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 decided to spend some time talking about what I think is a very important problem in the world today. I’m sure a lot of people think this means more Laser Tag, evil alien overlords, or the decline of fondue. Don’t get me wrong-these are all ALL important, but the topic of the day (or, as they would say in France, “a la mode”), involves women who hate men because they are slobs. I know this sounds like ninety percent of the topics from the Jerry Springer talk show, but I would like to assure everyone that this letter will be done in a tasteful manner without any chair throwing or extensive segments bleeped out by the network censors.

Since there is a possibility this letter may be read by both genders, I really don’t have any choice to start out by saying that, yes, men are slobs. The degree to which any given man is a slob varies, but I think we can all agree that inside every man is a slob trying to express himself. I’d like to dedicate this to all the women out there. Maybe you can’t mold your man into Tom Cruise, Fabio, or John Ritter, but reading this might make you feel less likely to impale your significant other with a steak knife the next time you have to pick up his dirty underwear from the bathroom floor for the sixth day in a row.

Men often have difficulty operating a vacuum cleaner. At first you might suspect that much like household dogs, men are afraid of the strange noises produced while vacuuming. While it seems like a good theory, it doesn’t explain why men evade this chore by hanging out in their work shops all Saturday afternoon with various electric saws, drills, and sanders. A recent study reported that when asked to vacuum a carpeted area, over sixty percent of the men offered instead to spend the next three weekends installing hardwood floors.

So why are men so resistant to the vacuum cleaner? If they are anything like me, they feel tremendous guilt for never returning my girlfriend’s vacuum after we broke up. Now I can’t stop thinking of her every time I want clean carpets in my apartment. While I very rarely claim to be a licensed psychiatrist, I have come to realize the mental bond I have established between my ex and her vacuum. Symbolically, I keep her locked up in the closet-punishment for not wanting to frequent Taco Bell and the local video arcade on a regular basis.

And now a note to all the men who are reading this. I’m sure that some of you out there are married or have a girlfriend who on occasion does more than her fair share of the house work. Please keep in mind that their love for you is similar to those tablets you drop in the toilet bowl tank to make the water turn blue. You may think they are going to last forever, but every time you flush the toilet a little bit of her love goes down the drain. One day you will wake up, stumble to the bathroom, and realize the blue in the toilet bowl is gone.

My point here is that you can always go and buy more love in the detergent isle of your local grocery store. Wait, that doesn’t quite sound right. How about this: if you take a little time and plan ahead, you can keep everything in your bathroom and relationship running smoothly. Contrary to popular belief, helping clean up the dishes after a meal will not kill you. The odds of throwing out your back while putting dirty clothes into the hamper are quite small. A note to all the men reading this-please do not read this last analogy and assume the sum of your household responsibility is to drop the Tidy Bowl tablets into the toilet bowl tank. It is quite possible that your significant other will require more than that from you. For example, you might also have to be responsible for going to the store and buying the tablets.

With the possible exception of my mother, I’ll be one of the first people to admit I’m currently an unmotivated bachelor who enjoys the irony of watching ESPN while eating potato chips and repressing any fleeting thoughts about cleaning up my surroundings. Does this make me a bad person? Of course not. Is loving Taco Bell a crime? I really hope that isn’t the case. My point here is that while men are far from perfect, we are the only game in town. That is, of course until the day that scientists perfect animatronic male robots that don’t leave their underwear on the floor.

I pulled up to the house just as a woman and her dog were leaving to go for an afternoon walk.  I reached for a dog biscuit as I stepped out of the truck.  The dog ate it up while I talked to the woman.

“This is for you.”  I said as I handed her the small cardboard box.

She examined the label with a slight look of confusion on her face.  The dog had by now made quick work of his unexpected treat.

“You are on the wrong street.  This package is for 3001 Swallow Place.  My house is 3001 Swallow Bend.” she replied.

“My mistake, but I will need that dog treat back.”

A moment of awkward silence ensued.

This whole situation happened to me this week, but the I didn’t come up with the last line until after I drove away.  I guess my sharp wit is balanced out by my poor timing.  Maybe that’s why I write so much stuff on the Internet.

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.

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.

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.

I’m getting married in June, which means I’ve got a lot of stuff to do before then. Of course I’m putting off all those things and procrastinating by writing a story about my old myspace profile when I really should be going to the Men’s Warehouse to get fitted for a suit. Anyone looking to meet people on the Internet is going to have to create a profile to describe who they are. A good profile will catch the attention of the type of people you would like to meet. A bad profile will repel these types of people, and, in some extreme cases, get your name permanently added to several government watch lists. Below is my old Myspace profile, along with some pointers in bold.

About Me:

First of all, I’m a delivery driver in Northern Colorado. Saying where you live and what kind of work you do is a good place to start, but don’t be too specific.

What does this mean to you? I’m pretty active since I’m running around town in a big brown truck 45 hours a week. I have a nice tan, except for the fact that my feet are totally white from my socks. I’m in good shape, except my love for Taco Bell means I have a few extra pounds to deal with. Be honest about your age and physical description. And while I’m on the topic, make sure to put up a reasonably new picture of yourself, preferably looking somewhat happy where your body takes up at least half the image. Sending a picture you took at a bar with 17 other people all wearing novelty Saint Patrick’s day sunglasses isn’t going give the other person much to go on.

Finally, I have a habit of droning on about work related stories, but I’m currently getting counseling and electro-shock therapy to keep it under control. References to electro-shock treatments can be a good ice breaker.

I’m also a writer. Not the kind that had made any money, but I keep plugging away at it. My goal is to get one of my stories on Saturday Night Live or Mad TV. I run a website at Newfunny.com where I put a lot of my writing. Mentioning what you would like to be doing is a good idea. Not too many people work at their dream job, so knowing that your soul hasn’t been crushed from years of cubical nesting gives your profile a positive spin.

What else do I do? I’m currently building an entry for next years Kinetics Race in Boulder. Once I get my hands on some welding equipment and some industrial grade marine Styrofoam I’ll be 80 percent finished. OK, this brings up a concept that many people don’t grasp too well. Many people assume if you write about your strangest hobbies everyone will thing you are crazy and nobody will talk to you. In reality, a certain percentage of the viewers will be turned off by this, but the ones who aren’t will be even more intrigued. For example, saying that you’ve been to one or more Star Trek conventions will make 90 percent of the viewers move on to the next profile, but the remaining 10 percent will be 90 percent more likely to keep reading. On the other hand, saying you like movies and going out to eat isn’t going to win points with anyone. You might as well say you like breathing air and drinking water.

I also like to play pool, ride my motorcycle, and meet new people. I’m very outgoing when I’m working, but more quiet and reserved when I go out socially. For some reason the UPS uniform gives me special powers– I can park where ever I want, ask random questions of total strangers, and of course run to the front of the line at any business without anyone getting mad. Talking about your job is good in moderation. Just remember to keep is positive. Starting a sentence with, “My boss is such a jerk-off for the following eleven reasons…” isn’t the best way to go, even if have detailed documentation to back up your claims.

Who I’d like to meet:

What do I want from a woman? Well, have you ever seen “Lord of the Rings”? All I want is a beautiful elven princess, like, say, Arwin (played by Liv Tyler) who possesses eternal beauty, courage, passion, and kindness but is willing to give it all up for a stuck up, half-witted, scruffy-looking nerf-herder (hmmm… I might be mixing my sci-fi metaphors a bit here). Am I asking too much? If you fit all of these criterion but are only a regular human princess, give me a call. If you are Liv Tyler, give me a call right now. This section is largely a trick question. Many of the things you want from a potential mate you can’t come right out and say in the beginning, like, say, “I want to meet someone who will paint my house on a regular basis. And not just going through the motions either. They need to do all the proper preparation like scraping the old paint, filling in the cracks, and laying a solid coat of primer.” And when you say “paint my house” you really mean something else like “cook all my meals,” “do my laundry,” or “satisfy my deviant sexual fetishes.”

Seriously though, I want a woman with a strong sense of balance. Not falling over too much, being able to ride a bicycle, and perhaps even the ability to juggle a few tennis balls is a good start. But more important is having a balance between your own needs and the needs of partner. Give and take is a big part of a strong relationship. Like saying, “OK, we can watch the stupid History channel special about subway construction (which I’ll bet you’ve already see before) but I get to put my feet up on your lap and so you can rub lotion on them during the show.” or “I’ll do the laundry if you do something about that rotting dead hooker in the trunk.” Another thing about what type of person you want to meet: You don’t need to say that you are looking for someone who shares common interests. That is kind of assumed. Nobody looks at profiles and thinks, “I want someone who is totally opposite than me in every possible dimension so we can just sit at dinner silently night after night knowing that any attempt at communication is destined to fail until the weaker willed of the union can’t take it anymore and, in a fit of uncontrolled anger, throws their dinner plate across the table accidentally decapitating their partner and damaging beyond any hope of repair, the Persian rug sitting underneath the dining room table that had been in your family for two generations.”

So now that my days of online dating are over, I hope this helps out everyone out there who haven’t met/seduced/started stalking their favorite lover. Keep your spirits up, your profile up to date, and your dates full of spirits.

The unusually cold winter this season has given Boulder a few months of calm from the recurring problem of wildly inappropriate behavior up on the Hill. As a mix of retail, housing, and Greek organizations, the area west of the CU Boulder campus known as the Hill has become a real black eye for both the University of Colorado and the city of Boulder. While several approaches have been used to bring the occasional riot under control, the problem does not seem to be going away. While I don’t claim to have all the answers (or even to know what all the questions are for that matter), I have observed various conditions in the area that seem to aggravate the younger residents of Boulder and may be part of why this situation on the Hill is far from being resolved.

Anyone that has been on the CU Boulder campus for more than three seconds has more than likely encountered a parking Nazi hard at work writing tickets for illegally parked cars. I’m not sure exactly how they do this, but just pulling into a metered spot when you know you don’t have any change in your car attracts their attention. I suspect the CU Parking Department has formed an alliance with the National Security Agency to use high level military satellites and state-of-the-art computer algorithms to monitor each car that enters the campus. I think the rules such as, “don’t take up three handicapped parking spaces if you are on your way to participate in a sporting event” and, “No matter how late you are for class, please don’t abandon your car in the middle of busy intersections” should be strictly enforced. The parking situation on campus isn’t going to get any better by ticketing every single car that has gone over the meter. It gives the general impression that the University is more interested in parking revenue than providing students with an education. This, in turn, adds to the general frustration level in the area.

Another issue in the Boulder area at the moment involves closing down local raves. If you are not familiar with the concept, it’s a place where young people go on the weekends to listen and dance to music all night long. The organizers of these events work with local law enforcement officials to keep the situation under control. People are searched for drugs and weapons before going in and undercover officers patrol the event to discourage drug use. In the wake of some highly publicized incidents in the metro area involving teenagers and Ecstasy, the city of Boulder is considering using “nuisance laws” to shut down local raves. Eliminating this relatively controlled environment by classifying these young people as a nuisance is going to lead to more negative energy in the town. While sitting in an abandoned warehouse listening to alternative rave music until the sun comes up may not be everyone’s idea of fun, as far as I understand it does not involve vandalizing storefronts, lighting things on fire, or dispensing tear gas canisters.

In general, I like to think of myself as being on the side of the police. Sure, I’ve received an occasional speeding ticket, but I don’t hold a grudge when I knew all along that I was going twenty miles an hour over the speed limit as I flew by the police car parked in the convenience store parking lot. My view changed a little bit after attending a CU verses CSU football game at Mile High Stadium two years ago and watching police officers in full riot gear deploy pepper spray from behind a chain link fence at people who were sitting in their seats after the game had ended. I’m not sure what the commanding officer at the game was thinking, but if you put fourty or so fully armed police officers around the field at the end of a college football game you are going to have a whole bunch of curious people waiting around to see what happens. I can understand the desire to keep students from pouring on to the field, but the overt display of police force aggravated the situation more than it helped.

So the next time an unruly group of people gather up on the Hill looking for trouble, consider the big picture. Some part of the group is saying, “I believe the CU Parking Department is over zealous with their enforcement of parking regulations”. The next couch or dumpster that is lit on fire in the street is a statement of, “Thanks for trying to shut down the raves.” And when a drunken, unruly mob starts throwing empty beer bottles at the responding riot police officers they are saying, “This is for Mile High Stadium– where we were unfairly brutalized and beaten up by the CSU football team two years in a row!”

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.”

Thanks for subscribing to the newfunny.com newsletter. I created this site as a moderated showcase for the talents of up-and-coming comedy writers. So if you like to write and believe that you are the next Dave Berry or Douglas Adams, please feel free to submit your work. If you can’t write, but like to read what other people write when they are trying to be funny, please enjoy this site. If you can’t read or write and for some strange reason have e-mail, have someone read the newsletter out loud every issue.

Newfunny.com is the first web site to officially acknowledge being run by Evil Alien Overlords in an attempt to distract humanity from their future invasion and enslavement plans. My name is Omar and I host the site and shamelessly bow down to our future masters in a “Locutus Of Borg” capacity. I am controlled by one of the Evil Alien Overlords via a XR-2300 neural interface. Everyone else has the less painful option of submitting material through the newfunny.com web site [ERTOK: we can’t go around equipping every humanoid with an XR-2300 BEFORE the mass landing of the replicator vessels, now can we? HA HA HA]

Oh yes, I forgot to mention Ertok the Evil Alien Overlord who oversees this web site. He has a keen– if somewhat twisted– interest in humanity and occasionally likes to add his own thoughts to the web site. It is in my best interest to indulge Ertok since he has led me to believe that one of the features of the XR-2300 is the ability to make my head explode.

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?”

So Katherine ended up getting me a nine inch diameter glazed doughnut for Father’s Day. Apparently I was a little bit off the mark with the whole Lisa Loeb coming over to my house and making me pancakes. Katherine explained to me how she really tried to get Lisa to stop by, but apparently she is married and has a few kids to look after. (I know how that can dampen one’s social life!)

So I put up a link to the pancake song that she recently releases on my last post, but I didn’t even know about it until I googled “Lisa Loeb pancakes”. I was thinking back to her short lived food show “Dweezil & Lisa” where they spent an entire show preparing and hosting a pancake party. I guess I’m not being the best fanatic that I could be in this area.

While going on a date with Lisa is kind of out of the question, maybe we could arrange a play date with our kiddos. Isabel and Samantha have a lot of cool toys and plenty of space to run around. But if I don’t ever get to meet you in person, I’ll always remember you as “the queen of being sexy without letting all your junk hang out, even though you have the figure to wear trampy attention grabbing outfits, because you want the world to appreciate you for your artistic abilities.” I totally get it.

So despite the lack of sexy rock stars at our house this weekend, I really enjoyed my Father’s Day. And yes, I ate the whole doughnut myself!

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?

Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett recently challenged it’s citizens to collectively lose one million pounds through change in diet and exercise after being ranked in the top 10 of America’s Fattest Cities. After hearing the news, the two half million pound men in the front row looked at each other and asked, “That’s all great and all, but what can WE do to make things better?”

While being completely organized has never been one of my strong points, I have yet to forget my girlfriend Kristin’s birthday. One reason for my impressive track record in this area is the fact that we have only been dating for a year and a half. The other, and by far more relevant factor is the consistent effort on Kristin’s part to make sure I remember. After twenty-three casual verbal reminders, three email messages, and one formal printed birthday “wish list,” Kristin did everything humanly possible to ensure that May 27, 1976 was a day not to be forgotten. And don’t even get me started on the “Countdown to My Birthday” lighted, animated marquee sign she constructed (at, I’m sure, considerable expense) in the living room.

Last year I made Kristin a website that anyone in the Internet-free world can go visit at Krisser.com. The site contains a collection of her writing along with various photographs of places she has visited over the years. While the website probably isn’t going to cure cancer or get any new Democrats elected to congress in 2004, it’s a fun place to poke around from time to time. Kristin really enjoys having her own website, despite the constant disagreement with the web design team (that would be me) about the image on the main page showing her in a moderately low-cut t-shirt. But, she does admit that it is better than a picture of me showing too much cleavage.

This year I decided to take a less traditional approach to Kristin’s birthday. While I could have simply gotten her something off her birthday list, I wanted to surprise her with something else. As I drove to the local Wal-Mart I used a highly specialized process of meditation specifically designed to make me think like Kristin. When I arrived at the store I was a five-foot-two, red-headed, nine-fingered woman. Fortunately, nobody else in the store was aware of my transformation.

After about twenty minutes of shopping, I decided on a set of steak knives, and a headset for her cell phone. As I was heading towards the checkout area, a motorized bubble making machine caught my eye. Not literally, thankfully. It basically consists of a series of plastic loops that get immersed in bubble solution and then move in front of a small fan. It looked like fun and was consistent with my birthday shopping mission. I picked it up, paid for everything, and went home to wrap Kristin’s presents.

I swear I didn’t know it at the time, but one of these seemingly innocent gifts might very well be [NOTE TO READER: prepare for sudden topic change.] TURNING MY GIRLFRIEND INTO AN ECSTACY ADDICT!

A few days after Kristin’s birthday, I saw an anti-drug advertisement on the television. It turns out that blowing soap bubbles is a common activity for people high on ecstasy, also known on the street as “E.” Or is it “X”? Well, the word ecstasy doesn’t even contain the letter X, so now I’m not quite sure. And why do the letters “CS” make an “X” sound?

Putting my annoyances of the English language aside for the moment, the commercial displayed half a dozen other types of ecstasy paraphernalia. After letting the facts digest for a few moments, I called Kristin at her office to address the issue. Here is the gist of the conversation:

Her: Thank you for calling, how may I help you?

Me: The game is over, Madame Lovejoy. I know you are hopped up on E!

Her: Huh? Is that you, Omar? This is Tiffany. Do you want me to get Kristin for you?

Me: Oops, um, yeah. Thanks.

Kristin: What’s up? I was in the back room catching up on some filing.

Me: So are you an ecstasy addict?

Kristin: Uh, no. Why would you think something like that?

Me: I found out people who get high on it like soap bubbles—and you have a soap bubble machine.

Kristin: Well, honey, you bought it for me as a birthday present. It wasn’t even on my wish list.

Me: STOP TRYING TO CHANGE THE SUBJECT! And what about those angel wings? That is another sign.

Kristin: I don’t own any angel wings. Maybe you are the one on drugs here, Omar.

Me: What, are you going to pretend I don’t spend time carefully examining every image of that Victoria’s Secret catalog you get every few weeks? Every issue has women in various states of undress wearing angel wings.

Kristin: You are driving me nuts.

Me: And the television commercial told me that small stuffed animals are another sign. You can’t deny that you have a large basket of them on the living room floor.

Kristin: HELLO! Those are for the dog. You love watching her play with all the squeaky toys.

Me: Things are worse than I thought. Now you are giving your dog drugs? Have you no sense of right and wrong?

Click.

Me: Hello? I can’t hear you. Must be some problem with the phone line…

Well, that phone call didn’t seem to resolve anything. Kristin is still denying being an ecstasy junkie, and this whole episode has put a bit of a strain on our relationship. While I’m not really sure if I learned anything here, I have decided that next year I’m going to just pick something from Kristin’s birthday wish list. And I might even consider buying her one of those silly, girly DVDs she is always talking about starring some silly, girly actor like Hugh Grant and/or Colin Firth. If that isn’t a sign of true love, I’m not sure what is.

The time has come once again to talk about my favorite social event which, on occasion, is celebrated in April. I’m not talking about the World Wrestling Federation coming to town, the Denver Nuggets announcing a trade of their best players in exchange for a handful of magical beans, or the Internal Revenue Service deciding to audit everyone who wrote nasty comments on their checks to pay income taxes. The event of which I speak is Easter.

To be honest, when I started writing this, I was a little bit fuzzy about the actual date of this holiday. After doing a little research on the World Wide Web, I discovered more often than not Easter falls on a Sunday. While that might be enough information for the casual Easter enthusiast, I like to go the extra mile for all the hard core Easter fanatics reading this story. After giving my research assistant the chore of waiting in line so I could eat some fresh Krispy Kreme doughnuts, I discovered Easter is observed on the first Sunday after the last XFL playoff game before the Denver Nuggets have been statistically eliminated from the playoffs.

To be completely accurate, that formula only approximates the exact date of Easter. The actual equation involves the seventy-two characters representing the true name of God, several artifacts from the Ark of the Covenant (as seen in the first “Indiana Jones” motion picture), and the combination of Bill Gates luggage. Several universities in the world offer graduate degrees in creating computer models for the occurrence of Easter. The National Security Administration is said to have its own set of satellites devoted entirely to future Easter prediction.

I’ve been getting a lot of fan mail asking how I celebrate mainstream Christian holidays. To be honest, I don’t actually get fan mail quite yet, but I believe this is a plot by “The Man” who, despite the fact that I am a white male, is trying to keep me down by removing any mail from my box that might improve my self esteem. Supposing that I was getting my fan mail, I would respond to all the loyal readers out there by saying that to me Easter is about getting up early in the morning, putting on a shirt with buttons all the way up the front and pants that have a crease in them, and eating a lot of candy all day long. If you replace the word “morning” to “afternoon” and change the clothes to “gray sweats with multiple salsa stains on the tummy”, it sounds like any other day.

The highlight of my Easter was the traditional Easter egg hunt. A lot of people think that at twenty-seven years of age I am a little too old to be participating in an activity designed for small children. I say that is exactly why I should be in it. Being two feet taller and a hundred pounds heavier than the competition can be quite an advantage. The biggest problem is that some of them are considerably faster than me. To compensate for this advantage, I bitch slapped a few of them right before the race began to establish myself as the alpha male for the rest of the day. For the kids too young to understand the ramifications of gratuitous violence I sat each one of them down on my knee and carefully explained that if you take eggs from the Easter Bunny he will follow you home, steal all your favorite toys, and chew on your eyeballs when you fall asleep.

Needless to say, my Easter basket was quite full of colored eggs when I went home that evening. This got me thinking about what kind of lessons we are teaching to kids today. When I was growing up, I would hear my parents tell me on a regular basis not to play with my food. Then some random Sunday comes along in the middle of the spring and not only do we color the eggs, but then we go outside, hide the eggs, search for them, and finally watch what happens as we bet our younger brother Donnie that he couldn’t shove three hard boiled eggs in his mouth at the same time.

Along the same lines, I am not sure what goes on in children’s minds when we give them bunny shaped chocolate and teach them to slowly torture the animal by biting off the ears. As if hunting down all the bunny’s eggs in the form of social entertainment wasn’t torture enough for the poor animal. I think it’s fair to place at least some of our society’s ills on the contradictory signals that we are sending children on this holiday.

The bottom line is that Easter is a very complex holiday that covers many of the fundamental ideas that form the foundation of our society. Fortunately, we have boiled it down to the essentials of getting together and eating candy until everyone is too sick to move. It’s just easier that way.

Music superstar Billy Joel married his 23-year-old fiancée Saturday in a small ceremony in Long Island, New York. When asked about the nature of their relationship, the young bride explained, “I have always respected and admired Billy’s musical abilities for as long as I can remember. In fact, when I told my mother we were engaged she informed me that I was conceived to ‘Piano Man.’ Now just how perfect is that?”

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.

Wow, I was just looking back at my latest posts, and I realized that I haven’t posted any real updates about my personal life in a very long time.  So here goes.

We recently added a +1 to our family:  Samatha Rose Lutfey.  So now we have a total of one husband, one wife, two kiddos, and one crazy dog.  Pretty typical family lineup.

Having never done this before, I am very much learning how to be a father as I go. Of course pretty much everyone has to start out from scratch, so I’m not really special in my situation. The easiest way to categorize activities in this area is “things I was reasonably expecting to happen” and “what?  did that really just happen?  You must be kidding me!”

So in the first category I put things like changing diapers, feeding, and playing with my children. To a large degree I’ve had experience with this by having taken care of my dog Maury for several years now. The key here, as much as I understand things, is to understand the desire of the dog/child and things will go smoothly. If someone is making an unpleasant sound, or error code as I like to say, then resolving the situation is just a matter of finding the cause of the error code and fixing the underlying problem. To start out, babies generally have a small set of error codes– my diaper’s full, my stomach is empty, and someone isn’t giving me their full attention. So debugging small children is a pretty simple process.

The only situations to look out for are false positives and false negatives. For example, my oldest child Isabel doesn’t seem to mind running around with a diaper full of poop. And to make things more fun she likes to run and hide when we try and change her diaper. Don’t forget that kids can just start crying for no known reason. This is the most frustrating of all the error codes since there is no corresponding resolution action. The key to this situation is to identify it as a “Kobayashi Maru.”  For anyone not intimately familiar with Star Trek terminology, this is a no win situation used to train Star Fleet officers.  So just think, “What would Captain Kirk do?” And the correct answer isn’t “make more cheesy Priceline commercials.”

So now we come to the next group of activities. These are things that you will in no way be able to see coming. My personal favorite example of this is having Isabel on my chest fall asleep. Since I can’t really do anything else without waking up, I soon fell asleep myself. Then, for really no reason I could understand, Isabel emptied the entire contents of her stomach onto my face and chest. Very unpleasant I must say. But my point here is that I couldn’t have seen it coming.

So this is all I’ve learned in my two years or so of being a father. That, and if you want to get anything done on the computer your kids better be asleep or at grandmas for the weekend.