wearing traditional suits. A few couples are dancing in the middle, but for the most part the men are on one side and the women are on the opposite side.

George W. Bush is casually drinking some fruit punch and John McCain is in a dress and high heels wearing makeup sitting alone with the other women. They briefly establish eye contact but McCain quickly looks away. Bush sets his drink down and slowly moves towards McCain.

McCain notices, but keeps looking away when their eyes meet.

Bush sits down next to McCain and asks, “What’s a pretty girl like you doing all by yourself tonight?”

McCain nervously coughs and explains, “Well, you see, I’m not like most of the other girls. I like to think of myself as a maverick.”

Bush replies, “I’m always up for a challenge– how about a dance?”

“I don’t know,” McCain answers. “You don’t seem like my type.”

“I’m everyone’s type honey. Now stand up and let’s dance.”

McCain reluctantly stands up and takes Bush’s hand as they walk towards the center of the dance floor.

“Just follow my lead and you will do just fine.”

“I’m just not sure about this.”

They start dancing and McCain does surprisingly well.

Bush pipes up, “See, you’re very good at this.”

Right after he said that, McCain steps on one of Bush’s feet.

McCain smiles nervously and says, “I’m sorry, that must be my maverick side coming out.”

They keep dancing and making small talk. The camera slowly zooms out and shows the rest of the party with the following text fades in over the screen:

“McCain is in step with Bush 95% of the time”

“Do we need more of the same old song and dance?”

“Obama 2008”

Campaign Ad #2

“On February 11, 2006, Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot a fellow hunter in the face.”

Change to a shot of Sara Palin giving a speech to a large group of people. In the audience she sees a young man with a Palin t-shirt and a baseball cap with a set of fake antlers sticking out of the top. Sara yells “MOOSE!” and reaches both hands over her shoulders and pulls out two shotguns concealed in her outfit. She starts shooting with guns in both hands as she screams while running towards the man with the moose hat.

“Who would Sara Palin shoot?”

For the first seven or eight years I knew my friend Brian, he kept telling me the word sopapilla meant “soup thief” in Spanish. Since my entire south-of-the-border language exposure took place at numerous Taco Bell drive-throughs in the Denver metro area, I accepted his explanation without question. Whenever the words “soup” or “thief” came up in casual conversation I would proudly explain to everyone in the immediate vicinity how deep-fried dough can soak up, or steal away if you will, warm seasoned broth when used in a traditional dipping motion. (This often occurred while viewing the movie “Best In Show” when the character Sherri Ann Cabot described the relationship with her new fiancée who was roughly forty years her elder. “We both have so much in common, we both love soup and we love the outdoors, we love snow peas and talking and not talking.”)

So everything in my life is going fine– I have an interesting tidbit of information that makes me come across as funny and wise in the ways of the world. Unfortunately, it turns out Brian was wrong all along. The word sopapilla actually means “fried dough sweetened with honey.” My point here is that you can’t always trust what you hear, even if it comes from your best friend. Having said that, I spent last weekend celebrating my thirtieth birthday. I shit you not.

Of course turning thirty is only significant if you have ten fingers. If Kristin, my nine-fingered girlfriend, was put in charge of creating a numbering system it could very well be based on nine. If that were the case, twenty-seven and thirty-six would be important age milestones. I’m not sure the world is ready to abandon the decimal system in favor of the more obscure nano-mal concept. Similarly, if Mickey Mouse or the society displayed on “The Simpsons” were to set things up, we might base everything on the number eight. Since the numbers are really the only thing everyone on the planet can agree on, the odds of this changing by the time I finish writing this are quite small. Hence, my turning thirty is an important sociological milestone in my life. I’m not as young as I used to be, and not as old as I will be. That, and my age ends in a zero for a while.

I started the celebration a week before my actual birthday by going to see the musical “Hairspray” with my mom and Kristin. I was excited to see Ricky Lake play the lead role—especially after seeing her amazing performance as the front of the Filthy Whore ship in the movie “Cabin Boy.” It turned out that the story’s lead character, Tracy Turnblad, was instead played quite well by Carly Jibson. Despite this slight confusion on my part, I found the entire production to be quite enjoyable and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys dancing, singing, and jungle love subplots. Keep in mind, however, that I’m part of a small but dedicated group of people who thinks “Cabin Boy” got shafted by the Academy Awards.

The next Saturday, which was my actual birthday, I went to the Comedy Works with a bunch of friends to watch Carlos Mencia. One of the highlights of the show involved Carlos letting two drunken women heckle him. He did a suspiciously amazing job at putting them in their place, which made us all wonder if it wasn’t a setup to make him look good. Another, well, I would call it more of a bizarre occurrence than a highlight, was when I received money at the end of the show. The man sitting directly behind me spent a large percentage of the evening yelling out random comments while at the same time inadvertently depositing tiny droplets of spittle on the back of my bald head. While he didn’t feel the need to actually shut up during the performance, he did feel bad enough at the end to hand me a twenty dollar bill.

To wrap up my birthday celebration, Kristin decided to throw a surprise party for me the following weekend at Old Chicago. She did a great job of coordinating the evening without me getting wind of her plans. Unfortunately, one of our friends called her the night before as Kristin and I were sitting on her couch in the living room. The reason they called was to say they wouldn’t be attending my party. Not that I was eavesdropping, but its kind of hard to be sitting two inches away from someone talking on the phone with the television muted and not listen in to the conversation. Even though the surprise element of the night was compromised I had a great time with my friends eating pizza and soaking up the general atmosphere of downtown Denver.

While I am not exactly sure how it could be measured, I think I celebrated this birthday more than all my birthdays in my twenties. Since I’m not very good a consuming alcohol, I celebrated my twenty-first birthday by going out for ice cream. When I was twenty-four I spent April 3rd checking out Antwerp, Belgium. So while I may say a lot of things that, after careful examination, aren’t exactly factually correct (like when I swore up and down to Kristin there was a “Godfather 4” movie that just happened to never be at Blockbuster), I’ll never again say I’m in my twenties.

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University built a machine designed to demonstrate basic social skills. The robot, named Grace, is a 6-foot-tall drum shaped device which communicates through a digitally animated woman’s face. While the robot’s social abilities are minimal at best, the researcher’s modest goal is to have Grace appear at least as human as Martha Stewart.

I’m just not the type of person who gets sick very often. While I can only provide anecdotal evidence on this matter, I firmly believe my good health is due to the fact I religiously adhere to the “doughnut pyramid” philosophy of nutrition. (NOTE TO SELF: eat two more chocolate eclairs before bed to fulfill the recommended daily allowance of vanilla goo). Despite my impeccable eating habits, some sort of evil invaders made their way into my body. And, no, I’m not talking about the Spanish Inquisition. My symptoms included coughing, sneezing, fever, chills, cold sweats, runny nose, headache, abnormally high levels of drool (while awake), irritability, disorientation, high cholesterol, itchy facial hair, consecutive bad hair days, and an unexplained tolerance of “Gilligan’s Island” reruns.

Being a single male, I have exactly two approaches to getting better. The first is to just ignore the situation. Which most of the time is really the best thing to do. After a few days of specifically doing nothing, it became quite obvious my situation was not improving. Which meant I had to switch to my alternate form of treatment– I called my mom.

I explained the situation to my mom and she drove up to Boulder one night to see what kind of medical attention the situation warranted. Even when I am perfectly healthy I don’t always know what day it is, but having a high fever did nothing to help the situation. But I do remember watching professional football, which meant it was a Sunday. Unless it was Monday. Or possibly Thursday or Saturday. I was honestly more concerned with the idea of my head exploding after doing something silly like trying to sit up.

My mom arrived and had me swallow various pills and liquids to improve my condition. Exhausted from this sudden flurry of activity, I could do little more than lay back on the couch and fall asleep. I can only imagine my mom’s concern as she watched me sleep restlessly as my fevered body tried to recover from this illness. And that was BEFORE I started rambling incoherently.

While I’m sure I had my reasons for babbling on in my sleep to my mom that we needed to go to the local grocery store to buy birthday cakes that other people ordered, I seem unable to recall them now. I think that was when my mom started entertaining the idea of taking me to a hospital. Fortunately, witnessing my wildly erratic sleeping habits is nothing new for my mom.

My bad sleeping habits can be traced back to my early teens. One of the most common dreams, besides being stuck sitting between Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh on a crowded bus heading to Istanbul, is to have an uncontrolled falling sensation. The normal reaction is to wake up, realize it was a dream, and then go back to sleep. My routine, on the other hand, contained the additional step of waking up in the morning to realize that I had pulled the curtains near my bed out of the wall.

In addition to my nocturnal redecorating efforts, I have also been known to walk and talk in my sleep. My parents didn’t really know what to do when I was wandering in the hallway at three in the morning explaining how random objects were flying out of my television set. One time I walked into my parents bedroom and sat on the corner of their bed in the middle of the night. I didn’t say or do anything—I just sat there. I don’t think this scenario is covered in any of those “how to raise your teenager” books.

I consider myself to have fairly average verbal debating skills when I am awake and coherent. When I am sleeping, however, I have yet to lose an argument. I suspect this is because A) I use facts that are only available to me, such as “there are dragons coming in the windows” or “time is moving backwards, and I have to fix it” and B) I refuse to accept the claims of other people that I am incoherent and speaking gibberish. Coincidentally, this is the same strategy employed by the Republican party.

Given my history with odd sleeping patterns, my recent experience on my couch was really no cause for alarm. I don’t really know why I sleepwalk, but I can remember everything I say and do when I wake up. Maybe my life would be easier if I actually stopped dreaming before I start moving around and talking, but I have been unable to locate my brain’s instruction manual. Until I find it, I’m stuck like this.

Years ago, Stephen Hawking bet a fellow scientist from the University of Michigan $100 that the Higgs Boson particle would never be discovered. In an interview with the BBC, Hawking said: “It seems I have just lost $100.” On Wednesday, scientists from the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) announced the discovery of the Higgs Boson particle, controversially dubbed “the God particle.”

“Mr. Hawking isn’t wrong very often,” said an individual who knows Stephen Hawking well but nonetheless would prefer to remain anonymous. “Just don’t fall for ‘the money is in my front trouser’s pocket– just reach in there and grab it’ trick.  Sure, he may be one of the brightest scientific minds of this generation, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t a dirty old man.”

The world in which we live is far from perfect. The English and Metric systems of measurements are still fighting it out, the Republican party completely pummeled the Democrats in recent mid-term elections, and the soda I just opened exploded out of the can and soiled my last clean T-shirt. While I like to believe otherwise, I have to admit that Kristin, my significant other, is also a little less than perfect. While many of her personality traits fall into the “quirky” category, quite a few people have asked me, “What’s it like to have a girlfriend who is missing a finger?”

For anyone keeping track of this type of information, Kristin is missing her right ring finger. Actually, I wouldn’t say she’s been missing it, Bob. (NOTE TO SELF: Watch “Office Space” movie later on tonight.) In all honesty, she never had the digit in question to begin with. It all started twenty-some years ago when the stork paid a visit to Kristin’s parents. To save some money, Kristin was ordered unassembled. Her parents carefully unpacked all the baby parts and started reading the extensive directions. Unfortunately, they were too busy trying to locate “slot A” and “tab 3” to notice the dog ran into the other room with part RF-0004. By the time they realized the situation, it was getting rather late and the decision was made to wrap things up before the new episode of “The Love Boat” came on at eight. Perhaps if Ethel Merman wasn’t a guest on the Princess Caribbean that night the situation would have been different.

In some ways Kristin’s life is more difficult because of her missing finger. One problem she constantly faces involves finding a decent pair of gloves. Most glove manufactures only make gloves with exactly five fingers on each hand. When she does find four fingered gloves, they usually are constructed of inferior materials and do not reflect current fashion trends. Also, most department stores will not allow customers to mix and match the four and five fingered gloves. Kristin is currently looking for a “complimentary glove life partner”– another woman with similar hand size that is missing the left ring finger. Despite an extensive Internet search, no such woman has been found.

Another problem Kristin faces on a daily basis is balance. Since the right side of her body has slightly less mass her internal balancing mechanism has to constantly readjust for this irregularity. When I first explained this to Kristin, she did not believe me. To prove my point, we drove to a nearby field to test my hypothesis. I blindfolded Kristin and told her to walk in a straight line back to the car. Sure enough, she started drifting away from the straight line after a few steps. She eventually walked in concentric clockwise circles with a radius of roughly forty-seven meters. To help correct this situation, I suggested that she start wearing a watch on her right hand. While not a perfect solution, it does seem to balance her out.

Having an odd number of fingers can have certain advantages. For instance, Kristin has landed a role in the upcoming movie “The Princess Bride 2.” I don’t want to give away too much, but she spends her adolescence as a metalsmith apprentice. In her spare time she creates a custom four-fingered mace for the climatic battle scene with the mysterious six-fingered man. And Fred Savage, well, he is an evil robot. Unfortunately, the shooting schedule has been delayed because the casting director is currently looking for another eight-foot-tall French wrestler to replace the late great Andre the Giant.

The best thing about Kristin’s missing digit is holding her hand. With most people, this process is usually complicated by the issue of finger placement. Personally, I like my thumb to be on top, but I also like to have my pinkie on the outside. Now I can have it both ways, and the overall situation is a lot less crowded. Four fingers seems like more than enough to establish a positive connection. For this reason, I believe this condition will eventually work its way into the process of human evolution. Four fingered people will be highly sought after for their superior hand-holding abilities. Through the process of genetic manipulation (either by the multiple generation-spanning process of natural selection or through shady scientific DNA meddling of mad scientists) human beings of the future will simply stop growing so many fingers. Which actually makes a lot of sense– I almost never use all ten of my fingers at the same time.

What does Kristin think of all this? Not too much– most people don’t comment on her missing finger. I guess its just human nature to assume people aren’t missing body parts. While most normal people don’t consider her condition to be much of an issue, Kristin did qualify for a disabled drivers license when she lived in the state of New York. (NOTE TO READERS: No, I’m not making that part up. The only exceptions to that rule are people who lost fingers through illegal offshore wagers or in the making of “Jackass” style home videos.) Of course that does little good since she hasn’t lived there for more than a decade. So until Kristin decides to drive 2000 miles to renew her driver’s license, I just like to think of her as the woman who puts the “hand” back in “handicapped.”

I realized something while eating lunch as Wok ‘n Roll this afternoon.  After drinking 3 large Diet Pepsi’s I had to answer the call of nature.  I was forced to put the call on hold, however, when the door to the mens’ bathroom was occupied.  Now when a place of business only has only one bathroom it isn’t for a specific gender– it is just “the bathroom.”  When a place is large enough, there is a “Mens’ Room” and a “Womens’ Room” each with multiple stalls.  But what happens, as in the case of the moderately small Wok ‘n Roll, when there is just enough room for two single rooms with a single toilet in each room?  Does it really make any sense to assign a specific gender to each of them?  I didn’t really want to go into the empty womens’ room for some psychological reason I don’t completely understand.

This all leads up to, obviously, how things work on the SciFi series Battlestar Galactica.  There are large common rooms where men and women, at the very same time, go about all their personal hygiene needs.  Unspeakable Act or Sign Of Things To Come?

While there are a lot of people in the world I consider to be my role models, I would like to devote some time and effort to recognize my favorite newspaper columnist. As a reward for writing many, many stories about toilets (including, but not limited to, things that bite you when you are sitting on one, how toilets are tested, and reasons to be sitting on one for the cover of a book) Dave Barry received the Pulitzer Prize in 1988. After an extensive search of the Internet and my own personal files, it appears that I have NOT been presented a similar award. I do recall, however, that in 1988 I began my literary career by spending a majority of time in my ninth grade algebra class writing “MATH SUCKS!” as large as I possibly could on my folder while the teacher was lecturing. Back then my writing style was rather terse.

Here is a little background information for everyone not up to date on newspaper humor. Dave Barry writes a weekly syndicated column and is employed by the Miami Herald. Which means Dave and I have a lot in common-especially when you remove the words “syndicated”, “Miami Herald”, and “employed” from the previous sentence.

One thing I know for sure is that Mr. Barry didn’t achieve this level of fame and fortune by just sitting on his ass all day long. Oh, wait, I think he does. Either way, I’ve been interested in learning more about how to become a humor columnist. While I’ve read all his writing, I would like to get a more personalized perspective on how Dave goes about writing a weekly column.

The only logical solution to my dilemma is to become a stalker. I could hide in the bushes near his house and observe him with the aid of several high priced pieces of military grade electronic surveillance equipment. I can just imagine what insights I could achieve:

July 3, 1999 2:05 AM: Selling one of my kidneys for these night vision goggles has really paid off. After hearing some continuous high pitch sound I believe to be either a state of the art security system or an infant who soiled him or her self, the subject went into auxiliary bedroom number one to reset the state of the system, made a short trip to the bathroom, wandered downstairs, and somewhat mindlessly sat down in front of his computer. Finally, I get to see the subject in his natural environment free of outside influences and distractions. The hunter becomes the hunted. Or is it the other way around?

July 3, 1999 2:11 AM: I’ve lost the subject. In addition it appears that I have gone blind due to a genetically engineered strain of glaucoma that has disrupted the normal operations of my optical nerves in a matter of seconds. This may very well jeopardize the entire mission.

July 3, 1999 2:15 AM: After further analysis, the cause of the problem appears to be a dead battery in the night vision goggles. Note to self-make an appointment with family optician for annual glaucoma test.

July 3, 1999 2:16 AM: Stalking operations continue as I am able to observe the subject through the reflected light of the computer monitor. It appears the subject is playing the card game known as solitaire. Subject is either unwilling or unable to move the red seven on to the black eight. Such a move would allow the exposure of an additional card. What is he waiting for? Move the seven, for the love of God, MOVE THE SEVEN!!!

July 3, 1999 2:20 AM: Observations prematurely halted for the night. In all the excitement I lost my balance and fell on top of a very thorny bush. The noise created by said incident distracted the subject, thereby making any further observations for the night useless.

The biggest problem with celebrities becoming popular enough to have deranged stalkers is the reporting by the media is always biased towards the stalkee. The report mentions tangential points such as mental illness, missed medications, and one-sided illusions of matrimony. The stalker never gets to tell his or her side of the story. I plan on eliminating this fundamental form of discrimination. Once my stalking begins, not only will I publish all of my written notes on my web site, but I will also web enable all of my surveillance equipment so I can provide a live Internet broadcast of my activities. I know there are a lot of people out there who would like to become a stalker, but lack the financial resources and ability to get off the couch to realize their dreams.

Is this a plan of action that will advance my writing career? I’m not really sure. Could it land me in jail? Quite possibly. But one way or another, I’m going to find the source of all his toilet stories.

While various barrier methods of birth control have been around since the ancient Egyptians were putting up those lovely pyramids, I’ve come to realize the most effective barrier method to date.

Step one:  The woman lays down on the bed on the left side.  She can position herself on her stomach, back, or side– whichever position is most comfortable.

Step two:  The man lays down on the other side of the bed.  He too can position himself as to maximize comfort.

Step three:  When the initial contact between the man and woman is made a signal is sent (the exact transmission method is unknown) to the one year old child sleeping in the adjoining bedroom.  This signal causes the child’s “I don’t want you to have sex” alarm to be activated.  The alarm system can only be deactivated by placing the child in between the man and the woman.  At this point the infant will promptly go back to sleep.  This guarantees the prevention of any type of sexual penetration for the rest of the night.

Not everyone keeps as up to date on Finnish Star Trek parodies as they probably should. That’s exactly why I run this website. Ever wonder what happens when 5 Finns, 300 extras, and whole bunch of computing power get mixed together for seven years? The answer is “Star Wreck,” a parody of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and “Babylon 5”. These guys made an entire movie– and it looks just like a “real” movie. The movie is Finnish and subtitled into English (which in itself provides for some additional jokes in the translation).

Being a follower of the original shows helps, but isn’t required to enjoy the movie. When I wasn’t laughing at the jokes, I kept thinking to myself, “hey, a small group of Finns put this together– there is hope for the Universe!”

Here is the trailer from YouTube.  More information, including the full movie, bonus information, and future movie releases, can be found free at StarWreck.com

In the wake of record-high crude oil prices, one national newspaper reporter asked the President what can be done to conserve this limited resource. The Commander-in-Chief replied, “We all must do our part to conserve fuel. I, for example, have retracted my open invitation for Rush Limbaugh to travel with me on Air Force One.”

After the first trip to the hospital that turned out to be a false alarm, we came back a week later determined to have a baby.  It must have been very comfortable inside Katherine because Isabel was determined not to leave the womb.  After several more hours of trying to induce labor, the doctors decided to perform a C-section.  I did what I could to be useful by doing thing like rubbing Katherine’s back, eating the complementary food in the kitchen area, and almost passing out on top of the anesthesiologist when he was performing the epidural.  Apparently I’m a bit more squeamish than I thought.

So, a long story short– the C-section went fine, and Isabel had to make a few adjustments like breathing air, receiving nutrition through her mouth, and not being allowed to lounge around all day in that warm soft jacuzzi of a uterus.

I was getting a signature for a package (like I have to do 60 times a day) on Thursday.  The conversation went something like this:

“I’ll sign for it if you are nice to me.”
“Lady, I ran out of nice on Tuesday.”

Even with the help of my overactive imagination, I could not have even remotely predicted what was going to happen to me one Saturday night last December. Sitting on Santa’s lap, even as at the age of twenty-seven, is not a totally uncommon activity when attending the neighbor’s Christmas party. Things got weird for me, however, when “Santa” turned out to be my high school math teacher.

Before I go any further here, I need to rewind my life thirteen years to provide background information about some of the people involved in the story. With varying degrees of success, I had four different teachers attempt to fill my brain with the theorems, concepts, and procedures of a standard high school mathematics curriculum. To the best of my knowledge, I have only seen one of them dressed up as Santa Claus.

After sprinkling references about Mr. Eggert (my ninth grade algebra teacher) throughout recent stories, it was really just a matter of time before I devoted an entire story to the man who derived enormous amounts of joy and happiness to making my life as a high school freshman a living hell. I sometimes feel guilty just mentioning his name. It’s not because he was a mean, smelly, cigar smoking, bitter man who went out of his way to telephone my parents during the middle of dinner to discuss my attitude problem. In reality, he is just too easy of a target. Not everyone who sponsors their school’s chess team has a room full of emotional baggage upstairs, but Mr. Eggert is not someone to disprove this popular notion. I somehow managed to survive my entire freshman year with Mr. Eggert. I learned a lot in his class, and most of it was only tangentially related to mathematics.

My situation started to look better during my sophomore year of high school. My previous mathematics teacher was replaced with a much less evil model. Looking back on the situation, I suspect Mr. Ridgely, my tenth grade geometry teacher, conspired to play “good cop” to Mr. Eggert’s “bad smelling cop”. He was a very enthusiastic and helpful teacher. To top it off, he never called my parents during dinner time. Despite the fact that a large percentage of the entire world was plotting against me during my years as a teenager, I can honestly say that he probably wasn’t conspiring to destroy my life. Or, if he was, he did a very nice job of concealing his intentions.

Fast forward twelve and a half years to last December. My mother and I were invited to a Christmas party hosted by some of our old neighbors. Well, they aren’t really all that old– they just aren’t our neighbors anymore. In addition to visiting with a lot of friends I haven’t seen in a while, someone brought a plate of frozen miniature chocolate eclairs I found to be quite tasty. I started seeing everything in a different perspective. I spent my entire life up to that moment in time thinking that eclairs could only be one size and temperature. Why not make the pastries smaller? Why not serve them below room temperature? Then I applied the same thinking to humanity in general. I unearthed some universal truths about humanity. However, this story is about Santa Claus. The truths about chocolate eclairs will be written at a later date.

Guess who comes knocking on the door after everyone finished eating? If you answered “Jehovah’s Witnesses” you would be absolutely wrong, even though that would make for an interesting plot twist. No, Santa Claus himself joined the party with his big sack of presents for everyone at the party. I guess that means nobody fell into the “naughty” category for the year. Either that or the newly implemented NaughtyOrNice.com web site was malfunctioning and reporting a “nice” status for all individuals.

Santa sat down in the middle of the living room and pulled presents out one at a time. Everyone, including myself, sat on Santa’s lap when their name was called. For some reason, my mom seemed especially entertained when it was my turn. He gave me a calendar, so I suppose I wasn’t quite as nice as I could have been. I was really hoping for something that exploded or in some way was designed to catch on fire.

Guess who Santa Claus turned out to be? “A Jehovah’s Witness” is still not the correct answer. You can also rule out Mr. Eggert since it involved being kind and generous to little kids. Also the smell of stale cigar smoke would have scared away many of the smaller children. Santa was my geometry teacher, Mr. Ridgely. Sitting on his lap without realizing it at the time embarrassed me at first. But after a few minutes I decided that it was, like many aspects of my life, too strange to be anything but funny.

No matter where you see him– at the mall with little kids on his lap, next to a Salvation Army donation bucket, or at the liquor store loading up on cigarettes and whisky- I think it is human nature to assume that you don’t personally know the true Santa Claus. So if “Santa” comes around next year and I’ve been nice enough to receive a present, I’ll at least know why his lap seems so familiar.

I started watching “Dancing with the Stars” with the intention of learning a few good dance moves for my upcoming wedding.  After about 20 seconds of watching the show I came to the conclusion that either A) the entire show is completely computer generated, or B) Dancing cybernetic robots are scheming to take over the planet. (SPOILER ALERT:  In the soon to be released “Terminator Salvation” the machines hypnotize people with their smooth steps and jazz hands– humanity never saw it coming.)

After watching the first episode I came to the following conclusion:  Shawn Johnson, the 17 year old Olympic gold medal gymnast, was going to win this season.  At first I didn’t believe she won a gold medal in gymnastics due to her regular womanly proportions.  I had always thought the rule for these young women is that their breasts must be smaller than the top of their pelvic bone jutting out of her abdomen when they stand up straight.

I felt a bit empty after watching the finale.  I think they should have one last show where Shawn Johnson and Gilles Marrini compete together against their coaches to see if it is possible for the students to surpass the teachers.  Steve-O and Steve Wozniac will dance together for comic relief.  The rest of the contestants with be the judges, the judges with attempt to play musical instruments, and the hosts will do their best to operate the cameras.

Most importantly, none of the dancers get to talk about how much fun they had just being here and the directors will be forced (at gunpoint if necessary) not to use previous footage to fill up 63% of the show’s air time.