A Little Off Center

The Great Crossing

noreply@blogger.com (Artie) — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 09:47:00 +0000

It was a blistering summer afternoon when my brother and his friend hatched a plan to set out upon an epic journey to obtain the most sought after item for any child. Yes, that item was called candy. This amazing plan consisted of the two neighbor boys, my brother Scott, and I traveling on foot to the nearest market in search of this allusive sugary delight we so greatly desired. Our fellowship consisted of my brother and his friend Todd, who were both 8, along with my rather hefty friend Kelly and me who were both the ripe old age of 6.

Here we see the typical 6 year old boy in the wild.

As we discussed the great distance to the nearest store, called Y.J.’s Market, my brother came up with an outstanding strategy for saving precious time. You see, the market was on the other side of the interstate from our house and the excursion would involve traveling down to the underpass that was a mile east, cross under the interstate, and then travel the mile back west to the market. His superb plan was to cut across the freeway directly to the market. Brilliant! So like Arthur’s knights in their search for the Holy Grail we too set off upon our epic journey.

What could possibly go wrong? Right?

As luck would have it Todd and Kelly’s house was backed up against the freeway and their father had stacked cut logs along the fence making perfect step. Once we reached the top of the fence we just hurled ourselves over the top and landed on the south shoulder of the interstate. I often wondered what the faces of the motorists passing by must have looked like as they saw the four of us lined up on the side of the asphalt waiting for them to pass so we can play human Frogger across the traffic lanes. How many 911 calls were actually made that afternoon will forever remain a mystery.

Once we saw a gap in the traffic flow we made a break for it. As I ran across the lanes of traffic time slowed down and I swore I could hear the Chariots of Fire theme song in the background, although that could have come from the passing Honda that almost took out Todd. My brother and his friend ran faster followed closely behind by myself with portly Kelly pulling up the rear. When we made it to the large, grassy median we paused for a moment to catch our breaths and waited to make our final push to the opposite fence. Seconds later we were off again! Meer feet from the side of the freeway I heard a shriek from behind and spun to see my gravitationally challenged friend trip and fall face first into the fast lane bouncing as he came to rest on the white dotted line.

You can't prove that was us.

I distinctly remember seeing a maroon car blazing towards us with its horn blaring as I ran back into the roadway to pick up my stout friend Kelly. There were tires squealing and cars swerving while I dragged him to safety. I equate this sudden burst of might to the strength a mother finds to lift a burning car off her child. There I was, a loving mother dragging my obese child through the number two lane to safety. Finally, after what seemed like forever we reached the other side only to find Todd and my brother up against the fence laughing uncontrollably at the certain doom that was unfolding before them.

"LOL! He fell in the street... oh stop... I can't handle it!"

After we crawled through the barbed wire fence that led us away from the interstate, Kelly getting stuck twice of course, we made it to our objective; the candy isle at Y.J.’s Market. Once we had gorged ourselves on our sweet bounty we reviewed the first half of our journey and concluded that, for the return trip, we should probably take the long way around instead of risking Kelly almost dying again. This rational mostly likely came upon us because we were no longer in a candy-frenzy and were able to think rationally like normal 6 and 8 year olds.

Child logic dictates that there is no such thing as too much sugar.

I often look back on this story with fond memories. Not only did I feast on fistfuls of candy but I also was a hero that day. I don’t know where Kelly is now but I’m sure he is on his knees right now thinking God for my heroics. To all those small children out there that are reading this account of my life let this story be a cautionary tale. My lesson to you is this: Do not risk your life by running across a busy interstate in search of temporary pleasure if you are prone to falls or too large to make it through the barbed wire fence on the other side of the interstate.

Anti-Baldites

noreply@blogger.com (Artie) — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 03:55:00 +0000

As a follically challenged male I have often pondered the oppression of my people. We are mocked, laughed at and openly shunned from society. Why God? Why?! Why did you part my hair like the red sea?

Hollywood oppresses my people at every turn. I can use the fingers on one hand to count how many bald or balding movie stars there have ever been who were not playing a dying cancer patient. Now after saying that there are plenty of character actors (supporting actors) that have out grown their hair because Hollywood seems to think my people make great bumbling fools for the lead actor to make fun of. Ever notice the guy in the commercials that doesn’t know that Brand A is better than Brand B inevitably will have less hair than the smart guy who does know?

Pop Quiz: Guess which guy is the lead actor and which one is the goofy sidekick?

The female population is another oppressive organization, although they rarely admit it. Look at the face of a woman immediately upon laying eyes on her balding blind date. It is quite funny. Well, as long as you're not the balding blind date guy. That guy will probably go cry himself to sleep as he holds a picture of Gerard Butler wondering why God cursed him. I once had a girl I was on a date with interrupt me in mid sentence to say, “Wow! You’re really starting to get thin up there!” Her phone must have been broken after that because she never answered when I called. She later married a man with full stalinesque hair who, within five years of getting married, proceeded to lose it all. I would be lying if I said I wasn't laughing maniacally as I wrote this.

I often wonder how such a horrible man could have
such a lush garden of hair.

This understanding that men who have uncombable hair on their heads should somehow be ostracized from society is nothing new. I recently read in the Bible in the book of Leviticus where God explains to Moses “A man who has lost his hair and is bald is clean. If he has lost his hair from the front of his scalp and has a bald forehead, he is clean.” Basically God has to explain to the Israelites that a man who has lost his hair is not a leper and should not be sent out of the camp while everyone points at him yelling, “Unclean!” I wonder if this arose because someone in the camp pointed to the bald guy and said to Moses, “What about Merkowitz over there? If that contagious?” The final insult is that Moses sandwiches this passage in between instructions for leprosy and mildew. We are sooooo going to have a talk about this when I get to heaven Moses.

Way to go buddy. No one will every know.

The people in the white coats tell me that the cause of baldness in males is testosterone (the “man hormone”). Essentially it converted to dihydrotestosterone (DHT) by an enzyme called 5-alpha reductase. DHT is a powerful sex hormone and a body and facial hair growth promoter that can adversely affect the prostate as well as the hair located on the head. Now you have a bald, extremely hairy sex machine that has trouble urinating. Eat your heart out ladies. Basically God made the Baldites so manly that their manliness pushes out their own hair on their head.

I submit exhibit A.

My people pray for God to send a Moses-like figure to come out of the wilderness and deliver them from their suffering. I can see it now. A man in a leisure suit and sporting a comb over walks up to Tom Selleck, he has to be the leader of the follically gifted, stretches out his hands and yells, “Let my bald people go… to the barber and not have to pay full price!” I mean come on we have less hair! Why make us pay the same?! We are a simple people. We don’t ask for much.

Don't "Just Get Out and Vote"

noreply@blogger.com (Artie) — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 04:28:00 +0000

As I was driving to vote I started to think about the people who will be voting today. After I stopped crying I wondered if I even wanted them to go vote to begin with. There are so many people that have no idea what or who they are voting on. They just show up and cast a vote because people tell them to “just get out and vote.” I say NOOOO! Don’t just “get out and vote!” If you fail to follow any of the rules below… don’t vote.

There needs to be a test on the topics at hand before people are allowed vote.

Voting Rule #1: If you vote for the guy with the biggest and most signs, you should not vote. As I drove by the hundreds of election signs that are posted on every street corner on my way to vote today I began to wonder the purpose of these signs. The experts who are in charge of putting the signs up believe that the more signs you see the more likely you are to vote for that person. The unfortunate thing is that for many people, this works. “I’m voting for Bill because he had the most signs on the side of the road on my way to work.” “What policies does he support?” “I don’t know, but he had lots of signs… and they were red white and blue so he MUST be a patriot.” If you are this imbecile, do not vote.

Voting Rule #2: If you vote because someone told you to go vote, you should not vote. I see a lot of commercials on television and on the radio telling people to "just get out and vote." This especially happens on young people media channels like MTV and others that appeal to the 18 to twenty somethings. The way I look at it is if someone has to ask or remind or otherwise motivate you to go out and vote, then most likely you have no idea what is going on and should, therefore, not be voting.

I think the picture says it all...

Voting Rule #3: If you do not understand that men and women have died to give us the right to vote, you should not vote. Remember that this is a privilege to vote and there are millions and millions of people on this planet that do not have that privilege. It isn’t a duty to vote it is a privilege. Don’t think of it as a job that you have to go out and vote. You get a chance today for your voice to be heard. Now after saying that... just because you have the chance to vote doesn't mean you should if you are uneducated on the candidates.

Don't let shiny objects distract you.

Voting Rule #4: If you listen to the television and radio ads put out by the pundits and take them as truth, you should not vote. 99% of all the information in those ads are so badly skewed that there is barely any remnant of truth left. I’m not even sure the names are correct. There is a large possibility that the man on the television may in fact be a monkey that had his face shaved. Just assume that all "facts" regarding the candidates are completely false when listening to those ads and you should be safe.

Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large numbers.

So, if you are someone that falls into any of these categories (and I’m sure there are more I’m missing) please do not go out and vote today. Please do not listen to those “just get out and vote” ads and signs. If you “just get out and vote” we will have a mass number of uneducated morons at the polls today electing God knows who because of God knows what.

You do not want to be this guy two years down the road.

Besides, if you do not go out and vote then my vote will mean that much more.

The Muffin Top

noreply@blogger.com (Artie) — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 22:59:00 +0000

Let me start out by admitting that I am no fashion mogul my any stretch of the imagination but I have seen things as of late that I cannot remain silent about any longer. Every decade has a few standout fashions: Leather jackets in the 50s, tie dyed clothes in the 60s, bellbottoms in the 70s, neon everything in the 80s, plaid shirts in the 90s, etc. Well now we have low-rise jeans. This really isn’t anything new as they had them in the 70s, but today we have a society of that is, on average, overweight. So if you put the low-rise jeans style together with overweight people you get a rather distasteful situation: The muffin top.

I'm not talking about the good kid of muffin top folks.

The muffin top occurs when a person, almost always a female, wears low-rise jeans but does not have the waist to pull off said jeans. The result is an overflow of chub that cascades over the top of the jeans like the Gulf of Mexico coming over the levies around New Orleans during hurricane Katrina. Everyone knows its going to burst and no one wants to be there when it does.

These jeans were not made for this kind of punishment ladies.

Listen ladies, just because the low-rise jean is the popular style does not mean you need to wear it. If you cannot pull it off don't do it. For the love of all that is good an holy do not do it. If the Simon Cowell School of Fashion said that tight shirts were in you would not see me going out and getting one. Why? Because if I wore a tight shirt I would look like an injured porpoise trapped in discarded plastic desperately trying to get off the beach and back into the ocean. People would walk by and throw water on me and yell, "Keep him wet!"

Yes. NOOOOOO!

Pick a fashion that works for your body type. Just like for women at the beach you should not wear a bikini if you are gravitationally challenged and for men if you are not on the swim team get out of those Speedos. It's like trying to shove a round beg into a square hole. Didn't we learn that didn't work at age 2?

If a button pops off someone may die.

This isn't a dig against people who fall in the “Before” category of the weight loss pictures as I have lived in that category for a number of years now. I am merely trying to get people to take an honest look at their bodies and then take an honest look at their clothes. Honestly… do they go together? If your midsection is desperately trying to escape over your low-rise jeans like prisoners over the walls of Sing Sing, the answer is a resounding NO. For the love of God… NO.

The Good Samaritan

noreply@blogger.com (Artie) — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 05:49:00 +0000

I wouldn’t say that I hate mornings but mornings and I just do not get along very well. Mornings to me are like that one guy at work that has an office down the hall and every time he sees you he spends 30 minutes telling you about how the podiatrist removed his bunion. You don’t hate the guy but if you ever saw him again it would be too soon. In my humble opinion God should have made the sunrise around 10 am and anything earlier is just unpleasant. This becomes a problem every Sunday morning when, after going to sleep around 2 am, I must wake up at the crack of dawn and drag my self out of bed and make it to church by 8:30 am. This particular Sunday morning was especially delightful.

I have a "good morning" waiting for you in my diaper.

My wife leaves early for practice as she sings in the church praise team so it is up to me to get the kids fed, make sure they have clean underwear on and looking halfway presentable in the morning as to not embarrass my wife. Everything ran rather smoothly for a Sunday morning which should have been my first clue that trouble was about to rear its ugly head and bite my face off.

The greatest fear of every mother.

About a half a mile from the church the car engine died suddenly. I managed to steer the car into the median of street as there was no shoulder on the road. Since I know absolutely nothing about cars I didn’t bother lifting the hood and taking a look at the engine. What’s the point? I may as well have been looking at the wreckage of a Boeing 747 and trying to determine what part was defective. It isn’t like I would know what I was looking for anyway. I have noticed most men do the “Lift the hood and stare at the engine so people think I know what I’m doing” routine but I decided to just skip that step and move straight to the “start walking” step.

"I fail to see how 150 of us can fit in here."

I gathered up my two boys, who are 5 and 7 years of age, and started walking down the side of the road. It was a busy morning on this road as so many people are on their way to church. There must have been at least 50 cars pass us by before finally, as we were about a block away from church, a mother of one of my Sunday school students stopped to give us a ride the rest of the way. It was only a block but it was a wonderful gesture.

I believe this may be more reliable.

After Sunday school I had at least ten people come up to me and mention that they saw my car broken down in the street and they saw me walking with my boys along the side of the road. The comments ranged from, “What happened to your car?" to my favorite, "Hey, I saw you walking down the road!" A few guys even tried to diagnose the problem with my car by asking me what had occurred before the engine quit.

"Well.. uh..I tell you what you got there... You have an issue with your...
uh... car's dumaflache. I had that issue one time back in '83..."

Of course the only question I wanted to ask them was, “So you saw my broken down car and you saw me walking along the side of the road with a 5 and a 7 year old but you didn’t bother to stop and give us a ride on your way to church?” Let me repeat that last part, “on your way to church?” I decided to be friendly and just smile and nod.

This makes me think of the story of the Good Samaritan in the Bible. You all know the story of how a man was beat up and robbed and left for dead on the side of the road. Person after person, including a priest, passed by and no one helped him but finally one man, a lowly Samaritan, stopped and rendered aid to the injured man. What an amazing story of mercy and how we are to look out for each other in times of need.

All this has made me think of all the opportunities I have missed on the side of the road of life because I didn’t stop and assist someone. How many times have I been too busy to make time for someone else who may need my help? We all have to remember that we need to take time out of our busy days to stop and help those who are in need, even if that means sacrificing time and money. That is what a good neighbor would do and that is what Jesus would do.

Of course, then there are bad neighbors...

By the way my timing belt broke while I was driving and cause everything in my car’s engine to move at the wrong times and totally destroyed the valves in my engine. It was like taking the teleprompter away from the news anchors... No one knew what do to next so ensued. On a side note if anyone wants to send me $1300 for car repairs let me know. After retelling this story I take it back… I hate mornings.

This guy seems legit. I trust him.

The Great Cheeseburger Incident of 2010

noreply@blogger.com (Artie) — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 01:13:00 +0000

Over the past few months I have noticed a very subtle change in my lunches that my lovely wife packs for me to take to work. At first it was just adding a nonfat yogurt but then, later, my chips were replaced by an apple and later, after a month or so, my cookies were replaced by a nonfat pudding cup. Finally my white sandwich bread was switched with some kind of conglomerate of nuts and twigs mixed into what appeared to be bread dough. I think my wife is trying to relay a message to me but I’m not sure what it is.

Slather some peanut-butter and jelly on this bread and we're in business!

Shortly after my delicious lunch was replaced with a less than tasty substitute my darling wife tried to sneak “healthy alternatives” into my meals. Instead of bacon or sausage, a tasteless patty made of an unknown substance showed up on my plate. It was greasy like a sausage but had no flavor and was spongy like I had taken a bite out of a Nerf football. I cannot believe this sort of thing was approved by the FDA.

Did someone drop this on the ground and forget to wash it off?

One fine evening I sat down to dinner and found that the butter for my rolls had been replaced with butter flavored spray. What is the point of this? I had to spray my roll 37 times and it still did not resemble anything like butter. Finally I resorted to taking the cap off and pouring the yellow substance on my roll but this only resulted in a soggy mash of dough.

I can believe it isn't butter. What I can't believe is why anyone would buy this.

The straw the broke the camel's back was the Great Cheeseburger Incident of 2010. As my family settled down for the evening I fired up the grill and prepared to grill up some burgers. My sweet wife handed me the meat that she had already formed into delicious over sized patties. This was very nice of her as she is afraid to handle raw meat apparently believing that salmonella will kill you instantly upon contact. This should have been my first clue that something was a rye.

I'll take mine with small fries. Don't want to get fat.

As I prepared my cheeseburger with all the fixings and condiments a little drool was forming on the corner of my mouth. I picked up what was easily a half-pound of cheeseburger I took a huge bite and… now let me pause here for a moment and remind my audience that cheeseburgers are the greatest food ever made, as I have talked about before. I believe that God had the Israelites in the Old Testament sacrifice bulls so that the priests would have the meat to make cheeseburgers.

"Who wants cheese on their burger?"

Anyway, back to the story. As I bit into my cheeseburger I immediately noticed that either my taste buds had died or there was something horribly wrong with my burger. It tasted like someone had replaced my beef with feet. I quickly opened my mouth, allowed the atrocity to plop onto the plate in front of me and then turned my gaze upon my wife. “It’s extra lean buffalo meat!” she tried to explain.

Excuse me, what's inside that burger sir?

I stood up, extended my index finger towards my wife, looked up towards the heavens and exclaimed, “Blasphemer!” half expecting the woman on the opposite side of the table to be turned into a pillar of salt. In unison both my boys emptied the contents of their mouths onto the table.

"Blasphemer!"

After I instructed the mother of my children on the essential components of a perfect cheeseburger, none of which includes extra lean anything let along buffalo, I tried to dispose of the left over "burger" by putting it in my dog's bowl. He sniffed it, whimpered and walked away. I love that dog. I am quite certain that the woman that lives under my roof now understands that there are many things that I can let slide... tampering with my cheeseburger is not one of them.

By the way... I'm still not sure what she was trying to tell me. I'm sure it will come to me soon.

That Stinks

noreply@blogger.com (Artie) — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 04:06:00 +0000

As I walked into the men’s restroom at work I was greeted by one of the most fowl smells that has ever taken the journey up into my nasal cavity. It was as if an evil mad scientist birthed a retched stench in a test tube, put it in a box and poked it with a stick for many years to get it nice and angry only to let it loose in our men’s room. I actually heard hundreds of my nose hairs suddenly cry out in terror and were silenced before they fell like rain onto the sticky bathroom tile. Who would leave such a trap?

Spock... use... Lysol!

This, of course, got me thinking about how smell works. Vaporized odor molecules float from the object giving off the smell, travel up your nose and dissolve into the mucus, or as they call it in the ear, nose and throat business… snot. Under all that ~~snot~~ mucus is receptor cells that detect the odor molecules and then send the information off to the brain.

Or as I like to call it... the nose.

Pause for a moment and take a deep breath. Feel the cool air travel through your noise, down the back of your throat and even into your mouth. The air fills the whole nasal and parts of your oral cavity. I love fresh air.

Here is how my parents let me get some fresh air when I was young.

Now let’s think about this more carefully. If you can feel the fresh air filling your nasal cavity and traveling down your throat and even into parts of your mouth and when you smell something you are actually detecting tiny molecules from that object then whatever you smell is actually going up your nose, into your mouth and into your lungs.

Go head, Chief... Pull my finger.

So basically when you walk into a stinky bathroom vaporized parts of the fecal matter and urine that are floating in the air are being sucked into your nose and are being deposited into your nose, lungs and even your mouth. Speaking of mouths, I think I just threw up a little in mine.

This is an actual lung of a bathroom attendant after just one year of employment.

So next time you are sitting next to that smelly guy on the plane remember that his body sweat has just sucked up your nose and has made a home in your mouth. Or that elderly woman who sits in the pew in front of you can’t hold in that gas (they don’t call it a pew for nothing) just remember that you are inhaling what actual particles that, just moments ago, exited her backside.

God bless the malodorously challenged.

I hope I have educated all those out there on what really occurs when you smell a distasteful odor. As for myself I knew instantly as I exited the bathroom and saw a workmate with a huge grin on his face that had soiled the men’s room. I shook my fist in his direction, “Curse you and your broken digestive system!”

The Worst Generation

noreply@blogger.com (Artie) — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 15:55:00 +0000

They lived through the worst depression this country has ever known and still managed to survive. When the world called upon them to defend freedom they gladly volunteered themselves and took up arms. The men lined up around the corner at places to get a chance to serve their country as soon as they heard they were needed. The women went to work, many for the first time ever, and made the millions of tanks, planes, and bombs that would be needed to bring peace to the world. They those men returned home they were greeted with parades and treated like heroes. They truly were the Greatest Generation. Then they had kids. Dear God… What happened?

You have to love Rosie!

The Baby Boomers were born into a country of prosperity and peace. Television consisted of Leave it to Beaver and I Love Lucy. They grew up going to sock hops, drag raced their cars and drank chocolate malts with two straws as they starred dreamily into their best girl’s eyes. Then they became adults and all hell broke loose.

"Ward, don't you think you were a little hard on the Beav?"

Their country called for their assistance to fight for freedom and democracy so in response they protested, burned their draft cards and flocked to Canada like Canadian Geese flying north for the winter. Women burned their bras and stopped shaving because apparently being saggy and hairy made people take you more seriously. Huge groups gathered to get high and protest that their country went to “kill babies and burn down huts” in a jungle as their own soldiers were dying trying to defend freedom in a far off land. When these soldiers came home were greeted with a lonely airport terminal and the yells of, “Baby killer!”

Here is the Baby Boomer's version of Rosie the Riveter.

The Greatest Generation had a strong sense of right and wrong. They knew that Germany, Japan and Italy were wrong when they waged war on other nations in their desire to build their empires. Their morals led them to take up arms and defend those who could not defend themselves.

Remember when we believed in something so much we would die for it?

As the Baby Boomers gradually took charge of our nation they would preach that anything goes and that everything is acceptable. There is no right and wrong. There are no absolute morals. If you believe that it is your right to invade a country who are we to say that you are wrong. How can a government ask someone who has no absolute morals and despises their government to go off and defend freedom? It isn’t going to happen.

It's depressing that this is the only absolute that people accept today.

The Boomers remind me of a group of teenagers. As we all know teens want nothing more than to do and say the exact opposite of their parents. If their parents have morals the teen doesn’t like them. If the parents think it is important go off and defend freedom the teen will protest such an idea. The biggest problem here is that teens eventually grow up… what happened to the Boomers?

Now we all know you cannot group an entire generation into one group and not everyone born during these years did and believed these things, but unfortunately for those who did not follow the rest of the lemmings off the cliff they often get lumped in with the rest and lost in history. Many of the wisest and most patriotic people I know are from this generation and they are not happy with what the most vocal of their cohort did. It must be depressing for them to be lumped into this crowd.

It would be funnier if it wasn't so true.

What I find particularly saddening is that in one generation we went from the United States “Saviors of the World” to the United States “Land of Mediocrity.” How many generations will it take to fix what just one generation broke?

What If We Have It All Wrong

noreply@blogger.com (Artie) — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 23:22:00 +0000

As I was sitting on the toilet this morning contemplating the ways of the universe, as I do most mornings, I wondered if north was really north and south was really south. What if God was looking down upon us yelling, “No! No! You have it all wrong! That pole is north and that pole is south! You’re upside down!” This got me thinking on what else we might have wrong.

Speaking of having it wrong: This is not how you Facebook buddy.

Lets take a look at some of the multitude of things scientists have told us to be fact and then later we find out to be completely untrue. I will skip the first few thousand years of science, you know the earth is flat and the Earth is the center of the universe stuff, and move straight to the past hundred years.

DNA was discovered in 1869 but it wasn’t until 1952 that scientists finally discovered that it held the blueprints of life. What did science teach about DNA for the first 83 years? DNA was just another of the many molecules found in the nucleus of a cell that may or may not have something to do with heredity. You see back in the old days they believed that the cell was just a big blob of protoplasmic goo with a nucleus filled with different goo. Go science!

Basically a cell full of green snot. Someone pass me my spoon.

For all intense and purposes John Dalton discovered what we know today as the atom around 1803 and science taught that it was the smallest particle there was and nothing was smaller (hence the term atom means the smallest particle of matter that cannot be broken down any more). Of course about a hundred years later they found out that the atom was made up of the electron, proton and neutron and just like that we have a new winner in the “I’m the smallest in the universe” contest and a new scientific fact was put into the high school science school books. To everyone's surprise someone found that there are even smaller particles called quarks. Now science has promised that the quarks are the smallest particle in the universe so we need to trust them. They promise. Really. At this point I would trust the boy who cried wolf over these clowns.

I would trust this guy over many scientists.

The Brontosaurus was discovered in 1874 and has been one of the most beloved dinosaurs ever since. Well, until they determined that the scientist who dug it up couldn't find the head so he just put another head he found a few hundred yards away in its place and poof... brontosaurus. Oops! Recently, in the news, we learned that the Triceratops never actually existed either. What they thought to be a Triceratops was actually just a younger version of the Torosaurus who, apparently, looks just like a Triceratops but bigger. You mean to tell me that in the over 120 years since the discovery of the two not one paleontologist could figure out that the smaller one might be the baby of the big one? The five year old neighbor boy could have saw that one and he has glasses the size of coke bottles. So if we put a puppy and an adult dog together are they going to tell us that these are two different species? Apparently in paleontology they do.

Speaking of dinosaurs...

When I was a youngster learning how to multiply and divide the most important rule was that you could not divide by zero. If you did apparently the whole universe would collapse around your pencil and your mother would cry as you were sucked into the very black hole you created. I half expect them to tell me, any day now, that this is now possible and that they were wrong all along. They will probably tell is that the Tyrannosaurus was dividing by zero and that's what wiped out the dinosaurs.

This guy divided by zero and look what happened to him.
His mother is now in a nursing home crying her little eyes out.

I have noticed that the longer I live the more I see how science is not the huge rock of facts that we are all taught it is. Science, as it stands today, is just a group of people in white coats that like a particular theory and then teach the rest of the population that that theory is fact. If you mention that said fact is just a theory and should not be taught as fact you are obviously not as intelligent as they are and should be publicly flogged in the town square with an organic carrot.

I ordered a few science books and this is what arrived.

All of this makes me wonder about what else in this universe we “know” today as fact and a few years down the road we will just be told it wasn’t true… like cheeseburgers being bad for you. I’m still waiting on that one to be changed. Someone needs to get on that one.

Zero to Hero and Back Again

noreply@blogger.com (Artie) — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 00:45:00 +0000

I have experienced many humiliating moments in my lifetime. So much so that not much embarrassment can penetrate the thick, leathery wall that hides what is left of my soul. One especially mortifying experience is feeling the exuberance of being a hero and to have the moment stripped away leaving only the sting of humiliation as you stand in front of the crowd. I liken it to Superman flying through a window of a burning skyscraper to save a baby that a mother on that street has been screaming is left inside. Moments later he reappears smiling and waving at the crowd until everyone realized that the only thing he rescued was a Baby Wets-a-lot doll. Poor Superman.

Speaking of embarrassment. Poor high school drop outs.

This is the very ordeal that I endured one day when I was working at Disneyland. As many of you know I worked my way through college by working at “The Happiest Place on Earth” and spend many a day walking around the Park making sure everything was going smoothly. If you have ever visited the Park you know that there are parades that run through the center of it at various times during the day in which thousands of excited people line up with their kids to get a good look. It was during this time, as the masses gathered to watch the Hercules parade, which my rise from zero to hero occurred.

It's the Happiest Place on Earth!

I received a call on my radio that there was a fire in a trashcan. This was a common occurrence because smokers often times forget that a cigarette burns and when you place a burning object into a container full of paper it will start on fire. Difficult concept, I know. By the time I arrived at the trashcan smoke was billowing out of it. I quickly opened the side of the trashcan, pulled out the plastic receptacle and through the smoke I put my leg inside and started stomping. After a few moments the smoke stopped and thunderous applause started. Everyone around praised my quick reaction and I heard, “Nice job!” and “My hero!” all around me. I smiled and nodded as if to say, “All in a day’s work.”

And for the sake of my newly polished shoes don't throw them in poopie diapers.

On a side note I learned to not use a fire extinguisher on trashcan fires a few months before. In that case I pulled out the trash receptacle and blasted the smoke with a full tank of fire retardant only to turn around to a fire fighter holding a Dixie cup of water. He shook his head and walked off muttering something about having to refill the extinguisher.

In case of fire hide in this corner.

Anyway, back to the story. As I was nodding and waving to the crowd I took my leg out of the smoldering bin. It was then I heard the cheers turn to laughter. I quickly looked down to see my finely polished shoe, and stuck to my finely shoe was a half burned poopie Snug-Fit Huggies diaper. Yes, when the cigarette fell into the trashcan it ignited a poopie diaper which I quickly stamped out. The crowd, who just moments ago where chanting my praise, was now pointing and laughing as I desperately tried to shake off the surprisingly sticky diaper.

I'm a hero! Yes! Wait... what?

It was then, walking back to the locker room with every other step making a squish sound, I realized that my hero status had disappeared quicker than a Krispy Kreme donut in my hand on Sunday morning. I now realize that short of wetting myself in front of hundreds of people there really isn’t much that will embarrass me. This will really come in handy when I drop my future teenagers off in front of their high school while blaring show tunes.

The Land of Bad Drivers

noreply@blogger.com (Artie) — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 05:23:00 +0000

I live in the land of inept drivers. I know there are other far off lands where drivers pilot their vehicles with skill and grace because I have seen pictures have seen them on television, but I do not live in one of these places. I reside where drivers either do not ever bother to read and understand the driving manual or these drivers simply do not care about anyone else on the road but themselves. The truth regarding these drivers may be something completely different.

Bad drivers will strike where you least expect them.

My drive to work is a 30 minute commute that consists mainly of freeway travel with a small fraction of surface streets thrown in. Needless to say, I see my share of drivers. Today, moments after I entered the freeway, I encountered one of these drivers that I will call the Pace Car. The Pace Car drives the speed limit in the left lane and will never, I repeat, never drive in the right lane. Now, where I live, all vehicles are to drive in the right lane unless passing. It is the law. This particular person entered the freeway and immediately changed lanes into the left lane, set the cruise control to the speed limit and ignored the approximate half mile traffic jam of people waiting to get by.

I have plans to install these this fall.

Is the Pace Car somehow unaware of the law and so oblivious that they missed the two signs they drove by stating said law or do they just not care about anyone else on the road, thus requiring anyone traveling at a higher speed to go around them in the right lane? I believe the answer to this question is none of the above. The answer lies in the second driver I encountered today.

A woman I came across the other day.
After I honked and yelled out the window she finally moved over.

Halfway through my commute I came upon some construction that required traffic to merge into one lane. Where I live the vast majority of people start to merge as soon as they see the “Left Lane Ends” sign. These people will start to merge into the other lane upwards to a mile ahead of the actual lane ending. In California, where I have spent most of my adult life, cars merged when the lanes merged. These two ideologies create conflict among some drivers. These drivers I will call “Hall Monitors.”

I will have no merry-making in this hallway. None!

The self-appointed position of the Hall Monitor makes it their duty to ensure everyone merges a mile up the road as they did. This driver will steer his car so it straddles both lanes of traffic so that no one will be able to pass him unless they drive off the road and therefore they will be forced to merge behind the Hall Monitor. I have seen variations of the Hall Monitor strategy by different drivers over the years. At times I will witness the Pace Car strategy being implemented by the Hall Monitor who will pull out into the lane that is to merge over and drive at the same pace as the other cars thus cutting off the entire lane forcing a "virtual merge". The most dangerous of the strategies used by the Hall Monitors is to swerve into passing cars to scare any other vehicle into not passing him. This is what I call the “I’m going to show my dominance by humping your lane” strategy. These drivers would rather put the safety of every driver around them in jeopardy in order to make others submit.

Yes, I AM the self appointed ruler of everyone. Why?

I believe that these two drivers, the Pace Car and the Hall Monitor, feel such a need to follow the laws that they suppose it's their duty to make sure everyone else follows them as well. Now don’t get me wrong I am always a fan of following the rules, I drive the speed limit and in the right lane, but I do not feel the need to force everyone else to submit to the same rules I follow as if I was Kruschev ruling over the fast lane with an iron fist.

Of course some rule with a tiny iron fist.

These are not the kind of people you want in any kind of authoritative position. Let’s imagine a leader that feels an overwhelming conviction and forces everyone submit to them. Nazis anyone? Both the Christians and the Muslims felt the need to do this very thing between the 600s and the 1200s. Well, the Muslims leaders still feel the need to make their subjects submit in the Middle Eastern countries.

...said the woman who will be stoned if she says otherwise.

Telling others about your convictions is a great thing. Forcing your convictions on others is a great tragedy. Today's lesson: Do not be a Hall Monitor and cram your convictions down other's throats as if you are trying to force feed medication to a dog. No matter how much ground beef you put it in people are still going to spit it out.

It's a Crying Shame

noreply@blogger.com (Artie) — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 03:47:00 +0000

Whether it is snakes, carnies or even old people, everyone has something in life that gives them the hebegebes. We have a janitor that works in our building that is terrified of spiders. He made me squish a spider that was standing between him and the bathroom he wanted to clean one night. I’m pretty sure he had been standing there waiting for someone to save him for at least 10 minutes. Well as for me I have a few things that freak me out but the one I will discuss today is tears.

That's an eye full of nasty right there.

Yes, you read correctly… tears. Tears are one of the most disgusting things that come out of our bodies. Let me explain. Urine is primarily made up of water but the next most prevalent ingredient is urea. That potent smell of urine, for those of you who do not drink enough water, is caused by the asphyxiating ammonia that is produced by the breaking down of urea. Guess what is in tears. Yep, urea. So basically every time you cry you are peeing on your face.

"Did you just pee on your own face?!?"

This has become an issue over the years with my wife as she is on the emotional side of the scale and I am on the logical side. My wife’s side involves a lot of tears. Tears at the weddings, sad stories, disagreements, movies, television… she has cried at a movie preview more than once. The worst part about the tears is when they run down her face and gets close to her mouth her tongue slowly makes an appearance and captures the tear as it passes by like some kind of reptile licking her eyeballs to keep them moist. My look of disgust, of course, does nothing to help the situation either.

Wait, let me get that tear. Yummy.

On more than one occasion I have had a crying son come running up to me to be comforted only to be stopped at arm’s length as I get a blanket, towel, pillow or whatever is near by to soak up the urine coming out of their eyes. I do believe this may create some sort of bonding issue for the boys that will need to be sorted out with thousands of dollars of counseling in the years to come.

Not even with a ten foot pole.

One of the most memorable moments in anyone’s life is the moment they get engaged. I have to admit that for me it was also the most memorable moments as well, but for an entirely different reason. You see I drove my then girlfriend up the California coast from the greater Los Angeles area to San Francisco to visit my aunt and uncle that lived there. On the way up I made sure and plan our arrival to Pebble Beach (Carmel, CA) just as the sun was setting. Everything was planned out for a wonderful scene on the beach except the fact that it was Sea Lion mating season and from the sounds of it there was going to be a lot of births in a few months.

This is where we got engaged... taken just before "the incident."

Just as the sun set I turned to my lovely girlfriend, got down on one knee and pulled out the ring. Of course she didn’t notice I was down there in front of her so I had to nudge her with the ring box to get her attention. After I popped the question and she said yes she grabbed by face as I was kneeling down and bent over to kiss me. All I remember is… you guessed it… tears dripping on my face. Basically she peed on my face. It was by far one of the most disgusting moments in my life.

"She did what?"

To this day I have no idea how she ended up marrying me. She puts up with my oddities, that's for sure. I am the luckiest man alive. Well... until she cries.

You Have Talent

noreply@blogger.com (Artie) — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 00:05:00 +0000

What do Lady Gaga, Dolph Lundgren, Katy Perry and you have in common? No, this isn’t the start to a bad joke. They all have some thing specific in common. Let’s take a look at each of these people and discover what why each of these people are sadly alike.

Apparently this is Lady Gaga as some kind of soggy mirrored gladiator.

To say that Lady Gaga is just a singer/song writer is to say that the Buckingham Palace is just a house. She is the biggest singing sensation to hit the world in quite sometime and if you have not heard of her you most likely have been spending quite a bit of time living in a cave feeding off small rodents. She has been awarded 85 international awards, including Grammys, AMA’s and Teen Choice awards, in the two years she has been in the public eye. Gaga, born with the good Italian name of Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, learned to play the piano at age 4 and wrote her first ballet by the ripe old age of 13. When I was 13 I was still potty training. She was even accepted into Juilliard but instead decided to attend another school that is arguably just as exclusive. Like her music or not, one has to admit that she is extremely talented.

Countless muppets lost their lives in the making of Lady Gaga's outfit.

Let us look at the other side of the celebrity spectrum. Dolph Lundgren is a Swedish born actor/director best known for his role as huge Russian boxer Ivan Drago in Rocky IV. Since then he has gone on to act in 38 other action movies and directed 5 others, many of these movies went straight to video/DVD. Currently his career has been kick started by costarring in the summer hit The Expendables with Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, and Mickey Rourke. What is interesting about Lundgren is not his horrible acting/directing career, because quite frankly he should have retired after Rocky IV. What is interesting is that Lundgren is that he speaks seven languages, holds a 3rd degree black belt in Kyokushin, holds a masters degree in chemical engineering, and even received a Fullbright Scholarship to MIT. For someone who plays a dumb brute in most of his extremely unpopular action movies this man is brilliant.

My body looks like that... under all my fat.

Back on the other side of the celebrity spectrum, we have Katy Perry. This singer/songwriter’s last album sold over 1.2 million copies in the US and went platinum or double platinum in 9 countries and gold in 8. Not to mention she also was voted the hottest woman alive by Maxim magazine, which by the way obviously did not look very hard or they would have picked my wife. I’m not saying that being voted hottest woman alive is a talent, but writing an album that is that successful has to take a little talent.

Ms. Perry playing, what appears to be, a real life Candyland game.

All three of these people have talents that are very apparent but the sad part is that none of them currently use those talents for what they were intended for. According to the book of John in the Bible, “A man can receive only what is given him from heaven.” All of our various talents, whether it is singing, acting, writing or even if you can floss your nose with a small snake, they all came as a gift from God Himself.

I really feel sorry for the poor snake that now has snot all over him.

Lady Gaga was obviously given a great musical ability and the ability to put on a great show. She even grew up in the Catholic Church. Today she is using her God given abilities to represent everything that is hedonism. Lundgren was given a great intellect for understanding languages and logic. Today he is making B-Rated movies. Katy Perry grew up with a pastor as a father and she even released a Christian album under her real name Katy Hudson. Today she has used her talents to become a pop sensation and a sex symbol for young boys every where. Her dad must be so proud. These three have gained the entire world at the expense of their eternal souls.

Here is Katy Hudson singing as a Christian artist.

In Matthew 25:14-30 Jesus tells a parable of a master that gave three of his servants a gift and left on a journey. When he returned the first two servants came to him and had used their gifts as the master intended, but the last servant took his gift and hid it in the ground so when the master came back from his trip the gift would not have been lost. The master rewarded the first two servants but to the last he took his gift and said, “You wicked, lazy servant!” and sent him away to be punished. God gives us gifts and talents to use for His glory not to bury away or to use for our own good.

Don't be a lazy servant...

Do you have anything in common with these three people? Do you use your God given talents for what God intended it to be used for or do you hide it away in the ground? Maybe you are using what God gave you for your own glory and not what was intended by the gift. Are you the servant that is using his gift as the Master intended or are you the servant who wasting his gift? The Master is returning soon. Examine yourself.

Foot in Mouth Disease

noreply@blogger.com (Artie) — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 00:25:00 +0000

There has been many times in my life where I have put my foot in my mouth. I cannot remember the first time it happened and and I, quite frankly, expect to do it again someday. Not that I want to do it. It is that I cannot help myself. Here is one of the many stories of my Foot in Mouth disease.

A rather common occurrence.

While in high school I worked at a lovely department store called Shopko. If you are not familiar with this store it is one step above K-Mart and three steps below Target in the low price department store genre. What I remember most about Shopko is the fact that they used to require me to wear a dull orangey-rust colored smock that seriously hampered my ability to show the ladies the old Artie charm. But alas the ugly smock was no match for my acne speckled charm when I licked my index fingers and slicked down my sixteen year old mustache that consisted of exactly 37 hairs.

When puberty kicks in this thing is really going to take off.

While I was employed at Shopko I was a cashier. This was the best place to be because of the male to female ratio that was weighted heavily towards the female side and when a boy is at that age that is a very important fringe benefit. Another benefit of my position is that I would give breaks to different areas around the store that had cash registers. This also gave me a chance to branch out and sprinkle my charm in a larger area.

Pictured above is a perfect example of the male to
female ratio being skewed in the wrong direction.

One day I was walking to give a break to the cute girl in the layaway department when I turned the corner and noticed a line of disgruntled customers at the counter that stretched past the women’s activewear into the lingerie department where a mother was desperately trying to cover the eyes of her nine year old boy. As I neared the front of the queue I inquired about the employee’s whereabouts with the group and they all growled in one accord and pointed through double doors. So off I went.

No one likes to wait in line.

I finally located the missing girl way in the back loading up tons of boxes for the mass of crabby people waiting for her. Wanting to show her my rapier wit I said, “If we don’t get those boxes down there in a hurry their going to hang us.” Then I flashed my suave and debonair grin.

Who's awesome? You're awesome baby.

It was at that moment in time I discovered that I may not be as humorous as I think I was. Oh who am I kidding, I still haven’t learned that. Anyway, once I said those fateful words she broke down and started sobbing dropping a case of collectible Star Trek plates on the ground. Of course I did what any young man would do; with an expression of terror I put out one hand and patted her on the shoulder. Then I decided a little more of my flashy humor would be of assistance in this situation and I explained, “It’s okay, no one will get hung while I’m on duty!” She sobbed louder.

What did I say?!?

In between her sobs and her snorting the little bubble of snot that kept making an appearance in her right nostril back up she explained to me that the previous night her best friend had hung himself in his basement and she found him when she came over to visit. Oops.

It was all I could look at.

That day I learned to think before I speak and put extra thought into the words I use. Remember people’s feelings instead of making a flippant joke that could be insensitive or hurtful. Oh who am I kidding? No I didn't. Seriously who would have seen that coming? I mean really?

The Long Ride Home

noreply@blogger.com (Artie) — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 03:55:00 +0000

When I was in college I would return back home in the summer and volunteer my time at a summer camp every year as I did in high school. There was a young lady that also worked there that caught my eye but every summer I would admire her from a distance as she had a boyfriend. One summer in particular I returned home and lo and behold she was boyfriendless. Now was my chance!

The sad reality about kids today and summer camp.

I had gone over this moment in time a thousand times in my head over the years and I knew exactly what I was going to say. So I walked up to her and asked her out. Well, I think I did. I really couldn’t hear what I was saying due to the loud thumping coming from my chest up into my head. Eye witnesses later informed me that I sounded as if I had went through some kind of major oral surgery moments before as most of my words were unintelligible. Apparently unable to resist my charm, or quite possibly because of pity, she said yes.

I really should have used my old standbye. It never fails.

I decided to double date with a friend from the camp as that would lend itself to better conversation and less awkward first date moments. To tell you the truth I really cannot remember where we went for most of the date, as I have tried to block out most of the date which you will soon find out why, although I do remember that we ended up at a 24-hour restaurant for desert. As we were leaving the car my date said she was chilly so I opened the trunk and retrieved her jacket and put in on her shoulders. This action would prove to be the worst move in my dating career.

Chivalry is not dead yet. Just on life support.

As the four of us walked out of the restaurant and came close to my car I quickly noticed that I did not have my keys. I could feel the blood actually drain from my face as I simultaneously searched every pocked I had and let out a slow, “Noooooooooo……” All eyes were on me. I remember my friend had a look on his face that said, “How could you do this to me?!?” About that time was when it I remembered I put them in the trunk as I put on my date’s jacket for her. It was all her fault! Curse women and their delicate skin!

Another moment in my life where yelled, "NOOOOOOOOO!!!!"

Luckily for all of us my friend’s date forgot to lock her door and we could wait in the car as the locksmith we called wouldn’t arrive for another two to three hours. Apparently others in the city had locked their keys in their trunks as well. The time dragged on as my first date conversation can only go on for so long before I start to run out of things to say.

This brings back memories.

After only two hours of awkward conversation the locksmith pulled up to the restaurant. As I opened my door and started to get out I looked down near my seat and noticed something that to this day I should never have told anyone. If I was a wise man I would have kept quiet, paid the locksmith to do his work and left. But I was not a wise man and before I could stop myself I let out, “The trunk release!”

Curse you hidden trunk release lever for making me look the fool!

It was a long ride home.

A Trip to the Market

noreply@blogger.com (Artie) — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 05:11:00 +0000

At the age of seven a boy’s interest in candy has really kicked into full speed. The scrumptiousness of milk chocolate is quite difficult to resist at that age and apparently at any age for women as my wife has repeatedly informed me. Chocolate for my wife is placed high of her revised Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs nestled between Esteem and Self-Actualization. I once tried to explain to her that chocolate was a want and not a need. All I remember is a flurry of tears and “You just don’t understand” statements.

More women need to come with a warning attached to them.

It was a beautiful sunny afternoon when my brother and I received our one dollar allowances from our parents. A wise child would quickly take this money and put it in their piggy bank so they could purchase a really nice toy after several months of saving. I, on the other hand, was not a wise child and was bound and determined to spend every last cent on candy. The two kids from across the street (a kindergartner and a 2nd grader), along with my brother and I (3rd and 1st graders respectively), decided we were going to obtain and then eat candy.

Must... have!

We had two choices. The first choice was a three mile bicycle trip to the AM/PM, purchase candy and ride safely back. The second choice, brought up by my brother, was to go to a local market called YJ’s Foods that was located directly across the interstate from our houses. The idea was to strategically cross the interstate by foot, purchase the candy, and safely return back home before any parent knew what we had done. We did what any responsible children would do and set off across the interstate.

Why does Hawaii have an interstate?

Their house backed up to the freeway so all we had to do was stack firewood against the fence to create a makeshift stairway to get our stubby little bodies over. It was particularly difficult for our friend Kelly as he was almost as wide as he was tall. We decided the three of us would just get behind him and shove him over. This really must have looked odd to the motorists passing by on the interstate as they saw a six year old fat kid flop over the wall like a sack of rice.

With all that "muscle" you would think he could have pulled himself over the fence.

As we all stood at the edge of the precipice we waited for my brother to start the charge. As my brother yelled all four of us ran across the two lanes of traffic to the median and paused to regroup. I looked over and noticed Kelly was on his hands and knees trying to catch his breath as if he had just finished an Ironman triathlon. Pulling Kelly up to his feet my brother yelled again and we ran across the other two lanes of the freeway.

Kelly would have died halfway across this one.

As soon as I crossed over I turned my head only to see Kelly trip and fall. To this day I have still never seen anyone bounce quite like that before. He came to a stop just five feet from the side of the road with a look of terror on his face as if someone had just informed him the person in front of him in line had just purchased the last bear claw. Accompanied by the sound of tires screeching and horns blasting Kelly made it to his feet and somehow managed to make it across.

The look of someone who is about to be hit by a car.

Once we arrived at YJ’s Foods we purchased our candy and wisely decided to take the long way back home as the color had not yet returned to Kelly’s face, not to mention he was still shaking and talking to himself. Our family moved four months later and Kelly never spoke of the incident as long as we lived there. Today I imagine his hefty body lying on a couch trying to explain to a psychologist how he was almost ran over by a 78 Dodge in a desperate attempt to obtain a Whatchamacallit bar.

My parents found out about the freeway crossing incident when my brother and I were reminiscing about it in high school. Apparently the statute of limitations on leading an expedition across the interstate to get candy had not yet run out. Who would have thought spankings would still sting a little at age 16.

Brain Dead

noreply@blogger.com (Artie) — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 01:20:00 +0000

By the year AD 2578 we all will be brain dead. Let me explain.

A few points must be stated first in order to put this puzzle together. The first is that we must accept that the Bible is correct (II Timothy 3:16). For non-Christians, and sadly for some Christians, this may be a big one. In doing so we can put together all the important events, dates and ages of people mentioned and come up with an actual year of Adam’s birth. Depending on who is doing the investigating most researchers come up with a date between 4000 BC and 4100 BC.

Of course you can always believe that the Bible is completely false... Good luck with that.

The second point is that man was created in God’s own image (Genesis 1:27). Adam, being the first man, was physically the most perfect man ever because after Adam and Eve sin entered the world.. He was created in perfect health and to quite possibly to never die (Romans 5:12)… he must have looked nothing like me I would imagine. Adam was created before there were any diseases, birth defects, DNA mutations and a plethora of other illnesses that could degrade the human body. Adam and Eve were the only humans that were physically the exact way God designed humans. This leads me to believe that Adam most likely was able to use entire brain to the utmost of God’s design. To state it plainly, Adam must have been brilliant.

Ok... maybe not brilliant.

Since Adam was created physically perfect his DNA must have been also perfect. DNA now in 2010 is imperfect. All someone has to do is look at all the genetic disorders to see that DNA is not what it used to be. We can hardly get people to live over a hundred now if they’re lucky. It is so badly degraded that if the population isn’t big enough or the distance in the family tree isn’t great enough birth defects start to appear. Today if you took two people and started a new population with their children and their children’s children after a few generations there would be some major genetic abnormalities. This was never the case in Adam’s time. Adam’s children ended up marrying their sisters and his grand children married their sisters or first cousins. Gross and disgusting, yes, but it worked.

Inbreeding... Just say NO.

According to Albert Einstein, circa 1920, the average person only uses around 10% of their brain and if they could use the other 90% “they could become savants who remember π to the twenty-thousandth decimal place.” Now today many neurologists would disagree with Einstein as many believe today that we use all of our brain, but not at the same time. Of course these are the same scientists that brought us the grand Theory of Evolution so take it with a grain of salt.

This is photographic evidence that we are not evolving but in fact getting dumber.

So using simple math we can see that around 4000 BC to 4100 BC man’s brain was humming at full power and now, if we believe Einstein, we are only firing on 10% power. With that knowledge we can extrapolate the brain decline out and discover that at the earliest we could be down to 0% brain power by the year AD 2578.

How much brain power do you have left?

Now that is assuming we can still operate at anything lower than 5% brain power. I imagine that around that time we will lose the power to tie our shoes. At around 4% brain power we will be saying things like, “Ogg like rock” and “Me like girl.” When we get down to around 3% we may just be drooling on ourselves. I can’t imagine we will be able to breed after that, although if I know us men… we will figure it out.

Your brain in 200 years, "I'm givin' her all she got! She can't take no more!"

This means that my great, great, great, great, great, great grandchildren will be morons. So as I see it Jesus better come back within the next two hundred years or we may have deteriorated so much that there may not be anything to come back to.

The Tan That Was No More

noreply@blogger.com (Artie) — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 23:49:00 +0000

I am a recovering sun worshiper. There was a time when spring rolled around that I would layout without any sunscreen so that I could get my first burn of the season over with and lay the solid foundation for a beautiful tan. I would at times use suntan lotion with an SPF of 4, yes I said 4, so I wouldn’t get too red. A minor burn was a small price to pay for a gorgeous tan.

Remember to hydrate after you are in the sun.

Once I had my base tan down it was very easy to get a great tan for the summer as I have quite a bit of Spanish blood in my pedigree which yields nice skin for tanning. My friends and I would get together to compare tans. I would always win. I was quite proud of my tanness. That’s when I was reminded of the old biblical saying, “Pride comes before the fall.”

I say I am a recovering sun worshiper because in the fall of 2003 I had a mole that started to tingle and itch. I took a trip to the dermatologist who unfortunately informed me that I had a melanoma… skin cancer… The big C. Of course I, being a sun worshiper at the time, had no knowledge about melanomas so when the doctor asked me to make an appointment in the next day or two to come in and get it removed I told him I was booked up for two weeks. I scheduled an appointment 17 days out.

This woman has a nice tan.

Once I arrived home I figured I should look on the internet and find out what this melanoma thing I had was… because if you want to know about serious life and death issues you turn to the internet. I was dialing the phone number to the doctor’s office three minutes later with a look of terror on my face like an old woman who just discovered the corner market is out of Depends. I was so flustered I misdialed and couldn’t figure out why my doctor’s receptionist spoke Russian.

Who knew you could die from being in the sun! They really should tell people.

The next day I was in the doctor’s office getting my finger operated on. They took a huge chunk out of my pinkie finger and then sewed me back up. I didn’t have enough flesh left on that finger to allow it to bend for months so I looked very pompous when I drank anything as my pinkie stuck out. It actually looked like someone had sewn my finger back on. It was quite disgusting. I love it.

SPF 100? This stuff will make you whiter.

I often tell my wife that I want to participate in the Cancer Survivor walks. I just imagine a woman who had an entire breast removed or a man who had a wife die of cancer asks me what I had I can say, “I had an itchy mole. They gave me a local on my pinkie… it was rough. I have a… *cough*… scar.” My wife doesn’t think it is a good idea. I think they must have a ranking system on those walks; breast cancer and other life threatening cancers in the front followed by cancers that you probably gave to yourself, like lung cancer, and then skin cancer and people who thought they had cancer once in the back.

I could just get a fake tan like these two gentlemen. No one would ever know.

I miss my tan. Of course I am not as white as my wife. I often wear sunglasses around her not necessarily for the sun, but the glare off her skin. I actually thought she was wearing white nylons one time… she wasn’t. Now that I say that, guess which one of us will not have age spots, wrinkles and skin cancer. Yep. My wife.

In a few years I will need to start bathing in this stuff.

In a recent development I have discovered this creamy substance called sunscreen. Apparently you rub it on your body and it keeps you white. As I type this out with my pasty white fingers I remember how blessed I am that they only had to take a hunk out of my finger and it did not spread to the rest of my body. This story could have ended so much different. God is good.

The First Diaper Change

noreply@blogger.com (Artie) — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 00:50:00 +0000

It was about seven hours, if I remember right, after the birth of our first child when my beautiful wife noticed that our new bundle of joy had made his first little poopie. She had just underwent a Caesarean section so she was in no shape to change the little poopie so I took my new son and places him on the hospital’s changing table. My cute little baby boy looked up at me with only one eye open like poopie little pirate.

Yarrr! Change me diaper!

As I unfastened the sides of the miniature diaper… Now let me pause for a moment. The people who call what babies do when they are born “poopie” are liars. Poopie is a cute word that implies tiny cute poops but what comes out of a newborn baby is nothing like what the name alludes to. The medical field calls it meconium. It is a thick, black tar-like substance that is clingier than a lonely guy at a singles bar. Anyway… back to the story.

Are you sure you don't want to give me your number? My mom says I'm a real catch.

As I unfastened the sides of the diaper I quickly noticed that my baby’s diaper looked like BP had been there first. What I was looking at was something that was created in the furthest depths of hell and somehow crawled out of my child’s rear-end. It gurgled and I am quite sure I heard it say, “I have come for you.”

Above: Artist's Rendition of what was seen.

At this moment in time I quickly realized that no one has taught me how to change a diaper. I looked over at my wife who apparently had ample enough energy to get the camera and was taking snapshots of the situation at hand, laughing the entire time. She advised me to go get the nurse.

I raced out of the room to the nurse’s station and quickly alerted them there was an emergency in the room. The four nurses sprang into action and with stethoscopes flying they ran down the hall to our room. It was like a scene from ER as they darted into the room one at a time and quickly huddled around my wife who was just lying on the bed smiling and pointing at the baby. The four of them swung around and I saw their eyebrows rise as they took in the whole scene; a panicked father standing next to his naked newborn son who had kicked black snot all over himself. I must admit it wasn’t one of my finest moments.

I have learned that certain equipment is needed for this type of endeavour.

There was quite a bit of eye rolling as three of them left the room. One nurse had mercy on me and stayed to clean up the boy and put a new diaper on him, all the while lecturing me on how “we do not leave a newborn baby alone on the changing table.” She apparently did not understand the full scope of the situation. After she finished cleaning the baby, the changing table, the wall, floor and parts of me she walked out of the room shaking her head.

The only thing worst than an eye roll head shake is a facepalm.

Once the nurse had left I turned to see my wife giggling happily with camera in hand. The poor thing must have been sitting on the morphine button.

By the way, if you are wondering what happened to the pictures of this event… boy… I just don’t know…

My Trip to In-N-Out Burger

noreply@blogger.com (Artie) — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 03:42:00 +0000

My wife is a very caring, thoughtful and loving woman. She is so thoughtful that when it came time for our family vacation she took the time to look online to see if there were any In-N-Out Burgers in the area near our destination (Portland, OR). Let me explain why that is so thoughtful.

I have the best wife ever!

One thing you need to know about me is the fact that I love cheeseburgers. Now, when I say that I love cheeseburgers, I mean that they are the greatest food ever created. I have a theory that the manna that God provided to the Israelites to sustain them for forty years of wandering the desert was in fact cheeseburgers. This may be in part why, by the end of the forty years, none of the original Israelites were alive to enter the Promised Land.

Thank you God for the cheeseburgers!

Secondly, In-N-Out Burger is the greatest burger chain in the United States, and dare I say, the world. So to anyone who loves cheeseburgers In-N-Out Burger is like the mother ship calling you home. This is why it was so thoughtful when my wife took time to look it up for me. Not only did she look it up, but she found one in Salem, OR and another in Olympia, WA.

God bless America!

For the next three weeks I salivated every time I thought of that delicious double-doubswe… sorry, my finger slipped from the drool. Finally the day came. On the third day of our vacation I woke up to a beautiful partly cloudy day and decided to skip breakfast, so I would have more room for cheeseburgers, loaded up the family and drove three hours to the nearest In-N-Out Burger which happened to be in Olympia, WA. Don’t judge me. A man has to have a good cheeseburger!

Anyway, back to the story. When we finally arrived in Olympia and I pulled out my Blackberry to find the restaurants in the area and almost dropped it because I was so hungry. Oddly enough I could not find any In-N-Out Burgers in the area. Frustrated I called the In-N-Out corporate office, don’t ask me how I have that number on my phone, and asked where the nearest restaurant was. Two states away!

Why God why?!?

I slowly hung up the phone and turned to my beautiful wife, who I could hardly see now because apparently my body was now eating my eyeballs for sustenance and calmly asked her where she got the idea that there was an In-N-Out Burger in Olympia. She turned to me with a worried look and said that there was a map on the website that had stars over those cities.

Hey look! There's also an In-N-Out Burger in Boise and Sacramento.

Even in my now half starved state I started to put the pieces together. Stars on the map. Salem is the capital of Oregon. Olympia is the capital of Washington. Stars on a map mean a capital city! Yes, she had mistaken the star marked capitals of Oregon and Washington as locations for In-N-Out Burgers.

Kaaaaaaaaaaahn!

For the next two days of our vacation the only words my wife could get out of me were, “Stars on map” and “capital city” as I laughed and talked to myself in the corner of my hotel room. When I regained my ability to make a coherent sentence I told my lovely wife that she could make it up to me by flying down to California to get me a cheeseburger. As I watch her reading her magazine I don't think she took me serious.

The Murder Interrogation

noreply@blogger.com (Artie) — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 05:52:00 +0000

Unfortunately the only thing on television these days are “reality shows” and “cop dramas” so I usually find myself watching the latter as “reality shows” make my brain feel like it’s melting. In doing so I have found many things that irritate me about these shows. Let me tell you about one of these irritants.

"You cannot have a conversation about irritants with out me!"

Why is it that when the detectives come to question someone regarding a murder that person doesn’t even stop what they are doing as they talk to law enforcement? They, instead, keep on doing what ever they are doing while talking to the police as if a detective questioning them about a murder is an everyday occurrence.

I was watching Law & Order the other day and the two detectives walked into a local flower shop to question the owner regarding a murder. Murder mind you! So what does that owner do? She keeps putting flower arrangements together while she answers the questions of our two detectives.

As if I"m going to be fixing flowers with these two men interrogating me.

Yes, I said men.

Now, let me tell you that when a police detective walks into your place of employment and ask to question you regarding a murder, doing your job will not be on your mind. The only thing that goes through your brain, after you discover that you have soiled yourself, is the list of all the bad things you have done since the age of five. “They must have found out about the quarter I took from Mikey Nigrelli’s house when I was five!”

I may or may not have eaten the brownie, officer.

This is not just an isolated incident. This is the same scene that plays out in almost every single television show and movie I have ever seen that has a scene where a police officer or detective who goes to a place of employment to question someone. I challenge you to watch for it next time you see this scene in any “cop drama.”

Speaking of watching out... watch out for this news anchor.

Last night I was watching a French crime thriller called The Crimson Rivers and the detective goes to question an ophthalmologist regarding a murder. The doctor proceeds to change his clothes and restock some medical supplies while being questioned. Really? Because the last time I was talked to by a police detective I may or may not have recited the Pledge of Allegiance.

Those coppers will never find out my true identity!

Nothing about the task you were doing before the police walked in ever enters your mind when you are being questioned for murder. Trust me! I know! Wait… I’ve said too much… Where is the backspace key?

An Unpleasant Surprise

noreply@blogger.com (Artie) — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 05:11:00 +0000

During college I paid the bills by working at the “Happiest Place on Earth”, otherwise known as Disneyland.

One evening I received a call from the Matterhorn attraction that there was a male in a hot pink miniskirt wearing nothing underneath. How did they know, you may be asking yourself? Because upon sitting in a Matterhorn bobsled you must spread your legs to allow another person to sit between them as you ride tandem. This allowed for a rather unpleasant view for all those waiting in line.

Oh the humanity!

As I arrived at I saw two males, one dressed in the hot pink miniskirt in question, and a rather striking female that was accompanying them. Pink miniskirt was a taller than average male with an excess of body hair. Now, when I say excess I am not talking about your run of the mill excess, I mean Enron CEO bonus excess. It was like walking up to a gorilla in drag accompanied by his two handlers.

Does this skirt hide my love handles Morty?

I walked up to Pink Miniskirt and advised him that he had to have underwear on if he wanted to continue his evening in the park. He then proceeded to inform me that he did not have any underwear on his person, but did have a pair of pink hot pants in his purse. What kind of logic is this? “I’m going to a place full of small children and families, what should I bring? Underwear? No. Pink hot pants? YES!”

May God have mercy on the stupid.

Of course I couldn’t help but picture this Sasquatch in hot pants and spent the next few moments furiously trying to scrub my minds eye out. When I regained my composure, I asked him to follow me to the nearest restroom where he could change. When I arrived at the men’s restroom I checked to make sure no one was inside and told him he could go in.

This would have been useful in this particular situation.

Pink miniskirt went into the restroom followed by his male companion but then the female tried to go in as well. I put my arm out and told her that she was not allowed in. It was then that this beautiful woman turned to me and in a deep baritone voice said, “Why not?”

This is the lead singer for Tokio Hotel. His name is Bill.

I don’t remember anything after that. I all I heard in my head was “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” (at least I hope it was in my head) followed by a trip to the break room to call my then girlfriend, now my wife, to reaffirm my manhood. Reality as I knew it, where men looked like men, collapsed around like a fat man crossing the finish line at 1k fun run. It felt like a scene out of the Crying Game but no one was yelling “CUT!

To this day I still flinch when I see a hot pink miniskirt.

The Pool Party I Don't Remember

noreply@blogger.com (Artie) — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 06:00:00 +0000

Almost every person alive over the age of 21 has tasted alcohol. Some are responsible with the controversial substance and will drink in moderation while others have never heard of that concept and drink until they are French kissing the toilet. Let me tell you about the second, and last, time I was drunk… I was 4 years old. I will tell you the first occasion another time.

Ah, the good ol' days.

My parents had taken my brother and myself to their friend’s house for a summer barbeque. We always loved going over to their house because they had a pool and, as we all know, a pool is a kid magnet. I have many memories of that pool; unfortunately most of them involve me urinating in said pool.

As the afternoon turned to evening everyone started to migrate inside to digest and talk about disco, or what ever adults talked about in the 70s. I, on the other hand, decided to go back outside and look at the pool. Where were my parents here?!?

They had some great clothes back then.

While I was out admiring the pool and wondering why I was not in it, I apparently got thirsty. I say apparently because I do not remember any of this due to the whole being drunk thing. This is the moment where I noticed there were glasses partially filled with many varieties of alcohol left around the pool. Needless to say I got to work.

My brother and myself enjoying a few cold ones.

It was my brother that first noticed something was amiss with my behavior. My parents noticed him standing at the sliding glass door giggling while he watched me. What was I doing you may be asking? I was running around in circles naked until I fell over onto my back where I would watch the clouds. Then I would get back up and start the running in circles again. The cycle was interrupted by a group of adults huddling around me smelling my breath.

I was a lush back then.

Now a days I have matured enough where I do not drink alcohol to the point of excess. At the age of 4 you cannot expect me to have that kind of willpower. Of course my wife still gets upset at me when I run around naked in the back yard until I fall over and watch the clouds. She made me put up a fence.

XCBPGTR9EKEE

The Agreement

noreply@blogger.com (Artie) — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 05:58:00 +0000

There is an unwritten rule between man and dog; man leaves the window down so that dogs can stick their heads out of it and in return dogs do not jump out. This has been the rule for decades, since man first put windows on cars. It is quite possible that Henry Ford, himself, bartered this agreement with the canines. Allow me to share with you a story about this rule.

The historic agreement was sealed with a pawshake.

Pictured above from left to right: Lassie, Henry Ford.

I received a coupon for a $19.99 grooming in the mail and decided to bring my St. Bernard down there to take advantage of this offer. As I picked up Boyd, my dog, I was informed that my dog was so big that I had to pay an extra $10 for the grooming. This is odd because I didn’t read anywhere in the fine print of the coupon that the $19.99 only applied to average size dogs. Anyway, back to the story.

The proper position for a dog traveling in a car.

Like a good owner I loaded up Boyd into the back seat of the car, rolled down the windows so he could enjoy the cool breeze and drove off down the long dirt road the groomer lived on. At approximately fifty feet from the groomer’s house Boyd jumped out of the window and rolled four times before coming to a stop.

I slammed on the breaks and jumped out of the car only to see the dog standing there covered in dirt with a look on his face that said, “Why would you roll the window down so I could jump out? Was this some kind of trick?”

Of course it could have been an act of rebellion.

Now, you can ask my wife, I’m a rather calm and laid back guy. I rarely get upset and I keep my cool when all others loose theirs (I do work at 911), but at this moment in time, as I stood there holding my dog’s ears… I lost it. “We have an agreement! A simple understanding between man and dog! I roll down the window and you don’t jump out! It’s a binding contract!” I went on for what seemed like fifteen minutes as car after car drove by. I paced back and forth lecturing him on the proper back seat conduct of a canine and how he broke the trust I had placed in him. Boyd, on the other hand, just sat in the road and watched me with his tongue hanging out.

Is he done yet? I have to lick myself.

As I drove home, with the windows rolled up, I remember thinking, “My dog, apparently, did not attend the particular canine meeting where that rule was discussed.” There was a lot of grumbling.

For those of you wondering to yourself if the dog was harmed at all the answer is no. He did walk in circles for a few days but for the most part he’s fine.

My Air Conditioner Condition: Finale

noreply@blogger.com (Artie) — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 05:50:00 +0000

There is moment in certain people’s lives when they see a miracle from God Himself and it changes their lives forever. For Moses it was the burning bush. For Saul it was the road to Emmaus. For me it was my living room for today I bought a new air conditioner. And when I say “I”… I mean “my wife.” She is stronger than she looks.

My wife and I going to a Super Bowl party. She is like a pack mule that one.

As I was wondering what all the extra parts were for after the installation I decided to turn the unit on. Immediately the cool air blew over my face I saw a bright light come from behind the air conditioner. Then a white dove descended down from heaven and landed on the air conditioner unit with an olive branch grasped delicately in its mouth and I heard a voice from heaven say, “It is good.”

Needless to say I was quite suprised.

I stood there in awe while the cool gentle wind blew through my hair (back hair of course… I’m bald) amazed at the wonder sign I had been shown. It seems like I have been waiting for months for this unit and finally it's here. It truly is a glorious occasion.

Of course I am not as excited as Hillary is.

Of course my wife tells a different story. She says the sun setting in the window behind the air conditioner blinded me when I opened the faux wood blinds and apparently while I was blinded my St. Bernard came up to investigate the cool breeze and had a small weed stuck to the drool on his face. This is the moment my wife walked in, saw the unit was on and said, “Does it feel good?”

Thats a good story honey.

Likely story! As if anyone is going to believe her story.