I have a few people in mind for the Death Panels

Today, rather than riff on something I find amusing, like how my three year old son Riley calls eyebrows "ow-breys," I am compelled to discuss -- if I can control my blood pressure with periodic ice baths -- the health care Debacle.  Apocalypse.  Abomination.  Blood boiling, teeth-gnashing, garment rending, Big Effing (to plagiarize our classy VP) mega-Catastrophe. (Or, if you're a grinning Pelosi-ite, work for MSNBC/CNN/ABC/CBS/NBC/PBS or write editorials for Pravda aka the New York Times, the totally awesomest achievement in the history of Big Beneficent Government.  They'll be celebrating this one for at least the next decade at Socialist Band Camp.)

Honestly, I cannot remember a time when I have been more seethingly furious than I was this past Sunday, when I sat and watched head Whipstress Nancy (wielding a ridiculous, super-sized wooden gavel used to commemorate Epic Achievements in Progressive Governance -- the most recent being Jimmy Carter's handling of the Iran hostage crisis) -- and her merry band of Reconciliators cheering their corrupt, fiscally insane, anti-democratic health care jam down.

Actually, no, I can remember a time I was angrier.  It happened a mere ten minutes after I witnessed the intentional destruction of the best health care system in the world, when--

Hah! Best health care system my malignant nose wart!  Tell that to little Marcellus whatsisname, that precious twelve year old boy who's mother lost her job, got sick and died! -- while Rumsfeld laughed at her funeral! -- you greedy, heartless, right wing beast!  All because one of your pet evil insurance companies, as part of a top-secret military experiment to sterilize lower income and transgendered Americans OR impregnate them with Dick Cheney's genetically altered sperm to create a race of pasty, gravelly-voiced super-torturing war criminals, denied her claim for reparations.  Or injected her with flesh eating bacteria.  Or, whatever.  Look, the cause and effect here doesn't matter.  It's symbolic.  It's about Bush -- because he Lied and people, like Marcellus's Mom, and Patrick Swayze -- Died! -- and it's why we need universal health care, including government subsidized body piercings and free medicinal marijuana, just like they have in enlightened Cuba.  Did I mention Marcellus is BLACK?  Yeah, you Nazis hate to see black folks getting medical treatment.  Despite being sprayed with fire hoses by bed sheet wearing tea-baggers, that African American boy, carrying only his Al Sharpton lunch box (donated by the New Extra Strength Black Panthers), hitch-hiked cross county from LA, where sources say he had been living in a refrigerator box inside Arnold Schwarzenneger's gold plated dumpster.  But I digress.  Marcellus eventually hitched a ride with an MSNBC news crew -- who luckily were in Utah filming a documentary on the home grown Mormon Terrorist Menace.  Eventually, he found his way to Harry Reid's office.  And then this courageous little boy with a heavy heart looked Senator Reid squarely in the eye and said: "Sir, my new best friend Mr. Axelrod has given me candy and told me that my mother would have been very proud if her death could be exploited by using me as a prop in your ruthless campaign to destroy the private health care industry.  And my other new friend Mr. Rambo -- he says the F-word a lot -- promised I could have my own Panda Bear from the San Diego zoo if I learned to say this speech he wrote for me and cried whenever that other man wearing the head set signaled me."  Obama did this for Marcellus, and all the unemployed ACORN public servants, and the Berkley Gender Studies Department and every person on Main Street who has a right to an infusion of Obama Cash and Obama Love, for he said 'suffer the little children to come unto me and I will make them eternal wards of the state, yea, verily.'  So, you and the rest of the black-hearted fascist veal eaters should just shut up and say 'may I have more patriotic tax increases, please.'   

Anyway, before I was so rudely interrupted by a dissenting opinion, I was saying that I became several orders of magnitude angrier when our Supreme Leader, accompanied by his faithful, lobotomized assistant, Joe Eyegor Biden, triumphantly strode to his teleprompter to proclaim the Good News to All 27% of the People who were actually in favor of this government takeover of 1/6 of the economy. With his iconic Rushmorian jaw jutting skyward at about a 60 degree angle (any more upward chin tilt and he's going to need a teleprompter on the ceiling to keep the text within his line of sight), the Emperor declared that he had "heard the American people", and chosen to ignore their outraged screams of protest, because he was erudite and smart, and they were stupid, ungrateful lemmings that can't grasp their own self-interests. Plus, they were powerless to stop the Hope and Change wrecking ball, and in time, after the progressive brain chip implantation, they would come to embrace the demolition of their racist, imperialist country.

Seriously, at this point, Obama is such a brazen liar -- understanding that his media lap dogs will never call him on even the most outrageous, mendacious, hallucinatory prevarications -- that he can say anything about the magical properties of the health care bill.  The unending torrent of glib falsehoods that flow from his lips is breathtaking to watch, like listening to my five year old, with chocolate frosting smeared on his face, as he calmly assures me: "Daddy, let me be clear.  I did not eat the cake.  No, because I don't even like cake.  I don't even like soogar.  I eat soogar but I don't like it.  I think I saw the cake fly around the room, and out the window.  Then Riley ate it.  Plus, when we eat the cake, we make the cake lots bigger, so there's more for you and mommy and everyone to share. Ok, silly Daddy?" 

I have to paraphrase Obama's short victory speech, because my ears were filling with blood and I couldn't hear everything, but I think I caught the high points:  

My friends and fellow Americans.  This is a great day.  An historic day.  I received a lovely card from my friend Hugo Chavez, which said: 'Way to go, hombre.  You are a man of the peoples, a  revolutionary like Che.  Keep up the excellent work, my skinny comrade!'  I'll cherish that.  But this is not about me.  It's about Government by the people, Government for the people, Government around the people, Government tightly embracing the people, Government transforming the people.  This is what change looks like.  Let me be clearer than clear: As I have said many times before, during my hundreds of speeches in opposite world, this health care bill will reduce premiums, lower the deficit, grow giant chocolate bean stalks, insure all Americans, cost nothing, largely end genocide in Africa, not only provide better medical care, but indeed, invent medical care that doesn't even exist yet, like five second brain-cloning and underwater rhinoplasty, make time travel a reality, turn ugly people beautiful, make fat people bulimic, end the conflict in the Middle East, make abortions a truly festive occasion to be enjoyed by unwanted babies of any trimester, and mandate that all fat cat Wall Street bankers contract Ebola.  Now my affable cats paw, Mr. Gibbs, will take some questions. 

"Yes, Mr. Gibbs, Fawning Supplicant from ABC News.  The President said that the health care bill will cause greedy bankers to contract Ebola.  How and when will that happen?"
(Gibbs) "Well, Mr. Supplicant, you heard the speech.  Once the Ministry of Purifying Infectious Disease is in place, greedy bankers, and hopefully filthy rich CEO's -- that's part of the reconciliation package -- will start hemorraging blood from every orifice."
"That sounds great.  But, isn't Ebola contagious? Won't it spread to Main Street?"
(Gibbs, shuffling notes) "No.  Uh, we've had the Ebola, um, Ebola Inspector General certify that no subjects  living on Main Street will be infected.  And, if they are, they should eat, um, lots of organic arugula and they'll feel all better.  All right, no more questions.  The President has to revise his March Madness picks, and then attend a meeting with the Prime Minister of Israel where he will explain that Israelis must stop patronizing Sbarro's pizzerias and riding on buses, because constantly getting blown up is fostering the cycle of violence in the region."

We laugh so as not to cry.                      

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.

              

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.