Um.

Um. Um-ummum.

Season's Bleatings.

So let's see...cheapo, token gifts to people I only really talk to once a year: check. Christmas tree wired directly to AC current to deter 'everything is a toy for me to destroy' kitten: check. Blodge updates...CRAP! I forgot about my 'The Blodge'! My reader will never forgive me. Anyway, here's what I've been doing:

I was arrested for arson and criminal mischief on Thanksgiving when my attempt to defrost my single-serving pouch of lump formed turkey-product with a hairdryer burned down the the YMCA. Whoops!

Went back through all my old correspondence to discover I had forgotten about a 6-year illicit affair I had in the late 80s with Ally Sheedy, star of 'Short Circuit.'

I served briefly as president of Guam, wearing a full samurai outfit, in a vision I had after eating that dented can of NoodleRoni from MacFrugal's. My vice president: Brian Dennehy.

Also, I coined a word: 'Hubrelevance.' It's the situation where excessive pride and lack of relevance lead to downfall. Oh, and look, here's a situation where this new word can be smartly used.

PS: I do not regularly read the Wall Street Journal, but I was lured in by the stipple portrait of Axl Rose.

The Poor Man's Haiku

Totino's, I feel
shame in the frozen food aisle
but: ten for 10 bucks

Penury and pain

A financial crisis has gripped the Estates at Pixel Creek neighborhood! Rest assured we think this is only a temporary slump - once the economy totally collapses, we look forward to moving into a scalp and firemaking economy.

While poor, it's important to make sure you're getting enough nutrition; apparently, I am not. I was getting out of the shower this weekend, and I hit my big toe on the shower door - no big deal, I'm clumsy. But the amount of pain that swiftly followed was impressive. I stood there, dripping, waiting for the cursing and flourescent waves of agony to pass. When they did, I looked down and saw that I had somehow managed to liberate my big toenail from its fleshy prison. Here's an animated gif I made as an illustration:



So now I'm all limpy and sore and confused. Lesson: make sure you are getting your daily intake of calcium and niacin, despite your limited budget. If this means you need to switch over to boneless hotdogs, so be it.

Ways In Which I Am My Own Worst Enemy

Pledged allegiance for self, then withdrew support at crucial juncture, resulting in prison gangland-retribution scenario.

Strapped self to weather machine, made it rain angry fire ants and acid knives

Promised I would not eat last deviled egg; ate last deviled egg

When filling out self-evaluation, used the phrase 'incompetent, malodorous, snorkleheaded asshat' 15 times

Promised to pick self up at airport; ran over childhood pet instead

Taped over that one 'Wings' episode

When directions called for stirring hot cocoa mix into boiling water, instead poured mug contents directly into face

Constantly kicking self in gonads

Enacted sweeping, diabolical plans spanning three time zones and two decades, resulting in being a quarter short of the full dry cycle

Made self some fudge; it was that weird tan fudge

Ate that questionable luncheon meat

Images of the Internets

If the internet is good for anything, and I have heard arguments in support of the affirmative, then it certainly must have something to do with this photo, upon which I often stumble during my searches for hardcore right-wing recipes sites:


People, you should not feed your pets in disposable pie foils; give them some dignity and get a dish, okay? Unless this was some sort of Purina Jiffy Pop, in which case, what the hell is wrong with America. Anyway.

I've always liked this photo. I interpret it thusly: the kitten, overcome with Nature's Bounty, collapses in ecstasy, as I do over a good Wrath-of-Christ recipe for cinnamon rolls. Alternatively, I guess the kitten could have just fallen asleep, as kittens are wont to suddenly do after chewing up your expensive headphones or farting.

Tonight, as I was watching Law & Order, this image popped up again. It occurred to me that this cat could very well be dead, and this is some sort of posed scene. But who? And why? Was this a 'hit'? Did the kitten 'know too much'? Will there be a 'trial'? Will the courtroom have a 'baliff'? I don't know, and therein lies the real magic of the internet. Although I'm not sure exactly what that is. Hmm.

Anyway, here's another favorite internet picture, one for which I have no compelling thoughts beyond that which is presented. END TRANSMISSION.

Joe Sixpack, Some Concepts

It's a FACT! Part 2

Caterpillars roll into a ball when touched or forcibly molded into that position by the mischevious fingers of troubled children.

The Moon was created in 1907 by the Sears and Roebuck company as a way to advertise it's new abilty to craft rocky, barren worlds.

To measure your distance from the sun, count the number of times your voice echos from its surface, and divide that number by six. You will die before the calculations are complete.

There were no television characters on US currency until 1983, when Magnum PI was briefly on the nickel following an appearance on Carson.

Hairspray was originally invented as an aid in hairstyling.

If you draw a straight line between any two points on a map of the globe, that line will not automatically appear in that place in the real world.

The NAACP was founded in 1753 by the Knights Templar, and has since evolved into the organization we now know as 'The Dairy Council,' according to a dream by Chris Timley, 44, of Minneapolis.

Although many believe that the first surprise birthday party was thrown for Napoleon Bonaparte by the Ewoks, this is actually incorrect.

In a 1974 study by the University of Delaware it was revealed that no matter where you go, there you are not.

Frogs are the only amphibians to come armed with missile turrets for shooting at canines, thus the term: Hotter Than a Dog on Fire From a Frog Missile.

No one expects that much of you and, still, they are rather disappointed.

The 1932 World's Fair was the first event of its kind to be held on that day, with that title. Also, it was the first to levitate.

Snakebites can be cured by pressing chewed bubblegum into the fang holes and having a friend hit you in the head repeatedly with a souvenir map of Shea Stadium. Try it.

Although history failed to record it, Carl Weathers was brought to America by NASA, and was subsequently named chairman of General Motors following the cashew famine of 1866.

In 1953, a young inventor named Charles Mangot patented the means by which olives can be canned, thus resulting in the signing of the Magna Carta, according to my history teacher who was involved in a serious fall.

The automobile is the first human invention to be visible from inside an automobile.

If fully stretched out, your intestines would measure six miles, causing you to die a horrible, horrible death.

Jury Duty

So I totally have jury duty tomorrow, unh-huh. Gonna mete out some carefully weighted justice. I really hope there will be some close-ups of me reacting during BD Wong's testimony, or perhaps I'll get to be foreman and read off that 'We the jury' bit. I'll see that Bronson Pinchot hang for this!

Soothing Relief in My Inbox

I received this ad in my inbox today:


Yes, it says: "In times of unrest because of financial crisis, sit down and relax with this offer full of beautiful soothing classical music...After this, maybe you will see that every cloud has a silver lining!" Classical music and misty bait fishing is all fine and good, but here are some other things you may enjoy to sit down with in times of crisis:

- In the midst of a home invasion, nothing soothes like pudding.

- While rotting away in a Thai prison, let Romanesque wall frescoes calm your mind.

- In this troubling era of non-stop robot attacks, find relief in the bake-dish casseroles of 1960s St. Paul. There, that wasn't so bad, was it?

- Ethiopian cuisine: for when life seems like an unending parade of humiliation and abject defeat.

- Out of oxygen? Interpretive dance is here.

PS: eclassical is actually a good place to download some classical music if, you know, you're an elitist pantywaist.

Hopping an Emerging Meme Before It's Woefully Unfunny

Wait...I'm sorry, that's totally unfair and biased. Here:

Grim Tidings From the Future

PEOPLE OF THE PAST. Down with your hu-la whoops and malt shops! I come from the year 2009 and I bear grim tidings! Behold and fear:

- On your television show, LOST, the island is revealed to be the Cloverfield monster! Tremble!

- Your Academy Award shall by won by Kevin Spacey MARK 6! His speech shall be unbearable and lengthy, and punctuated with Zenon-Ray bursts from his horrible, horrible ocular cannons.

Your switch-over to high-definition television tubes will fraught with peril and flickering images of Ryan Seacrest, or possibly Mike Rowe! Beware!

Your economy is doomed! Raid your cabinetry and places-of-storage for zinc, as it will spell your salvation. Avast!

Global warming has made ice-production futile! Foster now your tolerance for room-temperature Doctored Pepper and Iced Tea Leaves!

Oh, and also, a black man is totally president.

END TRANSMISSION.

It's a FACT! Part 1

The next time someone hands you a silver dollar, examine the year on the coin; this is the year of your death, as predicted by your 7th-grade algebra teacher and Nostradamus.

If you are ever stranded in the desert, you can find water by sending $3.50 and a self addressed, stamped envelope to the US Department of Water.

Count the number of times that a cricket chirps in 30 seconds and divide that number by 6; the answer may surprise you.

Here's a trick: when tying your shoes, tie the left one first; this will prevent werewolves from attacking you.

When cutting a pizza, pie, or round cake, divide the number of desired servings by the circumfrence of the dish, then multiply by the height of each slice divided by pi. Calculate to the nearest 100th decimal place. Show your work.

In 1943, a chef from Hamburg, Germany mixed ground beef with spices, then was killed by werewolves. The hamburger was already in existence.

In the southern hemisphere, birds fly east for the winter instead of south, because vast air currents from secret volcanoes blow them that way.

You can determine the current windspeed by looking into a mirror and repeating 'windspeed wonder weather' 100 times, then calling your weather advisory bureau.

The burrito was invented in 1912 by Mexican immigrants seeking a passage to the Suez Canal.

According to Scandanavian folklore, you and your whole goddamned family are a bunch of peckerheads, jack.

The Des Moines Abbatoir was founded in 1942 as a means of hastening the Dark One's return to Earth.

According to the International Centre of Lloyd, most American households are dangerously underlloyded.

Count the number of cicada 'swells' in a 1 minute period and multiply the answer by your age; that is the distance, in meters, to the center of the earth from where you are now standing.

Placing a rubber band around your scrotum will help reduce your gas mileage.

The capybara is the only mammal that openly disdains you, even after you spent all that money on capybara-related merchandise at the gift shoppe.

You can always figure out the time of day by examining the shadow of a Box Elder. No-one knows why this is true.

According to the International Red Cross, your interest in a career with them is appreciated, but they are not currently looking for a warlord with ties to the Welsh Mafia, as the position has been filled.

If you are ever caught shoplifting, do not call me, as I do not know you and am unqualified to offer legal advice.

TO BE CONTINUED! LATER!

Things That May Have Contributed to the US Economic Meltdown

Key to economy left on subway.

Too many fucking Wayans.

Cardboard cut-out of George W. Bush replaced with actual George W. Bush in 2002.

Financial leadership farmed to CEOs with no working knowledge of finance or leadership.

Offshore financial drilling operations failed to penetrate speculated cash-shale deposits.

US financial system quietly converted to worthless dollars many years ago.

'Free-For-All Financial Fuckfest' economic model somehow flawed.

Shit costs money, man.

Not enough Wayans.

The Liberal Media (all 3 of them)

Not enough brush-clearing in Crawford.

Like an unleashed dog, free market ran wild and unfettered before being crushed by a van in front of the Peterson's house.

Not enough enough stress-ball-squeezing, axe-body-spray-smelling, power-broking asstards in the financial sector.

Culture of irresponsibilty and lack of oversight fostered by current administration led to...nah, that can't be it—probably communists.

Things I Have Found While Walking

As an American who does not have a driver's license, I often find myself walking places, sometimes in the rain, sometimes while crying. Seriously, walking is great, I totally recommend it. Unless, of course, you need to get somewhere, then I suggest you find a ride.

I especially like walking through alleys because I like seeing the true side of the city, the snarls of powerlines and shoddy masonry, the haphazard do-it-yourself patios threatening to spill onto the cracked and uneven asphalt. And although I'm not a dumpster diver, I have found some pretty cool things discarded in alleyways:

A black metal-lattice shelf: now sitting in my music/art/storage room, holding up my home-brewing supplies, awaiting that day when I reinvigorate my erstwhile beer-making hobby.

An acoustic guitar: played for a day, then the neck snapped off. I put it back in the dumpster from whence it came, and someone else took it home, snapped neck and all.

A bike: an attempted gift, rescued from the dumpster, for my girlfriend (sorry ladies: this classy dude is taken!) The bike was rejected.

A television: It worked for awhile, then started emitting a high-pitched whine that, at first, I was half convinced was entirely manufactured by my psyche. Then the tube went out. Easy come, easy go.

But, so far, nothing tops the gem I discovered while walking through the alley behind my work today:



Yes, that's an elk leg. I'm not sure how I would feel about finding the rest of the elk on my walk home.

A Very Stupid Post 3: Face 'fun'

So a friend (the one who helped me tunnel out of that Eritrean prison with shoehorns - more on that later) showed me this site: http://flashface.ctapt.de/. I promptly drew my own face, but only after drawing these two faces:

1) 'Amelie' star Audrey Tautou's 1962 Omaha 'Huskers!' yearbook photo:


And, 2) Conan O'Brien with down syndrome:


So, visit this website, and draw something fairly offensive and insensitive, and send it to me here.

Reasons Why I May Not Win This Nationally Televised Beauty Pageant

Shouldn't have punched Celebrity Judge Jimmy Carter in the neck

Forgot to shave 'flip-flop zone'

Thong bikini worn backwards

Seig Heil-ing Minnie Mouse tattoo visible through mesh 'CLAMDIGGIN' t-shirt

Talent showcase: breakbelching not as impressive as in rehersals

When asked 'What does the American Dream mean to you?', should not have thrown up

Perhaps looking directly into the camera and pledging to murder Al Pacino should only have been done once

Totally unprepared for rattlesnake cage match with Miss Idaho

Should not have had that second helping of Szechuan bison enchiladas last night

How to Make a Blodge Under Duress

Blodges are hard to make. You need to have something to say, you need to have a style, and—most importantly—you must update your blodge every single day. Of course, I satisfy only 5 of these 7 requirements, but that's at least 87%, so I think I still win.

However, in defense of my "oh-hey-lets-not-post-shit-for-a-week" philosophy, I'd like to explain a crisis gripping the Estates at Pixel Creek household. You see, we have a massive infestation of cute. It's a fucking crisis:



OH THE HUMANITY. You may not think .25 pounds of cute is bad but, people, it's...BAD. Especially when the infestation is as interested in cuddling and purring as it is in biting your toes while you attempt to sleep.



AH DEAR SWEET JESUS. So, if you want to start one of these blodges that's sweeping the intersphere, make sure you have purged your house of horrible, horrible, delicious and needy cute things. Make sure, also, that you don't need to get up early to take public transportation to Boulder for a business meeting, because that just won't work, man.

Also, heed the opinions of others. Here is one reaction to the current infestation as exhibited by a mainstay on the Pixel Creek scene:



...these are the types of faces my grandfather makes when notified that dinner will be occurring at 7:30 instead of 4:45. Sadly, that is not a joke. Anyway. Hopefully this infestation will be somehow addressed soon. As it is, my main plan of defense is just to giggle and poke the cute thing in it's soft, squishy belly. What hath God wrought.

Coke vs. Pepsi

I've had occasion to indulge in an utterly pointless interior dialog about the merits of Coke vs. Pepsi; I often drink neither. These instances usually happen while I'm waiting in line at the taco place, wondering why they serve one instead of the other...did someone harbor a preference when setting up the business?

Did some eager distribution salesman pester them with sales calls until they relented? Did they go to the mall in the 80s and take place in the Pepsi Challenge, carrying forth the scars into their adult years when restaurant founding blossomed from dream into reality? How does one choose?

For me, it's all about the words. 'Coke' is terse and matter-of-fact, while 'Pepsi' sounds like someone with a lip problem was trying to say something else. Case closed, let us all get on with the real debates: soft serve vs. fuel injection.

Next up: Dominos vs. Pizza hut vs. Eating a Handful of Dogshit and Sand and Tomato Sauce.

An Ominous Portent?

I was walking to work this morning with my head lowered in abject submission, my eyes scanning the ground for change or bits of discarded plastic, as usual. Anyway, on the sidewalk I noticed a bit of movement and, looking closer, I saw a honey bee and a wasp locked in some sort of struggle.

They were grappling with each other face to face, each trying to sting the other, but in their positions, neither could flex their abdomen far enough to deliver the barb. They rolled on the concrete, buzzing angrily. They sort of reminded me of those pathetic fights you sometimes see in front of bars or hair salons, where inexperienced or out-of-shape combatants just roll around on the ground with each other, cursing and grunting.

So I watched for a few moments, thinking that the wasp would probably win this one, eventually. Then, the most bizarre thing happened... the wasp changed his (her? its?) position and picked up the honey bee and flew away with it, slowly and noisily like a helicopter airlifting a VW bug. It careened slowly into some ivy on a wall, then buzzed away into a clutch of small trees, its captor buzzing in protest. Is this normal? Is this the way nature works?

I never really thought about the sort of interactions that must go on between wasps and bees. They don't seem to intermingle and, until now, I had never seem them hostile with each other. I assumed they would maybe have some sort of kinship, as they are both in the business of causing me to yelp and become irrational.

But, moreover, does this incident perhaps have some sort of portent? You shall see a red sun in the west, or a great bird will descend from the sky, you will be met by a mysterious stranger from afar, you will see a flying wasp carrying a honeybee, etc.

I ate Chinese food the other night, and the fortune in my cookie said, "You will receive wise counsel from a friend." Somewhere, perhaps in Omaha or Florida or Chile or Space, someone opened a fortune that said "You will see a wasp fighting a bee, and then the wasp will fly away with the bee, and after posting about it on your dumbass blog, you will get herpes and run over" and then a friend of theirs walked up and gave them some wise counsel. This is the way nature works.