I went to a science fair this evening. I haven’t been to a science fair since I was in 8th grade, and let me tell you something: They haven’t changed a bit. How America retains its ranking as the top destination for technological and scientific advancement is beyond me, because as far as I can tell, our budding scientists-to-be only perform experiments involving static electricity, vinegar and baking soda, or rock candy formation. Oh, and Coke and Mentos. I saw four separate entries dealing with Coke and Mentos, each of which had a hypothesis along the lines of, “My hypothesis is that adding Coke to Mentos in my brother Tyler’s room will be hilarious.” Continue reading

A couple of weeks ago I decided that I’d use the word “orgy” at least once in every meeting I’m invited to at the office. “Orgy” is an excellent word in that it has enough legitimate meaning to justify its occasional use, but when you use it, every single person in the room mentally pictures the Orgy Guy – A hairy chested, mustachioed man who shows up at the front door wearing nothing but a kimono and an expectant leer. It’s wonderfully off-putting, and every time I do it, I surreptitiously scan the room to see if anyone is lost in a fond remembrance because you never know when that kind of information might come in handy. Hard work may be the surest way to the top, but extortion is a hell of a lot faster. Continue reading

One of the things that I miss most about being in college (other than sleeping until the crack of dusk and swapping body fluids with complete strangers) is drinking games. I love drinking games; love everything about them. They’re fun, they get you drunk, and they slap a smiley-face on what is essentially an extremely stupid endeavor. “What’s that? You want to binge on a toxic substance that will damage our livers, impair our judgement, and greatly increase the odds of developing a long term, debilitating chemical dependency? Count me in! Hey! We can make a game out of it!” I find this very amusing. I’m not sure why, but something about extreme idiocy appeals to me. I love the idea that our species is capable of exploring the stars, unraveling the inner workings of the atom, and decoding the genetic code that defines us all, yet we still have to go out of our way to tell the best and brightest of each generation that drinking whiskey until you vomit blood is a bad idea. Continue reading

The smartest thing my parents did when they bought their dream house in 1974 was to dedicate a single room in the basement to their three sons. “Here,” they said, “if you’re going to do anything bad in the house, do it in this room. You’re free to do whatever you want in here.” And they meant it, too. We wrote on the walls, broke light fixtures, and left that room looking like a tornado had hit the Mattel corporation, and they never said a word. Not even when my older brother, during a furiously contested game of indoor basketball, threw me through the drywall and into an entirely different room. I’m sure there were limits to the immunity they had granted us. I mean, it’s not like we could start doing needle drugs and hookers down there (we had a different room for that), but any of your garden-variety male offspring destructiveness was accepted with a shrug, just as long as it never left that room. Continue reading

Well, I’m back from my well deserved holiday break. What did I do on this break, you ask? Mind your own fucking business. You’re just like the cops. “Can you explain why you were hiding in the dressing room at Victoria’s Secret with a drill, a camera, a tube of Astroglide, and a pumpkin?” Can’t a guy have any privacy any more? Sheesh. Continue reading

My kids woke up the other day in “a mood”, by which I mean they were hyperactive beyond description. My youngest son is five and still has occasional issues dressing himself, so in order to ensure that we get out the door before the current presidential administration leaves office, I help him get dressed. But when he’s in “a mood”, it’s like trying to dress a hummingbird on fucking speed. Flit! Flit! Flit! He’s all over the room, and the only way that I can get him to settle down is to offer him sugar-water from a plastic red flower. Continue reading

I got a massage the other day because my right hip was hurting me. I’d gone to the doctor, and he told me that pain was my hip’s way of telling me that something was wrong. “Oh really, that’s how it works?” I asked him. “We communicate through pain?” So I punched him in the face and told him that I wasn’t going to pay the bill. Listen up, medical professionals: Insurance sucks, our bodies are essentially leaky bags of meat, and we’re likely to die of old age in the waiting room. We don’t need to add condescending doctors to the list of shitty things associated with health care. Just tell me that you don’t know what the problem is and give me a prescription for some gnarly painkillers already. Don’t make me go all Drugstore Cowboy on your ass. Continue reading

I bought a new car recently. Those of you who are long-time readers but have somehow managed to retain cognitive function may remember that I used to drive a Jeep Wrangler, which has all the aerodynamics of a small mountain range with only slightly worse fuel economy. You know how new cars list the city and highway mileage? My Jeep Wrangler needed a third number to represent the gallons of gas it consumed just sitting there in my garage. Once I realized that they were naming deep-water drilling rigs after my Jeep, I realized that it was time to trade it in. Continue reading

I had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend and over the course of it I discovered many things to be thankful for, the most important being my children. I had a wonderful time with them, and even though my days were incredibly busy, I got to relax each night, surfing the web as they slept soundly, dreaming of damaging major appliances before they’re fully paid for. Surfing the web, incidentally, is even more enjoyable now that I classify it as “job-related research” for tax purposes. Getting a $7 million tax refund may not be common, or even legal, but it’s certainly a hell of a lot more fun than being law-abiding. Continue reading

I was recently reading a book about the safety of our nuclear arsenal because… Well, honestly, it’s because in a lot of ways, I haven’t really gotten past the stage in my life in which explosions = awesome. I still have a hard time showing restraint when it comes to lighting birthday cakes and campfires, and just forget about asking me to ignite a charcoal grill using anything less than 3 gallons of napalm. Naturally, I live in the hottest and driest state in the country, so it’s just a matter of time before a mishap ensures that this blog is written entirely via prison notes smuggled out in someone’s anal cavity. But until that happens I’m free to do as I please, even if that involves testing out home made incendiary devices next to an orphanage. Continue reading