Worthy of Mention

So I have observed a few things these past few days, and I feel naturally compelled to mention them to you, my adoring fans.

So I was taking a drive on the way to an Ultimate Frisbee game (oh yeah, I'm an athlete) when I passed by a middle school. Outside the school there is an impressively large field with a paved track around the perimeter. As I drove by, I saw there was absolutely nobody on the field except for one individual. In a completely vacant field, there is a tiny latino toddler....doing laps on a tricycle. No words can quite capture how truly bizarre this looked.

But I actually saw something even weirder the other day.

This, to all of those who don't cruise Wikipedia as much as me, is Spiridon Louis. He won the first modern-day Summer Olympic Marathon in 1896. He was a Greek man (appropriate) wearing a dress (slightly less appropriate, probably very difficult to run in), and he was a professional 'water carrier' (whatever that means). He also has a fantastic mustache.

Sidenote: I now want to call my child Spiridon. Boy or girl. I don't care.

I was next going to put up a picture of the most recent marathon winner. I thought it would be a funny comparision, because I was fully expecting a Kenyan. Instead I got a very ugly Italian man with awkward body dimensions:

For starters, we need better portrait-takers these days. That old Greek water-carrier looks fantastic. At the very least this guy could grow a handle-bar mustache. You win the marathon with a skirt and facial hair and you will get my respect.

Sidenote: As I looked this guy's story up, I came across something interesting. In the the 2004 race, a dog apparently got loose and ran amongst the racers. The dog was "subdued by two security dogs and escorted off the track". Cool

Speaking of pets, I have one final comment for the day. As some of you may remember, during my school vacations I work at a local Animal Hospital in a position similar to a nurse. A few days ago, a woman came in with a cat. The cat's name was Pandora. The woman said she was interested in getting Pandora spayed..... I laughed for about ten minutes.

Byah!

Rob

The United State of Forvik

Just when I think my well of bloggable topics has run dry, something (generally from the internet) comes and lands in my lap, and I must discuss.

I read this incredible article several times over to get the jist, and I'm going to give you the major points. Here we go:

In 2001, a man named Stuart Hill attempted to circumnavigate England, but his boat capsizes off the coast of the tiny island of Forvik. He has lived on the 2.5 acre island ever since.

Sidenote: Sounds like a storyline from "Lost", huh?

He has been living in a tent all this time, until suddenly he decides to go do something monumentous in his life. He wants to declare Forvik a nation independent of the United Kingdom.

Citing a 15th century marriage dowry concerning the island, King Stuart Hill claims that the island has been held unlawfully for six centuries. In his own words: "The monarchs and governments of Scotland, and Great Britain and the United Kingdom have for many years assumed powers over this island to which they were not entitled."

This is just another example of soverign western states colonizing and imposing their doctrines on native people to exploit their natural resources and make them all play cricket. Well, Prime Minister Stuart Hill is having none of that. His 2.5 acre bastion of liberty is standing up to the Man, i.e. the Queen. In a bold and patriotic move, he wrote a letter asking to be Forvik's independent steward that will submit to England in most affairs of state and/or tourism (kind of like Canada). Way to go President Stuart Hill, way to go.

I really want you guys to imagine this scene. This a drunk (educated guess) 64 year old kilt-wearing shipwreck ... living alone on a rock off the coast of Scotland in a tent ... citing Dark Age legal documents ... writing a letter to the Queen of England ... asking for freedom from the tyranny of the United Kingdom.

So here's my idea. The moment that the Queen grants Forvik independence, I think we should get some people together and invade the island. Let's all put on some blue facepaint, pick up some broadswords, and storm the beaches of Forvik. Of course, after we vanquish the evil tyrant (Lord Stuart de Hill), we should rename our island. And I'm just putting a suggestion out there: Djibouti II.

Think about it.

Byah!

Rob

My Concern

It would appear that the elections are slowly creeping up on us. In the red corner, there’s welterweight Barack Obama. Opposing him in the blue corner is the enfeebled John McCain who is looking more and more like Roosevelt every day.

It's going to quite the epic battle. It'll be like Plessy vs. Ferguson except with a more balloons and black people will be allowed in the first row.

Here is my concern.

I personally think Obama has a better shot at this. Ignoring some unforeseen circumstance, I'll go ahead and say Obama will be president. An African-American president. Incredible. Or is it?

In every movie about the future, there always seems to be a black president. Cause that's the futuristic "thing" right? It's either a black president or a woman president (and let's face it, that's a long way off). But in these movies, that’s when something terrible happens. Nuclear bomb, terrorists only Jack Bauer can deal with, alien attacks, zombie attacks, alien zombie attacks, etc.

These are awful things that always seem to be in the near future. Why? Black president. It'll happen soon, but not too soon for everyone to worry. But now it seems that the future is now. Time to worry.

That's why I'm telling everybody to vote for John McCain. Because otherwise we’ll soon be in a post-apocalyptic zombie-filled world, and I don't think I fit the personality type of a surviving character.


Byah!

Rob

Leave Me Out of It

I was in the process of driving last night when I was suddenly and inexorably drawn into a Race War. Let me explain.

I was turning onto an off ramp behind two other cars. The car in front was driving a tad too slow for the second car, who began to get close behind and crowd him (in some circles, this is known as "freaking"). We have all seen this happen, and I knew the two were going to be pretty pissed at each other.

So we come off the off ramp onto a three-lane street. Up ahead, a stoplight turns red. The first car gets into the right lane. The second car gets into the left lane. I roll on up into the middle lane, which was probably a mistake.

On my right was an Indian guy looking very angry. If you are having trouble picturing an angry Indian man, think of an Arab. On my left was a black guy giving dirty looks right back.

Sidenote: I spent a long time wondering if I should capitalize black. Hopefully I made the right call.

The thing is, these two guys are giving their angry looks through my car. I actually grabbed my seat control and rolled back a few inches so I wasn't in the thick of it. I could feel the tension building. As the light turned green, I knew I was about to die.

Ultimately, I decided to wait a few seconds to let the two cars get ahead of me. This might have been a good decision, because about five seconds later, the Indian guy pulls into the middle lane. A few minutes later, the black guy turns left at the next light, and the Indian guy follows him!

I decided not to follow and see how the evening turned out, but I know what the result will be: Race War.

Byah!

Rob

Be Afraid

This is late-breaking news that has the international community abuzz. Certain individuals have been shown to have ties to "murderous Islamic extremists" according to Michelle Malkin, author of a nationally recognized column.

Sidenote: Much like me.

The perpetrators? Dunkin' Donuts and Rachel Ray.

Terrifying.

Here's the scoop (yes, it's an actual news story). Rachel Ray did a commercial for Dunkin' Donuts. Her apparel was chosen by a professional, they did the commercial, it was aired, and all seemed to be going well. But then the controversy started (as everyone knew it would).

Turns out, Rachel Ray's scarf is reminiscent of scarves worn by those darned "murderous Islamic extremists". The Middle Eastern garb is called a kiffiyeh. The "look" was popularized by Yasser Arafat and is worn in all of those beheading videos. And honestly, I'm surprised more people didn't see the resemblance. I totally thought this dude had a cooking show.

Her scarf apparently just screams "JIHAD!", which was not the message Dunkin' Donuts was going for, so the advertisement will no longer be run. According to one executive: "we are no longer using the ad because the possibility of misperception (i.e. resembling terrorists) detracted from its original intention to promote our iced coffee." So the gist of the ad was like so:

Very easy to get the selling point confused.

Mistakes like this are surprisingly common in advertisements. Who can forget "Earl's Ice Cream, Inc."? The company was doomed due to an unfortunate shaving mistake in their first marketing campaign. They swiftly lost customers.


But the article wouldn't stop there. It couldn't! Because the corruption isn't stopping at Rachel Ray. The author, Michelle Markin, who is now a shoo-in for the Pulitzer, has discovered numerous kiffeyeh-wearing celebrities spreading Islam. Colin Farrell (actor, last seen in Bruges), Kanye West (rapper, possibly Jesus), and Howard Dean (wait....what?) have all been seen wearing similar scarves.

Any 'Average Joe' seeing one of these men in these scarves would have thought, 'uh....gay?' But now the public has been made aware that it is actually a symbol of people involved in radical Islamic practices. Thank you, Michelle Malkin, for your hard-hitting journalism. Thank you.

Guantanamo is gonna be packed.

BYAH!

Rob

Sense of Accomplishment

Once again, my faithful reader(s), I have been lax in my blogging. Let's get you all up to date.

The school year is over, and for all those who are interested, I did quite well. For all those who aren't... you're just jealous.

And get this guys....I'm exercising. I'm jogging on a regular basis, running in progressively larger circles until I get lost somewhere in West Virginia. I actually tried running with one of my dogs today. One bit of advice I should give you pet-owning runners out there: Make sure you let them go to the bathroom before you take them running. Otherwise, you'll be running along at a regular pace listening to the Braveheart soundtrack (I get the image of a highlander trekking across the landscape, it motivates me...shuttup) and all of a sudden you feel a jerk on the line. You give it a tug, thinking your dog just stopped to sniff at something..... not the case. You turn around and you're dragging your dog across someone's driveway and she's dropping pellets every two feet. Not good.

Well, in the pursuit of bodily health, I took up a game of basketball with our old friend Joe. It's been a while since I've played (because I suck) but apparently flip flops are not the foot garment of choice. Another interesting note is that the only basketball we could find was a fancy "glow-in-the-dark" one, which doesn't really make sense since the hoop doesn't glow in the dark. There are lot of claimed "swishes" when we play at night.

Sidenote: I really do suck. Joe was playing PIG, while I was playing PORK CHOP (yeah, he still beat me). Not only that, but every time I shoot, my left leg just has this insistent urge to flail, like I'm skipping over a puddle.

Well, we were wrapping up our game when Joe notices that there is a kite stuck high up in a tree next to the court. Being the civic-minded young men that we are, we took it upon ourselves to rescue the stranded kite.

Lacking both a ladder and a migrant worker to shimmy up the tree and grab our fruit, we settled on our next best tools: my flip-flops and Joe's glow-in-the-dark basketball. We were only heaving our various implements for a few seconds when....one of them didn't come down. That's right, our basketball was now stuck in the tree as well. And not just stuck, it was wedged in a perfect basketball-shaped cradle. Honestly, if that had been what we wanted, it couldn't have gone any better. As it was, we now had a basketball stuck in a tree.

The next twenty minutes was spent intermittently changing from shaking the tree to throwing flip flops and sneakers at it (Joe took his shoes off for added ammunition). As the sun began setting, the inherent property of the glow-in-the-dark basketball began to show itself, giving off a pale yellow light. It brought a crowd of onlookers from a little girl's soccer team that was practicing next to us. It actually would have been quite a magnificent sight if it weren't for the two tiring college boys cursing this ungodly sycamore in progressively higher tones, much to the excitement of the children.

Well, finally, an expertly thrown flip-flop from yours truly was able to dislodge the glowing basketball. When I picked it up I thought I might get super-basketball powers like in Space Jam (anybody else remember the 90s?).

Anyway, Joe and I were then able to walk home with a good feeling of accomplishment. We conveniently forgot about the kite that was still up there.

BYAH!

Rob

Why I'm Stupid

My Internet went out on me last night.

It happened when I was having a lot of IM conversations at the same time. And of course, when Internet goes IM doesn't tell you, so I spent about ten minutes afterwards telling stories and wondering why nobody was replying back.

Now, I had spent some time without Internet when I desired the need for human contact, and not the kind I have with myself (again, no Internet).

So I tried to call my girlfriend, it went straight to voicemail.

I tried to call Joe, that went to voicemail, too.

And then a thought popped into my mind.....what if I was dead? The possibility lingered in my mind for much longer than it should have. I thought that any second the little black things from the movie Ghost would come and drag me off.

Anyway, long story short, I called my mom to reassure myself I was alive.

Trying to recover from my near-death experience, I decided to visit the blog....... but I couldn't... I'm stupid.


BYAH!

Rob

Escapades of a Soda Bottle

I'm gonna go ahead and tell you about the most embarrassing experience a guy can have.

You just finished up your soda, and you're walking down the sidewalk. Up ahead of you, you see a trashcan fast approaching. As you pass by it, you nonchalantly give the required 1.5 foot toss of your trash into the receptacle. Seems simple, no?

Your projectile, inspired to some mischief, hits the rim of the trashcan and bounces back out. And it always lands five feet from you in the middle of a crowded sidewalk.

It's one thing if this was a Styrofoam cup, or even a crunched up aluminum can. No, this is full-on soda bottle, so it starts bouncing down the sidewalk, making the doink doink noises so everybody knows what just happened. Not only that, but those bottles don't have a uniform shape, making it bounce rogue all over the place. So you're jumping around the sidewalk trying to grab this demon-bottle, cause you don't want people to think, 'Oh, not only is he a bad shot, he's a litter bug, too.'

Well finally you catch the damn thing. You're not near the can anymore. People are giving you side-long glances. Your reputation on this turf has been severely shattered. You know there's only one shot at redemption. You have to turn the most embarrassing experience a guy can have into the most spectacular experience a guy can have.

You line up your shot. Twenty feet to the can. You have to take the wind into account because PET is a very light plastic. You set your feet, cock back...and let it fly. People pause. A single breath stretches for a lifetime. Little drops of soda start scattering from the spinning bottle, but the spectators don't care because they're part of history now.

Could it be.....?

Yes, nailed it!!!

Your work is done. Time to move on.

BYAH!

Rob

Who are We?

When Joe stopped contributing to the blog, he made a few changes.

He erased a majority of his comments on our profile page, for starters. And he changed the authors of the blog from Joe and Rob to just Rob.

However, he forgot that in the format of the blog, it read: Who are we? before naming the authors. So, unknown to me, for the last month, on the right hand side it has said:

Who are We?

Rob

Joe, in his spite, has made the world think I have multiple personalities.

I believe all of us here have solved the problem though.

Belated BYAH!

-Rob

Appalachian Hollywood

I feel obligated to explain my abysmal lack of posting to this rallying point of American culture. It's time you faced the facts: I am actually quite uninteresting. I only post when something of interest actually occurs (and I remember it by the time I get home). Of those that I remember, about 50% turn out to be funny only to me. Another 49% of them are 'you had to be there stories'. This leave 1% of everything interesting that happens to me that I can relate to you readers.

At this point, most of you are likely wondering if I'm actually going to tell a tale or if I'm just pissing in the wind (you can make a rainbow if you angle it right). The others out there are wondering where the pictures are because they Googled 'erotic pinecone'. Click BACK you weirdos!

Well, enough is enough, I do have a tale.

Some of you might remember a certain blog of mine entitled "The Big Screen" in which I regaled you about the debut of my acting career.

Sidenote: None of the acting involved the use of a pinecone. Seriously, click BACK right now. And get help.

The film was campus-produced giving advice about the process of moving off campus, and I had a relatively large role in it. That was several months ago. Guess what? We're still shooting! There was big screw-up in the management, and we ended up being delayed for a very long time. Somebody couldn't work at that date. Somebody couldn't work on the other date. The cinematographer had to pick up a shift at Burger King......it was a royal mess.

But finally, in the past week, we have started the gears rolling again. We started filming outside of somebody's house. We never met the owners....I hope they knew what was going on.

For starters, the place was a dump. Shingles were literally falling off the roof while we were there. Half of the windows were covered up by, no joke, aluminum foil. In the yard, there was a beer pong table on its side next to another beer pong table. And here's the kicker: the place was covered in Halloween decorations. It is currently late April. Something is amiss in this neighborhood. As you walk in the front door, there is a six foot zombie bride holding a bowl that I'm sure was once filled with candies but now seemed to be a bin for condom wrappers.

Sidenote: Hopefully nobody saw me, but I moved the zombie by a window so she could have a roll in the movie. We'll see if she makes the cut.

The first scene that we shot was a night shot that was all about an unplanned keg party growing in size: people wandering up to the porch, holding plastic cups (filled with grape soda). If any of you readers actually get to watch this thing, there will be a moment when you hear a jangle of keys, you see some car lights go off, a door will slam, and then somebody walks into the shot to join the party. I am intricately involved in this scene. Not because I was the guy walking in, or even his friend he meets up with. No. I have the all-important roll as light-flicker and door slammer....a role which i performed for forty-three minutes.

Normally, I would be greatly annoyed by this, and would have taken a nap or done homework, but something extraordinary kept happening. We had a dozen-or-so extras in this shot, all holding red cups as props, laughing, gamboling around in between takes. Off to one side there was a bright light and a camera, but it really wasn't that noticeable. So, every now and then... a group of freshmen (I assume this because no one else would be so naive) would walk up, start talking, and then ask where they could buy a cup. Of course, nobody would tell them what was going on...because the look on their faces when the director yelled "Quiet on set!"....priceless.

Well, after a while, I got my chance to say a few lines as well. I actually have no idea how good of an actor I am, but I'm positive I'll be nominated for some sort of award for my work. Send me an email if you would like a shout-out in my acceptance speech.

A few days later we did some more filming. I had a leading role in one scene as the guy raking leaves and then going to meet the neighbors. To start with, it took 23 takes for the director to say I got it right, so that little patch of grass was raked straight through to the bedrock. It took so many takes because I could not control that damn rake. Every which way I positioned it...the handle was in front of my face...or the neighbor's face....or the roommate's face. It was impossible. When I tried to hold it behind me, I was told that it looked like a massive hickory penis. When I asked what the problem was, I had to take a timeout.

The last scene that I shot was about my roommates and I meeting with a campus lawyer to discuss our lease. The guy playing the lawyer actually was the campus lawyer. When I met him, he told me wasn't an actor. I replied that I wasn't either. We bonded immediately.

So it had been a hot day, and I was wearing shorts and t-shirt (what I always wear when meeting with a lawyer). The shot involved the two of us sitting down and discussing some questions we had about the apartment. That night, after the filming was done, I was getting ready for bed. And that's when I remembered that I had decided not to wear any underwear that day. So I had just shot a scene... facing the camera... sitting down.... with a pair of relatively open shorts.... and nothing to stop this from being an R rated informational film.

So that's that. I am done filming. They should be done with editing and touch-ups and special effects by the end of summer (Smeagol apparently makes an appearance). I'll let you guys know how I look on camera when I see the final production, and I'll try to bootleg a copy for everybody to view.

Until then...

Byah!

Rob

X-Games

So I was comfortably dining with my friends Joe and Mary (I need to meet new people), when a blast from the past strolled up next to us. His name was John.

Sidenote: Regular readers may recall I have a friend named Jon. Different people. One of them is Jewish.

John is a character all by himself. Let me try to introduce him.

He attended high school with myself and Joe. Now lets just say this: John is a smart guy. He is a Biochemistry major, he took AP Biology with me, and will probably end up richer than me. I will also say this though: in 10th grade he invited me to go smoke pot and play Mario Bros.. Yes, he is that kid. There have been previous posts that described that kid as the know-it-all teacher's pet. John is that kid: the one who gets high, doesn't study, sleeps in class.....and still does better than the previous that kid. Oh, and he says 'dude' a lot.

My best memories happened during AP Biology. Just as class starts, he decides he needs to go to the bathroom. He comes back an hour later...looking a little woozy....and wearing bright pink girl flip flops. He still doesn't quite remember what happened.

For his final biology project, he did research on hydroponics. This is a method of growing plants by suspending them in water instead of in soil. His visual was a stem of cannabis stuck into a pot filled with corn flakes.... When he got a bad grade, he just started saying over and over, "But I brought the pot! I brought the pot!"


OK, well this kid shows up during our meal. We check on how he's doing ("good, dude, good"). Then he asks us what we've been up to. I reply, joking, "Well, we tried acid." "Really?!" His face was lit up like the Fourth of July during Christmas. I can relate his ecstatic response to only one thing: the look on a gay guy's face when you tell him your friend is also gay.

Sidenote: Joe still hasn't quite forgiven me. And I'm still laughing.

We quickly disappoint him by saying we were kidding. He shrugs and says, "It's just that I did it this last weekend...." (Yippee! Storytime!)

Apparently he had gone to some music festival in southern Florida and lost a week of his life. There was a lot going on, but the only story he told us about was his experience with "Ecstasy".

Sidenote: A quick science lesson: Ecstasy (or X, E, or XTC) is actually Methylenedioxymethamphetamine, a drug that causes pronounced euphoria, inner peace, and urinary retention (Wikipedia, 2007).

Ecstasy is that drug that makes you love everything, but you might die. In general, I try to stay away from things that cause death. But that's me. John was fortunate enough to have an experienced user with him who knew to bring a camelpack of water (which stops the whole dying thing).

John was trying to relate the experience to us: they really loved the water. Like, they loved it. It felt so cool and smooth and it made them happy. It was like the best water ever. And they just wanted everyone to drink the water, everybody they loved, everybody, come drink the awesome water! It just tastes soooo gooooood.

The best part of the tale was this: somewhere during the event...John found that he had a ball of light in his hands ... like.... the Dragonball Z things. So he spent a couple hours holding this energy ball in his hands, hoping nobody made him angry, or he might accidentally go Kamaya Maya on their ass (his words, not mine).

I was unaware that Ecstasy gave you spheres of light in your hands. Can you imagine what middle school would have been like if we knew this? There wouldn't be a sober kid in the class! So, if I take this little pill....I can shoot balls of fire! Come on Timmy, we're gonna go fight aliens!

Anyway, long story short. I'm glad I never took John up on that offering of pot in 10th grade.


BYAH!

Rob

Irresistible

This might be a tough break to all my female readers out there, but I am, in fact, in a relationship.

Sidenote: Don't let her know.

We have been dating for quite some time now. It'll always be easy to remember our anniversary because I met her at Mardi Gras Free Pancake Day at IHOP, and took her out about a week later. So whenever I see beads, I know to buy flowers.

That first date though..... Let's just say there shouldn't have been a second. I'll now give the complete rendition:

The Game-Plan

As a general rule, I like to plan out my romantic possibilities. I almost never ask a girl out until I'm completely positive she'll say yes, even if she does it half-heartedly. I have actually only be turned down once. DAMN YOU PAIGE!

So, I had met her at IHOP. I was focusing on picking which syrup to use, so I didn't give a whole lot of thought into possible dating until I woke up from my pancake-coma the next day.

I checked her on facebook to make sure she was cool, and was intrigued by her Favorite Quote: "friends are like peeing in your pants, everyone can see it but only you can feel the warmth." I was convinced she was the one.

Problem: I wasn't in a state of familiarity to just call her up, and I'm really bad at pretending to bump into people: "Imagine seeing you again.....in your bathroom."

Solution: She was a friend of my pal Jon, so I made him have a party. Perfect.

Springing the Trap

Well, we're all there. I'm making awkward glances at my soon-to-be-girlfriend (little does she know). There's beer pong, darts (perfect game for a crowded room of intoxicated people), and Smash.

Sidenote on Smash: I am of course referring to Super Smash Brothers, a fantastic game. My friends Jon and Stu are ridiculously good at it, and make me and Joe look ridiculous. And then we go play other people, and make them look ridiculous. And they cry. I have recently come into possession of Super Smash Brothers Brawl (the Wii version)....and I haven't done homework in about a week. There is no joke here, somebody please take this away from me.

So I walk up to my lady, and I open with this smooth line. "Hey...... (ten seconds of silence).... wanna learn how to play darts?" Scared of her response, I peed in my pants. So I spent some time with her, explaining how the pointy end goes into the board, and you wanna hit the middle. I found out that she already knew how to play, and was actually pretty good. I'm going to stick with the story that I let her win ....yeah.

OK, so talking was happening, and I was getting a few smiles. Everything seemed right on tract. So I went with the next line in my arsenal: "Hey, wanna drive me home?" Now at first this may not seem like a smart move, slightly emasculating, even. But let me explain. She is a woman...and she is what the authorities call "Asian". The fact that I plucked up the courage to allow her to drive me was a major turn-on.

Well, I won't delve into the awkward conversation that followed in the car (you've heard and done it before, no reason to elaborate). As she drove up next to my dorm (oh yeah baby ... BUNK BEDS!) I knew I should try to ask her out.

One reason for my exceptionally low turn-down rating is the manner by which I ask a girl out. I have discovered I should only deal with hypotheticals. I ask, "If I were to ask you out, what would you say?" If she giggles, laugh, cries, or pees herself, I can respond with a quick, "Well good thing I'm not!" If, however, she says she would say yes in this hypothetical, I say, "OK, pick you up at 7," and I bolt away as fast as I can before she changes her mind.

Well, lucky for me, she said she would allow me to court her. She told me later she checked me out as I ran down the sidewalk.

Casanova on Steroids

The day had come. It was time for me to go on a date. Plans had already been made. We were going to see the movie "Music and Lyrics"....

Sidenote: Our lost compatriot, Joe, has a huge crush on Hugh Grant. He went to go see this romantic comedy with his sister. He called it delightful. His favorite quote of the movie:
Vixen: "Why are your pants so tight?"
Hugh: "It forces all the blood to my heart."
Stunning.

.... and afterwards go to Red Lobster. I like to go to dinner after a movie. For starters, I get the matinee price. And also, at dinner we can talk about the movie. In total, I'm cheap and desperate for conversation topics.

So, plans are in order, I'm excited to go. I called my gal to make sure she was ready, and then set off in my polo shirt. All I had to do is walk over to the parking lot to get my car and I could get going.

Hmm, not in the usual rows I park. Maybe in the back.

Yep, just find my car and I'm off.

Maybe I parked in that other parking lot.

Should get going soon. Don't want to miss the movie.

Erm, not in that parking lot either. Must have missed it in that first parking lot.

Starting to panic now.

Not there....either.....I.....where....car.....Hugh Grant....what?.....uh...

"Hey listen. I was thinking maybe you should drive tonight. Well, I lost my car."

Yep, first date....I lost my car. Bad luck. So we ended up missing the movie, and we went straight to Red Lobster. Now, obviously I needed to gain back some points. I couldn't just get by on my incredible good looks, I needed to turn on the charm. I needed to show my sensitivity and compassion. I would tell you readers what I told her, but lets face it, I was making it all up anyways.

I do remember how I got excited cause it was Lobster Bisque day at Red Lobster. For those who are unaware, bisque is fantastic. I actually use it as an adjective now. "Dude, that is so bisque." It'll catch on, don't worry. So my heart was beating loudly as I ordered my favorite soup. The kindly waitress told me that they were all out, and I wanted to slap her across the face. How can they be out of Lobster Bisque at Red Lobster. I SAW the lobsters in the tank in the lobby! Go make some more!

Epilogue

Anyway, I'm almost positive the date went well. We drove back and we talked for a while. And she consented to give me a chance at a second date. Yippee (crap, I gotta do this again?). I bid her good night and as I watched her leave, I was thinking two things: "She might be a keeper" and "Where the FUCK is my car?!"


BYAH!

Rob

Rob, Party of Me

It had been a long day. I was driving back to school with my good friend Joe (RIP) and his sister Mary (who is also a good friend, not someone I'm forced to hang out with). Most of the trip was spent cow watching.

Sidenote: On the way up a week before, while driving, my eyes wandered onto a herd of cows grazing. Very bucolic scene. And then my eyes saw something incredible. I immediately pointed and yelled what it is I was seeing: "COW FUCKING!" Yes, they do it. The 'bull' is somehow able to finagle his way up, and with legs sticking straight out, makes the most awkward love to the 'dam' who is still chewing cud. Joe was able to spot the occurrence, but Mary missed out. And so the rest of that trip and whole trip back down was spent eyeballing cows, hoping it would happen again. We never saw a repeat, but....we did see a lot of calves.

So we were back in town, and ready for some good eating. After variant discussion, we set our hearts onto Olive Garden, the best Italian food in southern Virginia. Must say, however, that this is not my favorite Olive Garden. I have spent a good portion of my life with the knowledge that Olive Garden serves 'never-ending pasta bowls'. Apparently, this restaurant didn't feel like participating in this offer. The waitress didn't even know what the hell I was talking about. She kept saying that I could just order another plate if I was still hungry ..... bah.

However, this trip to Olive Garden was a much more fulfilling experience. For starters, I had lasagna. But there was also the simple fact that, on that night, I was on my game. The stars were in perfect ordinance, the fates were with me, and I drank just enough Diet Coke on the way down. I was funny, charming, and my hair was fantastic. If I was at a bar, I would have brought home three girls and a confused film student to videotape. But I was at Olive Garden, so I settled for just being the best customer ever. Here's a simple rendition of all the people I influenced over the night (notice, they are all women):

The Hostess

The three of us are walking up to the door when we start the usual pre-dining conversation: what name should we give. "Rob, party of three," is just boring. I suggest "Commander Poopypants", Mary wants to do "Mary" (she's boring, and kind of vain), and Joe wants "Magellan." Now, what usually happens is that you walk up to the hostess, panic, blank-out, you get sweaty, and then you just go ahead and give your regular name. This is because the Hostess is usually a bitch. You can tell, I won't explain why.

On this occasion however, the Hostess seemed downright peppy. I still blank a little, but eventually I come up with "M-M-Magellan. Three. Non-poopypa-SMOKING, non-smoking!" Joe is laughing at me, and he's giddy cause I picked his name. The Hostess doesn't really get that we're laughing at the fake name, and apologizes, saying she's sorry she's spelling the name wrong. Quick as a whip, I say: "That's okay, nobody gets it right the first time." So smooth. The Hostess, is still a little clueless, starts talking about her own name: Cheree. Joe says, "Well, that's an interesting name." Cheree replies, "Well, that's what you get when your drunk 17 year old mother names you while watching Price is Right."

Sidenote: There is nothing more I can add to that.

The wait for a table is 35 minutes, so we stand in a corner. That's when we looked up, and realized that there were tons of waiters and waitresses just standing around. Why weren't they hurrying people up? Or at the very least, go in the back and start whittling some more tables and chairs.

Sidenote: My first experience with Italians was Gepetto. And I still think that all Italians and all people associated with Italians are also fantastic carpenters.

Time is passing, so we decide to grab some menus. Like most people who go to Olive Garden, we already knew exactly what we were getting. The menu is just a formality. But for the first time, I really looked at it. On the back cover there is a picture of some kind of manor in the countryside. I had always assumed it was just decoration. But no, this is The Olive Garden Institute of Tuscany. It looked fantastic. If I ever go to Italy, I'm going there. Aqueducts? Canals? Colosseum? Fuck that! I'm goin to the fuckin Olive Garden Institute of Tuscany, so I can really learn something about Italy.

We were getting bored, so Joe and I decided to play a game. I took two of the menus and started swapping it around, Three-Card Monte'in it, and he would try to pick the right one. I would attempt to trick him up, left over right, under left, back to the left, right, left, left, right. Since, there were only two, it wasn't that difficult for him. Little did we realize that we were making some noise, and also that we looked ridiculous. I get a tap on my shoulder during a really good swap. Cheree is standing behind me, and she says, "What are you doing?" To be honest, there was no answer, but this is what I came up with: "You.....are making us wait a really long time." This is called deferring blame.

Now, here comes the best part of the night. My completely rationalized over-confidence was beginning to swell, and I came under the notion that....Cheree was eyeballin me. Sure she was 28 with some obvious parental issues and a weird name, but I enjoyed the flattery. Now, I'm going back to return the menus, I turn around, and Cheree is blatantly staring at my waist (aka, satchel) region. My first thought was, 'Oh really?' My second was, 'Am I zipped?' (I was). And my third thought, spoken aloud, was, 'Hey, I'm up here.' She covers by saying she was looking at my insulin pump cord (diabetic medical device, ask your fat grandpa about it). But she knows I think she was checking me out, and she knows that she was.

Well, finally we're called up. I'm having an intense craving for breadsticks and Zuppa Toscana, so I'm ready to go. As Cheree hands off the menus to the waitress, she says, "Take this hot man to a table."

I am so in.

Humpty and Dumpty

So we're sitting, waiting for our waitress when me and Joe start looking at the waitresses, trying to guess which was ours. That's when we saw them. Two waitresses who would not be able to get on an elevator at the same time. These girls were of significant heft. If you were sitting in the back seat with one of them, the middle seat wouldn't be an option anymore, you'd have trouble just trying for the other window seat.

Here are the comments made through the course of the evening. As you might have guessed, this was not one of my charming moments during the course of the meal.

Joe: They were skinny before they started working here two months ago.

Me: They can't be our waitresses, no way they could fit between the tables. They'd have to reach over with tongs to get our drinks.

Joe: I'm just afraid that my Chicken Parmesan would have a big bite in it when it gets to me.

Me: Well, at least they'll know what food tastes good.

Me: I think I saw one of their "Employee Picks" out front: Page 2.

Mary: You guys are awful.

The Waitress

Well, we were not waited upon by either of the leviathans. We were instead served by a feisty Philadelphian with a limp by the name of Carrie. When we asked her what happened to her foot, she says she was tripped by a rude redneck with steel-toed boots, and if she ever saw him again she'd kick his ass. I immediately decided on a 25% tip for awesomeness.

Carrie was just a fantastic waitress anyway. Always popping up. And we just had a fun time talking with her. She liked talking to me the most.....she could tell that my game was just through the roof at this point.

The meal was closing, and I was talking with Mary about how Olive Garden breadsticks are never good as leftovers. Carrie pops up out of nowhere, and gives some input. She says, next time, I should order spaghetti and meatballs, but I should save some of the meatballs to bring home with some breadsticks. Then, I should slice open the breadsticks, put in the meatballs, and put it in the oven for a while. She says its delicious. I'm listening to all this, I nod, and then say: "Hmmm.....why don't I just eat it all here?" She pauses, and then says, "Heh, I like you." Fantastic.

She brings the check. And with the check she brings a thermo-sealed bag with breadsticks....and two chocolate mint thingies for me. Jackpot! Olive Garden rocks.

The Hostess, Part Deux

We are leaving, feeling very full and content. I had a feeling Cheree wanted to see me one more time, but she wasn't at the hostess booth. There was a waitress there, so I tell her this: "Hey, can you tell Cheree that Magellan says bye? Thanks."

The waitress says sure, pauses, frowns, then goes, "Wait, what?" She ultimately decides to just get Cheree instead. We say our tearful goodbyes, and I tell her she can watch me as I leave.

And yes, she watched, so I gave her a little hip shake to remember me by.

The next day as I pooed the lasagna, I thought of her.


BYAH!

-Rob

Is signing the blog really necessary anymore? Who else could it be?

Bon Voyage

Well, it's time everybody out there knew the real truth of what happened.

Joe got drafted.

Yep, and so he's decided to take a hiatus from this life. He might come back after 6, 12, or 18 months of duty, depending on who's elected president.

Well, until you come back Joe, I'll continue fighting the good fight against obscurity and defenestration. Joe, we will honestly miss you.

Readers, raise your right hand in salute! Hold the pinecone in your left! And pull it in the right direction!

And I say this with all the tenderness I can muster: Byah!

-Rob


Fuck, now we have to bring Matt back.

Try to Find the Common Theme...Good Luck

Parenting

So, I'm just gonna go ahead and say it: I don't think I should have children. Obviously anybody who has read this blog realizes I would be a bad role model.

Sidenote: See my first entry entitled 'Subtlety'

I think I'd probably make fun of my kid. If the little guy swallows a piece to the game 'Operation' and then has to have surgery to remove it....I would laugh my tits off.

But more than that I think I would be far too demanding. I'm not raising a dumb kid. I've heard all sorts of tactics and things to make your child smarter:

• Talking to the baby instead of putting it in front of the TV. What if I have it watch Bill Nye?


• Have the baby listen to Mozart. What if the store was out of Mozart and I turn on some Chopin instead? What would that turn my baby into?


• Breast-feeding..........If exposure to boobs made you smarter, porn sites should be ACC accredited, and I'd be getting my post-graduate degree right now.


• I think the best way to have a genius baby is to hook up with someone who is way smarter than you and hope for the best.

Now, if I did all these things, and my kid turned out to be dumb.... I quit. I'm selling it for scientific experiments and trying again.

My Phone

For those of you who know me, I hate my phone. It turns off every five minutes even if I just charged it. It takes two days for it to tell me I have a voicemail. And sometimes it will just randomly start beeping for no good reason. My friends now hate me because of my phone because they can never get in touch with me.

My phone wasn't always like this. It used to be quite dependable. Here's what happened though. Last August, right around the time we started this blog (oh the memories), my phone fell into a public pool...for several minutes.

I got it out, dried to dry it off, and put it in front of a blow dryer. I had given up hope. Hours passed....when suddenly....there was a glimmer of light from the LCD. A miracle! My phone had come back from the dead!

Except now it sucks.

It's kind of like when somebody gets shot in the head..... and they live..... but now they're retarded.

No Misleading Title Here: Shit under a Desk

As mentioned in a previous blog, I'm in an Ornithology course (study of birds). I have the first test of the year tomorrow, which I'm trying to avoid studying for, which is why I'm doing this.

We had a review session today for this important test.

Our professor has a puppy dog that she occasionally brings to class with her because she can't trust her at home. It's a very cute dog. Likes to romp around the class during lecture, ear all flopped over, tripping over her own paws. Adorable. And it's a nice little momentary distraction every now and then.

The review was going well. I knew all the stuff, I was feeling very confident, and then the dog started farting.

The thing about dog farts, in my experience, is that they are completely silent. Maybe their sphincter isn't as tight as ours (from all the thermometers). It was pungent to say the least. It was like when a lactose intolerant guy who just ate beets tries the gallon challenge. But then the smell got worse.

It started at one end of the room and started rolling over the class in waves. It smelled like Indian Restaurant and Ass. And that's when people started noticing the source of the smell. Underneath a back desk....was a nice little coiling of digested Kibble.

As one good ol' boy in the back said, "Tha' dawg is naasty."

Sidenote: This guy is one of my favorites in the class, cause he has a whole other view to bird physiology that even the teacher doesn't have. Somebody asked what partridges usually eat, and the professor stopped for a moment to think. This guy immediately piped up in the back, "Seeds mostly, but they can eat all kinds of stuff." When asked how he knew that, he replied, "Well I shot one last week and knifed open the gizzard."...... He's gonna be a great scientist one day.

Eventually we were forced to clear out of the room, and the professor, lacking options, put the dog into her car.... As of yet I don't know the end of this story, but she might be biking to class tomorrow.

One More Thing

I was just watching the Oscars (I enjoy it, leave me alone) and they were doing the montages for those involved in films who had died in the past year. Now, I was actually visibly upset when I heard Heath Ledger had died. "The Patriot", "Knight's Tale", "10 Things I Hate About You". He was a fantastic actor in fantastic films. But for the montage, all they showed were a bunch of clips from Brokeback Mountain

.....uhmmm....

byah?

Rob

Playing with Myself Cause I'm Not a Team Player

So I'll just go ahead and say it. I am not an athletic person. I don't particularly like contact sports such as basketball. And it's not because I'm not an aggressive person, it's because everybody seems to sweat...a lot. And since I suck, I'm always matched up against the 273 pound guy (oh yeah, he has a mustache) who invariably feels the need to take off his shirt. In that situation, I'll let him dribble past me. I ain't touching that.

I'm more of a loner sport kind of person. I played tennis in high school. In case you've never seen real tennis matches before, it is a fantastically exciting sport. Not so much because of the exciting gameplay (come on, it's oversized ping pong) but because you've never heard cussing like this. And nobody gets in trouble for it because it's not directed at the other person, or the ref, or the dozens of cheering fans. The guys are yelling at themselves. "Get to the f***in ball you s**t for brains donkey f***er! My great aunt's left nut could have hit that f***n ball back! F**k! F**K! ...... dammit ..... aargh ...... OK, 15-30."

Naturally, the reader might assume that I must enjoy golf as well. That would be a wrong assumption. I like golf movies. Legend of Bagger Vance, Tin Cup, Caddyshack. All great films. But the sport itself is dull on a level I can't fully comprehend. If you ask my Dad, though, he would say I love it. In middle school I would beg him to bring me out with him to the courses. He never seemed to notice that after the fourth hole I would get bored and stop playing. He also never noticed that when his back was turned, the golf cart was gone. That's because I would be tearing it up on the back nine, doing donuts on the fairway. My favorite pastime was to wait for someone to hit a ball over a hill where they couldn't see where it landed, drive up, and snatch the ball. The next ten minutes were spent giggling as senior citizens started crawling under bushes and climbing trees trying to find their Titleist.

Of course, if my Dad ever finds out about this, he isn't one to talk about golf course etiquette. He used to be the real competitive type, and took the sport WAY too hard-core. He used to go to driving range and videotape himself. After each shot, he would say "Shank" or "Good Shot" depending on how he did. And then he would watch himself on TV for hours, and all we could hear through the house was "Shank....Shank....Shank.....Good Shot....Shank....Shank...." He wasn't very good.

Well, it was at the height of this obsession that he took me out to the course one day. I was about eight at the time. And after an excellent opening drive, he shanked (big surprise) the next shot. Now most people, given this situation, would have swallowed their anger, perhaps be a little withdrawn for a while. My father, however, decided to go a different route. He yelled some kind of obscenity that I think is banned in the Eastern United States, and hurled his nine iron behind him. This would have been traumatizing enough for a nine year old, but the story gets better. There so happened to be a fellow golfer about forty feet behind us who unexpectedly received a golf club to the face.

I think my Dad has lightened up a little since the lawsuit.

Byah!

Rob

Tastes Like Chicken

I am a Biology student. A student of Biology, if you will. One of my courses this semester has been Ornithology (i.e. the study of birds). I find birds quite amazing actually. Go to Wikipedia and look at their skeletal and muscular structures (its INCREDIBLE!). But I won't try to bore you about the supracoracoideus muscle (seriously, check it out), I just want to share some stories with you.

First off, I used to volunteer at the National Zoo in Washington, DC. It's kind of a deathtrap. "Sure red pandas can eat rat poison!" I blame President Bush. But the place I worked, the Bird House, was actually pretty nice.

I was a good little volunteer. Cleaned cages, fed the birds, took observations. It was fun. Here's a fun story: During the day, a bird called the Great Argus stays nice and quiet in its fenced in area. At night, she patrols the halls. Well apparently nobody decided to tell me this on the first day. So I'm opening up at 6 AM, walk in the doors, turn the light on, and this is staring at me.

Needless to say, I was shocked. It started fluttering at me, so I took a step back....into some Great Argus poo.

Here's a not so fun story from the Zoo. My favorite bird there was the rhea. It's a South American rattite (kind of like an ostrich). They are very passive, and I could stroll into their exhibit whenever I felt like it. Right next to the rheas, however, were the cassowaries. This is a cassowary:

They are very territorial, very agressive birds. Right above their enclosure there was a nest with baby birds in it. One of them fell out. It was scrambling on the ground, calling out in a very adorable whimper. The cassowary walked up....sniffed it.....and stepped on it. This is what cassowaries do when people get near them:

Sidenote: Whenever you're at a zoo, and you see an animal near the glass watching you and following you....it's not friendly.....it wants to get you. So take a picture and don't look it in the eyes.

So one day, I'm cleaning in the rhea cage, and somebody locks me in on accident. I see that the only way to climb out is by propping myself against the cassowary wall and flinging myself over. The wall is only about 7 feet tall. It was feasible. So I get a grip, haul myself up, and look over the wall......The bloody cassowary is just sitting there watching me. Not hissing or growling like normal...just...staring. Well, I get myself over. No big deal. The next day I'm walking by and stop to read the information about cassowaries they have on signs outside: "These magnificent animals can jump seven feet straight up in the air."

......

It's a good thing my shorts were already brown.

Well, those were my zoo stories. So now I'm taking this Ornithology class about birds. I like the anatomy side of it (supracoracoideus dudes). But not all of it is good. There's another side of the class that sucks cloacae. I have a 7 AM lab...to go birding. Thats an abbreviation for birdwatching. And while i still laugh whenever I see a "Tufted Titmouse" it's not quite what I want to be doing at 7 AM. Regis and Kelly aren't even awake yet. This is wrong.

Well, right now in Ornithology I'm doing a project about Bird Infidelity....I'm going to wait a while for you to take that all in. OK, here's the scoop: 90% of birds are monogamous for atleast the breeding season. Male and female both help in feeding, incubating, and caring for the young. But what is relatively unknown is that in many cases, mostly in large social groups, the female birds...has somebody else warm up the nest. While Papa Bird is off at work, Momma Bird is fellating the neighbor.

Sidenote: Bird blowjobs probably hurt

My project is going to be about this behavior, but part of me is going to feel really awkward about it.....Should I tell Papa Bird?..... He has a right to know. A rift will form in the family. Who would get the nest in the divorce? And what about the chick?! DAMMIT I WASN'T READY TO PLAY BIRD GOD TODAY!

Byah!

-Rob

Out of Hibernation

Ah my resplendent readers, time has been cruel. You look awful. I, on the other hand, am well rested and ready to begin this fantastic process of blogging once again.

Joe and I...

Sidenote: English grammar and I are on speaking terms again.

...decided to hold off on the blogging until all the votes had been cast and the new title had been chosen. Of the dozen(s) of absentee ballots sent in, we only listened to ourselves. I am not going to write for a blog named Scuttlebutt. I refuse.

So, we've been holding off on writing any blogs for a little while. Even if the mood should strike me and I had a brilliant idea, I just kept it locked up until I could write with impunity. And readers, I had a good one, too. It had wit, class, and flavor.

Unfortunately I received a blunt force trauma to my upper temporal lobe recently...and I completely forgot my blog....as well as third grade.....

Until inspiration for a well-written diatribe on the American ideal comes my way again, I'm just going to share some stories and thoughts with you:

Cartoon Fruit is Wrong

In my free time I enjoy cartoons. Tom & Jerry is delightful in ways I can barely understand, and a day involving the Roadrunner always proves to be fantastic. But I do have one problem with this created world.

Their fruit is all wrong.

Take the apple. When it's in it's full form, it's drawn fine. I'm talking about when it is discarded, and becomes a core. Whenever I see a drawn apple core, it always looks like this:


Think about it for a second. When have you ever left an apple core like that? When you finish the core, its a cylinder. What's with the leftover at the top and bottom? No sane person leaves a shred of red on their apple core. I'm more accepting of the people who eat the entire core, seeds and all. At least they're good consumers. The people at Looney Toons are wasteful! Shame on them.

And then there's the banana. At the early age of seven I came to the astonishing conclusion that...banana peels...are not slippery. Not in the slightest. They are, in fact, full of friction. We have been lied to, America.

Three Goals of My Life

1) To master the art of Occlumency.

2) To burp and fart at the same time, to see if my tummy will implode.

3) To have my future wife be the inspiration for a Lifetime channel movie.

Built Ford Dumb

I've seen a lot of stupid things in my years year at college. I've seen someone try to balance on a keg rolling down a hill. I've seen a guy dance with two girls without them noticing. I've even witnessed one moron try to microwave his own pants. But I've seen something recently that might even rival that last one, and it was in broad daylight in presumably sober circumstances.

We've all seen, at one time or another, a vehicle towing another vehicle. A tow truck would be a good example of this. Sometimes you see a little Camry being pulled by a van on the highway, and they have it set up so that the brake lights still show up behind the both of them (I think that's kind of cool). Both of these do the job safely and with effective results.

I was driving around campus the other day, and I see a small pickup truck slowly pull out onto the road. I saw nothing peculiar about the situation until I saw what that vehicle was towing. Tied behind the small truck was another (much bigger) white truck. I don't know what the situation was, but I sincerely hope that the big truck was horribly crippled and unable to function. Otherwise, a person who attends the same institution of higher learning that I do decided that he wanted to see if there was any truth behind "The Little Engine That Could." As the small truck towed the big truck up an incline on campus, I realized that the individuals involved must have seen this commercial:



Take a close look at that commercial. What was tying the truck to the airplane? Chains. Big F'in chains. You want to know what was connecting the two trucks in my real-life commercial? A rope. Singular. I'm sure it was braided very well and made out of the best hemp money can buy. Despite all that, the cars behind the little Ford parade were giving them a wide berth well above the three-second-rule.

I was going in the opposite direction, but I parked to watch the fun. The little truck started trundling up a hill, almost to the point of standstill. And as I hoped would happen, there was....a parting of ways for the two trucks.

I wish I had brought popcorn.

The smaller car gave a sudden lunge forward as the rope snapped (who'd have seen that coming?), and the big truck started doing what physics wanted it to do. The best part was the expressions on the faces of the people behind as they saw the back-end of American steel coming at them. To me, their eyes were saying "Well fuck me sideways. I'm screwed."

At the last second the truck swerved onto the sidewalk and came to a halt. Disaster averted, to the extreme disappointment of most. At that point I drove off, but I really wish I could have been there when the owners of the trucks decided on what to do: "Well jeez, Hank. I guess next time we should try two ropes."


Byah!

Rob

We're MOVED!

The name has been chosen. We will start writing again soon. This new space of the internet is different...a lot of our stuff doesn't work yet. But anyway, welcome to the new Blog of the Ages.

Update your bookmarks!

Cheers!

Rob & Joe

New Name Extravaganza

We would like to welcome you to the first ever, LTS "New Name Extravaganza." A wise old man once said "there is nothing better to do with a four hour car ride back to school, than come up with blog names." So yeah...that's what we did. Just your two capable LTS authors and their compatriot, let's call him "Nick." Everyone contributed an equal amount of possible names, but if you choose one of "Nick's" he will get a year's free membership to this blog. Big stakes.

Anyway, some good ones were thrown out there, and we invite you to go ahead and let us know what you think. Here they are:

• Vestigial Structure

• Orion's Overalls

• White Men Can't Blog

• Honorable Mention

• A Little Off the Top

• The Wrath of Grapes

• L'eggo My Penis

• The Hills are Alive...Run for your Life

• Just Use A Pine Cone

• Magic: The Get-Together

Go ahead and vote for your favorite, and tell us why in the "comments section." Take care in your choice, as this will be what you look at day after day in your epic search for gold amidst our tankards of crap. It's something you have to see all the time, like your bathroom wallpaper or your bastard children. Both require careful thought before committing, and so does this. So tell us what you think, we'll count up the votes, and see who the winner is. Then we'll probably choose the one we like best anyway.

Your friends,

Joe & Rob

Correction Asshole, its Rob & Joe

When times are tough...

(click to enlarge)

Just found this picture. If you're going through some tough times, we hope it gives you strength.

-Joe

Reasons We Won't Get A Pulitzer

Have you ever been talking to someone on the phone, and then realize that you're making hand movements? Of course the other person can't see these movements, and you feel like a fool. And then you start flipping the bird...and they have no idea....and you feel superior. So next time you're talking on the phone with me...and you hear me giggle....you just got insulted Stevie Wonder-style.

For Christmas, me and my sister got a tin of cookies from Santa. They have all been very delectable so far, with layers of different flavors, each one separated by a sheet of wax paper. Well, a week or two ago, I was grabbing a cookie and I thought I felt a soft layer at the very bottom of the container. I immediately thought, 'oooooh, there's a brownie layer at the bottom!' So we've been eating the cookies at a regular pace, until finally there's only one more piece of wax paper left. I peel it back expecting brownie-town. Instead, it was a layer of Styrofoam. I know I shouldn't have been so hurt from this, but I've fallen into a depression. Long story short, I've started drinking again.

This is going to be an odd tale to tell. To start with, I'm a spontaneous burper. What this means is that I don't feel the burp coming...it just fuckin happens. In any situation, it could happen. Well...I was kissing my girlfriend......and it happened. The sound reached her first, like a whoopie cushion getting stabbed with a fork, just a "fpuhh". There was a moment of confusion, and then instantly her senses of smell...and taste....made her understand what was going on. Her eyes widened in disgust....and she punched me in the face. Anyway, I might be single very soon.

Byah!

-Rob

2008: A Space Odyssey

I would like to spend a short amount of time finishing up our talk about the holidays. Me and Joe ..

Sidenote: I did not write 'Joe and I' because grammar is stupid.

...have already said our part about our Christmas festivities.: Joe with his humorous tweezers and I with my racism. But before I go on, some stories must be told about New Years:

The One with the Water Bed

To start with, a large crowd of us decided to spend New Years as far away from our family as possible in a rural town that we normally stop at for gas on the way to civilization. Just so happens a friend of us from that locale had evolved to the point where she could leave the area and achieve higher education. She had invited us for some new years festivities.

My girlfriend, being Chinese, didn't really believe in our New Year's, but she decided to come as well.

When we arrived at said locale, we were allowed to pick out beds. I immediately smelled awesomeness and discovered that there was a water bed. I love to sleep with the vague idea that my raft had drifted off to sea. That night....I was a pirate. If only me and Joe and gone ahead and bought thought $34.50 slippers already.

The One with the Laser Tag

In a Santa Grab-Bag kind of deal on Christmas Eve, I had received an incredible gift. Laser Tag. Sure Laser Tag was the dried up shell of entertainment it used to be. Sure it was marketed for kids 8 and up. And sure the straps dangled in front of me because they couldn't reach each other in the back. But dammit, its Laser Tag.

It was fun for about five minutes.

Until somebody...Joe.....remembers that all you have to is cover the sensor with one hand while you shoot.

....

I hate you Joe, and that was the main reason for this next story.

The One with Show and Tell

For all the people who attended the party, there was in total, one bathroom. One shower. One toilet. 17 various bottles of shampoo and conditioner and body wash. All alphabetized with the labels facing out. And DEATH to whomever messes with said bottles.

So Joe was taking a shower while a girl (an avid reader of the blog, let's call her "Caitie") was washing her face in the sink.

Sidenote: The washing of the face is apparently a big deal to girl's. I've seen a lot of commercials with pretty girls just splashing their faces: cleansing the pores and all that junk. Guys...I'm gonna go ahead and say it...don't have pores. We have seven holes on our head, and two of them are filled with eyeballs. That's it.

I was not one to let such an opportunity pass me by. I begin walking through the bathroom, and grabbing the shower curtain, I continue walking. As one would expect from such a situation, there was a gasp from the occupier of the shadow accompanied by a flurry of hand-to-crotch movement. At that moment "Caitie" turned around at the commotion...and saw everything.

Joe insists that it was cold that night.

The One with the Minor

Statutory rape has such a stigma around it. At first I thought it was about people who have forced entry with statues. Turns out this is not the case. Apparently it involves contact across the Age Line. This age line which is around 18 in most societies prohibits making whoopie and gaining entrance into the Triwizard Tournament.

The person who was throwing this hoopla was a Freshman at our University for the Gifted, and as is not uncommon, she had some younger friends who were still in high school. These two young ladies were swiftly indoctrinated into our type of conversation. Our friend Jon informed them as to the benefits of butt sex, and I told them that I prefer amputee girls because they can't push me away.

These ladies, it turns out, were the innocent age of 17. The single guys of the group immediately threw up their Fortresses of Solitude and committed themselves to celibacy. One of our group, let's call him "Joe" (name might sound familiar), soon had a problem. As the night wore on, it became clear that one of the girls clearly had a thing for him. So the whole night was a battle within himself not to get too drunk as she basically followed him around, openly giggling.

"Joe": Hey, let's play quarters.
Hannah Montanah: Can you teach me?

"Joe": I don't like Kings, pick a different game.
Vanessa Hudgens: Yeah, I don't like Kings.

"Joe": How about Fuck the Dealer?
Quagmire: Gigity Gigity Goo!

The One with the Ketchaculation

This will be a short story because I am still embarrassed about it.

We went to dinner at this diner-type place. A bunch of us were at a long table waiting for our food to come. On the other side of the table I saw my compatriots somehow rolling ketchup packets into neat bricks and stacking them. I have no idea how it was done, and I still don't. At my first attempt at it, I rolled the ketchup packet a little too tight...and to the amusement of most, it exploded...

Sidenote: Rob? What do you mean by exploded? I mean it fuckin exploded! The entire fuckin diner turned around.

...splattering ketchup on my girlfriend's face. To which my friend Jon immediately yelled: "You just busted all over her face!"

There is no telling how many apologies and good deeds it will take to clear this fiasco up.

The One with the De-Brained Rabbit

This has nothing to do with the New Year's party. This occurred after I had returned home. For Christmas, my dog had received a squeaky chew toy in the shape of a rabbit. We did not have much hopes for the survival of this animal, but nobody expected this:

Sidenote Scene from Starship Troopers: "Looks like the bugs got at his brains, sir."

The One with the End of the Blog

BYAH!

-Rob