You need a myface page (like you need another hole in your head)

I finally got on facebook this weekend and I can’t believe it.  I can’t believe I’ve waited this long to find such a colossal way to dispose of time. 

I really had no idea.  I had no idea that  stumbling instructionless through cyberspace could turn-up so many lost friends and relatives.  Here is where they’ve all been and why none of them will ever return an email or pick up their phones.  

Why bother with obsolete one-on-one communications when you can just as easily “share” it on your wall and enjoy the group mind at work?  Nevermind that not everyone on the planet is on myface.  Some are on spacebook.  And some aren’t even on that, although this is hard for some people to believe.

 And oh the shame, the shame of my late entrance to the party.  Not to mention the irritation.  Couldn’t those who had arrived earlier have left a little crumb trail or provided any warning?  

They could have warned, for example, that maybe signing up all your friends before trying out the software isn’t the smartest.  But that’s exactly what fb has you do: get’s you linked in to your entire network without so much as a single instruction as to who is receiving what.   Then you get to publically fumble around trying to learn the inane ways of their crabby little website.  Since helpful explanations aren’t exactly jumping off the page to bite you on the ass, it’s a hit or miss prospect - with an audience.  That is so messed up.

The good news is, starting facebook inspired me to come post a Bad Apple for the first time in way too long.  Apparently, one colossal “use” of cybertime can lead to another.

The Six Million Dollar Tooth

“We can rebuild it, we have the technology.” That’s what the dentist said.  What she didn’t say was how many times the tooth in question would need to be built and rebuilt, but what do you expect from a bionic tooth?  It’s going to need some upkeep.  What do you think, you just throw six mill at the tooth and it’s over?  The maintanance IS the real cost.

“It will be stronger, tougher, and chew faster than any tooth in history,” she promised.

Cut to the Bionic Man music.  My generation can attest to the power Steve Austin had over our young minds.  That’s why I have named my tooth Steve.  Any tooth willing to undergo that many procedures for his country is my kind of tooth!

Extraordinary Cannibal Chickens

Things had been surprisingly quiet around here since a certain brown paper package arrived in the mail last month.  Seeing how the cannibal chickens took a major hit in their 401k of late, they seemed to be taking it far too well.  Except for the dark bags and circles around their cocks combs, they seemed about as content and at peace as any chicken who eats chicken can hope to be or should expect. 

What was the secret behind the gentle satisfaction that had crept into their clucks?  What was in that paper package, and could I have some?

Got BARF? Blogger Afflicted by Realworld Facts Syndrome

Has the real world afflicted your Bloggerness?  I myself have a raging case of BARF, aka Blogger Afflicted by Realworld Facts.  My blogger equilibrium has been ruined for months now, and I’m so sorry.   It really sucks to have to try to get a blogger groove going again after all my previous BARFing around earlier this fiscal year. 

Bloody hell, it’s like three steps forward three miles back, have you noticed?  And it’s all the fault of those greedy gas executives.  Okay, maybe I can’t claim a direct line between my inability to post with the price of gasoline, but it does explain my obsession with attempting to level my transportation spending by genetically manipulating old Hank over there. 

Not that I have the time to feed self and horsecraft anymore, or the money.  I for one find it exceedingly exorbitant to house body, soul and Hank/horse-hybrid in a Left Coast locale.  Why, life has become downright untenable out here Cal-lee-for-niy-aye Way.  

That’s why I plan to freeze myself and Hank-horse over there, here and now, in the prime of life (for me anyway – Hank’s another story).  Imagine the wonder when we awake un-aged, woman and centaur, in a kinder, more evolved future. What do you think? Want to make it a group date?

I’ll try to keep posting more before my date with The Big Freeze (just in time for the holidays!). Because BARF must be conquered one post at a time.

Go Go Girls of the Apocalypse is GOOD

Go Go Girls of the Apocalypse is so funny, you will forget it’s actually about the apocalypse!  I mean, after a while you are like, “This is so satisfying and so unpredictable and such a fun read, but… there is this little voice I can barely hear at all that is tapping me on the shoulder at the edge of consciousness saying:” “Yeah, but this is about the end of the world.”

But hey, if you gotta have an end of the world, (and lately I wonder if it has to be sooner than later) you can go a lot worse than to spend it with Victor Gishler and his Go Go Girls of the Apocalypse. 

Don’t let the buzzards get you down

One day we’re all going to be old, if we aren’t dead already.  And then we are all going to look back at our lives, if we can remember them.  Finally, we’re going to have the time to sort out what we should have done, only it will be way too late.  So the only thing to do is to get in touch with your inner old person, now, while you still have a chance to make a change.

Every person has an old geezer living inside of them, some crotchety old jerk who’s gonna give their opinion whether you ask for it or not. You may have stuffed him, or her, into an interior mental hamper to shut them up.  But if you really want to be happy, you have to let them out so they can freely bitch and complain about the crap you’ve made of your life so far.   

Here’s what you do: Imagine yourself on your death bed for a while, and think about what you would have liked to do with your one sweet life, if you could take it all back now and live it over again.  Remember, you are about to die, which really sucks, so you must be super pissed-off about the things you didn’t get to do — I mean, I for one am probably going to be so mad by that point, I’m going to be ready kill someone, only, I’m going to be too weak to even kill a fly by then. 

Fortunately, I’m still plenty young and strong enough to kill an entire freight-load of flies if I wanted. That’s why this exercise is so amazingly worthwhile to do, if you don’t wait until too late.

Now, come back to the present.  Wow, you are so happy not to be nearly dead!  You are alive and actually years and years away from croaking of old age!  You can do stuff!  You can make changes.  The bed you’ve made of your life so far does not have to be the one you sleep in.   Do you see how that you can turn things around now?  In fact, your inner geezer demands it!!

After your inner geezer has had this chance to share this valuable lesson, it’s probably time to stuff them back down the ol’ hamper again.  You don’t need any more people in your head criticizing you.  There’s enough people outside your head ready to do that.  Remember where you stuff the old person you, though, because you always want to keep in mind where you’re really headed.  How does the saying go, live life like you get to live forever but every day’s your last chance. Something like that.   

And when other people start to mess with you, you can always bring out the old-person-you to give um an earful.  It’s good to have an old person on your side like that, because old people have a lot of experience, and when they’re right they’re so right.

The way I figure, when I’m older I’m either going to be wiser or more bitter — one or the other.  I like the wiser option.  Bitter doesn’t wear well on most people.

You’re always finding out who You is, all the time.

Not to get too philosophical on you, but sometimes we all need a proverbial shot in the ass, don’t you think?  A curative prick of vitamin real, anything to remind us that in the great opera of life everyone gets only one chance to sing their swan song and get it right.

It’s like life is a mini-series and you are the co-writer, star and costume design.  You get absolutely no rehearsal; There will be no editing.  It’s all up to you whether you create a captivating tale, performed to perfection, or a dull reel, destined for the dust bin of eternity.  No pressures, mate — we all know that paralytic fear is anathema to a good life well-lived.

To complicate matters, you also must constantly play an extra in everyone else’s life-mini-series, plural.  You have a few larger roles, as well, sometimes playing the spouse, the friend, the co-worker, the boss, the employee, the customer, etc.  Look at all the parts you have to play!  You never are given any lines.  You must completely improvise based on this character you have been assigned and co-created with the universe, a character I will simply call ”You.”

And who is this You?  Well, sometimes it seems You could be anybody.  Other times, this You character appears overly determined by the situation You was handed, i.e. the script.  In reality, You is fluid and contradictory.  You are always finding out who You is, all the time.  Mostly it’s a hit or miss thing.  You try something, something changes, and you see if You is happy or not.  Often, You’s most unhappiest moments are the clearest indication to you of what this You person really wants.  (This is where that proverbial shot in the ass comes in handy, as well.)

My relationship to my own You character, which I will call “Me,” can be closely compared to a computer game I used to have where you get to plan your own Roman empire from scratch.  You start by creating a city, and you have to decide how many temples versus how many city walls to build.  Because if you don’t manage to keep your people happy with temples and stuff they riot and tear everything up, and if you don’t build enough walls the invaders come and tear everything up anyway. 

That’s Me, all over.  I keep putting up temples and walls, trying to make this insatiable Me person happy, secure, and not tearing shit up, figuratively speaking.  I haven’t managed to get past the city level, in the game or life, in part because I can never figure out how to collect enough taxes to satisfy and/or fend off the various external and internal angry mobs/Me’s.  If only I thought I could buy Me off as easily as my virtual Roman citizens, I would know what to devote myself to — more money for more temples and walls, of course. 

But alas, in the game of life, money buys nearly everything else, but we all know there’s no shopping for lasting happiness.  That you have to work for, and it doesn’t really come very easily much of time.  It’s a moving target. 

So in the end, I suppose what I’m finally saying here is that life is a great kill-less hunt for happiness and self-discovery.  And I for one am stringing my bow and otherwise preparing for the next season in the great happiness hunt slash mini-series episode starring Me.  Only, I hope I don’t accidentally hit anybody with this thing, there are an awful lot of extras hanging about on my happiness hunting grounds. 

The Future is Fondue

It’s 2008, and I’m just going about my weekly round of Get Your Ass to Work Days with my nose down and my spirit out to lunch. Soon I may settle down and start contemplating resolutions, but for now all future plans bubble and burble in the primordial ooze of my unconscious, which I imagine to be the texture and flavor of a dairy-free chocolate fondue. 

2008 is going to be great.  It rhymes, so it must be true.  Bad Apple’s gonna break it out in Oh Eight, bet your bippy.  This is the year we become our own super heroes standing on the shoulders of all the super-freaks who’ve ever busted a move sideways and backwards. 

The way I see it, we’ve all got to get working on our inner fondue game, then throw a party that re-invents melting-pot plate tectonics, testing new combinations of ways to enjoy the many unusual pathways to that elusive but inclusive property we all call “delicious.”

Why in heck did god or darwin give us these incredibly-intricate fondue-makers, anyway??  Why provide such a complicated contraption when a simple double-boiler could have done the job?  We moderns barely browse the surface potentiality of our fondueing faculties.  Even Einstein is said to have only used ten percent or so of his appliance.  

It seems we haven’t even stumbled upon the use for 90 percent of the most complicated mechanism the universe ever spat out, and for all we know, 2008 may be the year we discover it!  So let’s all try to eat well and get enough rest so we’re in a good mood when that happens, what do you say?

Comatose for the Holidays

About sometime yesterday, my spirits began to lift inexplicably as if a dark cloud was dissipating.  Then I realized my improved mood wasn’t inexplicable at all — I was experiencing post-holiday season euphoria.  Soon I’d be back at work without so much as a Santa Claus or a Christmas tree to remind me of the darkest days of the year.

This year, I decided that the next best thing to spending Christmas in a Muslim country is to spend it working and making oodles of money without even enough time to think about the holidays and their brain-sucking processes.  But even two weeks in Morocco can’t compete with my best holiday-escewing idea ever: spending latter December in a nice, restful coma. With a little support from the public, I believe Comatose for the Holidays is a dream we can realize in this lifetime.

Imagine giving the gift of no-gifts, no parties, no memories: Give the gift of a temporary coma to your holiday-hating loved ones or even treat yourself!  Imagine slipping away from the world sometime in late November and rejoining us in early January thinner, totally rested, and without having spent a mint on senseless junk.

Forget about pesky New Years plans – the pressure to have fun, fun, fun.  There is nothing more fun than sleeping through the worst time of the year and waking up a million times better off than everyone facing the new year ravaged by holiday expectations. 

So what do you say folks?  Do I have any takers for Comatose for the Holidays?  We can make it a time share, and offer services for other unpleasant times.  Imagine the convenience of being able to tell your boss/judge/spouse: “But I was in a coma.”

I highly recommend you get in on the bottom floor of this up and coming enterprise in the brand new Good Excuse Industry.

Holidays: A Timeless Pull Down the Year’s Drain

Holidays rarely if ever thrill me, but why do the end of the year “festivities” have to drag on for months, dooming an otherwise perfectly-good cold dark miserable season?  Isn’t it bad enough old father time went from infancy to dodderdom in one little year, and that we have get our tax crap tied up on top of all the melty moments at parties to endure, pre-paid in one of the season’s thousand ridiculously-long lines.  Where in the world do all these folks come from this time of year, and why are they all in my grocer’s parking lot? Just one of the many mysteries of the season.  

Then there’s the office party, a political obstacle course that you run with several deviled eggs balancing on the end your plate; the endless wondering over what to get who and who to get anything; the forced time together with the strangers you haven’t seen since the last holiday (ie your “family”); in other words, the pure fun of the season.

If the stress of the holidays gets you down, well, hey, there’s always some time-tested holiday entertainment to get you out of your funk.  Only unfortunately, you’ve seen the Nutcraker about fourteen hundred times too many, and you aren’t under 18, so probably none of the holiday entertainment will actually appeal to you. Oh well.  There’s always the bars to hit, as long as they don’t force you to join in singing Christmas carols.  Can’t there be a law against that? 

As for me, even though I really can’t stand Thanksgiving above all, I lately have found it’s important to look for things to be thankful for in the world.  Why? Because otherwise I start to grow so hellashiosly negative and nasty that people begin to treat me like a social canker sore, and that is the last thing I need as the dark days start to crowd my head-space.  So I’m damn grateful to have at least one thing to be awfully grateful about this time of year, and that is the best holiday movie ever, hell, probably the best holiday anything ever: Bad Santa.  Man, that’s one funny flick!

So as you might imagine, I’ll be enjoying a little much-needed downtime this holiday season, just me, Hank and the cannibal chickens.  I’m trying to turn them on to Tofurky, as part of my new year resolution to reduce the monthly household guilt bill.  I can’t keep running to KFC at 3 am all the time.  If I see one more chicken bucket full of chicken-scoured chicken bones I swear, I’m gonna be sick.