If you remember my previous post, you’ll know that today I attended the St. Baldricks event in Milwaukee and had my head shaved to raise money for pediatric cancer research. My team (2 of us) ended up raising just over $1000! Thank you so much to everybody who participated and donated. I can not express in words how grateful I am. The turnout was great and I got to meet, among money people, one of the children who the charity was working to assist.

Elise is a 3 year old girl who was born with a brain tumor. She was adorable, all smiles and helped shave her grandfather’s hair while laughing as they removed a patch from the middle of his head. As I stood there and watched this little girl, I couldn’t help but simmer in a pan of my own anger. Everybody who has ever settled with a gesture as useless as a prayer, Facebook status, tweet, pink picture or otherwise completely feckless form of self-fellating altruism should have been forced to sit there and watch. Take a good look at what you actively chose to ignore but lied to yourself about. This precious 3 year-old little girl was giggling and trading high-fives with everybody and there’s the possibility that she doesn’t stand a chance. It breaks my heart to know that it’s even possible in this world for a child that young to have these kinds of problems. It burns my very core to know there are people out there who throw up a half ass “I Care” flag at half-mast to try and convince themselves that they’re contributing. If you don’t care then don’t care, but don’t lie to yourself about it.

Other cancer patients and survivors were there also telling their heart breaking, inconceivable stories about struggle, triumph and loss. I dare one of you narcissistic, counterfeit benevolent dip shits to stand in front of one of those people and gloat about your pink profile picture, or how much you ‘understand what they’re going through.’ You’d be lucky they don’t choke you to death with the scarf that’s wrapped around their bald head. You don’t understand shit, and neither do I. Most of us haven’t been there, and having a family member or friend who has doesn’t count either. That’s a cop-out, and a weak one at best. The only thing to understand, if you’re willing, is how to help.

I watched my cancer-ridden grandfather take his last terrifying, deep, gasping breaths too early while we all cried and held his hand as he laid in his bed. He was a war veteran, husband, father, grandfather and one of the greatest and most magnanimous people you would ever have had the opportunity to know. He never smoked a day in his life, always preached about and lived a healthy diet, lifestyle and worked out daily. Logic and reason would tell you that he should have lived much longer. Problem is, this world doesn’t operate on what would seemingly make sense. We are the hand, and the knife is constantly zig-zagging through our aching fingers just waiting to slip up and lop off a knuckle. Cancer is awful, evil, malicious and unforgiving. It’s not fair and I don’t understand it, but I also won’t try to pretend like I do.

Don’t ever try to tell a cancer patient or survivor how much you care, then turn around and not do a fucking thing to help their cause. Some people simply can’t give, and that I understand. But for the rest of you, the pink picture and copy-and-paste status crew – don’t try to tell me you couldn’t forgo that $6 Starbucks coffee or 1 extra beer at the ballgame to donate to the cause you swore you cared so much about. Also – a very special “Fuck you” to all the celebrities on Facebook and Twitter who made sure to “Keep breast cancer awareness in your prayers” throughout October and always ask us to share a post or vote for them in some dumbass contest. All it takes is one re-tweet from them (or anybody, really) to spread the word to your followers (sometimes millions in the celebrities’ case). I remember reading about how you prayed for cancer, or turned your picture pink. I appreciate you showing your true colors once I gave you the opportunity to actually do something. I made this way too easy for you (especially for people who allegedly care so much), so just admit you’re a fraud already. You fake, pretentious, phony pieces of shit.

“Copy and paste this in your status if you think those who talk big but walk weak deserve the worst of what this piece of shit world has to offer http://www.retortnation.com/2011/04/10/cancermessage/.”

Consider it a call-out, I don’t care.

Remember my post about breast cancer awareness, and those who do nothing but think that they’re helping? Well, if anybody is interested – a friend and I are attending a St. Baldrick’s event on 4/09 to have our heads shaved and raise money for pediatric cancer research. A lot of people have given already and we’re on our way to hitting our goal of raising $1000.

So if you were looking for a way to help and all your pink pictures and copy-and-pasted status messages didn’t do as much as you had hoped – check out our team’s page:

http://www.stbaldricks.org/teams/robandbig

Donating is easy and any amount is appreciated. If you’re not the charitable kind, send this to somebody who is (everybody has that 1 friend). Maybe send it to that person you know who notoriously tweets and makes pink pictures but never actually does anything. Or you can keep praying, whatever. I mean it’s worked out incredibly well for Libya so far, so who knows how much we can accomplish with all those words and smiles!

No, I’m not turning into that guy who is always asking for money and I understand not everybody is in a position to give – so quit your bitching. It takes less time to donate a few bucks than it does to make your picture pink, and ONE of those things is worthless – so be efficient.

Ever since I got married and moved up to Wisconsin I have seemingly surrendered the will to partake in any variety of physical activity. My reward is a robust waistline, closet full of clothes that don’t fit and the unique ability to sweat profusely after tying my shoes.

I’ve always been a big guy, but never THIS much of a bubbling pile of fat waste, and it makes me fucking sick. I love, *LOVE* making fun of fat people and it’s becoming increasingly more difficult and hypocritical for me to do so if I have to take deep, wheezing breathes in between every insult.

Believe it or not I actually DO know a good deal about nutrition, kinesiology and things that keep people thin, I’ve just ignored the shit out of them for the past 2 years, because that’s SOOO much easier. That being said, I’m tired of listening to people drone on and on about their new fad diets. Low carb, low fat, all protein, soup diet, cabbage diet, south beach, zone, Atkins… THEY’RE ALL BULLSHIT. Think of anybody you’ve ever met who went on one of these diets – did they lose weight? Probably. Did they keep it off? Not for long. If they did – wonderful, but the facts say they’re in the very, very small minority. These kinds of diets thrive on the very fact that they inevitably all fail, leaving you to buy all the shit again and start over. I’ll be practicing the “Don’t be a worthless, fat turd – Use Common Sense” diet. Small every-day changes that will allow me to still live like a normal person and not a famished, aspiring-to-be Ethiopian. I still like food, so I refuse to live off of chicken and water for the rest of my life. If this shit works maybe I’ll post my method, maybe not… I’m pretty lazy.

The worst part about most people is that we’re all reluctant to be honest with ourselves when it matters most. I guess that’s where I separate myself from the herd (ha! accidental pun!). I’m selfish, arrogant, over-proud and a fat gluttonous embarrassment to myself. The latter is one I can’t deal with, I have become everything I hate.

With an idea inspired by a favorite writer of mine, Drew Magary, I am going to tweet my weight (#tweetyourweight) every week  in order to keep myself honest. At first this seemed daunting but it’s not like my weight is REALLY a secret. It’s already blatantly obvious to anybody within eyeshot of me that I’m a big fat piece of shit, and I know that I’m a big fat piece of shit… so assigning a number to it doesn’t really change a whole hell of a lot.

I welcome and encourage any/all insults or support in the comments. Either way it’s a win for me as support is generally encouraging and insults trigger the “fuck you, you’re wrong!” response that’s so firmly implanted in my brain’s synapses. Besides, nobody likes to fail in front of everybody and pseudo-autocratic assholes like me hate the idea of looking like a dipshit publicly. (The photo above is of me before a brat eating contest in the endzone at Soldier Field… fitting)

For the first entry: #tweetyourweight 289.8.

My goal will be 220 pounds.

I recently saw a Buick commercial that said something to the effect of, “The average person has 3000 thoughts in any given day.” I’m calling bullshit. If this blog is evidence of anything, it’s that my thought process is about as aggressive and aimless as my golf swing. I’d like to say my brain is hyperactive like Charlie Sheen’s, but I don’t want to compare the two. I never come up with cool shit like “Tiger’s blood and Adonis DNA.” Instead, I wake up with ideas like ‘What if everybody were dressed like mascots?’ It’s not productive, slightly entertaining but incredibly annoying.

Company softball team picture

If you could imagine a Twitter or Facebook feed that’s constantly updated by people you don’t like with ideas you can’t stand – that’s how my brain operates 24/7.

For example:

In my office building the lights in the hallway automatically turn on as you walk by them; they’re on sensors. Imagine somebody as easily entertained as me with the imagination of a 6 year-old to boot. I want these lights everywhere. I want to walk into every room and having the light follow me everywhere I go. I would point to them as they turned on one by one in a gun motion. I’d probably raise my arms out, palms up in a god-like gesture on a daily basis as I walked through hallways – it would be badass.

I sometimes wonder what my dog would say if he called me at work. Would it be dog stuff, or would they be a lot more human than we’d imagine? Would it only be me who could understand him? “Hey Nick, bring home steaks or I’m ordering DirecTV porn. Yeah, tell your wife the dog did it, HAHAHA, idiot. Steaks, 2 of them. Porterhouse or I’m shitting in your pillowcase.” God that would suck, what an asshole.

Speaking of dogs, I was at a pet expo this weekend. If you ever have a chance to go to one of these, run in the opposite fucking direction. These events are crawling with people you wouldn’t even want to pass on the sidewalk, let alone interact with. I had my dog with me, a boxer, and everybody who saw him couldn’t wait to tell me their story of when they had a boxer. “Oh!! I had a boxer when I was 6, he was the greatest dog in the wor…” SHUT UP! I don’t know you and I don’t give a good god damn about your dog from 40 years ago. He probably broke his own hip so you’d put him down, as you are annoying enough to make a dog want to kill himself. If I could make my dog defecate on command your shoes would be covered in shit right now. Get away from me you crazy bitch, the cat exhibits are upstairs.

How quickly would I get to work if I drove in reverse the entire way? Would I get into an accident? Pulled over? If I got pulled over would I have to pull onto the shoulder in reverse, facing the squad car and watch him the whole time he’s writing my ticket? If I stopped to get coffee I’d probably have to crawl over the seat to pay and get it, fuck that, I’ll drive normally.

Sometimes I wonder how the idea of a top 25 station was pitched. “Listen, we want to play 25 songs over and over again, for weeks or months until newer, more trendy songs come out. Then we’ll play THOSE songs over and over again for weeks or months, etc…” The manager would HAVE to oppose at first, right? “Nobody would be dumb enough to keep listening to the same songs for weeks or months. That’s ridiculous.” BUT THEY DO!!! People listen to the same god damn songs repeatedly for months on end. Some stations even have vote-in shows, where you can call or text in your vote so that the field is narrowed to something like the top 10. Even dumber is that certain stations have things like the “Top 5 at 5″ – which means that at 5pm your field of uncreative talentless slime gets reduced by 80%!! WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?!?! “Ryan Seacrest here, bringing you your top 3 songs out of the only 25 that we play - kicking it off with Bruno Mars.” AAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

To read this post probably took a few minutes, but this is the type of reel that plays in my head just from the time I walk from the bedroom to the bathroom in the morning. 3000 thoughts in a day is absurd, I’ll have 3000 by lunch. My wife used to ask me, “Whatchya thinkin’ about?” That shit ended promptly. If you’re ever talking to me and after a few minutes realize I haven’t heard a word you’ve said – it’s because I’m probably trying to figure out if the the future older version of me could defeat the younger teenage version of me in a fistfight… and how cool it would be if I could play that out on Xbox.

At any given time I can probably ramble off an entire list of thoughts that you OR I don’t care about, but they’re still up there and they can’t be silenced.

PET MONKEY’S FOR EVERYBODY!!

A perfectly executed voop

Saint Patrick’s day was yesterday, so I stayed in and watched sports on TV. I like getting drunk, I just don’t need a reason to do it. I WOULD go out on St. Patrick’s day but that means I would have to surround myself with haughty dipshit college kids, and they’re just the fucking worst. I can do without the trucker hats, popped collars, shamrock sunglasses and over-inflated sense of toughness. “But I’m not a college kid and I go out and get sloppy on St. Patrick’s Day.” Well that’s because you’re a douchebag. I’m sorry you had to hear it from me. They say that drinking only amplifies who you already are. So imagine a day where everybody wakes up thinking about what a fawning, detestable, pompous dirtbag they’re going to be even BEFORE they’re drunk.

“Everybody’s Irish on St. Patty’s day!” …. GAAAHHHH!!! SHUT THE FUCK UP!!! The only thing worse than being around the kind of people who are out solely to enact the Irish stereotype is the fact that they congregate in brainless herds by the hundreds. They’re like zombies, only zombies are probably MORE bearable to be around. While standing at the bar for an hour while the girl in back of you is throwing up, the guy to your left just pissed his pants and the rest of the smarmy sacks are punching each other sounds fun, I’ll pass. Besides, I don’t trust gingers – they’re like people with 2 first names, something just feels wrong. It’s only a matter of time before you end up in a fight or have someone trying to bait you into one. Also, stay as far away from black people as possible if you’re out on Patty’s day (sorry, black people *sad face*). The Irish are inherently racist, so just being near somebody with a dark complexion almost ensures you’re getting punched in the face.

If I want to have a beer I’ll have one at home, I don’t need an excuse to act like a complete piece of shit – I make those calls on the fly. If I’m heading out for a drink I’ll make sure it’s on a night when the city’s skidmarks aren’t out to prove to me how much they suck. If you find yourself out on St. Patrick’s Day and you’re NOT part of the bedraggled cesspool, you are allowed to do whatever the hell you want to them. 1) They won’t remember and 2) even if they do – they’ll say they were blacked out because being blacked out gives you EXTRA bro points! EXPLODING FISTBUMP!! Finally, if at any point throughout the night you’re approached with, spoken to about or find somebody excitedly celebrating a green beer – you push that person down a flight of stairs because he or she is fucking awful!

Enjoy the hangover, assholes!

UPDATE: Brackets are closed. Thanks to everybody who participated! More updates to come as the tournament progresses. You can still donate if you want, that’s definitely not frowned upon

Original Post:

My “Pray for Japan” post got an incredible amount of attention, and I’d be remiss to ignore it. A lot of people seem to be on my side so I thought I’d take advantage of it. In case you didn’t read it, I’m sick and tired of people posting lazy Facebook and Twitter statuses that read “please pray for Japan” when that does literally nothing to help their cause.

Well, I’m American and I know that trying to get somebody to donate money to a cause can be more difficult than UN-hearing Eddie Murphy’s “Party all the Time” so I’ve come up with a way to make sure you’ll donate a few bucks – gambling.

Brackets for Japan is an ESPN March Madness tournament I started that will send 90% of all the money raised to the Japanese relief fund of the winner’s choice from a list of PayPal approved organizations. The remaining 10% goes the winner’s way as well.

American Red Cross

AmeriCares Foundation Inc

Hands on Tokyo

Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Relief Fund

Operation Blessing International

Salvation Army National HQ

Save the Children: Emergency Response

World Vision

It’s so easy it’s stupid, and I’m willing to bet you’ve spent $5 on much dumber shit in your day. You really have no excuse. You’re going to fill out a bracket this year anyway (or know someone who will) and you’ll likely lose. Wouldnt you rather that money go to a great cause than to your dickhead friend or co-worker?

Here’s how it works

1. Using the “donate” button at the bottom of the page – donate $5 per bracket (or more if you want, but no pressure – seriously)

2. Go to the ESPN March Madness tournament page and fill out your bracket BY THURSDAY MORNING (3/17) BEFORE THE FIRST GAME.

3. Make your ESPN bracket’s name the same as your paypal account name. If you’re not comfortable with putting that out there – email me your paypal name and the corresponding bracket name. In short, I just need to be able to match up brackets to their owners.

The money will be held until the tournament’s completion whereupon the winner will be crowned, organization selected, and donation made. I will paypal you back the remaining 10% or send you a check/money order.

If you still want to donate but not fill out a bracket thats cool, just let me know so I’m not up all night trying to match the donation to a bracket (jerk).

**If you don’t pay, the bracket will be cancelled immediately (and you’ll be regarded as a complete deadbeat shithead in my book forever. SHAME!!)

It’s not difficult guys: Donate, fill out a bracket, stop feeling useless. Please feel free to share this with anybody who might be interested.

If you have any questions, please contact me.

It has begun (cue the Mortal Kombat music). Upon receiving news of the tsunami in Japan every pseudo bleeding heart and spurious do-gooder with a Facebook or Twitter account took to the Internet to help the only way they know how. “Please pray for Japan” is a phrase that’s been splattered across every social networking site or blog for days now, and if you’re ready for me to join that crowd – you’re either new here or have missed my aim completely.

If you want to pray for Japan, or any cause for that matter, go ahead. I wont shit on your right to do nothing, hell, I’m about as lazy as they come – but I’m not lying to myself about it. If I told you that doing cartwheels will directly increase your hospitalized father’s health but I couldn’t prove it or produce any evidence whatsoever throughout history that suggests cartwheels equal an improvement in health, would you do it? The answer to that question is “no”, in case you’re wondering. If you thought, even for a second, that it might be “yes” or even let your mind slip for a mere passing moment to a place wherein cartwheels bring about good health… please find the nearest heavy, blunt object and smash yourself in the face with it until you understand what a fucking moron you are. Praying does nothing, and that is a fact. If you think otherwise – please prove it, the contact me section works perfectly. People were praying for world peace before the twin towers were decimated and a new war was started. Darfur’s been on the world’s prayer radar for years but genocide is still as rampant there as illiteracy in the south. “Peace in the Middle East” has seemingly drawn prayers forever and I even think people prayed for the Wisconsin budget bill not to be passed before it was signed. Just like breast cancer awareness month, tragedies like this are unfortunately a great way for people to feel great about themselves while doing jack shit.

Money helps, period (or volunteering, but this message is aimed at the people who can’t even find the energy to type their credit card number into a website, so all you volunteers need not apply). If you’re not donating money because you’re worried that it might be a scam, you’re not fooling anybody.

I’m going to refuse to do the laundry because I’m afraid I’ll pull a hamstring… see how stupid that sounds?

Google it, you pathetic assholes. You can find an app to give you turn-by-turn directions to a black market whorehouse and program a remote control that turns on your shower, but you can’t figure out which charities are real? Give me a fucking break.

Earlier this week we were told to prepare for warmer weather. “The temperatures will climb into the 40′s”, they said. If you live in the Midwest you know that 40 degrees is akin to frolicking on the fucking beach, so I prepared accordingly. Shorts, t-shirts, flip-flops, European man-thongs, executioners masks, tanning oil, all the regular stuff – it was all ready to go. Amidst an intensely fucked up dream, I vaguely remember hearing a scraping noise. I thought, “No way, this is get-a-tan week, they’re probably shoveling sand for beach volleyball tournaments” and I fell back asleep. Somewhere down the line I heard what sounded like a snow blower but again, we were on the cusp of Bikini Weekend, and if we had a storm coming that warranted the use of a snow blower the weathermen would surely have notified us of its impending havoc. Wrong.

I woke up late, showered and played air guitar in front of my mirror like I usually do only to look out the window and see that my backyard looked like the inside of Charlie Sheen’s briefcase. WHAT THE FUCK?! 40 degree weather, chance of rain suddenly became 100% chance of buried under snow, god-awful, soul-murdering commute to work. The quick switch to “Winter Weather Advisory” over night isn’t fooling anybody either, assholes. Last I checked it was windows-down weather, now it’s suddenly white-knuckle-terror weather? You know just as much about the impending weather as a house cat’s shit pebbles, admit it.

Which class do they teach you the "May or may not" part in? Eat shit

The only people that have less of an expectation to do their job correctly are the homeless. Honestly, weathermen, get fucked. I’d actually feel better if you just got up in front of the green screen and farted for 3 minutes, we’d come away with the same amount of information except we’d at least be entertained. I’d like to think that your job will eventually go the way of the check-out clerk, but I understand that the general public love to be scared – and if there’s ANYTHING that you do well, it’s scare the absolute shit out of people. Go away, weathermen, your accuracy rivals that of playing blindfolded darts and you’re about as useful as a queef.

I was recently stopped at a red light next to a minivan and when I looked over,  it was like looking back in time at myself. The kid in the backseat, probably around 12, had his headphones in and was absolutely losing his mind. He was air drumming, air guitaring, head banging, etc. JAMMING THE FUCK OUT! …Poor bastard.

When I was 11, a friend and I walked to a Guitar Center near my house. I plucked a guitar from the wall and plugged it into the biggest amplifier in the store. This drew the kind of attention black people normally receive in department stores. I had no earthly idea what I was doing, but it felt great. “Distortion” sounded hardcore so I hit that button and started jamming. It probably sounded like a wounded cat because I was asked to stop immediately. So we got kicked out left, but I had the bug. Needless to say my next birthday gift was a guitar and I was sent off for lessons.

“First you’ll need to learn all of these scales” my instructor said. “Once you’ve gotten used to that, then you can start going through this chord chart and learning some of those.” Piss on that thing! I didn’t want to limp dick my way through ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’, I wanted to learn guitar so I can play Metallica’s ‘Battery’ and rock my fucking balls off! Dimebag Darrell says you just have to shoot from the hip, turn it up to 10 and you’ll blaze your fingers off, so GO TO HELL!! He insisted that learning ‘Battery’ in one day for somebody who has never played is impossible but I wasn’t having that bullshit, so I cut the cord. Turns out he was kind of right. I spent the next few months playing every now and then but not much came of it. I eventually did something stupid and was sentenced to one week’s hard time – Grounded. With nothing else to do, I spent that time feverishly trying to learn the song I’ve wanted to learn since that day I got kicked out of left Guitar Center. I got the tablature for Battery and went to work. (In case you’re unaware, tablature is like cliff notes for people who never learned to read sheet music. Every snooty, snobby, pretentious dickhole will tell you that real musicians read REAL sheet music, but that’s because they’re jealous and probably play the flute or something gay like that). Amazingly I ended up figuring it out after a while, and was able to play pretty damn well. For whatever reason I just took to the guitar, it came relatively easy to me. At this point I was drunk with musical prowess and began drifting off into my far-reaching and disastrous imagination.

I was going to learn every awesome song ever! I would be jumping off my bed and kicking through my closet door all while gunning through the ‘Domination’ solo. It would be so loud that the neighbors would come over, not to complain, but to fucking MOSH! Even Rose, our elderly next-door neighbor would be there throwing up the devil horns and ruling the pit. Eventually my prodigious talent would catapult me into a world of fame. We would tour the world on our way to becoming the greatest metal band of all time. My dad would be the drummer so it would be like a family band but we wouldn’t be a bunch of pussies like the Partridge Family or Hanson. Bands like the Jonas Brothers would be afraid of us because we’d probably just fuck with them CONSTANTLY. None of your tour bus tires are safe around me, douchebags!! We would trash hotel rooms, light stuff on fire, dominate the arena circuit and headline Donington – breaking the attendance record. I would quickly top the charts, melt the faces off the crowd at the Grammys and single handedly prevent pop artists like Lady Gaga and Kesha from ever existing. Eventually my time would come to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame so Dimebag Darrell, Joe Satriani, Eddie Van Halen and Kirk Hammet would induct me with the most epic heavy metal instrumental ever played. Albums of long lost tracks would go triple platinum even after I’m gone – like 2Pac, but way better. One day that employee who kicked me out of Guitar Center would be publicly shamed for fear that he may have impeded my ability to surpass my already staggering lifetime musical achievements. Instead I sit in a cubicle in rural Wisconsin listening to the 90′s on 9 or whatever god awful station happens to be on Sirius. My guitar collects dust and hasn’t been touched in well over 2 years. It’s a shame because I was damn good too. In a way this set me up for a lifetime of disappointment. My imagination is my worst enemy and my over-confidence likely stems from the fact that, for some reason, I had some insane knack to play the guitar. (And yes, I WILL boast about it. I’m good at like 3 things so I’m gonna grab my nuts a little about this one). From that point on I approached most situations like I did with guitar lessons. “Fuck that, your method sucks, I got this.” Most times it worked well for me, other times I was left looking like an asshole. It’s also probably the reason that I’m never satisfied with anything. Nothing will ever live up to the way I have it built in my stupid brain.

So here I stand. The kid who wanted to play ‘Battery’, and god dammit, learned how to play ‘Battery’ can not figure out how in the hell I ended up shrinking my wife’s sweater. Whites go with whites and darks go with darks, but what about my white shirt with the black writing on it? I’m ROLLING THE DICE on this one. In with the whites you go bitch, fingers crossed. The dish washer can go straight to hell too. I’ve washed already-cleaned dishes and put away dirty ones because there’s a rule that before you can wash the dishes in the dishwasher you have to wash the dishes. It’s FUCKING RETARDED and makes no sense whatsoever. Making the bed is like a scene reminiscent of the Battle of Thermopylae and no matter how many times I vacuum the carpet it looks like I didn’t do a god damn thing. My rock star self was a hell of a lot more intriguing.

Growing up sucks, especially when every pleasant experience causes your brain to splooge all over the inside of your skull and run away with ideas that are so incredibly far-fetched and inconceivable that it results in a strong cycle of emotional peaks and valleys: Extreme happiness, disappointment when reality is realized, repeat. So when I saw that kid losing his shit over his favorite song doing his best Yngwie Malmsteen impression, I felt bad for him. He likely has an imagination like mine, I just hope he has the wherewithal later in life to make sure his cups are dishwasher safe.

Happy Valentines Day, bitches. Can you feel the excitement? Personally, I can’t wait to bump shoulders with 20 other guys looking at cards while we all carry on awkward small talk with each other about how long we waited to buy something. “I do this EVERY year!” “Oh man, you waited until the last minute too?! We’re so stupid, stupid guys, god, what a bunch of stupid typical guys we are! HARF HARF” Oh god, just thinking about it makes me want to stuff one of those musical cards down some body’s throat so I can punch him in the stomach and dance to the Macarena.

Even though any flowers I buy will die within 45 seconds I get them anyway because I’m a good husband, damn it. Also – it should be noted that any woman who tells you she doesn’t want anything for Valentines Day is 100% full of complete shit. Even if she legitimately means it, she reeeaaally doesn’t. It’s a fucking war zone out there fellas, gotta keep your head on a swivel. Husbands, boyfriends, go ahead – give it a shot, don’t buy anything. Let me know how your next week goes. “Oh look, Mary posted a picture on Facebook of the flowers she got at work… how nice of John. I wish my husband wasn’t a thoughtless sack of shit.” Fuck you John, you’ve ruined it for everybody. You’re THAT guy. YOU’RE the reason today is wretched. Guys, don’t go too far out of your way today either. Aside from being a pointless holiday, there’s always some douchebag that will one-up you regardless of what you buy her. “Flowers… thanks hun…*sigh*” (You’ll find out later that her coworker had a love-gram or some other ridiculous shit delivered to her office, making you look like a pimple on the ass of Valentines Day gift-giving festivities).

Finally, to all the people with the bitchy statuses: “Valentines Day sucks! Singles club FTW!!” You’re not fooling anybody. Your transparency rivals that of a 4 year old lying about brushing his teeth. Enjoy watching The Notebook by yourself as you cry your way through a pint of ice cream. There’s nothing wrong with being single, but pseudo-complaining about it is a sure-fire tactic to make sure you stay that way forever. Quick insight into the male brain: Bitchy hardass = lesbian. Generally not the ticket to landing a boyfriend, just sayin’.

Enough with the god damn ‘Love Is’ cartoons and the like all over the internet. Aside from being inaccurate they’re just annoying. If I ever gave my wife a dandelion as a present we’d be rushing to the hospital to get an epinephrine shot so her allergies don’t kill her, not skipping down the fucking road happily ever after. Thanks, ‘Love Is’ cartoon, you can expect to hear from my lawyer after giving me garbage ass advice like that. Single women will never be happy because they think all guys should act like George Clooney or Brad Pitt.

Good luck with that, reserve a seat at the singles club for the next forever.