I go through fazes with fast food. Sometimes I eat it way too often. Sometimes I don't eat it for months on end. I see each restaurant on a continuum, ranging from the healthiest options on one end to the worst options on the other. McDonald's, for me, is the absolute worst. Not only is it horrible for you, but I hate both the taste and the smell. I distinctly remember the last time I ate at McDonald's. It was in the summer of 1995 and I was in Salem, Oregon. I had a large order of fries and a Diet Coke.

Subway, on the other hand, is my gateway drug. I can go to Subway with the intention of getting a six-inch veggie sandwich, only to walk out with a footlong meatball sub with olives, onions, and extra cheese, which is pretty much the same thing as eating half a pizza.

What I'm driving at is that I go to Subway a lot. And every single time I go there, I come out with a story. I've shared some of them here before. Here are a few more.

Worst Sandwich Ever
The worst sandwich I've ever seen someone order at Subway was a six-inch cold-cut combo on white bread with iceberg lettuce and mayonnaise, with the cold cuts heated up in the microwave.

A very old woman ordered this, and I believe that the microwave part happened because she thought she should have it heated up so as to get her money's worth, yet felt like having the whole sandwich toasted was just too much trouble for the sandwich artists. The life-lesson here is that when you combine Midwestern stinginess with Minnesota nice, you end up eating a nuked bologna sandwich with lettuce.

Die! Die! Die!
There's always someone annoying in front of me at Subway. This is one of life's constants. Once I had five people ahead of me and waited for about 15 minutes. When the woman directly in front of me stepped up for her turn, she said, "Hm. Now let's see ... what do I want ... ?"

Then there was the 30ish woman who spent her whole turn preemptively screeching at her amazingly well-behaved children and silent husband because, well, that's what you're supposed to do in her world I guess. "OK, you can go get a bag of chips ... JUST ONE BAG OF CHIPS, SKYLER! ONE BAG! DO YOU UNDERSTAND?! TOM, GET OVER THERE AND MAKE SURE SHE JUST TAKES ONE BAG! JESUS, TOM, ARE YOU DEAF?"

Most recently, the woman in front of me ordered three or four footlong subs (these people always do) and went into great detail about which veggies she wanted on each of them, then realized she had it all wrong and made the worker take off the veggies and start over. The worst part was that she said the word "jalapeños" about 15 times, but pronounced it "hallapeenos." I wanted to smother her to death with an Italian BMT (which incidentally does not stand for "bacon, meat, and tomatoes").

Utter Confusion
One of Subways strengths in my mind is also the thing that strikes terror into the hearts of many of its patrons: the variety of choices. I've seen so many people stop stone solid in fear when given the power to choose their own toppings.

"Well, what's supposed to go on it?" they always ask. The person behind the counter then explains that they can have whatever they want. This is when the real paralysis sets in. "Uh ... um ... lettuce and tomatoes I guess," they say, falling back onto standard Whopper-toppings, a relative comfort zone. Maybe next time they'll go for something crazy like pickles. Maybe.

Side note: I never get lettuce on my subs, which is apparently rare, because no matter which Subway I go to, and no matter who's working, they always ask about the veggies with their gloved hand already buried in the lettuce. But I don't want any, dude! I'm a Subway expert!

Maybe every business is like this. I don't know, whatever. I'm sure good things do happen at Subway. Hell, I met my girlfriend at Subway. But I just think that it's one of those places that attracts the weird.

It's damn good fast food, though. Damn good.

Last year I didn't even take my phone books inside. It seemed wrong to just pick them up off the porch and toss them directly into the blue bin, but this when new garbage starts piling up on top of old garbage, you finally have to start admitting that it is all utterly useless rubbish.

I wish the people who make phone books would finally admit that it's no longer 1985.

I stole this can cozy during the Grandma's Marathon celebration circa 1997. It reads "Turbodog." I have no idea what that means.

A couple of nights ago while I was doing my midnight shopping at Cub Foods, I saw a woman in her mid-50s, slightly grungy looking, wearing a Barack Obama button and browsing the rack of foam can-cozies. And they say Obama has no supporters in the white lower class. Here was a Jane Sixpack who obviously doesn't cling to guns or religion.

I didn't stick around to see which can cozy she chose, which sassy slogan she found most suitable for her lifestyle and attitude. She didn't seem like the rambunctious party type, so I doubt she chose "I have a drinking problem: two hands, one mouth." She seemed too nice for something like, "U toucha my beer, I breaka u face." If I had to guess, I'd say she went for "Born to fish, forced to work."

All of this got me to thinking about can cozies and can-cozy culture. Personally, I'm not very picky about the temperature of my beverages, and at home I rarely even put my beer in the fridge. But I'm weird that way. I can see how using a can cozy could be practical, especially if you're out in the backyard on a warm day, playing horseshoes with the extended family. In addition to keeping your drink cold, it could help you keep track of which can is yours.

It's the slogans that really baffle me, though. They're always the same slogans, whether they're on cozies, T-shirts, or baseball caps, and they're very popular among the WalMart set. I know people just like to hear the same jokes over and over (which also explains the popularity of Eddie Murphy's last twelve movies) but I like to imagine that people are choosing these slogans for more practical reasons. Somewhere out there right now, someone is saying, "I was going to ask Bill to help me move, but his can cozy indicated that he's retired and that I shouldn't ask him to do a damn thing."

I remember being in a hardware store once with my dad when I was a kid. He held up a length of foam pipe insulation, scratched his chin, and smiled. "I think this is the exact diameter of a can," he said. He plopped down some ridiculously small amount for it -- something like 39¢ -- and took it home. Sure enough, he was right. So he sliced that thing up on the band saw, and suddenly we had about eight new can cozies.

I was on a Pepsi kick that summer (it was "The Choice of a New Generation™" at the time) so I used the homemade cozies to keep my soda cold while I shot hoops in the backyard and fantasized about all the money I could make by cutting up foam pipe insulation into can-sized slices, painting them with my own wacky slogans, and selling them at a ridiculous markup.

I don't think my fantasies extending into the realm of actual slogans. But even off the top of my head, I still think I could do better than the 15 or 20 established slogans that you see everywhere. How about, "My other beer is fuller"? Or, "This machine destroys boredom"?

Better yet, how about an image of the tab on top of the can with the slogan, "Turn it to the side"?

Hm. If you need me, I'll be at the hardware store.

Four months ago, without notice or ceremony, I disabled the commenting system on this blog. I didn't have a problem with the people who routinely commented on this blog specifically (far from it, actually -- my commenters were consistently intelligent and funny). My problem was, and remains, the idea of commenting at large. Every day, I hate it just a little bit more. And every day, I hate the human race even more than that.

Some posts truly are conversations. And don't get me wrong -- I enjoy spirited debate as much as or possibly more than the next person. Hell, I even run a site that's practically devoted to conversation. But for the most part, comments are just a useless and increasingly annoying part of the web that bloggers, corporations, and site administrators seem to find absolutely necessary in this Web 2.0 era.

I think the type of comments I loathe the most are the ones found on newspaper websites. Overall, they read like a transcript of AM talk radio, only without a host. These people come across -- almost without exception -- boorish, asinine, and flat-out stupid. They make me cringe with shame, and whenever I read them, I become more and more frightened for the world we live in because these people can vote! And if you should ever be wrongfully accused of a crime, these people will make up the jury of your peers! Right this second, most of them are at home passing their values on to their children!

My suspicion is that newspapers allow these comments on their websites because they know that it drives up their hit-count. I know I read them every day, even though I agree with absolutely none of them and they absolutely disgust me. Also, whenever someone cuts me off in traffic, I pull up next to them at the next stoplight so I can get a good look at the asshole. It's a similar behavior, and I admit that I'm part of the problem.

Another loathsome type of commenter is the uninformed helper. Try this: Next time something goes wrong with your computer, or your car, your German shepherd, or your meatloaf, go online and Google the problem. Chances are, you'll find a slew of blogs and message boards where someone has posted about having the exact same problem you're having. They've made the mistake of reaching out to the commenting community on the internet.

Usually, the first commenter will suggest something imbecilic, such as "Are you sure your computer is plugged in?" or "Maybe you put the meatloaf in the fridge instead of the oven. I DID THAT ONCE!" As if that isn't bad enough, the second comment will often post, "I don't know." I. Don't. Know. People actually take the time to read a help request they know nothing about, then log in, and post that they don't know. Well, thanks, kind sir. Because I was indeed talking directly to you.

I'd like to give a special mention to a certain person who, while he isn't by any means the worst commenter who ever could be, sticks in my mind like a gritty, sandy irritant. I think it was about two years ago, when I posted a photo on my Flick account. In between the time it took to put in the title and tags after I uploaded the photo, someone I did not know or have any connection to posted a complete critique of my apartment in the background of the photo. What he liked, what he didn't like, what I should change, etc. Like I said, I didn't know him, and he didn't know me. I just happened to have the most recent photo on Flickr, and he clicked on it. Way to make friends and influence people, buddy.

Lastly, there's lowest common denominator: the scourge of the internet, the "me-too" commenter. While these people have been around since the net began, they've taken on a new level of sophistication since blogs boomed in popularity a few years ago. Now the me-too commenter is a blog whore who skims blog posts for a general idea, which they turn into a bland, inane comment, all so that they can get their own name out there as much as possible. You can frequently spot them, because often it's obvious that they haven't read the post or the other comments very closely if at all. It's just shameful and annoying, and I want it to end. I fear, however, that it's only beginning.

In concept, comments would be a good idea if they actually did promote community and debate. And that's possible. They can, in some rare cases. But for the most part, they're a tool to drive up hits. Their relative anonymity and lack of responsibility tend to bring out the worst in people.

Not everything needs to be a conversation.

Last week, my cousin asked me if I was going to attend my nephew's wedding on Saturday. "No," I said. "I have to work all weekend." Another woman who was standing nearby was incredulous.

"You're working instead of going to a wedding?" she said.

"His own nephew's wedding!" my cousin said.

The truth is, I didn't even know about my nephew's wedding that Saturday. Oh, sure, I got an invitation in the mail a month or so beforehand, which I put on an table somewhere intending to RSVP. But of course I never did. I forgot all about it, and when the day came, I hadn't taken it off or bought a present, or anything even close to that.

I felt bad. Then I remembered that I'd never attended any of my nephews' or nieces' weddings. I'm not sure whether that made me feel better or worse. But it made me understand myself a little bit better.

I can't believe that there are people so together that when they receive a wedding invitation, they actually RSVP, then go out and purchase a present, get dressed up, and attend the wedding. With a guest! Chances are, they don't even get drunk at the reception and knock over the ice sculpture either. These people are like aliens to me.

It's not that I don't care. I do care. When someone gets married, I wish them the best of luck, and would happily do so in person if only I could remember it was happening. The thing is, I'm 35 years old now, and my mind has been operating in this way for a long, long time. If you're getting married, I would like to receive an invitation, but I can't promise to attend or even to RSVP. I may attend. You never know.

Here are some other issues I'd like to get out in the open, as long as I'm on the topic.

» Unless you're on Facebook, I don't know when your birthday is.
It pains me to say this, but I have no idea when any of my siblings were born. I know the approximate season, and maybe the month, but that's as close as I can come. I know my dad's birthday, but only because it's September 11. (I honestly even forgot that every year from 2002-2005, somehow.)

» If your utility company doesn't have an online bill pay option, or better yet an auto-pay, don't expect me to pay you until you shut something off.
Seriously, though, this isn't my fault. It's two thousand goddamn eight. Do you actually expect me to write a check, put it in an envelope, go to the Post Office to buy a stamp, and mail your money to you? How cute. Yes, I realize that I work at the Post Office, and don't think the irony is lost on me. And don't think I don't have to stand in line for an hour like everyone else. Off the clock.

I don't want to be this way, necessarily. But more and more, I'm realizing that this is how I am. Please don't hate me, and also, I beg you, please don't reciprocate.

Christa recently wrote about the Get-Him System, a pamphlet she ordered from an ad in Teen magazine when she was in junior high. The Get-Him System detailed "how to get the boy you want and keep him," which turned out to be a list of completely obvious advice such as "be yourself" and "laugh at his jokes."

Sure, it sounds completely obvious at first, but when I think about it, it might not be. If today's teenage girls are using the current lineup of shows on MTV as their guide, for example, they might believe that the way to get guys is to behave as a totally antisocial bitch who constantly nags everyone within earshot at top volume while demanding cosmetic surgery and bemoaning their entire 101 pounds of fatness and ugliness. The college girls who live on my block certainly seem to subscribe to the MTV standard, so it's not difficult to believe that some of these kids could benefit from some painfully transparent ideas.

"Be yourself" is good enough for teenagers (or better yet, as Kurt Vonnegut once advised, "wear nice clothes and smile a lot"). But this got me thinking about single people my own age. What advice can I give to them, based on my own experience as well as that of my friends and acquaintances?

I now present to you, absolutely free of charge and without waiting 12-16 weeks for delivery:

The Get-Him (or Her) System 2.0: Dating Advice for People in Their 30s

» Don't be married.
I am absolutely serious here. When people in their 30s date, there's nothing hotter than finding out that a potential mate is not currently married to anyone else. If your online dating profile contains phrases such as "married and cheating" or "taken and flirting," or if one of your turn-ons is "discretion," the best thing you can do is get a divorce, separate all your belongings, enroll in therapy for awhile, spend some time enjoying your new independent life, and then attempt to attract the girl or guy of your dreams. Just sayin'.

» Don't be creepy.
There are several types of people in the dating pool as grown adults. Some have been married and divorced. Some are shy. Some are picky. Some have been focusing on other things, such as a career.

And then there are many -- most, one might say -- who are creeps.

If you are not a creep, this is great news for you. While on one hand it does mean that you will have to wade through batches and batches of creeps to find the one that you want, it also means that you are intensely desirable. Aren't sure whether or not you are a creep? Here are some clues.

-- The number of cats in your home reaches into the double digits.
-- When you are feeling romantic, your thoughts turn to diapers, animals, excrement, or any combination thereof.
-- The health department has ever been called to your place of living.
-- Your bed has more than five dolls or stuffed animals on it.
-- You have any valid restraining orders against you.

There are multitudinous other signs that you are creepy. These are only some of the most common. If you are a creep, or a borderline creep, don't fret. There's someone for everyone. However, the less creepy you are, the better your chances are at attracting someone. So don't just act normal. Be normal.

» Have a job and an apartment
By now, you may feel that I'm setting the dating bar very low. I'm not. In fact, I'm just being realistic. Eligible, single, employed people in their 30s who don't live with their parents are indeed hard to come by. Nothing sets a potential partner's mind at ease more than discovering that their date actually dressed his or herself in their own place, drove to the restaurant, and is able to at least pay for their own meal with actual earnings.

If have a job that pays a living wage and you own your own home, you might want to consider charging people to date you.

» Wear clothes purchased in the current century
Listen. I realize you're excited when you look at the Gap ads and discover that some of the cuts and styles that are popular now are similar to things that you still own and wear. However, this doesn't mean that we can't tell that you first wore your high-waisted jeans to Mrs. Hendrickson's fifth-period Algebra II class in 1989. Throw them in the Dumpster and have some effing pride.

Likewise you might want to ditch that banana clip and/or that Member's Only jacket. Seriously.

» Shave that molester mustache
And invest in some glasses that didn't come from Walgreens. Once again: Seriously.

» More than anything else, remember: Finding someone to love in your 30s is a lot like starring in one of George Romero's Living Dead movies. The first thing you need to do is convince everyone you're not a zombie and to find the other non-zombies. From there, it's extremely easy to figure out who you love and who you hate.

It took about 20 minutes after leaving Ely's Peak before I noticed the first tick. Luckily, it wasn't on me, but on Christa, and even more luckily, it wasn't on her skin, but on her sweatshirt. We had just pulled into the driveway and were getting out of my car when I saw the little demon. I picked it off and dispatched it, but it was then that I knew (flashing back to all the bushwhacking we'd done while leaving one trail and searching for another) that the tickiness had only just begun.

Like good, clean citizens who would rather not contract Lyme disease or walk around with something resembling a white jelly bean attached to their foreheads, we inspected ourselves as soon as we got in the door. Nope. Nothing. Not a tick on board. Still, I was skeptical.

Crawling through the ticky woods of Northern Minnesota in springtime is not always a delight. I remember one time several years ago, when a friend of mine found something like 23 ticks after we returned from an afternoon hike. I got luck again that time -- I only had six. That was probably the most I've ever had, even though I've done quite a bit of hiking, backpacking and camping in my time. The only thing I can possibly attribute it to is that I eat a lot of garlic.

Anyway, you want the horror story and that's what I'm here to write so here it is. After inspecting for ticks, I took a shower and we went out to dinner. Then we came home and watched a movie and went to bed. About two hours later I woke up, scratched my belly, and bam -- there was a tick.

I don't know if you've ever removed a tick .64 seconds after you woke up from a dead sleep, but let me tell you, it usually doesn't involve tweezers and a careful inspection of where the head meets the abdomen, like all the pamphlets tell you. I grabbed that little fucker and yanked it like I was free-falling 50,000 feet in the air and pulling the ripcord. I leaped up, stumbled into the kitchen and burned his eight-legged ass. Then I crawled back into bed and slept the sleep of the just.

But in the days since all of this happened, here's what I've come to find out. When you grab a tick and yank it out of your body, inevitably some of his body, namely his head, stays where he buried it. Also, when you grab a tick by the abdomen really hard, he, like any rational being, spits the contents of his abdomen into whatever it is he's chewing on. All of this leads to a big, itchy, red skin-volcano that oozes goo until the goddamn bug head is expelled down onto the villagers below. And when you wake up in the middle of the night and find that, you have to leap out of bed once again and look up Lyme disease on WebMD until you're satisfied by their claims that you won't get it if you remove the damn thing within 36 hours. Plus you knew it was a woodtick anyway, not a deer tick, but that doesn't matter when you're looking at Mt. Vesuvius on your own abdomen at 4:39am.

I should have just delicately removed it, flicked it onto the old lady, and went back to sleep. That would have saved me a lot of trouble and worry.

In the middle of the night, roll over in your sleep, in such a way that the corner of your pillow catches the (full) water glass on your nightstand and dumps the entire thing directly onto your face.

I highly recommend it.

...I think if I was gonna be a gay porn star, my screen name would be B.J. Baracas.

"Why do people live in outlandish climates in the temperate zones, as they are miscalled? Because people are naturally idiots, naturally sluggards, naturally cowards. Until I was about ten years old, I never realized that there were "warm" countries, places where you didn't have to sweat for a living, nor shiver and pretend that it was tonic and exhilarating. Wherever there is cold there are people who work themselves to the bone and when they produce young they preach to the young the gospel of work -- which is nothing at bottom, but the doctrine of inertia. My people were entirely Nordic, which is to say idiots."

-- Henry Miller, Tropic of Capricorn

Awhile back, I had the idea to start this as a meme. Then I realized that I hate memes. I decided to start it anyway. Then I realized that I don't have comments, and that I really don't want to tag anyone because I prefer to read the stuff that people come up with on their own. Then I realized it didn't have to be a meme, that I could just write it on its own. So I guess it's a meme for one. A meme for ... me. Me.

Maybe you'll find it useful.

For watching TV online, I use Hulu
Hulu is pretty much a perfect model for online TV watchin'. It's free. It's legal. It requires very little effort to sign up. It works on a Mac (without Internet Explorer even!). Best of all, it actually works. Even though it's still kind of an infant, the selection is quite good. Most of the current programs are present, along with a slew of old stuff. While I'd like to see more than 3-5 episodes of The Simpsons and The Family Guy, there's still plenty of great content, including movies. Don't believe me? Here's The Jerk, in its entirety.

For mp3 downloads, I used eMusic
eMusic works like this: For $9.95 per month, you can download 30 songs. There's no DRM, meaning that you can use the mp3s on any player, and make as many CD copies as you want. Also, they never "expire" so you can also keep them forever. The one catch: If you don't use up your 30 downloads by the end of the month, you wasted them, because they don't roll over into the next month. The other catch: The selection leans heavily toward indie stuff, so you're not going to find any Justin Timberlake or Warrant for downloading.

For (quasi-legal) mp3 downloads, I use Hype Machine
This is an aggregator of sorts for music blogs. Whenever someone posts an mp3 to their blog, Hype Machine links to it. You can search for whatever bands or songs you're looking for, and if someone has uploaded it to their blog (whether legally or illegally) you can go there and grab it. I like to use this to find full-track samples of bands I'm not familiar with. If I find I like the sample song, I might go buy the rest of the album.

For general advice, I use Lifehacker
Think "Hints from Heloise" only for nerds. Lifehacker features great tips and tricks for tech stuff (about 80% of the site) as well as the real world (about 20%). You'll find information about various Firefox plugins next to instructions for jailbreaking your iPhone next to advice for organizing your sweaters. I really like it.

If anyone does decide to do this, let me know. I always like finding out about useful junk.

So I'm on my lunch break at work and I'm peeling an orange while reading the newspaper. I'm not looking at the orange at all, just peeling entirely by feel while I'm engrossed in whatever it is I'm reading.

When I finish peeling the orange, I separate it into two halves and then I finally look down at the orange and my hands and stifle a scream.

Ohhhh wait ... I remember ... this is a blood orange.

Here's another great idea of mine which will never come to fruition.

Every day I read the Duluth News Tribune's online version of the local newspaper. I also enjoy the blog News Tribune Attic, which features DNT photos and stories from years past.

My idea for a new DNT blog would be called "News Tribune Lineup." Each post would feature a crime story from a different month and year (e.g. July, 2004; February, 1988) along with five or six mug shots from that time. After reading the story, the reader would get to "Pick the Perp" and choose which mug shot belongs to the story.

See? It's fun, it's interactive, and it gets people interested in their community's history. I don't see why it wouldn't fly.

The best part would be the mug shots of civic leaders, local heroes, and DNT staff mixed in with the photos of criminals. Sorry, that isn't a photo of an arsonist from Two Harbors...that's former Duluth mayor Ben Boo. That isn't the Superior, WIs. man who put his mother down the garbage disposal...that's cub reporter Will Ashenmacher.

So I've been listening to a lot of new music lately. For the past few weeks, I've been kicking around the idea of starting an album review blog, simply as a means to keep track of everything I've been listening to. Then I realized -- hey! -- I already have a blog, on which I've reviewed plenty of things in the past, and there's no reason why I can't just start reviewing albums on that in addition to all the other BS I write throughout the week.

I guess the reason I'm making this post is to pass out some caveats. I'm not an expert in the album-review field. I'll probably write about things you've already read about and listened to yourself. You probably won't even want to read my reviews. That's OK. Mainly I'm writing them for myself, and subjecting them to you people because that's the way I like it.

Frequently I meet people in their 30s and 40s who still exclusively listen to the same music they liked when they were 16. I don't get that. I mean, sure, I still like Guns 'N' Roses, but there's only so many times I can listen to "Sweet Child O' Mine" in a day. I've moved on since then, and I like new things. But I understand...people are kind of lazy. It takes time and effort to seek out new stuff, and most people aren't willing to undertake it.

So I suppose if these reviews are to have an audience, I'd like it to be those people. The ones who don't know much about contemporary music at all, and aren't going to nitpick my taste to death. Maybe I'll inspire you to try out an album or two. Whatever. I'm just going to have fun with this attempt to listen to music more thoughtfully.

I'll try to write a review every week or so. Starting ... now.

I do. Seriously. I can think of no other group of people -- with the exception of blonde women in their early 20s who drive white Grand Ams -- who I prejudge more.

I don't mean to say that I hate Irish people individually. I don't. In fact, I can't say that I've ever met an Irish person that I disliked. Hell, even my girlfriend is a red-haired, green-eyed Irishwoman, although other than the first time we ever hung out, when she puked on my feet and then kept on drinking for another four hours, she doesn't really act Irish and she can even pass for white most of the time. No, what I'm saying is that I hate the Irish collectively. You know, as a class, or better yet as an idea. That's much better, isn't it? My hatred has a two-pronged reasoning.

First of all, despite the fact that I am neither Irish nor Catholic, I went to an Irish Catholic college. This was back in the early '90s when the music charts were crowded with Irish bands: U2, the Cranberries, the Waterboys, Sinead O'Connor. All of these were piped seemingly constantly into the student union and into every dorm room. To make matters worse, my school had a study-abroad program in Ireland, which meant that in every class I attended, I had to listen to patchouli-reeking sophomores say things like, "Well, from my experiences in Ireland I can tell you that ..." and "Something I learned from my extensive travels in Ireland was that ..." and "The Irish have a much stronger sense of ..."

In short, it was horrible.

Second, I don't understand the appeal of the American version of Irish pubs. At all. I don't understand what makes them "Irish," other than maybe serving Guinness on tap, and even that is a tall order in this part of the world. In fact, I guarrantee you that if you were to order a Guinness at every Irish bar around here, you'd be about 50% likely to get one, and 50% likely to be met with a blank stare. Right now someone is lamenting my lack of comments, because they want to tell me how provincial that is, and how in the large and cosmopolitan city in which they live, they have "authentic" Irish pubs. Listen: authentic is not synonymous with "good". Please try to wrap your yuppie brain around that, OK? For example, authentic Mexican food looks like diarrhea on a plate. Likewise, the authentic food of my ancestors is primarily made out of fish heads. I for one am not interested in "authentic" in and of itself.

That said, it's nothing the Irish have done or said that has made me theoretically hate them, but rather the image of them as seen through the American lens. When I think of Ireland, I don't think of beautiful, rolling hills and ancient Celtic ruins. I think of the frat boy in a green plastic derby staggering in my headlights on an icy March night, his sweatshirt stained with a swath of foamy teal vomit. I think of rock bands cashing in on "important" issues, hoping some of that importance will rub off on them. I think of some dreadlocked, clove-cigarette-smoking douchebag carrying a dirty and dog-eared, yet unread, copy of Finnegan's Wake around with him wherever he goes.

And that's really what I'm getting at here: In America at least, there seems to be this idea that if you take any mundane idea and add "Irish" to it, it becomes a great idea.

Hell, if I were Irish, I'd hate it all even more so.

The rest of the world is wearing it again.
Duluth is wearing it still.

(to P.A.L.)

Something has been weighing on my conscience lately. I'm not one to confess things online, but, well, this is something that I just can't bring myself to confess to you in person. I suppose that I could e-mail you a confession or even confess to you on the phone, but actually, I want witnesses for this. This is an untruth that I have been bearing for far too long.

I want you to think back to the winter of 1996. We went to some concert at the Amazing Grace together. I don't recall who was playing. Maybe it was an open-mic night or maybe some folk act. It doesn't matter. What matters is that we were sitting at a table near the wall when unbeknownst to you, I let the most horrendous fart ever known to humankind.

I say "unbeknownst" because you didn't know that it was me who did it. Now I'm thinking that it wasn't a folk act, because no acoustic guitar could have ever drowned out that sound. What I remember clearly is this: the valve of my colon opening as far as it would go, and then just staying that way for what seemed like a full minute as rancid air rushed from my body and curled through the cafe. At first, no one ... not even you ... had any idea what was going on. But I was in shock. Please remember that. I was surprised and mortified by just the feeling of it. And now when I look back, I think that was why I pretended that it wasn't me who let it.

I remember your face wrinkling as my intestinal gas reached your nostrils. You looked at me as if to say, "Eww." And then suddenly, when the full force of it hit you, your face exploded in horror. I pulled my shirt over my nose and mouth and buried my face in my hands. You tried to use your jacket as a filter. As I looked around, pretending to try and figure out who did it (as if I didn't know!) I noticed that everyone in the vicinity was doing the same.

Wisely, we got up and moved away from the epicenter, and headed to the other side of the room. It wasn't much better over there. We stood and watched the show for awhile until we got bored and decided to leave. Once outside, we didn't speak about it. I suppose I never knew whether or not you suspected me, but I truly believed that you thought it was someone else. I let you keep believing that, as I said, because I was awestruck by the power and intensity of my own stench, the likes of which I have never smelled since.

You know me very well. Well enough to know that I am not the kind of person who either brags about, or refuses to own up to, a colossal fart. And yet here I am, with my thumb firmly pressed against my forehead, half ashamed, half proud, undeniably asserting: "It was me, baby."

P.S. I had eggplant parmesan for dinner that night. That's probably what did it.

A few days ago, I was browsing some very old issues of the New York Times online, when I came across an article from Feb. 25, 1908 about the possible creation of a new police squad whose sole duty would be to shield high-society women from vagabonds. "Ever since Mrs. Herman Oelrichs and other women were insultingly spoken to by beggars while driving in Fifth Avenue the policemen have been keeping a special watch," the article states. "The unusual state of affairs on the avenue was brought forcibly to police attention when, several days ago, Mrs. Oelrichs was grossly insulted."

My first thought on the matter had to do with how much the world has changed since then, but that quickly disappeared when I started to fantasize about how awesome it would be to teleport back in time to 1908 New York, dress as a street urchin, and speak rudely to high-society ladies.

"Top of the mornin' to ya, Mrs. Astor! Say, you wouldn't by chance have a buffalo nickel or two for me wedged up your tight little starfish now would ya? P'rhaps I should climb up there in that carriage and have a look-see. Let me think, now, where did I put me crowbar?"

You know, whenever I go out to dinner and I see a table of about 3-5 young businessmen, and they're all drinking wine or cocktails, but each of them is eyeing the others sideways to make sure that they drink at the same pace as everyone else, and when it comes time for them to take their orders, they all order slight variations on if not exactly the same red-meat-based meal, and then they spend the rest of their time cracking jokes that aren't jokes while trying not to be the weak one of the bunch, secure in the fact that they own the right car and live in the right neighborhood and have the right haircut ...

Whenever I see a table of guys like that I do two things:

1) I thank Jesus that I escaped that fate by a very wide margin.
2) I wonder which one of them is going to go back to his hotel room and put in a butt-plug.

I have no way of knowing of course, but I think I probably guess correctly about 75% of the time.

Ponytailed guy: "I'm gonna go over to that jukebox and play something nasty. Something dirty and sexy. Something that'll make you want to go home and get played."

Disinterested girl: "What do mean, like, the Scorpions?"

After seeing my next-door neighbor talking on her cell phone on the porch today, I discovered something amazing. It turns out that if you are an extremely loud person, you don't have to hold your phone up to your ear at all! You can just hold it in your lap and yell at it! And if the person on the other end is just as loud as you are, you won't have any problem hearing them. In fact, your blogger neighbor will also be able to hear their every word, even as he walks halfway down the block to his car.

No more phone-ear or tired arms for me!

When you're sitting in the dark watching a horror movie and suddenly a pair of great horned owls start their mating ritual right outside your window ... that will scare the snot out of you.

Also: owls are really loud and absolutely huge. I guess I didn't really know that.

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Whenever I think I might end up going to the movies, I like to do a little bit of investigating before I go. This usually means looking up showtimes on my local newspaper's website. The thing is, I don't go to the theater very often, so when I see the titles, I don't recognize any of them.

What makes this even more interesting is that the Duluth News-Tribune's online movie descriptions don't include the names of the director or the stars. And let me tell you this: Every movie sounds good when you don't know who's in it or who directed it. You have to be very careful about this, otherwise you might find yourself plopping down $10 to unwittingly see something starring Vin Diesel.

When you take out the names of the actors like this, it's easy to see how such crappy movies get made. For example, even the Pauly Shore movie Jury Duty sounds like it might be funny if it's described without reference to its idiotic centerpiece: "An umemployed loser realizes that the free room and board he receives while serving on a sequestered jury is a great step up from his normal life, so he does everything in his power to stretch the trial out as long as he can." Sure, it's not Citizen Kane, but I can see how that story could be funny ... if it didn't star Pauly Shore.

I've mentioned before about how often celebrities can ruin the movies they act in or the music they play, simply by being themselves. The Terminator is a fantastic movie, but how much better would it be if it didn't star Arnold Schwartzenegger? He adds nothing to the movie, except his own presence, which the movie is great in spite of.

Recently, I saw Cloverfield, which I thought was a lot of fun. (I didn't experience any of the much-hyped "hype" that is mentioned in every review I've read since. I barely knew what the movie was about before I saw it.) I thought the unknown actors were every bit as good -- if not better -- than the celebs that would have played their parts if it had been a big-budget movie. I can just see Tom Cruise running around the streets of Manhatten with a camcorder. Ugh.

I say let's call for a new celebrity-free era in moviemaking. When I go to the theater, I go to see a movie. I don't go to see Tom Hanks.

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It takes a certain amount of effort for me to do nothing. It only happens on certain days, when I wake up and decide immediately that not only do I refuse to go anywhere or to do anything productive that day, but I'm not even going to allow myself to feel any guilt or regret about it. I get out of bed and walk over to the window where I blink a few times and say, "Meh. That world is for other people. Today I'll be sticking to the couch."

There are certain conveniences that make doing nothing more enjoyable. Digital cable is one. I recently discovered the on-demand channel, which I didn't realize I had, and even after I first found out about it, I didn't realize it was free. A laptop with wi-fi connects you to the world. The kind of coffee pot that you can bring into the living room helps. A large blanket is essential.

One of the best things about sloth is that, when done properly, it puts you in complete control of your life. Sure, the phone's ringing, but it's way over there. I can't, or rather, won't, be bothered with that right now. The last time I had a slothful day I ordered a pizza because I didn't feel like walking to the kitchen, and when the delivery guy just knocked on the door instead of walking in and putting the pizza on my lap, I actually felt a little bit annoyed. I had the money right there. I would have given him an extra dollar. They're going to have to start anticipating my needs if they want to keep getting my business. Delivery means delivery, people.

That said, unless you're wealthy enough to have someone constantly bringing you your every whim, you have to lower your expectations if you want to enjoy some genuine sloth. For the most part, you're limited to the resources you have on hand. Most worthwhile things require some kind of effort, and quite a few of them require you to put on a pair of pants. But that's OK, because sloth isn't about what you do; it's about what you don't do. It isn't about what you think, it's about what you don't think.

Sloth isn't an achievement. It's the absense of achievement. It's a thing of pure beauty.

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I'll admit that I'm a coffee snob. But I might not be the kind of snob that comes to your mind when you hear the words "coffee snob." Sure, I dislike Folger's, Arco, Maxwell House and the like, preferring the fresh-ground gourmet coffees whenever I can get them. But I've been known to suck back the freeze-dried swill on occasion, and if I'm in a diner I'm not going to forgo the coffee just because it's an old-person blend that comes packed in a can.

No, it's another, lamer, stickier kind of coffee that I hate. I hate specialty coffee drinks. And I hate them with every rapidly twitching cell in my nervous system.

Last time I was at a coffee shop, I found myself standing in a long line, behind and in front of massive pods of specialty-coffee drinkers. "ARE YOU PUTTING WHIPPED CREAM ON THAT?" the woman in front of me repeatedly screamed at the barista, clutching a cinnimon roll that was approximately the size of the average Bundt cake. "MAKE SURE YOU PUT PLENTY OF WHIPPED CREAM ON THAT!" Meanwhile, the women behind me clucked and cooed about the yogurt parfaits.

All I wanted was a goddammed cup of coffee. Black. To go.

More and more, baristas pause and look confused when you order plain coffee at a coffee shop. You want ... oh, ok. I think we have some of that ... let me check with the manager. He has the keys to the regular coffee urn.

I wish there was a coffee shop in town that just served regular (albeit fresh and good) coffee. There would be no desserts, and the coffee would cost 50 cents instead of four bucks. If you asked for anything else, they'd belittle you until you left in shame.

Someone would come in and say, "Can I get a snickerdoodle latte with extra ..."

"Listen," the barista would say. "Right now you should ask yourself, 'Do I really want to be that guy?' Because I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you're not that guy. Even though, right now, you're acting a lot like you're that guy. Now let's try this again. What do you want?"

I've been to bars out in the woods where the only thing they serve is Bud, Bud Light, and Seagram's 7 whiskey. If you ask for a gin and tonic, they'll laugh in your face. If you ask for a vodka and cranberry, they'll grab you by the back of your neck and haul you out the door. If you ask for a cosmopolitan, they'll reach under the bar and pull out the shotgun. I kind of like those places.

Coffee shops need to employ this business model. I'd go every day.

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On the rare occasions that I allow someone to freely roam about my house, I always try to impress upon them that anything they might decide to consume is almost certainly past its expiration date. They always make a sour face and attempt to wave me off, and that is when I sit them down, grab their shoulders, and look them straight in the eye.

"While you are in my apartment, if you put anything in your mouth without being very sure of its purchase date, chances are pretty good that you will end up in the emergency room."

My inability to keep up with expiration dates, freshness dates, purchase-before dates, and good until dates astounds me. It seems that I do everything that I can. I buy food in small quantities, even though all food seems to packaged with large families in mind. (Seriously, do you think that I personally need EIGHT bratwursts? Even if I wanted to personally eat all eight of those things before they expired, do you really think that I should?) Whenever I open something like a jar of pasta sauce, I write the date that I opened it on the jar lid. Occassionally, I've conducted small purges where I throw away the expired things I find. None of it matters. It's only a matter of time before we're right back where we started.

A few days ago Christa was making bread when she asked me if I had any baking powder. I said sure, found the baking powder in the pantry, and checked the expiration date.

February, 1998

"Well, honey, the good news is that I have baking powder. The bad news is that it expired when you were in college."

While I didn't check before throwing it away, I'm quite certain that there was exactly one tablespoon of baking powder missing from the can. That can has been with me through three moves. I could have thrown it away at any time, but instead, I packed it up, moved it to the new place, unpacked it, and reshelved it.

Suffice to say, I don't bake things.

In case you're wondering, I managed to find another can of baking powder in the pantry, and this one didn't even have a date on it. Christa tried it.

The bread turned out fantastic.

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The little girl had a staring problem to begin with. Something about me attracted her interest, so she was already gawking when I opened up the carton of eggs to make sure that none of them were broken. When she saw the eggs -- or rather the color of the eggs -- her eyes and mouth expanded to seven times their normal size.

"Momma! Did you know that eggs can be brown?" she asked her mother, who responded by practically jerking the little girl's arm right off her body, effectively saying while it might seem interesting that eggs can be brown and healthy, in this family we prefer our eggs white and plasticy. And while we're on the subject, have you started puberty yet? I don't care if you haven't finished kindergarten. We're gonna need to double your intake of bovine growth hormone-enriched milk immediately!

Christa calls me a hippie, which is ridiculous in the first place, and in the second place is like Weird Al calling Milhouse from the Simpsons a nerd. Sure, my shopping basket is usually half-filled with free-range, crunchy organic nuggets, but the other half is filled with what one of my blog commenters called "negative-nutritious grocery product...like anti-matter for the body." Besides, she ran on the cross-country team in high school and constantly wears a wool cap, so there.

From what I can gather, Christa's definition of "hippie" is someone who doesn't work at Wells Fargo, doesn't wear pleated Dockers, doesn't shut down all aspects of life to watch football all Sunday, and doesn't consider Applebee's to be a great place to take a date and/or meet up with friends for drinks. Personally, I wouldn't call this kind of person a hippie; I'd simply call them "normal" or maybe a "non-douchebag." In this way, we are a good match.

When I was a kid, there were two practically synonymous words that my parents used, that each described people of a dubious nature: one was "hoods" and the other was "hippies." Hoods were dirty people with long hair who rode motorcycles. Hippies were the same people, only they rode in VWs or travelled on foot. Both "smoked dope." I didn't know what that meant.

The first time Christa accused me of being a hippie, I was appalled. She pointed out my organic eggs. The "hippies" I know don't even eat eggs, I said, real hippies don't even eat geletin...real hippies don't even eat honey. Then I called her a jock. She practically choked on her own Gatorade.

I guess that among athletic types, calling someone a 'jock' is a lot like calling a mildly healthy eater/somewhat regular recycler a 'hippie.' These are extremes that you don't want to subscribe to.

While I might choose to brush my teeth with non-fluoride toothpaste and while I might choose to wear man-sandals, she runs every day and consistently wears mesh. And yet, while we both love to drink strawberry Fanta and watch TiVo, we also sometimes munch on Clif bars as we trod down the Superior Hiking Trail.

More than all of this, we both like coffee and the internet. I guess, more than anything, we're just geeky bloggers.

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I always expect the place where I live to burn down when I'm not home.

Back when I lived near the freeway (which was pretty much my whole life up until a few years ago) I'd crane my neck and expect the worst every time I had to ride by home on the interstate. On the school bus as a kid, in cars as an adult, I fully expected to my house or my building completely engulfed in flames whenever I saw it from a distance.

There's only one variation on that expectation: Sometimes, I expect it to just explode before my very eyes.

I thought I was over it, since the place where I live now isn't visible from any major road. Tonight, however, as I was driving down the hill, I saw a pillar of smoke rising from the general area of my neighborhood.

Great. I must've left the toaster plugged in.

Is everyone like this? Or is it just me?

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I often wonder why it is that I am so polite. I'm not bragging. It's nothing special to be polite, or at least it shouldn't be. Politeness is supposed to be one of those things you take for granted. Unfortunately, it's the exception rather than the rule.

Tonight as I walked into Subway, I politely thought about how cool the woman's jacket in front of me was -- a shiny satin jacket with the Pancho Villa logo on the back. Then I got a little closer. And that was when I started to hate humanity.

"What kind of cheese do you want?" the sandwich artist asked. Now, I've personally seen this question throw many people into fits of confusion. There are only three types of cheese at Subway, but for some reason people get surprised that they have a choice. This woman responded to the question in the only way she saw fit. She pulled out her cell phone and called a friend.

OK, OK. The sandwich was for her friend. But you'd think that all of this would have been worked out beforehand, or at least that she would have improvised. She didn't. Even when the friend didn't answer. No, she left a message. And then she said, "Can you make my sandwich while we wait for my friend to call back?"

I wanted to get her name and address, wait for her to get pregnant and give birth, and then punch her newly born child in the face.

In retrospect, however, I realize that this is my fault. It is my fault and it is your fault. Confronted with this situation, we're supposed to say, "Excuse, me, but you have no idea how rude you're being right now." It's like that scene in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home where Spock gives that kid on the bus with the boombox the Vulcan Nerve Pinch and everyone applauds. Everyone's thinking the same thing, but nobody wants to act on it.

Instead, I just sucked it up and dealt with it. The sandwich artist did the same, because that's his job. Then he was extra nice to me, recognizing me as a regular.

The friend never did call back. When it became clear that she could not hold up the line any longer without being absolutely ridiculous, she finally decided (appropriately) on the white American.

In all, I wonder if my life is better for putting up with the douchebags of the world, or if I'd get more satisfaction out of confronting them. I've done both, and yet, I'm still not sure.

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I can't tell you how excited I am about the summons I received yesterday to serve on a federal jury. I got one about a year ago informing me that I would be on call for a whole year, and now I guess I'm on call for a couple of months.

Truthfully, though, I have mixed feelings. While I do want to serve, I have always held that I personally would never want to be tried by a jury of my "peers." Not to sound snobbish or anything, but have you spoken with the average citizen lately? No? Here's a sociological experiment for you: Spend a little time hanging out in the snowblower aisle at Home Depot, and just eavesdrop for five or ten minutes. Now, would you want any of those jackholes deciding whether or not you're going to do time in prison? For that matter, would you want me making that decision? I didn't think so.

Less terrifying but more headache-inducing is the thought of deciding someone else's fate along with 11 other mouthbreathers you might see peeling back the bun and inspecting their slider at White Castle. I've seen enough Matlock to know exactly who's on those juries. The businessman who thinks the whole thing is cut-and-dry (guilty-as-charged!) and just wants to get back to work. The elderly black lady who spends the whole time knitting and slowly shaking her head. The middle-class housewife who's too timid to give her opinion. The guy in the red flannel shirt, who at the end of the trial we find out is actually the killer!

These concerns dampen but don't nullify my enthusiasm. As I said, I am excited to serve. Mainly because I'm the type of person who likes to be in on things. I like to know all the details. The story behind the story. And I enjoy being a good citizen.

The $40 per day, and $.97 milage, though, not to mention the chance to eat in the courthouse cafeteria, that's the sweet part of the deal.

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I'd like to thank LIttle Caesar's Pizza for opening a new "Hot & Ready" take-out restaurant next to my workplace. Adding to other healthy eating establishments in the neighborhood such as Burger King, Quizno's, and the Spur station's day-old weiner rotisserie, Little Caesar's fills a vast gap in the West End's food scene. Because until the arrival of the big LC, absolutely none of the area's food smelled like balls.

In no way am I suggesting that the people who work at Little Caesar's rub, dip, or otherwise nuzzle their meaty scrotums into, on, or against any of the pizzas that they sell. This is not a problem with an individual pizza, or even with this individual restaurant. The fact is that all Little Caesar's pizzas carry the strong, cheesy aroma of the human testis.

I will go even further. Not only do the pizzas smell like fuzzy love-nuggets, but the restaurants themselves smell the same way. Additionally, the entire atmosphere surrounding each and every LC establishment simply reeks of manly gonadal oils.

Biting into a Little Caesar's pizza is like sitting in a men's locker room and swaddling your face in dirty athletic supporters. Every taste is a sensory explosion of greasy man-junk. Soaked into the crust, infused into the sauce, fermented into the cheese, and basted all over the meats.

Thank you, Little Caesar's. We are all ever so grateful for this testicularly delicious sensation you've created.

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Of all the things I do, sleeping is my undisputed favorite. Anything else has the potential to be disappointing, but a good night's sleep will always satisfy.

There are three, perhaps four distinct ways in which I sleep. I'm not talking about the various positions and contortions I twist into while I'm drifting off. (Such as "The Grad Photo," in which I sleep with my fist underneath my chin, but perhaps I'm revealing too much...) I'm talking about the kind and quality of the sleep I'm getting, and the things I experience while I'm unconscious.

1a) Insomnia Simplex One
This is when I have lots of ideas. I have so many ideas. Ideas are more important than sleeping. I'm going to get rich by curing sickle-cell anemia, and I'm going to do it tonight! [Here's where I usually decide, two hours too late, to take a diphenhydramine tablet, which will put me into a retardedly dreamless and unsatisfying sleep until my cell phone manages to urge me awake by incessantly vibrating against the wood floor.]

1b) Insomnia Simplex Two
This occurs whenever there is any kind of upset in my sleep pattern, whatsoever. For example, if I actually have to wake up at a decent hour, which I almost never do, I will not be able to sleep. I'll drift off and then wake up ten minutes later, wondering if it's time to get up yet. Or if I'm sleeping in an unfamiliar place, I'll almost literally sleep with one eye open, just in case a hotel maid or my girlfriend's mom decides to come at me with a machete in my sleep. Don't even try it, lady! I'll be out the window within seconds!

2) Technical Knockout [TKO]
This is perhaps the most common type of sleep I experience. Here I need no drugs or persuasion to go to sleep. I crawl into bed and I literally have difficulty believing how good a bed can feel. I can't imagine why I just don't stay in bed all the time. I fall asleep completely within three minutes and wake up 10 hours later, wanting more despite the fact that it's time to go to work.

3) The Movie Marathon
Here I fall asleep normally, then wake up 20 minutes later, usually at the point of my intense dream where I'm about to shoot someone, be shot by someone, find out the identity of my long-lost cousin, or pick up a hitchhiker in Germany. I stay awake for about a minute and a half while I roll over and realize that I really want to get back into that dream. I always do manage to get back into the dream, but at a different point, like when you're at the movies and you go to the bathroom and return to find that you've missed a key point. Then 20 minutes later I wake up again and repeat the whole process, over and over, until it's time to wake up, which I do with even greater reluctance than I do in #2.

Some people think that sleeping for one-third of your life is a waste. Me, I think it's probably the most interesting thing you can do. It's all a matter of perspective.

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Him: "Hey ... you've uh ... you've heard of Woodstock, right?"
Me: "Sure. You mean the concert back in the 60s?"
Him: "Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was just ... there were so many good bands. Great songs. Great bands, great songs."
Me: "Of course. All the greats."
Him: "Yeah, there was ... there was just too many to name. Canned Heat."
Me: "Canned Heat, sure."
Him: "And ... uh ... Pat Benetar ... "
Me: "Um ... "
Him: "Rod ... oh, geez, what's his name ... Rod Stewart."
Me: "Jimi Hendrix?"
Him: "Well, yeah, but ... what was ... so many ... what was that band ... Styx! You've heard of Styx, right?"
Me: "Oh, yeah. Absolutely."
Him: "Jim Croce. Sonny & Cher ... There's just too many to name. All of them were so, so good."
Me: "Like I said. All the greats."

Throughout my life, I've had a whole list of things that I choose to believe. These are not things that I actually believe, but rather things I have made the conscious choice to believe despite knowing better, simply because it's more entertaining.

For example, while if I were pressured I'd probably admit that I really believe the opposite, openly I believe that human beings have never walked on the moon. The whole thing was done with special effects in a TV studio. Meanwhile, millions of people sat by their TV sets, enrapt, weeping tears of joy for humanity's accomplishment, and all of them were fooled.

Lots of younger people who were not around for the experience actually believe that the moon landing was a hoax created by the government. They have a point. I mean, if it really happened, why haven't we been back? Maybe it was pointless and foolhearty to begin with. Maybe it's too expensive and too risky. But really, if we went to the moon tomorrow (or next year, or the year after that) would you believe it to be true?

The real truth, for me at least, is that it's a lot more fun to believe that the whole thing was fake. I like to think of President Kennedy sweating bullets after he promised the world that we would do it. I like to imagine all the eggheads at NASA wracking their brains, fiddling with their sliderules, screaming, "WE CAN'T DO IT! WE JUST CAN'T DO IT!" Then I like to imagine some intern in the back of the room nervously raising his hand and asking everyone in charge why we can't just fake the goddamn thing. Oh, it's the greatest story never told.

Another thing it's fun to believe in is shadow people. You know how you'll be sitting there, staring at the TV or off into space, when suddenly you'll see a shadow whisk by out of the corner of your eye? That's a shadow person, running around your house. It isn't a good thing, as you can imagine. But which is better: 1) You just saw a shadow. 2) You just saw a shadow person. The choice (and it is a choice -- remember that) is clear.

It's incredibly stunning how few people these days believe in leprechauns. I mean, do you actually want to live in a world without leprechauns? Apparantly, the answer to that question for most people is "yes." Most people are stupid.

One day when I was a kid, we were all out playing in the street when someone looked up and noticed a huge rainbow in the sky. We talked it over, and agreed that finding the gold at the end of it was something that we could actually do. We scrambled onto our bikes and zipped off, pumping away at top speed, but we never found the end. Nevertheless, I ate Lucky Charms every day for a week after that. It was funner than hell.

Whenever I see a ship on Lake Superior at night, I know that it's just another ship. But I choose to believe that I'm seeing the ghost of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Lake Superior itself, of course, is full of sea monsters. But when a black cat crosses my path, it isn't bad luck. That's just another mangy alley cat. Because there's no fun in being negative.

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In sixth grade, they herded us all into the auditorium so that we could hear a band concert performed by our future junior high-school band, the Morgan Park Wildcats. The whole purpose of the concert was so that we could see what band was all about, and start thinking about what instrument we might want to play.

Like everyone else, of course, I wanted to play drums or percussion, but those instruments were limited to kids who already knew how to play the piano. Barring percussion, the only instrument I could possibly tolerate was the saxophone. All the saxophone positions, however, were already taken by eighth graders.

Since I couldn't bring myself to play any of the stupid instruments in band, and I had no desire to join choir, and I didn't have the foresight to join orchestra in sixth grade when you were supposed to, I had only one choice left.

Music Appreciation.

The class, in its description, was actually quite cool. Our task was to appreciate music. We would listen to all forms of music, and that was pretty much all we had to do. Listening to music: I could handle that.

The problem was, however, that I was one of three, maybe four kids in the class who did not have some sort of behavioral problem. My first day in class made it clear that this was a class for kids who either could not handle "normal" music classes to begin with, or had been kicked out of "normal" classes on the first day. The experience was, in a word, awesome.

I sat in the front row, along with everyone else who wouldn't end up in prison before their 25th birthday. Meanwhile, the teacher vascillated between offering us rewards and meting out stiff punishments. It was easy to be a star pupil when you're surrounded by people who are struggling to pass a class where the average assignment is to listen to Bruce Springsteen.

"Springsteen is GAAAAAAAY." That was the consensus among the class. I remember the teacher trying to deal with that statement.

"What kind of gay do you mean? Because gay can mean several different things..." she said.

"He SUCKS! He's LAAAAME," the class said.

"OK," the teacher said. "That's your opinion. But he's not homosexual."

"If you say so," someone murmured.

Meanwhile, those of us so-called "A" students in the front row who actually did not belong in the class but were just slumming it, we were allowed to try and teach each other how to play the guitar. Sometimes we did this in the actual classroom, but usually we did this in an adjacent practice room. On these occasions, the classroom outside melted into complete chaos.

I think that in Music Appreciation was the only time I ever saw a teacher cry while I was in junior high school. It certainly was the only time I ever saw a teacher smash an acoustic guitar, Pete Townsend-style, in sheer rage.

But when I think about it, I probably learned more in Music Appreciation than I learned in any other class in junior high.

Somebody had to do the learning.

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See, if you're in the bathtub, and if you're really careful, you can get your washcloth to float on the surface of the water. All you have to do is take it by its edges and sort of drag it slowly on the surface. Then, let go and it will stay there, floating.

That's what I figured out when I was about five. And so I used to sit in the bathtub, floating my washcloth, and thinking my weird little thoughts: I wonder how they tame the raccoons on Grizzly Adams? They probably dress up in raccoon costumes, so that the racoons are fooled into thinking they aren't humans. You know, that sort of thing.

One day I was in the bathtub when my sister knocked on the door, saying she needed her hairbrush or something lame like that. This ticked me off. Coming from a large family, it was almost never possible to have any privacy, even in the bathroom. Rolling my eyes, I found the obvious solution.

I floated the washcloth so that it perfectly obscured my weiner. Then I leaned back in the tub with my hands behind my head and said, "Come in."

My sister opened the door, looked at me, grabbed her hairbrush and left. Outside the door, I heard the following conversation:

Sister: "So I go in there and ..."
Female Cousin: "I saw!"

It served them right.

When I was about 11, some distant relatives were visiting and the house was even more overrun than usual. At one point, I was in the bathroom doing my business, when some woman opened the door (without knocking) shrieked and slammed it closed again. She apologized and went back downstairs.

For some reason, I developed a crystal clear image in my mind of what would happen when she went back down and told everyone what happened. Someone would grab her and frantically ask, "Did you see his butt? Did you see his weiner?"

Obviously, that's what happened. Because distant relatives in their 50s want to know -- desperately, according to my 11-year-old mind -- all about my butt and weiner.

A few years ago when I moved into the apartment downstairs of where I live now, my landlords gave me a tour of the house, showing me all the features. "This is cool," Nick said, pointing to a sort-of half-blind on the bathroom window. "It lets in a lot of light at the top, but no one can see your weiner."

And really, that's all I ask for. A roof over my head, three squares a day, and complete control over who can and cannot see my butt and weiner.

Life is simple, after all.

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I almost have a theatre minor. I never really planned on pursuing it in college, but just before I was about to graduate, the chair of the theatre department informed me that I was probably eligable. So we counted up my credits and I was one credit short of a minor. If I wanted to, I could have paid the college $250 for an additional credit* so that I could officially say that I had a minor. I chose to keep my money and use it to go to the Grand Canyon instead.

In plays, I got a lot of positive reviews and a lot of negative reviews. When the local paper reviewed the first college play I was in, A Doll's House, I got the best review out of anyone in the cast -- "barely worth listening to." I think the best review I ever received from the newspaper in my entire college career was "able." Yes, he is technically capable of acting. But that's about it.

The best critique of my work I ever receieved from anyone, however, came from another student. He was very intelligent, and very sincere. And here is what he said to me:

"You're a really, really good actor. You could be the next John Ritter."

I laughed, of course. But then I realized that he was completely serious. "John Ritter is incredibly talented," he said, and he meant it.

Ever since he said that, I've kind of kept it in my head, and whenever I see reruns of Three's Company on TV Land, I try to imagine myself falling over that living room couch. Sometimes I see it, sometimes I don't.

When I told Christa the story about the John Ritter statement, she didn't even laugh. "You could be the next John Ritter," she said. "You're a great physical comedian."

I suppose that if this is my unrealized potential, that I'm at peace with it. Most people spend their lives thinking about what they could have been, what might have happened if they'd gone for the gold and struck it big. If what I could have been was Jack Freaking Tripper, then I'm perfectly OK with living the normal-life alternative.

* I realize I'm dating myself when I admit that a credit cost only $250 when I went to college.

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Most of the time, I'm all for the advancement of technology. The majority of the time, each new invention is a tremendous improvement over its predecessor. The computer beats out the typewriter, which in turn beats out the pen. The DVD is arguably better than the VHS tape, but TiVo trounces both of them. The digital camera overshadows the film camera, hands down.

Still, I can't help but feel nostalgic for one rapidly disappearing piece of technology: the pay phone.

The pay phone is one of those things that, in this day and age, is hard to wrap your head around. Before the cell phone, you had to be "home" to receive a call. And as soon as you left your property, you'd become unreachable to anyone who couldn't actually see you. But here and there around town were oases where for a coin or two, you could jack back into the telecommunications grid.

This idea, to me, is kind of romantic. In a way, the pay phone is a lot like the vinyl record in that its accidental aesthetics counterbalance its old-fashioned clunkiness.

One of my all-time favorite pay phones was located in the lobby of my junior high school. There are few places that are more oppressive than a junior high, and that phone was the one link to the outside world where things were free and normal. Usually, people would use it to call kids who were home sick (a la Ferris Beuller's Day Off) and since I was sick more often than anyone else, I'd get calls from school all the time. I always wanted to be able to call in to that phone, and I even wrote down the number so that I could try it, but it didn't work. That didn't keep me from trying it every time I was absent.

Another great phone was in the campground at Jay Cooke State Park. That one was fun to use because it was on a short little pole and felt like it was in the middle of the woods. Calling people from the woods! What a crazy idea! We used this one a lot as teens when we were "driving around." We'd say, "Let's stop at the Best Phone Ever and call Bob." It was something to do.

In college, there were two public phones in the building where most of my classes were: a pay phone and a free phone. Even though it cost 25 cents, I often chose to use the pay phone because it was more private and because it was inside of a really cool wooden phone booth. You could talk for hours there and no one would interrupt you. The free phone was kind of awesome, too because it was inside a cylindrical phone booth that had a sliding door. Once, a woman who annoyed the hell out of me used that phone, but forgot how the door worked once she was inside. The panicked look on her face as she pounded on the door is still etched in my brain, and still makes me smile. Eventually, someone let her out. Not me.

When I got my first job with the USPS, I worked in a newly built facility that had nine pay phones all along one wall of the break room. It wasn't unusual for all the phones to be in use, and there were signs saying to limit your calls to 5 minutes if there were people waiting. Often the phones were out of order because the coin boxes were full. A few short years later, no one ever used the phones. A few years after that, the facility closed due to technological advances.

For a while, I had a working pay phone inside my apartment. But alas, I no longer have a land line. I still have the phone, though, and I use it for a bank.

I've never used the pay phone outside of Last Chance Liquor on Fourth Street, but I drive by it all the time and it's still frequently in use. There's a certain attitude you have to have when you use that phone. First off, you need to have a scowl on your face. Second, you need to constantly scan the traffic on Fourth Street, presumably to make sure no one is watching you. Pacing and smoking cigarettes is key. Look paranoid, jittery, and guilty, and you'll do fine.

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Every couple of months, I like to go to Thai Krathong and get myself a plate of Drunken Noodles. Typically I'm not a person who likes to suffer for any reason. Give me an easy way out and I will gladly take it. But every couple of months, Drunken Noodles call, and, despite everything I know about them and what they're capable of, I answer.

If you've never had Drunken Noodles, let me explain. Drunken Noodles gets its name from that fact that after you eat one or two bites of it, you will immediately drink every type of liquid on the table while waiving your hands in the air, summoning the waiter for more. Water, soda, beer, vodka ... hell, if your table has one of those liquid paraffin candles, you'll drink that as well. Because Drunken Noodles is the spiciest thing you've ever tasted. And it's so fricken good that you can't stop eating it.

Normally, I'm skeptical of most ultra-spicy food. Don't get me wrong. I like spice. I love spice. But usually, there's a point at which the spice completely takes over, and all you can taste is the fire. This isn't the case with Drunken Noodles. Not only do you taste the fire, but there's a whole spectrum of flavors underneath the fire. The combination is incredible.

Last week as I was eating Drunken Noodles, a bit of it got on my chin, and I guess because I'd shaved an hour or so before, it burned my effing skin. Meanwhile, my lips were numb. The inside of my mouth was in pain. My stomach was already beginning to make noises that sounded like someone pulling rusty nails out of a board. While I ate, I kept wondering out loud why I was doing this to myself. But I knew why. It was pure bliss.

I think the waiter filled my water glass about 15 times, and I tried to stretch out my Thai iced coffee throughout the whole meal, but that was futile. I left happy, though feeling as if I'd been gargling with lit kerosene while someone slapped my lips with a wet leather belt.

Of course, the next day, you get to experience the mirror image of the whole experience, only with none of the pleasure whatsoever. That's OK. The pain is the kind of pain you forget. Like childbirth.

I'll be back in a few months.

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Sometime in the weeks leading up to the 1980 presidential election, I overheard a conversation in which someone asked my dad who he was voting for. My dad shrugged his shoulders. "The Asshole," he said. The other guy agreed that, yeah, you didn't have much choice in this election. The Asshole was the only way to go.

When election day rolled around, my teacher decided to illustrate the democratic process by letting us vote in class. When I received my ballot, I thought about the conversation I'd overheard. Of the candidates on the ballot, which one was "The Asshole"? There were always political discussions going on in our house. I wanted to go home and proudly report that not only did I get to vote in class, but I also voted for the Asshole, as any good American undoubtedly would.

Jimmy Carter, the incumbent, didn't seem like much of an Asshole to me. He had a nice smile, and a soft voice, a lot like Mister Rogers. He seemed like a kind and benevolent man. There was no way that he could be the Asshole I was looking for.

I didn't know much about Ronald Reagan. I knew he was an actor, but I'd never seen any of his movies. He did have somewhat of an assholic look about him. The thing was, I hadn't heard his name much around the house. It seemed that if he truly was the Asshole that my dad wanted to run the free world, that there would have been more talk about him in the Chase residence. Still, he could be the Asshole. I wasn't sure.

John Anderson was running as an Independent. I thought this was funny, because there was a guy named John Anderson who lived across the alley from us. When he and his wife went on vacation, I'd get a dollar for letting out their dog and filling his food dish. But I understood that that was just a name, and despite its similarity to the name of someone I liked, that didn't mean he wasn't an Asshole. I also understood however -- even at that young age -- that a third-party candidate has no chance of winning. I concluded that even though John Anderson might be an asshole, he wasn't the Asshole.

I voted for Ronald Reagan.

That night when the results were rolling in, and Reagan was winning every state in the union except for Minnesota, my dad's pure, raging disgust made it obvious that Ronald Reagan was not the correct choice. It turned out that Jimmy Carter was the Asshole I should have voted for. Politics was a lot more difficult to understand than I'd imagined.I felt like I'd let both my family and my country down.

A few years later, the stupidity of my choice became real to me. Ronald Reagan and his cronies loved to deregulate things, and one of the things they deregulated was children's television. Suddenly, all my favorite cartoons like Superfriends were replaced by cartoons that were literally just ads for toys. There was one cartoon called Rubik, the Amazing Cube. I stopped watching cartoons, not because I was too old to enjoy them, but because none of them were good anymore. Like I'm going to watch a fricken Rubik's Cube with a face on it run around and doing magic.

Carter might have been an Asshole. But at least he never messed with cartoons. That's just evil.

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Today while I was sitting in my car on my lunch break, reading and eating a half-frozen banana, I decided that I'm going to behave in a more European manner. Of course, since I've never actually been to Europe and have only met about seven Europeans in my life (I'm not going to include Russians; I don't think they count), I'll have to rely on my American sensibilities to interpret what exactly it means to act European.

I have to admit that even though I love American culture -- especially pop culture -- I already have a pretty good head start on this European routine. For example, I make frequent trips to the grocery store ... [ahem] market throughout the week, carrying a basket instead of pushing a cart. I take four or five weeks of vacation a year. I rarely, if ever, wear deodorant. And as a matter of fact, as I am writing this post, I'm drinking a warm beer.

Now, there are some European things that I am not willing to do. For example, I'm not going to chain-smoke hand-rolled cigarettes while wearing a Speedo. I refuse to have a threeway with two catatonic stewardesses. I don't want to watch black-and-white movies where all people do is cry and walk in and out of doors.

Speaking of movies ... [ahem] films, I've always loved that scene in La Dolce Vita where there's that party, and everyone is laughing uncontrollably, and that drunk woman tries to crawl to the bathroom or whatever, and that guy decides to jump on her back and ride her around the room, whipping her butt with a belt. That was seriously European. So European that as an American I don't even understand it. And while I don't think I'd ride around a living room on a drunk woman's back, I know for certain that if someone else did it, I'd stand there wearing sunglasses and a white suit and laugh like a donkey.

There are plenty of European things I wish I could do, but can't. I'd really like to eat my lunch on the patio at a quaint cafe, drink a bottle and a half of wine with my linguine, and then decide not to return to work. Ain't gonna happen. I'd like to be able to drive through three countries on one tank of gas. I wouldn't mind living in a house that's 800 years old. As an American in northern Minnesota, the best I can hope for in these regards is to live in a house built before World War II, occasionally drive to Canada, and attempt to drink a bottle of Miller High Life on the sidewalk outside the Kozy Bar without getting knifed in the sternum.

I'm not sure exactly how I'm going to take my Europeanism to the next level. I think maybe I'll start out by doing a lot of sneering. Then perhaps I'll take it upon myself to eat a better grade of cheese. Maybe someday I'll get a passport.

[ahem] ... papers.

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Me (singing randomly): "Waaait fooor the beep!"
Christa: "You gotta leave your name, you gotta leave your number."

(Both of us look at each other, stunned.)

Me: "And that is why it's important to date within your age group."
Christa: "Exactly."
Me: "The best thing about growing old and being in a nursing home is going to be sitting in a wheelchair, staring out the window, and singing 'Nobody's hoooooome ... nobody's hoooooome' while the staff looks on, confused."

The reference, for those not in their 30s:

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My brother loved Halloween. Not for the usual reasons, though. The thing he loved most was handing out candy to trick-or-treaters and scaring the bejeezus out of them. He was pretty good at it.

I remember one costume in particular, and to this day it stands out as one of the most terrifying costumes I've ever seen. Of course I was about six when I saw it, so take that into consideration.

What my brother did was this: For months before October 31, he saved up all the dryer lint he could. He had whole grocery bags full of the stuff. And when the magic day rolled around, he proceeded to glue it to an old raincoat. He also glued it to gloves and to a rain hat as well. Lastly, he glued it to a ski mask.

For eyes, he cut out two cups from a styrofoam egg carton. He drew pupils on them, I believe with red marker. These he glued to the rain hat, above the slits where his own eyes would be.

I'm not sure what he did with his legs, but on his feet he wore black snowmobile boots with all kinds of straps and buckles on him. When he put the whole thing on, he looked like Grover's evil twin. A giant, grotesque mascot animal ready to pull your soul out right through your face. Everything Jim Henson did to stop kids from being afraid of monsters, my brother erased every time he opened the door to hand out a furry fistful of candy.

I remember him stepping out of the basement wearing his completed ensemble, proudly showing it off. I remember everyone in the family laughing. And I remember walking out of the yard to go trick-or-treating, almost being bowled over by terrified kids bolting from my house, screaming as if they were being butchered.

I almost would like to recreate that costume some year, just to see what it looks like again. But, unlike my brother, I know how flammable dryer lint is. That stuff is like cottonballs soaked in napalm.

Luckily, he didn't find that out the hard way.

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I know, I know. For weeks now, all of my readers have been sitting at home chewing their cuticles, worrying about the fact that my birthday is just around the corner.

What will I buy for Barrett Chase? you all wonder, staring at the ceilings in your bedrooms, ignoring the cries of your starving infants. December isn't very far away!

Well, fret no more, kids. Because I've just found exactly what I want, and I'm going to tell you about it.

The Beast™

What's that? Never heard of the Beast? Let me explain. The Beast is an oversized recliner (49"x46"x47.5" ... that's over four feet of ass-room!) available in seven (hear that? seven!) different patterns of camouflage. There is nothing I want more than to sit my enormous ass down in one of these babies, crank up the heat and massage, and sit obesely and invisibly in my living room while drinking Buds and watching Babe Winkleman pull in the smallmouths on cable TV.

Oh, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking "I wonder what type of camouflage Barrett wants?" Let me make this easy for you: I want all of them.

You heard me right -- all of them! That's how much man I am. I want to come home from a long, hard day of scarfing down barbequed ribs and ranch dressing, drive my Rascal™ right into my living room without wiping off the tires, and choose which Beast I'm going to recline in.

I want to choose and recline like the royalty I am.

So help me live my dream, will you? It's what I really want.

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I think someone needs to film a fictional biography of Anna Nicole Smith that focuses entirely on her marriage to that 85-year-old pervert. Seriously. I want to know what happened between them, even if it isn't real at all.

Imagine it. I think of nightly lap dances, illicit drugs slipped into his warm milk, and late-night drunken phone calls to her white-trash friends. I think of him playing her as much as she played him. The conversations would have to be fantastic.

They say that no one ever knows what goes on between a married couple. Well, I want to know. All I'm saying is that if it's soon enough that we can have movies about 9/11 ...

... all I'm saying ....

You know those height-measurement things they have near the exits of stores and fast-food joints? The ones put there so cashiers can quickly assess the height of the fleeing scumbag who just robbed them? I think those things are hilarious.

Here's why: They measure down to four feet. Four feet! Whenever I see that I imagine a little four-foot robber guy, wearing a black-and-white striped prison outfit and an iconic burglar mask, scurrying away while clutching a canvas sack with a dollar sign printed on it.

Then I imagine the cashiers talking to the police:

"He was, like, four and a half feet tall."
"No he wasn't! He was only four feet tall. I saw him run out the door."
"Dude. He has to at least be four-three. He came up to, like, here."
"Anyway, he drove off in a blue Pontiac with, like, 25 other guys."

On the other end, however, they only go up to about six and a half feet tall. WTF? What happens if some Andre the Giant-lookin' mofo decides he's gonna make off with the rack of Baked Lays at Subway? The sandwich artists are never going to get the description right.

"He was, like, eight feet tall."
"Dude! He was at least eight-six, maybe even eight-ten!"

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Regarding the new Radiohead and this discussion on PDD: I hate CDs. To me, compact discs are just a lame vehicle that I use to get the music into my computer and from there into my iPod. The truth is I haven't bought a CD in months if not years.

In my opinion, either you want to just listen to the music (in which case you should just download the MP3) or else you want to have the whole aesthetic experience (in which case you should buy the vinyl LP). Vinyl LPs offer an incredible music experience: the spindle fits throught the centerhole, the disc spins, the diamond hits the groove, and you hear the music. You hold the sleeve on your lap and everything is well and good. It's amazing.

None of this means that music on its own is worthless. Far from it. Most of the time, I just want to plug in my iPod and go.

However, the thing is, a lot of albums just don't come across properly on vinyl. A lot of older albums have too much treble. Or else, there's just too much information for the whole analog process. It sounds like mush, and I just wish I could hear it digitally.

Here are the vinyl albums I listen to on heavy rotation. I list these in hopes that you will either comment or email me suggestions for more. I like listening to music with all kinds of crackles and pops, holding a huge sleeve on my lap.

• "Loaded" by the Velvet Underground
• "You Can't Imagine How Much Fun We're Having" by Atmosphere
• "Moon Safari" by Air
• "Devil Woman" by Marty Robbins
• "Trinity Sessions" by Cowboy Junkies
• "Inspiration Information" by Shuggie Otis
• "Rumors" by Fleetwood Mac
• "Young Americans" by David Bowie
• "Anthology" by Gladys Knight & the Pips
• "Deltron 3030 (Instrumental)" by Deltron 3030
• "I Walk Alone" by Don Gibson

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Thanks a lot for pulling up next to me while I'm about to turn left. I'm sure you know that this is a two-way street, and even though there are no lines painted on the concrete, two lanes actually do exist. But seriously, thank you. From the bottom of my heart.

I see we're going to play a little game now. It's called "Let's see how long this can go on." Because me, I really want to stretch this out. I know that you don't feel all that much like an asshole right now. But it looks like you're going to do everything you can to make sure you look as assholic as I think (aw, shucks ... know!) you are.

See all those people who want to turn onto this block? They're really starting to line up, aren't they? And boy, do they look angry. Who are they angry at? That's right! You! You're the special boy on Fourth Street right now. Everyone around is thinking all kinds of thoughts about you and you alone.

Wow. It looks like I can't turn left, because all these people are blocking my view. All those trucks lined up like that -- look at them! I just don't feel safe about driving out blindly into the road. You do realize that the non-assholic thing to do right now would be to back up and get behind me in the proper lane, don't you? What's that? Oh, you're just going to stay right there while everyone in a block radius is glaring at you? Well that's the spirit!

Me, I'm just going to wait until everything is clear before I turn. You can go whenever you want. Just drive out into Fourth Street into all kinds of oncoming traffic. No, really, please do.

OK, I guess we're both just going to sit here then. Look at all those trucks lining up. Man, I'd hate to be the person who won't let them in. Do you think some of those people have guns? I bet at least one of them has a gun. Well at least you've got a good reason for sitting there in the wrong lane, refusing to back up into the right one. At least you're not just being a douche-slapper.

The part I love about all of this is that I have no idea whether you plan to go straight or to turn left like I am. You realize that if you're turning left, we're both going to turn into the same lane, don't you? I think that means we're going to have to occupy the same place at the same time which is pretty much impossible. If you're going straight, well, our trajectories are going to cross. And I'm no physicist, but I'd guess that's the kind of science that results in a shattered pelvis.

All right ... OK ... it looks like we can go now. Yeah. So. Um. Maybe you should go first because, uh, that would be safest?

No?

Whew. OK. Here I go...

Hey, now you're following behind me? Sweet. Let's just drive off into this happy little day together!

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In the far western part of Duluth, after 3rd Street becomes Grand and Grand becomes Commonwealth, but just before Commonwealth become Highway 23, there's the St. Louis River public access known as Boy Scout Landing. It's a really beautiful place, as you can see.

Just next to Boy Scout Landing, however,is the River Point Campground, which is full of RVs, Airstream trailers, and flat-out shacks. The sign says "campground" but obviously the people who are staying there plan to stay there longer than just the weekend. Weekenders park their RVs at the campground. These people have taken the trouble to build decks and patios.

Although it's hard to tell from this photo, the campground is like a little neighborhood, fenced off and hidden from the rest of town by a natural drop in elevation. I've lived here my whole life and I never even knew it was there.

A couple days ago as I was standing out on the dock snapping photos of the river, I kept looking back at the campground and wondering about the people who live there.

All I could think was, "Man. I bet the nightlife here really cooks."

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I've written before on this site about how I shy away from the idea of car payments. I don't need much when it comes to an automobile. I need it to start reliably, to bring me to work and back, and to carry enough groceries for one or two people. Above that, everything else is luxury. So for me, the Hedgehog does just fine.

Recent circumstances, however, have temporarily placed me into a rental car: a 2007 Chevy Cobalt. And while the Cobalt is certainly not the sweetest of rides, several things about it have me apprehensively reconsidering my stance on making payments on a major item that rapidly declines in value.

Unlike my Teal Mobile, the rental doesn't require any tricks to drive. You simply get inside, start it up, and point it where you want it to go. If I owned this Cobalt, I would be able to lend it to someone without first giving them an entire volume of instructions about how to drive it. The Hedgehog doesn't like to be driven by anyone but me, and while all of its quirks are pretty much second nature to me, it's really nice to just hop in a car and drive it without thinking. The downside is that this, combined with the near silence of the interior, threaten to put me to sleep at the wheel. That isn't good.

Another surprising thing that the Cobalt does is easily accelerate on hills (get this!) even while the air conditioner is in use! Imagine that!

The one dangerous feature that the Cobalt has is a digital readout on the dashboard that gives you information such as your average speed, the engine temperature, and your average miles per gallon. However, it also tells you how far you can go on the current amount of gas in your tank. Sweet Jesus. Do you know how much of a temptation it is when you glance down at the dash and see that you have enough gas to go 347 miles? Do you have any idea how hard it is to refrain from actually travelling 347 miles?

I don't know what I'm going to do when I have to go back to driving that mint green glorified lawnmower.

I just don't know.

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The American sense of humor is coarse, crude, and sexual, not to mention juvenile. A lot of people don't like to admit that, because despite their boisterous nature, Americans are also reserved and embarrassed about who they are as individuals as well as who they are as a society. Think of it like putting out the guest towels. We desperately want everyone to believe we actually use those frilly things, when as soon as the guests leave we go back to drying our hands with rags. Meanwhile, the guests themselves don't feel worthy of using them either, and choose to wipe their hands on their pants rather than stain the beautiful, fake towels that they know the hosts only put out for show.

Back at the dinner table, everyone perpetuates the facade. Lovely towels, Francis. Why thank you, Jane, you're too kind.

(You bet your ass you're too kind, you lying slut.)

Huge swaths of society would love nothing more than to pursuade everyone to pretend they've never heard a dirty joke. Even though, according to what we love to consume on television and in movies, we can't get enough of them. When people do talk about raunchy comedies, they blushingly admit it as a "guilty pleasure." They can't stand to be a part of the 98% of America that thought the masturbation-contest episode of Seinfeld was hilarious when it aired. Admitting that would suspend their membership to the 2% of funsuckers who are "above such things."

I love our dirty American humor, and I'm proud of it. And whenever I find myself in a room with even one of those funsucking killjoys, I feel like cramming my genitals in a garbage disposal and flipping the switch on the wall.

One could chalk all of this up to Americans being repressed about sex, but personally, I think Americans are more embarrassed about comedy. They hate to admit to enjoying anything simply because it is funny. Look at the Academy Awards, for example. In the entire history of the Oscars, only five Best Picture winners in my opinion could by any stretch of the imagination be attached somehow to the word "comedy." And even then, the funniest of these movies (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Apartment, American Beauty) are simply not comedies. One movie that could be considered a comedy, Forrest Gump, is not funny, and was obviously selected for its nostalgia quality, not its humor. Which leaves Annie Hall as the only true comedy ever to win Best Picture.

Then again, maybe the only reason Annie Hall won was because Woody Allen didn't dress up like a sperm cell in it.

When I was in English major in college, one of my professors used a word I will always remember: "climbers." Climbers, by his definition, were people who tried to use the English language to make themselves seem like something they were not. Climbers want you to believe that they come from the upper crust, when they are probably just lower middle class, like everyone else. There used to be lots and lots of books written to help climbers appear more sophisticated and worldly, to make them appear to have grown up rich when they actually grew up poor. Our whole system of grammar that we learn in school is based on these cheap books from the 18th and 19th centuries, and the books were deeply flawed. You can't simply learn to talk rich, mainly because trying to sound sophisticated nearly always makes you sound stupid, exposing you as a climber. It's always best to speak simply and honestly.

Americans are, for the most part, climbers. Devoid of the long history and perspective of Europe and Asia, they feel embarrassed and ashamed. Instead of accepting the truth like adults, they choose to behave like children acting as adults. Of course, European tastes are more sophisticated and highbrow. Take the Benny Hill Show, for example. How can you not feel intimidated by that?

Benny Hill isn't even funny. You know who is funny? Charlie Sheen.

One of the highest-rated shows on network television, Two and a Half Men, is also one of the raunchiest sitcoms I have ever seen, and is also one of my favorites. Consider the episode entitled "Repeated Blows to His Unformed Head" which is about a woman who likes to have sex when she is pregnant. See? The title alone is hilarious, not to mention offensive on at least two levels. And every week, millions of Americans -- men, women, couples, families -- sit down on the couch and laugh their asses off. Because it's dirty and it's funny.

Maybe if Americans stopped repressing their humor -- boxing it up like a stack of tacky porno rags beneath their adolescent bed -- their humor could grow and ripen.

So let me be the first to say it.

My name is Barrett Chase. I am an American. And I know two things to be true:

1. I love nothing more to laugh at things that are funny.
2. Nothing is funnier than butts and weiners.

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OK, let me start out by saying I had to be three sheets to the wind in order to join Facebook in the first place. After fully discovering what a toilet MySpace is, I didn't need to experiment with any more of this "social networking" nonsense that the kids are all into these days. I was fully ready to revert back to Web 1.0, where I write funny things by myself at 3am, you laugh at them when you read them at work the next morning, and we have no other interaction at all, until six months later when you call me into your office and fire me.

Anyway, last Saturday night I spent the evening at R.T. Quinlan's discussing, among other things, the finer points of Facebook, and by the time I got home and had another beer, I was just tanked up enough to join. (Note to the Army: I know you read this site. Don't even think about it.)

Like most drunks, I joined by happily keying in any and all personal information, refusing to read any so-called "terms and conditions" and blindly ticking any box marked "yes" before clicking "submit." At one point, there was a brief milisecond (as opposed to a lengthy milisecond) where I realized, too late, that I had invited everyone in my address book to come skipping down the yellow brick road of Facebook with me.

This was not my intention.

Here are some of the people I especially did not intend to invite to Facebook:
- various co-workers
- Netflix
- people who e-mailed me only looking for someone else's address
- people whose podcasts I subscribe to
- my neighbor's insurance agent
- my mom

If you were one of the people I unintentionally invited to Facebook, I apologize. However, if you still want to be Facebook friends, well, I'm OK with that.

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So I'm digging around in the basement, looking for a lost CD to rip for my new Virtual Mixtape blog, when I open a box and find ...

... approximately 200 forgotten burned CD-Rs!

And while most of them are discs I've ripped and stored on a hard drive, a lot of them are completely forgotten. We're talking mix CDs other people have made me, random mp3s taken from p2p networks back before we all knew for certain it was illegal, or taken legally from mp3.com when it existed in its pure form. I'm in bliss.

Also, I found the photograph above, taken I believe by Lundgren in July of '04. That's the root system of a huge fallen tree I'm peering through.

Yeehaw!

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Mom: He fractured his tibia and he's been eating Alleves for the past week...
Me: He's been eating LEAVES?
Mom: ALLEVES.
Me: Oh, I thought it might be some kind of herbal remedy.

Mom: Where do you vote?
Me: Temple Israel. The Jewish synogogue.
Sister: Why are you voting for him?
Me: What?
Sister: The Jewish guy.
Mom: What does it matter if he's Jewish?
Me: Not a Jewish guy ... Mom asked where I voted, and I said the Jewish temple.
Mom: I don't see what it matters if he's Jewish or whatever he is.
Sister: We're all deaf.

Me: The woman who lived there named her kid "B.J."
Christa: Oh, Jesus.
Me: I think maybe because it's what he should have been ...
Christa: [Shakes head]
Me: But no, it gets worse!
Christa: It can't get worse.
Me: Her dog was named "Bear" and she named them both after the TV show "B.J. and the Bear."
[pause]
Me: She got the dog way before she had the kid.

Sister: Is she in a gang?
Mom: A GANG? She's a grown adult!
Sister: Still ... a motorcycle gang?
Mom: [silent, appalled]

Me: I can't write about that B.J. thing.
Christa: Why not?
Me: I don't know. They're gonna find out and kill me in my sleep.
Christa: Maybe you could change it a little.
Me: Yeah. Maybe I could change it so she named the kid "Smokey" and the dog "Bandit."
[pause]
Me: No. That just won't do.

Quite literally: My ratio of haircuts-to-redesigns is something like 1:4. Oh, well.

Today I am on vacation. I have to keep saying that out loud, because I keep forgetting. I've had a lot of vacation this year, and this week is the final gasp before plummetting into the cold months. The bitter winter. The long nights filled with sorrow, longing, and other people's mail.

People keep asking me if I'm going anywhere this week, and I keep telling them the truth: I don't know. And therein lies the rift between my way of thinking and the ways of others. I think: How the hell can I be expected to know whether or not I'm going somewhere on my vacation? And they think: How can you not know if you're taking a trip when such things require all manner of planning, not to mention worrying?

I suppose if you have children and/or a tightly clamped anus, you might need to plan a trip for weeks in advance. But under my circumstances, such planning does nothing to enhance the experience. I don't even pack for a trip until I absolutely need to, and for that I have a backpack with special pockets for the essentials: laptop, cell phone, iPod. A clip for keys. A large pocket for hygiene items such as a toothbrush and deodorant. A large open area for 3 shirts, a pair of pants, socks, skivvies, an extra pair of shoes, and a book. These items, plus cash and credit cards, is all you will ever need on any trip, (unless you're going camping or skiing or doing anything that involves any kind of special equipment, of course). If you need more than this on a regular vacation without children, you are doing something wrong. Even the deodorant, really, is kind of ridiculous.

I truly believe that as long as I have a decent place to sleep ("decent" meaning "private" and "dry" and "roach-free") I can have fun anywhere. Because when I travel, the main thing I like to do is walk. The secondary thing I like to do is look at stuff.

I also like to eat, to drink adult beverages, and to take photographs. I'm not afraid to spend money, but I usually don't shop, unless the stores or markets are really weird. I like to find strange foods that I've never tried before. I like to ride public transportation.

But all in all, I doubt that I'll go anywhere this time, or at least I won't go very far.

Because more than all these things, staying home and playing Wii kind of sounds best.

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While in the summertime most of the neighborhood is made up of respectable young couples, families, elderly people, and petty criminals, all of this changes every fall as all of the rental units fill up with raving 18-year-old lunatics exploring life away from authority for the first time in their lives. The first weekend is something to behold. Unlike most of the permanent residents of my neighborhood, I always look forward to the first weekend of college classes. This is probably because I work nights, and also because I have a natural love of watching drunken chaos.

Often I forget what time of the year it is. Oh, I know that it's late summertime, and I'm even aware that it's August. But whenever I see a back-to-school ad or a group of kids walking down the street, I have to stop and think: Is this the time of year that school starts? Or is school ending? Wait. I forget...

But there's no mistaking the onset of college weekend. It starts off the same way every year, when the streets are lined with huge 2007 Chevy S-10s, and guys in button-down shirts and Dockers are pacing up and down the sidewalks, cell phones clipped on their belts and sunglasses perched on their heads, barking orders as other, dirtier men clear brush, trim hedges, and haul away beer-soaked furniture.

Yes, before the students arrive, they are preceded by the slumlords. Up from some Twin Cities suburban nightmare or their annual property inspection. This is the first warning.

Then there is an almost imperceptible pause, a sort of calm before the storm. You might see some parents hauling in a desk or two. You might see some unfamiliar kids dragging giant Target bags from the trunk of a car. But really, nothing seems out of the order. Yet.

Suddenly, one Friday night, if you work until 11pm or midnight as I do, you'll come home from work and walk straight into one of the funniest zombie movies you'll ever see. Forget about parking on the street, because that just isn't going to happen. Prepare to park three blocks away, but when you do, don't get annoyed. This just gives you the opportunity to walk through the madness on your way home.

See this? Here's a girl wearing a skin-tight Superman T-shirt, passed out against a stop sign. A few yards away, two boys argue about whether or not the other one has ever heard of K-rations. All over the place, people are using cars, trees, buildings, and each other to hold themselves up. And everywhere, hundreds of times this night, people will scream "I'm soooooo drunk!!!" in both amazement and despair.

This is the sound of freedom.

And because these people are young, and therefore resilient, the hilarity won't stop after that one night. It will go on and on. For about two months.

That's about how long it takes for half of them to drop out and move back home. In which case, we get to park in front of our own houses again.

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One of my all-time favorite features of my childhood home was the spacial relationship between the toilet and the bathtub. The tub, an ancient clawfoot affair, sat directly in front of the toilet, perpendicularly, so that while one sat on the throne, one could drape a newspaper over the lip of the bathtub and engage in hands-free reading. As far as I could tell, everyone in my family made use of this architectural marvel. It was the only way to drop a deuce.

We subscribed to two daily newspapers when I was a kid -- the morning paper and the afternoon paper. Usually, I read the morning comics at the kitchen table sometime during the day. But the late paper, that one arrived on the doorstep just in time for me to pinch off my afternoon Baby Ruth. Barely had the paper hit the doorstep before I was scrambling up the stairs, dropping trow, and seeing what old Marmaduke was up to.

While the family throne was my favorite place to go, my least favorite was easily the outhouse at the family cabin. This was a huge double-seater, built sometime in the 1930s or 40s, and I rarely deigned to enter it. Parts of the lower walls had rotted away, allowing a small amount of sunlight to peer into the hole, down where you didn't want to look. Occasionally, there were garter snakes hiding in the corners. The ceiling was hung with reams of flypaper and dozens of Christmas Tree-scented car deodorizers. The walls were covered in the graffiti of generations of nameless relatives. One long-forgotten cousin had childishly scrawled "Have a nice terd" directly at eye-level.

Generally, on weekends when we went to the cabin, I didn't even open the outhouse door, opting to pee in the woods and just hold off on the number two. By Sunday night, I really had to go, and for a 10-year-old boy who really needs to go, there is no sight finer than three days worth of funny pages (from two papers!) stacked up neatly inside the screen door.

Somehow along the way, I completely lost interest in reading on the can. It's purely a hygenic bodily function now, and I spend as little time performing it as possible. I can think of at least 15 other places in the average house where I'd rather sit and read at leisure.

What a weird thing to do.

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Like most Midwestern towns full of geriatrics, the major field of employment in Duluth is medicine. And as such, you constantly see doctors and nurses on the streets, in the stores, and everywhere else around here. The following is a list of gross things I've seen people doing in their scrubs.

- Drinking and smoking in dive bars. Seriously, nothing instills confidence in the medical industry more than the sight of a plastered nurse stumbling out of the women's toilets at the Round-Up and blazing up a cancer stick, in full scrubs complete with a stethoscope around her neck.

- Wrestling in the yard with a dog. But then again, their mouths are cleaner than yours. And dog-yards are practically sterile.

- Jogging to work. My neighbor is big on this one. He puts on his scrubs and his running shoes and sprints down the street to St. Mary's, which is a little more than half a mile away. You'll see him chugging away down Fourth Street, panting like a labrador, and completely bathed in clean, clean sweat, the hems of his scrubs rimmed in Fourth Street crust.

All of that said, I think if I were a nurse, I'd go for those pastel scrubs with unicorns and rainbows all over them. Oh, and some neon yellow Crocs to go along with it. [WTF is WITH that?]

I really meant to go back and get this toolbox's name, but that didn't happen. So for the purpose of this post, let's just agree to call him "Chad."

Christa needed a new laptop. Seriously. I'm not exaggerating when I say that the old one sounded a lot like a weed wacker. Whenever she started it up, I was always surprised that it didn't require a pull-cord. That, plus the inability to download or upload anything, ever. It was time for an upgrade.

We headed to Best Buy, because that is pretty much the only place that sells laptops in this neck of the woods. And that is where the hilarity began.

"When you go on the internet, which is the World Wide Web, and you are not protected, you can get viruses," one of the Best Buy friendly team members warned a couple. We walked away a couple of steps to make our laughter less obvious. "Just like a virus in your body, like when you get sick, your computer can get sick. Just like when your body doesn't work right, your computer doesn't work right. You have to protect against that."

Christ. We were in for some bullshit. That was certain.

We snagged a friendly team member to call our own and started a dialog about a laptop in the proper price range. Enter Chad.

"I have to ask, what do you want to use this computer for?"

"Writing. Photos. Music. Internet."

"OK. Just to let you know, this computer isn't powerful enough to run Windows Vista," said Chad, a smarmy, virginal little fucker with black hair and glasses.

"What?" we said.

"Yeah. When you turn it on, it'll power up, but that's about it."

"Ooooookaaaaay. So can you sell it to us with Windows XP?"

"No."

"Well, maybe we can install Windows XP when we get it home."

"Yeaaahh. Uhhhhh. That's probably not going to work."

"OK," I said. "So you sell RAM sticks right? We could just upgrade the RAM."

"Well, you could. But even then, it's going to be slow at multitasking. If you want to do a lot of multitasking, it won't work."

"What's 'a lot' of multitasking?"

"I'd say, running three to ten programs at once."

"Three to ten?" Here is where we begin openly laughing. "So, what you really mean is three. What you're saying is that if you're writing something online, uploading pictures, and listening to music, it's gonna crash."

"No! Not crash! Windows Vista is the most stable operating system ever made! It just won't work, because it'll be too slow."

"Okaaaay," I say, thinking about a stable operating system called Linux. "Still. Three programs is too much? That's unacceptable. What do you suggest, then?"

"Well, we have these other laptops over here ... a little more pricey, but ..."

Oh. OK, "Chad." Whatever you say. "Uh. Yeah. We're gonna need to think about this."

I utterly loathe the sales mentality. I'm sorry if that's how you make you're living, but I don't see how anyone could ever sell anything for a living and not feel like a glorified telemarketing shitface. I especially hate it when I totally know what more about the product than the friendly team member.

Douchebags. Douchebags one and all.

Chad, may you never make love to a non-virtual woman as long as you live, you weaselly little fuck.

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Whenever a former or current president dies, the federal government shuts down. Completely. Congress quickly votes, and then unanimously takes the day off, and then, as long as they're at it, gives the rest of the federal workers the day off too.

The problem is that everyone else in the world continues as usual. While your local senator may feel fine taking eight hours off to stare out the window and sniff his index finger, the rest of us have work to do. Including mail processing clerks, federal employees may they be. Even though mail is not collected, people still mail things, and so we must process it. While we don't necessarily get Rememberance Day off, we do get *a* day off to mourn the president.

At our discretion.

Today, I chose to take the day off to mourn the passing of our 38th president, Gerald Ford. As you might expect, my day was fricken awesome.

The day started normally enough. Coffee and web-surfing. Zoning out in front of screens. A quick shower, delivering an much-overdue rent payment, and then wandering off to find breakfast at around 2pm. Yes, the life of leisure. I love this city.

(Have I mentioned that the Lake Superior Coffee House serves breakfast ALL DAY LONG, for like, four bucks? And you can totally watch Louis Jenkins talk with some ponytailed dude while you eat it? Anyway...)

After breakfast, life is all about reading and otherwise screwing around in the park. While one could choose any park, we chose Bayfront Park, because that was supposed to be the place where Wilco was going to play. Before Nels Cline came down with chickenpox. Don't even get me started on this.

I take photos, including this one, which I made into a banner for Perfect Duluth Day.

More coffee. And then sushi on my deck from Zen House, which was kind of hit-or-miss. Some of the rolls were fantastic, but some ... uh ... not so much.

Later in the evening, Superior Wisconsin and Punk Rock called. And you know what? Duluth is so much cooler than Wilco. [video]

God bless you, Gerald Ford. You were a beautiful man.

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So it's about 1:00am, and we're about to watch a movie, and there's two to choose from: Cache and Sexy Beast. "I'm not really in the mood to watch subtitles," I say, referring to Cache which is in French, I think.

"What's Sexy Beast about?" says Christa.

"It's about a British gangster who ..."

"Sold!"

Sexy Beast it is.

About five minutes into the film, I'm already questioning our choice. The movie looks really cool, but I'll be damned if the characters are speaking English. "I think the only word I've understood so far is 'crocodile,'" I say. Christa tilts her head toward the screen and pumps up the volume.

I decide that the characters are indeed speaking English, but it sounds like English spoken by someone who has an entire pork sandwich crammed into their mouth. Someone who's just been to the dentist and shot full of novocaine, and has since spent the past two hours drinking glass after glass of whole milk.

After ten minutes, we've determined that they're in Spain. Someone wants the main guy to do a job, but he doesn't want to do it. There's also a rabbit that looks like the rabbit in Donnie Darko, only worse.

Eventually, I fumble around with the remote and manage to call up the closed captioning. Looks like we're watching a subtitled movie after all.

I give it 3/5 stars.

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So I'm at Radio Shack when a woman in her 40s walks in. She's very large and very loud, with a high-pitched, piercing voice.

"DO YOU KNOW IF THE HEADPHONES YOU USE FOR A RADIO CAN BE USED FOR A COMPUTER?" she asks. The clerk says yes, they are the same. "DO YOU CARRY HEADPHONES?" she screeches. Once again, the clerk says yes, and shows the woman where the headphones are.

But the woman has no further interest in headphones. Instead she begins asking about a long list of other items, seeming to follow her own stream-of-consciousness.

"DO YOU HAVE CELL PHONE CHARGERS?"

"DO YOU HAVE CIGARETTE LIGHTERS?"

"DO YOU HAVE PIGS?"

Now, I have to admit that I've been only half-listening up until this point. But the question, "Do you have pigs?" has captured my full attention. The clerk is just staring at her, puzzled. Finally, the woman rolls her eyes and says, "NOT REAL PIGS. STUFFED PIGS. DO YOU HAVE STUFFED PIGS?"

It turns out that Radio Shack, in case you had ever wondered, does not carry stuffed pigs.

"DO YOU HAVE THOSE BLUETOOTH HEADSETS FOR PHONES?" the woman wants to know. But before the clerk can even open her mouth, the woman shrieks even louder, "DON'T TELL ME YOU DON'T HAVE THEM BECAUSE YOU HAVE PHONES ALL OVER THE PLACE! YOU HAVE TO HAVE BLUETOOTH HEADSETS!"

They do carry Bluetooth headsets.

"DO THOSE WORK IN THE CITIES?"

The clerk explains that they work wherever your phone works.

"YOU MEAN IF I BOUGHT ONE OF THESE I'D STILL HAVE TO CARRY MY PHONE AROUND WITH ME?"

Yes. Your phone must be within 30 feet of the headset.

"WELL, HOW MUCH DO THEY COST?"

They start at $40.

"FORTY DOLLARS?!! THAT'S RIDICULOUS!" she says, and storms out.

After that she probably headed over to Dairy Queen to try and pick up a new set of tires.

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So I get in line at the supermarket behind a guy who’s buying maybe a basketful of items. The clerk has rung everything up, and he asks the guy if he wants paper or plastic, and the guy gallantly says that he’ll bag his own groceries. Meanwhile, the register hasn’t yet approved his credit card. The clerk, a 20ish guy with curly hair, kind of goes into a holding pattern and almost drools on himself as he stares into space with nothing to do.

After the guy finishes bagging his groceries, he comes back into position and gets the clerks attention. “Um, did you pay with a credit card?” the clerk asks. The guy says yes. After staring at the screen and at the keypad for a while, the clerk trots off to find the manager.

The manager comes and determines the problem, and after the manager explains the complexities of pressing “1,” the clerk (who is obviously new at this job) just stares at him, a little bit overwhelmed. “So,” the manager says, “you should probably ring up the next customer now.”

“Maybe …” the clerk says, quietly now, “um … maybe you should just do it.”

I stifle some laughter, and the manager tries to, but he can’t. He explains that even though it might be easier for the new clerk if someone else did his job for him, he should probably learn to do the job himself. Reluctantly, the clerk rings up my items, and I pay with cash. When the total comes to $13.03, I think about giving him $20.03, but then just give him an even $20 so as not to put him into the psych ward.

When I walk out the door, I think about all kinds of things. I wonder how that guy got this job in the first place. I wonder what it must be like for him to work in the daytime, when the place is full of hawkeyed old ladies with stacks of coupons. I wonder if he wanted to be a stockboy instead.

Most of all, I wonder what’s going to happen to him. There are all kinds of possibilities, but the one I like to imagine takes place about six months from now, when I go back into the supermarket and he’s ringing up groceries like Tom Cruise tending bar in Cocktail. Juggling bags of grapes. Flipping ketchup bottles end over end while spinning in circles. Tossing boxes of Pop-Tarts behind his back, spinning them ever so slightly so that they scan just before skidding into the bag.

Plastic, not paper. Of course.

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I haven't accidentally dropped anything into the toilet in a long time.

Which is strange, because I have to admit that at various times in my life, I've feared exactly that. My wallet, my keys, my toothbrush, my cell phone ... I've pictured them all flying out of my wildly flailing hand or out of the pocket of my hastily yanked-up jeans and plopping right into the ol' bowl. And the best part is when I imagine the object pausing for a second, then sliding down the drain at the bottom, flushing itself by its own accord. (The toothbrush being the exception of the last part, because it ain't like I'm going to pluck it out and start using it again, unlike, say, the keys.)

What I'm saying is that I've been extremely neglectful of my silent, near-the-toilet-with-semi-valuable-items prayers, and I've also failed to hang onto said items or notice their whereabouts just a little bit more than I normally would when I'm in toilet range, and still (still!) I've managed not to accidentally toss anything into the shitter. Even though I'm clearly tempting fate.

Even though I've been nothing short of a lavatory heathen for at least six months, if not more.

Huh.

Last night I looked up at the sky and noticed what I thought at first was the planet Mars, because it was orange. But it was twinkling a bit, so then I thought it was a star.

But after I stared at it for awhile, I realized it was moving.

It wasn't moving in a straight line, like a plane or a satellite. It was just sort of hovering around, kind of like a helicopter. Except that it was too high up to be a helicopter. And it was staying in the same location for way too long.

I'm pretty sure it was Jesus.

I discovered last night that walking through downtown Duluth at 2am in wet swim trunks is kind of fun.

Recently, the FDA approved Alli, a weight-loss capsule that prevents your body from absorbing fat. The thing about Alli is that it ships out of Grand Rapids, Minnesota by Priority Mail, meaning that I've been working like mad lately to process all these Alli parcels.

That's OK, though. I feel strong sense of personal pride whenever I realize that because of my personal efforts, people all over the country are shittin' pure Crisco.

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- A group of college kids taking alternate swigs out of a giant plastic bottle of Windsor and a 2-liter of 7-Up at 1:30pm on a Tuesday.
- An 80-year-old man driving a white pickup at about 4 mph with his tongue fully extended.
- A woman wearing Daisy Dukes and a winter jacket.
- A pregnant woman (I'd say about 8 months) leaning against the Twins Bar and dragging on a cigarette.
- Someone peeing out the window at Old Central.
- A well-dressed couple standing motionless in the middle of an intersection, with a sweater-wearing Yorkie that was sitting on the ground.
- A 6-year-old boy who complained that he smelled "like a rotten taco."

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Every time I see that "Do" billboard that says "Test drive a neighbor's dog," I want to climb up there and paste a big picture of a peanut butter jar on it.

God, I'm sick.

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So I'm talking to [Relative A] who's disturbed about [Relative B]. It seems that [Relative B] has done and is doing some things that are, if not a betrayal of trust, are downright assholic.

"How can he do that?" I ask. "I mean, how is he getting away with it?"

"Well," she says, "he tells one person one thing, and other people other things. He plays one faction against another. But he's just doing what suits him. He's cooking two turkeys."

"He's cooking two turkeys?"

"Yeah."

"I don't think I've ever heard of that before."

"Oh. Yes...he's cooking two turkeys."

I started thinking about that expression, and I liked it. It's so vivid. I could picture two dinners, two parties, with a conniving trickster making his way back anf forth between them. It was perfect.

Then, when she started talking about potato salad, I realized that he was literally cooking two turkeys.

Screw it, I'm using it anyway.

ME: "How big do you think that woman's panties are?"
HER: [Looks] "Jesus Christ."
ME: "I'm picturing something similar to the American flag outside of Perkin's West."
HER: [Sighs. Holds head.]
ME: "If I were on a plane that was crashing, and her panties were on the seat next to me..."
HER: "Actually, I would guess that she's wearing a thong."
ME: [Pause] "Oh, God. I think you're right."

Roasted Chicken Breast
Pepperoni
Salami
Bacon
Marinara Sauce
Lettuce
Tomatoes
Pickles
Black Olives
Onions
Cucumbers
Shaved Carrots
Mayonaisse
Honey Mustard
Oregano

"But NO CHEESE!!! I HATE CHEESE!!!"

I spent the summer of my 18th year driving around in circles, staying up all night, and drinking buttloads of Jolt Cola. I think I saw the sunrise more that summer than any other in my life, including last summer, when I got off of work at 6am every day. I played a lot of games of Risk (to completion) and spent a lot of time on the beach and on Skyline Drive.

One night up on Skyline, a couple guys and I came across this dude named Brad, a 30ish grimy little fucker who was sitting on the hood of his car getting totally shitfaced. Somehow we struck up a conversation, and when he asked us our names, we all spontaneously decided to alter our identities for the funny.

My name was Keith Spade, and I and my companions were not from silly old Duluth, oh no. We were from California. And we were professional skateboarders.

Brad, it turned out, was drunk enough and/or stupid enough not to doubt this story at all. In fact, he was downright excited about it. And the more excited he got, the more elaborate the story became. It was kind of a vicious circle that way. We were staying at the Radisson. We had a manager named Ian, who was probably pissed off at us for staying out so late. Either that, or he was knee-deep in babes and blow (the story oscillated as we speculated which version of Ian was funnier, but Brad never caught on).

For awhile, we told Brad all about the cool things we'd seen during our stay in Duluth. I told him I though that the Angled Tower was pretty rad, and he literally slapped his hand against his forehead. "No, no, NO! Not the Angled Tower...it's called the Enger Tower!" I asked him if he was sure, because I could have sworn it was the Angled Tower. He was sure.

"Hey, hey, hey...have I got something for you guys!" Brad screeched. "You're gonna love it!" He scrambled around inside his car for awhile, then came out wielding one of those keychains that says "Fuck you" and "Eat shit" when you press a button. We didn't love it.

"What do you do for fun here in Duluth?" I asked Brad.

"Mainly, I come up here and party all the time," he said. I got mock-excited about this, and asked him where the parties were tonight. He just waved me off, rather than explain that "party" was just his term for "sitting alone in the car in a secluded area drinking an entire bottle of SoCo."

There's a cement wall on Skyline to keep your car from rolling off the cliff when you park there, and toward the end of the night, we huddled in conference. Then we went back to Brad and explained to him that since he was such an awesome dude, we were going to perform one of our skateboarding tricks for him. The thing was, we didn't have our boards with us, so we'd have to do the best we could. He thought this was pretty awesome, so we counted to three and then simultaneously ran at the knee-high wall, jumped up on top of it and then quickly jumped down. That sealed the deal as far as Brad was concerned. We fucking ruled.

By this time the sun was up, and Ian was really pissed off back at the Radisson. Brad was wrecked. "Hey," somebody said, "Why don't you come with us to our next stop? There's room on the tour bus."

Brad thought he'd died and gone to heaven. Of course he'd come with us. (I can't remember where we were headed next. I want to say Fargo, but I'm not sure.) All he had to do first was go home, grab some clothes, borrow some money from his mom, and he'd be good to go. We said we'd meet him at the Radisson.

He never showed.

To this day I like to imagine a slightly grimy 30ish man, drunkenly shaking his mother awake in an attempt to borrow some money so that he could go on tour with some professional skateboarders from California.

She must've been so proud.

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In internet years, that's like 50. Woo-hoo!

So I'm talking to a couple of people I know, and one of them mentions how she was recently pulled over because her taillight was out. The other person shakes his head.

"See, that's why I always check all of my lights at least once a week," he says.

I, of course, laugh, because the idea sounds completely insane to my ears. Then I realize that he's serious.

Two things come to mind: 1) I can't even imagine what could possibly motivate me to check all of my lights once a week. 2) If you check all of your lights once a week, I wonder how many other things you check/do once a week, or every day, or every full moon when the wind is from the east.

How many chores and jobs does a person need in their day? Check my taillights to see if they're out? Bah! That is the County Sheriff's job, not mine.

Over Christmas, I started thinking about how many men truly enjoy receiving tools as gifts. This baffles me. To me, there is no difference between giving a power saw as a gift and giving a Swiffer or a new box of laundry detergent. Oh, sure, I'm happy to have a socket set on hand when I need it. But as a gift? Why not just give me a snow shovel and a bag of salt? Or better yet, hand me a can of whitewash and point me toward the fence.

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So I'm sitting on Christa's couch and both of us are sick. She has a serious cold. I have a minor cold, plus some physical and mental exhaustion. And even though she is the sicker of the two of us, she seems to have more energy. I am quiet, sluggish, and apparantly defeated.

"What do you need?" she asks. I shrug. "Do you want to watch a DVD? Do you need to go on the internet?"

I don't.

"Can I get you some strawberry flavored water? Some oatmeal?"

I don't want anything like that.

"Do you want some sandwich spread?"

For some reason, this intrigues me. Sandwich spread? What in God's name is sandwich spread? Christa explains that she just bought it and that it is fantastic. The last time she had sandwich spread she was riding on the school bus plundering her own lunch, and she's been looking for this stuff for a long, long time (West Duluth Super One is where you can find it). She removes a small, familiar-looking tube of meat from the fridge.

Oscar Meyer Sandwich Spread, the label reads. Tastes Great on Crackers.

I nod my head and she procures a knife, a plate, and a row of saltines. When I dig in and go to town, I am immediately 5 years old again, sitting on my parent's couch with a metal tray on my lap, eating a plate of saltines covered in Oscar Meyer Sandwich Spread and watching Mr. Rogers, having just returned from morning kindergarten. Life was great back then.

I'm on my third cracker when another memory hits me. My mom used to make homemade sandwich spread. It's true. We had this red and white wooden chair in the kitchen and every now and then, she would clamp an old-fashioned meat grinder to the chair and put a big bowl beneath it. I was in charge of turning the crank while she fed pieces of meat and pickles into the grinder, along with whatever else goes into sandwich spread. What came out tasted a lot like the stuff in the tube, only better.

I flip the tube over and read the ingredients. "Bologna" is at the top of the list. "Imagine," I say, "we're eating a food that contains bologna as an ingredient." I keep reading and find that bologna has a parenthetical list of its own ingredients. "Pork" is the first in that list, and then "Machine-Separated Chicken." This is when I decide that ignorance is bliss and stop reading the nutrition facts.

"What kind of meat do you think my mom used when she made sandwich spread?" I wonder out loud. It's no use. I can't picture the meat she fed into the grinder, and when I try to imagine her feeding slices of bologna into it, well, that is just plain wrong. I only remember the way it looked as it came out: pink and spreadable. I make a mental note to ask her about it.

The next morning, we're staring out the window at the creepy house next door, as we are wont to do, when Christa says, "Sandwich Spread is a Food of Abuse." And despite all of my warm and loving memories, I have to admit that it is.

"The Food of Abuse" is an ongoing conversation we have in which we list and describe foods that one might be serving, preparing, or consuming just before one "falls down the stairs" or "walks into a door." We are both creative people with extremely vivid imaginations, and sometimes -- a lot of the time -- that does not lead to pretty imagery.

Generally speaking, I contend that the Food of Abuse is nearly always processed food that requires little or no effort to prepare. Both Swanson Turkey Pot Pie and Bird's Eye Fish Sticks top my list, the former suggesting spousal abuse while the latter points toward child abuse. Christa asserts that meatloaf is the quintessential example. Here is where we usually disagree.

"Meatloaf is homemade," I say. "It can't be a Food of Abuse because someone had to make it by hand. It contains love."

"Meatloaf doesn't contain love," Christa says. "Meatloaf is made out of hamburger and ketchup. You're not seeing it. She's home all day, all alone, watching her stories on TV. Finally, he's due home and she has to make something. She makes meatloaf."

"I suppose," I admit, "that IF he comes home late, drunk, and pissed off because he lost all of his money playing pull-tabs at the bar, and IF the meatloaf is therefore dry and partially burned, THEN it can be a Food of Abuse."

We quietly think about this for awhile, still looking out the window at the creepy house next door. Then suddenly, it hits me.

"Bologna!" I yell. "My mom DID use bologna to make sandwich spread, but not slices. You can totally buy it in a big log."

"That's right, you can."

"Hey, what's that soft meat that comes in a log...um...I can't remember what it's called, but..."

"Braunschweiger."

"Yes! I don't remember what that tastes like."

"It's gross."

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>1.

"There's an open house. Maybe I should buy it and live there."

"Right by East High School?"

"Yeah. Uh. Kids loitering in the yard all the time. Hanging around eating cake."

"Crumbs all over the lawn."

>2.

"Ugh. This place is filthy. I'm seriously considering hiring a maid."

"You should."

"I'd just want her to do the routine stuff. Clean the floor. Dust the furniture. Tidy up."

"Give you handjobs."

"I picture her being...mid-50ish. Her name would be Rosa."

"She'd leave her yellow rubber gloves on the whole time."

IPOD UPDATE

As predicted, my iPod turned up. It turns out it was under the table beneath the shelf where I left it. It was in a box. On one hand, I'm really glad it wasn't stolen, but now, once again, I have no need to upgrade to a new iPod. Mine is a 3rd generation; the kind with the monochromatic screen that doesn't show pictures or play video. But I can't justify the upgrade, so I'll keep using it.

OVERHEARD AT THE GAS STATION

CASHIER: So, what's wrong with you?
TEENAGE KID: I'm tired. Imagine. Spending six hours a day. Five days a week. One hundred eighty days a year. In school. Oh -- I think you'd be a little tired, too.

IT'S FUN TO PARAPHRASE

For no particular reason, I took a slightly different route home today, and as I was doing so, I had the feeling I was making a mistake. Sure enough, the po-po decided to pull-pull me over.

"Good evening," the cop said. "The reason I pulled you over is because you're driving a piece of shit."

"I know," I said. "I've been meaning to get around to that..."

"Any reason in particular why you're driving such a fucking bomb?"

"I'm lazy, I guess. And also I spend my money on things like video iPods and TiVo, instead of automobile maintenance."

"This may be news to you, but people don't appreciate the fact that your car sounds like death raining down from Heaven. I'm going to issue you a warning, and you need to clean up your life."

"I sure will, officer. Now that I have to."

Ironically, my normal route home takes me past the police station. But it was a state trooper that pulled me over, so there you go. What a state trooper is doing cruising 4th Street in the freaking ghetto is beyond me, but hey, I drive a Ford that sounds like some kind of war machine, so what do I know.

The thing about working 12-hour days is that there is almost no time left to do anything else. Recreation goes first. Then eating properly. Then socialization. Then dealing with anything in a rational or sane way. Today, I've chosen to forgo sleep so that I don't go apeshit. The work/sleep/work/sleep cycle has to be broken, and my employers sure as hell aren't going to let up any time soon.

All of this said, I have no intention of curtailing or in any way modifying my plans to write a novel during the month of November. And I won't allow myself to fail, either. I am publicly declaring it here and now. I am going to write and finish a full novel, while working 12 hours a day on the side.

50,000 words. 1,600 words per day, providing that I write every single day in the month of November.

No problem.

Needless to say, posting will be pretty much nonexistent beginning next Tuesday.

Now I'm off to buy some coffee.

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Of all the kids in special ed, Herman was easily the scariest. He wore a hockey helmet because he would beat his own head against the wall if left unattended. The helmet also helped keep him from pulling his own hair out, which was another thing he unfortunately did. But the thing about Herman was his last name: Chase. His name was Herman Chase, but he was no relation to me.

Everyone assumed that he was my brother or maybe my cousin. And every now and then someone would ask me something about him. "I don't know him," I'd say, truthfully. If the person asking me was a girl, or if a girl or (worse yet) group of girls overheard the conversation, they'd get pissed off at this point.

"That's really mean," they'd say. "Pretending you don't know your own brother just because he's mental." That's the word everyone used: "mental."

And at that point, there was nothing I could do to convince these girls that I wasn't lying, that I was not, in fact, related to Herman Chase, and that I did not know anything about him. The more I tried, the more they looked at me with bitter disgust.

In this regard, I was the Ray Ramono of 4th grade.

The US Army announced today that it's $200 million-a-year ad agency has come up with a new slogan to generate recruits: "Army Strong."

What I wonder is this: Will they actually be able to get the Incredible Hulk to appear in the ads?

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Well, folks, I hope you weren't especially attached to my free time and to my sanity, because I've decided to put them both into a coma for the month of November. That's right, I've decided to crank out one of them 30-day novels.

There are two thoughts that I'm having on this.

One is that I'm very excited to finally have an excuse to write the bullshit novel that's been in my head for a few years now. The great part about this is that the book is kinda retarded, and I've always thought that if I were going to put forth the effort to write a novel, I'd want to write something much better than this junk (It's kind of a cross between Walden, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, and Cheech & Chong's Up in Smoke. Though this, of course, is subject to change once I start actually writing the damn thing).

The second thought I have is that I'm going to look at this as a learning process. I'm not one of those writers who can go on with lots of words. I have always tried to be concise, so being prolific and allowing myself lots of room will be new for me.

In any case, I'm going to need a lot of caffiene.

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That's the promotion currently being advertised on the radio for Two Harbors Ford. "Buy a TRUCK, Get a GUN." With every purchase of a Ford truck, you get a 12-gauge shotgun free of charge.

Now, before you start thinking I'm going to go off on some liberal pinko bedwetter anti-truck anti-gun rant, I want to say that I'm not opposed to trucks. I've seen some sweet trucks in my time and I really wouldn't mind owning one if gas were cheaper and if people wouldn't bother me to help them move. And I'm not anti-gun, either. I grew up in a house full of guns, and they never bothered me. My mom hated them, but my dad always said, "There are two things I love: guns and knives." So the guns stayed. So did the knives, for that matter.

But still, "buy a truck, get a gun." Wow. That is like a to-do list for the apocolypse.

Even considering my gun-filled childhood, this concept freaks me out as a non-gun-owner. "Buy a truck, get a KILLING MACHINE." And once again, I reiterate that I realize that there are things in this world that need killing (vermin, food animals, religious solicitors...) but this is just weird.

I'm trying to think of an equally strange promotion catering to other special-interest groups. "Buy a truck, get the Torah." "Buy a truck, get some tofu." "Buy a truck, get the morning-after pill."

I love it. It boggles the mind.

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I'm sitting in a coffee shop full of college students right now, and everyone in the room has a laptop. Apparantly, everyone also has iTunes and everyone has it set to share music.

So I'm sitting here with my headphones on, listening to other people's music, and trying to guess whose collection I'm listening to. Who has the Spice Girls, who has the Incubus, who has the Cloud Cult.

And that guy -- that one right there -- I bet he's the one singing this cover of "Like a Prayer" that was obviously made with Garage Band.

Recently I was thinking about the imaginary friend I had when I was a kid, and it reminded me of another similar head game I used to play as an adult. About eight or nine years ago, I used to play this gamewith myself where I imagined people explaining their purchases to the cashier when I was in line at the store. All of the explanations and descriptions were in graphic detail and came completely unsolicited.

"I like to have sex, but I'm not ready to have a family yet," one man said. "Therefore, I'm purchasing these little bags made out of latex, which is impermeable to spermatozoa. I'm going to take these home and, just before engaging in intercourse, I'll take one out of its foil wrapper and ..."

You get the point. Try it. It's fun.

"Every 28 days, the lining of my uterus breaks down and my body expels it through my vagina. Of course, I don't want to get any of this on my clothing or linens, so I plan on taking these things and ..."

"Whenever I eat food to nourish myself, my body chemically removes all of the nutrients it needs. Whatever is left over from this process, I expel through my anus. This is a messy job, let me tell you. Therefore, I'm purchasing this soft disposable paper so that I can ..."

The best part is to imagine the look on the cashier's face. Each cashier you see offers a new level of hilarity.

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In case you didn't know, there's an female Australian basketball player named Liana Barrett-Chase.

My dream is to meet her, fall in love with her, and marry her. Then I'd change my name to Barrett Barrett-Chase Chase.

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I'll be losing my internet connection today and will be going without for the weekend. On Monday, however, I'll be rewired and ready to rock. Er, roll. Um, read. That's what I meant: I'll be ready to read.

Your emails.

Hair Stylist: "Barrett" is a strange name. How did you get it?

Me: It's an interesting story, actually. See, my parents named me.

HS: Really?

ME: Scout's honor.

HS: That's a rare thing. You're lucky.

ME: Yeah, well, they're very special people.

HS: So, how do you want me to do your neckline?

ME: I don't care. I never see it.

HS: Maybe I'll shave in my initials. Maybe a lightning bolt?

ME: Yeah, knock yourself out.

HS: Or maybe today's date. Then when the date disappears, you'll know its time to come in again.

ME: It'll be like those toothbrushes with the blue stripe.

HS: I'm a genius.

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Recently, I sat in a bar, stone cold sober, watching as a nearby table ordered bottle after bottle of wine. I think they were up to their seventh or eighth bottle when they started playing the age-old game of Bloody Knuckles.

Their form was a variation that I had never seen before. Each of the players made a fist, and as is the norm, they touched their fists together. But then, instead of raising his fist and bringing it down on his opponent's in a "knocking" motion, the Hitter drew his fist back and punched his opponent's fist head-on. The strike made a loud smack that was audible even above the jukebox.

In case you didn't realize it, it is mid-July, the beginning of Bloody Knuckle season. Around the country, kids everywhere are getting to that point of summer vacation where the boredom is really setting in. There are only three kinds of humans who play Bloody Knuckles: the seriously bored, the seriously stupid, and the seriously drunk. Life challenges and life experience usually eliminate the first two excuses from most people's lives. But anyone can get drunk. So don't worry, your Bloody Knuckle career isn't necessarily over. You might come out of retirement for a return match tonight!

Back in my Bloody Knuckles halcyon days as a kid, my favorite variant of the game required a table. Everything is the same as the standard version, except you play with your forearms flat on a tabletop. That way, if you miss, you rap your own knuckles on the table really, really hard. This variant of Bloody Knuckles usually doesn't last very long.

I like to think about how long ago, someone actually thought up the game of Bloody Knuckles, and it became so wildly popular that everyone has at least heard of it. Its popularity is due to its simplicity. Two people willingly engage in the exchange: "I will try to hit you. You try to avoid it. If you are successful, then you can try to hit me. We'll do this until both of us are hurt so badly that we can't even sign our own names."

Those are the rules.

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It's getting stale around here. I'll be tweaking the design some as the mood strikes me. It'll probably be a work in progress for a few days.

Unprofessional, yes. But who ever said this site was professional?

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Behold my logo for one of the best ideas I've ever had: Nap Magazine.

I wrote about this before. There are tons of magazines devoting serious attention to other life functions, namely eating. But napping can be just as delicious and luxurious.

"Top 50 Naps of All Time" would be a great year-end cover story. Number one would obviously be Dorothy in the poppy field in The Wizard of Oz. Since the whole thing is happening in a dream anyway, it's a nap within a nap. Imagine being so tired that you fall asleep while already sleeping.

That is plain beautiful.

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The scene: My car.
The soundtrack: Some ubercatchy top-40 song on Mix 108; Not Dave Matthews but it might as well be.

Her: (Sings along without knowing the words)
Me: (Sings the rhythm guitar part)

(This goes on for about one full minute.)

Her: I think we have it down!
Me: Dude I have learn to play this. I could be neck deep in collegiate tail. I'll just learn this riff and get me one of those shell necklaces and I'll be set.
Her: Oh, yeah. Right here's where you nod to your bandmates and smile...
Me: Maybe give them a wink...
Her: Because you have an inside joke...
Me: But you don't smile for long, because you've got to get moody...
Her: When you think about that special girl...
Me: You could have gone the distance, but you were so young...
Her: You made so many mistakes...
Me: But you've learned from them now!
Her: Never again!
Me: Not with you, girl!
Her: And that's when you make eye contact.
Me: My god. That would totally work.
Her: Totally.
Her: (Sings along without knowing the words)
Me: (Sings the rhythm guitar part)

I've written many times about how although we had a pretty good income while I was growing up, it was tough to make it stretch because there were so many of us in the house. Two parents, six kids, one grandparent, and a foriegn exchange student all living in a three bedroom home -- it sounds like a sitcom.

Anyway, despite a decent cash flow, we were still effectively poor, and we had to make some sacrifices. One of those sacrifices was that we had to drink "mixed" milk. In my experience, some people know what this is, but others have no clue, so I'll explain it.

In the bottom cabinet of our pantry, there sat an enormous box of generic dehydrated milk. Enormous. It was probably the size of a large box of Tide, and it looked very similar when you poured some out. About once a week, my dad would come home with a six pack of actual, delicious milk (six glass returnable half-gallon bottles of milk in a wire carrier with a red wooden handle). We were not allowed to drink this until it had been "mixed" or diluted at a 50/50 ratio with the disgusting reconstituted milk from the pantry.

When you poured the dehydrated milk into a pitcher of water and stirred it, it smelled like baby puke. It was really thin and a bit grainy. Mixing it with the fresh milk from the glass bottles made it somewhat palatable.

I've met several people whose parents also did this when they were kids. But what I wonder is, does anyone still do this these days? I really doubt it.

I think a lot of the minor methods people once used to get by have disappeared. A lot of this has to do with culture as well as the changing world. For example, it used to be a lot cheaper to make your own clothes if you knew how to do such a thing. But now, you can just go to Wal-Mart.

Although we lived right in the city, a lot of people in our neighborhood kept chickens. They also kept ducks, geese, and turkeys ... right in the backyard. There were always fresh eggs (pretty much for free) and now and then someone's dad would grab a hatchet and head out to the chopping block to get dinner. Does this still happen? I haven't seen any livestock in town for almost 20 years.

The thing is, we're one more generation removed from the farm or from the Old Country. When we get strapped for cash, these methods don't even occur to us. We just put a little more on the credit card and keep hoping the future doesn't catch up with us.

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I received this in the mail today. I have no idea what's inside of it, but already I can tell you that I think this sort of promotion should be illegal.

From a postal worker's point of view, this piece of mail is ridiculous. Note the words Priority Express Letter. This skirts on being unmailable. It would have costed them $4.05 to send this Priority. For Express, it would have been $14.40. But if you look at the postage, you can see that it was mailed Standard, which costs something like, oh, the lint in your front pocket. This is a mass-mailing sent out to thousands of people. There is nothing "urgent" in it. It is an advertisment.

Also, check out the personal note to the postmaster to "deliver directly to recipient listed above." Oh, thanks. We were thinking of delivering it to a tent in the Mojave desert before bringing it to the person on the front of the envelope, but since you insist, we'll just do what we do with every other piece of mail.

OK, now that we've established that the contents of this envelope are "EXTREMELY IMPORTANT," let's open it and see what's inside.

Awesome. It's a MasterCard. Oh, wait. It isn't a MasterCard. It's an ad for Benna Ford of Superior. The back of the card reads "THIS IS NOT A CREDIT CARD" and "FOR PROMOTIONAL PURPOSES ONLY". There is no letter or anything else inside the envelope -- just this card, which has an 800 number on the back and the instruction to "Call for details."

Nice marketing, Benna Ford. You have just admitted to being deceptive. To being shady. To being the type of business that uses tricky language and techniques to dupe people into buying your products. I'm not exactly sure why you've chosen this type of campaign, or this type of image. Car dealerships already carry the stigma of being dishonest. Any intelligent person will look at this advertisement, see it for what it is, and then look upon you with disgust.

Your marketing people should be fired.

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So, have you noticed that no one uses the ¢ symbol anymore? What the hell's up with that? It's all "A candy bar used to cost $.17 when I was a kid." Huh? Point-one-seven dollars? Jesus.

When I was in high school, my economics teacher told us about an old econ textbook that was recalled in the '70s because the cover featured a cent symbol, a dollar symbol and a percentage symbol: ¢ $ %

If you turned the textbook upside-down, the symbols created the letters "LSD." He showed it to us. It totally did.

Yeah, this post is lame. You want something better? Huh. I'm on vacation, muthafukkas!

If you need me, I'll be reclining on my sofa with cucumbers on my eyelids, a Tab in my hand and a Luna bar in my mouth.

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A few days ago, I found a folder full of poems and stories I’d written 10 or 12 years ago, before I had weblogs and newspapers and comic strips to satisfy my creative jones. The stories were all two- or three-page fragments that had some potential but never got off the ground. The poems were fairly boring exercises in language.

Still, it was a lot of fun to read. I’m pretty certain that I never showed any of this stuff to anyone. I barely remember writing it, except for one story fragment about an elaborately entangled pair of non-friends. I remember thinking about that one a lot.

I’m still not going to share most of it with anyone, because it’s either just works in progress or else of interest to no one but me. But I will share the following prose poem, which made me smile. I don’t remember writing it at all.

Beige

A man walks out of his house all decked out in beige. Beige shirt, hat, jacket, trousers, hair, and eyes. Hops into his little beige car and zips off to his little beige job where he’ll sip a steaming cup of beige java, flip some paperwork in front of himself and sigh in delight. Meets some buddies for lunch, beige boys just like him, they slip on down to the Beige Room or, no, maybe today he’s just beige-baggin’ it. Before long, he returns to that little beige home, (Did I mention it was beige?) where his beige little wife gives him a beige little peck on his beige little cheek. And after serving him up a plateful of beige, she slowly squeezes into a hot little beige number, tears back the beige comforter from their little beige bed and mounts him like he’s a beige stallion, screaming, “Fuck me, beige boy! Fuck me ’til I’m brown!”

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ME: Hey, did I tell you I solved my laundry problem?
HER: How so?
ME: I had to admit to myself that I’d never be able to keep up with the elaborate systems I previously had in mind. Now, it’s just clean or dirty, with no gray area.
HER: Interesting.
ME: Anything clean gets hung up in the closet. Anything dirty goes down the hole [a trap door in my closet floor that leads to the basement].
HER: Wait, wait. So what if you wear a shirt, but think you might wear it again without washing it?
ME: It goes back in the closet. It’s still clean.
HER: But what if you wear something to the bar…
ME: Down the hole.
HER: But what if you’re going to the bar again, and you don’t want to get your other clothes smoky?
ME: Down the hole. There’s no room for argument. If it’s clean, it’s clean. If it’s dirty in any way, I cram it down the hole. All bar clothes go down the hole without hesitation.
HER: Hmm.
ME: The thing is, I’ve reached a point in my life where I’m not going to efficiently sort my clothes by stages of dirtiness. I have no tolerance for dinginess in my life, and I’m tired of being surrounded by it. From now on, if something is less than immaculate, I cram it down the hole and that’s that.
HER: Sounds good.
ME: I’m not just talking about laundry.

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People from the less-snowy climes might not realize that when you live in northern Minnesota, folks frequently talk about the possiblity of "getting eight or nine inches tonight," which if you're a smartass like me, sets you up for the same hilarious punchline at least once a month if not more often.

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If you're looking for me on Myspace, I thought I'd let you know that this is not me.

Likewise, this is not me.

I'd especially like to point out that this is not me, either.

In my whole life, I've only met one other person named Barrett, and we were both pretty freaked out by the experience. Now I find out that on Myspace, there are 152 Barretts.

I'm perplexed.

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"So this is kind of a little anthem, here."

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Dear Netflix,

I would like to start by telling you how much I enjoy the opportunities you provide for me. While I don't make a whole lot of use of your movie choices, you allow me to watch television in the way I prefer: An entire season at a time. Really, I don't think a person should watch any TV show once a week, but watching an entire season at a time is one of the greatest things any human could hope to do. May we never run out of television shows.

However, I have a grievance, which you can probably tell, because I am writing an open letter.

You are trying to deceive me, and I know better.

For the past two weeks, I've mailed my selections back to you on Saturday. And so far, it takes until Wednesday for you to acknowledge that you've received them.

OK, with the normal customer, you may be able to blame this on the US Postal Service. But listen: I WORK FOR THE US POSTAL SERVICE. I know how mail works. I know that I put those DVDs into the letter tray that goes to Minneapolis on Saturday night. And I know that that tray successfully went onto the truck to Minneapolis around 10pm on Saturday.

DO NOT TRY TO TELL ME THAT YOU HAVEN'T RECEIVED IT YET. Duluth to Minneapolis is a 2.5-hour drive. It has been THREE DAYS. I should easily have my new DVDs by now. You are obviously fucking with me.

How. How the FUCK am I supposed to cope with life without a serious backload of cartoons and shows about pretty people doing charming things?

Liars. Crooks and liars. That's what you are. From now on I am going to tell everyone that you suck while I continue to do business with you. Because renting DVDs and watching broadcast TV just sucks now that I've met you.

ARRRRGH! I hate you with an almost perfect hate.

Sincerely,
Barrett Chase

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First off, I will make a startling confession. I do not own, and never have owned, a cell phone.

My reluctance to embrace this particular piece of technology has always followed a certain familiar logic: "I don't want to be accessible at all times."

My life has changed so much in the past six months, however. Now, I really, really do want to be accessible at all times. Simply because most of the time that I'm accessible, everyone else is either sleeping or at work. That 15-minute window when I'm busy purchasing fan belts and chocolate soy milk? YES, CALL ME THEN. Because if you don't do it then, it won't happen at all. And by the time I get the chance to call you, it will be midnight. And calling people at midnight is just so gauche, so I probably won't do it at all.

Anyhow, here's the thing that I've noticed. Whenever you ask anyone what cellular company they use and what they think of it, no one ever says, "I use blah blah blah and it's great! I'm completely satisfied."

The best response you ever get is, "Well, the one I use is OK, I guess ... but ..."

You also get a lot of conflicting advice. One person will say, "Whatever you do, don't use Verizon. (insert horror story here) Now I use Cellular One and it's OK, I guess ... but ... "

The next person will relate the exact same story, only with the companies reversed.

Anyhow, I've realized there are two courses of action here. I can do the frugal and smart thing, getting the most functional deal for the least amount of money, or I can get the coolest-looking piece of sexy technology I can find, with the plan that allows me the longest leash.

I think you know what I'm going for. Oh yeah, baby.

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A selection from the 1986/1987 World Wrestling Federation Merchandise Catalog. "One size fits all," the description reads.

I can only imagine how this photoshoot went. "You'll be modeling a baseball cap. So, we'll need you to take off your top and bra."

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Maria writes:

Barrett, you give good advice. My roommate's butt is bleeding. What should he do?

Well, Maria, drawing upon my vast experience as an unlicensed medical doctor, I can assure you that a bleeding butt can indicate many different problems, most of them minor. However, you have failed to mention which part of his butt is bleeding, and how much blood there is. Is this a butt cheek puncture wound? Or is the blood pouring by the gallon from his rectum?

The most common cause of a bleeding butt is a simple case of hemorrhoids. If this is the case, your friend should purchase some Preparation H. I once read an article that said that Preparation H is the most commonly stolen item from drugstores. You'd think it would be condoms, but if you really think about it, it makes sense. If you're buying condoms, you're getting laid. If you're buying Preparation H, you've got something wrong with your rectum. People are squeamish and embarrassed about all things rectum.

I once worked with a woman who brought an inflatable donut to work to sit on. I did a little research for this article -- just because I'm unlicensed doesn't mean I'm a quack -- and learned that sitting on an inflatable donut is actually bad for hemorrhoids.

I also learned that hemorrhoids are usually caused by sitting too much, standing too much, or walking too much. So my advice for your friend is to spend more time laying on the couch and watching TV. If he feels lazy about this, it can be justified as legitimately treating a medical condition.

I hope this has been of help to you and your friend. If not, my friend Paul Lundgren once wrote an article called "A Funny Thing Happened Up My Butt" which may be of service. Feel free to contact him for a copy.

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Kate from Buffalo writes:

Hey Barrett Chase. I have an idea. I think you should start an advice column on this blog. I don't know why but I think you could dispense amusing and reasonably good advice. I just have a weird feeling about it.

I'll start:

Is it better to live in an area that you love, or in an apartment that kicks ass? I have to move this month and I am truly torn. I really love being able to walk to bars and coffee shops, but I am getting sick of the high rent in my current neighborhood. I just found an apartment with a massive private patio- but it is in kind of a strange part of town. The apartment attached to the best-patio-ever is only so-so. If I take the patio place I will NOT be able to walk to fun bars and coffee shops, however I WILL be able to hang out on my patio and grill things for my friends. I live in Buffalo, NY so for half the year the patio will be filled with useless snow. What should I do? I'm ready to marry the patio, but what if I want to get some coffee? Or drink without driving? Will my love for the patio be
enough?

Dear Kate,

I can only impart advice based on my personal experience, so here I go.

For most of my adult life, I lived in an apartment I loved, which was located in what many of my peers might consider "a strange part of town." In Duluth, most people of my demographic live in the Hillside neighborhoods, which is where I now reside. But for a long time I lived in the neighborhood I where I grew up, in an apartment built upon the stage of my former elementary school. It was beautiful. In NYC, this apartment would have gone for $2,000/month, easily. When I moved in the rent was $495.

Sure, there were bars and coffee shops I could walk to, and my workplace was 70 yards away, but the neighborhood is mainly made up of old people. Most of my peers made a big deal about travelling "way out" to West Duluth to do anything. All of the action happened Downtown. It was a pretty isolating feeling. Still, I loved my apartment and was extremely comfortable living there. I lived there for eight years.

So what you need to do is assess how much time you currently spend in your apartment versus how much time you spend in these coffee shops and bars. How much is a taxi ride home from the bars you want to frequent?
From what you've written, it sounds as if you will be saving a lot of money. Maybe you could put some of that toward getting your drunk ass home safely on Saturday nights.

Also realize that you can purchase coffee and booze to enjoy and/or serve in your own home. The older I get, the more I realize that drinking these beverages in a comfy private residence is usually more enjoyable than drinking them in a public establishment. You have complete control over the music, the lighting, and the company, almost always guaranteeing yourself a good time. It is also a lot cheaper.

I understand the temptation of a patio. Once, I almost moved into a house that was slated to be demolished in three months. Frankly, it needed to be demolished. But for a summer on the fantastic deck with a 280-degree view of Duluth and Lake Superior, it almost would have been worth it to do a double-move and live temporarily in a rathole.

Anyway, I say go for the patio. Can you get a fire pit? That will extend your patio enjoyment into the off-season and also give you a place to destroy your credit-card applications.

Hope I was of help,
Barrett

[Finding yourself in a quandry? Send your pleas for advice to bchase@gmail.com]

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I got tapped recently for a "four things" meme that I actually wanted to participate in, but then I realized that I'd covered most of that territory in my blog already. Hence the following post. I won't tap anyone in return, though. Those who know me best are familiar with my #1 complaint: I'm not tapping anyone these days.

Anyway, on with the post:

1. My "middle" toe is longer than all of my other toes. This caused a lot of problems for me as a child, because the clerks at the shoe stores would feel for my big toe when I tried on new shoes, and I'd end up getting shoes that were too small for me. Likewise, my ring finger is longer than my index finger. Also I have round fingernails, which I understand is relatively rare.

2. Like Molly Ringwald in The Breakfast Club, I have a low tolerance for dehydration. Several times in my life, I've been so dehydrated that I could actually smell water -- from several yards away. When you smell water, it is the greatest odor on the planet, and once you smell it you become ravenous and would maim your own kin to slake your thirst.

3. I used to feel bad about having adult acne, until I met several people with acne who were really, really hot. Now it doesn't bother me. Sometimes, I think about seeing a dermatologist, but I know that the treatments can be harsh, and I know that in the grand scheme of things, it really doesn't matter. I used to have a fairly serious acne scar on my cheekbone, and women would say that is was really hot, but for some reason it disappeared. Easy come, easy go.

4. I once gave myself a Pavlovian response, and it still applies. Back in the day, when the NorShor Theatre was in full swing, and there was so much opportunity for fun, I tried a little experiment. Whenever I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that I was going to have a good time, I would wear 212 cologne, and I'd only wear that cologne under those circumstances. Now whenever I smell that cologne, I feel happy and excited. Sometimes, I wear 212 because it puts me in that frame of mind. Of course, sometimes I wear it because it smells fantastic. 99% of the time, however, I wear no scent at all.

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I just dissolved a whole morning reading about pro wrestling history on Answers.com.

We all know about "jobbers" and "angles," but have you heard of the "Dusty Finish" or "smarks"? Have your heard of the "Muta Scale"?

Did you know that Johnny Ace and Road Warrior Animal are brothers? Did you know that Ken Patera did jail time for throwing a boulder through a McDonald's window? Did you know all this about Gorilla Monsoon?

This list of match types is extensive, but not at all comprehensive. The "Indian Strap Match" is conspicuous by its absence.

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For most people, coming home in the middle of the night to find your street crawling with police cars is a bad thing. On my block it means that all the underage parties are busted, which in turn means that I get a sweet parking spot.

Woo-hoo!

I'm really excited about Mix Tape Madness, a group of about a dozen of us over at PDD, who've decided to create and exchange mix CDs on a monthly basis.

A mix can be a lot of things. It can be a message. It can be a story. It can be a mood. Or, it can be a way to show off.

For this project, we are pretty much sticking to plain CDs. Some are pushing for mp3 CDs, but there is resistance to that faction.

Personally, when it comes to mixes, I think the more limitations placed on both the listener and the creator, the better. This is the beauty of the true mix tape. The creator must not only choose songs that go well together, but he can't just decide to end it after 30 mintues. He has to fill both sides to their predetermined length, with as little blank space at the end of each side as possible. A mix tape is a work of art.

Likewise, with a tape the listener can't do any blasphemous things such as put it on random, program out certain songs, or easily skip songs. The listener MUST listen to the tape the way it was intended.

For me, this is big. Although ... you won't catch me recording 12-14 mix tapes. I agree that CDs are necessary, because otherwise it just wouldn't happen. Either that or the group would consist of a bunch of obsessive-compulsive maniacs, and who wants to hear their mix tapes? Not me.

Another thing I like in a mix is for the track listing to be hidden somewhere inside, not readily in view. The first time I hear a mix, I like everything to be a surprise, as if it's a radio station programmed by someone I know, just for me. The track listing is for later reference only.

Some people think of mixes as a way to find out about new music, and while I agree with this line of thought, I certainly don't mind finding some familiar gems in the mix as well. For me, the whole thing is really about experiencing the mix itself. The individual songs don't matter nearly as much as the mix as a whole.

Hmmm. I keep thinking ... planning ...

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94% of those who wander are, in fact, lost
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Or, Life Improvements

Recently, I've embarked on a series of life improvements. I haven't mentioned them here, because I think it's good to be well underway with these things before making announcements to the public at large, for risk of later embarrassment.

But really, I've been very serious about these improvements, incessently scribbling detailed plans into Moleskine notebooks, complete with pie charts.

Improvement 1: Get a real job, and money.
I was worried about this one for awhile, because the easiest path led straight away from Duluth, which I was only about 40% willing to do. For awhile, I seriously considered moving to St. Cloud for a job with the Postal Service. Luckily, I was able to snag a USPS job right here in the good ol' Twin Ports, where I can live 7 blocks from an inland sea. My job right now has some fairly intense mental and physical demands, which I'm sure will become easy as pie once I adjust to them, but it's nice to be challenged for a change. Plus, there is a bit of a ladder which right now involves getting a regular schedule and holidays off. But in the meantime, it's actually kind of fun.

Improvement 2: Acquire a car and a license to drive it.

I've been bussing/biking for too long. With money in my pocket and a ramblin' sensibility, I needed some sweet wheels. Or if not some sweet wheels, at least a used Ford Escort with low miles and no rust. I passed my tests with flying colors and I'm ready to roll. Watch for more remote vlogging in the future.

Improvement 3: Make apartment comfy.

For the past several years, I've been living as though I'm about to move, and I did move twice in two years. Now, I've got me some swank living quarters my friend, and I plan on staying here for awhile. It was a shame how long I lived even in this apartment with cardboard boxes and a half-empty, echoey space.

Now, for the first time in my life, I'm a table owner. I've been picking up odds and ends as I see them, and when I can afford it, I'll be acquiring some art. (Soon, I'm picking up a Russell Gran painting which is hot, hot, hot.)

Improvement 4: Draw comics again.

The huge expanse of time between Ripsaw issues has been nice for a lazy guy like me, but also, I miss drawing comics.

Maybe this is a premature announcement, but it looks like Ograte will appear as a serial comic in the Transistor. I had kicked around the idea of it being more of a comic book, or maybe even a web-based Flash cartoon, but I think this will be a good way to start introducing these characters and their plight.

Also watch for an Ograte website in the near future as well. My other comic, Occam's Razor, will still appear in the Ripsaw as long as they want to run it.

Various Others

I have various other goals that involve vlogging for Minnesota Stories, eating correctly, learning various computer programs including but not limited to Flash, getting rid of the Green Bay Packers stickers on my car, and generally conquering the universe.

Violently, of course.
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Woman 1: So I looked in the cage, and there was an egg! When I got them I didn't know I was getting a male and a female. I got them pretty young, so you can't tell.
Woman 2: You can't just lift up their feathers and look? HEE HEE!

Woman 1: No. That isn't how it works. It isn't like a dog or a hampster. It doesn't stick out. You can have them sexed...
Woman 2: HEE HEE!
Woman 1: ...but I didn't. Normally, when they get a certain age, their feathers come in and you can tell what sex they are because the males are prettier.
Woman 2: It figures! Just like everywhere else -- CHAUVINISTS.
Woman 1: So I guess now I'm going to be having eggs now and then, which wouldn't be so bad except they usually break, and then theres blood all over.
Woman 2: You can't get them neutered? HEE HEE!

Woman 1: No.
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If and when I ever become a homeowner, one of the dreamiest features of my home will be the two-dishwasher system. Yes, you heard me right -- two dishwashers.

The idea is that you never have to put away your dishes. You just take them out of the "clean" dishwasher as you use them, and when they are dirty, you put them in the "dirty" dishwasher. When all your dishes are dirty, you run the "dirty" dishwasher, and reverse the process.

Ah, bachelorhood.
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Her: The trick to looking glamorous in photos is that you have to open your mouth when you smile. It makes it look like you're having the time of your life. See, watch...don't I look like a girl on a magazine?

Me: Yeah, like Terry Schaivo on the cover of Newsweek.
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"The building looks like a gym on the inside too, with the letter lines spread out over the floor where the carriers sort, and an enclosed catwalk extending along the walls above them and across the middle, just over their heads. The catwalk belongs to the postal inspectors, the Postal Service's cabal of regulatory enforcers: every six feet there's a one-way window where they can peer out. You never know when they're in there; you never see them. Sometimes you hear their slow footsteps, if you happen to be under the catwalk when they pass overhead. Like a goose on your grave.

"Are they there as a matter of course, or only when someone's suspected of something? Nobody knows. What do they wear? Suits? Uniforms? Do they carry weapons? Uncertain. Those who have seen them have only seen them for a few seconds, and remember little: a sideburn, a mole. They can come out anytime and flash their badges and cuff you and drive you to Elmira and interrogate you until you break. They can imprison you. That is, if you've done anything wrong. Like what?

"Stealing mail. Opening mail. Destroying mail."

--from Mailman by J. Robert Lennon

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Here's a meme I'm stealing from this site, which I found via this site. It is, in my opinion, the best way to appreciate a song.

"Never Gonna Give You Up" by Rick Astley

I. Things Mr. Astley is never gonna do
    A. Give you up
    B. Let you down
    C. Run around
        1. Desert you
    D. Make you cry
    E. Say goodbye

    F. Tell a lie
        1. Hurt you

II. Things Mr. Astley is currently doing
    A. Thinking of a full commitment

III. Things Mr. Astley plans to do in the future
    A. Tell you how he's feeling
    B. Make you understand

IV. Things you and Mr. Astley have been doing simultaneously
    A. Knowing the rules
    B. Knowing what's been going on
    C. Knowing the game
        1. Mr. Astley predicts you will play it

V. Things Mr. Astley does not want you to do
    A. Tell him you're too blind to see
    B. Get this from any other guy

"Just Lose It" by Eminem

I. Things Eminem has touched on
    A. Everything but little boys
        1. Is not a stab at Michael

            a. Is just a metaphor
                i. Eminem is psycho

II. Facts regarding Friday
    A. It's Eminem's day
        1. Plans to party
            a. All the way to Sunday
                i. Maybe 'til Monday, Eminem is not sure what day
        2. Plans to cruise on the freeway
            a. Will feel kinda breezy
                i. Top down
                ii. Allowing hair to blow
                iii. Someone will touch Eminem's body at unknown destination

III. Requests Eminem makes
    A. From Everyone
        1. Report to the dance floor
        2. Stop
            a. Pyjama time
        3. Lose it
        4. Just go "huhhuhhuhhuh"

            a. It's so appeasin'
    B. From Boy (Oops, I mean Girl)
        1. Shake that ass
        2. Touch my body
    C. From Kiddies
        1. Come here
            a. On Eminem's lap
    D. From Good God
        1. Dip
        2. Do a little slide
        3. Bend down
            a. Touch your toes
        4. Glide down the center of the dance floor
            a. Like TP for Eminem's bunghole
        5. Let one go
            a. Give a little "poot poot"
            b. Who'd hear it?

                i. Nobody
    E. From Miss
        1. Punch him in the stomach
        2. Pull his hair
        3. Spit on him
        4. Gouge his eyes out
    F. From Girl
        1. Name
        2. Sign
    G. From Fellas
        1. Grab your left nut
            a. Make your right one jealous

IV. Facts regarding Tuesday
    A. Eminem is locked up in jail
        1. Has no recollection, yet claims innocence
        2. Was apprehended "butt naked"
        3. Yelled at old lady to "touch my body"
            a. On videotape

V. Types of girls Eminem is calling

    A. Black girls
    B. White girls
    C. Skinny girls
    D. Fat girls
    E. Tall girls
    F. Small girls
    G. All girls

VI. Dr. Dre's assessment
    A. "Man you must be up out your mind."

VII. Things that happen at the part when the rap breaks down
    A. It gets real intense
        1. No one makes a sound
    B. Everything looks like it's 8 Mile

VIII. Things Eminem says when he doesn't have any lines
    A. Chubba chubba chubba chubba chubba chubby
    B. Chubby Teletubbie
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You wouldn't think so, but mail is really boring. Sure, it's sort of interesting at first, but once you see your 10,000th letter (which is probably sometime on your first day of USPS employment) you realize that envelopes are not much to look at, and if you do happen to glance a little too long at a postcard, you'll undoubtedly learn about the weather in some bland vacation spot. I'd like to see mail art, but I never have. The most interesting mail by far comes from prisons, where inmates draw elaborate pictures on their envelopes. [The top three most popular inmate drawings: crosses, hearts, and Garfield.]

Every now and then, however, you come across something stupid written on a piece of mail. OK, it's not that stupid to the layperson, and I was probably guilty of this stuff, too before I figuratively donned the blue. But man. I get tired of it. And so I vent, but uh, only as a public service. Avoid the following to receive better service, or to diminish your expectation that such measures will help.

56828IL23814700OO////////56R5721212111110O6 | Officially the worst of the lot. Take a look at all that crap on your junk mail or your magazines, you know, the stuff that isn't your address. That crap actually means something, and I have to deal with it all day long. Many companies are nice and make the numbers less than 10 digits long, while others insist on a good 20-digit alphanumeric string to get them started. Make lots of repeating characters, and use a font that makes it impossible to tell the difference between the letter O and the number 0. That rocks. For some reason, the worst culprits are tobacco companies and Christian evangelists.

Do Not Bend | My, oh, my. This one makes me roll on the floor, holding my belly and laughing in hysterical sobs. See, you don't realize this, but mail runs through all kinds of horrendous Rube Goldberg machines with all kinds of claws and teeth and evil nature. And while we try not to harm anything, we don't sort each of the (literally) tens of thousands of letters we see every day by hand, carrying them around on silk pillows. We dump them by the tubful into the letter-eaters. If you don't want your letter to, ahem, get bent, then pack it accordingly.

Do Not Discard | Generally, you only find this on mail that is absolutely worthless. Because, if you have to say it, then well, it's an issue, isn't it? No one writes "Do Not Discard" on anything important, such as their electric payment or their letters to Grandma.

Doesn't Live Here! Return to Sender! | OK, this is an honest enough mistake. I've probably done it myself in the past. So, we accidentally sent some mail to your house for the people who used to live there. All right, mistakes happen. But it doesn't get returned to sender. It gets forwarded. What I love is when the person takes a Sharpie and angrily inks out the name and address, so that we have no idea whose mail this is, or the old address, so we can't send it on. Nice. Thanks for the help.

Postmaster -- Deliver Immediately -- Men's Golf Information | 1. Yes, the postmaster inspects every single piece of mail to see if there is a message for him on the outside. 2. Uh, yeah, 'cuz we were gonna just hang on to it for awhile and deliver it next winter. 3. Oh, please.
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Of all the reading material that people leave around my workplace, Living Stones News, a local Christian tabloid, has to be one of the most bizarre.

Although I don't agree with a lot of the paper's agenda, I always read Living Stones, because if there's one thing that impresses me about the power of religion, it's the power it has to get people to talk about things they never otherwise would.

Take this month's issue for example. The lead story is about a man who is trying to overcome his addiction to porn and masturbation. The whole time I was reading it, I was trying to imagine any other local publication, such as the Reader Weekly or the Ripsaw approaching someone and saying, "What we'd like to do is write a feature article about your outrageous masturbatory habits. We want to use your real name, and have a big picture of you on the front page burning a porno mag." Do you think anyone would go for that?

Most of the lead stories in Living Stones are about sex, drugs, or something equally lurid. There's this article where a couple talks about their infidelity and drug addiction. This man attempted suicide 12 times. And then there's the man who gave up overworking, drinking and fist-fighting.

As I said, I don't agree with most of this paper's world view. Take the porn guy for example. All along the article talks about his obsessive Bible studies, but it never mentions that perhaps that obsession contributed to his obsession with normal bodily functions by casting them in an evil, forbidden place. The rejection of moderation is never a healthy thing in my opinion, and this is just one of the sore spots I have with this paper.

Still, slanted though it is, the honesty in these stories is refreshing compared to most of the canned crap being published these days. And I can't help but imagine someone attempting to print similar stories without the Jesus angle, in a more objective journalistic spirit, without judgement or political purpose. Who's doing those interviews?
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Since tomorrow is Sunday, I have a recommendation for everyone. You know those glossy coupon-magazine pull-outs that come in the Sunday paper? I love those. If you get the Sunday paper, I recommend pulling those out, examining them in detail, and really thinking about the products advertised inside. If these ads are any indication of the state of our society, then, wow, I really don't know what to think.

Here is a list of things I found in the glossy coupon ads in the past:

- pudding that tastes like pie
- pills for losing 14 pounds in 5 days
- sausages endorsed by the host of Family Feud
- statuettes of John Wayne and Judy Garland under glass domes
- big plastic frogs that ribbit when someone walks by
- real turkey meat ground up and reprocessed to look like a turkey breast
- sweatpants embroidered with flowers
- hot dogs with pasurized process cheese food injected right inside
- men's slacks up to waist size 60
- "three-dimensional" corn snacks
- tartar control cat food
- cat clocks that meow on the hour
- chocolate flavored vitamin shakes
- one-size-fits-all bras
- oatmeal with "dinosaur eggs" in every bowl that hatch before your very eyes
- salad dressing made to taste like pizza
- breakfast cereal made to taste like donuts

Once I saw an ad for cereal, milk, and a plastic spoon all in one package, promising to eliminate preparation and cleanup, thus making breakfast easier. Apparantly, people aren't eating enough cereal due to the intensive prepapation and cleanup involved.

There are all kinds of ads for people "on the go." This is true: I actually once saw an ad for pretzels that said, "ready in seconds." Who knew that good food is so easy to make?

My favorite ad is for a radio that is about the size of a silver dollar and is attached to an elastic band, which you stretch around your head. Earbuds dangle from the elastic band, and the whole works is waterproof. The device promises to relieve the boredom of swimming.

The boredom of swimming.

Think about that for awhile, and try not to have a seizure.
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