Mattress Police

I seem to be on hiatus

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 13:33:00 GMT

The good news is that I'm healthy. The bad news, from your perspective, is that I seem to have stopped blogging. I'm not sure why. Part of it is that I've been focusing on revising the beginning of my novel, Mercury Falls. Truth be told, I was never really happy with the opening chapters. I wrote the first three chapters before I had any idea where the book was going, and then once I got an idea of where things were headed, I just kept writing until I got to the end. But then I still had these shaky first three chapters that seemed to be both integral to the plot and mismatched in tone with the rest of the book. I couldn't remove them without screwing up the plot, but they didn't make a very good introduction to the book either.

Anyway, I believe I have finally come up with a solution. I made some revisions to the opening chapters that I think have vastly improved the book. At this point I think Mercury Falls is about as good as I can possibly make it. If you enjoy this blog, you're definitely going to like Mercury Falls. There are several chapters that I think are as good or better than anything I've posted here and, just as importantly, I believe the book as a whole is more than the sum of its parts. The story arc came together very nicely.

I'm going to start sending the revised version to agents soon; if I don't get any bites by the end of the summer I'll probably just self-publish the thing. I also wanted to say thanks to everybody who has signed up for the interest list and/or displayed the Mercury Falls banner on your blog. 318 people have signed up already! I'm hoping that will carry some weight once I start querying agents again. If you haven't signed up yet, please do. You're under no obligation to buy the book, and I won't spam you or anything (I think I've sent exactly one update to the list so far). You can also become a fan of Mercury Falls on Facebook.

I'm not sure what's in store for Mattress Police. I started this blog on a whim, with the lowest of expectations, as a place where I could post the crazy random stuff that goes through my head. I find that lately, however, I have less and less funny random stuff going on there that I care to post. I'm not sure if that's a temporary effect of channeling my randomness toward Mercury Falls or if it's a more permanent condition. In any case, I wouldn't expect much in the way of posts for a few weeks.

Don't worry, I won't stop writing. Besides Mercury Falls, I've been toying with the idea of a sequel to Antisocial Commentary and/or a semi-autobiographical book to be titled Not Living Up to My Potential. Oh, and some ideas for a sequel to Mercury Falls have already started to scratch at the rear screen door of my mind as well.

For the occasional random bit of nonsense you can also follow me on Twitter or befriendificate me on Facebook. Oh, and did I mention that you should sign up for the Mercury Falls interest list to be updated about the status of my novel?

Thanks again to all of you who have supported this blog (and me) over the past two+ years. It's been great "meeting" many of you, and you've been a continual source of encouragement and gratification for me.

Diesel out, for now.

Oh, hey there! How's it going?

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 19:08:00 GMT

Yeah, so after mostly getting over my inexplicable hand injury, I developed a slightly more explicable back injury that caused me to walk stooped over like an old man for three days and then started to wane just as I developed a bad headache that then turned into some kind of sinus thing and a fever and has now left behind only a nagging cough and some impressive chunks of green mucus.

In other words, I'm kind of wiped out. I'm probably going to need a few more days to come up with anything halfway intelligent to post.

In the meantime, sign up for the Mercury Falls interest list two or three more times.

MP Mailbag

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 23:00:00 GMT

My gopher post got quite a reaction.

Scott Oglesby commented on my observation that establishing a perimiter never seems to do any good on '24':

You bring up an interesting point; I don?t think that I?ve ever seen a perimeter work in television or movies. Sometimes it comes close, but it never works. As a matter of fact, the phrase ?establish a perimeter? should now be used exclusively as slang for failure. IE; ?Wow Mike, you really ?established a perimeter? with the ladies at the club last night!? Or, ?How?s Karen been doing with her opiate withdrawal?? To which the reply is, ?Oh man, she?s ?established a perimeter? around the heroin again.?

As for the gophers, maybe you could get them to follow Chevy Chase?s career. They might not die, but at least you?ll never hear from them again!

Stickman said:

If gophers look at gopher porn, do they get gopher wood?

How's that for an obscure Bible reference? Maybe you can build an ark for when California falls into the Pacific!

(I was going to explain the reference, but then I thought, "Hell, why start now?")

Several people have commented on the odd word verification words that show up on my commenting app.

For example, rita said:

Do you have anything to do with chosing the word verification thingy? Because I swear, it was CLITORIS.

And Sage asked:

Why is my word verification "Reagan?"

So yes, in answer to your questions, I came up with all the words myself (since I built the commenting app). Other possibilities include "Prozac", "Huey" and "Boobs". These are a few of my favorite things....

Regarding my Phantom Zone post, Sparrow said...

You should really think about writing a humorous novel. As a powerhouse literary agent, I can tell you that it would be rejected far slower than some of the other stuff I get in.

Thanks, Sparrow! I look forward to the drawn out, painfully slow rejection process your agency offers!

Finally, I have to quote an email I got from someone trying to join Humor-Blogs.com. I usually try to be helpful and professional when dealing with questions people have about H-B, but it drives me nuts when people send me emails without any detail at all that might help me solve the problem they are having. This most recent email reads, in its entirety:

I have tried to join 5 times but the site won't let me

Ooookay. Are you getting an error message? Did you get the same error message 5 times in a row, or are you getting a variety of different messages? Is it telling you why you can't join? Are you trying to create a user account or add a blog, or both? If the latter, what's the name or URL of your blog? What exactly are you expecting me to do with "the site won't let me join"?

So I responded,

Well, that's all the information I need to solve the problem. I have pressed the magic fix-it button. Please try again.

I haven't heard back from him yet, so I'm assuming the magic fix-it button worked.

Jor-El slammed for use of Phantom Zone to house enemy combatants

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 20:14:00 GMT

Bar-Ob promises "swift closure" of extradimensional prison.

KRYPTONOPOLIS - Ratcheting up the rhetoric in the race for Supreme Leader of Krypton, Demokryptic candidate Bar-Ob has promised to "close once and for all" the controversial extradimensional prison known as the Phantom Zone.

"How can we hold ourselves up as a model for other planets, such as... well, the only one I know of is Earth," said Bar-Ob, "while maintaining an illegal prison in a dimension just 90 miles outside our own space-time continuum? It's unconscionable."

A spokesperson for Jor-El, the scientist who discovered the Phantom Zone, called Bar-Ob's promises "irresponsible and unrealistic." ?Jor-El, known for his controversial claim that the core of Krypton is radioactive and due to explode "any day now," is running as the Republiton candidate for Supreme Leader.?

Demokrypts have accused Jor-El of "fear-mongering." ?Bar-Ob recently noted recently that "Every time Jor-El's polls are down, they bump up the Planetary Core Explosion Threat Level." ?

Jor-El's spokespersons have denied any connection between the campaign and the PCECTL, pronounced puh-KEK-tul. They countered the Demokrypt accusations with allegations that Bar-Ob is pandering to voters. ?"Where is Bar-Ob going to put these dangerous criminals when he closes the Phantom Zone? Where does he suggest housing the likes of General Zod and Doctor Xadu? All this planet needs is another Wil-Hor debacle."

Jor-El has also argued that Bar-Ob lacks the interstellar experience to be Supreme Leader of Krypton. ?"It's frankly embarrassing that Bar-Ob cannot name a single alien planet other than Earth. What about the lava world of Moo-Zarak-Ghukkenstemph? ?What about the ice planet Sha-hah-aaahanssstugl? ?I mean, how can one lead Krypton into the 49th century when one is ignorant of the giant snow-worms of Sha-hah-aaahanssstugl?"

In response, Bar-Ob accused the Republitons of "clouding the issue" and "making up planets." ?He called the current administration's record regarding the Phantom Zone "shameful," claiming that inmates of the extradimensional prison were routinely denied food and water for "centuries at a time."

Jor-El pointed?to?these?accusations?as?further?evidence?that?Bar-Ob?lacks?the?experience?needed?to?be?Supreme?Leader. ?Jor-El claimed that "Anyone who knows anything about the Phantom Zone knows that its occupants do not age or require sustenance. ?They reside in a featureless existence from which they can observe, but cannot interact with, the regular universe; furthermore, they are?telepathic?and mutually insubstantial."

In response to these statements, Bar-Ob said, "I call B.S. on the 'telepathic and mutually insubstantial' stuff."

Jor-El later admitted that he had no idea what that phrase meant, and was simply repeating something he had found on Kryptopedia.

I Can't Gopher That (No Can Do)

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 20:58:00 GMT

About six years ago, my wife and I purchased ten acres of farmland just outside of Ripon, California. ?Eight acres of the property are still orchard, while the front two acres serve as home to my wife and me, our two children, my father-in-law, and a varying number of gophers.

If you're one of those people who can't stand the thought of any living creature -- no matter how ugly and annoying -- being harmed, I'd suggest you stop reading here, because the fact is that gophers are evil creatures that deserve to die a painful, horrifying death. ?I feel nothing but joy when I club a gopher over the head with a shovel and then toss his lifeless carcass into the orchard as a warning to the other gophers. ?I've even been known, while in the throes of a gopher-killing frenzy, to cackle evilly and make dire but nonsensical pronouncements such as, "Oh, I'm AFRAID the deflector shield will be QUITE operational when your friends arrive...."

Here's a second disclaimer, before I go any further: the only thing worse than being terrorized by gophers is to have one's incessant whining about said gophers constantly being met with tired, predictable references to Caddyshack. PLEASE STOP, people. That movie is funny to me in the same way that M*A*S*H is funny to someone who lost all four limbs to a wise-cracking alcoholic surgeon in the Korean War. ?Oh that irrepressible Hawkeye and his lack of attention to proper hygiene!

My brother once asked me to post a video of me trying to kill a gopher to see if I'm funnier than Bill Murray. I told him that I once shot such a video, but that it was "more horrific than funny, like Caddyshack 2." (it consisted mainly of me kicking the gopher until I got bored and then whacking it with a shovel). He suggested that the gophers wouldn't be as much of a problem if I didn't insist on growing a golf course in my backyard. ?He's got a point -- I probably don't need 50,000 square feet of lawn. ?But here's the problem: it's not like I can say to the gophers, "Hey, I decided I only need 25,000 square feet of lawn, so you guys can keep the other half." ?I mean, I could say it, but the gophers wouldn't listen. ?You see, gophers are greedy, mean-spirited bastards who exist primarily to spite me. ?They wouldn't be content with their half of the lawn. ?They'd use it as a training ground for new cadets to be sent out en masse to enemy territory. Trust me, I've tried establishing a perimeter like they do on 24, but so far it's worked, well, about as well as it does on 24.* F---ing Tony Almeida.

Big deal, you say. So they dig a few holes in your yard. No. They dig a gigantic network of tunnels under my yard. It's like the freaking Paris Metro down there, but with gophers instead of Frogs -- a marginal improvement, at best. ?I've had three garden hoses going for an hour in one of those holes, and the water never comes out. ?I'm pretty sure there are Fremen in caverns down there nodding with approval.** And the tunnels eventually collapse, and the gophers dig more tunnels, and those collapse, and on and on, until the ground is more wildly uneven than a Jim Carrey movie. ?There are areas of my property that are so riddled with mounds of dirt and collapsed tunnels that I have to down a handful of Dramamine before my annual weed-mowing on the riding mower.

And that's not all. ?They also eat your plants. ?I have actually seen entire plants sucked underground like that girl at the beginning of Jaws. ?And they know, they somehow KNOW which plants you'd really they rather not eat, and they specifically target them. ?A gopher will tunnel under a whole bed of carrots or begonias just to chew up the roots of that Japanese Maple that you've been watching grow to the perfect size over the past sixteen years. Because they are EVIL.

Recently I killed a gopher that had been tunneling under the foundation of my house. ?You might ask why a gopher would tunnel under my house. ?The answer is simple: because it is trying to destroy my house. ?There's nothing a gopher might possibly be interested in under my house. ?There's no food or water, or, uh... gopher porn, or whatever else gophers surf the web searching for.*** ?The only reason for a gopher to be under my house is to set C4 charges under my house. ?EVIL.

So, given that gophers are inherently evil, there is only one appropriate response: KILL THEM ALL. Recently I was browsing a message board, looking for suggestions on how to kill gophers. Nestled amongst opinions on the relative merits of traps, poisons, F&W (flooding and whacking), I found this little treatise:

I am working at an organic school garden and have noticed some gopher mounds near our plants. I came to garden forums to see what solutions were available to me. My predecessor at the garden used quick death traps which I have witnessed in action. Although effective, I felt it was a waste of life, considering I did not make any use of the dead gopher. I am also not completely in relationship to gopher ecology. There is a suburban neighborhood around the garden, as well as some open space in which the soil has been destroyed for fire protection by discing. There are no plants left alive in these zones really. So how am I contributing to the demise of the gopher population (which are major contributors to a healthy ecology in the region) by killing them? These questions would probably at least require a year of observation to get at, and I'm concerned about the annuals I have planted for this season.?

The posts I have read on this subject at this forum have left me unsettled. I read mostly war metaphors, dualistic and violent, creating an enemy "other" which is put into deragaotry language and creates rationalizations for small scale genocides. I do not think this attitude is healthy for the survival not only of the human species, but countless others.?

I may still trap the gophers but I will not hate them or demonize them. I open the forum up for further discussion on a deeper questioning of the problem of gophers.

Are you KIDDING me? How are you contributing to the demise of the gopher population by killing them? Well, if you're doing it right, you're reducing it. Which is an inherently good thing, because gophers are EVIL. There is no need to demonize them; that was taken care of by SATAN when he CREATED THEM TO TORMENT ME. Sorry for the?deragaotry language.

I still haven't found the best method for killing them. Traps work sometimes, although trapping isn't as gratifying as flooding and whacking. Attempts at asphyxiation via exhaust pipe and garden hose have thus far been unsuccessful. And to those of you who keep suggesting putting Juicy Fruit in the holes -- I'm pretty sure that was a rumor started by a couple of gophers with a taste for chewing gum. One wiseguy on the forum suggested, in response to this idea, "chewing the gum while setting traps."

Mr. Living in Harmony with Gophers may not hate them, but I do. Accuse me of using "war metaphors" if you want, but know this: it's not a metaphor. I am at war with the gophers. I will kill them all, by any means necessary. And since I seem to be making a lot of obscure pop culture references in this post, here's one more for you:

I came here to chew Juicy Fruit and kick ass. ?And I'm all out of Juicy Fruit.

*Have you noticed that no episode of 24 has ever ended with Jack Bauer saying, "Thank God we established that perimiter! Now let's all go home and get some sleep!"

**If you get this reference, you are a huge geek.

***Gophers don't actually surf the web, as they are still bitter about http becoming the de facto standard Internet protocol. ?Wow, what is up with the obscure references in this post?

Congrats, Crummy Joel!

Fri, 29 May 2009 15:08:00 GMT

Crummy Joel took top honors this week. ?I think that makes what, five wins for Joel? ?Time to update my sidebar.

Raymond Betancourt came in second, with:

"Maybe?you?didn't?hear?me...I?said?my?kid?is?selling?candy?for?her

school.?How?many?boxes?can?I?put?you?down?for?

And?Aaron?took?third,?with:

I'm?not?going?to?ask?you?again:?"Turn?back?into?that?hot?girl!"

In?case?you?don't?get?Joel's?caption,?I've?written?a?novel,?see.??It's?called?

Mercury?Falls.??I've?been?trying?to?find?an?agent?to?represent?it.??Read?

more?here. Make sure you sign up for the Mercury Falls interest list while you're over there.

Sorry for being so lame this week. ?Somehow I injured my hand last week and it's made typing rather difficult. ?It's also made me a little grumpy, which makes it hard to be funny. ?Well, watching me try to put on my socks probably would have been pretty funny, but as you can imagine, trying to capture that on camera wouldn't have made the task any easier.

You might argue that even with one hand tied behind my back, I'm still funnier than 99% of the bloggers out there, and you'd be right. ?For example, I can type this without using my right hand at all:

Fred was a fat retard

Damn, you kill me, Lefty.

Still, I couldn't help but feel handicapped by my inability to use such words as "poon" and "hiny."

Anway, both of my hands will, with any luck, be back with a poonariffic post on Monday.

Have a swell weekend!

Vote!

Tue, 26 May 2009 18:13:00 GMT

CrummyJoel?said...

"I WANT THE NAMES OF EVERY F*CKING LITERARY AGENT YOU KNOW!!!"

SushiBoy?said...

Diesel rants,? "That's the last time you'll ever get in the way of my eff'ing shot, stupid robot of a lighting technician."

Shelley?said...

"Now get up and start digging those trenches, punk!"

Aaron?said...

I'm not going to ask you again: "Turn back into that hot girl!"

Peeved Guy?said...

For the last time... I AM NOT interested in buying a copy of?The Watchtower.

MWSwall?said...

I know what you're thinking. "Did he fire thirty shots or only twenty-seven?" Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is a M16A2, the most powerful assault rifle in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?

Raymond Betancourt?said...

"Maybe you didn't hear me...I said my kid is selling candy for her school. How many boxes can I put you down for?

Brad?said...

Diesel had just about had enough of those thousands of Verizon guys following him around.

J.?said...

"Tell me again how you thought I was a quail, Dick. Go on. Tell me!"?

The Mind of Willson?said...

Hold still dude.? You got shit on your face,? just let me get it real quick.

Online Surveys?&?Market Research

I'm up at the Book Roast blog today!

Tue, 26 May 2009 07:28:00 GMT

Mercury Falls is being featured over at the Book Roast blog?today! Read an excerpt and leave a comment for a chance to win a $15 Amazon gift certificate. And make sure to sign up for the Mercury Falls interest list when you're done.

I inexplicably injured my middle finger a few days ago, so you may not hear much more from me this week, because I'm trying not to use it. At the very least, I will be avoiding words with the letters K, I and M in them. Sorry, Kim!

I'll post the caption contest finalists later today.

Diesel out.

Caption Contest: Terminator: Salvation

Fri, 22 May 2009 15:55:00 GMT

You know the rules. Submit your captions in the comments. I'll post the best ten in a poll on Tuesday. Have a swell weekend!

Retarded Search Terms!

Wed, 20 May 2009 15:25:00 GMT

It must be about time for a post that doesn't require much effort on my part. That's right, it's time for a Google Analytics search term post!

Here?are?some?of?the?phrases?that?people?have?used?to?get?to?this?site?over

the?past?month:

funny?monkey?videos

You've come to the right place!

anal?probing

Once again, bingo!

10?thousand?dollar?mattress

Have I mentioned lately that sponsors can contact me at diesel -at- mattresspolice.com regarding my rates?

average?human?swallows?spiders

(opens envelope) Name three stupid animals in order from largest to smallest.

can?i?join?the?police?if?i'm?fat

Well... just how fat are you planning on getting?

can?you?urine?while?erecte

Yes, but not while I'm also trying to type.

contact?number?of?god?matress

Let?me?get?this?straight.?You're?trying?to?get?a?hold?of?God's?mattress? You Catholics are wacky.

cool?stuff?to?do?with?a?mattress

Well, there's sleep. That's pretty cool. Let's see here... build a fort, maybe? There?was?something?else,?but?I?can't?quite?think?of?it.

knob?jobs

Oh,?I?remember?now.

cost of?rutherfordium?per?gram

Ok, first of all, rutherfordium is a made-up spam element. But if it did exist, it would have a half-life of 80 minutes, so I hope the seller offers priority shipping.?

dig?trench?time

Boy, you've come to the wrong place if you want an accurate benchmark for that.

don't?say?retard?book

retard book retard book retard book!

how?was?jesus?bornis?there?a?hell

The short answer to your question is magicyes.

how?to?build?a?continuity?tester?for?mobile?homes

Don't even try it! You need special equipment! Like batteries, a light bulb, and a piece of aluminum foil. Special equipment!

porn?vagina?like?a?mattres

Easy, big fella. Take a deep breath and try again.

wristwatch?caught?in?lawn?mower

...typing with one hand... please send help...

you?tube?help?me?buying?a?mattress

...and?please?watch?over?grandma,?amen.

my?dream?guy

Sorry, ladies, I'm taken.

infidelity?mattress?test

Well, you're going to need some special equipment....

Tuesday Shout-out

Tue, 19 May 2009 08:50:00 GMT

Things have been so insane at work that I haven't done one of these for a while. Sorry.

First, you guys remember Doug from Taunt Vortex, previously one of the highest-ranking blogs on Humor-Blogs.com? Well, he's put blogging on hiatus, but he has started doing standup comedy. And check it out, he's funny. I actually laughed out loud multiple times during this clip.

The camera work is a bit nauseating; I think he borrowed the camera guy from Battlestar Galactica. But it's still definitely worth watching.

I also wanted to give an update on the status of the Retarded Meme. Here are the blogs that have participated so far:

Agitprop

</a> <a href=" http:="" www.rumproast.com="" index.php="" site="" comments="" language_evolution_going_full_retard="">Rumproast

Farvel Cargo

The Economy Isn't Happening

POTPOURRI FOR $500

Life According to Candice

Wading through my stream of consciousness...

Alitloff

J-TWO-O

If I missed you, please let me know. And please feel welcome to participate in the Retarded Meme yourself, even if you haven't been formally tagged.

Finally, thanks to everyone who has signed up for the Mercury Falls interest list. 280 people have expressed their interest in Mercury Falls so far! If you haven't signed up yet, what are you waiting for? You're not under any obligation to buy anything; you're just helping me get my book published. And if you haven't added the MF banner to your site yet, well, feel free to do that as well.?

I've done some thinking (mostly during my commute, as it's the only "free" time I have lately), and I have a pretty good idea of how I'm going to tone down the awesomeness?of the first few chapters to make it more palatable to the peat moss-like brains of literary agents. I've also heard some encouraging things about self-publishing for Kindle, so if I get sick of this whole agent search process, I might just go ahead with that. ?Either way, I need and greatly appreciate your support. Thanks!

Dammit, Brad. I said NO SMILING. Now we have to take the picture again.

Mon, 18 May 2009 11:30:00 GMT

Hey Brad, I had a killer idea this weekend.

Is this that thing about the sitcom based on the Elian Gonzalez story? Because dude, that was retarded.

No, man, we're going to start a band!

What kind of band?

Sort of a soulful post-grunge-alternative-ish-but-still-radio-friendly-rock band. Think Nickelback meets Creed.

I thought Nickelback was Creed.

Check it, I've got it all the positions figured out.

'Positions'? You mean 'instruments'?

No, positions, man. I'm going to be Fauxhawk Dude. You can be LSG.

LSG?

Long-Sleeve Guy. I've been studying this shit all weekend, man. There's always a Fauxhawk Dude and a Long-Sleeve Guy.

What instrument does LSG play? Because I'm not --

I'm thinking Ed for Dorky Guy. Or maybe Dan. Anyway, Dorky Guy will be easy to fill. What I can't figure out is who's going to be PWMD.

Pants With Mutilation Dude?

Poser Wannabe Model Dude.

Oh. How about Mike?

Ooh, Mike! That's perfect. He puts product in his hair and everything.

Uh huh. So what positions does that leave open?

Well, there's Arm Tattoo Guy, and Creepy Guy Who Looks Like He Doesn't Belong in the Band....

How many people are going to be in this band anyway?

Guys. Not people. The band is all guys. You can't have a killer post-grunge alternative-ish-but-still-radio-friendly-rock band with a chick in it.

What about Evanescence?

Evanescence is a totally different genre.

Really? What makes them so different?

Dude, the lead singer is a chick.

That's what I'm saying. If we had a hot goth chick lead singer....

Brad, FOCUS. This is a guy band. Manly guys. Mean guys. Guys who look like they just threw on whatever was on the bedroom floor, globbed some product in their hair, trimmed their eyebrows and then drove to a dilapidated industrial location to stand around looking cool.

With guitars and stuff.

No, Brad. Come on. You can't take your guitar to the dilapidated industrial location.

But we're a band. Shouldn't we look like a band?

No. We should look like street punks. Well-coifed street punks. You can't look like a street punk if you're carrying a guitar.

If I had a guitar, I'd take it everywhere.

Look, do you want to be Dorky Guy? Because that's where you're headed.

Yeah, whatever. So how many guys are we talking about?

Well, keep in mind that we can double up on a lot of these things. Like, sometimes Fauxhauk Dude and Poser Wannabe Model Dude are the same dude.

Ooh, maybe I could be Long-Sleeve Guy and Arm Tattoo Guy.

Brad. Think about that for a second.

Oh, yeah, because you wouldn't be able to see the....

Right. Some combinations don't work. That's why sometimes you end up with five guys in the band. But we're not going to let that happen. Ok, I could be Jacket Guy.... Bald Guy is optional, so we'll worry about that later....

Alright, well let me know when you've got it all figured out.

Where are you going?

I'm going to go buy a sombrero.

A sombrero? What the hell, man? You can't be in a post-grunge- alternative-ish-but-still-radio-friendly-rock band if you're wearing a sombrero!

That's what I'm counting on. Later, dude.

Whatever.

[pause]

Ok, so that takes care of Stupid Hat Guy and Creepy Guy Who Looks Like He Doesn't Belong in the Band. Time to get me some arm tattoos.

Yeah, so, umm...

Fri, 15 May 2009 15:34:00 GMT

No caption contest today. Going to be working all weekend. Yay!

Hopefully I'll have time to whip up a post for Monday. Have a swell weekend.

My First Video Blog!

Wed, 13 May 2009 16:34:00 GMT

Sorry I haven't been around much lately, but I can explain.

Secret Origins of Pop Songs

Mon, 11 May 2009 03:47:00 GMT

Most of us have mixed feelings about learning the identity of the real life people who inspired popular songs. For example, it's interesting to learn that "Layla," "Wonderful Tonight" and George Harrison's "Something" were all inspired by the same woman, Pattie Boyd.?On the other hand, did we really need to know that the "Wonderland" in John Mayer's "Your Body is a Wonderland" is Jennifer Love Hewitt??

And I think I can speak for all of humanity when I beg modern science for a selective memory deletion process so that I can un-learn the fact that Alanis Morissette's rage-driven anthem "You Oughta Know" was inspired by the goofy blond guy from Full House, Dave Coulier. As if it weren't bad enough that that show spawned John Stamos and the demonic Olsen twins, now it has retroactively ruined one of the signature songs of the 90s. If it turns out that Dave Coulier secretly ghost-wrote the Star Wars prequels, I for one would like to nominate him as the Antichrist.

Our curiosity about such things has no bounds, however, and I recently did some research to determine what other unlikely people may have inspired some of our favorite songs. I was, to say the least, surprised at what I learned:

Van Morrison's bouncy love ballad "Brown Eyed Girl" was written about J. Edgar Hoover.
The Foo Fighters' "There Goes My Hero" was written by a heart-broken and hungry Dave Grohl after he accidentally left his sandwich on the crosstown bus.
The "Sharona" in "My Sharona" actually belonged to someone else entirely.
Pete Townsend wrote "Won't Get Fooled Again" after a regrettable drunken encounter with a transvestite stripper.
All of Nickelback's songs were written with those Magnetic Poetry refrigerator magnets.
In "Billy Jean," the kid was not Michael Jackson's son. He was, however, a frequent sleepover guest.
Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper" is about smoking marijuana. Record companies made them change the song title from the original "Don't Fear the Reefer."
The city in Starship's "We Built this City (on Rock and Roll)" was actually built on an aggregate of pulverized concrete and the remnants of Grace Slick's artistic respectability.
Joan Osbourne's "What if God Was One of Us" was orignally written about a guy named Todd. Joan was forced to change the lyrics minutes before entering the studio when she was informed that Todd actually was one of us.
Coldplay's "Speed of Sound" is about how fast Chris Martin can write a song once he's decided which Radiohead song to copy.

What shocking song origins have YOU heard about?

Congrats, Office Scribe!

Fri, 08 May 2009 14:55:00 GMT

The Office Scribe?wins the caption contest this time around.

Office Scribe, you may post the much coveted In Your Face Award.

Peeved guy?came second with a caption that nicely matches the idiotic look on my face.

Hey! That's deep! Did you hear how long it took to hit bottom? I'm gonna go find another rock. Any of you guys want a rock?

And?Howard Semones?came in third with:

"Heh-heh. I told you Ron Howard's integrity was down there."

Thanks for playing, everybody. Sorry I haven't been around much; got a tight deadline at work. You'll be happy to know that I'm taking some time off this weekend, though, to see this dude:

...along with these dudes:

See you on Monday!

Sock Drawer #18

Wed, 06 May 2009 05:53:00 GMT

Some of these will seem familiar to those of you following me on Twitter. That's because Twitter is actually a PORTAL TO THE FUTURE.

I was recently presented with evidence that 15 years of being married to me is affecting Mrs. Diesel's brain. I found her rummaging through the bathroom cabinets, looking for something. She said,?"Where's the... what do you call it? It's not salad dressing... suntan lotion?" ?Resistance is futile.

Those you who read my Clorox Disinfecting Wipes post will know that I have a tendency to compulsively read labels and obsess about their content. Here's another one.

Am I the only one who looks at that label and thinks, "Well, which is it, more effective or useless?"?

Yes, I can tell there's a space there, but if I learned anything at Ada Christian School, it's that advertisers are diabolically clever about inserting subliminal messages into product labels. So what were the advertising puppetmasters trying to tell us with this one? That the teachers at Ada Christian School were retarded? Yes, I believe that's it.

I also like this one:

I like knowing that it's not 98.4% tough like some of those other brands or Hugh Jackman. Kaboom is ONE HUNDRED PERCENT TOUGH. That's like Mr. T tough right there.

Speaking of product advertising, why didn't Aunt Jemima ever come out with any other products besides syrup? How about Aunt Jemima Malt Liquor? Or Aunt Jemima feminine hiegene products? I don't think she reached her full potential.

Moving on....

Here's a quote from the game my children are playing on the computer: "This letter is almost complete. We just need to add nouns." I remember writing papers like that in college.

Mrs. Diesel told me to help my daughter with the "perspective" on the diorama she was making for school. So I told her, "In 10 years no one will care about your diorama."?

If my coworkers and I were as good at ping-pong as we think, we'd probably be able to think of someone besides Forrest Gump as a benchmark.?

My daughter, as she walks out the door to visit her friend next door: "Joe's a nice friend. He wouldn't poison me or anything." ?

And finally, further evidence of the genius of CalTrans. You have Mrs. Diesel to thank for this one. Well, you have CalTrans to thank for being retarded, and Mrs. Diesel to thank for noticing how retarded they are.

I drive past that sign every day on my way to work. If you don't immediately notice what's wrong with it, imagine being in New York and seeing a sign for The Statue of Librty or Carngie Hall. How many CalTrans workers stood around scratching their asses while this baby went up? ?It's a freaking national landmark, you retards. ?I've got half a mind to sic Yosmite Sam on your asses.?

Sic.

Vote!

Tue, 05 May 2009 08:46:00 GMT

Howard Semones said...
"Heh-heh. I told you Ron Howard's integrity was down there."

BRWombat said...
The gang quickly tired of Diesel's constant, "Look out, it's the Pope!" jokes.

Aaron said...
Tom Hanks: "Either the clues are getting a lot weirder or Dan Brown really can't tell his ass from a hole in the ground."

Brad said...
"Mario seems to be okay, but Luigi isn't moving at all. Damn those floating gold coins!"

Raymond Betancourt said...
Diesel: "Hey look! It's full of unsold 'Turner& Hooch' DVDs...quick close it up again!"

Toadroller said...
Hanks to Diesel: Fool of a Took! Throw yourself in next time and rid us of your nuisance!"

Jeff Sawyer said...
"See, the thing with septic tanks is, if you don't have 'em pumped out every six months or so, they're gonna' back up on you. Like this."

Big D said...
Hanks: It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again!
Diesel: Hey, this looks like fun! Can I get the hose?

The Office Scribe said...
Diesel: Prof. Langdon, thank god you brought that mini-maglite. Now we should be able to see what the first four feet of this bottomless abyss contain...

peevedguy said...
Hey! That's deep! Did you hear how long it took to hit bottom?I'm gonna go find another rock. Any of you guys want a rock?

Online Surveys & Market Research

The Retarded Meme!

Mon, 04 May 2009 00:40:00 GMT

Since my retarded post, I've noticed that several bloggers have begun linking to me whenever they use the word "retarded." ?It's like I'm becoming the official Internet authority on retardedness. ?Which is, of course, awesome.

I used to be the number one authority on sarcasm, but my sarcasm motivational poster has been appropriated so many times that nobody even remembers where it came from (except for me. ?I remember, Internet. I remember). ?If you do a Google image search for "sarcasm", you'll still find my poster at number one, but sadly there is no indication of how hard I worked to find a funny picture from the TV show Cops and then plug it into a motivational poster generator. ?The Internet giveth, and the Internet taketh awayeth.

Next time I make one of those, I'm going to put my website address in a watermark on it. ?For example:

Crap, I forgot again. Okay, just remember when this pops up on FUNNY SHITZ I FOUND ON TEH INTERWEBS DOT COM, that you saw it here first.

Anyway, retards. I started thinking, "Wouldn't it be cool if I really was the number one retarded site on the Internet?" And from there, I thought, "I wonder what is the number one retarded site on the Internet." And since I work at Google, I have access to a vast array of very powerful computers that can search the entire Internet in a matter of milliseconds.

Wikipedia. I should have known. It's like retard nirvana over there. It's like retardana.?

I paged through the results?trying to find my site, but I gave up after 20 pages, mostly because I was laughing too hard to keep clicking. I think I'm going to add?http://www.google.com/search?q=retarded?to Humor-Blogs.com. Seriously, go there sometime. It's hundreds of pages of deadpan use of the word retarded. ?Who can compete with that?

Interestingly, not many people seem to have gotten the memo about not using the r-word. ?For example, the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry seems determined to take the word back as an objective medical term. ?The first sentence on this page is:

The term "mental retardation" is often misunderstood and seen as derogatory.?

They don't deny, of course, that the word is funny. ?Because come on.

A few pages into the search results, you start running into retarded ejaculation, which has got to be one of the funniest combination of words ever, even if you don't think about that dorm room scene in Forrest Gump. Then there's a bunch of stuff about executing retarded people -- which, for the record, I'm against. Well, unless the retard killed someone, and even then, if you get yourself killed by a retard, who's really to blame?

There's an article about a retarded kid who is serving 100 years in prison, which is pretty mean. I mean, why get the poor guy's hopes up? He's retarded; what does he know from 100 years? Just tell him he's going to be in prison FOREVER. Otherwise he's just going to get confused marking days off on his CSI: Miami calendar. ?Is it 100 years yet? ?No, Jimmy, not yet.

On page seven, you find a petition to stop people from using the word retarded. But then, on page 18, there's a petition to stop executing the retarded. I'm conflicted about which petition to sign. After all, I don't want retarded people to be executed, but I don't want to offend anybody by signing a petition that refers to mentally challenged death row inmates as retarded either. And to further complicate things, if there aren't any retarded people any more, how do we know who it's okay to execute? I think these people need to be locked up in a room together and consolidate their various retarded causes.?Maybe start the Confederated Alliance of Retarded Petitions or something.

The chick who is opposed to the word retarded uses the following analogy:

Imagine your name is Kelly, and one day, people decided to use the word "Kelly" to mean "gross." "Yuck! This food tastes so Kelly!" Wouldn't you want them to stop using your name like that?

Wow, I never thought of it like that. And, like, imagine your name was Rob, and one day, people decided to use the word "Rob" to mean "steal from." "Hey, let's go rob that liquor store!"

Okay, that's not the best example. But imagine your name is Retarded, and one day, people decided to start calling you Kelly. And they're like, "Hey, Kelly, let's go retarded that liquor store." And you're like, "What? I'm completely lost." And they're like, "That's because YOU'RE RETARDED, KELLY."

Hurts, doesn't it?

Anyway, the point of this post is that I?want you all to keep using the word retarded, as often as you possibly can, and I?want you to link to this post when you do it. Yes, this post. Not the other retarded one, although you can link to that one too if you want. My goal is to be the #1 retarded site on the Internet.?

I care so much about being the most retarded site on the Internet that I'm going to violate my own moral compunction against memes. ?I'm tagging the following five bloggers for the Retarded Meme. ?

The rules are:

1. You must write a post using the word retarded. I don't care what it's about -- Joe Biden, teenage boys wearing girls' pants, whatever.

2. The word retarded must be a link to this post.

3. You are encouraged to tag five other bloggers to do the same.

I will totally understand if you don't want to participate because you are morally opposed to the use of the word retarded. I will understand that you are retarded.

Those of you that I didn't explicitly tag are, of course, also more than welcome to play.?I will occasionally post a list of Retarded Bloggers who have participated in the meme, and keep you apprised of my status in the retarded Google rankings.

Simple Jack thanks you for your support!

Caption Contest: Angels and Demons

Fri, 01 May 2009 13:53:00 GMT

I know, it seems like I should be doing Wolverine, but I already did that one. So here's me in the sequel to the craptastic movie they made out of that craptastic book with Tom Hanks' craptastic hair.

You know the rules: submit your captions in the comments. ?I'll post the best ones in a poll on Tuesday. ?Have a swell weekend!

MP Mailbag

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 13:28:00 GMT

During my hiatus, Kit Walker said:

Pardon me, I know you're great and all, but how the heck did you get to #1 when you're not even posting? Are you cheating, or is it really truly true that absence makes the heart grow fonder??

Well, Kit, it's like this. ?The guy in first place died. ?The chick in second place quit. ?And well, yeah, I'm pretty great. ?Seriously though, I didn't cheat. ?Probably.

Suprisingly, only a few readers objected to my Susan Boyle post, notably?prefers her fantasy life, who called me "cynical." ?I'm going to insist, as all cynics do, that I'm merely being realistic. ?The fact is, Susan Boyle is getting a lot of attention because (1) she's a good singer and (2) she looks like Ian Holm at the end of The Return of the King.??The juxtaposition of these facts allows us to pat ourselves on the back for recognizing that, gosh, even some ugly people can sing! ?I may be cynical, but at least I'm not patronizing. As John J Savo said:

So Boyle can sing. So what? What bothered me about it was how everyone was fascinated that someone so ugly could sing. Everyone was saying, "Hey, go to You Tube. You gotta see this hideous person."

Exactly. ?I suspect the people going nuts over Susan Boyle are the same ones who described Barack Obama as an "articulate black man," as if black people ordinarily communicated in sub-lingual grunts or something.

Doug, formerly of Taunt Vortex, noted that he was pursuing his goal of becoming a standup comic, and implored me not to?crush his "Boyle-esque dream." ?

Dude, I wouldn't dream of crushing your dream. ?To be clear, I'm not saying that dreams aren't valuable; I'm saying that it takes a hell of a lot more than dreams to succeed in this world. ?I have a dream of being a published novelist, but that doesn't mean I should march into the lobby of Random House armed with my dreams and a 10,000 page narrative about Jack Bauer's war against the Romulans. ?These things take time, patience, a lot of hard work and, yes, some natural talent. ?Anyway, good luck with the standup!