I suppose I should be hoping that it turns out to be bad. After all, this man has made a living out of raping the working class and then charging them for lube. But I have to believe that his deal with Satan allows for a few more final hurrahs. Why Satan? No one could get away with being that fucking ballsy without help from a supernatural power.

So I have my own theory. I’m guessing that the cause of the discomfort was his erection finally getting too large and bursting. With news that an oil-financed judge ruled that deep water drilling had to resume I don’t think that his already-strained penis could take it and just popped. Its a good thing too… if his balls got any bigger they would have had their own gravitational field.

him: I had to ask my daughter to leave. She wasn’t helping around the house, I couldn’t afford to keep paying her insurance, and she’s had two years to find a job.

me: Yeah? How are her kids doing.

him: Oh, fine fine. The problem I’m having is that she left some of her stuff behind. I’m thinking of burning it.

me: Burning it? What did she leave behind?

him: Well, its in the freezer out on the porch.

me: Uh…

him: She finally found a doctor that would cut off her breasts, and she’s storing one of them in the freezer. She’s been mailing them around the country trying to find a doctor that will prove she had cancer.

me: One? Where is the other one?

him: It never made it back from a clinic in California. Supposedly lost in the mail.

me: Well, instead of burning it you could send it to a taxidermist and then mail it back to her.

him: What was that?

me: Boy how about that NASCAR? Did you see what Gordon did to Earnhart?

him: No… what did he do?

me: Oh, you had to be there. Also, I was just changing the subject.

him: That fucking Biffle though, let me tell you…

*shudder*

But after years of flying I have suddenly realized that I have yet to check my baggage and not get it searched. How do I know its searched? Every time the baggage is checked there is a card left inside of the suitcase saying as much. I’m not really sure how it is that my bag gets singled out every time, but I have a feeling it has something to do with saying “Awww, just two more minutes?” when getting a pat-down in an airport 5 years ago.

Anyway… during my extensive travels over the last few months I have stopped removing the cards when my baggage is inspected. They were stacking up to the point I could almost have turned them into a respectable deck of cards. But then suddenly a bunch of them disappeared, and the one on top had a date stamp on the top.

I can pretend I was doing this as a form of protest, or perhaps I was pointing out how much paper they’re wasting. But really I’m just too lazy to throw trash out when someone else puts it in my suitcase.

As far as checking my baggage goes, I have this to say: If I pay $25 to check my baggage, then I better be able to place my feet underneath the seat in front of me. Make one of those assholes that bring huge suitcases into the plane lose their legroom damnit!

Man#2: Totally! Yeah! I can build it out of some used building materials and plastic sheets I have laying around here and use this old shipping container I’m renting as a wall! That will kick ass!

Man#2: Fuck… I must not have used enough duct tape.

Man#1: I fucked your wife.

Man#2: What?

Man#1: I mean, uh… how about that local sports team?

Today’s episode brought to you by 16 inches of snow in 12 hours.

I like snow in moderation… I like lots of things in moderation. But this is a sign that the earth hates us and will do what it can to get rid of us.

By the way: Despite the over-use of duct tape that was not my carport. I would have at least reinforced the duct tape with some chicken wire and bondo.

Eventually we retreated to the wave pool to bob around for a bit before venturing to the outdoors to forage for dinner. While there, my wife pointed out a particularly large fellow that was floating in the water about 20 feet away from us. He was covered in what can only be described as fur, with each individual strand moving of its own accord, as though possessing a life of its own. It was mesmerizing.

It was at this point that my wife said “Wow, there is finally someone here that is actually hairier than you are.”

Yes, I could feel the love.

First of all, how fucked up is it that we’re all calling him Balloon Boy when he wasn’t even in the damn balloon? How is this kid going to end up being known as balloon boy his entire life? At least Baby Jessica the Well Girl was actually stuck in a well.

But the biggest reason I need everyone to stop talking about Balloon Boy is because I keep getting “Up Up and Away” by the 5th Dimension stuck in my head every time someone mentions it. In fact, I’m beginning to twitch a little every time the chorus goes through my head.

As such, I must subject you all to it as well:

*phone rings*
Me: This is Clem, what can I do to you today?
User: Hi Clam, I have a… wait, what?
Me: What is the nature of your issue today?
User: Oh. This is Nancy downstairs, and I just put a ticket in for one of my employees I wanted you to look at please.
Me: Ok. Lets see here…

Ticket ########:
Frances would like a stand/lift or new PC. She feels her PC is attracting cockroaches and she thinks lifting it would make them less attracted to the heat her PC produces.

Me: Wait… what? Cockroaches aren’t attracted to heat alone.
User: Well, her desk is crawling with them, and we always seem to see them most often by the PC.
Me: Does she keep food at her desk?
User: Yes, she has two drawers worth of food. We all share what she brings in.
Me: Oh dear.
User: Can we hang the computer from the ceiling to keep the cockroaches off the desk maybe?
Me: Hang the computer from the… You’re kidding right? You’re fixing the wrong problem here.
User: Are you going to help me or do I have to call your supervisor.
Me: Wow. Ok. To tell the truth, I need to bring HR, facilities maintenance, and both of our supervisors into this one.
User: Thats more like it. Wait… what?
Me: Just a moment please.

*I had to hit mute here and catch my breath. I was simultaneously laughing and crying so hard*

Me: Ok. I’m back. For the time being there will be no more food at or in the desks until the facilities guy calls an exterminator and talks to all of you.
User: No need to call an exterminator. She already has roach traps clipped under her desk, and she spread roach killing paste along the bottom of the keyboard.
Me: You have got to be fucking kidding me…
User: Hey, no swearing in this department. I’ll have to have you written up.
Me: You’re fixing the wrong problem again.
User: Huh?
Me: I’ll have facilities talk to you. Can you please move Frances to a different desk for now please. Working near that paste and eating roach feces isn’t healthy for her.
User: I cant move her, she’s signed into a phone right now.
Me: That desk is a biohazard. Move her as soon as she finishes her call.
User: I’d have to move her upstairs then!
Me: That sounds great. in fact, hold that thought.
User: Say, do you think the exterminator will take care of the ants too?
Me: What? How… but… uh… for crying out… please hold.

A bit of a rant here… most offices are glorified warehouses with poor ventilation and lots of insulated nooks for rodents to thrive in. All they need is a food source and they become a great habitat, especially during winter months. For some reason when ever people bring food to work they’re more worried about hiding their food from scavenging coworkers than protecting them from scavenging insects and rodents.

After the department was fumigated and all food purged I made a newbie I.T. guy clean the roach paste off the keyboard and then quarantine the computer in a plastic bag in a closet for a few weeks. Yes, ‘Frances’ had no computer at her desk during that time frame. Quarantining the computer was probably unnecessary, but damn it was satisfying.

Now, if only I could get rid of that chair that smells like urine I’ll feel like I made a difference.

However, I cant ignore how people are protesting and chanting.

Across the country we have people mobilizing and traveling to congressional districts they don’t vote in so they can disrupt town hall meetings and remove the ‘participatory’ part from ‘participatory democracy’. These town-halls were supposed to be a Q&A about intentions and a way for congresspeople to gauge what their voters wanted. Of course, that’s really all they could be since there is no way any congressperson has read all five bills on the table.

In order to help support the disruptive behavior, we have had radio and television talk show hosts repeating talking points that are not only absurd but have been publicly disproven. But, it seems that if you repeat it often enough it becomes true to certain people… just like the birther movement that has so many up in arms. If you have an audience that will fall for that, then it takes nothing to convince the listeners/watchers that Obama personally wants to kill their grandparents and remove veterans health care. Now all you have to do is publish instructions on how to be disruptive and artificially inflate your numbers.

The first question that comes to my mind when witnessing this is… They can read instructions?

The second question that comes to my mind when witnessing this is… Why are they focusing on made up bullshit when there are plenty of legitimate concerns with these bills? In fact, why are these being called health care bills or health care reform when they are really insurance reform proposals?

Hell, there are hundreds of potential problems with any one of the bills… why bother making shit up? Is someone just trying to prove how lazy the American public is? Perhaps this is some sinister plot to prove that being stupid is a preexisting condition? If they want to prove people were stupid couldn’t they just read YouTube comments or any page of VDare like everyone else?

Maybe stupidity is a form of brain protection from cognitive dissonance. See, how else could U.S. citizens be more upset with (absurdly fake) stories about health care insurance bills killing their grandparents than they were about real stories of oil company lobbyists paying for orgies and drug parties? I guess I have to face that not only are people stupid, but that they will only believe what they want to believe no matter what.

For example…
“Government employees would never accept drugs or sex with oil company hookers” is not the truth, but people WANT to believe it. Besides, even the party of religion can overlook a little fucking in the name of oil, right?

“Obama wants to kill my grandma because the health care bills have ‘end of life counseling’ language in them” is also not the truth. But, once again… people WANT to believe it.

So I am left with no other possible conclusion than to think people really want to believe the President of the United States is out to kill their grandparents. This is despite the fact that Obama is not personally authoring bills and every modern insurance plan has ‘end-of-life counseling’ coverage. But aren’t these are the same people that couldn’t believe our previous president could be an unwitting puppet? My how things change just by changing the party affiliation or skin color.

More proof that Americans are either lazy or stupid comes from the 2003 Medicare prescription drug bill, which already contains end-of-life counseling as one of its perks and has never resulted in a death squad being called out to your local nursing home.

Throwing another absurdness factor into the mix is the fact that so many of the people that are aggressive/disruptive in the town hall meetings on health care insurance are either already on government health care (Medicare) or have no insurance. “I don’t want the government to run my health care” sounds really fucked up coming from a retired or unemployed individual…

For my own part, in the last ten years with my non-government insurance I have had to agree to give up any semblance of privacy in order to keep my full coverage, join a PPO plan that doesn’t let me choose my doctor, accept a ‘maximum lifetime cost’ clause that gets lower every year, and face my wife getting removed from my plan if her place of employment offers insurance (no matter how crappy it is). Compare this to the 1990′s when I had better coverage than this and only worked part time, and I get really fucking confused.

What happened?

Anyway, she approached us and asked quite loudly (to no one in particular) “Hey, how the fuck do you get rid of the hiccups?”

She then proceeded to lean on the table and stare at the center of it, as if daring it not to answer her. As it turns out she was, in fact, hiccuping.

My friends tried to be helpful, but things like “Drink water,” “Hold your breath,” or “take an antacid” were met with derision and she began to look at us in turn, hoping for a better answer.

When her eyes met mine I decided to try scaring her hiccups away. I tilted my head a little to one side and said “Did you know you were pregnant?”

She gasped and jumped back.

Her hiccups were cured, but I was cut off. Assholes.

Seriously. I can have my television on ’3′ where I can barely hear voices on the screen as a murmur, but this damn commercial will make the neighbors ask me to keep it down when the actors all start their fucking screeching.

See for yourself:

Boy. Watching it again though, maybe it works. After all, it really makes me thirsty… for some water to wash down the Excedrin.

I wonder, does Heineken share any board members with Novartis?

Another contender for most annoying commercial comes from poster StaringGoldfish on the pen forum:

I don’t know how they got Beck to be in that commercial, but I have to agree that it is annoying.

1) “Maybe your wife cheated on you because your dick is too small, you fucking asshole!”

2) “Mandy, I figured now that you’ve graduated I should tell you that I’m not your biological father.”

3) “After she had her boobs cut off they should have shown her how to stuff. She’s always got them stuffed lopsided.”

4) “I’m never letting you do me in the ass again. I had gas and the runs all day”

5) “Grandpa drank so much he shit his pants and soaked through his damn depends again”

I need to find different places to go out drinking. Especially when I’m drinking on my birthday. If one more asshole asked me if I feel older today I was going to punch them. Why the fuck would 364 days feel any younger than 365 days?

Do I feel older than ten years ago? Yes! Do I feel older than yesterday? Cockpunch!

Yes. Picking ticks off my body.

Even though I was wearing pants and tick spray I was still subjected to dozens of the thirsty bloodsuckers crawling up my pant leg and falling down into my hair. In fact, even after changing clothes and showering I found 17 of the fucking things sticking on my body. Then, the only way I could get rid of them was to flush them down the toilet.

Have you ever tried to kill a wood tick? Its fucking impossible. I could almost hear the fucking things yell “SPOON” as they circled the drain.

I still itch thinking about it. and now I need to stop typing, or else this post will become nothing but a string of out-of-context Tick quotes that half of the readers will not get.

I had high hopes though. Not only were we seated immediately when every restaurant nearby was busy, but the waitress gave the six of us a single menu to share amongst us. I remember thinking to myself “How much more perfect can this place get?”

That’s when it happened… that’s when a woman left the kitchen and started to clean a booth nearby.

She was a vision, sashaying around in blue hair and support hose. This beauty couldn’t have been a day over 95. After teasing us all by bending over the table and ineffectually wiping parts of it off, she looked over her shoulder and her eyes caught mine. She lifted her face up to the ceiling and said in a husky voice that reached the ceiling tiles “We have Pepsi products” before knocking a piece of lettuce to the floor and moving on to the next booth. Off in the distance, tomorrow’s special barked.

I was smitten. I knew at that moment that I was in love with Pepsi. This woman proclaiming that her establishment was not only carrying Pepsi products, but doing so exclusively, well that only drove my desire that much more.

Suddenly one of my companions turned to me and asked me what was wrong. My reply was simple: “How can anything be wrong? We have Pepsi products”.

What a perfect day.

Another 30 million dollars may yet be recovered as the shame campaign works its way through the AIG ranks.

However, there is still no word on who authorized the payments to begin with and why they aren’t part of this shame campaign.

Kudos to those that returned the cash, though. Thank you for saving us from another two weeks of watching congress try to get the pigs back in the pen.

But I dont think that the rage is directed at the right people.

All over the news I hear people demanding that AIG provide the names of those that received money, presumably so they can be shamed into giving it back… despite the fact some of them are not U.S. citizens. In fact, some of them are no longer employed by AIG at all! Then we see that a few of the recipients were actually working for parts of AIG that somehow managed to show a profit, despite the rest of the companies failures. Do we take their money as well?

I’m worried about the precedent congress wants to set with taxing bonuses at 90% or more. That seems like tax-code vigilantism that would end up costing us more in the long run. Plus it would actually tempt me to short-sell some AIG stock myself… and the whole idea of short-selling upsets me as it is.

So it remains… the bonuses were legal, and less than .01% of the payout anyway. But congress doesn’t want to look stupid… so instead they’re looking angry and surprised.

So here is my proposal:
Find the person or group that authorized bonuses and fire their asses. Fire them for fucking incompetency and spread their names all over the news so they cant deploy their golden parachute and land in another company and pull the same shit. A form of legal blacklisting. That would send a message to other executives looking for bailout cash at the very least.

Yes, we’re still out the bonus money… but we probably are already. How much legislation has been delayed by the “find a loophole for the loophole” bullshit?

Besides: Firing people is legal already! Look at the unemployment rate and the poor mistresses that have had to give up their weekly massage sessions in order to keep their housekeeper! Yes, firing may result in early termination clauses of contracts being enacted… but the message it would send would cost a hell of a lot less than the current “Lets have congress spend two weeks finding out how to violate liberties of just a few Americans because we look dumb.” The United States government owns a majority of AIG, lets pull some fucking weight and fire some assholes and get this done with.

Then we can get on to revising the standard executive contract. Bonuses are supposed to be given out for exceptional work, not for sinking a company. Contract termination payouts are supposed to be for reorganizations, not for incompetence. Stop company hopping you industry killing assholes! But I digress

Ok. Time to wipe the spittle off of my screen and go back to beating my head against the wall. Some day this will all make sense, and I may finally understand why the government is making my dollar worth less every day. I was actually hoping for some deflation It would make the unemployment rate and some of this other shit seem easier to bear.