“For men, the most attractive woman is the one you’re banging,” says Anonymous Doug, who has banged all manner of woman, from PhD holder to vegetable.  “And it’s too much work getting a smart girl into bed.  Intellectual stimulation?  Child, please.  In the time it takes to get a smart girl’s cerebral cortex revved up, that dumb girl has already finished blowing me behind the dumpster.”

Doug’s point has some validity to it.  There is some cognitive dissonance men have to deal with when they see a hot girl who wants nothing to do with them for whatever reason, and the man resolves this by designating her less attractive.  This also makes the dumb girl who is interested in the man more attractive in his mind because of opportunity, not actual attractiveness (or as Doug said, the hottest girl is the one you’re banging).

“It’s simple risk/reward management,” says Anonymous Doug.  “You do less work to get a dumb girl and get the same reward as you would if you spent all that extra effort attempting to nail a smart girl.  Now smart girl may be a better lay, but that lay ain’t guaranteed, unlike the dumb girl.  You go with the higher percentage play because it sure as hell beats getting no sex at all.”

As anyone who’s taken an acting class knows, characters have objectives, and identifying that objective is integral to playing that character well.  Now once you identify that objective, you then figure out everything that character will do to achieve that objective, and how they will justify their actions in regards to their objective.  Now when you’re objective is to get laid, you’ll justify thinking a girl is a 10 when she’s really only a 7 because she looks like it’s easier to plow her.  Conversely, men will downgrade women in terms of looks if she seems like it’s going to be a lot of work getting into her pants.

“And the best part is, it’s easy to do a fuck-and-duck on a dumb chick,” says Anonymous Doug.  “If I don’t want to see her again, I don’t.  It’s easy.  She’s a dumb chick.  What have I lost?  I can go get another one the next night.  Smart chicks, though, they make you think about them like they’re actual people, and then you gotta fight off feelings and shit.  Not that you can’t ditch a smart chick, it’s just harder.”

Emotions do tend to complicate things, especially when they conflict with the stated objective.  Balancing emotions and objectives is work, and as stated before about men trying to get laid we try to do the least amount of work as possible. It’s like water, except it’s fucking instead of flowing.

“But what doesn’t work at all is the dumb girl who thinks she smart,” says Anonymous Doug.  “Because she’s going to try to prove that to you, and it evaporates the mirage in our head’s about the dumb girl being more attractive.”

It should be noted that this is just for having sex with women, not being in a relationship with them (there’s a difference, and you know it), which the article also addresses:

They lost their luster entirely when the men were asked to rate these same women’s attractiveness as prospective girlfriends or wives. The possible evolutionary logic behind this interaction is fairly straightforward: In the latter case, the man would risk becoming the cuckoldee, not the cuckolder. (Of course you could also argue that men might rather marry a woman who looked like she could hold up her end of the conversation over French toast.)

“Like Ron White says, you can’t fix stupid,” says Anonymous Doug.  “If you’re going to spend any extended amount of time with a woman, she’d better have a brain in her damn head or else.  When you date a dumb girl, her stupidity does damage for two now. Even worse, the dumb rubs off on you because your brain operates on a lower level with her and it gets used to it.”

Doug is right.  I could not date a woman who wasn’t sharp of mind, but I’ll bang a dumb one for an evening.  And I’m willing to wager women have a similar disposition as well.  Yeah, they’d love to be in a relationship with a funny, intelligent guy but if time is short and you don’t feel like putting in the effort there’s usually a dumber dude available who will do just nicely.  High percentage plays with average sexual rewards… it’s more statistics than science, more game theory than genetics, and it answers more questions than it raises so it’s what we would call a sound theory.

So let’s not ask smart people to dumb it down, let’s make smart more approachable and accessible. I’m sure we can do that.  We’re smart!

“All this talk in the news about gay marriage recently has finally driven me to write. Gay marriage is wrong because homosexuality is wrong. The Bible clearly states it is sin.”

“I keep thinking if God really thought homosexuality was a sin, he would have put it on the Ten Commandments,” says Ninja Vicki.  “The Lord certainly could have put ‘Thou shalt not put it in the pooper’ on the tablets if this was such a big deal. He could have made it fit, he’s God, he can chose a smaller font.”

“Now I do not claim it to be a sin any worse than other sins. It ranks in God’s eyes the same as murder, lying, stealing, or cheating.”

“The Almighty has an interesting tier system when it comes to sin classification,” says Tina the Lesbian.  “Apparently everything’s been upgraded from venial sin level to mortal hell-bound sin status.  Sin inflation is out of control.”

His standards are perfect and ALL have sinned and fallen short of His glory. Sin is sin and we all deserve hell.

“I’m not sure I’m comfortable with a deity behaving like my mother-in-law,” says Avonia the Wiccan Pimp.  “Nothing’s ever good enough for her… which is why the last four family gatherings have almost ended in fistfights.”

Only those who accept Christ as Lord and daily with the help of the Spirit do their best to turn from sin will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. There aren’t multiple ways to get to Heaven. There is one. To many this may seem close minded and antagonistic, but it doesn’t make it any less true.

“I think I said something similar to this on my last date,” says Anonymous Doug.  “I said to this chick, “Look, you’re either giving me a blow job or you’re walking home.  There aren’t multiple ways to get me to drive you home, there’s one. This may seem close-minded and antagonistic, but it doesn’t make it any less true.”

Folks I am willing to admit that my depravity is just as great as anyone else’s, and without Christ I’d be destined for hell, if not for the undeserved grace of God.

“I seriously doubt your depravity approaches the depths to which I’ve plunged,” says Anonymous Doug with a laugh. “Seriously doubt.”

“I’m not fond of that ‘if not for the undeserved grace of God’ part,” says Avonia the Wiccan Pimp.  “It makes God sound like an abusive husband, and I really don’t like picturing any deity sitting on a couch with a wifebeater t-shirt on and a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon in hand.”

“I’m not condemning gay marriage because I hate gay people. I am doing it because those who embrace it will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven. And I desire that for no one.”

“But you just told us we all deserve hell,” says Ninja Vicki.  “Conversely, that means going to heaven is getting something we don’t deserve.  Are we equating gaining access to paradise with insurance fraud?  Do we have to stand before St. Peter at the pearly gates with a neck brace and a faked limp to get in?”

“Maybe you don’t hate gay people in the usual terms of hate, but you certainly think of us as lesser-people,” says Tina the Lesbian.  “You’ve already equated being gay with being a murderer or a thief.  When you assume someone as hellbound for something inherent in their being, you’ve already given someone a lower rank on your leaderboard of people. I don’t know if that qualifies as hate, but it certainly qualifies you as an asshole.”

Now while my colleagues dug into this teacher’s ill-conceived Facebook post, I took notice of his paltry defense.

“I wrote what I wrote for my Facebook friends who understand my heart and my intent,” Conkling told the Hutchinson News. “I understand that there were some folks who didn’t understand my heart, and while that’s sad, it is what it is.”

This caught my attention because I remembered someone else using the “heart” defense… Rick Santorum’s press lackey Alice Stewart who when confronted by a Dutch reporter about her’s boss’s lying about euthanasia practices in Holland sputtered out in impotent defense “A lot of these things is a matter of what’s in his heart.”   I’m starting to get the feeling that “the heart” is some sort of code, something along the lines of “Just ignore the insipidly batshit stupid things I say and accept the at-odds-with-reality overly positive image of myself that I want you to have of me.”  It’s like Christianity’s way of arguing like the Black Knight in Monty Python.  Sure, he may look like he’s got no arms, but in his heart he’s got two healthy limbs ready to have at you.  I call it Christianity’s way because I haven’t seen anyone in Judaism, Islam. Hinduism, or Wicca invoke a “heart” argument yet.

If you intend one thing but end up doing something else, you fucked up.  Own up to it and try to do better next time.  Don’t blame your cock-up on people not having the mystical cognitive powers to divine what you think you truly are, especially because there are very few people who truly are who they think they are.  There’s what you want to be, and want you do, and there’s a constant discrepancy between the two.  How you manage that gulf is a factor on whether or not you’re an asshole douchenozzle.

Remember: the heart is great at pumping blood, but  it reasons very poorly.

Every profession can be improved by adding “ninja” to it…

And really, that above quote has been the most interesting thing we’ve come up with in a while. But these lulls in creativity are to be expected and weathered with the optimistic notion that the pendulum will swing back to the productive side sooner than never.  The internal editor stops being so picky and lets the creativity flow outward again instead of circulating in solitude to be filtered and improved for consumption.

Actually we’re better friends with our internal editor than we’ve been in the past, because we’ve come across too many instances lately where something could have been better conveyed if any editor, internal or external, could have had a couple passes at it before it took the stage or the “publish” button had been pressed (don’t worry, it’s not you).  Those type of things remind you that while writing may only be real on the first draft, that doesn’t necessarily means it will be good.

Also… we’ve taken this time to see The Room, and not just on DVD either -we’re talking in a theater full of people.  It’s not only a horrible movie, it’s a cautionary tale for anyone who expresses themselves creatively: your magnum opus has the capacity to reach levels of ineptitude never before conceived by mortal men.

You probably think this vanity project’s about you…

We’ve had these uninspired lulls before and have handled them with a combination of theatrical despair and panic attacks, but this time around we’re rather at ease with being creatively unproductive. Must be our old age.  Feels good to not perceive a creative drought as an existential threat. We’re taking the notion of “Oh no, we’re not as awesome as we think we should be” more in stride, responding with “Okay, well let’s just chill out and figure out a plan on how to remedy this” rather than our old “What the fuck is wrong with us, faily fail fail failure-head! Why do we continue drawing breath?”

So Renal Failure isn’t dead.  It’s just handling shit in a more reasonable way.  And eventually we’ll get back to our special brand of absurdist social commentary peppered with genital jokes.

“Who’s among us?” says Bernie the Half-Cyborg Cat.

“Mind readers,” I say.  “People who can hear your thoughts.”

“Cat minds cannot be read,” says Bernie.  “Our thoughts are too complex for humans to comprehend.”

“That may be true, but they’re out there, those mind readers,” I say.  “And I figured out a way to find them.”

“Does it involve fire?”  says Bernie.

“No, it requires thinking really hard about skullfucking,” I say. “Horrific, violent, rapeful skullfucking.”

“How does that ferret out mind readers?”  says Bernie.

“I look for a reaction,” I say.  “Imagine you’re a mind reader and you’re just going about your business, hearing everyone’s thoughts and then someone pretty pointedly is telepathically telling you they’re going gouge out your eye and fuck your skull.  I don’t think you would take that notion with a stoic stiff upper lip.  You’re going to react in someway, probably horrified.”

“But what if someone has a really good poker face about this sort of thing?”  says Bernie.

“I have a back-up plan,”  I say.  “I just say pussypussypussypussypussypussypussypussypussypussypussypussypussypussypussy and wait for them to crack a smile or laugh.”

“If horror doesn’t work, break ‘em with funny,”  says Bernie.  “They won’t be prepared for such a dramatic shift in strategy.”

“Indeed, mind readers are a tricky bunch,” I say.  “But I’m ready for them.”

“And they probably already know that,” says Bernie.  “They’re mind readers.”

“They can know, but are they prepared?”  I say.  “I contend that they are not and will have trouble becoming prepared because they don’t have time to prepare when they’re being bombarded with other people’s thoughts.”

“Pretty shrewd for a human,” says Bernie.  “So what do you have planned for people who can move stuff with their minds?”

“That’s something I’m still researching,” I say.  “Right now, all I got is kicking them in the groin, but that’s my defense against everything.”

“So how much time do you have on your hands to conceive of rooting out mind readers?”  says Bernie.

“Less than you think,”  I say.  “My wild speculation time has been eaten into big time by the bullshit of life.  I barely have time to scrape out a half-baked blog post and still maintain my schedule of drinking binges and cat video viewings.  But you carve out what you can when you can.”

Maybe in the future my calendar will clear up and I can find myself a telepath girlfriend, which you think might be a bad idea but then again she’ll never ask the question “What are you thinking?” after sex, because she will damn right know that I’m thinking about nothing.

NOTE: Yes, I’m presuming the creator of pornography is male, because I’m seeing pornography being created as the solution to a problem, that problem being how to witness sexual acts  and hot pieces of ass when no one’s around.  Just like how men invented weapons out of the problem of how to kill people more better-like.

The above only tangentially leads into this article I read about porn that states that when you watch porn – and we’re talking the explicit stuff, not that soft-core bullshit – part of your brain shuts down.  Apparently when watching graphic sexual acts, the part of your brain that handles visual stimuli goes for a little coffee break.

To Holstege, those results suggest that the brain is focusing on sexual arousal as more important than visual processing during these erotic films.

“You have to realize that the brain wants to spare as much energy as possible, so if some part of the brain is not necessary at a high level of functioning, it immediately goes down,” Holstege said.

“Then my brain must be really lazy as fuck because it keeps telling me it’s a good idea to go porn-hunting on the Internet,” I say. “It keeps saying ‘Hey, you’re not doing anything important, have yourself a good wank,’ and sometimes it’s a very compelling case.”

“Some activities you do just so you can shut your brain off for a while,” says Tina the Lesbian.  “Some people do it with reality TV, other people need some hot fuck action.  Whatever works.”

“There’s the old joke about how there’s only enough blood in the body to properly work your brain or your genitals,” says Mikka.  “And now science is telling me that might be right?  Awesome.”

“The less attention your brain spends on a porno, the better off you are,” says Bernie the Half Cyborg Cat.  “You don’t want to be cognizant of plot holes or continuity errors when you’re just trying to get yourself off.”

The article also has this cool little nugget…

The brain can either be anxious or aroused (or neither), Holstege said, but not both. During orgasm, he has found, activity in brain regions associated with anxiety plummets. This phenomenon may explain why women with low levels of sexual desire often have high levels of anxiety, Holstege said.

“So wanking off is just as good as Zoloft?”  says Ninja Vicki.  “Too bad that does nothing for my pathological urge to steal stuff. I can steal pills from your medicine cabinet. I can’t steal your wanking.  Well, maybe your spank bank of magazines, or your porno tapes, or your laptop.  But wanking always finds a way.”

“One good orgasm and all is right with the world,” says Avonia the Wiccan Pimp.  “You don’t care about anything after that.  I’m surprised more parts of your brain don’t switch off after an orgasm, like it goes into low power sleep mode or something.

This last quote is notable…

“If you want to have sex, as a man, you need to produce a safe situation for the woman,” Holstege said. “That is what you want, that is the most important thing.”

“This guy hasn’t seen my bedroom,” says Anonymous Doug.  “Ropes, handcuffs, shackles, tape, ballgags, bridles, chains, saddles, that harness hanging above the bed… it’s the most unsafe-looking place on Earth.  And some chicks get off on that.”

“I don’t make love until I’ve made a full inspection of the room,” says Samurai Cathy.  “Only after the area is secured will allow my lover to get to second base, which will then allow me to frisk him for hidden weapons before we either go all the way or I stab him with my secondary knife for his treachery. Luckily, Mikka is not a treacherous bastard, so he lives when we make love.”

So porn gives the brain a much-needed break, keeping it from taxing itself too much from trying to recognize threats and figuring shit out.  Because there ain’t nothing to figure out when you see a girl taking it in the ass while sucking off another guy. That’s as simple as it gets for your brain.

Now to be fair, Tennessee does not celebrate Confederate History Month, but they were still part of the Confederacy and still do some pants-on-head retarded shit, like bring up a bill in their Senate that updates their abstinence-only sexual education law that prohibits teachers from discussing “gateway sexual activities” such as “holding hands.”

Ah… just when I think there’s nothing in the news to skewer, the South never fails verify my abysmal opinion of it. It’s Happy Hour at the Failure, and we’ve got half-off specials on ridicule and snark.

“I don’t remember holding hands being talked about in my sex ed class,” says Anonymous Doug.  “I remember the whole penis goes into the vagina and ejaculates part, but apparently they’re not that far advanced in Tennessee to get to that point.  That knowledge only gets unlocked by the minister presiding over your wedding.”

“Do you know what’s really a gateway sexual activity?  Having genitals,” says Tina the Lesbian.  “Either seal up your cooch or lop off your twig and berries because as long as you have those, the gate’s always open.”

“Well, what are fingers but bony penises, right?”  says Mikka.  “The symbolism is there if you just look hard enough, and breathe in a lot of ammonia fumes in a small enclosed space.”

“I would think zealous repression of sexual knowledge is more of a gateway sexual activity than holding hands or kissing,” says Avonia the Wiccan Pimp.  “All this is going to do is eliminate foreplay and have teens go straight for awkward, unlubricated penetration.”

“I want to see what else is a gateway sexual activity according to these people,” says Bernie the Half-Cyborg Cat.  “Skirts above the knee?  Skinny jeans? Tetris?  We need to know what innocuous behavior will trigger a teen fuckfest according to the greatest minds the Volunteer State could assemble!”

“In Saudi Arabia, men holding hands in a sign of friendship and respect,” says Ninja Vicki.  “But in Tennessee it’s a sign that sexual passion is brewing.  How the hell are the Saudis more reasonable than Americans on this?”

Samurai Cathy found this passage interesting…

According to a 2009 Youth Risk Behavior Study, 61 percent of Memphis City high school students and 27 percent of middle school students have had sex.  That’s higher than the national average.

“So they already have abstinence-only education, their teen sex rate is still higher than average, and their answer to this problem is to reduce what little their teens can be taught about anything peripheral of sex?” says Samurai Cathy.  “So if this doesn’t work, what’s next?  Not telling children how to go to the bathroom for fear they will touch their own genitals?”

I have no doubt there are people in non-Confederate states here in the north that think that this would be a good idea, but the difference is that it’s harder to make that idiotic notion into law up here.  Not impossible, mind you (in fact it’s still quite probable), but you have to put a little more effort to turn lunacy into legislation outside of Dixie. We can’t rid the world of stupidity but could we at least do a better job of not letting stupidity gain the means to inflict itself on a large scale?

EXTRA SPECIAL NOTE: We noticed that we got over 200 hits on Wednesday of this week because Rick Santorum dropped out of the Presidential race because  any time Santorum is big in the news we get a lot of hits because of this picture we posted about five years ago commemorating the time he lost his Senate seat by a landslide and dragged his unwilling family on stage to be the backdrop for his concession speech.

Now that he quit trying to be president, we’re probably not going to see those Santorum traffic spikes anymore, but that’s a small price to pay for knowing that people still find it unpalatable for him to hold political office.  It’s a ray of sunshine on a cloudy day.

It appears a viral campaign on Facebook convinced Mattel to create a bald friend who lost all her hair due to cancer treatments for Barbie to… uh… I guess drive back and forth from the oncologist in her Malibu convertible.  That probably came off more glib and dismissive than we would have liked, but while we like the idea of a doll representing children who are suffering from cancer and have lost their hair we question whether Barbie is the right vehicle for such a sentiment.

“Considering Barbie and her friends are built to unrealistic body proportions, it still doesn’t do a whole lot for a girl who already has body issues,” says Tina the Lesbian.  “Yes, you can identify with Barbie’s friend’s hair loss, but she’s still going to have the size Negative-2 waist that you’ll never have, and those abnormally long and skinny legs with the dainty feet that could only be attained with cruel footbinding.”

“I guess with Cancer-Stricken Barbie you can sort of excuse her impossibly-thin body because of chemotherapy or the cancer just eating away at her,” says Samurai Cathy.  “Which then would make you wonder what sort of cancer has Barbie been fighting all these years to look so freakish.  Pancreatic?  Colon?  Maybe something in her brain screwing with her hormones?”

“That’s the exact same problem I had with the Wheelchair Becky friend for Barbie,” says Avonia the Wiccan Pimp.  “Becky and Barbie have pretty much the same toothpick legs that shouldn’t be able to maintain any weight on them, but Barbie gets to walk and Becky has to wait outside the Barbie Dream House because her wheelchair doesn’t fit through the door.  It’s not right.”

“That’s why I cut the legs off all my Barbie dolls, ” says Ninja Vicki.  “Now everyone knows Wheelchair Becky’s plight!  Except for Ken.  He had to give everyone piggyback rides. But then I had him drawn and quartered because he got mouthy, so I replaced him with Optimus Prime because he was a tractor trailer and could tow my crippled Barbies around.”

“I don’t see what the big deal is about a bald Barbie,” says Anonymous Doug.  “When I was fourteen I had like fifty bald Barbie dolls hanging naked from my basement ceiling.  Some I let keep their eyes, others not so much.”

“In retrospect, I believe Evil-Lyn suffered from liver failure because her action figure’s skin was yellow,” says Mikka, referring to the 80′s Masters of the Universe line of toys.  “That’s a brave choice, having a villain who so obviously suffered from severe jaundice.”

“But Barbie still won’t have any fattie friends, right?”  says Bernie the Half-Cyborg Cat.  “Well, that’s what Rainbow Brite and Strawberry Shortcake are for.  They were always on the chunky side.  And if Rainbow Brite wasn’t at least bisexual then I’d be astonished.”

No word yet on whether Barbie will get a bipolar friend who switches between paranoid mania fits that could turn tragically violent with but a mistimed word and despondent depressive valleys that prompt her friends to take every sharp object out of her house.  Maybe little girls will have a diabetic friend for Barbie to pal around with until you stop buying the insulin accessory packs and she loses her feet.  Hey, that means Wheelchair Becky will have a new friend to sit with her outside Barbie’s handicap-inaccessible Dream House!  Another problem solved by Renal Failure!  You’re welcome.

“Does this mean you’ll be moving your operation to Canada?”  I ask.

“No, because they won’t let prostitutes solicit on the streets,” says Avonia.  “They can only do it from inside the brothel. I like working outside.”

“Which apparently is the safest place for a prostitute to work, according to the judge on the case,” I say.  “And I agree with that.  I mean, I don’t even eat food that’s sold outside.  I will make an exception if it’s sold under a tent, though. That counts as inside.”

“I’m kinda of surprised this happened in Ontario,”  says Avonia.  “I mean, it was the hookers in Vancouver, in British Columbia, who were putting together a cooperative brothel for the Olympics.”

“I can’t be surprised because I don’t know the political leanings of Canadian provinces,” says Avonia.  “Except for Alberta.  I heard that’s just Canadian Texas.”

“All of the crazy and cowboy boots, but with fewer guns,” I say.  “They could use some brothels up there.”

“I like that sex work is finally being spoken about in terms of health and safety,”  says Avonia.

“I look forward to the day where a whorehouse has one of them OSHA displays,” I say.  “Or a whore that comes with her own Material Safety Data Sheet.”

“If my job involved more regulatory paperwork instead of backhanding people, I’d be a happier pimp,” says Avonia.  “Not to say I’d like all of the backhanding taken out of my line of work, but a marked decrease would be greatly appreciated.”

I don’t know if pimps pimp-smack people in Canada. I suspect they hockey punch them.

Now, in a case such as this that’s charged with serious-as-cancer racial and gun issues, it is inevitable that someone will say something so brutally stupid that it causes an intellectual concussion.  And sure enough our patience was rewarded by Geraldo Rivera who was on FOXNews to opine about this grave story and spewed forth this retarded gem:

But I am urging the parents of black and Latino youngsters particularly to not let their children go out wearing hoodies. I think the hoodie is as much responsible for Trayvon Martin’s death as George Zimmerman was.

“So I can’t wear a low-cut top and mini-skirt because I’ll get raped, but I can’t wear a hoodie because I’ll get shot,” says Tina the Lesbian.  “I had no idea there was so much danger in my wardrobe! I hope khaki pants don’t get you set on fire because I would be in deep shit.”

“I went through all the trouble of getting myself an anti-rape hoodie, and now it’s going to get me shot?” says Ninja Vicki.  “That’s a fucked up choice to make: getting raped or getting shot.  When did choosing something to wear turn into one of the goddamn Saw movies?”

“Well, right now only blacks and Latinos in hoodies are in danger of being shot on principle,” says Bernie the Half-Cyborg Cat.  “But you know soon enough that white people will appropriate that trend just like they did rap music and Cinco de Mayo.”

“I hope Geraldo isn’t saying that hooded cloaks will get you shot too,” says Avonia the Wiccan Pimp.  “I don’t want my Beltane to end in a hail of bullets by armed idiots who think we were trying to raise Chthulu when we dance around the maypole.”

“So Geraldo thinks any dark-skinned person wearing a hoodie is asking to be shot,” says Mikka.  “Funny, I happen to think anyone I see on Fox News drinks paint and strangles puppies for sexual gratification. Everyone has their preconceptions, some people just have more evidence for theirs.”

Geraldo continued drinking paint with a petulant defense of his statement about how Trayvon Martin would be alive if not for his hoodie, as well as snide derision of a Million Hoodie March (kind of like the Slutwalk) to protest the shooter not being arrested:

…thinking that a million hoodie march is going to change the image of a hoodie is like thinking that a chorus singing Koombayah is going to change the way people think about burkas.

“So pretty much unless you’re wearing a suit and tie, Geraldo is afraid of you,” says Anonymous Doug.  “Funny, because the people who can fuck over your life the most are assholes in suits.  That’s why I don’t listen to people in suits.  Or pants.”

“I don’t know what Kumbaya has to do with burkas, but you know you’ve got some high-quality stupidity happening when the person who spouts idiocy decides to double-down instead of retreating,” I say.  “So on the Geraldo Wardrobe of Doom Scoreboard please note that hoodies get you shot and burkas make people think you are going to blow them up.  We’re still awaiting word on whether leather jackets will get you stabbed or if sweater vests will get you beaten to death with baseball bats.”

“I take solace that Geraldo’s son is ashamed of his father’s idiocy,” says Samurai Cathy.  “Bringing that sort of shame upon your family used to be grounds for ritual self-disembowelment, but I doubt Geraldo has the wherewithal to know which end of the knife to stick in his belly, let alone any semblance of honor to consider such a path.”

Now Geraldo didn’t mention the Footie Hoodie or the Forever Lazy, but so far I haven’t had to shoot anyone wearing them because I limit my right to do so to my home.  If someone shows up to your door wearing one of them, they’re obviously in a cult and mean to do you irreparable harm. But you wait until they’re on your property to shoot them, because that’s the American Dream: shootin’ people who be trespassin’ yer prop’ty.

The study explains that the sexually deprived flies had half the amount of a substance called neuropeptide F (NPF) in their brains than the sexually satisfied males had. In turn, those low levels of NPF may have driven the rejected males to seek the pleasure of alcohol. Mammals, including humans, have a similar (but not identical) substance in their brains called neuropeptide Y, and the study’s authors suggest their fruit-fly findings might shed light on mechanisms behind human substance abuse and addiction.

“I do notice I drink more when I’m not getting laid,”  says Anonymous Doug.  “But I thought that was because I filling up all that non-making out time with more drinking.  Apparently I was just self-medicating as usual.”

“Doug’s right,” says Tina the Lesbian.  “You’re out with your friends at a bar, they get to talking to other people and start hooking up, you’re left by yourself so of course you’re going to burn that time drinking to feel better about not getting any.”

“Come to think of it, a lot of time when I think to myself ‘Hey, I’m not getting laid,’ my brain will usually reply with ‘Well, that frees us up for some beers,’”  I say.  “I thought that was because I have a drinking problem, but apparently it’s just my brain’s way of saying ‘Yeah, you’re not getting any pussy, but here’s a consolation prize.’”

“When you can’t spank the monkey, a few stiff drinks will bring  down your raging boner while making you feel somewhat good in the process,” says Bernie the Half-Cyborg Cat who, like all cats, has a barbed penis.  “Whatever gets the right chemicals in your head flowing that keep you from slitting your wrists.”

“I’m glad other members of the animal kingdom are discovering the joys of alcohol,” says Ninja Vicki.  “Makes me think I’m not drinking alone most of the time.  Somewhere there’s a fruit fly getting a buzz on while I’m having my third glass of wine.”

“I feel bad for the other members of the animal kingdom who don’t have access to alcohol,”  says Mikka.  “No sex or booze for you, little duck-billed platypus.  You have to face the emptiness alone.”

“Tag Larkin has sex when he’s not drinking!”  says Tag Larkin.  “Is Tag Larkin’s fridge empty of tallboys?  No problem.  Tag Larkin will go have sex then.”

So if you’re not getting laid, have a drink or five.  It’s natural.  Unlike pants.