Fun with language #1

“I have a big cock” might be the only phrase in the English language that becomes less outlandish if spoken while holding a live rooster.

…also maybe “look at my pecker”.

Random haiku #4

Neglecting my blog...
lately, I've done that a lot.
Yes, I feel guilty.

A life of embrassments #1

Have you ever been put in the unenviable position of having to take credit for someone else’s smell?

It’s just not fair…

Now I’ll be the first to admit that when I emerge from a room of rest, I don’t always leave the aforementioned water closet smelling of a dozen petunias on a spring day, but still, you never should have to be saddled with the odor output of another.

But it happens.

You know the scenario. You walk into a facility of personal waste management to do your business. Maybe you had too many sodas. Maybe you drank your water a little too quickly on the ride in to work. Either way, you’re really just looking to get in and get out… to vacate a bit of H2O from your system before venturing out into the real world and starting your day.

But then, as you open the door, you’re immediately greeted by… the smell. That unmistakable sign that someone has been having… shall we say… a “rough morning”.

Well whatever you think… the bladder waits for no man, so you mentally plug your nose and do your best to complete your transaction in as little time as possible. You then do a quick scrub of the hands and start to make your way for the door…

And that’s when it happens…

Someone else comes in.

You try to avoid eye contact, but it’s too late. You know already that any and all of the horrors of humanity and culinary punishment that combined to produce “the smell” have now been attributed to you and your intestines.

After all, look at the facts. Person B is walking in… you’re walking out… basic logic dictates that whatever shape that room is in, it’s most like YOU who has left it that way. And once they catch “the whiff”well… then it’s just game over. There’s no doubt in the universe that Person B has just tagged you as being one seriously smelly dude…

And that’s just not fair.

Today's headlines #6

Seniors rush to beat Medicare cutoff
Let’s be honest… do seniors really “rush” to do anything?


Rising Diabetes Threat Meets a Falling Budget
And an onslaught of “Ho Hos”


New England Deluged by Worst Flooding in Decades
Local leaders speak up for those hardest hit, saying “Yankees suck”


Supreme Court rules in favor of eBay
And against good taste


Bush Denies Eavesdropping on U.S. Phone Calls
Well sure… first you’d have to understand how to use a phone.


Hawaiian waters dangerous for whales
Sea-faring mammals warned to be on the lookout for “tiny bubbles”


Alligators kill two more in Florida over weekend
See? I told you seniors couldn’t “rush”

Things that TV and the movies get wrong...

Ok, so this has been bugging me, and even though I’m as big a fan of escapist entertainment as the next guy, I feel obligated to point out a few of the more gaping holes in the television and movie industry’s basic tenants of story structure…

For example:

Outer Bully, Inner Child
Not all bullies are overwrought with such insecurity that their feelings of inadequacy force them to act out with aggression towards anyone weaker or more vulnerable than they - and thusly, when confronted with equal assertiveness, will back down, respecting the abilities of the “victim” to stand up for himself. That’s right, some just like to punch people in the face. It’s a sad fact of life, but it’s true. Don’t believe me? Ok… try it.

Meeting Cute
If you meet a beautiful woman… and immediately get into a heated argument with her such that it is apparent by the end of your encounter that she wholly detests you… she will NOT over time come to realize that you are in fact a swell guy, and her initial anger was simply born out of her frustration with the fact that someone challenged her on an intellectual level… most likely she will ALWAYS detest you, and you will never get some of that, no matter how hard you try.

The Welcome Matt
If you meet a beautiful woman… and you two strike up a winning friendship even though you harbor feelings for her… and if said woman has established a pattern of picking the “wrong” kind of man, leaving you to be the one she comes running to when they inevitably leave, cheat on, or otherwise upset her, she will NOT eventually realize that the right man has been standing next to her along and throw her arms around you at some wildly poetic moment (such as when you’re about to board a boat to leave for a 6-month basket-weaving sojourn in Namibia). She will continue to pick the wrong man time and time again, and you will never get some of that, no matter how hard you try.

[the previous two examples also apply if you reverse the sexes… the only difference is that if you’re a woman, you probably CAN get some of that if you want]

Office Space
If you’re able to secure yourself an executive position you’re completely under qualified for through a mountain of lies and deceit that would rival, um… well a REALLY big mountain of lies and deceit… and if you manage to maintain that high wire act for a sufficient amount of time such that when it finally all comes crashing down it does so with a flair and panache worthy of Cirque du Soleil, well chances are pretty good that the CEO of the company is NOT going to reward your “moxie” with a legitimate position at the company… no, chances are you’re going to prison, where some big guy name bruce will show you the secret of HIS success.

And of course…

Yippee Kayay
If you ever find yourself in an abandoned warehouse surrounded by 23 drug runners armed with automatic weapons (and bad tempers), and you jump out from behind your yugo to begin firing the rusty 9MM weapon that the fast-talking “plays by his own rules” detective (on suspension) gave you so you can rescue the beautiful damsel in distress that’s tied to the bumper of a Hummer that just happens to be parked next to roughly 17 barrels marked (inexplicably) “Flammable” – well, let’s just say that you probably wont get to fire more than a couple shots before your lifeless corps starts to slowly collapse to the warehouse floor (yes, like a flan in the cupboard)… oh, and if by some miracle you DO survive, and the damsel DOES get rescued… she’s going home with the detective… THAT one, they got right.

Politically incorrect perishables...

Being a reticently rotund individual myself, I understand perfectly the longing for new forms of fatty foods and sweeter treats. But that being said, there is such a thing as common sense, so when I turned on the food network recently and witnessed a man deep-frying a hot dog (in the bun no less), it was not without some surprise that a single thought occurred to me…

“This is most ingenious thing I have ever seen!”

Common sense be damned…

Sure, by this point in my life I’ve heard of deep fried Oreo’s, deep fried Mars Bars, and even deep fried Nutter Butters… And they were impressive once, but now, as far as I’m concerned, the people who came up with those are nothing but amateurs.

No… this man… the guy I saw on the tee vee… he was a true genius.

And he didn’t just stop at the hot dog no siree bob… he also went so far as to deep fry cheesecake – creating an industrial-strength artery buster that I can only assume causes at least a 13% blockage simply upon being smelt.

(smelt? smelled? smellindid? whatever… I like smelt… so what if it sounds like a welder came in extracted iron ore from someone’s superior vena cava… that’s probably not all that far off anyway)

But the final stroke (and I do mean stroke) of genius this culinary pioneer came up with… the veritable piece of resistance that this guy tempted fate by creating was the battered and dipped, deep-fried macaroni and cheese.

That’s right… Macaroni and cheese!

I don’t even LIKE macaroni and cheese, and this brought a smile to my face. He grabbed a handful of the yellow gooey mess, cupped it in his hands like a 4-year-old making a snowball (kinda gives new meaning to the old adage “don’t eat the yellow snow”), and then proceeded to roll it in bread crumbs and dip it in batter, before finally dropping it into a vat of boiling oily goodness.

That my friends, is the kind of “out-of-the-box” ingenuity that’s going to get us to the moon someday.

Today's headlines #5

Massachusetts Sets Health Plan for Nearly All
Frank and George reportedly pissed.


Last Gasp of Winter Arrives With Supersized Snowflakes
Details of breakthrough McDonald’s/Mother Nature sponsorship deal revealed.


Apple Unveils Software to Let Macs Run Windows
Supersized snowflakes seen falling in Hades


Activist Nuns Return to Missile Silo
I just hope they don’t have the launch codes.


Saddam Dodges Shiite Questions
Well if they’re that bad, I probably wouldn’t answer them either…


Doctors Reattach Part of Sharon's Skull
Still offer no explanation for Basic instinct 2


Vain Wild Turkey Seeks Leftovers at Café
I’m not even going to ask.

Flarf rambling (literally)...

Ok, so I know I haven’t blogged in a while… quite a while… but there’s a good excuse… really.

Um… you see, about a month or so ago, I started studying transcendental mediocrity. It’s a new trendy spiritual quest (all the rage in Hollywood) that hopes to help you focus the positive energies of the world so you can obtain a state of being decidedly average. Well contrary to what Paris Hilton might be saying, it really didn’t generate quite the return on investment I was hoping for, so I decided to try something else… full contact bocce. Don’t laugh, it has potential… but seeing as it’s still winter, it didn’t work out all that well… you can probably imagine what happened. Yup, at the first match, our team leader went to throw out the “pea” (he, he, he), and the little sucker took a skid on a patch of ice and just kept going and going and going… anyway, we decided to declare the match a draw, and I decided to give up the sport entirely… at least until the spring thaw (or until I can stop laughing at the notion of throwing out the first “pea” which I have since learned, is also called a “jack,” a “kitty,” a “cue ball,” a “pill,” and a “palinna,” all of which hold their own humoristic merit with the last one packing the extra bonus of repeatedly making me think of that guy who keeps popping up in all of Aaron Sorkin’s projects).

But I digress…

Anyway, sporting endeavors notwithstanding, I have been quite busy, as I recently decided to see how many boxes it would take to reduce my entire life down to corrugated squares…

The answer: I forgot to count.

I was going to, really, but then a big truck showed up, and seeing as it was empty and everything, we just decided to see if we could actually fit all of said boxes on said truck… turns out we could.

We also had room enough for various pieces of furniture, questionable bits of art, and a 3-year-old Pomeranian named “PhooPhoo.”

Just kidding… the art wasn’t all that questionable (and the dog’s name was Ralph).

Once the truck was good and packed, we figured we might as well ride around in it a little… and a few yips here and there aside it was a rather pleasant trip (so I hear… I decided to take my car, and was enagaged myself by playing a rousing game of “where’s the kitty now?” for three hours or so).

Well when all was said and done I found myself no longer residing in the Commonwealth… Instead, I’m back in the Empire State, sitting at a desk in an apartment filled with wall-to-wall carpet, a shower that’s not trying to kill me, and most importantly of all, a dishwasher. I am however, also surrounded by a gaggle of cardboard containers that seem clearly confused as to their current location (how’s that for alliteration?). I’m sure they will adjust in time… for now, I just hope they don’t try to overthrow the appliances.

Well that’s all for now… more to come, on a more regular basis (I hope), as the days progress…

-Flarf


Oh, by the way… if you happen to see a dusty Pomeranian stumbling around your neighborhood, it’s probably best to keep your distance… I’m guessing he’s pretty ticked off right about now.

Random haiku #3

Blogging tough when sick.
Foggy head no good for words.
Will write more when well.

Under the influence (of Dayquil)...

Being sick,
It can’t be good,
Some people fake it,
No one should.

Your head is hot,
Your feet are cold,
You stay in bed,
Like you are told.

Those are the first lines to a poem I wrote when I was in seventh grade. I was feeling lousy, and had come to school only because I had a social studies test to take that day. I finished the exam early, and was therefore sitting at my desk, twiddling my thumbs and waiting for the period to end. I got bored, and as I often did when I was bored, I started writing. Well, when all was said and done, I had 3 or 4 pages filled front and back with my soliloquy of flu-themed rhyming couplets. It wasn’t exactly Shakespeare, but it amused me, and had thusly served its purpose.

Then, I started to get nervous. My teacher, a cranky, older gentleman who disapproved of anything not directly related to the study of socials, had begun to make his way over to my desk. While making his rounds, he had spotted me scribbling away, and consequently must have assumed I was up to no good.

In typical Junior High style, students in his class who had completed their work early were supposed to sit quietly at their desks and do nothing. Not talk. Not move. Not write. Not anything. Actually, looking back on it now, I think that’s kind of cruel. Asking someone at that age, with that many hormones running rampant through their body, to sit still and not act out in some fashion, is like asking a fat guy to wait in line at the all-you-can-eat buffet.

But I digress...

Upon reaching my desk, the teacher stopped. Angrily, he snatched the papers off my desk and shot me his best “I’m bigger and grumpier than you” look. Then he turned away from me and began to read what I had written.

Then, he began to laugh.

Not a big laugh mind you... we’re not exactly talking guffaws here, but still, it was a laugh nonetheless... and you’d think that might have comforted me, but you have to understand something... I wasn’t used to seeing this man adopt a demeanor that approached anything even resembling pleasant... so seeing him express himself like this wasn’t exactly encouraging... in truth, it just made me wonder about the sadistic thoughts that must be running through his mind... it was all rather unsettling.

And then, it was over.

He finished reading, chuckled one last time, put the papers back on my desk, and walked away. No comment. No look. Nothing.

He never mentioned anything about what I had written to me or anyone else, and today, those two opening stanzas are all I can remember of that poem. I’m sure there’s a copy of it floating around in a notebook somewhere in my parents’ house, but I’ll be darned if I have even the first clue as to where it might be.

So why did I bring all this up?

Did I really need to further illustrate the fact that I have always been a big dork? No. Anyone who has read more than a post or two here already knows that beyond the shadow of a doubt...

No, I brought it up because right now... I’m sick.

And ever since seventh grade, when I get sick, the first think that pops into my head are those first 29 words... they're indelibly imprinted into my cortex... no, they’re not exactly Shakespeare, but they still amuse me, and thusly, they serve their purpose.

Singing the praises of the period...

When it comes to punctuation, most people don’t give much props to the period. Sure it’s symmetrical and dependable and all, but for the most part it lives in the shadow of its flashier cousins. And that’s too bad. Because I think, if you really think about it (and apparently I have), it’s much more versatile then you may be thinking.

Take for example, the following sentence:

I want pie.

It’s a fine sentence. A declarative statement that is readily and easily understood. It’s plain to see that the person speaking would like some pie. No, it doesn’t tell you what KIND of pie they would like, or how much pie they’re planning on consuming, but still, you know the basics, and that’s pretty good.

Now watch what happens when we add in a couple more:

I. Want. Pie.

Quite a change there. By adding those two tiny dots we’ve made the same three words seem more forceful, more impactful. Now, it’s not a statement. It’s a command. This person’s perturbed, and they won’t be put up with a praline or a pudding pop, no siree Bob. This particular person won’t be pleased till they partake in some pie!

And yet there's more. Watch what happens when we move those three little periods around a bit.

I want pie...

Well that shook things up, didn’t it? Now we’ve got a full fledged mystery. A cliffhanger. It’s like grammatical film noir. You know pie is involved, but you feel like there’s more to the story. It could be something seedy... something illicit... something involving meringue.

It could be, but you don’t know, do you?


That my friend, is the power of the period.

Green means go...

It’s funny... ask a person to rate his or her driving skills, and he or she will most likely assure you that they are without a doubt an above average example of vehicular fortitude. Yup, nine times out of ten you’re bound to come across someone who wholeheartedly believes that they are without equal among their respective peers in the driving community. But as anyone who has driven on the streets of Boston will attest, this is, in reality, utterly impossible. And truth be told, most people will probably agree with you on that point too... they’ll just follow it up by reiterating that they ARE in fact above average, and it is EVERYONE ELSE who is misrepresenting their versatility with an ignition key.

Well, let me take a moment here to admit something...

I am NOT an excellent driver.

Ok, that’s probably the wrong way to phrase it... I mean, I’m probably better than rain man, but let’s be honest, that’s not saying too much. Sure, he talks a good game... but when everything’s on the line, I’d be willing to bet he crumbles like a soiled pair of k-mart underwear.

...I’ll give you a minute to get that visual out of your head.

Now, it’s not that I think I’m an exceptionally BAD driver (um... recent events not withstanding). I just wouldn’t call myself exceptionally skilled...

I’m not about to apply make-up in the rearview mirror, or try to outrun a Corvette with my Sentra, or play chicken with a bridge embankment... and I almost never play “top gun,” slamming on my breaks while traveling at high speeds so the people chasing me will “fly right by”

...not anymore anyway.

But gross negligences aside, I have to admit that I am susceptible to a veritable plethora of other distractions... the radio... engaging conversations... shiny objects. Even the daily routine of driving the same paths over and over can force me to lose focus from time to time.

Plus, I probably follow too close, accelerate too much, and generally act like an impatient 4-year-old standing six people deep in line for a sugar fix at the ice cream truck.

No, this isn’t really anything to be proud of (as my insurance premiums continually remind me), and I’m not proud of it... at all. But at least I’m brave enough to stand up and take responsibility for my own ineptitude.

Yes, my name is Flarf... and I am an average driver.

As far as I’m concerned, it’s not really anything to fear... and who knows... now that I’ve admitted it perhaps I’ll even be more attuned to the world around me... maybe now, when I am actually driving, I’ll be able to concentrate more on the task at hand... and maybe I’ll start to see my skills improving... and maybe someday I’ll even get to the point where I attain a level of proficiency at which I can once again legitimately consider myself to be counted among the more elite group of automotive enthusiasts who are truly gifted at their craft.

But in the meantime, if you look over and happen to see a black Nissan Sentra that appears to be missing its driver, don’t worry...

...that’s probably just me trying to find my ipod.

Random thought #26

When you pass someone in the hall going the opposite direction and they start talking to you... how far away do you have to get before it’s acceptable to stop responding?

...at what point does it just become yelling?



Hmmm... maybe all those people on city streets aren’t really crazy after all. Maybe they just forgot to stop talking.