I was leaving a store today when an employee smiled at me and said, “Happy Holidays!” It was quite clear from her attire, gold cross, and extreme whiteness that what she really meant was, “Merry Christmas”, but was forbidden from saying so in case I celebrate Kwanzaa or something and took mortal offense to her pleasant salutation. And that caused me to wonder why anyone gets all fucking worked up over being told to have a Merry Christmas. If someone in a store looked at me and said, “It’s Christmas. I hope your dick falls off,” then I’d be offended. But someone wishing that I have happiness? I’ll take it. Why the fuck not? They can wish me a Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Glorious Kwanzaa, Prosperous Ramadan, whatever. When someone wishes me happiness, I absolutely don’t care if they append a holiday I don’t observe to the end of it. They still want me to be happy, after all. I don’t have to have a hard-on for trees to appreciate being told to “Have a wonderful Arbor Day!” Continue reading

Since our last installment, I packed all of my belongings into a U-Haul and moved to a house a couple of blocks down the street. If you’re wondering why I bothered with a U-Haul if the move was so short, it was because putting all your shit on a sled and having your dog and kids pull it Iditarod-style may be entertaining, but effectiveness-wise it blows goats. So I wrapped the goldbricking fuckers in bubble-wrap and threw them in the U-Haul with the rest of my shit and fucking moved. I say “fucking moved” not just because I’m a foul-mouthed, anti-social malcontent with the manners of a drunken sailor in a whorehouse, but also because the total elapsed time to move everything by myself was six and a half hours including the time it took to rent and return the U-Haul. I am the motherfucking man. Continue reading

I work close to a fairly rare thing in the Phoenix metro area. A fairly rare thing in the United States, actually. It’s a roundabout. For those of you unfamiliar with a roundabout, it’s a circular road. They like to use them in Europe instead of stop lights. The idea is that you drive up to the roundabout, make sure that you’re not cutting anyone off, and you drive into it. Then you drive in a circle until you find the road that you’d like to exit onto. Pretty simple, no? They even put Yield signs at each entrance so you know that the laws of civilized society haven’t been suspended and you won’t be allowed to ram other people’s cars. Drive up, pause, drive in, drive off. How hard is that? Continue reading

My two youngest kids, both of them boys, are six and four years old. Naturally, I spend a lot of time telling them what to do because if you didn’t tell kids this age what to do, Child Protective Services would take them away from you. “Take a bath”, “Eat something other than candy”, and “Don’t put knitting needles into your eye sockets” are things that you would think would go without saying, but with kids this age they’re not. I’ve got a twelve year old daughter and she’s not much better, to tell you the truth, the only difference being that she wouldn’t put knitting needles in her eye sockets unless her friends did it first. Continue reading

A few weeks ago, I made fun of Kenny Loggins, the Urkel of Rock and Roll. He richly deserved this, of course, as anyone who actually sat through “Whenever I Call You Friend” can attest. In fact, he won an accompanying poll which pitted him against eight (count ’em, eight!) of the lamest acts imaginable. It says something about you when you out-lame Boz Skaggs, or at least it should. Not that I want anything bad to happen to Kenny Loggins, but when he passes on his headstone should read “Kenny Loggins, lamer than Boz Skaggs” and it should dispense coupons to visitors for 1% off of their next meal at Sizzler. Continue reading

Anyone who knows me knows that I’ve got a thing for fucking with people semi-anonymously. Whether it’s over the phone, via email, or via offensive skywriting, if I feel that someone needs to be fucked with you can rest assured that I will do it. One time, in high school, a friend and I spent an entire afternoon getting baked and writing Dear Abby letters that were serious enough to be published, but silly enough that they provided our friends entertainment in the Chicago Tribune for months. That’s how I roll. Continue reading

I was driving to Home Depot the other day because I’m a guy, and that’s what guys do: We drive to Home Depot. We look around, find manly shit like auger bits and spackle, buy it, bring it home, then put it in the garage and have a beer. At least that’s what I do. My attitude towards home improvement products is that they should improve my home merely by coming in contact with it. If that doesn’t do the trick, clearly it’s because the home improvement products are defective. Fucking defective home improvement products. Piss me off so bad that I need another beer… Continue reading

When I was young, we used to watch the Miss America Pageant on TV. Not because we liked it, mind you, but because I’m older than shit and when I grew up we only had six channels of “entertainment”. Let me tell you something: when there’s a dearth of competition like that, there is very little incentive to provide quality programming. I mean, the highlight of the week was Mork & Mindy, and if you were lucky there would be a Battle of the Network Stars on so you could once and for all settle the question: Who would win a kayak race, Jamie Farr or Charo? Continue reading

I tried going to the bank today and was really confused when I pulled on the door and it didn’t open. I went across the street to a convenience store to see if they sold money orders (which is why I was going to the bank in the first place), and when I explained why I was there and that the bank was closed for Columbus Day, the guy at the register said, “Really? That’s still a thing?” which expressed my opinion perfectly. Continue reading

I watched Starship Troopers again the other day. Most people I know who have seen that movie think it’s stupid, and cheesy, and not worth seeing once, let alone multiple times. But if you’ve read Heinlein’s 1959 novel of the same name, it stays shockingly close to the original spirit, which was as much a political essay as it was a novel. Heinlein’s meritocratic democracy stands in stark contrast to our own system of government which, in the novel, ultimately collapses because “people had been led to believe that they could simply vote for whatever they wanted… and get it, without toil, without sweat, without tears.” Also, the movie has a shower scene in it, and you get to see some tits. Continue reading