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.

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.

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.

Goodbye Boulder, hello Loveland. Well, that sums up what I have been up to over the past week or so. For various reasons, I decided to move out of my apartment in Boulder and into a house in Loveland. The most important reason revolves around a drunken late night conversation with Miss Cleo where she said, and I quote, “You have drawn the happy squirrel card. You need to make some big changes in your life, my friend.” The part about change really convinced me to move out of town. That, and I have completely exhausted my supply of wildly inappropriate JonBenet Ramsey jokes.

The first step in the moving process is to decide where to move. I have known my friend Scott since I was three and I have even gone so far as to travel to Germany with him to visit his parents. Scott lives in Loveland and he mentioned how he needed a new roommate. I thought about it for a few days, and eventually I called Scott back and asked if there was any way I could move in with his parents in Germany. Don’t get me wrong– I think Scott is a great guy, but his mom is a way better cook and most experts agree that Germany has a much better ultra-high speed train network than, say, Loveland, Colorado.

One of the keys to a successful move is to be disciplined and organized. Unfortunately for me, both of these attributes were permanently damaged in a prepubescent winter sledding accident. Despite this handicap, I tried my best to prioritize my belongings to make packing as efficient as possible. Here is a list of actual items I found during the inventory process:

One half eaten box of Total cereal with an expiration date of May 1997.
One empty bottle of shampoo with instructions in some foreign language.
A set of used check carbons from SIX addresses ago.
A zip-lock bag full of obsolete Dutch coins with an estimated value of seven dollars (minus the cost of transporting them back to Holland)

These items were carefully packed first using liberal quantities of crumpled up newspaper and bubble wrap. Once that was complete and double checked, I addressed the rest of my stuff.

One of the problems with packing is that I started with the things I cared about the most. All my clothes and electronic equipment were carefully packed and labeled in boxes to make sure nothing was thrown away or misplaced. On moving day all of this was ready to go. First we picked up the couch and placed it in the truck. The next two trips took care of my bedroom furniture. After twenty minutes all of my furniture, clothes, and electronic equipment was loaded up and ready to go. The problem, of course, was the rest of the crap that had accumulated in my apartment over the past three years– stuff that I didn’t want to throw away, but I didn’t care enough to actually pack. The good intentions I had at the beginning of the process gave way to me running around my apartment haphazardly throwing random objects into garbage bags so I could deal with it all later. The last bag I packed contained– and I am being totally honest here– a Harley Davidson calendar, a handful of razor blades, and my Fred and Barney Fruity Pebbles cardboard cutout.

Most fine wines improve with age. The same is not true for U-Haul trucks. I’m guessing the monster I rented reached its peak somewhere around 1977 based on the painting on the side of the truck of an old fashioned American flag and the phrase “U-Haul: Helping American celebrate her bicentennial.” Now I see why it was the only truck in Boulder available to rent. Everything squeaked and rattled in exactly the way I thought it shouldn’t. On the way to Loveland I looked on the dash and noticed the vehicle had been driven 116,000 miles. Of course there were only six digits on the odometer. I strongly suspect it had been flipped three, if not four, times. And by “it” I mean the entire truck.

Despite the truck’s best efforts to spontaneously disassemble into its 40,000 original parts in the middle of Highway 287, we made it to Loveland without any problems. I even got the hang of the odd standard transmission which had reverse where first gear should be, overdrive where reverse usually is, and third gear crammed into the glove compartment with a hastily written note saying, “Don’t use this until we get it back into the transmission box. Have a nice day.”

Unpacking everything in Loveland went pretty smoothly. The biggest problem was by the time we unpacked all the crap I didn’t really care about, we were all pretty much exhausted. No matter how much I think about it, I couldn’t find a way to unload the front and bottom most section of the truck first. Having survived the move, I would recommend the following simple two step process to anyone else who plans on changing their residency in the near future. 1. Spend half an hour moving the most important things into the moving truck. 2. Unfortunately, the state of Colorado still considers things like “lighting your apartment on fire” and “insurance fraud” to be “illegal”, but I’m sure you can connect the dots.

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.

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.

A lot of newfunny readers are curious to learn more about Ertok. For those of you who are new to the site, Ertok is an Evil Alien Overlord that oversees my work on the newfunny web site. The Evil Alien Overlords are planning to enslave the human race and create a planetary network of mining slave camps. Here are some questions I asked Ertok during a recent interview:

O: So what part of the Galaxy are you from?
E: We come from a planet known in your scientific community as BETA-MX-1974. For those less technically inclined humanoids, our home world is on a planet that orbits a star which, from this point in the time/space continuum of the galaxy, looks like an ear of a little bunny rabbit. Or the front headlight of a 1984 Pontiac Fiero, depending on your sociological upbringing.

O: How are you able to speak English so well?
E: You might suspect we have a complex computer system that provides real time bi-directional language translation or that we insert some mythical cold blooded sea dwelling life form into our aurial chamber. One of our long range listening posts detected patterned electromagnetic waves radiating from your planet. We were quickly able to decipher them into their respective audio and video signals. Once the invasion force was dispatched from the home world we assimilated your culture through what you refer to as television and radio. While not perfect, our understanding of your language should be adequate for our needs. For example, we still haven’t decoded what your television signals refer to as the, “ancient Chinese Secret”. But from what we do know, we consider this to be of minimal strategic military importance.

O: So why have you chosen me to be the spokesman for your Invasion Force?
E: Well, we examined several factors when choosing a candidate. First of all, you posses the computer skills needed to convey our message to a large audience through your planetary digital packet distribution system. We also noted your wildly overactive imagination will most likely cause disbelief when conveying this message.

O: I’m a little bit confused now. So you want me to tell the world about your plans, but you don’t want anyone to believe what I’m saying. What purpose does that serve?
E: One thing we learned about your culture is that humans seem to enjoy the idea of irony. This way, after all humanoids are toiling away in the mining camps, we can post a big sign saying “We told you our plans, but nobody took it seriously. Now you and countless generations of your offspring will pay for this insolence. Oh, and please wear eye protection when operating heavy machinery.”

O: Being your cooperative spokesman by devoting my time and energy to your cause, will I be allowed to have a cushy administrative position in your new world order?
E: No.

O: Do I get anything for my efforts?
E: Yes-we have noticed you are trying to solve a mathematical problem your race refers to as the Non Polynomial Complete Set Theory Conjecture. (Our species calls it the “Traveling Mining Camp Equipment Sales Humanoid” problem). We plan on giving you the mathematical proof, which is small enough to fit in the margin of a single piece of paper, right as we assign you to the most dangerous mining camp.

O: We are almost out of time, so would you like to say anything to all the faithful newfunny readers?
E: If any humanoids are curious, your future will be similar to the movie “Superman 2”. Except instead of three escaped convicts from planet Krypton, there will be several thousand of us, and there will be no Superman. To paraphrase your human expression: “May the more advanced life form bring cruelty and mining camps along with their victory”. Ertok out.

Well, hopefully this interview will help keep you informed about Ertok and the Evil Alien Overlords. If you have any more questions, please send them to the “Letters to the Editor” section of the newfunny web site.

Here are the exact directions (meaning I’m not making any of this up) to 4580 County Road 68, Wellington, Colorado:

Go north on I-25 and get off at the Wellington exit.  Head north on the east side frontage road until you see a sign for CR68.  There is only one house on the road and it is in no way labeled.  Don’t worry– that isn’t the house you are looking for, but it does happen to belong to the guy’s brother.  He will vaguely point you towards three dirt roads in various states of disrepair.  Keep driving until you see another man driving around a front end loader for no particular reason.  He will explain how to get to the small workshop and instruct you to leave the package in the old refrigerator in the back– either compartment is fine.

After spending quite a bit of time getting all my websites organized, I thought I would spend a few minutes explaining what actually goes into running a website like this.

I’ve owned the domain name “newfunny.com” for ten years now.  To get an idea of exactly how long that is in “internet time,” Steve Jobs and Bill Gates weren’t even born in the year 2000.  (note to self: fact check this later– I’m pretty sure at least two of the people on this list are robots who exist outside the conventional time/space continuium.)

Things were quite a bit different back when I started up this site.  For example, I actually built a computer to host the site and connected it to the Internet with a static IP address.  When the website went down I would call up Scott and ask him to reboot the system.  If that didn’t work I would call up Scott and ask him to reboot the system again.  Repeat as needed.

On the software side of the equation things were just as complex.  Designing a website consisted mostly of looking at other people’s websites and stealing their source code. In addition to knowing HTML, a web designer had to also be familiar with manually transferring files through FTP, configuring file permissions, and, obviously, understanding the complex language of the gnomes that run through the tubes of the world wide web.

Now things are quite different.  Any loser with a credit card and an internet connection can build a website.  And trust me, there are plenty of losers who have done exactly that.  With today’s existing technology, you can simply speak into the microphone of your computer “I want a webpage!” and a flying robot will be dispatched to your house to take care of all the details.

On a slightly serious note, I use WordPress for all my current websites.  It is very easy to set up and use on a daily basis.  You can set up a free account in just a few minutes with a domain such as “mydomainname.wordpress.com” (sure, it isn’t as cool as something like, say, newfunny.com).  Basically, if you can use email and basic word processing, you can have your own blog.

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’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.

OK– I’m going to confess something here.  I didn’t really write all these posts on April 4, 2009.  In my ongoing effort to get everything I’ve written on to my newfunny website, I imported the blog I started on my myspace page two years ago.  I apologize in advance for any problems this may cause to my loyal readers.

I’ve been a UPS driver for 3 years now– not quite long enough to get my own route.  Basically I cover other driver’s routes when they are sick or on vacation.  Some customers are rather attached to their drivers.

“You aren’t our regular/usual driver.”
“No, I’m the irregular/unusual one.”

One of the other swing drivers told me that one, and it seems to make people laugh.  And since I deliver to new people all the time, I get alot of practice. My other favorite line goes something like this:

“That’s a nice shirt/pair of shoes/lavishly decorated tiara”
“Thanks”
“They don’t let me wear anything pretty to work– its all brown, brown, brown!”

Another good aspect of my job is that I can practice the same joke on 50 different people in a day so I can get the timing and wording just right.

Mitt Romney is still working to clarify his statement, “I’m not concerned about the very poor.”  On an unplanned trip to chat with reporters in the rear of his campaign jet, the former Governor of Massachusetts worked to explain his intentions of the comment in question.

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no,” Romney proclaimed. “I was referring to the fact that the very poor have a safety net.  Let me give you an example here– I was watching television up front and witnessed a story about a pretty young homeless woman who came into the emergency room with a mysterious illness.  During her stay at the hospital she received top-notch care from the best doctors in the building and not once was refused treatment based on ability to pay.  This reassures me that our safety net is working.  Thank you Doctor House.”

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.”

This is really more of a problem with Netflix than my kids. While I go off to work my kids like to watch stuff like “The Cat in the Hat” and “The Mickey Mouse Fun House.” Which is fine, but then we put the kids to bed, come downstairs, and fire up Netflix only to have it recommend movies that only a three year old would enjoy. I’m not sure exactly how their search engine can find valid recommendations when the last two shows watched were “Team Unizoomi” and “Battlestar Gallactica.” So if anyone at Netflix is reading this, maybe you should figure how to deal with kids and adults watching content from the same account. Heck, it might even help your stock price.

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.

If you happen to be familiar with my annual Christmas letter you may be scratching your head thinking, “But Omar, it’s not anywhere near the end of the year– how can you already be posting your Christmas letter?” I decided that publishing my Christmas letter only once a year is not consistent with my idiom of working on “Internet Time.” I’m not exactly sure how to define “Internet Time,” but for the purposes of this letter it is me being up at 3 in the morning in my boxers and a T-shirt surfing the web because I got tired of watching infomercials on the television.

What do women want? This question has plagued mankind since God kicked us out of the Garden of Eden (which I believed contained no menstrual cycles, beauty magazine quizzes, or clothes that made Eve look fat). When contemplating what women want, I prefer to approach the problem from a different perspective. It is possible to list all the things that men could possibly do, take out the things that woman don’t want, and what is left, by the process of deduction, is what women want. While creating a list of all possible actions mankind can take is well beyond my attention span, I am willing to add a few items to the “don’t do” list.

First of all, women like compliments. There are, however, some important issues to consider when telling a woman “I love you.” Fellow men out there, I cannot stress this enough: only say this to a wife or established girlfriend. In general, a woman you have met for lunch once or twice and exchanged a few E-mail messages with does not meet these criterion. If you are invited to a party, it is generally considered bad taste to repeatedly yell out to the woman hosting the party “Angie, I love you. I know you don’t love me back, but that’s OK.” For whatever reason you may think it’s a good idea at the time (i.e. EXCESSIVE ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION), it will ultimately do more damage than good.

Secondly, trying to hit on women after excessive alcohol consumption is generally not a good idea. For example, you may think that going around at a party after downing a few drinks telling women you have never met they have a nice tail and a blouse full of goodies is an example of your witty banter, but in reality they usually just smile politely, leave the room for some reason or another, and strangely enough you never see them again.

And last of all, it is a good idea to stay after the party has died down and help clean up the mess. It is a bad idea to stay after the party has died down and repeatedly throw up in the sink before you pass out on the couch until the next afternoon. No further explanation is needed for this point.

I really can’t continue until I confess something here. I didn’t just use my overactive imagination to create three random activities women don’t like. I attended Angie’s Christmas party, got drunk, professed my unrequited love to her, told several other women they had nice tails and blouses full of goodies, threw up several times (for history’s sake, I remember it being once in the sink, and three times in the toilet), and passed out on their couch. Around eleven in the morning, on what I think was my last trip to bow down to the porcelain God, I looked down at my boxer shorts and bare legs and commented to Angie, “I’m not wearing any pants” in a somewhat matter-of-fact tone of voice. It was well past noon when I finally thought I could make it home without blowing chunks in my car.

I can’t say that I’m really proud of what I did, but I have to admit that it’s pretty amusing despite the fact that I am the ass in the story. In general I like to write stories where other people look stupid– it makes me feel better about my shortcomings in life. While I could have altered the facts of the story to make me look better, I don’t think it would have made for a funny story. Since I put (slightly) more importance on being funny than being truthful, I recorded the events as accurately as my impaired brain recalled them.

For reasons that I greatly appreciate yet do not totally comprehend, Angie doesn’t seem to hate me. I suspect it is analogous to the episode of “Cops” where the guy in the beat up old pickup truck gets caught with the prostitute only to realize SHE was really a HE while handcuffed in the back seat of the patrol car. Sure, you can send him down to the station to be booked, but in all reality everything that happened before the police and television crew arrived will torture his soul a lot longer than any consequences of legal proceedings. As far as Angie goes, I think it is safe to assume that her name will not come up in future letters any time soon. If I manage to get invited to next year’s party, I think I’ll be the designated driver.

And, just in case you are wondering, I took that line from the movie “Hot Shots.” The actual quote is “Not playing to win is like sleeping with your sister. Sure she’s a great piece of tail with a blouse full of goodies, but it’s just illegal.”

Being a UPS driver, people often ask me how I keep my hands so clean given the grungy nature of my job. Actually, nobody has ever asked me that, but I have to start somewhere.

Every night when I come home from work I start the shower running and prepare what some would call my “Ancient Chinese Secret” for cleaning the deep seeded grime from my hands. This procedure uses two solid pumps from my 1.25 gallon Gojo dispenser and a light sprinkle of Ajax worked into all the nooks and crannies of my hand with a small oval shaped pumice stone. I scrub vigorously until the shower warms up, at which point I enter the stall and continue to shower in more or less the traditional manner. When I’m done in the shower, I dry off and rub a healthy amount of lotion into my hands.

Interesting points:

I’m pretty sure this is NOT an approved official use for Ajax.
For anyone considering robbing their neighbors in the near future, I believe this procedure is also effective at temporarily removing my fingerprints.
You may be asking yourself how this is Ancient, Chinese, or a secret. The old Chinese man I have locked in my basement taught me how to do it. Now that the secret is out, however, I’ll have to kill him. He will understand.

As I was randomly looking through some of my previous stories on this web site the other day, I noticed a disturbing trend about how my life gets represented. To someone who doesn’t know me any better I might come across as a lazy bum who stays up all night long laying on my couch flipping television channels between mindless infomercials and fifteenth century battle recreations on the History Channel. Which is absolutely true, but besides the point. In addition to my odd nocturnal habits, I also engage in a vast array of interesting—if somewhat more mainstream—activities. Just the other day, for example, I ran my dishwasher.

I find that many otherwise ordinary activities, such as operating kitchen appliances, become less monotonous when made into some sort of a game. To spice up the extensive amount of time I spend cleaning my kitchen, I have created a game called “dishwasher safe or not dishwasher safe?” The rules are quite simple: one person picks an ordinary household object, and the other person has to predict how well it will survive in the dishwasher. (Side note: For readers over the age of twenty-one, this can also be played as a drinking game.) My experience playing the game has taught me quite a bit about high temperature hydrodynamics. Things that fall into the general “dishwasher safe” category include music CDs, dirty socks, and lava lamps. “Not dishwasher safe” items include wax candles, the Sunday newspaper, and unopened boxes of “Hamburger Helper.”

While I’m no Richard Simmons, I do make an attempt to get to the health club a few times a week. For reasons I don’t completely understand, sitting in front of a computer for long periods of time does not seem to burn very many calories. Despite the feverish pace of my brain during these episodes, I need to supplement this time with activities that require more physical demands on my body.

One thing I have noticed is that people generally don’t look very approachable when working out on fitness equipment. I’m not sure what everyone else is thinking when working out, but I know that while exercising on the stair master every one of my brain cells is preoccupied with keeping my body from falling off. If I did attempt to communicate with the person next to me I believe the conversation would start of with me saying something to the effect of “hi there—so, do you like living in Boulder? I hope the fact that I’ve somehow managed to tip over the stair master doesn’t make you think less of me.”

One day, while riding on the stationary bicycle something hit me. And, no, it wasn’t someone else falling off the stair master. I realized that I spend a fair amount of time surfing the Internet and talking to friends on Instant Messenger. The only thing that gets any exercise are the muscles in my fingers. This led me to realize something totally different than my original realization (which I haven’t gotten to yet—please bear with me). Fingers don’t actually have any muscles in them. The muscles that move fingers are located in the forearm area. Or at least that’s where I think they are.

So, getting back to my great idea—I think someone should build exercise equipment that is connected to the Internet. Since most of the equipment requires the person sit or stand in a stationary position, adding a touch screen would not be too difficult. Everyone seems to stare blankly ahead anyway. I’ve extensively researched many, many web sites on the Internet about people who are addicted to the Internet. Not that this plan would help them out at all with their addiction, but it wouldn’t hurt the situation if they had to pedal a bicycle while they jumped from web site to web site. Sure, they would still be pasty white computer geeks, but at least they would have well defined leg muscles.

Well, I hope this helps shed some light on the subject of “What does Omar do all day long?” I’m sure that if I really put my mind to it I could have come up with a dozen more productive activities in my life. Unfortunately (for you, the reader), I was glancing through the TV Guide and just realized that a three hour special about starting land wars in Asia is about to begin. So until next week, try to think of me as a productive member of society.

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?”

Rush Limbaugh is expected to visit Afghanistan, officials said on Thursday. When asked about the nature of the visit, the conservative radio talk show host stated, “I’m excited to see the emergence of freedom in a country that for so many years has been ravished by war. That, and the vast expanse of heroin-producing poppy fields.”

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.

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.

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.

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.