My Christmas Story ..reposted for the 2009

I have to admit Christmas isn't my favorite holiday. It seems that the real meaning is lost in the hustle and bustle of whatever it is the stores wants us to believe....and I hate hustling and bustling... and stores.

It's like we've never heard the real story of Christmas, or we've forgotten it somewhere down the road.

So I post this thing every year to remind myself why the end of December is important. Maybe it'll remind you, too. If my interpretation seems too whimsical, you might need a little dose of Christmas spirit. Relax. Pour yourself a drink...and listen to this story:




...in a land far far away... a child was born...

... in a manger in Bethlehem.

But this was no ordinary baby. He was so awesome that righteous men

... before him predicted his birth.

Isa:7:14: 'Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.'

Isa:9:6: 'For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counseller, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.


So 'away in a manger no crib for a bed the little Lord Jesus lay down his sweet head...'

But the story has a dark side. King Herod of Judea was well aware of the coming of the 'King of Kings' and wasn't too keen on the idea.

So he dispatched three wisemen...

...to find this Prince of Peace so he could pay his 'respects'. Unfortunately, the King Herod's definition of respect was 'to kill in a timely fashion.'

So the three Magi followed the star....

(Isa:60:6: 'The multitude of camels shall cover thee, the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah; all they from Sheba shall come: they shall bring gold and incense; and they shall shew forth the praises of the LORD.')

...and they found the Christ child and offered him gifts.

...but in those days the best they had was gold, frankincense and myrrh...

Fortunately, they were warned in a dream about King Herod's evil plan to kill Jesus... So they 86-ed the plan to report back to him thus allowing Jesus to go forth and inspire millions upon millions to follow in his footsteps.

Some people like to point out that Jesus may not have been born on December 25th. Some may even point out that Christmas has been over commercialized and has lost its true meaning.

But I'd much rather spend my time hanging out with friends and family.

...Because despite our differences in doctrines, opinions, and location...




Despite your views on Santa Clause...

...eggnog

Despite all of that stuff...
Just don't forget that...


THIS...


IS...

CHRISTMAS! Happy Birthday, Jesus!


Oh...and Happy Hanukkah to my Jewish brothers and sisters around the world...

...and Happy Holidays to the rest of the you guys!

Peace on Earth...Good will towards men!

DIEt!

OK, there was one last doughnut in the break room. It just happen to be a New York cheesecake doughnut which is basically made of angel wings and all things that are right with the world.

I had to eat it. That puffy cloud of goodness was put there specifically for me to eat, and who am I to fuck with fate? That thing was exactly what I expected - fuckin' outstanding.

Now I'm not a health food Nazi by any means, but I usually stay away from doughnuts on a regular basis. Besides being made from fried dough and sugar those things provide as much calories as two meals. In this case, the New York cheesecake train wreck came in at 340 delicious calories. Fuck a duck, dude!



But hey, I workout and run five days a week. I can have a doughnut every now and then - no big whoop.

All was good until a pair of Subway white macadamia nut cookies fell into my lap at the end of the day. I mean, I try and help my fellow man in a time of need, and she REALLY needed to get rid of those cookies. After 440 calories of Cookie Monster madness (Om Nom nom nom!), I got to thinking about how much activity it would take to burn off a total of 780 calories of fat-ass weakness.

According to my sources, I would have to run 6 mph for about an hour and four minutes to burn off 780 calories, but what if I hated running? If I were a weirdo douchebag or a circus performer, I would have to unicycle for about 130 minutes to justify cramming my cakehole with all that junk. If I really hated myself, I would have to go ice fishing for about 326 minutes to burn off 2 cookies and a doughnut - over five hours of freezing my ass off just to burn off three food items!

But I'm not going to go to fly off the handle and go on a diet. Most diets are dumb and disregard the history of food consumption. This world wasn't built by people who were afraid of meat, bread, and sugar. Any sort of meal plan that runs contrary to the old school, sensible food pyramid plan is retarded and has failure written all over it. Besides, doughnuts and steak are just too damn tasty, right?

So what's a schmuck to do after inhaling close to a quarter of his daily, caloric intake in about 10 minutes?

1. Stay calm. Life is long. Eating habits aren't defined by one day of treats. Just make sure most of your days aren't spent eating things closely related to fried Snicker bars and French fries. You can tell when you're in trouble when your hand resembles a plate of sausages...and you still want to eat them...or at least give them a nibble.

2. Allow yourself to enjoy some kind of treat occasionally because candy and fried mozzarella sticks are the shit!

3. You need to realize food equals calories which should be proportional to the energy you need for your level of activity. Overeating is sort of like trying to fill your car's gas tank two gallons over its capacity and pumping another half a gallon onto the dashboard. Sounds absurd, right?

But it's just as absurd as consuming the amount of calories needed by a world class athlete just to sit at a desk all day and sit on the couch all night.

4. I need to buy a unicycle and a stop watch...and maybe review my insurance policy.

The Complications of Wading

I love it when intelligent people describe their own personal life as "complicated." These are the same folks that can wrap their minds around space/time physics or are in charge of some very big things.

I used to be one of those people (minus the space/time physics and in charge stuff...so basically...I'm was nothing like them?), but one day my brain crapped out, and and since then my mind refuses to believe that life is as complicated as people make it.

For example, I was chatting with a friend fairly recently and inquired about her boyfriend since the the event we happen to be attending usually has the daters bringing a date and the single folks looking for dates or the bar. She told me that she and her boyfriend aren't seeing each other and that it was complicated.

But how complicated is it really? Now I'm not naive enough to think life is all black and white, but it's not all grey either. The way I see it - you're either with someone or... you're not.

But whatever. It's all relative. Everything looks a lot different when your wading in your own crap.

And as I smile and flippantly drink a beer from the safety of the shore I ask myself,

"Why in the hell would a rational person slosh around in their own muck?"



Figuratively or not - it doesn't make much sense.

So as the night wore on, the daters did the dating thing, and the single folks did their thing, and I did the only thing that made sense that night - I found the bar. It was pretty easy to find and not complicated at all.

Mazal tov!

A Day in the Life of a Bridesman

An actual IM chat



Mitchell says:
were you a bridesmaid in the wedding you were just at?

Mike Agagas says:
yeah

Mitchell says:
WHY?????????

Mike Agagas says:
she's my friend, fag.

Mitchell says:
i hope you got into a fight afterwards to let your balls drop back to there original place




Mike Agagas says:
maybe you need to grow bigger ones

Mitchell says:
just messin with ya.....where was it?

Mike Agagas says:
Breckenridge, CO

Mitchell says:
ahhh nice

Mitchell says:
snow?

Mike Agagas says:
a little

Mike Agagas says:
hey...can you repost your original question?

Mitchell says:
why

Mike Agagas says:
it's just funny

Mitchell says:
Mitchell says:
were you a bridesmaid in the wedding you were just at?

Mike Agagas says:
cool...thanks

Mike Agagas says:
fucker

Mitchell says:
hate you more

The Times They Are A-Changin'

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.

The older I get the more I get older music, and Bob Dylan is proving to be a badass sage.

I'm a creature of habit. I like predictability. I live in a place where permanence and green rarely go on vacation. It's always flip flop season in my world.

But the times are a-changin'

For some reason I'm yearning for some change. This wedding season came like a kick in the nuts, and while I was down for the count things started to look differently.

I need to travel more. Cold, snow, and changing leaves are not just for postcards and textbook covers, and now I have good friends in those far off places. These are the kind of friends that make you forget that you're freezing your ass off. Paradise sucks ass without those kind of friends.

The single life is starting to lose its luster, too. I won't elaborate too much on this since I'm not really sure wtfuck this means, but I've been thinking way too much about this crap lately. If bigger schmucks can pull off this dating thing, maybe it's a good time to test the waters again.

I have grown pretty complacent over the last few years. For some reason I'm looking for a new challenge - a new struggle, and the new struggle is more than learning how play kick-ass covers on the ukulele or marathon training.


And as I drove out to the beach this morning and felt the unfamiliar chill of autumn, I'm reminded that change can happen even in the safety of paradise.

And as I turned up the heater and cranked up the radio, Bob Dylan once again hijacked my thoughts. This place will never be enough to keep me satisfied.

Change is inevitable.

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.

last american slacker: The Interview part deux

So I was totally off about this living will thing! It's actually directions I determine about my health care in the event that I can't yell them out.

And I was all worried about the death part. This shit storm is on a totally different level!





Think about it: you're having a sandwich and maybe some chips at the park, and a boulder falls on you which crushes the part of your brain that controls speech and movement. You can't even yell out, "Fuck, get this damn boulder off my chips!" So your head hurts, you have a small cut on your thigh from car keys in you pocket being crushed into your leg, and you're pissed about the chips still.

To the world you look like some comatose shmuck just laying there pissing all over yourself, but deep inside you can still see, feel, and think. Your head is throbbing like the hangover from Spring Break 2001, but other than that and the gross smell of hospitals everything is as peachy as it can get.

Now I'm just the type of dude that likes to close down the bar. I like partying until is just me, the host, two other people, and what's left of the keg. I can sleep 14 hours, wake up, eat a sandwich, brush my teeth, and go back to sleep. It suffices to say I like to stick around for the long haul. I think I know where I want to go with this living will shit.

So here it is:

Mike's Living Will

1. Do not keep me alive if my body can't sustain everyday processes like filtering crap out of my blood, digesting pizza, processing air, responding to basic stimuli, etc. If I can do all these things, just make sure my cell phone bill doesn't go unpaid, and I don't grow facial hair. Both of those things are worse than death.

2. Pain in its many forms is totally acceptable. There are millions of people that deal with constant pain on a daily basis. Some deal with it in a dignified manner. Some bitch and moan, but let me deal with it. If I start crying bloody murder, point out that I'm actually crying, kick me in the nuts, and make we watch "Rocky". That should shut me up.

And don't give me pain meds. They make me feel weird, and they make me feel sick to my stomach. Bliss accompanied by vomiting sucks ass.

3. Treat me like I'm normal. Keep sending me emails. Comment on my stupid pics. Kick my ass at video games. Bitch about how I never reply back to your texts (I never did). It'll be hilarious and pretty damn nice of you. I'm thanking you ahead of time...just in case.

If for some reason emotion causes whoever is in charge of making these decisions for me to disregard the above three stipulations, I will haunt the fuck out of them. So help me God.

I want to stick around until the Notorious G.O.D. sends for me. I don't want any funny business and crying and crap. Life is good. Death could be a vacation, but we'll get there in good time.

That's it.

The End.

last american slacker: The Interview

The 21 year-old version of me would have freaked out on the inside and never called back.

But me, right now, in my subtly, ironic corduroy jacket and khakis just freaked out for a split second on the inside and then, was fine with the interviewer's suggestion.



A living will. He said I should look into getting one.

I guess this means people in this profession operate at a higher level than the normal shmo.

The guy said that I might even die during training.

Training?! What the fuck?

My 21 year-old self would view this as suicidal.

For some reason my present self is fine with death, but now has an issue with living a worthless life.

I guess I'll leave everything to my little sis for putting up with my shit for all these years and still manage to like me.

Now the big question is "When can I get started"?

To Whatever It Was...

To whatever it was that was attacking me last night on the way to college track: thanks for making me look like some jittery psycho. I'm sure someone saw me swatting futilely at some invisible bat.

I didn't know pissed-off nocturnal insects even existed. It's like you were an angry bee but all ninja-like. If I came too close to your hive or whatever ninja bees live in, I'm only half sorry. You should have evolved some way to let folks know where you live so we don't fuck up your house. Darting at peoples' heads at night seems way too confrontational.



What if someone just happened to have a flame thrower or a can of Raid Ninja Bug Spray?

I'll be coming to the track again. I'll take the high road and take a different path. However, if I - in my act of good faith - still manage to piss you off, I'll be ready.

You have no fucking idea how much I like running wind sprints. I'll punch in in your bug face so hard your offspring's offspring will feel it.

"Why Mike is a Yankees Fan" by Mike Agagas

I didn't start watching baseball until 1995 when I decided that I hated the fact that my hockey team, The Canuks, was a Canadian team. Don't get me wrong - I don't hate Canada. I just didn't like the sound of the team - Canuk. I needed something that felt better - something that rolled off the tongue easier.

This was OK since I just started hockey in '94. I wasn't that heavily invested in the team anyway. So I chose the New York Rangers as my new team since they played under the same roof as my basketball team - The Knicks.

I've been a Knicks fan way before Magic had HIV. I'm pretty positive about that (but not HIV positive).

But getting back to baseball - why the Yankees? Why not The Marlins or the local favorite Atlanta Braves whose pitching lineup at that time was epic?

I wanted a team with history, but for some reason that wasn't enough. There's a lot of historic baseball teams.

I tried looking up Hall of Fame baseball players to see what teams they were on. Ruth, Cobb, Robinson, Aaron, Bench - for some reason I wasn't impressed enough to choose a team still.

But one day I heard an old recording of a speech I'd heard when I was a kid. As a kid I didn't know it was baseball player or even cared. All I really knew was that he was a good, humble man. I guess it's the Asian in me that likes humility and stuff.

Most people think of the the Yankees as the cocky team that buys its talent with the buzillion of dollars it has in its coffers, and they revel in the fact that they still manage to lose and have bad seasons from time to time. I guess other teams pay their players with cupcakes and win the World Series every year.



I could care less about Babe Ruth, the record World Series wins, or all their Hall of Famers. All I care about is that Lou Gehrig was a Yankee.

That in itself is enough reason for me.

Pretty gay reason, but it's a true story.

"The Old man and the Sea" plug didn't hurt either.

So...

the reason I'm a Yankees fan is because I'm Asian.

The End.

last american slacker: Terms and Conditions

The fine print is there for all to see. The font will be tiny, and the placement will obfuscate the importance of the message.

Yet the words are there. They outline the shortcomings and dangers of the glowing promises that proceed the minute gibberish at the bottom of the page. The common side effects can be staggering. The effectiveness of the cure can be rendered moot.

Yet the words are there nonetheless, and we are all subject to these terms and conditions.

But not all of them. We're not as flawed and frail as the world leads us to believe. We don't require the blanket prescription of wealth, beauty, and Percocet to function.

Interestingly, the wording and mannerisms of these conditions might sound all too familiar. Certain choice words mirror things that you might say or feel. After careful review you may realize that you may have written your own terms, but before we congratulate you on taking control of your life, let's read the fine print and poke at what's oozing between the lines.

Are all those side effects just perceived or have you thrown up or bled from your eyes enough times for the experience to be considered quantitative data? In my case, it's the former. There comes a point in your existence when you have a reference point on a shit ton of things (love, pain, joy, endurance, foods that will make you sick, etc.), but what lies outside that reference point is the same thing you experienced as a kid when you realized you have no idea what comes next - fear.

For children fear comes dressed as a clown or is the shadow at the far end of the room. As we grow up, we learn to rationalize these things away or even grow to enjoy being scared shitless.

But adult fears can't be laughed away. The fear doesn't turn out to be just a silhouette of the tree outside. Adult fears could care less about sunlight or the under-the-blanket rule. Adult fears can sway economies and nations. I have yet to see a shadow puppet do that.

And the more cerebral you are, the more the fear takes on a reality of it's own. I usually take comfort in my self control and rationality. It beats being impulsive which keeps apologies to a minimum. However, over the passed few weeks I've reviewed my terms and conditions.

A majority is based on fear, and the rest looks like conditions from other people.

But it's all my handwriting. I don't like the wording, and the terms and conditions leave me at a disadvantage.

Fuck that.

Fuck being so afraid all the time. Fuck leaving it all to chance and other people. All this shouldn't have made it passed the first edit.

Screw it. I'm starting from scratch.

I'm not as flawed or frail as I seem. I just forget about editing.

The future changes now.





I'm the winner this time around.

On Fear and Disappointment

I stumbled upon a quote a few weekends ago that moved me.

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

Mark Twain (American Humorist, Writer and Lecturer. 1835-1910)


Granted I'm not unflappable by any means, but these words started like a whisper in the back of my mind and spread like cancer.

I'm tired of being scared. I'm tired of feeling disappointed. I'm tired of being scared of disappointment.

I need a good pair of deck shoes.

A wiseman once wrote something really cool and wise; I wrote this:

Remember when you were 3 years old and you wanted to know why everything is the way it is? Even better - remember the last time you hung out with a 3 year old, and they were asking the same damn questions?

Does it seem like the older we get the more we accept the answer "That's the way it is"? I feel that we stop asking "Why?"

A long long time ago my parents bought me and my bro a pair of cowboy boots. For some reason, I kept wearing them on the wrong feet, and when my little bro asked, "Hey, don't they just feel wrong?" I asked myself "What's so wrong about the feeling of wearing your shoes on the wrong feet?" It's not like bells go off in your brain that tell you "This crap is messed up!" It's not like the feeling you would get if you drowned a litter of kittens or something. So why couldn't I wear the my boots on the wrong feet?

I also remember the time my dad was teaching me about the value of nickels, dimes, pennies, quarters, and half dollars. My little bro picked it up really quick. My question was "Who says this piece of metal is worth more than this piece of metal?" They're all just round pieces of metal. I finally gave my pops the answers that he was looking for just so I wouldn't get my ass whooped for being a dumbass.

So I learned that playing along and giving the accepted answers will get you out of a lot of trouble. After awhile, it becomes habit, but for some reason, I'm starting to question things again. This time though the answers aren't so clear.

Like "Does Spring Break end at college graduation?" For some reason Spring Break seems to happen on every other day off. I still listen to club mixes of songs in the car and yell like crazy sometimes - all while I drive around doing errands. I still plan to spike a watermelon with vodka once a month but never get around to it, but I still plan anyway. I go to the beach before work.



"Can I be a Republican and still hate war?" The real question is "Who actually LIKES war?" I'm not naive enough to think that everything can be fixed with negotiation. Some sides are driven to commit horrible atrocities where negotiations would just mean a few more to add to the body count, but I don't like the reality of war. The Dems want to paint a picture of Republicans as war fanatics, and the Republicans want to say that the Dems lack steadfastness and courage. Deep down inside I know we all wish we weren't in this situation to begin with. Now if we can all agree on that maybe there is some hope for "One nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all."

Next question: "How much wood can a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?" I'm pretty sure the answer is "all of it." It's a little known fact that woodchucks lack the lzY gene. This is the gene that causes laziness. In fact, the scientists that discovered this gene in chimpanzees were so lazy themselves that they left out the "a" in the gene's name because that meant another letter to bother writing down. So with no laziness to hamper a woodchuck and no time limit, all of the wood would be chucked. (This gene fact is so "little known" that you can consider it "not known" or just "made up" by a "drunken writer".)

Last question: "Why can't I have a beer for breakfast?" and the alternate question: "Why can't I have a beer with breakfast and go on my usual morning jog?" The answer will hit you like a semi-truck full of stupid at around 10:27 in the morning if you even attempt this tragic lapse of common sense.

The weird part of this last question is the fact that the answer is something I've heard as a kid.

"Stop being stupid. Shut up, and finish your oatmeal." If only I had listened...

A Reason to Live

I wouldn't call it the bane of my existence, but it does suck sometimes. Words. Everywhere. Most of them are half full. A good measure of them are just empty banter - fluff for the most part, but for some reason my mind can't tune them out. Every word has to have a meaning or purpose, and my brain will mull them around for days and even years to squeeze an ounce of understanding from them.

The other day someone presented me with a pretty easy request. "Give me a reason to live."

WTFuck? Does someone really need a reason to live? Isn't being alive a miracle in itself - something that doesn't really need a reason to exist?

The dude had to be joking, right? And if he was joking, why can't I just let the question fade away with last week's minor details? Maybe I'm an optimistic shmuck, but I don't have to think too hard about why I want to keep existing.

For one, there are way too many people around the world I want to drink beer with to expire anytime soon. Some of those people I'm actually waiting to be of drinking age. Family and friends has to be one of the top reasons to keep on keepin' on. The possibility of making new friends and starting my own family is also an attractive incentive to not crap out in the near future. I see my buddies getting married and having kids and stuff, and it looks cool enough to try sometime.

It sounds all grand sometimes, but even the little things are worth sticking around for. (Yeah, I know. I ended a sentence in a preposition. So what?)

Days off, good coffee, unexpected presents, the smell of your favorite food, eating the aforementioned favorite food, nice weather, naps, YouTubing the crap out of stupid stuff, sending those YouTube links to unsuspecting victims, Post-Its, pay day, hearing a song you haven't heard in a 14 bizillion years, having a friend nearby to sing that song horribly with you, lazy Sundays, play-offs, overtime, triple overtime, stupid jokes like the following:

Q: How do you keep a dog from humping your leg?




A: Suck its dick, silly!


(I'll wait til you get settled again......Ready? OK, let's get back to my list.)

...vacations, holidays, dates, graduation, hooking-up, making-up, coming-out, Spring Break, that point around 3 am where you're delirious and everything is hilarious, actually finishing everything on your to-do list, barbecue, movies that are coming out this year, movies that are coming out in the future, old school rap, the beach, etc.

I could have come up with this list in 5 seconds, but I type like an amputee.

There's a helluvalot more things to live for. Hell, there's also tons of things to die for, but I'm not going tell to this dude about that.

Maybe he's convinced his team will never win the championship, but if he dies, he'll never know. Maybe his personally life is a steaming chasm of shit, but if he dies, he'll never know that there are people that will help him dig his way out.

I guess it's all the maybe's that makes me want to stick around. Maybe I just want to stick around to try to figure it all out.

But maybe he was just bullshitting, and I'm insane.

But maybe I'm just taking my sweet time planning my funeral. That event is gonna be epic! Bagpipe players, a pig roast, a petting zoo for the kids, and maybe even sweet T-shirts.

I just have to live an awesome life to get to that point.



I hope you guys can make it.

Until then, stick around. Trust me. The world is so much cooler with us in it.

Ode to Sub-Zero

Sub-Zero - what is NOT cool about this guy? First off, he's a damn ninja. Ninjas have always and will always be awesome. Anything contrary to this fact is wrong. Devil's advocates may point out that pirates are just as cool or better than ninjas. Even if you ignore the fact that most pirates are alcoholics, loud as hell, shitty when it comes to deadlines, prone to mutiny, have awful hygiene, hard to understand, and have criminal records as long Rip Van Winkle's dingleberries you will be hard pressed to find someone who would pay for their services let alone trust them.



Secondly, he can shoot ice out of his hands!



He can freeze your juice pops in no time flat, but he might end up uppercutting the shit out of them rendering them pretty much useless, but that would still be pretty damn cool...literally.



Go freeze something by shooting ice from your hands and tell me sex partners don't instantly line up like nerds at the premiere of Star Wars 6.



You're probably asking yourselves, "What about Batman, Godzilla, Hulk Hogan, Yoda, Ryu, General Patton, your mom, etc?"



Screw Batman.



In fact, screw the whole Batman franchise.



And just for questioning his ass-kicking abilities, Sub-Zero will beat the crap out of Superman, too. Sub- Zero hates clowns and people that wear capes.

If they have an ass and/or can freeze, Sub-Zero will win every time. In fact, the only time Chuck Norris was out with a cold was after he went drinking with Sub-Zero.


(Note: Sub-Zero has voted for Clint Eastwood for President in every election and will continue until Clint Eastwood actually runs for President. Sub-Zero doesn't even have tear ducts. The only thing Obama can take from Sub-Zero is a beatdown.)


If you still have any doubts, just look at him. Damn! He's the very definition of badass.




Glowing blue hands, scary white eye-balls, blue ninja uniform - he actually rewrites one of the most sacred of lyrics. "Wu Tang Clan [and Sub-Zero] ain't nothin' to fuck with!"


And fire? "What about fire?" you ask. Yoga flame would totally beat Icy Freeze, right? On a good day, fire is an even tie with ice, but after getting hit with a Teleport to Icy Counter combo it's impossible to get your ass un-kicked.



Oh and let's not forget about the ice sword! He wields a Conan The Barbarian-sized sword made of ice! WTF?!!! FTW!



Back, forward, down, forward, #2. Last time I tried that move it was highly embarrassing, gross, and required a mop.


When Sub-Zero goes back, forward, down, forward, #2, a shit-ton of awesomeness occurs in the most entertaining ways.



God bless you, Sub-Zero. God bless.

A Letter From the Valley of the Death

There are few things as humbling as puking your guts out at at three in the afternoon. You are re-introduced to reality, and reality is a bitch you've been dating for way too long.

She (or he) reminds you you're not as cool, strong, or funny as you think.

You are not Captain Awesome. You have limits, and today's limit is four big glasses of some orange juice-based cocktail... and a beer somewhere in the middle of all that.

Lesson No.7492: The saying "Liquor before beer - You're in the clear" is total crap! I've known this for some time now, but I'm a man of science. I'm always gathering new data and calibrating. Today's data still supports the failure of the cute rhyme, but it also reveals the following new questions:

1. Have I ever been able to consume more than four classes of orange juice in one drinking session? Let's ignore the fact there were other things mixed in - namely booze from Satan's teat. I have never realized the acidity of four glasses of OJ until today.

Check this out:

Orange juice has a pH of 3.30 - 4.15. That data doesn't really mean much until you compare it to ...say... stomach acid which has a pH range of 1-3. Holy crap! I'm a moron!

I had an unfamiliar burning in my chest and some kind of uneasiness in my throat. WebMD.com says these symptoms can be associated with heartburn. Whatever it is sucks goat nuts.

2. How much weight can you lose in 24 hrs? I'm not a world class athlete. I don't have televised weigh-ins. My body fat percentage is like the plight of the Tasmanian Devil - good to know but not enough to get all concerned. All in all I don't have weight issues, but I lost about 4 pounds in about a day. That's like cutting off a forearm which should kill you in most instances, because - let's not kid ourselves -when you're tore up from the floor up your body is basically dying. You're drifting in and out of consciousness, ingesting food is not happening, you're hot and you're cold (...you're yes and you're no...you're in and you're out...you're up and you're down), you have sweaty alcoholic sweat (yeah, even your sweat is sweating), and even water is hard to keep down. Basically, you're whole being is pissed off at you.

And I haven't even started on the massive amounts of puking that occurs while you hover around the valley of death. At first, you have the usual suspects exiting your system. Then, comes the scary stuff you can't even begin to identify. If it's glowing yellow, it's bile (or you were drinking antifreeze and/or the contents of a glow stick...if this is the case, all this crap is totally what you get). The stuff will be taste bitter and may be accompanied by an evil heaving welling from your soul.

3. Time/space warping occurs during your "down time"? You can close your eyes for a second and miss 20 minutes of "Pulp Fiction," and you have to be pretty trashed if you can fall asleep during all that messed-up shenanigans. When you do finally go down like the five dollar hooker you are you can sleep a whole day away, but that 12-24 nap challenges the classic definition of space and time.

Normally, you require a certain amount of space to move around and live. During this nap all you need is about a five square feet of space to die. You can spend a better part of a weekend on a couch or the bathroom floor (which has a soothing coolness that you've overlooked until now).



4. Does everyone but me swear off drinking or some other nonsense that has nothing to do with the root of the issue?

Here's the root of my issue: I'm a thirsty dude. I require lots of hydration, and sometimes I just happen to be at a bar. Don't get me wrong. I do love me some beer, but I also love milkshakes, juice, milk, Kool-Aid, green tea, sweet tea, grape soda, grape drink, slushies, etc.

I like drinking. It's refreshing and vital for me to stay alive. This isn't a rationalization of why my dumb ass is in the fetal position admiring my buddy's bathroom ceiling (You should check it out some time...when you for some strange reason are in his bathroom...in Pensacola, Florida...and you swear your gall bladder just shot out of your mouth and into toilet. It's a hardwood ceiling - very nice workmanship.)

Although I can't stop drinking, I can stop drinking liquor immediately after running a 5K.

See? That's realistic, specific, and logical. There's no weird "Ewww, I don't do Cuervo anymore" situations. Tequila is just a potent liquid. A shot of it has no evil spirit in it plotting your downfall. It was just that you mishandled your capacity to guzzle it down.. and the Cuervo? It won't miss you at all.

And the folks that transform into blathering, flailing idiots after drinking a certain form of booze are crazy deep down inside already. It's not the whiskey's fault. Firm, consistent use of a Tazer can resolve this behavioral aberration. Kicking and choking could be used if a Tazer is not available.

All in all - me getting drunk happens maybe 5.7 times a year. Me getting totally shitfaced happens even less than that, but me learning a lesson happens all the time.

Hopefully, I learn this pretty simple lesson.

I guess there's a reason Gatorade and gin are on different aisles.

He's Not That Into You Because He's Me

So, he hasn't called yet? No date plans discussed for this weekend? Does he always invite a buddy of his along on your little outings?

Yeah, he's probably shy, lazy, fickle, and as neurotic as you are. Basically, he's me but way cooler. Hell, you're a pretty hot piece of ass. I know I am. If he hasn't called, he's definitely gay, which is why you'll never find a boyfriend like him because he already has a boyfriend that he calls because he likes him, but you - you are a beautiful woman sitting by yourself on a Wednesday night reading a book called "He's Just Not That into You." That's sort of like trying to learn how to speed read by reading a 200-page book called "Speed Reading for Slow Readers: the Special Olympic Edition"

And what if he's not gay? In that case, he's me - too tired from writing crazy shit like this all night, can't really remember what a real date actually feels like, growing out his hair because he doesn't really care about the ugly phase anymore since the dating slump is nearing record numbers. He's probably more excited about buying a new pair of running shoes than actually asking somebody - anybody? - out, and it's a bad sign when a straight dude gets excited about shoes for ANY reason.

And it's not that he hasn't noticed you. Oh, he's noticed! It's just he's dated models and hung-out with models, and it usually follows the same old patterns of booze, cocaine, jungle love, booze, jungle love, accidentally burning the bed sheets with some crazy new bong contraption, heroine, eating cold mac-n-cheese at three in the morning on the kitchen floor while the other is passed out on the bear skin rug, more sex, rehab, and the break-up (in its many dramatic forms). So, it's not you. You're just as hot or hotter that all those models. He just doesn't want to be the one that watches you do all those horrible things to yourself while he tries take his team all the way on Madden 2008. Yeah, he doesn't smoke or drink much, says "no" to drugs, hates to have his clothes thrown into the pool when he pisses you off, and knows that fights are a normal part of a healthy relationship (minus having "ashole" carved into his car, which wouldn't be as bad if it wasn't misspelled), BUT he loves your smokin' body, girl!



So there you have it! He's not that into you...because he's me, and I'm retarded. And you? You're normal - normally crazier than a sack of rabid weasels.

The End.

Thieves and Shaving

To seek out and actively acquire things already taken is the business of thieves and swindlers. Unfortunately, I'm neither of those.

Upholding a handful of principles vexes me a times, but at least it allows me to honestly look at myself in the mirror in the morning without the slightest trepidation. This comes in handy when shaving.

And I say to myself, "What a Wonderful Turd!"

Who am I? What am I doing? Where am I going? Where do I want to go? How am I going to get there? What the hell am I going to do when I do get there?

Will they have beer there?

A co-worker asked me when I'll get to work on my writing career a few days ago. MY WRITING CAREER?! Here's a dude that just recently came across some of my old columns from my college days, and he thinks it merits a career!

Where did my faith in my words go? The more I read the news out there the more I realize I'm starting to believe what the media is dishing out. Main stream media has convinced us life is a shit sandwich, and we're required to eat it.

Here's the deal, dude: Fuck that. Don't believe that. Actually, fuck what I just said. Believe whatever you want, but decide for yourself. Hopefully, you think life is short and sweet like a chocolate-covered midget. Maybe you think the opposite - life is long as shit; so take it easy. Either way life is awesome. Maybe my writing career should be to remind you things aren't that bad.

Despite the economy, the break-ups, the wars, the 8 o'clock classes, the bird shitting on your car seconds after you finally get around to washing it, the rain storm that comes after you clean off the bird shit, the scandals, and the food poisonings, life overall doesn't suck that bad.


I mean, if this guy can find some kind of joy in life, life can't be all that bad, right? I personally hate karaoke, but this cracks my shit up. The economic downturn kind of melts away for a few minutes when I watch this:



Who am I trying to kid? I'm kind of a dick, but I give credit where credit is due, and this lady right here proves that one's failure can provide viewing pleasure for millions. I cease to think about MY failures with love and life in general when I see this:



But I don't rely solely on others' failures for my pleasure. Feats of awesome randomness are just as good. I especially like my own past accomplishments. Check me out when I was just a wee lad:



OK OK OK, that wasn't me, but it was still awesome, and if anybody believed me for a minute and 49 seconds, thanks! Lying kind of makes me happy, too.

So screw all the bad news. There's just too much of it to go around. I'm gonna get working on this writing career. You just keep reading, and it wouldn't hurt to keep laughing since there really is no sense in worrying too much about life.

Nobody is getting out of this thing alive anyways.

No Beer in Gym

First off, I need to apologize to the lady running on the treadmill next to me. I had no business being in the gym after four beers. Hell, the four coffees, bagel, and Philly cheese steak didn't help either, but I don't regret actually making it to the gym since the gym was the first responsible thing I did that day.

But the burps were out of hand unless you like the combined smell of onion, garlic, stomach acid, and beer. It was pretty rank, and with every stride I knew it wasn't long before I actually would see the source of the stench.

So, I stopped running. It was the only decent thing to do.

Disaster averted...until I decided to actually workout. (Yeah, the treadmill was a warm-up for the stupidity that would ensue. You never want to cramp up in the middle of doing something dumb. Cramping gets in the way of disappearing from the scene of the crime.)

Long story short - I'm an idiot.



Short story long - here are the following exercises to avoid when you're full of the aforementioned food and drink:

1. Situps - Anything that causes the crap in your gullet to slosh around should be avoided. The crunch movement is the last thing you want to attempt especially the decline situp. In fact, any body positioning that places your head below your feet is retarded.

2. Standing dumb bell exercises - After consuming beers in quick succession, standing kind of sucks. Any lifting of weights should be done sitting. Any lifting of weights over your head is just a bad idea - a very bad idea. Plus, the fact that one dumb bell can independently do whatever it wants is pretty hazardous. Factor in the other dumb bell and you have every ounce of bad karma lining up to kill you. That's what you get for making fun of the pee kid in first grade, asshole.

3. Barbell exercises - While much safer than dumb bells, most of my barbell exercises use a shit-ton more weight than dumb bell stuff, and a shit-ton of anything is a shitload of shit (especially when the possibility of that shit falling on your head and chest is involved).

4. Any exercise that involves your head moving too much - This rules out pushups, pullups, and dips. Unless you want to transform into a puke sprinkler, avoid this stuff. Trust me.


So if you avoid running on a treadmill, barb bell exercises, dumb bell exercises, situps, and anything that involves head movement, you'll have a "great" time at the gym.

But here's a better idea:

1. Don't drink and go to the gym.

2. Eat a well balanced breakfast.

3. Don't go to the beach under red flag conditions with a six pack of Miller Lite.

4. Don't drink and go to the gym, moron.