Dog

We've all heard that dog is man's best friend. So much so that I'm not even going to bother putting quotes around it. It is just an accepted fact. A law of the universe. In the midst of what can fairly be described as painstaking boredom i began to wonder why people and dogs got along so famously. I say people because I've never quite been sure whether the man being referred to in the saying is a general male figure or humans as in man in general. Though I've heard that diamonds are a girls best friend. If that is true then it certainly makes a strong case for dog being a male's best friend. On a side note, it also goes a long way in describing how our world came be be dominated by the patriarchy. Diamonds versus dogs ladies? You chose the wrong side. Or did they?
Anyway, dogs. dudes. Best buds. B. F. F. If you will. Why?
The answer may surprise you as it did me. Simplicity. Yeah. That's it. That's the big secret. Dogs are simple and man is a creature who above all else values simplicity.
Another saying, "Necessity is the mother of all inventions." It could be true, it certainly stands to reason, however, consider the idea but substitute simplicity for necessity: "Simplicity is the mother of all inventions." Before you develop some wacky Oedipus complex over the wording feel free to sub in any parent or guardian figure(s) as you see fit. Language can get people all worked up. Which is a great place to start.
Did people need a language? Nah. We had grunts and we could point at what we wanted. Scream at approaching danger. Communication was simple and necessary. To simplify things even more we started to use different grunts and sounds to differentiate between things. Watch the movie, "Dances with Wolves," and try to keep up with how many times they use the same word to mean any number of things. I suspect that somebody somewhere decided he was sick and tired of being mislead into believing his dinner was meat instead of poop. The grunt sounded the same. So letters and languages developed to make life simpler. Of course it got out of hand but that's why we get forced to take foreign language classes for liberal arts degrees.
Dogs are simple. They don't need words. Just plop down beside you and slowly roll over into a position that reveals the spot they most want scratched. Hungry? Bark. Outside? Wag tail and bark. Dancing is a possibility. Simple.

John versus World

Gender differences can be both biologically imposed as well as cultural. It is biological that boys and girls get rid of liquid wastes through slightly different means. For an example see German adult films and or Brazilian entertainment involving cups and women. Think of it as natures way of either drinking milk direct from the carton/jug versus pouring it into a glass. I'm not about to debate which one represents which sex, that would be silly. No, I want to dive into a much more serious matter: Sitting down.

In the beginning, we all begin our potty training sitting down. Sometimes with a copy of the Times or Wall Street Journal perhaps. A Playbaby for the depraved. HotRod mags if you live in the South. Regardless, your touche is touching the throne ten out of ten times when you';re a tyke. Not that i remember this during my youth, but I have seen a plethora of visual aids. The point is, all potty is created equal, at least in the beginning.

Then something takes over. Girls remain seated, as if they are passengers on a potty plane flying nonstop from Kalamazoo to the Camode and the captain will not, under any circumstances, turn off the seat belt sign. "Please remain seated for the duration of your time in the toilet..."
Gents on the other hand are expected to stand up and let it rain. This of course is despite the incessant protest of the female species as they never fail to remind all those equipped with caveman creating chromosomes aren't exactly dead-eyed when it comes to disposing of the pee pee. Although ridiculed and tested, not just by the nagging but also by cutesy sayings such as, "if you sprinkle when you tinkle please be neat and wipe the seat," it does not stop boys from being trained to drain in the upright position.
Interestingly enough, it is not a natural requirement for such drainage to take place. Why any old fool, man, boy, or drummer for Def Leopard can rid himself of any poisons while seated. But they choose not to. Usually. Why?
The answer is as simple as the mind that conceived it: Manliness. A man on a macho trip juiced with testosterone, adrenaline pumping wildly shook his fists in the air and said, "I'm not a woman, her me roar, listen to my mighty stream of water!" And everyone knows that you can't roar whilst sitting down so he stood up and bam, the invention of dudes standing to pee was thus invented. Er, created. Um...happened.
And it caught on because all the other guys didn't want to be like those women, sitting down, all weak and unable to see what is happening below. Much like a disaster photographer, showing up after the devastation has occurred and taking it all in but never witnessing the chaos that lead to the ruin. Soon it spread. And spread until it became the first step to becoming a Man. You have to go fishing and play baseball and kill something and eat a taco with hot sauce way over your reading level and take the ensuing comprehension test without missing more than three questions. But as you noticed, these are all cultural barriers.
Moreover, I dare say that sitting down to wee is far more tougher, more manlier, more ballsy (regardless of innate equipment) than standing up. This is no assertion based on a counter culture loathing for tradition. No medical evidence from a tv news doctor corespondent. No gut feeling. Just a simple fact. One.
Toilets are germ palaces. I'll wager that at times your toilet has more of your pubic hair than you do. Smells worse than you do. No matter how hard you scrub, no matter the make up, heck, you could put fresh paint on some spots and it wouldn't matter, your toilet or a toilet is an eye sore. It's gross. Moldy. Rotten. Squeaky seat. Cold seat, Death trap.
Two words: bus, station. Two more words: truck, stop.
Would you eat off of a toilet seat? Not a biscuit for five dollars and a chance to star in an internet dating show. I mean have a lovely even meal by the water front. Flush away your tears and your sorrows. No. You wouldn't. Ever. And yet, you mock the gals and guys who sit on that throne of mondo yuck.
So how is it manly to remove one's self from the danger of such a device? I can see some lumber jack looking guy wrestle a bear, jump in front of a speeding train and even accept the intimate affections of one Ms. Paris Hilton and despite the amount of laughter this imagined man throws in the face of all things danger he will only stand to urinate. Afraid, or unwilling to place his rusty chewbacca buns of the porcelain pungee pit of a toilet residing just beyond his bedroom.
Based on this, and my inability to bungee jump or sky dive, strictly based on limited funding, when I need a good dose of danger, I squat on the pot and take that leak to a whole new level. Bam! It's potty time.

Bar-gain

Bar: 1) Noun, An object with which to strike someone and or set trap with to or for.
ex. I smashed his face with a crowbar.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booby_trap

2) Noun, Browning Automatic Rifle, sub-machine gun popular during times of intense violence and conflict.
Ex. I just busted a cap in that Kraut with my B.A.R.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1918_Browning_Automatic_Rifle

3) Noun/ Abbreviation, Bar-mitzvah.
Ex. Hey, Jessie, come to my Barmitzvah on Saturday.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barmitzvah

4) Noun, A place where everybody knows your name/ public dispensary of adult/ alcoholic beverages.
Ex. My girlfriend left me today after I was released from my high paying job for an indiscretion which I decline to disclose because of the disciplinary dispensing institutions and law enforcing facilities will surely subject me to confinement and as such i suggest we swiftly seek shelter at a bar and get wasted, dude.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_(establishment)

My point is this, why do we go to bars, or rather, why do we consistently see television and movie characters traveling to bars in search of solace and advice in times of stress and uncertainty? To drink, right?
If that is your explanation, so be it. Leads me to believe that you have an alcohol problem as it would seem that you are using a controlled substance to alter your mood rather than facing what ails you which is a telling sign in diagnosing the disease of alcoholism. Given the likelihood that you are a depressed bit of goat cheese in much need of a hug I suggest you find another place to get your kicks.
On the other hand, the silver screen always shows us some sad sack laying out his problems on the bar hoping that the bar tender or some mysterious stranger will somehow guide them away from trouble and into the Sea of Tranquility and Epiphany. Sigh. I can't begin to explain to you how infuriating that scene is in every single instance save the one in an episode of the Golden Girls when Dorothy meets the fiance of her ex-husband Stan. It's a heartfelt exchange that always gets me to crack a smile.
First, the patron. If you go to a bar to drink, it is reasonable to assume that the majority of other persons in attendance are there in an effort to alleviate themselves from the joys and or burdens of everyday living. Ere go, them fools might be drunk. While it has been suggested in no less than three scientific studies that intoxication is responsible for increased honesty, it must also be noted that honesty and knowing just what the hell you're talking about are not the same thing.
Let's take the guy in our example for instance, call him Roy. Now Roy has had a wretched day. Do you suppose that some drunk can fix all of Roy's problems while they both wait for the tender of this imaginary bar to mix and mash their martinis? Let's take a look:
Sigh, "My life sucks," says Roy.
"What's the trouble, stranger," asks a stranger, "maybe I could help."
At this point, Roy gives the stranger a run down of the days events in the most pathetic tone he can muster.
"That does suck," the stranger adds, "I like your shoes."

You see? Roy is no better off now than he was before. Maybe that was a bad example, but create your own and enjoy the failure. You are no better off taking your life lessons from a guy with a P.h.D. called doctor so-and-so than you are from a guy half-full on Doctor McGillicutty's Peppermint Schnapps. However, i think it is only fair to add that those schnapps make the stream of bullshit coming from the guy's face smell much better than a stuffy office in a strip mall or office park.
Second, bar tenders might be an even more dubious source of information. The textbook relationship between tender and patron involves the tender providing a service, in this case, making drinks, while you, the patron, provide compensation, typically in the form of money or bare breasts, thus completing the cycle until you need another beverage. In a perfect world, your problems would be easily solved and more importantly, the charges would be waived or paid for as part of the tip.
Sigh.
Truth be told, the bar tender wants your money. So you, my little bag of depression and sadness stew, need to remain planted in that stool at the bar of suffering until last call is shouted into your ears and processed by a brain made painfully unaware of the amount of urine now collecting below your seat on account of you taking in something to the tune of two gallons of booze. By that time you won't really notice the bar tender cashing out your tab and handing you back your credit card and blank receipt which he has already graciously filled out for you, careful to leave himself a tip he believes suites him yet won't cause you to overdraft and screw him out of what will certainly be a lovely three-day trip down to Cabo.
While not all bar folks are money grubbing nipple twisters, don't expect benevolence to get you very far in your time of tribulation. The highway to Hell is paved with good intentions, so when the guy behind the bar suggests you confront your cheating spouse, he might not realize you just bought a three way device capable of performing the acts of a golf club, chainsaw and wood chipper, much less that blood, no matter how many speckles or samples seem to be splattered on the sides of the device, negate the warranty.
Or what about the barmaid that suggests you take more chances? What is that? Is she trying to lead you on, maybe you should walk out in front of traffic or skip those cautionary swift swirls of breath on your hot spoonful of soup before scalding your mouth. Don't wear a seat belt? Vote Republican?
At best, a person working for the establishment at which you are attempting to drown your problems is only going to make it worse by giving you dubious, erroneous or vague advice. Thanks but no thanks, I like my advice the same way I like my eggs.
Sigh.
When you boil it all down, the first definition is really the most fitting. A bar is an object with which to lay the smack down on someone or something. The mechanism, which when sprung as part of a trap, cancels a person's subscription to life, magazines and cereals need not apply. Bars are bad news boys and girls. At least in terms of solving one's problems. If, however, your goal is to get drunk, then go for it. Always in moderation though. Because if you think bars offer poor sources of advice, don't even get me started on support groups and penitentiaries. Yeesh.

Brick a brack

We should have more single elimination tournaments such as
the two held for men's and women's college basketball every March. If you
aren't like me, you’re probably watching the final men's game as I write this
covered in goo from serving wings and other fried food stuffs to unappreciative
assbouncing yuppie slugs and their spawn. But the good thing is that we both
know as soon as the game is over you won't have a single thing to occupy all of
your free time nor will you have any brackets to fill out and will thus
be left with an incredible void that no one will both to try and fill. Sure you
have NBA, NHL and maybe some other playoffs coming up, but those are relatively
small brackets in comparison to the 65 team filled Twinkie known as the
final four. Because I don't want you to suffer, I have decided to comprise a
small list of events that ought to be restructured to fill your bracket void.

1- Elections. This one explains itself. A single elimination
tournament for all candidates. Whichever party is seeking the white house will
put up at least a dozen candidates in an effort to confuse voters into choosing
the sexier option thereby eliminating any chance for Americans to vote for a
person to lead who actually has a brain. But I like a sexy president as much as
the next person, so that isn't the issue. The problem is all of those damn
primaries and speeches. Instead of having state-to-state battles we should
switch to regional action with multiple competitions. Speeches? Sure, we need
some of those, but what about an obstacle course and a fashion show? Maybe the
obstacle course would be for laughs (imagine Bob Dole if you don't see where
I'm going), but the fashion show is important. Who wants to vote for a guy
caught wearing purple socks with brown pants? How could we be so blind as to
trust a woman who refuses to trade in her power pants suite for a dashing dress
or slightly skimpy yet stylish skirt topped off with a cleverly cleaveged
blouse?

Let's challenge each candidate to a naming event. Think of it as the
analogies on the old SAT. You are at war with country X, what do you call the
operation? Your military has created a new weapon, what word do you suggest to
define the missile as a symbol of your nation's benevolence despite its
increasing stockpile of arms (both bodily and body breaking.)

Each regional tournament can be held over the course of a week, one
event each day so media can cover each in full. As the field narrows we
increase the difficulty of the tasks and have the finalists meet for one last
challenge. As if that isn't cool enough, you get to fill out brackets for each
participating party, which in our choice-ridden country will be two. Consider
the office pools for president. I know what you're saying, that only happens
once every four years. No kidding, but you can do this with any election,
national, state or even local. That means you get action every year,
which is more than we can say for Bill O'Riely.

2- Events to turn into bracket worthy events. Is this a cop-out suggestion? You
can decide. Form a bracket of my possible response and select what you think
will win, what I am really thinking. Call your friends, get them involved and
go for broke. Send me your brackets and I can send you the results of
each round until a final winner is declared.

No need to continue to try and talk about American idol around the water
cooler at the office anymore. You could make a bracket of all the television
shows for each night. That means that each day could be dominated by a different
topic of conversation. Sure lots of people might have Heroes as a number 1 seed
in the bracket but it could always loose to PBS, a major upset to say the least
and you would be stuck listening to Martha from sales drone on about how
fascinating the life of a crossbred Yankee koala crocodile is once it is pulled
from its mother while nursing in the wild and transported to a sweat shop in
south Florida. Sigh, such is the magic of the bracket. Anything is
possible.

3- Dinner. Planning a menu for your family can be tough. Josh
doesn't like pork chops but Jennifer adores them, but not with potatoes, dad on
the other hand adores potatoes but will only eat them with cheese, but since
Martin is lactose intolerant and Josh sits next to Martin it is going to be a
tough night. Instead of going through all of that make a bracket of food
options. List all of the dishes, each family member can even list their
favorites and rank them just like seeds in the actual tournament and then the
cook eliminates them one by one until a final dish is declared the dinner.

This works just as well at restaurants and fast food joints. You
seed the sides, soups and main courses and plug away. Don't stop until it’s
time to choose a dessert. Would you like fries with that? Bam! Bracketology on
that. You might want fries but do you want them regular, extra crispy,
fresh, cold, soft, soggy, spiced, seasoned, on the side? A bracket takes all of
those options and puts them in an easy to use handy-dandy-space-saving-space-age
–super-duper-list-limiting-slicing-dicing group of lines in a winner take all
contest to determine what works best in your food hole.

4 Endless
possibilities. Are you shivering? Because this is just the tip of the iceberg. If
you have options, make a bracket and eliminate the unworthy. Lots of nephews
and nieces to buy presents for? Make a bracket and give the best to the
winner(s). Want to get drunk but not sure what you want? Have a rum regional,
Whisky region, Vodka region and Tequila. Just like in men’s basketball,
remember that seldom does a team west of the Mississippi river win the tourney,
so Tequila is there more for fun than any chance at winning. Besides, you need
to keep your shirt on, it’s freezing outside.
And that birthmark, we’ve talked about that. People aren’t ready to see
a giant splurge of off-red skin in the shape of the Eifel tower being crammed
uncomfortably into an unwilling anus.

Watch your reality
shows but make brackets beforehand and choose the winners. Place money on it.
This kind of home gambling can stimulate the economy. The winner will no doubt
take his or her winnings to the mall for a shopping spree or maybe a spa day
while the loser will probably buy some nails and a tazer to flatten your tires
and zap your dog in the rain. Now you will feel pain calling out to your dog,
calling him a bad dog, “No, Sparky….sigh…bad…dog…Sparky…I’m so sorry dog, its
wasn’t my fault.” Then you take your dog to the vet. Look at all the money
going into the economy over one little pool all because of one simple bracket contest.

Seriously, you owe
it to yourself and to your country. Are
you still there? Go make some brackets already. Make a bracket filled scrap
book, prioritize your memorize. Seed the past. Seed your seeds while planting a
garden. Go crazy, or decide what to do while going crazy, or just decide where
to go. Just don’t leave home without a bracket.

Evil DVR

World's Worst invention: Tivo/DVR

Many have come before and others are sure to follow but the current generation of technology is spawning many an issue for the world at large. Stuck in traffic? Blame the soccer mom who now has time to cart her kids all around town never worried about missing a second of her favorite shows as she can simply record them and view them later.
Consider all of the college kids living large on mommy and daddy's money who have time to go protest the war on bugs, furnace reduction, 10 commandments placed on church steps, Ronald Regan awareness days blah blah blah. Now they can go off on whichever trendy crusade will look best on a resume while never scared for a second of missing the rantings of Limbaugh, O'Reily or Coulter.
You never have to worry about the way you take three hours to decide which bottom shelf rum to mix with your coke or how your hook-up always offers a free round of smoke when you buy. You can watch adult swim later.
And think, after you dissapoint your woman in bed lasting a mere 8 minutes quickly followed by sleep, no need to fret missing the game. You recorded it. And get this, you can't put yourself in the dog house by recording over the wedding video anymore. Sure, you might record over some trashy bridal show which your woman watches to live vicariously through the bitchiness of some hell-raising bridezilla, but you can always make up for it by recording some chick flick and blazing through the commercials.
This little fact suggsts to me that DVR technology was invented by men. I know the streoetype, (or is it a fact) that dudes are more involved in the sciences, thus inventions happen with a great deal more ease for the gents than the gals, but so what. So not only are we dealing wioth a piece of machinery built to give folks more time to dilly-dally but it would seem it is also designed to further the peen-ocracy.
Feminist as it may sound, thus far, consider, if you will, the reasons people, such as yourself, watch television. Sports. Ninja movies. News. Weekly programs, including but not limited to: sitcoms, reality programming and shows that you don't think fit into one of those two categories but actually do because you're being to specific whilest I, the writer of this great debate am going for broader labels (suck it.) Think of what happens if you don't watch the news...oh, wait, get it from a paper or from the computer. Same your weekly brain burning batch of shows. Ninja movies? Well, you have friends with netflicks who can just burn them and give them to you by the dozen so those beer and pizza bro-fests you call men's night won't ever run short of testosterone or pepperoni. Which leaves sports. Yeah, you can get highlights on ESPN. You can get scores on the web. You might even catch a game being replayed on some channel, but who wants to watch the greatest uypset of all time two months after the fact?
Guys invented DVR so they could do other stuff and not worry about missing a chance to grunt at the screen like apes.
I suppose one could record those softcore porn flicks from the movie channels at night, but guys, that's sad. Get a plant or something, phone a friend, maybe buy a Cosmo but for crying out loud have higher standards than simulated sex on skinamax and showtime. Sigh. Just sad.
In conclusion, I gotta go, I missed Important things with Dimitri Martin on Wednesday and I need to watch it before the dvr is full.

Precedents day

Today I celebrated Precedent's Day. I know what you're thinking, that's unprecidented, right? Sure. Thjings at the HeAP offices get a bit out of control sometimes, but even we have to join the ranks of the partying masses every so often to balance our hectic workloads and blossoming baking prowess. By the way, these buns won't be burning anytime soon.
First thing we did was set up a buld your own cake station in the break room. If you've ever seen a break room picture that. Mundane blue walls covered with motivatuonal posters. teamwork. chivalry. Floss. A table slightly too high off the ground surrounded by chairs just a bit too low. A water cooler in the back corner that gurgles more than an obese man's belly outside a chinese buffet at happy hour.
The cake station consisted of three choices of basic cake foundation, white, spice and chocolate. Each staff member was asked to bring an icing from home. Two people called in, one person brought two items, another mistakenly brought a can of cheese and the worst offense of all, a person had the nerve to bring a prefabricated cake. Anyway, icing choices included spicy nacho, chocolate, german chocolate, spanish chocolate, vanillna, dutch-oven vanilla, yellow, butter cream and chili. Once the staff member iced his or her cake adequatly the time for cake condiments arrived. Pen15 brought a 15 pound bag of sprinkles, but not just any bag. Oh no. He went all out. You remember those popcorn tins with dividers separating each of the various flavors? Imagine that in a large bag of hardened tie-dyed sugar and you get the idea. It was requested we have a sprinkling in the rain party but it did not pass a democratic vote when I vetoed it on the grounds of it being absurd for two reasons; first that it could be construed as copyright infringement based on how lame the pun actually was and two, our janotior was one of the folks who called in.
Other cake condiments and toppers available included marshmallow goo, strawberries, cheese spread, taco seasoning and candles.
Then we voted to revoke computer privlkedges for the remainder of the party so....

Vallient-tine's Day

Think about how important Valentine's Day is for Americans. The massive amounts of blind spending on cheesy gifts such as inedible chocolate, poorly arranged flowers and lest we forget all of those dreadful singing teddy bears. But love is an industry and industry brings jobs. If you don't celebrate Valentine's day you aren't buying anything for a sweetheart. That means you aren't creating jobs. You miserable jerk. Why can't you do your part for the economy and buy a teddy bear, maybe even a stuffed animal if you're allergic to bears. No one is asking you to buy a ten pound bag of those chalky candy hearts. Everyone knows those things were made years ago and have yet to sell. ever wonder why after all these years they still say things like, "You're cute," or "Be mine," rather than a more modern turn of phrase such as, "Wanna freak," or "It's your baby," maybe "In the butt," perhaps the best of all, "3-way." Considering you have not and will not see those you can rest assured if you chomp on a candy heart you chomp on on the chalky deposits of the 80's.
Going back to you being a miserable jerk I think you're forgetting the precise goings on of February. Girls and guys alike clamour to find suitable plans for the day of love and romance. People make a big freaking deal out of it Jonny. So all you gotta do is stand around listening for some girls that ain't got dates an you swoops in and play it smooth, see? You don't even gotta be handsome Jon, I'm tellin' ya, broads love to not be lonely in February. Somethin about the coming of the Spring or something. They get batty when they see their shadows, know what i mean?
Women truly are the fairer sex. Sure i just equated a needy batch of whining to the weather forecasting skills of a large rodent but consider this: without that whining you would never stop to think about how crowded the dog house will be if you forget to at least pick up a rose or one of those hokey children's valentine cards. Women care about the country and the economy. When the economy is strong so is the dollar and that mean more shopping, and we all know that most women feel more at home at a mall or shopping center than at home. When they go to malls they buy things and they look hot so guys buy things to try to make themselves look hot to attract the elusive female prey. This cycle keeps the country running, it maintains our status of "Capitalist under developed country punching juggernaut from the West." If you want to give up that name plate at the U.N. meetings then go on right ahead. Complain until your face turns blue and children pants you in the middle of whatever Wal-Mart parking lot you happen to be protesting in that day.
Maybe it will cheer you up to consider just how accurate you are in shouting how silly the whole affair really is, but we have to be subtle. Look, it keeps the economy going. We aren't going to do anything to disrupt that. We need all the help we can get, but we are allowed to highlight certain areas of interest.
The heart symbol, for example. It looks nothing like a human heart. A side by side comparison yields little to no evidence that the drawing is even based on the actual body part. Inside a human heart you will find chambers. Plus blood. Like gridlocked rush hour traffic kind of blood. Although widely considered an internal organ the heart actually beats and as such is much more closely related to the sounds of a drum or other percussion instrument. The symbolic heart sounds nothing like a symbol as it has never produced a single sound. It is a compulsive wallflower. Its contents range from well wishes to chocolates and in extreme circumstances body parts. However neither blood nor beatings are ever found in these hearts. No chambers valves or ventricles either. The only argument necessary for one to realize how silly the whole thing is comes from the film, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. In the film, a wild priest, who in the right light bears strong resemblance to Hollywood hate-monger and maniac extraordinaire Mel Gibson, removes the beating heart of a strange looking man without the benefit of modern technology or training traditionally required for that type of invasive procedure. (Don't get me wrong, the guy is good, but he probably didn't go to night school and medical correspondence courses simply weren't available when the film was made.) In real life a strange man would not pluck the beating heart from your comrade or significant other. Instead, he would probably kick you in the shin, face, funny bone, belt buckle or other uncomfortable pressure point, steal your hopeless and or romantic gift just before you reached the checkout lane and then retreat to his evil lair laughing all the way much the way a demonic Darth Vader obsessed gingerbread man might.
Candy hearts are stupid.