I Can't Help It, The Road Just Rolls Out Behind Me
I should apologize for the lack of activity around here this past week, but I've been incredibly distracted by the holidays, family around (still), a day-trip down south with the wife*... there's just lots going on that is not conducive to sitting and thinking. Between all that and the totally NSFW Real Doll I got for Christmas and I'm really too exhausted to make an effort here. Thanks, Grandma.

This will be the first year that I don't do a full-blown Bucket Year in Review type of a post, but you know, '05 wasn't half bad, so why not just go read that one again? I just did and oh! My sides! Not from the post as such, but those "Real Dolls", well, they just make you do all the work. I believe I've pulled something. You know, besides the obvious.

If I had to sum up 2006 in a single thought, word, or idea, I think I'd choose to do it in an elaborate interpretive pantomime, but as I'm composing this, I'm realizing that that might not be the best method of information conveyance for a text-based blog. Or really even, being completely honest with myself, anywhere ever.

All I can really say is that I had my Bucket Man of the Year nominees down to Saddam Hussein and Gerald Ford but damned if they both didn't go and disqualify themselves by dying. The only requirement for eligibility is to have been alive for all the days of the year. It is the same criteria that kept me from seriously considering the other obvious newsmaker, Suri Cruise.

Those complications in mind, I guess I will have to go ahead and announce, for the third year running, that the winner of the 2006 Bucket Man of the Year is me. Again. I wish me heartfelt congratulations on a job well done and I truly hope I enjoy the cash prize and execute the requirements of the job with the dignity and respect it deserves. The customary award of a live full-grown llama, sadly, has been discontinued after some difficulty with the people at customs and because my wife said no.

God bless you all. See you on the other side.



Pops



*= to San Diego, but you have my permission to read into this an oral sex reference if you like.
- posted by Pops @ 9:17 PM

 
The Sub-Continent
It is this time of year when the work-year grind slows down just enough for us to pick our heads up, to look around. We do what we can for others, we surround ourselves with friends and family, lending us a fresh perspective outside of the everyday drudgery so that we can evaluate our lives and better understand the things that are important to us.

For me for instance, this year I found out what was really important to me at a basic, core level, foremost of which is to not be surrounded by friends and family.

My God, they are everywhere. They want to touch things and talk about stuff and ask questions and interrupt scheduled downtime with their pernicious interfacing, all of which is hostile to my regular program of video games and the NFL Network.

Plus the eating. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that I had three consecutive days of Christmas dinner this year, each one under the influence of familial enablers. We spend our time and money and energy getting them all out here so that we can be together and they repay me by trying to make me have to buy new pants.

Just in case you were considering sending ole Pops some crumb-top apple pie or chocolate no-bake cookies, let me just assure you that I am well covered in that area, thanks very much. Save yourself the postage. I am, however, accepting gift-cards. To any place that does not deal in service or retail selling of comestibles of any kind.

Although I will say the one positive is that I've saved myself several seconds per day by no longer having to wear a belt.

In order to get myself back to my pre-holiday fightin' weight, I'm going to have to go on a prolonged hunger strike. Like Gandhi, only without the principles. Or the non-violence. I have a cousin who keeps trying to force homemade fudge on us and she does not respond to verbal refusals. I feel kind of bad about using force, but I remind myself that every so often, I'm sure even Gandhi had to smack a bitch. Like, for instance, the whole British Empire. They tried to make him eat shit he didn't want to eat too. And now India has nuclear weapons. See where this can lead? Pace yourselves, people.



This post on the Narcissus Scale: 9.9


Pops
- posted by Pops @ 12:49 PM

 
Ho, Ho and You're Kind Of Slutty As Well
I know you're all dying to know how Christmas went at my house.

Transformers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, video games and Lego kits. I basically just had Christmas 1983. Adjusted for inflation.

My kids got some stuff too.

Limited vacation blogging schedule as a) continued interference of people in and around the house and b) conversion of my precious, precious computer into a platform for the giddy, trembling obsessiveness my children will one day apply to porn.

Probably on the same computer.

Here tomorrow, hopefully in the blog-sense.

Out of town Thursday-Friday.


Christmas Pops
- posted by Pops @ 2:50 PM

 
Evening Edition: Pops Bucket And The Prisoner Of Secret Sorcerer Chambers... of Fire
Seeing as I'm on vacation now, I realized I can simply stay up until all hours. Eventually the time-zone switch will rain down jet-age disorienting somnambulance on the Eastern Time Zone based boarders à Chez Pops. And look! It's even Friday already here, so I'm not even cheating! I toy with the fabric of time as we know it as a cat toys with a three-legged mouse, half-interested, disdainful, resenting the promise of a challenge that can never arise; and I do it all with casual Kirkian elan, by which I mean I am--right now--wearing both a girdle and an egregiously elaborate Hair Replacement System while being furiously serviced in a sexual manner by a woman whose race I am wholly unconcerned with.

Man, I'm really tired.

All I really feel like covering this late is the fact that author Joanne Klavichordia "Just Kidding" Rowling has announced the name of her seventh and "final" Harry Potter book.

It will be called Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

We know it's true because there is an article about it in Wikipedia the Infallible, which is, as the name suggests, you know, sort of infallible-ish.

Deathly Hallows. It sounds awful, I know. But you should consider that JK Rowling is by now worth more money than the Queen, Bill Gates and the Pope combined. At this point she trails only Oprah and the estate of Lord Fauntney Glorbindel Redpomms (OBE), the inventer of porn.

By now, Rowling is free to do almost anything she likes. Uselessly inaccessible as "Deathly Hallows" may be, word is that her first choice for the title was "Harry Potter and the I Hate Children". She was talked down by the reasonable pleas of her agent, her husband, her publisher and the fourteen vodka gimlets she regularly consumes before noon. Remember, she is in the process of writing. You have to be pretty fucked up to think up a name like "Nymphadora Tonks".

When asked to comment or clarify or explain, well, anything related to this "Deathly Hallows" nonsense, Ms. Rowling responded by engaging in a series of increasingly acrobatic (and, over time, cardio-friendly) sex acts with a series of barely-legal Argentinian pool boys on a giant pile of rubies in a room built entirely of caviar-fed live minks.

Wriggly, wriggly walls. But then she's the only one who would--economically speaking--be aghast at the saying "It's good to be the Queen." The rest of us would just prefer not to have all those stupid, ugly royal children. There are your deathly hallows right there.



This post on the Narcissus Scale: 1.13 (for what time it is right now in the AM)



Pops
- posted by Pops @ 1:13 AM

 
Legible Penmanship Is The Sign Of A Weak Mind


Pops
- posted by Pops @ 11:05 AM

 
Robble Robble
Airport pick-up achieved. House crawling with outsiders. Ones whom I would prefer not to read any of my blogposts. Like this one for instance. Until we settle on some kind of new status quo, the watchword in the Bucket?


Hamburgers

No, shit, I meant stealth, stealth. Yes. That little fucker always makes me think of hamburgers though.

Until equilibrium is found and the world makes sense again, please enjoy this article of the least surprising news since Lance Bass came out of the closet.

All this tells me is that we need to redouble our efforts in abstinence-only education. It will work eventually!


Grumble.


Pops
- posted by Pops @ 8:41 AM

 
Tell Us About The Rabbits, Bob
I was never a big Rumsfeld guy. Maybe it was the gruff fighter-pilot persona or maybe it was the slick 1961 unmovable hair-do or the shoulder shrugging or the heavy sighs or the way he emasculated the generals standing right next to him in press conferences. Or maybe it was the way he fielded every question put to him with an utterly astonishing mixture of home-spun corn-pone bewilderment and Grand Ole Uncle Technocrat exasperated-yet-bemused condescension, the latter deflating what should have been the leavening former so it all just came out as a giant shit-cake we were all supposed to be thrilled to be served.

The problems are enormous, he would always tell us, endlessly complicated and my golly, why don't you take these two bits and go get yourself a grape Nehi while the grown-ups talk, Adorably Stupid Voter-Person.

Really there was only so much of it I could take. If I'm going to be talked to as though I were a cocker spaniel, I'll pay the nice lady with the riding crop and the leash like I usually do. That's some healthy, consensual humiliation. You escape the rigors of everyday decision-making for an hour at a time with Mistress Vercingetorixa. You don't put her at the top of the military chain of command.

Mostly I'm just bitter because the fucker quit before I got done reading Bob Woodward's State of Denial. I got done, was all worked up, started to scream "You pompous motherfucker!" at my TV when I see this Gates dude looking all grim and serious, decidedly less evasive and generally keeping his spoken answers to questions under 180,000 words.

But still, I wasn't really comforted. I mean, who was this Gates dude, right? Rummy was Rummy, but come on. Devil you know and all that.

Gates comes out and says clearly that we are losing in Iraq. Wow, freshness. Candor. Then he presses the point over the next two weeks until now he's openly talking about how we're dangling on the edge of a total "calamity" that will "haunt" us if we fail, which--remember--he already told us we were doing.

You know what, I was never a Rumsfeld guy, but at least all we had were his actions to scare the living shit out of us. I don't know if I'm down with with new attitude of realistically assessing the ground-state of things in Iraq in open and public fora where me and my questionable colorectal continence can hear it.

Sure, Rumsfeld was a dick-face, but maybe dick-face was kind of what we need in a SecDef right now.

Look what's happened in the world since he left. I mean, how fucked up does the world have to get before the Palestinians are more pissed off at other Palestinians than they are at Israel? That can't only terrify me, can it?

"Oh well," you're saying in your Rumsfeldian questioning way, "these are Palestinians. They are people who only know violence, who suffer from terrible poverty and deprivation of every stripe and for whom--gee whiz!--if they were only to look up, they would see that in many respects--some quantifiable and some not--the sky is actually falling, Henny Penny."

To which I would respond "Fine, douchebag." But then I would ask you to also to consider the fact that since this Gates person has taken over as SecDef:

Laura Bush got skin cancer.

Dogs have been cloned... in a country where they eat dogs!

And how do you explain this:

Madness, I say! Total lawless havoc-y amok-ish madness!

I'm not saying bring back Rumsfeld. I'm not. But if some crazy shit keeps happening like, say, Saskatchewan invades Manitoba or Aruba develops nuclear weapons, you're going to wish there was someone who would take the time to publicly imply that you weren't smart enough to understand it. You don't know what you've got until it's gone.



This post on the Narcissus Scale: 4.1


Pops




PROGRAM NOTE
This afternoon, I shall be making the trek to the glorious Ontario Airport to pick up long-staying houseguests for the fucking holidays. This coupled with the regular vacation times of my children and spouse (starting in two days) means there is potential for some sporadic Bucket through the beginning of the year. I shall endeavor, as per usual, to do my level best to bring the wordy goodness to you. But if I'm missing for a day or two or late here and there, you are released from your obligation to assume I've been kidnapped by terrorists and/or illegal aliens and immediately call the FBI. We, the Bucket management, thank you for your patience and continued patronage. We now return you to your normally scheduled blog-reading, already in progress.
- posted by Pops @ 9:15 AM

 
Monday Lite: Post-Fever Fever Dream
I don't really understand the reasoning because I think I've had better years. There was '97 when I graduated college AND got married. There was '98 when I started (and finished!) grad school. There was '99 when I lost my virginity. 2001 I killed virtually no small animals for fun. 2003 was the year I got my Polaroid on the wall at Marinello's for finishing a six-gallon bucket of penne arrabiata in under three hours. '04, obviously, was the banner year where I bettered humanity by starting this blog AND drastically increased my intake of trans-fatty acids. You know, to spare others from having to eat them.

Yet for some reason, this year I have finally been named Time Magazine Person of the Year.

I know, it says "You" in a very non-Pops-specific kind of way, but we know who they're talking about. Read blogs? Write blogs? Disseminate online video links? Download music IN A TOTALLY LEGAL WAY? All me.

Still, '06 was good, but it wasn't really national-news-magazine-worthy as far as I can tell. I mean, sure, I did write that post about peaches, helped you all identify and confront a deep-seated childhood psychosis, properly classified the nature of what kind of being our president is and even dazzled/confounded more than a few of you with my dada-ist digital surrealism.

Strong, yes. But "Person of the Year"? I'm sorry, it just doesn't really sit well with me. Mostly because I was planning on 2009 being the Most Important and Influential Year of My Life. Now that I've already gotten this Time Magazine thing, what will be left? Oscar? Pulitzer? Nobel Prize?

You know, I'm suddenly warming to this idea.

Way to go, me.

Before I go, just to do what Time says I must be doing, I will also pass along something I first saw mentioned on Vikki's blog. It's this video from SNL called A Special Christmas Box that you really should click on and watch. But probably not so much at work. Unless you have headphones.

Further warning: Justin Timberlake Content. But it's still funny.

OK, peace out. I have to limber up for the reporters calling to interview me after my Time honor. You all should be doing the same.


This post on the Narcissus Scale: 9.4


Pops
- posted by Pops @ 11:04 AM

 
Sunday Lite: Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before
There was a time not so long ago when I went more than a decade between digestive crises of the projectile emetic persuasion.

And now if I were to make a list of things I do in my spare time, based on the frequency of the incidences of gastro-intestinal reversal I've suffered lately, I'd have to put "vomit" down as a hobby.

Pops sick. Fucking again.

Seems like less of a big deal than last time, but I'm weak from a lack of food and sitting in a room in which my youngest child ralphed on the carpet not five hours ago. So I'm out of here lest the olfactory cues bid the chunder return.

Adieu.



Pops
- posted by Pops @ 9:21 PM

 
Make A Joyful Noise
From the Prayer Journal of Raylene Wynette Silverstone, Age 19, of Little Portnoy, Oklahoma. Obtained and reprinted without permission. You should really watch what you post online.

----


Friday, December 15, 2006

Dear Jesus,


I am so conflicted, Lord. I try to follow Your path, but sometimes it is almost impossible to know what it is You want from me. These last couple of days have been very trying. I'm almost as confused as that time last summer when I was dating that life guard and he wanted to put his... you know... in my... you know and I didn't know what to say because technically, if I let him, he would be happy and love me forever and You would still be pleased because, medically, I'd still be a virgin. But then even after I let him, he ditched me for that slut Arlene Vance and to this day I still can't sit right. I guess that's about what I should have expected to happen.

I know now more than ever that what You do You do for a reason. Like when You make horrible freaks of nature, sometimes even they can do some good in the world, even if it is only for the fishes. The next time I see that girl Bonita with the one stumpy arm, I'm totally going to hug her and thank her and her kind for what they can do for the world.

But then there are times like when You let some Jew skater stop people from singing your praises.* Why would You let that happen, Lord? The only way that ever makes any sense to me is if it is a ploy by which she forsakes her people and her family and finds the Light in Your Holy Name, Jesus.

I also know that You couldn't have really wanted Democrats to control both Houses of Congress, Lord. I know I don't want to be forcibly impregnated by a gay illegal alien and then have an abortion. Because You know that's what they all want, those Democrats.

That's why I'm not really sure what to do, spiritually, about this senator with a brain-disease thing. I mean, I know it's not good to pray for people to die, but if it's Your will--and what could be more Your will than GOP control of one of the Houses of Congress?--I can't really find the spiritual strength to pray for his recovery either.

As usual, I am conflicted and confused. It's 9th grade Girl Scout sleepaway camp all over again.

Give me guidance.

In Your Holy Name,

Amen


PS- Still waiting for that pony. 11 years now. Just saying. Hallelujah.

----

*=Riverside in da house! Represent, muthafuckas! National news!
- posted by Pops @ 9:28 AM

 
I'm Batman
This blog might seem like a very social thing to do, but really, when you think about how it's produced, it's really kind of the opposite. Sitting here by myself, alone with my thoughts, ignoring the various pleas for juice and snacks echoing somewhere in the vague background behind me. I'd go as far as to say that it is actually a pretty effective means of alienating me from the one person I do have to spend any considerable time with, my last pre-school aged child.

Mostly I try to avoid people. It's not that I'm particularly shy or deformed or a vector for any kind of transmissible disease (ladies...), it's just that when they get close they tend to want to chat. And not exclusively about me! Part of it is that I'm genuinely disinterested in what they have to say. The rest of it is that I'm afraid they will bore me so much with stories of their mother's rheumatism or their kid's T-ball practice that it will dawn on me that that's exactly what I sound like when I talk to other people. And what with my liberal guilt, my gender confusion issues and the impending inevitibility of death, I'm sort of full-up, existentially speaking.

Sometimes, however, I will be moved--for whatever reason--to get myself involved in some way. But you know it almost always comes back to bite you in the ass.

The following is a true story.

I know I've said that before. I was lying then, but not now.

Because even though I hate people, I want to know what they're doing and where they are going at all times of day, I run two different traffic-monitoring programs on this blog. I am watching. Yes, this means you.

I get information about links or keywords that draw people here. What makes people stay is the real mystery, but they don't make software for that. Yet. I hear Freud-o-tron 2000 is in the works. It's ruinously expensive as it charges per use. And it comes in container in the shape of a giant fucking cigar.

Yesterday, as I was cataloguing visitors, entering the relevant information in my Excel spreadsheet, I noticed a keyword entered into a search engine that found its way to my blog:

"naked children pictures"

Now, I know it's a big world and there are lots of reasons someone might be looking for naked pictures of kids. I know there are people who have an academic or law-enforcement or vigilante interest in monitoring the places on the internet where pictures of naked children can be found. But you know, something like this has popped up once before on my blog and I kind of ignored it. The ick-factor wore off eventually and I forgot about it. But this time, for whatever reason, I was extra-irritated (too much red meat in my diet? Menstrual-related hormones? who can say?) and decided to look--just to look--to see where I could report something like this.

I had the ISP number and provider and a location. It was out of state, so I went to the FBI.

Hey, did you know there's a link on their site JUST for dropping crime tips? There really is! It's right here. Ha, I just totally ruined the Middle Eastern family in your neighborhood's whole week, didn't I? Teach them to complain about your neon Christmas-with-the-Osmonds lawn nativity scene.

I hemmed and hawed for a bit. I didn't really know I could do either, but I launched into a mad fit of hemming followed immediately by a frenzied state of haw. I didn't really want to waste anyone's time with what could be nothing and possibly distract the FBI just at the second when they were about to find Osama bin Laden living in a converted garage playing old PS2 games in New Jersey.

Plus, did I really want to become a Tipster? Once you go down that road, there's no going back. It's like virginity. My Tipster hymen was still firmly intact. The bell, she cannot be un-rung. I've seen it happen: once you start, next thing you know it's eight hours a day on the phone telling police about cars with too-dark window tinting, calling the electrical company to complain about all the birds on the wires until finally you hit rock bottom and you're... you're... God, I can't even fathom it... the guy who calls the AM radio station to alert them to traffic conditions.

The road is dark. It is slippery. It is steep. Also, it has a fender-bender off to the right side causing some minor slowing on the 91 between Green River and Weir Canyon.

Nooooo! That can't be me!

But come on, "naked children pictures."

OK, so I loaded up the form and sent it in.

I sat here, late at night, all alone, everyone asleep, trying to figure out what to do next, trying to tell if there was an urge welling up in me to call the people at a local TV station to report local weather conditions. Nope not so much. It was just me and my ordinary--

RIIIING!

My phone. 10 o'clock at night. I have caller ID. It says "Private Number." I'm thinking "How did the pedophile find me already?!"

No, it was even scarier.

"Hello, Mr. Horrington III?"

"Yes," I says.

"This is (some lady whose name I didn't catch because I immediately had my brain scrambled by the next phrase) from the FBI."

"Holy fuck," I says. But not to her. Mostly in my head. Mostly.

"I'm calling about your tip."

And I'm so flustered, it doesn't even occur to me to make a dick joke there.

She says I should take my information and send it to one of two sites:

www.cybertipline.com

or

www.missingkids.org

Both are dedicated to missing and/or exploited children. Lots of promises to contact relevant authorities or even ISPs. Very nice. Very helpful.

I remember to thank the nice lady from the FBI and reassure her that I am not nor have I ever been a member of the communist party. I think she wrote that down.

So that's my story of community involvement.

What did I learn?

I learned that the FBI, for all the negative press, is NOT TO BE FUCKED WITH.

I also learned that maybe not every single government agency is a giant pile of soulless bureacratic machinery completely unresponsive to the public it ostensibly represents and serves. They can actually be quite responsive. Almost immediately so. Even if it's only to shove you off onto another locus of complaint.

Further, I know that using the words together in my blog "naked children pictures" almost guarantees that I will get another such hit in the future.

But anyone who found this blog by using that string and who is reading this now, know: I won't ignore it. For I am a Tipster.

As for how my public involvement in this matter came back to bite me in the ass, well... you just try to sleep after the FBI calls your house after 10 pm.



This post on the Narcissus Scale: 10.0


Pops
- posted by Pops @ 9:36 AM

 
Cancer Determined To Fight, Win Battle Against Godless Socialism
By LORA HINES and MICHELLE DeARMOND
with additional reportage by Pops (of Bucket fame)

SACRAMENTO--State legislators are taking sides on a measure that would require girls to get vaccinated against a common sexually transmitted disease before they would be allowed to enter school.

If approved, the measure would require girls in sixth grade and above to receive the human papillomavirus vaccine before being admitted to school in California.

"It's a very effective way of stopping a very virulent disease dead in its tracks," Assemblywoman Sally Lieber (D-Slutsylvania) said Tuesday. "We know of the 80 percent of the women exposed to the virus before age 50, 10 percent of those cases turn into cervical cancer. The vaccine can prevent this from happening."

Assemblyman John J. Benoit (R-Logictown), a former school board member in the Desert Sands Unified School District, said the bill is an inappropriate government mandate.

"I think it's the wrong place for the government to be making that kind of statement about young ladies in our society," he said. "Some might argue that this might promote sexual promiscuity."

When somebody probably asked Assemblyman Benoit if he has considered the idea that the vaccine might not necessarily be needed immediately for all the nine year old girls who get it but rather slightly more useful for these same girls in, say, forty years when the virus turns their reproductive organs against them, he must have responded with:

"Well, I don't like to get into hypotheticals. All I know is that with this virus you're introducing the idea of sexual activity with nine-year-old girls, which is icky. Who can say if the vaccine will be of use to them in the future? We cannot look forward. We can only look back. To the Victorians sometimes. But mostly just to the Bible. And even then not all of it. Some of those people were pretty fucked up. Cain, Judas... very poor role-models. They would have been for this, no question. No, we pick the stuff we like out of the Bible because it makes us feel good. So, no, no looking forward on any issue. Except, naturally, to the Rapture. Which is imminent. And disease-free."

Parents and girls who worry about the risk of contracting HPV through rape or later in marriage from an infected man should have the opportunity to choose whether they want the vaccine, but not be forced to do so, he said. Or more accurately, he dusted off his old anti-abortion pamphlets and started reading directly from them. Because every issue of female sexuality is exactly the same. Exactly.

Dr. Eric Frykman, noted communist, child-sex advocate and San Bernardino County's public health officer, wouldn't say whether he supports the bill. He recommends the vaccine because it would prevent some women from getting cervical cancer. HPV can be detected during screenings before it becomes cancer.

"Cervical cancer is almost 100 percent preventable," he said.

Opponents of the bill are quick to make the point: "What's wrong with a little cervical cancer now and again?"

Richard Ackerman, president of the Pro-Family Law Center is one such opponent. The center is made up of Christian conservatives.

"Requiring anyone to get a vaccine to prevent a sexually-transmitted disease presupposes that everyone is subjecting themselves to risky conduct," he said. "It's one thing to protect against a deadly disease," he said. "In this case, you have to actually engage in intimate contact.

Mr. Ackerman went on to suggest that people who get HPV deserve their HPV. He understands that this implies that 80% of women are whores. But they really should have thought of that before they entered into a population that carries the virus in such high numbers. It's their own fault for not being born before it was so common or even--ideally--before we had the technology to test for it or knew what it was. In those days, nobody had HPV. It is the curse of modern women that medical screening has advanced to the point where we can tell exactly what level of whore you are.

"What the state wants is for us to go back to the days when we couldn't screen out the dirty girls from the clean ones. We would do the best we could to tell what was what back then, mostly just by smell. I think HPV is a neat marker for Godly sexual cleanness. Besides, I think they're overstating the dangers. Look at me, I'm a fifty year old man, I've never gotten the vaccine and have I ever had cervical cancer? I can tell you unequivocally that I have not."

Essentially, the anti-vaccine position is indistinguishable from Mr. Ackerman's approach to sex-ed. Preach only abstinence. If you let on that you know people eventually have sex, then that's the same as buying a hooker for your son or a Filipino pool boy for your daughter. Liberals tend to mock the "hear-no-nookie, speak-no-nookie, see-no-nookie" approach, but it's hard to argue with its effectiveness. Incidences of information dispensation and of condom distribution in American high schools are down almost 100%. A very difficult percentage to ignore as far as results go.

Records indicate that as yet no mention has been made of the deterrent factor of getting stabbed with a needle and injected with a foreign substance three times in order to protect yourself from something you can get from sex. That anything could so crystallize the dangers and realities of sexual activity would make for some awkward conversations when Dad's trying to watch Benny Hinn on TV curing cancer with his hands while speaking in tongues or Pat Robertson trying to kill Castro with the power of prayer.
- posted by Pops @ 9:41 AM

 
Isn't It Bromantic?

See that dude sticking up above the gaggle of overdressed people there? Cast your eyes above the headwear... little higher... yes, the one holding the chocolate-colored ovoid aloft in a display of jaunty, non-sexual male collective bonding. I assume it's non-sexual, although I will admit I cannot account for everyone's hands.

Anyway, the guy up there? That's LaDainian Tomlinson. He's a football player. And a man. And I am in love with him.

Again, this is a non-sexual kind of love that can only be shared between two men who have never met, one of whom is visibly and publicly successful beyond all measure and the other of whom has a blog. At least I assume it's non-sexual, although I will admit that I know that you cannot account for both of my hands.

For those of you who don't watch football, I will only say that Mr. Tomlinson is now at the pinnacle of his game, widely regarded as the best now playing and--more and more of late--part of the conversation when considering the best who ever played.

But he is more than that. So very much more.

He is a rarity among elite professional athletes in this country in that he has no children out of wedlock, never refers to himself in the third-person and has never--not once!--punched a woman in the face for any reason.

When asked about himself, he talks about his teammates. When eating in public, he has never been photographed talking with his mouth full. Should mosquitoes harass him, he will politely ask them to defer and they will kindly oblige. He visits hospitals and disaster victims, among whom he will be so moved that he cries tears of pure liquid gold, which he immediately collects and hands over in vials his assistant carries with him at all times.

Yes, he is quite well compensated for his services, but what few people know is that he donates 98% of his earnings to an orphanage in his hometown of Waco, TX. The orphange does quite well, as a result. It is the only orphanage on record with a helicopter landing pad. And a helicopter. Made of diamonds and ermine. Fueled by a hybrid engine that runs on gasoline and burnt $100 bills. Children regularly petition the State Court in Texas to be emancipated from their parents so they might live there in orphanic splendor.

And if that weren't enough, without the helmet and the armor and the sun-tinted personal humility visor he wears when playing, he looks like this:


That's him on the left. Devastating. And ladies, you can see, he obviously has a taste for older, non-supermodel-y women.

Women clearly love him. Men should hate him, but we can't. Unless we're Bronco or Raider fans, in which case you know your suffering is deserved and you should shut up.

For the rest of us: how do you hate an ideal of perfection? Do we hate the Sistine Chapel ceiling for being too well painted? Do we hate America for being too libtery-ish and freedom-tastic? Do we hate the earth itself for being too life-sustaining?

We don't. We can't.

The only thing that might be suspect? We don't know how he feels about puppies. Poor innocent puppies. You know, the type who might be brutally murdered by me should his team fail to make the AFC Championship Game.

Best record in the AFC as of right now, assuring them home-field advantage throughout the playoffs and a first-round bye. I'd say that's a strong argument in the pro-puppy camp. But I've fallen for that before. Dad seemed all into the goldfish until the day he got drunk with his friend Skunk and swallowed poor Goldie on a bet. If I learned anything from that it was people are nicknamed things like "Skunk" for a reason. And also, when it comes to people, it's important to wait and see. Just wait and see.

And listen.



This post on the Narcissus Scale: 9.0


Pops
- posted by Pops @ 9:44 AM

 
Away In A Manger
On this, the second Sunday of Advent, it is important that we take some time to consider what it is we do, to take stock, examine our motivations, and ask ourselves the big questions about life and faith. Like for instance: what the fuck is Advent?

Did we have Advent when I was a kid? I don't remember any Advent. From what I'm told, it's the name for the period running up to Christmas between the Feast of Christ the King and the Big Day itself. It's supposed to be to Christmas is as Lent is to Easter. Only without the starving yourself or self-imposed faith-building prohibitions. In other words, you don't have to "give up" anything for Advent. It's basically just like Lent except with red meat and alcohol. So, for most American Catholics, it's exactly like Lent.

Oh, and also like Lent, it's one of the two times of year where they mess around with the order of the Mass so I don't know when Jesus wants me to sit down or kneel or stand in order to maximize my God-to-Pops reception of Divine Grace via collective calisthenics. I'm sure all the hopping around looks strange to outsiders, but that's because they don't understand that human beings are to the love of Jesus as rabbit ear antennae are to old timey TV signals. You have to tweak them just right in order to get a clear picture of what God wants you to do. Too much static (interference caused by Satan, or "Satanference") and the heavenly message can get garbled and next thing you know you're trying to build a boat big enough to fit two of every animal in the whole wide world. It sounds ridiculous, but if anyone wants to e-mail me, I can direct you to the illustrative story of just such a silly person.

I know our Catholic faith-gyrations are worth it because they clearly work. Some of you might have your doubts (apostates, whores-of-Babylon, Scientologists, etc.) but I am proof positive. Just today while transitioning from kneeling to standing the signal of Jesus flashed into my brain as clear as day. I was ready to receive His message.

The first thing He said to me was "Look, when the doctor prescribes you something, you take it. You don't want to start hearing voices again, do you? Honestly, where would you be without Me looking out for you?"

The second thing was less dialogue-y, more of a revelation. Not so much of the seven-headed-dragon-devouring-the-world type, but really just more of a general point of practical faith.

It hit me: it's a damned lucky thing Jesus was born on Christmas. Think of what the odds are of that. They're almost too astonishing to consider. But I guess that's why they call it a "miracle".

As I raced around, wearing myself to the point of dropping from exhaustion shopping online this weekend, I paused in church on Sunday long enough to consider that had Jesus been born at any point that would one day fall between Thanksgiving and Christmas, we might pass the day by without even noticing. We're all busy making our lists, checking them twice, buying stuff for our family and friends out of love and/or passive-aggression (another Cinnabon gift certificate for boring, fat-ass Aunt Meg and the 19th straight year of her Atkins diet)... who would have time to commemorate the creation into flesh of the King of Kings? I mean, we'd feel bad, but how often do they give you 35% off everything in the store at Kohl's?

But, lucky us, the birth of the Messiah timed out perfectly with the one day we all stop. We gather with family and friends for camaraderie, to renew our bonds with one another as part of a nuclear, extended or human family, and to remind ourselves yet again why we only tolerate these people once a year. It is the one day in all this chaos that we even have a chance to take a Jesus time out, when the capitalist maelstrom ceases to spin for one brief moment, the static clears and the message can be heard. I hate to speak for everyone, but it's much easier to be spiritually quiet on the one day Best Buy is definitely closed.

I bet that figured into the real birth of Christ story too. Joseph and Mary went to the inn that night only to find that it was closed. Because everything is closed on Christmas. Except Chinese restaurants. But this was clearly pre-Panda Express.

Joseph walked on, desperate, cold, hungry, leading the mule carrying his young wife, herself swelled and heavy with the happy burden (and the related pregnancy-caused ecstatic hemorrhoids) of the Son of God. One by one, all through Bethlehem, all doors closed. People inside, surrounded by family not speaking to one another, crowded in little rooms, awkwardly watching football and making small talk about the weather, counting the seconds until the day of unholy obligation would mercifully end.

On they walked until they found one house, one vacant space, one place not swept up in the holiday malaise, owned and operated by people unconcerned with the strictures and obligations of the season just enough to notice the needs of others. My guess is they were probably Jews. Just back from the movies. And still the best they could do was a space out amongst the animals? And thus a short 2,000 years later, you get Mel Gibson.

Happy Advent.



Pops
- posted by Pops @ 9:25 PM

 
Movies I Have No Intention Of Seeing, #40



Apocalypto


starring SAVAGES!

directed by Mel Gibson



Oh, it's been a while, hasn't it? What all of you have been doing with your disposable income without me to direct the cinema-related spending thereof I have no idea. I was worried about leaving you to your own devices, I'll be honest, but somewhere in there you found your way to ignore The Santa Clause 3 and make hundreds of millions of dollars for Borat. Some people might take that as a sign that the service they thought they were providing was really just a waste of everyone's time that nobody even wanted to slog through, let alone needed. I prefer to think that it was my subtle guidance that led you, the movie-going audience, to develop the level of sophistication that finally defeated Tim Allen once and for all. Sure, Galaxy Quest was OK, but that's no excuse for those of you who saw Jungle 2 Jungle. You know who you are.

I thought it was appropriate to take on Apocalypto, Mel Gibson's first film since a couple of notable incidents: a) the surprise success of The Passion of the Christ and b) that thing with the cops and the booze and the Jews. You remember. I think I blogged about it for like a month straight. Biggest news in bloggerdom right up until Britney's vagina.

The main reason I wanted to talk about it is as preparation. If we see what Mel Gibson does, then we can have a relatively good idea what to expect from Michael Richards in the long term. I think the recipe is becoming more and more clear as we observe: expect, within the next twelve months, to see Michael Richards direct a film in a dead language about an extinct peoples. I'm thinking something to do with Vandals. Some high Kramerian slapstick, maybe some romantic comedy elements (I'm seeing Cameron Diaz, unshaved armpits... I know you can see it too) and in the end, they leave Spain for Africa where they ravage and decimate the native population in a series of massive, coordinated inverted fork-to-ass attacks. Ooh, and with a kick-ass punk rock soundtrack. Wicked.

If Richards does choose to go that way, he's going to have a tough row to hoe since I think with Apocalypto, Mel Gibson has pretty much got the lucrative dead-language-and-extinct-people niche market all sewn up. There's this, Passion and before that Braveheart.

The best news for Mel is that he can use this film to put some distance between himself and the anti-Semitism thing that's been haunting him for years. First he had to deal with being the son of a loveable old rapscallion holocaust denier, then the sneaky evilness of the Jewish enemy in Passion and then the horrible things the Demon Rum made him say totally against his will in LA.

In showing conflict between peoples in a pre-Columbian Central America, perhaps he is making a concerted effort to show that he does not believe that the Jews are, in fact, the cause of "all the world's wars". This is the simple story of a clash of cultures, a man (named, and this is true, Jaguar Paw) trying to protect his family as his society collapses around him, a slow degradation, a culture-wide rotting from within caused by his rival and nemesis, the dastardly hooknosed Mayan banker named Refuses Pork.

Anything has to be better than the public image problems he's having now. The only thing keeping his Fuckin' Nutjob rating below Tom Cruise is that he's been keeping a low profile and he's not a Scientologist.

But he is, alas, a throw-back ultra-conservative Catholic. So we know where he gets his dead language fetish from. And his taste for old-style Body-of-Christ viscera and gore. From what I've read, this movie is extraordinarily violent. But you know, Mel's got some shit to work out. If it has to be in the form of people tearing out the still-beating hearts of others on screen, that's fine. At least when he's busy, we know he's not out there giving the hard-working sucrose-teated public servants of Los Angeles city and/or county a hard time.

That don't mean I wanna see his flick, though. Three hours of Mayan? If I want to be bored by stories of rape and violence and bloody history in a language I don't understand, I'll spend another afternoon with my Polish grandmother. At least with her there's no subtext of racism. Except maybe against Cossacks, who aren't really a race. Oh, and Germans of course. And Mexicans. And all Asians excepting Bangladeshis, Laotians and some Mongolians. And Jews (naturally).

It is only because of the possibility of some hot National Geographic-esque cultural nudity that I can give this film:

Two (out of 3) on the Hot Babysitter Scale.

I would see it, but that's not the same as saying I want to. Mostly it's in active opposition to the film I would probably have to see if the wife and I were to go out in the next week or so, The Holiday. The primary benefit of this film is that it ain't that film.

Dziękuję,

Pops
- posted by Pops @ 9:58 AM

 
What A Gulli-Bull... What A Nin-Cow-Poop
It's Thursday (where you are as I type this) and it's a self-maintenance day for ole Pops. Doctor appointments and whatnot. On advice of Mrs. Pops, I'm finally going to look into getting my head removed from my ass.

As I will be unavailable to regale you with a new synthesis borne out of my accumulated wisdom and pictures of famous people's hoo-has, I leave you to contemplate the following visual tone-poem in honor of today, Pearl Harbor Day. Prepare to be touched deeply.


Tora!

Torah!

Tori! er... a!

Hey, if you think crappy puns are a bad way to commemorate this solemn day, consider the following alternatives I was considering:

Thor-a!

Toro!

Flora!

OK, I admit it, all three of those were better than Tori Spelling. But it's not her fault she looks like that AND can neither call lightning with a bitchin' hammer at will nor swallow a rifle so that it fires out her horns when she hits her tail against the ground.

You know what, fuck this, go watch the cartoon. You work hard. You deserve some Bugs Bunny.

I'll do better Friday.


Pops
- posted by Pops @ 12:00 AM

 
Ngh!
I'm not going to sit here and pretend I'm some kind of big-time foreign-policy expert. But really, what do you really need to know? We're talking about foreigners here. Non-Americans. All they really need to understand is the limit to which we are willing to tolerate misbehavior right up to the red-line of total thermonuclear annihilation from space. It's a complicated algebraic involving several variables (army size, trade partnership status, regional stability, receptiveness to MTV cultural colonization, etc.) where ultimately x=the number of South Dakota wheat fields we have to ruin by popping open the long-hidden underground ICBM silos in order to assure the destabilization of a given polity by shockingly rapid vaporo-depopulation. For the math challenged like myself, the good news is that x almost always = "not too fucking many."

It's not just the obvious countries either like Iran or North Korea or Canada. "Neutral" or "Friendly" are labels that simply mean we're not positively targeting you at this moment. Which is not to say we are not vigilant. We're watching you, Sweden. How long do you really think we're going to let you keep up this socialized medicine bullshit?

Also Germany (can't be too careful), Australia (the marsupial threat cannot be understated) and any country where it's OK to eat dogs. I'm sorry, that's just un-American. We will only be pushed so far.

I admit, it's a simplistic worldview, but it's a complete one, which is more than I can say for most people. Who else has developed any kind of position on Kyrgyzstan? I'd say just attempting to spell it puts me in the dizzy upper echelons of informed punditry. Which isn't really saying much considering how many pundits huff paint. Lots of dizziness.

This is the mindset I bring when I consider the work of the so-called "Iraq Study Group." The report is on the verge of being published, but the details are already amongst us.

It calls for engaging neighboring countries like Iran and Syria in order to better ensure involvement, I assume to convince them they have a stake in a stable post-Saddam Iraq. But this is tricky considering a) there has to be some straight bilateral contact between the sovereign Iraqi government and its neighbors and b) Iraq has no South Dakota wheat fields. No wheat fields, no nukes and no nukes means no sustainable foreign policy. So that's clearly a non-starter.

The other key point is a kind of a good news/bad news deal for the Bush administration.

The good news: "The primary mission of U.S. forces in Iraq should evolve to one of supporting the Iraqi army, which would take over primary responsibility for combat operations..."

Lots of high-fives at the White House when they heard this. This has been their official position for a very long time. "When the Iraqi army stands up, we will stand down" and all that. Total validation of the principle.

The bad news? That reminds us they've been working on this for three years. How's that coming along?

Staffed with veterans of the Iraq-Iran war of the 1980s and equipped with refurbished Soviet tanks and American Humvees, the 2,000-man 9th Division is considered to be Iraq's best hope for an eventual U.S. troop withdrawal...

"Fear took over" among the Iraqis, said Staff Sgt. Michael Baxter.

"They refused to move. We were yelling at them to move," he said. "I grabbed one guy and shoved him into a building. I was saying, "God get me out of this because these guys are going to get me killed..."

At times, the overwhelmed Iraqi soldiers fired wildly, sweeping their machine-gun barrels across friendly and insurgent targets alike, witnesses said.

"I had to throw bullet casings at them to get their attention," said Army 1st Sgt. Agustin Mendoza, another U.S. trainer who manned a Humvee gun-turret during the battle. "They had no weapons discipline."

Three years to train the Iraqis and all they get is the same skill level in combat that I display when I play Call of Duty 2. And I've only had the game for a year with no multi-billion dollar training program. I'm much better at it then I thought.

Look, this Iraq Study Group thing is no magic bullet. From what I understand defense contractors are working on a "magic bullet" that has shown great promise, but it's not going to be ready in time for this war. So far they're having trouble developing it for general purpose use from its intended, hyper-specific, non-war design function, which was to kill David Blaine.

There are no new ideas here. What we need from the president is not for him to actually do something so much as to make it look like he's doing something. My idea? Go on live TV, talk about how difficult the problem is, and then, on cue, start to have a slow nosebleed.

I've seen it on TV shows and movies. The slow nosebleed is wicked effective at displaying strain on the mind and body caused by overwhelming effort. Jessica Alba did it at the end of the awful Fantastic Four movie. And it happened just this week when the fat mind-reader cop did it on that show Heroes. And both of those people are horrible actors but still, I totally got what they were going for.

It's weird, because just recently, in film and TV a nosebleed used to immediately connote "fatal disease." A character would be writing something on a nice white sheet of paper and then, from their POV, we would see--o the symbolism!--a couple of red drops sully the unblemished sheet. They could have anything from AIDS to Lou Gehrig's Disease to some kind of experimental nose cancer. In any case, you knew they'd be dead within two scenes and practicing their Oscar speech.

Now a nosebleed shows effort. Or maybe just effort related to magic super mutant powers.

But you know, they say Iran is close to getting nukes of its own. Maybe it's OK if they think the president could potentially kill them with his brain. Internationally, I'd say it's about time we put his brain to some kind of use.



This post on the Narcissus Scale: 7.6


Pops
- posted by Pops @ 9:54 AM

 
Say Hello To My Little Friend
I'm not trying to make this an all-gossip type blog, I'm really not. But it's not like I can regale you all with hoary stories about the maddening misadventures of my misanthropic co-workers seeing as I have none, misanthropic or otherwise. It makes it harder to blog I guess, but at least I don't have to think of nicknames or initials for everyone.

I know the last thing anyone wants (and by "anyone" I mean "me specifically") is for this to become a blog about the adorable things my children do. They're kids. They do kid things. Sometimes they call things by the wrong name or conflate two ideas with comedic results. But these are not unexpected comedic results, none of which can be written about without leaning dangerously into Family Circus territory. Stupid fucking Billy can't just walk anywhere in a straight line, can he? And no one ever thinks to check him for ADHD.

Like all housewives before me, that leaves only celebrity gossip to fill my time. I never used to care about it until I started writing this goddamn blog and now, somehow, I know Hillary Duff is single. And who Hillary Duff is.

Sometimes the interest is purely prurient voyeurism. Other times is purely blog-practical (hmm, Nicole Kidman news or a graphic recount of my hemorrhoid flare-ups? Yes, you are welcome).

Other times the things I read completely lock my brain up and I have to sit and think for a good long time before anything makes any kind of sense again.

I read this ridiculous story about how Paris Hilton was backing out of something besides a vigorous video-documented reverse cowgirl.

The hotel heiress canceled an appearance at Monday night's Billboard Music Awards because she didn't like the jokes written for her, according to a spokesman.

"It is my understanding that some satirical references ridiculed some of her peers," her spokesman, Elliot Mintz, said in a statement.

Wham! Do you see it? Got me right in the face. "...ridiculed some of her peers..."

That was like 10 minutes of my life, sitting practically catatonic as I tried to work out what exactly a Paris Hilton "peer" might entail. Deep questions, like for instance: would one have a tail?

And then I shook out of it as I thought "Wow, how bad of a Leif Garrett joke could it have been?"

I mean, the list has to be short, right? Inexplicable celebrity, no measurable social contribution, active hastening of the erosion of our greatness as a nation... Leif Garrett, everyone who's ever been on The Real World, one of those potted mini-cacti...

No, that's not fair. At least the cactus contributes to the environment by not being a stuck-up water-whoring jade plant or something. You're not fooling anyone, jade plant. I know a jumped-up non-edible artichoke when I see one.

Just for balance, I will include here (stolen from The Superficial) the text of a recent Tina Fey interview with Howard Stern concerning Ms. Hilton and bid you all good day.

Howard Stern: What is Paris Hilton like?

Tina Fey: She's a piece of shit. The people at SNL were like maybe she'll be fun, maybe she won't take herself so seriously. She takes herself so seriously! She's unbelievably dumb and so proud of how dumb she is. She looks like a tranny up close.

Howard Stern: Was she bad on SNL, was she hard to deal with?

Tina Fey: She was awful. People never come in and say "I'm not doing that." So, this guy Jim Downey wrote a really really funny sketch, it was supposed to be Lorne Michaels just finding out that she had a sex tape and telling her she couldn't host the show because SNL has standards... So she was like "I'm not doing it!" and refused to come out of her dressing room. Also, you would walk down the hall and find what just looked like nasty wads of Barbie hair on the stairs... Her hair is like a Fraggle.

Howard Stern: Did she give you ideas for sketches?

Tina Fey: Yeah, she wanted to make fun of all the girls she hates. She was like "I want to play Jessica Simpson, I hate her." She would come in the room and say "you should do a show about Jessica Simpson because she's fat."

Howard Stern: What was the bet you guys had going about her?

Tina Fey: The cast had a bet if she would ask anyone on the cast anything about themselves, you know like how are you? where are you from? anything. I think Seth Meyers won because at one point, she asked him if Maya Rudolf was Italian.


The end. You're all a little less cultured because of me.

I will be "meaningful" again tomorrow. I hear there's some righteous Britney news.


Pops
- posted by Pops @ 8:43 AM

 
Drive Him Wild! The Thirty, Dirty SECRET Sex Tricks Your Mama Never Told You About
As part of our ongoing Soviet-funded effort to subvert the social norms and ideals of 1950s America, I do all the grocery shopping in our family. I stay home with the kids, I don't work, I cook dinner, I refuse to initiate sex, all of it and we get a handsome payment from the People's Central Bank for our part in the internal erosion of American commie-fighting masculinity.

Really, there are lots and lots of programs out there available for enterprising young people to exploit. The bureaucratic time-lag that afflicts/afflicted all Soviet institutions means that you can get your name on the rolls for some kind of hand-out if you're clever enough about it while legally outlawed or discontinued Soviet organizations still hurtle forward through time, coasting on pure, awful institutional inertia.

The only downside is that they only pay out in beets.

It sounds lame, but that's one less thing to worry about buying when I'm grocery shopping. Fuck you, John Wayne!

Also, the state of American public education being what it is today, odds are that the people "helping" me at the grocery store check-out will be confounded by the demands of their terrible beeping Scan-O-Tron taskmasters. Dragging things through a field of criss-crossing BAR-code reading beams seems simple enough, you'd think. But alas, while in line, I invariably find myself with plenty of time on my hands to stand and ponder life's deeper mysteries or compose blogposts in my head.

Or, if I find I need time and I recognize only the competent stripe of check-out person working, I'll throw in a star-fruit or a kumquat just to fuck with their heads. Whenever they have to break out that book of codes to price my fruit, somehow I always feel like I've won.

These little pauses are how I remain a vibrant, vital dynamo, a whirling dervish of pop-culture references: by reading the headlines of check-out line periodicals.

Did you know that Oprah is NOT GAY?! I did. Or do you know who (and this is my favorite regular headline now) LOOKS PREGNANT!? Or that Regis Philbin was about to be replaced by... DANCING WITH THE STARS CHAMPION EMMITT SMITH?! I knew that too. Although I don't know if they mean Regis will be replaced on his show by Mr. Smith or in all aspects of life altogether. I hope the latter is true, if only for Mrs. Regis Philbin's sake.

Anyway, amongst the various copies of Star and the Enquirer and Us Weekly and In Touch and Cosmo, I saw a copy of something called SHAPE (just like that in all CAPS) magazine. I thought at first it was odd to have a magazine in a check-out rack devoted completely to geometry, but on closer inspection, it's a magazine about a very specific shape: the female human one. I flipped through it just to be sure, but the only reference to π I could find had to do with pubic grooming.

I love SHAPE magazine. Not just because of the subject matter, but because of the cover I saw.

Now, to preface this, I don't really watch American Idol. But I listen to a radio show where grown men will on occasion discuss it. Yes, it's just as excruciating as it sounds; like it was an out-loud AOL IM conversation between thirteen year old girls. It gets really awkward when they have to talk out the emoticons.

This is how I knew the name Katharine McPhee and how she was totally hott (no idea how they managed to verbalize the second T in that word, but they totally did) AND that she also at one time had an eating disorder. Anorexia or bulimia, I forget which.

How this is relevant is that Ms. McPhee was the cover girl for this month's SHAPE. Here was the little headline blurb about her story inside:

Awww. Sweet, right? Girl in the grip of horrible, debilitating, self-destructive cycle of intentional malnourishment makes good, comes through other side seeing the benefit of round, supple thighs and a heaving, full bosom not backed by unsightly xylophone ribs. Mix in a guy whose junk she has to cut off and you got yourself a Liftime Movie of the Week.

Now here's the rest of the cover. Note especially the surrounding article teasers, especially the one right over her head:


You won't believe me, but the burgeoning turgidity I'm experiencing is all irony-inspired.

And the best part? They probably digitally altered the fuck out of this picture.

Man, I love America. Almost as much as I love the beets I accept in exchange for my part in its demise.



This post on the Narcissus Scale: 9.0


Pops
- posted by Pops @ 9:34 PM

 
Baby, I'm Your Slave
If I learned anything from my college days working at Stallyinz Male Escorts and Pool Cleaners it's this: being the hub of an STD distribution ring might sound funny, but it's really bad for business.

The second thing I learned? You can't please everybody. No matter what you do, what videos you bring along, what battery-operated devices you employ, for some people, the pool is just never going to be clean enough.

Some people have a pathological need to be dissatisfied, especially if they're paying for a service. Maybe it's an undercurrent of guilt or shame because they know they should be able to clean their own goddamn pool, or better yet, go to some bar, buy a frat boy a light beer and take him back home for a good, thorough, cost-free pool-cleaning. I can't really say.

What I can say from operating this TOTALLY FREE TO YOU blog is that STILL, there's no way to please everyone at once. Posts are too long, they're boring, they're about retarded subject matter, too much vagina, not enough vagina... Nothing I do is ever quite perfect. Which is weird for me because everything I attempt away from this blog is.

So it's taken me four pargraphs to say: I hear you, my readers. I am going to keep this post short.

But because I have a pathologically antisocial need to be unaccomodating, I'm going to include a poem. A little poesy up the nose-y. Which is just mean because everyone says they want MS Paint pictures.

Anyway, here 'tis. I'm conflicted about whether or not I want you to like it.

An Poem.

by Pops

A young Muslim toting a knapsack
tarried his plan on the tarmac
it took so long to find
two lines that would rhyme
with bunghole, vagina and ballsack


The end. It's a little self-aware to be acutal poetry, but it has some nice vulgar imagery and a bit of subversive social commentary, so I'm going to go ahead and call it a masterpiece.

Don't judge me too harshly. I have a lot on my plate. Not only am I obligated (by my evil hostage-taking brain) to post six times a week, as far as I know, I'm the only one besides Justin Timberlake who is actively working to bring the sexy back.

And come on, you've seen Justin. Little bird shoulders like his? Guess who's doing all the heavy lifting in that department. Cut me some slack.

Slack! That would have rhymed too. Live and learn.

Happy weekending.



This post on the Narcissus Scale: 10.0


Pops
- posted by Pops @ 9:33 AM