Monday, December 21, 2009

King of the Sloths Returns, Part Deux

I had to laugh when I saw that my previous post -- in (cough) April, heralded my triumphant return.  And then I lost my muse.  And my Procrastinitus really flared up.  And my son dropped a metal Tonka truck on my head while I slept on the couch, mentally enfeebling me to the point that I preferred to watch a bizarre cartoon called "Wow Wow Wubbzy" at 10 p.m. rather than churn out award winning prose on this heavily trafficked site.

But, my wife has made me promise to write a 2009 "Year in Review" mega-post before 2010.  That may be optimistic, although I do feel I owe my 3 Bangladeshian followers some content.  (They can't read English, but were told that my Og -- remember, that's what we're calling it until productivity increases -- when de-crypted, predicted the exact date of the Great Global Warming Tidal wave that is prophesied in the Scrolls of Gore.)

Actually, I do plan to write a lengthy review of "Avatar", James Cameron's long-awaited and truly spectacular piece of gooey, pantheistic, lib-tard drivel.  Here's a teaser synopsis:   

It's the future.  Humans -- that is, the greed-engorged spawn of Bushitler Satan Monkey -- have raped and despoiled and war-mongered their way across the galaxy, proving Agent Smith's axiom: "Humans are a diseeeeease."  But, Trees are good.  Plants are good.  Noble, wide-eyed, blue Indigenous Alien Peoples who worship trees, plants and rocks are especially good.  And pure.  And almost as enlightened as a big-shot Hollywood film director.  Just like the peaceful, fire-side dancing Native Americans, who only scalped enemies who had excessively large carbon footprints.  And the angelic Aztecs -- well, except for the whole misunderstood human sacrifice thing -- but that was because of Abu Ghraib.  But back to the movie.  So, Good tree-huggers, Bad humans.  The Bad humans -- surprise! -- blow up the aliens' sacred giant redwood tree, which is the size of the Sears Tower.  Then the saintly warrior Blue People, led by Kevin Costner, I mean, Tom Cruise, I mean, some Australian actor, fight back against  the Moloch-worshipping human oppressors and defeat their massive warships of death with a barrage of spears, angry, ululating war cries, dragons and the help of the Eewoks and Janeane Garafalo, who plays a terrifying carnivorous hippo/lion beast with T-Rex incisors and six legs.  (Oh, I'm now informed that that menacing CGI creature has nothing to do with Janeane Garafalo, other than similar grooming habits.  My mistake. )  And against all odds, Planet Utopia is saved, and everyone in the theater rises as one to communally weep and cheer and renew their vows to wipe with only one sheet of toilet paper.

That's the basic idea, although the movie was less nuanced than my recap.  I must say, though, that the 3D effects are stunning, amazing, pick-your-adjective phenomenal.  Cameron is a tendentious, aging hippie, but the man is a genius.  I'd go back and see it again, just for the visuals.  A more detailed review to come.

              

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

King of the Sloths Returns

So now that everyone of my friends has pelted me with rotten fruit and called me a disgrace to blogging for failing to post even a single word for over a month, I felt it was my obligation to at least acknowledge that I am still alive. (In fact, I haven't posted for so long, I forgot my password, and it just took me 45 minutes of hellish "chatting" with customer representatives to retrieve said password from my Google overlords so that I could provide you with this important proof of life.)

My excuses for posting as frequently as a dead person are numerous and compelling: 1) I requested and received a TARP subsidy NOT to post so that more illegal aliens, I mean, undocumented workers could (which seems only fair); 2) the meds are no longer effectively controlling my bi-lateral procrastination syndrome and I'm searching for a holistic cure; 3) I've been burning the midnight oil working on my Children's Road Rage Alphabet Book (I'm up to the letter P: "Peabrained Patti smokes Pot and drives a Prius; she cut us off and didn't even see us; People like Pinhead Patti are a Pestilential Plague on the Planet and should be Pummeled with Pipes while we laugh with glee-us." Yeah, yeah, it needs work. Then again, Maya Angelou is a poet laureate -- so by that measuring stick, I'm Robert Frost and Tennyson combined; 4) oh yes, we moved; 5) we had a baby; 6) we moved and had a baby basically the same week; 7) we are now living under the same roof with three children under the age of four ("I LIKE the red cup RILEY!" "NOOOOO, I YIKE WED CUP, IDEE!" "MINE!" "NO, MIIIIIINE!" "UHHHHHHN!" "AAAAAAAAH" (in unison) "WAAAAAAAH!")-- AND two retarded, crap eating dogs; 8) I briefly considered changing jobs, starting on a strict, colon cleansing diet of emu and lentils at the same time we had the baby and moved so that we could set the record on that scale that assigns stress points to traumatic events; 9) every time I thought about blogging, at around 11 p.m., "Road House" would come on TNT and I would be compelled to watch; 10) I've been spending all my time Twittering (if that were actually the case, Tara would have followed the instructions in my Living Will and had me euthanized).

Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking with it.

I have no more time right now to entertain and enlighten (isn't that Glenn Beck's phrase?), but I promise to return -- maybe this very evening -- to provide Nonsense Du Jour (or, Du Month).

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Let's Hear from One of My Readers

Enough politics for awhile.

First, an unsolicited beverage recommendation: go get yourself several gallons of refreshing and delicious "Minute Maid Pomegranate Tea." (Is that spelled correctly? Pomegranate looks wrong. I don't have time to look it up.) As the two Aussie crabs in "Finding Nemo" would exclaim, "Sweet nectar of loif!" This has supplanted Snapple Grapeade as my favorite healthy drink. Yes, Tara, I concede that each 18 fl. oz. serving (that's my rough estimate of how much I usually guzzle straight from the container before taking a breath) is probably the equivalent of ingesting 8 tablespoons of granulated sugar. But who cares. It has massive drinkability! And antioxidants! As we all know, antioxidants stop, er, oxidation. Which is one of the main causes of prostate cancer -- and global warming. And the pomegranate is one of those exotic fruits that has special curative properties. In fact, I suspect that even though sucking down this tea every day for, say, a month will give you diabetes, the pomegranate -- with it's high concentration of naturally occurring omega folic acids and vitamin triple E -- will actually kill off the malignant diabetes cells before they metastasize. Well, at least that's what I tell Isaac and Riley when I fill their sippy cups with tea to kick start their day.

Now, let's take some reader mail. Here's a letter from my very knowledgeable friend, Todd Fuller:

Dear Tony: Isn't the purpose of a blog (short for "weblog," a term first coined by Nostradamus in the 14th century, when he predicted the rise of "Hissler" and a futuristic communication system known as the "Indernut") to post short, pithy, entertaining thoughts multiple times each day? You post once every two weeks. That's fairly pathetic. I don't want to rain on your parade, but maybe you should just keep a journal -- for yourself -- and scribble in it twice a year. That way you won't continually disappoint and waste the valuable time of friends who expect some minimal level of effort and productivity from you. There's no shame in admitting this just isn't your thing. It took me years to realize that dressing up as an Arthurian Knight and jousting at Renaissance Fairs wasn't my calling -- and when I faced that hard truth, it freed me to play Dungeons and Dragons 24/7 and eventually become a 27th level Paladdin; essentially, a demi-God. I'm not saying you will achieve what I achieved, but your journey of self discovery needs to head in another direction. Glass blowing, perhaps? Scrimshaw? (That's a dying art, especially here in Pittsburgh.) Good luck, my friend. You will always have my brutally honest support.

Todd, thanks for caring. I should mention that Todd -- seriously -- is an excellent and quite successful estate planning attorney. I think somewhere around 76 percent of his typically infirm and mentally diminished clients, have in their Last Will and Testament named Todd, and not their children or beloved pets, as sole beneficiary. That speaks to the deep bonds of trust that Todd forms with every person he represents.

Todd and I got to know each other when we worked together at the same Harrisburg law firm. Perhaps my favorite Todd anecdote from our Glory Days is the time that he went to get a hair cut -- and returned to the office bald.

See, Todd is famously frugal. (His wife Jen is yelling: "Cheap! The word is cheap! He made me live next to an ugly, sulfur-spewing steel mill in a house with tested radon levels of "Infinity and Beyond" -- Todd says radon is a 'government hoax started during the Carter administration' -- because he refused to have a mortgage that was higher than our grocery bill.") Anyway, because Todd is ... thrifty, instead of going to a reputable salon or barber to have his thick, lustrous hair shorn, he decided to go to "Cost Cutters."

There is a legal concept known as "assumption of the risk." When you are foolhardy enough to go to a place called "Cost Cutters" for a trim, you assume the risk that the person cutting your hair will be so incompetent -- indeed, may have only sheared sheep prior to making the giant leap to coifing a human scalp -- that they may sever your jugular vein or cut off an ear lobe while trying to trim side burns. Your chances of receiving a hair cut that looks marginally better than simply placing a mixing bowl on your head and tracing its rim with dull sewing scissors are one in four. Yet, Braveheart Todd was undaunted -- and, more importanly, he had enough quarters for the $2.25 "Hans Christian Anderson Pageboy."

Well, we know how this story ends. In tears. Literally. As Todd tells it, he knew something had gone horribly wrong when, in the midst of his hair cut, the young gal wielding the clippers turned ashen, then began crying. Alarmed, Todd asked what was amiss. She stammered that the plastic shield had come off the clippers, causing her to "turf" his head, as they say in the lawn care biz. She had cut out a neat, 2" x 2" rectangle -- down to the bare, pasty scalp -- in the back of his head. The only way to rectify this, short of Todd wearing ski hats for a month, was to get the full Sinead O'Connor.

When Yul Brenner returned to the office, he was mildly displeased. We tried to cheer him up by telling him that for a white boy with a large, asymetrical dome, he didn't look too hideous. But when his secretary -- who Todd hated already because she was lazy and couldn't type -- said he got what he deserved for going to "Cost Cutters," he bludgeoned her to death with his dictaphone. Which marked the beginning of the end of his tenure with the firm.

Todd let his hair grow out after that traumatic incident, and he now sports a thick pony tail, which his nursing home clients and his wife really dig.

Well, I hope you all enjoyed that extra special glimpse into Todd Fuller's life. I'm sure Todd will correct me if I've gotten any of the particulars wrong, although my team of fact checkers seldom miss anything.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Rant Potpouri

My apologies for the lack of recent posts -- I've been spending my nights fighting crime and reading the Stimulus Bill. I made it to page seven (of 1,300) and noted a few -- just a few -- questionable items. Such as:

177 million for installation of environmentally friendly bidets in Walmart bathrooms (John Kerry insisted on this provision as he greatly enjoys the 17 bidets in his wife's mansion and was scandalized when he discovered that the unwashed masses do not have access to this French method of paper-less gentle cleansing when shopping for Spam, Slim Jims, confederate flags and automatic weapons);
200 million for "Gout Awareness";
62 million for the National Endowment for the Arts, with 32 million specifically targeted to subsidize "Performance Artists who incorporate natural, free range urine, excrement or other bodily secretions into their patriotic work protesting the United States' imperialistic wars against innocent brown peoples";
1.8 million to Noam Chomsky for "a life time of scholarship and public service";
$27,000 for improved Vice Presidential hair plugs;
400 million to the newly formed U.N. Council for Peace, Harmony and the Humane Obliteration of the Zionist Menace;
$500,000 each to accredited Tort Lawyers in good standing to spur "entrepreneurial, wealth-creating class action litigation";
500 Million for Alternative Energy Research, including Di-lithium Crystals and the Flux Capacitor;
$8,000 tax credit for first time Democratic voters;
$5,000 tax credit for anyone disenfranchised in the 2000 election;
$3,000 tax credit for Native Americans because they are a noble people;
$250 million to MSNBC to promote "Excellence in Journalism";
$100 million to Jesse Jackson and his "Rainbow: Extort" Foundation to promote the Hope of Black Victimization;
$12 billion for "1,000 foot global warming tidal wave prevention and evacuation planning, and the construction of a lunar Bio-Dome powered by vegetable oil and Michael Moore's flatulence."
You get the general idea. This is a trim, fiscally responsible, "nothing-but-the-essentials" bill that is focused like a laser on cauterizing our economic blood loss. In fact, I think it's the best piece of legislation to come out of D.C. since the Alien and Sedition Act. Although I suppose a raging partisan intent on nothing but obstructionism could find fault with some of these provisions, I personally was pleased to see that this entire process has been exactly as President Obama promised: "targeted, transparent, and treeemendous." Or something like that.

Before we leave politics, allow me to mention one moment from the feature film length Obama press conference that made me fleck my television screen with rage spittle like Keith Olbermann.

It was when some blow dried crap weasel from one of the major networks stood up and asked when the President was going to allow the media access to the flag draped coffins of our soldiers so that -- and I quote -- "Americans can know the true cost of war."

Pardon me while my head explodes with Krakatoan-levels of anger.

Yes, the stupid, NASCAR-worshippin', Bible-thumpin', gun-totin', confederate flag flyin', SUV drivin' red state lemmings don't understand that when their friends, neighbors and family members go off to war, they are risking their lives. Why, that Rasputin-like Cheney has convinced them that they're over in Iraq and Afghanistan eating ice cream cones and chasing butterflies in sun-dappled fields of posies. Oh, and the sheeple remain frightfully ignorant of the evils of war despite the fact that the NYT, Washington Post, LA Times, MSNBC, Time, Newsweek, etc. etc. etc. breathlessly report -- in front page, bold type, all caps headlines -- whenever one of our heroic troops is killed. (Query: Could the deafening media silence on the success of the Surge, the dramatic reduction of civilian and military deaths have anything to do with liberal media bias and an unwillingness to report events that no longer conform to the favored "Vietnam Quagmire" template? No, that's ridiculous.)

The American people are quite familiar with the wages of war. War is Hell. It is also sometimes necessary to kill those who would kill us. The media elites -- who imagine all the peee-ople, living life in pee-eace -- will never get this. And the fact that they would eagerly sensationalize and cheapen those solemn and private moments so they can "teach" the mouth breathing, warmongering masses that war is "bad" makes me want to strap a Claymore to every one of their microphones.

While I'm purging all of my negative energy, allow me a brief screed about one of the upcomoing “events” I most loathe and detest -- the Wieners. I mean, the Oscars. There is nothing more insufferable than watching a bunch of snobbish, narcissistic, pea-brained celebrities filled with delusions of their own self importance tearfully congratulate each other for their “brave” and “stunning” artistic achievements – you know, like making an anti-Iraq war movie. Or a movie about a transgendered male couple who faced discrimination by torch wielding Mormons when they tried to adopt a gay Labradoodle. You go, Oliver Stone! Bravo, Tim Robbins! I bow before your mad acting skilz and awesome intellect, Sean Penn! Speak truth to ‘da Man! Yes, it takes stones the size of Rosie O’Donnell’s giant bulbous pumpkin head to criticize the policies of the Bush Administration while in La La Land. (The moment when the Oscars became officially dead to me is when "Shakespeare in Love" won for Best Picture over "Saving Private Ryan." That was a travesty on par with, say, "Tyler Perry's House of Payne" beating "Seinfeld" for Best Sitcom, or anyone beating Gloria Allred in the "Witchiest, Publicity-Seeking Evil Shrew" competition. The mind boggles.)


Have you taken a gander this year's list of “Best Picture” nominees? These films collectively took in about 18 dollars at the box office. See, Hollywood, er, the Academy , doesn’t nominate popular movies (see, e.g. Batman) for Oscars. That’s because unenlightened Philistines flock to those "blockbuster" movies. No, the Academy has far more sophisticated taste in films.

So, we get the following:

1.“The Curious Case of Benjamin’s Bottom” or whatever it’s called. It’s a touching, poignant story of a man who’s bottom gets firmer while everyone around him grows older, leading to Zzzzzzzzzzz …”
2.“Milk” – starring that brooding, deep thinker, Sean Penn. It’s about a famous gay guy who had lots of important gay related achievements. Cool. How about we all agree that being gay is the Best Thing Ever and just move on. I think the tag line for “Milk” should have been: “Being Gay! It does the body good!” – or just, “Got Gay?”
3. “Frost/Nixon”: A movie that shows the Richard Nixon was not a good person! I’m shocked! Why was I never told about this? That theme has never been explored before. And it’s very timely, given that Richard Nixon was President over thirty years ago. Seven people have seen this movie and they are all members of the Political Science department at Cal Berkley. (In all fairness, I like Ron Howard as a director -- "Cinderella Man" is one of my favorite movies -- and I've read that his portrayal of Nixon and the historical record is mostly accurate and even handed; nevertheless, to paraphrase Pauline Kael: "I don't know a single person who went to see this movie.")
4.”Slumdog Millionaire:” I know nothing about this film, nor do I care to. I’ll be sure to catch it when it comes to the Carlisle theatre as a double feature with “Mama Mia.”
5. “The Reader.” Wow. Sounds exciting! Should be the family hit of the Summer! Look for the sequels, “The Writer” and “The Arithmeticker.” I know it's supposed to be a poignant, emotionally wrenching, morally ambiguous tale about a young man who has a torrid affair with a woman whom he later discovers was a Nazi -- what pathos! -- but I'd rather watch "Kung Fu Panda" 30 times in a row (and I have).

Let's finish with a health tip. Drink lots of water.

That's what Tara always tells me. And I absolutely believe that keeping oneself nicely hydrated is generally beneficial. But I harbor some skepticism that water -- or the lack of it -- is the direct cause of so many common ailments. Here are some typical conversations I'll have with Tara:

Me: "I have got a pounding headache."
Her: "Well, have you been drinking enough water?"
(I'm almost willing to buy this cause and effect relationship, although I doubt there's a peer reviewed study showing that test subjects who drank water experienced less headaches than the control group who guzzled Coke and Sunny D.)

Me: "I'm really tired. I've got no energy today."
Her: "Yeah, and how much water have you had to drink? None, I'll bet."
(Lack of water = malaise. Perhaps fybromyalgia, chronic pain syndrome and a host of other imaginar, I mean, real diseases are all caused by a diet low in water.)

Me: "Honey, I'm a little concerned. I've been bleeding profusely from my eye sockets and cerebral-spinal fluid is leaking from my nose."
Her: "I don't want to hear it. When's the last time you had a glass of water? Did you ever think that hemorrhaging would stop if you drank water instead of sugary iced tea?")

I'm convinced that the Stimulus Bill would have been much less sucky if Obama, Pelosi et al had been drinking more water.

Monday, February 2, 2009

Fresh, Mediocre Drivel for the Teeming Masses

My friend and co-worker Andrea, who has been gravely disappointed by my lack of posting, should be pleased to see that I have upped my anti-slothfulness meds, and am providing new ramblings. Before we get to my latest "must read" blather, my wife Tara has demanded equal time to make some clarifications. Here she is:

Ok, first of all, you are making our boys sound like raving beast-children. People are going to think they need to be harpooned with giant syringes full of Ritalin and that I'm a terrible mother. Isaac and Riley are actually quite well behaved -- most of the time -- and I think you should try to portray them in a more positive way.

Second, and more importantly, the only immature person in this house who sometimes spells out bad words when HE is angry is you. And our house does not have a gas leak, or a sink hole. And our dogs, while sometimes a challenge, are good boys. You need to stop being so mean to them and constantly talking about how they eat poop and track mud into the house and scratch the floors. They are part of our family, too.

Thank you, honey. Allow me to very briefly respond to your excellent points. Our boys are adorable. And generally very un-brat-like. But Isaac does occasionally feed Riley dirt out of a plastic soup ladle he stole from the kitchen. And they do like to eat the 'Ol Roy dog food straight out of the giant rubber container in the laundry room. And their two favorite games are still "Daddy, Bonk your Head!" and "Daddy, Smell My Stinky Feet." (Tara is yelling up from the living room: 'Pray tell who was the genius inventor of these marvelous, child development games?' I'm going to ignore that rude interruption.) And the boys still have these kinds of interactions: "Riwee, here, I will take your new ball -- WE DO NOT SCREAM, RIWEE! -- yes, because it is a yittle too bouncy for you and I am a big boy -- STOP YICKING ME, RIWEE! -- Yissen, Riwee, I will get the ball and yet you taste some of this yeyow snow. Right there, see? I think it is gonna be soooo tasteee. Hee Hee! Eat some Riwee! Yesssssss. Do it! Quick quick before Mommy comes! Mommy, Riwee is eating the yeyow snow and that is 'gusting!")

I can't remember what Tara's other points were. Something about how we could sell the dogs on Ebay? Good idea.

I have some gripes that I wish to share. I am going to do these rapid fire, in no particular order of importance. Some of you have heard these complaints before, but they bear repeating:

McDonald's policy of serving lunch beginning at 10:30 am is utterly insane. Nobody wants burgers at that time of the day. But many paying customer are craving delicious and nutritious McGriddles or sausage and egg biscuits at O Ten Hundred Hours, and those customers will go home enraged (or slightly bitter; your reaction may be different than mine) that they could not have a Big Breakfast because of -- what? -- an internal memo that says:

"Secret Lab tests have confirmed that the highly addictive chemical in McDonald's burgers -- which compels people who would otherwise be ripped triathletes to eat three meals a day at our Golden Arches against their will -- is most effective when ingested in the early morning hours. Accordingly, breakfast service MUST end by 10:30 so that we can obesify the lemmings. Any franchisee found serving breakfast after 10:30 in violation of this policy -- even to quell rioting by breakfast-starved customers -- will be liquefied."

I recently did a lengthy email rant about this and I will not recycle it here. Well, I guess I sort of just did. But I have another long held grievance against not only McDonald's, but all fast food restaurants. See if you can detect the, how shall I put this -- severe brain damage evident in the following exchange between me and the garbled voice of stupidity coming thru the drive thru display:

Me: "Hi. I'd like a PLAIN cheeseburger. PLAIN. No condiments of any kind. No pickles, no mayo, no special sauce, nothing. Just a PLAIN cheeseburger."
(long pause while the attendant digests this stupefying, outlandish request)
McGenius: "Uh, sir, do you want cheese on that?"

Sigh. When I say I want a plain CHEESEburger, is it not implicit -- actually, explicit -- that said cheese is to remain one of the main components of my desired happy meal? Is this such a difficult concept to grasp? In fact, if one was legitimately confused by my request, wouldn't it make more sense to confirm if I wanted either "meat" or a "a bun" with my cheese?

Enough of that. There are more important issues grating on me.

Why was ESPN covering the Inauguration of Barack Obama? I love ESPN -- even now that it is an evil corporate colossus that basically rules the world. I will watch anything on the Global Leader: women's billiards (I can even tell you that Alison Fisher's nickname is the Duchess of Doom); the Stihl Lumberjack Tour (gotta love the "hot saw"); the World's Strongest Man Competition ("Oh, dear, it appears Magnus has gotten a triple hernia and snapped his femur trying to lift the final Atlas Stone."). But can the ESPN Ombudsperson please explain what the election of our new President -- as historically significant as it was -- had to do with sports? I resent politics intruding into my sports-watching. Thus, I don't want to read a feature article in Sports Illustrated about how Obama played basketball in high school and is a life long hoops junkie. (Gee, I must have forgotten a similar, fawning SI profile of George Bush and his life long passion for baseball, culminating in his ownership of the Texas Rangers. I think the working title was "Chimpy McHitler Is Ruining America's Past Time and Is Even Making Baseball Unpopular in France.")

I understand that all the left wing sports journalists -- like the rest of the media -- are writhing in paroxysms of ecstasy now that the Healer of Planets has arrived to save us. And they are free to write haikus or sonnets about the Dali-Bama on their personal blog, or in their daily journal. But stop infecting sports columns and broadcasts with your tiresome agitprop, because it makes me angry. And you wouldn't like me when I'm angry. Because that's when I punch chairs and break my hand (the epic tale of Daddy's valorous fight against bed room furniture will be saved another day).

It's grown too late for any further screeds. I think maybe tomorrow (tomorrow being defined as any time in the next week or so) we'll do a fictitious mail bag, with fan letters and hate mail from my readers.




Monday, January 26, 2009

Gwossary of Isaac and Riley-isms

I have nothing funny to say at the moment. I was going to do some Food Commandments and include the Evil Sauces and Vile Creamy Dressings flow chart, but I'm not feelin' it. So, as a mediocre substitute, here's a list of words, phrases and technical terms commonly used by my sons in their everyday speech. I'm not sure why I thought that would be enjoyable to read about, but that's the thin gruel I'm serving up this evening.

"Tokyos": Isaac's completely random name for Skittles candy. We can usually figure out the derivations of the boys' words, but Tara and I have no idea where this one came from. I'm just glad Isaac isn't old enough to be in school. Had he blurted this out during kindergarten snack time ("I'm having some wed and yellow Tokyos"), I'm sure he would have been suspended for culturally insensitive hate speech.

"Pork chop": Again, somewhat bizarrely, this is what Isaac called his chalk board. "Daddy, I want to draw you a spessal picture on my pork chop. I tried to draw a spessal picture on Riwee's face but he was mean and would not yet me and then Mommy gave me two spankings."

"Baddy Boody!": Precise meaning unknown. We believe its etymology can be traced back to Riley, who used to call the movie "Toy Story" -- featuring Buzz Lightyear and cowboy Woody -- Budd en Oody. Isaac latched on to this, morphed it into Baddy Boody and has made it one of his signature "Isaac's brain is now fully controlled by No-Nap Delirium" nonsense phrases that he likes to yell over and over as he sprints around the house. He also likes to blurt it out at the dinner table, in combination with the forbidden word 'Toopid (stupid) to see if he can get Riley to say it with him. This usually occurs after Riley has dumped his dinner on the floor and is rubbing the greasy plate in his hair, while Isaac is dipping his fork in his milk and drizzling it on the table like Jackson Pollack. After Isaac has been warned that one more artistic milk dripping will result in his iniquitous buttocks being smiteth, yea verily, he busts out the BB:

"Baddy Boody! Baddy Boody! 'Too-pid! Hahaha! Say it Wiwee! Baddyboodytoopid, Baddyboodytoopid, BADDYBOOOOOODYTOOPID! Noooo Daddy! No spankings. I ready to yissen ..."

Ayigator: Riley's name for "Gatorade." "More Ayigator, Daddy? More? Me holding Ayigator?" (Daddy foolishly allows Riley to "holding" the Ayigator and drink out of the plastic container; Riley over-tilts the bottle causing an Ayigator tidal wave, and Ayigator spills all over the couch. Then Mommy calls Daddy other names, which she spells out so the children won't hear.)

Guessing Room: What Isaac calls the Guest Room in our house. "Daddy, Daddy, can we go in the guessing room and pway games on the 'pooter? Riwee should not come with us in the guessing room because he will throw up yes actually he will Daddy because uh Daddy yissen Daddy Riwee threw up at breakfast and he cannot do dat in the nice guessing room."

Maybe tomorrow I'll provide my readership with a long, venomous rant about Mrs. Helen Keller Magoo, the lady in front of me in the Sheetz parking lot who pulled her car to the very right hand side of the massively wide exit area and then tried to turn LEFT. After I and the 10, now 11, now 15 other irate drivers waiting to turn Right sat behind this awful woman through three light cycles, we dragged her from her car and stoned her to death with rock hard Shmagels and Shmuffins. As I later explained to Isaac, you should never stone people unless they are Reewy, Reewy 'Toopid and Bwocking the Exit Yane.

Friday, January 23, 2009

Big Pharma Needs A Super Hero

This post is basically for my sister Jessie's amusement. All four of my other readers will find it bizarre. Feel free to return later this weekend, when I will discuss something of more general interest, like how I was the best kick ball player in the history of Muhlenberg Elementary School.

So, Jessie, one of my four beautiful and talented sisters, is a pharmaceutical rep. I've never quite understood -- or, rather, I've never been fully comfortable with the idea of trying to convince doctors to prescribe one medicine over another by bringing them trays of Panera cookies.

"Yes, Dr. Cocktoasten, while it's technically true that our competitor's breakthrough liquid rectal suppository cures both Leprosy and Diabetes while also fighting Gingivitis, and our FDA rejected drug, Anthraxostatin, does not seem to work at all in clinical human trials and caused 43 percent of test subjects over the age of 72 to develop fatal constipation, I've brought cheese filled croissants! And we'd like you to be the guest lecturer during our next product launch, in Monte Carlo, where you'll have daily access to the electric blue Pfizzer Pferarri and will receive unlimited full body massages from Monica Bellucci. You'll write 17,000 scrips next month? Super! Here's some extra pens for your staff and there's a miniature white Lippizaner stallion for your daughter tethered in the parking lot. Thanks so much doctor!"

But I digress. The reason I mentioned my sister's job is because she told me what occurred at her most recent sales meeting (or "Stretch Goal Quest" or whatever ridiculous internal name the company gives such pow wows) and I found it amusing. The point of this meeting -- as it is for all such meetings -- was for the genius level management personnel to tell all the agents that they sucketh greatly and that due to their slothfulness and lack of enthusiasm, market share is in the toilet. The solution to this crisis? Be the Plunger. No, no, my sister was advised by her wise and inspirational team leader that she must ... wait for it ... Think Outside The Box. Brilliant! (Someone in the corporate world should incorporate that novel concept -- maybe with a cute graphic of a brain with legs squatting next to cube -- into a PowerPoint presentation.)

My sister asked the sales Oracle for a bit more specificity, to help her achieve this state of External Boxedness that would increase sales. His response was so deeply asinine that I have no doubt he will be company CEO in less than six months. He said, in his most scornful Gordon Gekko voice: "Do you watch movies? Do you? Well then, ask yourself -- what would Batman do?"

(This exchange immediately brought back long-repressed, horrific memories of my stint as in-house counsel at a large company. My boss, an incomparably hateful woman who we (me) called Satan's Corpulent Handmaiden or the Shambling Mound of Toadyism, when confronted with a question she could not answer -- a frequent occurrence -- would say: "Interesting question. You should read the book 'Who Moved My Cheese?'" Apparently, this book was equivalent to the King James Bible in terms of the eternal, universal truths that it imparted. I never did read the Traveling Cheese book and I smashed my Diversity Cube with a ball peen hammer and I refused to donate to the United Way and was placed on a Watch List by HR. Surprisingly, I did not become a member of the Board of Directors.)

But back to my sister's mentor, Socrates, and his profound inquiry: What would Bat Man do to make doctors write more prescriptions? I want my sister to answer this question correctly on her next "How to Sell Drugs" pop quiz. Well, upon reflection, the answer is obvious. Batman -- at least, Christian Bale's Batman, would employ the following Superhero Sales Stratagems. First, he would signal all the doctors in his territory with a giant spot light showing a Reuben sandwich shaped like a bat, so that they would know it was time for a catered lunch. Next, he would send Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer or Halle Berry, take your pick) to sit in the doctors' laps while doing "hypotheticals" and explaining the boring formulary. Finally, Batman would telepathically command the doctors he called on to inject the clueless, jargon spewing corporate drone-bot regional sales managers with a lethal dose of potassium chloride during one of their "ride alongs." This would dramatically boost sales and company morale. Oh, wait -- I think it was Aquaman that had telepathic powers.
Nevermind.

Jessie, I hope this helps you impress the power brokers at your company. At your next sales meeting, when the VP of Rampant Success Visualization asks the group: "If you were a drug tree, what kind of drug tree would you be?" -- I'm afraid you're on your own.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Mommy, Why Daddy Is Yelling and Saying 'Son of Uh!'? What is Son of Uh? Dat Funny!

Daddy was saying "Son of a ...!" because Daddy thought it best not to complete that thought. What prompted Daddy's outburst was, of course, a dreaded Home Improvement Project.

Oh, before I continue I see that I have my very first Follower. Thanks Nicole, for boosting my flagging self-esteem. Go ye now and do my bidding; here is my first command to you: "It's time for Helter Skelter." (Charles Manson jokes -- always tastefully hilarious.)

As I was saying, I am a poor man's Bob Vila. That is, if Bob Vila had no arms and legs (and became enraged every three seconds because he could not use his mouth to hold the nails and hammer them at the same time even with the special velcro mouthpiece attachment), and knew as much about carpentry as Rosie O'Donell knows about geopolitics -- I would be Bob Vila. My saving grace is that even though I am not particularly handy, I accept my limitations in this area with equanimity and good humor and only become insanely angry when major catastrophes occur -- like when stupid adhesive vinyl tiles will not fit together neatly.

Laying vinyl tiles. That's what I was doing today. Let me see if I can rank that on the home improvement difficulty meter, with 10 being, say, a project that only a team of architects, engineers and that master wood worker guy that's on after "This Old House" should attempt, and 1 being a project that a special needs monkey could complete while simultaneously eating a banana. On that scale, vinyl tile installation rates a ZERO. Not tremendously challenging for sentient beings with opposable thumbs. But somehow, in the midst of this laughably simple project, on several occasions I wanted to gouge my eyes out with the utility knife. (But I did not kick anything, and I only spiked my metal T-square twice. And I threw my tantrums only when the boys were busy in the living room making it look like a Claymore mine filled with toy cars and trucks exploded, so good parenting award to me!)

We were fixing up our "sun room." Sun room is a bit of a misnomer, since the room has no heat. This time of year it's more like an 18' x 10' walk-in freezer, with four large, crudded up picture windows. I believe the previous owners used this room to hang slabs of meat on large hooks and to store tractor parts. We keep our treadmill in this room, which was last treaded upon when poor Dubya was popular. When we bought the house, the owners had covered the original plywood floor with that green, indoor-outdoor carpet that looks and feels just like Astroturf. Classy! -- and in keeping with the authentic Colonial Williamsburg vibe. We covered that abomination over with a bunch of high end carpet remnants that were slightly too wide for the room; I decided that rather than spend a lot of time cutting and fitting (and screaming), I'd just let the carpet ride a few inches up the side of each wall, where it would blend in.

(I have visions of Ty Pennington inspecting our sun room, moments before demolition, shaking his head with a mixture of pity and disgust.

"So, you used this room to work out? I mean, this is bad. Look at this carpet! It looks like a blind man with a spastic arm went a little nuts with the staple gun. You've got staples out the wazoo. I see there was water leaking from the ceiling. You put the Lego bucket under it. Nice. Did you keep livestock in here? Oh, your two Labs. Man, the whole room kind of smells like wet dog. And the doctors think that's how you contracted Lab Lung? They said it was the airborne microbes from their feces breath? Wow. That's ... that's just a bummer. Well, Lucido family, the good news is that we're going to demolish this unsafe, uninhabitable sun room and you're going to take a vacation -- to the Camden Aquarium!")

Actually, thanks to my wife's mad painting skillz -- and some very nice, post-tantrum lining up of the tiles by moi -- the room came out pretty good. Of course, tomorrow I have to cut the tiles to fit around the room edges. That project could be ... slightly perturbing. I'm going to try my best to avoid having a Jack Nicholson in the "Shining" moment. Did I mention that Tara loves it when I have home improvement rage? She says those are the moments when she's most attracted to me. Well, that and when I swerve around people moving too slowly in the left lane and then give them the much derserved "You're a human cankersore" stare. She really likes that.

Enough lyrical prose for now. Maybe on Tuesday we'll discuss the myriad evils of creamy sauces.

No, wait. Can't do it then. I'll be watching MSNBC all day while at work and weeping along with the Revrund Jackson, Oprah, Sean Penn, Tim Robbins et al. Just for a different reason.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Must we disclose that the prior owners died from radon poisoning?

If all goes according to plan, we are hoping to list our house for sale in the next two or three months and then join the nearest Branch Davidian commune.

This is the perfect time to sell, because: home sales are booming! Also, it's the middle of winter, everything looks drab and desolate, and the unscoopable, rock hard piles of frozen dog poop (courtesy of our two fecund Labs) that have melded with our back lawn will charm any prospective buyer.

Did I mention that we have two boys, ages 3 (Isaac) and 2 (Riley) who like to sprint around our dining room table while wearing, respectively, dirty socks on his hands like mittens (Isaac) and a green plastic bucket on his head (Riley) -- while screaming "I Smash You!" "No, I Shmash Youuuuu!" at each other? They will be a huge help during the arduous boxing and packing phase.

We're expecting a baby girl in March -- not making that up -- and nothing eases the crushing stresses of the moving process like a newborn with, say, reflux and hives from dog allergies. Ok, enough negativity. Even I must concede that it will be easy to keep our home looking neat and clean at all times, what with the Captains of Chaos roaming free, strategically placing mounds of trucks, blocks, discarded sippy cups and shards of half eaten pieces of toast in every room.

Universal Selling Point in Our Favor: the thick clumps of black dog hair that roll like tumbleweeds across our hard wood floors and into our morning breakfast cereal. Realtors traditionally view this as a potential "turn off" -- but rampant dog hair that seems to magically regrow itself 15 minutes after vacuuming is now considered "chic and desirable" according to PETA.

Fortunately, we live in a stately brick farm house, built in 1860, that requires very little up keep. Thus, the only items on our "before you sell" list are minor, cosmetic fixes, like:

1) Locate source of pesky gas leak and duct tape it;
2) Throw area rug over basement sink hole;
3) Have boys color in with burgundy magic marker large areas on dining room wall where they ripped off pieces of ornate wall paper that is a discontinued pattern and cannot be replaced;
4) Place large chair in front of annoying electrical outlet in living room that constantly sparks and melts all the extension cords;
5) In-ground, 1,000 gallon oil tank may have slow leak. Tap water still looks and tastes fine. Ignore.
6) Fill in gaping craters idiot dogs dug in back yard with sand from Isaac's sand box. If Isaac sees this and cries, pacify him with bag of colored marshmallows. Or give him Skittles and let him play with Mommy's good jewelry. Make him promise not to drop it down "the hole" in the dining room floor.
7) Wood at base of garage doors is rotting. Looks bad. Try to conceal with Tara's decorative rocks from garden.
8) Refinished pine floors in dining room have deep, ugly scratches from spastic dogs' raptor claws. Get gallon of Polyurethane. Pour in dogs' water bowls. Kill dogs.
9) Water still pooling on roof of front porch. Plan all open houses on days when not raining.
10) Look into "cloud on title" issue.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Unfrozen Caveman Blogger Say: Now Me Pretty Big Deal

"And thus began one of the great literary works of our time."

Tony's Mom, on the haunting first line -- 'Last night I dreamt of setting Manderley, my sister's stupid guinea pig, on fire again' -- of his award winning 5th grade Anti-Fire Prevention Essay.

If my Mom could actually log onto her computer from the Pleistocene Era, she'd no doubt say the same about this, my inaugural blog post.

Childhood fame changes people. After that essay, followed by my critically acclaimed series of hilarious family Christmas newsletters and my PUBLISHED Letter to the Editor of Sports Illustrated (in which I, channeling Mencken, called Rick Reilly a "bigger buffoon than Dennis Rodman." Classic stuff.) -- I was burnt out. Disillusioned with the industry. So, I stopped writing for money and lived off the residuals. Then I went insane and decided to go to law school.

But my dedicated readers, who have so enjoyed my Pulitzer-worthy email rants about timely and important issues of the day -- Pinhead Drivers; The Heinous Evil that is Mayonnaise; My Attempts To Have My Feces Eating Dogs Euthanized Without My Wife's Knowledge; Why One Should Never Eat A Mystery Crumb Even if One is Nearly Certain it Fell Off a Delectable Entenmann's Danish -- have demanded that I keep churning out the drivel.

So, this is for the American People. (Note: Because I have advanced, bi-lateral Procrastination Syndrome -- thank you for your letters -- with secondary Slothfulness, I may not be able to post as consistently as some other professional bloggers. I think if the nine people who ultimately read this check back every Memorial Day, they'll likely be rewarded with fresh content.)

That's all for now. In a few years, I hope to have my bio up, and maybe some pictures. If my three year old son Isaac could read, he'd say: "Daddee, this bwog is not very good. The moon is up and you need to go to sweep."

Indeed.