Going Back to College, College, College

“You’ll have to excuse me, it’s been so long since I’ve been on campus, I’ve actually forgotten what the “advising meeting” is supposed to accomplish, other than having you lift the hold on my account and allow me to register for classes.” I shifted nervously in my chair. My faculty advisor was out for the Summer, so here I was meeting with the head of the department, and on very short notice. “Well,” she said as she folded her pleasantly wrinkled hands in front of her, “The idea is to lay out some goals for the upcoming semester. I look at what you’ve taken, make recommendations on what you need to take, and so on.”

I was officially daunted. Her plush office was like the writing studio of my dreams. Simple, hand-made bookshelves covered every inch of the wall, laden with paperbacks, hard covers, serials, magazines, newspapers and huge books of art from every age and every corner of the world. The only sections of the pleasantly tacky wood-paneled walls that were visible were the ones holding up her inconspicuously displayed Doctorate certificates in Literature and Philosophy. I was torn by jealousy and fear. Basking in the presence of a bonafide intellectual is something I had not experienced since my surly youth, a time when I could not have appreciated the gravity, or even mustered the sobriety to care.

“So, what were you planning to major in?” She asked, flashing a toothy, receding gum-line grin. “Um, well…” I was legitimately thrown off by her ending that last sentence with a preposition. I suppose we’re not all perfect. “English, definitely. Creative writing most likely. Given my penchant to give up on things that prove either dull or too hard, I suppose if I choose something I actually enjoy, I might have a better chance at success.” I started squirming again. This time, it wasn’t solely because of her, but because she was examining what appeared to be my transcript. Needless to say, that amazing beer-a-mid I built from MGD cans in February of 1999 did not appear on this document.



“I see you attended honor’s English your freshman year?” she asked. If by “attended” you mean “showed up sober twice,” then yes, I thought to myself, I attended honor’s English. “I had the good fortune to enter into the honor’s program here in 1998, a distinction I squandered with unmatched aptitude.” I replied. “I wouldn’t dwell on it,” she comforted, “Not everyone is cut out for college their first go ‘round. The ones that return are the ones that take the opportunity seriously and usually prove to be some of our most valued students.” She was caressing my injured ego, I liked it. “I suppose you could say I experienced what alcoholics refer to as “a moment of clarity.”” I stated.

She smiled again, like rolling the cover off a set of piano keys. “Very good.” She said. Very good? What does that mean? I grew more nervous, this time unable to determine precisely why. It was school. School always made me nervous, perhaps that’s why I pretended never to take it seriously. It’s almost a Pavlovian response: enter faculty’s office, get nervous. It’s not without cause, after all, the only times I ever darkened the door of any teacher’s or administrator’s office was for some nature of reprimand. This was going well, however, and the impulses to run away screaming were coming less and less often.

“Well, you can take just about any classes you want.” She said, handing over the upcoming semester’s prospectus. I though to myself, that’s a nice way of saying ‘Since all you accomplished your freshmen year was to determine the recipe for the real Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, any credits will be an improvement to this dismal transcript.’ This time I laughed. As sad as is sounds, the real Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster is so good, it was almost worth it.

We agreed on American Literature 206, I groaned when she brought up the calculus class I needed to take, I signed the appropriate forms, we shook hands, she flashed those mighty teeth one more time, and I left her eclectic office. All in all, it had been a good meeting. I strolled back into the hallway feeling good about myself. I was finally going to get this college-level monkey off my back. It’s going to take a few years, but I’ll soon be able to feel a little bit better about myself, and that’s certainly worth tens of thousands of dollars in student loans, right? I checked my watch, I still had twenty minutes to get back to the office before the conference call started. Plenty of time to stroll the campus, get my bearings again.

I emerged on the quad, strolling slowly, admiring the freshly shorn lawn, the bustle of students shouldering backpacks from Lee Hall to Griffin Hall, in and out of the library, sitting in front of PJ’s coffee discussing important, collegey things. The day was nice and I was feeling like I was on my way to accomplishing something, and my apprehension about the time and cost required were beginning to feel not-quite-so-stifling. Yep, I was feeling alright about stuff.

“Excuse me?” I heard around my shoulder. I turned to see a blonde woman, about my age, thrust her hand into mine and begin vigorously shaking. “I’m Julie. I noticed you leaving Dr. Gaudet’s office (it’s pronounced “go-day” –ed.) and I just had to meet you. Are you our new English instructor? I just can’t tell you how excited we are to have you. From Florida State, right? I’m the new head of the undergraduate English department.” I was stunned. Even if I hadn’t been completely speechless, I doubt I could have squeezed a word in edge-wise. She kept talking, and I sort of zoned out, in pure embarrassment.

Then there was this awful silence, a strange hiccup in the universe. This hiccup was all that was required for the world to shit in my freshly poured bowl of Cheerios.

“Um.” I stammered. I don’t usually stammer. “Um. No, actually. I’m a re-entry student, undergraduate, junior division. I know, I’m a little old, but I’ve been away for a while.”

There was that silence again, that awkward pause. If I had been on top of the world only a few moments earlier, I was now firmly planted in a 12th century Turkish prison being ritually gang-raped by horses.

“Oh.” Julie stammered. She seemed like the type of person that doesn’t usually stammer. “Um. I’m sorry. I’m sure you’ll do very well. I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other around campus. It was nice to meet you.” She shook my hand again, a little less vigorously this time, and walked away.



I stood there for a second, picking up the pieces of my shattered ego, the very one that Dr. Gaudet had so convincingly pretended to polish only minutes earlier. I watched the students as they passed. Girls and boys, ten to fifteen years younger than myself, walking to and from classes, classes I don’t even qualify to take, educated years beyond me. Suddenly the June heat got a little more than I could bear and I slinked off to make my two o’clock conference call.

There's Butter on the Fucking Floor

Cooler Than the Other Side of the Pillow

Everyone’s got those few things, those unique items that have been around since the beginning. It could be a stuffed animal, a pewter bank shaped like an elephant, or a blanket with moons and stars. In my case, it’s a pillow. Not a baby pillow, but a regular adult pillow that I’ve rested my head upon virtually every night for my whole life. I can’t remember exactly how I came into possession of this pillow, only that I’ve always had it.

While making the bed last night, I came to a strange realization: my pillow will soon be on the better half of thirty years old.

The idea that time inexorably moves forward is not something upon which I will expound. Nor will I ire endlessly about how quickly it escapes us. I will only point out that in about two months, my pillow will be twenty-seven years old.

It’s not a shock when you look at it. My pillow’s kind of stained, misshapen, sort of bulgy in the middle. It’s been stuffed and re-stuffed so many times, the threads on the edges seem to blur together, defying census. It’s flat in some parts, and sort of wobbly in others, but all in all, I think it’s still got a lot of life left in it.

The fact that my pillow is rounding thirty is not a surprise: it’s sort been looming for the last ten years or so. I think the reason I find myself stupefied by my nearly thirty-year-old pillow is that I always presumed my pillow would be in a much different place by now. Perhaps I imagined a bigger mattress, or a nicer bed spread, perhaps in a farmhouse in the country with horses, or maybe a high-rise flat in Prague. Perhaps, the biggest problem with me coming to terms with the fact that my pillow will soon span three decades is that, maybe, I never bothered to imagine anything at all.

Perhaps my pillow saw itself as more successful when it was younger, perhaps my pillow thinks he made some poor decisions along the way. Then again, how much better can a pillow hope to have it? It has a great bed, a beautiful woman that sleeps next to it at night, and a tastefully appointed house to live in, which is by all means the nicest house it’s ever been in. But why does the pillow sometimes feel like a failure?

It has expressly to do with time. The fucking pillow is almost thirty! By the time his dad was thirty, he was knee-deep in the career that would determine the course of the remainder of his life and he had three children. This is not to say my pillow needs children to justify his existence, it could even be said that the thought of procreation so terrifies my pillow that he’s unsure that he’ll ever be comfortable with the idea until someone forces his own small, defenseless and all-consuming loin-fruit into his arms, pretty much extorting him into accepting the idea on a meaningful level.

I think mostly, my pillow is just disappointed. Facing the prospect of thirty with no meaningful direction, no significant prospects of a lifelong goal and no oversized check for one million dollars to pose with, just makes everything a little more difficult. Perhaps it’s disappointed because the world didn’t tell him where he’s supposed to go, and what’s he supposed to do when he gets there. Worst of all, the world never told him what he’s supposed to be.
Facing the more philosophically vague concepts of joy and personal satisfaction, my pillow is faced with the prospect of having to figure all this out, and I think sometimes it’s daunted by the idea of trying to wrestle these Herculean notions so close to thirty years old, a time when most pillows already seem have a pretty good idea about all that stuff.

Not that my pillow feels like he’s been left behind. Far from it, when my pillow contemplates all his experiences, his assets (physical and mental) and the people all around him that love him and care for him and all that he has, he feels like a very rich pillow, but sometimes he just gets down because he thinks he’s supposed to always want more. But wanting more is good, right? I mean, wanting more will motivate my pillow to get out there and work for what he wants, so that by the time he’s rounding forty years old (yikes) he’ll just be a little less hard on himself, and maybe even a little proud.

My pillow has seen a lot, and been lots of places, and he has a lot for which to be happy and thankful, but I think a little self-deprecation can be good thing, especially when you think there’s more out there for you. But don’t think my pillow is one of those “type A” personality dudes with slicked hair and perfect teeth that always talk about grabbing things, and taking things, and not letting anyone else tell you that you can’t. My pillow takes things one day at a time and, at least I can hope, is generally seen as humble and self-restrained.

Despite the fact that my pillow is feeling significant anxiety about turning thirty in the exceedingly nearer and nearer future, my pillow has a lot to proud about. He lives in a wonderful home, he has a wonderful wife, he has wonderful friends and his family, while terminally psychotic, eventually find their hearts in the right places. Perhaps my pillow will find a way to focus that anxiety into improving himself in meaningful ways that help him understand the world and other people a little better, and god knows he would benefit from a more satisfying career. But these are things that will come with hard work, something with which my pillow if finally coming to terms, a great deal of patience, and whole lot of whiskey.

Washing-Ton

Don't Make Me Reach Back There!

Well, Mother's Day has come and gone and the doldrums of Summer are fast approaching. Unless, of course, you neglected to appropriately congratulate your mother for the bang-up job she did pushing your writhing body through her cervix, then you are condemned to watch this video, ponder for a moment the message, then call your mom crying for her to come pick you up.



Since we, here at the OTR are pusposefully forward-looking folk, we must ask you all to mark your calendars for the impending date of June 17th, 2007. Partly because it's Venus Williams' birthday, partly because it commemorates the day China performed its first successful nuclear ordinance test in 1967, but mostly because it's Father's Day.

Let's face it, kids, Moms are easy. Some flowers, a syrupy card ("Hey look what this other guy wrote in this card for ya.") and perhaps an ipod shuffle, and she'll be all atwitter with progenic love. Dad, on the other hand, mostly wants to be left alone. While not being around would be an simple and easily procured gift to give to dad, society (read: Mom) demands a bit more from you. That's why OTR is here to help.

Dads are hard to shop for. That's why there's that awful section off to the side of Marshall's and TJ Maxx comprised of bins full of golf ball washers, Hummer brand flashlights with magnetic backs and ties that have prints like hamburgers and glocks. It's not because Dads are more complicated than Moms, they just tend to have more storage space available for all this crap they'll be given over the course of their lives.

Dads, prepare to thank your lucky stars, and possibly that defective condom, for:

OTR's 2007 Father's Day Gift Guide

First, a question: Do you like being peed on? (Not you, Dad, the other Dads) Of course not. Well, say good bye to all your urine-related anxiety and welcome the Pee-Pee Teepee. Having never changed a diaper myself, I can only relate stories I heard corrobrated endlessly, that when changing a baby boy's diaper, projectile urine can be a real danger (also, when Dad's had sixteen too many Heinekens). A phrase that's stuck in my mind all these years has been "As soon as the air hits that damn thing..." betraying both the disguisting truth behind procreation, and the general disguist most women feel toward "that thing."

The Pee=Pee Teepee is essentially a washable cotton cone that is used to hastily cover your kid's pecker when removing that wad of cotton that you tied around his waste to catch his shit that will involuntarily leak from his ass until he reaches about three years old. In the case of my younger brother, the only infant with whom I can claim any experience, the shit will resume leaking from the mouth around age sixteen and continue with no signs of abating well into the early twenties.

Trust the OTR to show parenthood in the stark light of truth.



Does your Dad constantly threaten to beat the crap out of you and eat your face off? Well, you've likely been present at a Sonnier family reunion after 6 pm! On the other hand, if your Dad meant it affectionately, then do we have the perfect gift for you. First Chocolate, holders of the patent for the edible photograph (#6,376,000) are proud ton offer their signature Chocolate Picture. Simply upload an image to their website and they'll print it on chocolate for your visual and gastronomic delight. As an editorial note, I'd like to pint out that having them print a picture of cat poo onto a chocolate square for people to eat would be really funny.



Does your Dad love football? Does your Dad also love Jesus? Then he'll simply crucify himself to get his hands on any of these inspirational (and slightly heretical) statuettes. You can choose Jesus playing baseball, football, soccer, or basketball. I mean, Jesus is white, so he'd only play American sports, right? Jesus curling? Not in those sandals.

For the sake of piety, and since nothing they could do would make the staues look any sillier than a man in a robe playing hockey, each statue comes with a plaque that reads "Jesus is my coach." Considering this particular statue, it looks like it should read "Jesus and me like to spoon." As if professional sports weren't homoerotic enough.



Is your Dad a hunter? Is your Dad particularly accident-prone? Then he'll love the disposable body stapler kit from Cabela's. Now, Dad can not only fire into the woods with reckless abandon, but should a stray bullet wound his beer-holding hand, his hunting buddies won't have to bottle-feed him Budweiser until they can get him to the nearest ER for stitches.

The description on the website claims that the kits works great for dogs too.



What are the two things that Dads like the most? Like most men, drinking booze and endangering their lives on motorized equipment. Well now your Dad can have it all with the X-treme Cooler-Scooter. This handy little piece of inane human ingenuity features a 300 watt motor that will propel your dad and up to twelve nicley chilled brewskies directly to the emergency room.




I hope the OTR 2007 Father's Day Gift Guide has been helpful to you. Remember guys, while your dad was at a bar watching the Padres lose the $100 he was going to spend on flowers for your mom, he's still a decent guy and he deserves a dumb present that's going to find a home at the bottom of his drawer next to the leopard print Speedos your Mom bough him as a joke because he's really fat, but he still wears occasionally because he doesn't think he's fat. So on behalf of dissatisfied children whose dads wouldn't get them the fancy mongoose bike with the trick chucks and the front rider pegs: "You're not my real father!"

Is it possible to write about writer’s block? It seems that would be like talking about silence. I’m reminded of that great Steve Martin quote “Talking about music is like dancing about architecture.” I suppose I’m less suffering from writer’s block than I am stuck under a general malaise of late. It seems all my free time is spent trying find a better job, wrestling with the mechanics of returning to school (hoping desperately that the lack of discipline that soiled my last effort has passed like a bad case of the clap) and trying to come to the ultimate decision if moving back home was a brilliant strategic move, or the worst idea since Greedo shooting first.

Yet, here I sit, deeply needing to write something, and having nothing to write. My thoughts go to the great works about writer’s block: Throw Momma from the Train, 8 ½, Adaptation, and my all-time favorite Barton Fink. If anyone can write a kick-ass movie about writer’s block it’s the Coen Brothers. Barton Fink also happens to be about a bit of advice Ian Fleming gave to aspiring writers “If you have a book that just isn’t getting written, get a hotel room and a bottle of whiskey and don’t come out until you’ve done it.” Funny part is, he never specified what “it “ was, finishing the book or the whiskey.

I suppose I could write about my recent obsession with funny names. Rather, my interest in people whose names fit too perfectly with what they do. The really interesting part is that names like Baker, Jagger, Smith and Hooper were, in their origins, respective to a family’s trade (to save you the Google search, hoopers make barrels and jaggers sell fish). When I called last week to have the windshield in my car replaced because of the cracks and chips, I find out the guy that owns and operates Auto Glass Experts is named Rocky. The guy that oversees my employee 401K and the company’s stock portfolio is name Tom Risky. The guy that rolls his wheelchair downtown all day, back and forth, shaking people’s hands and blessing everyone is named Jack Legg. There’s a woman in Portland with a prostitution rap sheet a mile long named Oralia Cash. This stuff just sticks with me.

Also, perhaps worth mentioning is that charges have been dropped against the New York man that broke into a barn and spray-painted orange the testicles of three of the farmer’s goats. Conspicuously, the article omits why the man vandalized the poor farmer’s goats, but I think a safe bet would be that he was battling with writer’s block and, perhaps, alcohol. Just try and tell me you don’t feel the urge to vandalize animal genitalia after a few cold ones.

I imagine writer’s block is a scary proposition to those who depend on their words for a living, so in that small way, I can be thankful I’m not currently living my dream of writing for a living. On the other hand, if I didn’t have to spend six hours a day on the phone being berated by people with third grade educations yelling at me about “what y’all issurance gonn pay!” then perhaps I wouldn’t be suffering from stress-induced writer’s block.

The funny thing about writer’s block is it’s so specific. Have you ever heard of filmmaker’s block? They call that writer’s block. Painter’s block? Painters aren’t real artists anyway. Wheel-worker’s block? That’s just silly.

Creativity is a tricky thing: inspiration can be here one day, and just vanish the next. An idea for a story may pop into your head while you’re in the shower, and if you don’t scratch a few notes into your stomach with that razor, you may never remember it again. Of course, now I have the work “chicken-monkey” carved into my body and I can’t remember what it’s supposed to mean. No more booze in the morning, seriously.

I guess all I can say is that inspiration is fleeting, so take advantage of when it arrives, be it a picture in your mind you just have to put on canvas, or that Batman symbol you have some strange desire to burn into your front lawn with weed killer. Perhaps it’s the three sets of orange-colored goat testicles that haunt your every waking moment. Be creative, it feels good and makes you feel like you’ve accomplished something (even when, clearly, you haven’t). They call it catharsis; I call it being drunk.

There Must Be Some Kind of Way Outta Here

"So, how was your weekend?"

What the fuck kind of a question is that? How can any answer be satisfactory?

"Excellent! I found out that you can drink four pints of human blood before you throw up!"

As if Mondays weren't bad enough, some asshole in the office has to spend the first two hours making rounds between the coffee machine, the copy machine, and the cubicles asking everyone how their weekend went. First of all, why do you care? The answer is, you don't. You're just asking everyone about their weekend so, out of politeness, they'll ask you, and you can mention that your five-year-old got his black belt in karate on Saturday. The absurdity of giving a black belt in any martial art to a five-year-old notwithstanding, you need to step away from my cubicle before I put a fucking staple in your eye.

"Not so good, our dog Rusty died. Even worse, he died of worms so we weren't able to salvage any of the organs."

This job is seriously going to kill me, though probably not directly. The actual task of killing me will go to the police officers in the parking lot that mow me down when I exit the lobby with an assault rifle, covered in the blood of my co-workers, especially that guy with the ninja five-year-old. The sweet release of death; even better if I can get it done before lunch.

"It was okay. I think I may have contracted genital warts, though. Would you mind taking a look?"

People always claim that you're not defined by what you do for a living, but that's complete bullshit. Watch any talk show and it's always "Please welcome Dwayne "Dog " Chapman, professional bounty hunter and media slut." This is what he does for a living, and this defines him. What about the guy that works at the coffee shop while going to school to learn how to pretend to be an intellectual? Those activities, working at the coffee shop and going to school, define him until he chooses to change those activities. What about the unemployed asshole that smokes weed and plays Xbox all day? You better believe that people know him as Skeet Ulrich, that guy with no job.

"It was great! After five glasses of wine, my wife finally let me put it in the butt!"

What you "do" does define who you are, at least in an immediate sense. What's the first question you're asked at a party after "What's your name?" and "So, how do you know Skeet?" The routine third question is "What do you do?" I hate that question. I hate it because it's expected that you answer in a sentence or two, and elaboration is forbidden unless you do something really interesting. "I'm a trapeze artist," or "I work the impact hammer at the slaughter house," or "I'm a billionaire media mogul that owns %6 of everything on the earth."

And honestly, is there anything more pathetic that the "qualified answer?" You know, the pieces of shit that state what they do to pay the rent, then follow it up with what they do creatively? "I wait tables at Chesty's Sports Bar, but I'm really an actress. Here's one of my headshots" or "Right now I'm in sales, but I hope to have my novel finished by the end of the year."

The best are those assholes that don't even have any ambition and try to dress up their pathetic jobs. These are the "custodial engineers" and "beauty technicians" of the world.

"My weekend was fine, why, what do you know about it? What did you see? Who are you?"

But what's the solution? Does anyone ever get to do what they want? Imagine that thing you do creatively (everyone has something), now imagine getting paid to do it. Seems perfect, right? Except that now, it's no longer a hobby, it's your job. You've got deadlines and customers and you don't get to do it when you want, you do it because you have to, and that makes it a lot less fun because you're no longer in control. You hit rock bottom right about the time you no longer enjoy that that thing you do, and it becomes just another job you can't wait to quit.

The problem is that there is no answer. There is no perfect job, hell, there's no perfect anything. The best we can hope for is something that keeps our interest, something that doesn't make us want to murder everyone in the office then take our own lives, and something that we can feel just a little good about at the end of the day.

A great quote from Tom Robbins' Still Life with Woodpecker is "We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love." There's a lot of truth to that, and it applies to many other aspects of life. Instead of waiting for the perfect person, or job, or house, or philsophy (none of which actually exist) you have to find the one that fits best and change yourself to be best suited for it. The very act of compromise makes it more valuable because of the work required to get to a place where you can be happy and feel good about what you do.

Except, of course, for me. There's no hope for me. My job sucks like you couldn't even begin to understand, that that fat ninja-daddy is the least of my problems. But the search is on and I'm certain I'll find a better place for myself soon enough. Maybe at your house.

Perhaps if I started charging memberships to the OTR I could sustain myself, because the generous endowments the Institute receives are barely enough to keep the lights on and fresh ice in my Scotch. If every reader were to contribute a paltry $24.99 per month, I'm confident I could clear upwards of $74.97 each month (don't worry Mom, you won't have to pay).

The Bun is in Your Mind

The schedule posted on adultswim.com indicates that at 10 PM tomorrow night, they will be playing the world premiere of Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters. This, of course, will be the first time a movie has been premiered on television before it's theatrical release. If, perhaps, you ask why they would do this, look to the commercials they've been playing on adultswim that clearly state, "because we're ****ing crazy."

Good enough for me.

Yesterday afternoon, I was plugging that date into my PDA (laugh it up) and noticed something peculiar. Tomorrow, the very date that this unprecented premeire is supposed to take place, is April 1, April Fool's Day.

I think adultswim just spit on my cupcake and called it frosting.

In any case, I'll be watching at 10 pm just to see what they'll be playing, maybe it'll be funny as hell.

I also found the very first appearance of the Aqua Teen Hunger Force, on an episode of Space Ghost Coast to Coast that never aired. Master Shake sounds strangely like Ignignot and Frylock (who has funny curly fry legs) sounds a good deal like Err. Meatwad looks and sounds pretty much the same, except he keeps asking Moltar to kill him.

Okay, SOMEONE has to have a comment on this one...

...least of all because the woman's name is Raper.

Mother sues Planned Parenthood over failed abortion of baby girl

by Tom Strode—BP News

WASHINGTON — Jennifer Raper did not want a baby, and she underwent an abortion to make sure she would not give birth to one. She has a 2-year-old daughter now, and she wants Planned Parenthood to pay for the child-rearing expenses of the little girl the abortion clinic failed to kill.

Raper, 45, of suburban Boston, Mass., filed a lawsuit recently seeking damages from the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, the physician who performed the unsuccessful abortion at the clinic and another doctor who failed to recognize she was still pregnant three months later, according to The Boston Globe.

Raper’s suit does not claim her daughter has any health problems.

In her medical malpractice suit, Raper said she underwent what she thought was a successful abortion at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Boston in April 2004, according to The Globe. She chose to have an abortion for financial reasons, the newspaper reported.

In July, she had a pelvic exam, but the doctor at Boston Medical Center failed to recognize she was 20 weeks pregnant. Only when she went to a hospital emergency room for pelvic pain in late September was she told she was pregnant, according to Raper’s suit, The Globe reported. Her daughter was born Dec. 7, 2004.

Raper’s suit alleges Planned Parenthood and its doctor were negligent for not aborting her child and the other physician was negligent for failing to notice she was pregnant.

Raper’s so-called “wrongful birth” suit will have to undergo review by a panel consisting of a judge, lawyer and doctor to decide if it can go to trial, according to the Globe.

“That the phrase ‘wrongful birth’ exists and a mother would ever conceive of making a legal case out of wishing her kid was never born does always seem to me a clear sign the end is nigh and Judgment Day won’t be merciful to our national soul,” National Review Online Editor Kathryn Jean Lopez wrote about Raper’s suit on a weblog.

How Much Is Your Dignity Worth?

Here are your choices:

1. She has no self-respect and she's trying to cash in.
2. She really did eat dog food, and is simply seeking restitution for her pain and suffering.
3. She's been eating dog food for years and made up this story to try to pretend this is not the case, but really did finally get sick.
4. In addition to a regular dog food consumer, she routinely devours light bulbs, silverware and small pieces of doll furniture for a living on a pornographic website.
5. Other (please explain)

Whatever the case may be, she clearly knew that in order to make a claim for damages resulting from the tainted pet food, she would have to admit to actually eating it. Regardless of what the reason may be, that's fucked. Of course, in high school, a guy named Chris and I drank most of a bottle of coconut rum we found in some couch cushions and probably half a box of dog biscuits. Then again, this lady isn't even claiming she was drunk.

Woman sick after eating tainted pet food
CanWest News Service
Sunday, March 25, 2007

An Ottawa woman is recovering after becoming violently ill after eating some of her dog's food, in a case likely related to the tainted pet food that has killed several dogs and cats and sickened dozens more across North America.

In this case, a canine and its master wound up in hospital — Missy at the Alta Vista Animal Hospital and Elaine Larabie at an after-hours emergency room.

[...]

After adopting one-year-old Missy six weeks ago, Ms. Larabie discovered the little dog refused to eat anything but table scraps.

"I was trying to get her to eat," Ms. Larabie said, but Missy’s protest continued. Desperate, Ms. Larabie tried "just a little bite" of the Iams dog food to make the terrier think it was people food, then gave Missy the rest.

"I said, 'It’s not going to kill me to take a little bite' ... but I guess it could have," said Ms. Larabie, who notes the trick worked.

"When I would take a bite, she’d eat it," Ms. Larabie said.

The mealtime routine continued for about two weeks, until both dog and master became sick on March 17.

Check out the rest of the article here.

My Back Hurts!

From the desk for the Society and Culture editor here at OTR, I wanted to bring to your attention a bold new ad campaign from the makers of Hot Pockets (tm) brand laxatives.



You gotta check out the website too. I fucking hate Hot Pockets, but that Hot Pockets Master dude is kind of funny. Check out the e-cards. The best is "2007 is year of pig. 2007 remined me of you!"

War! uhn. What Is It Good For!?

Wars sucks, and I’m not just talking about the 70’s funk band with the social agenda (although I hear that “Lowrider” has done wonders for the sales of Marmite).

Death, disease, destruction, violent thinning of the gene pool, and anguish for generations: this is the product of Pauly Shore movies, and war is just a little bit worse. No one with a balanced mind would prefer war to peace, chaos to balance, or Pauly Shore to Corey Feldman, but what you can never ignore is the inevitability of armed conflict or how good Lost Boys is. As ubiquitous as armed conflict is in human history (like Haim/ Feldman in the 80’s), the situations that invariably cause war are even more common: hunger, oppression, religious intolerance, and good old-fashioned greed and hunger for power.

So, in the face of the dire situation where war cannot be avoided, especially since the definition of “war” as we know it constantly changes from simple “armed conflict” to espionage, information wars, technological conflict, Corey Haim’s lame comeback attempt in Bikini Bandits Go to Hell, economic conflict, surgical military strikes and assassinations, we can only look to the bright side of armed conflict: good movies and technology.

The good movies part is obvious: Wars make for good movies, and Corey Haim has never been in a war movie (unless you count Legion and god knows, that doesn’t even qualify as a movie). This is not to say that all war movies are good, but when you consider movies like The Eagle has Landed, The Dirty Dozen, The Great Escape, The Green Berets, Apocalypse Now, Saving Private Ryan, The Flying Tigers, Casablanca, The Bridge Over the River Kwai, Ran, The Caine Mutiny and television series like Band of Brothers, it comes into focus. Even fictional wars make for great film: Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Starship Troopers, and various other films with the word “star” in them (except for A Star is Born)

As for technology, necessity is the mother of invention, and war is one mother of a necessity. During the campaigns in WWII, for every soldier in the field, firing shells and pushing the Allied forces further into Europe, Africa or Japan, there were three soldiers whose duty was to supply him. Food, clothing, clean water, ammunition, socks, cigarettes, chocolate, lemon powder, gun cleaning kits, more cigarettes, prophylactics and even more cigarettes; your average GI needed almost 70 lbs. of rations and supplies every day. This doesn’t include the massive amounts of fuel needed to operate the ships, airplanes, trucks and jeeps moving back and forth from the front lines. This required a national industrial effort that has never been matched, even to this day.



And American industry is nothing if not industrious. With billions of dollars being thrown around by the Allied governments, the companies that could offer (that “oh-so-American" of standards) bigger, better, faster, more were more likely to get the contracts to manufacture the goods that kept the fighting men fighting.

Most of the following inventions are more precisely described as innovations of evolution, not revolution. Most of the things that made the war winnable already existed, but were made better, more practical or cheaper by technologies developed in the build up to and during the war.

Shelf-Stable Foods

“Canned foods” actually began when Emperor Napoleon issued an invention contest, offering a cash prize of 12,000 francs to anyone who could find a way to effectively preserve foods to be transported to his legions of troops, scattered as far away as North Africa. The winner was a man named Nicolas Appert who discovered that vacuum sealing food in airtight containers (he used glass champagne bottles) would preserve food for months. Unfortunately, the heavy glass bottles were impractical and canning didn’t become popular until the early 20th century with the mass production of tin canisters (from which we get the word “can”).

In WWII, every soldier in the field got C-rations, which included canned entrees. Notoriously inedible, they literally provided the fuel for the men who won the war. After the war was over (I suppose there were a lot of cans left over) the rise of foods that were more convenient (read: cheap and indestructible) led to the canned foods we love (or rather, avoid like the plague) today.



Radar

Although the Japanese actually discovered most of the basic principles of radar, their failure to appreciate its applications allowed the British, desperate to find a better early detection system for the constant blitzkrieg bombings from the German Luftwaffe, put the technology to work.

Radar, an acronym stemming from “Radio Detection and Ranging,” has spread from its use in defense coordination to aviation and air traffic control, meteorology, and those assholes in uniform who stand next to their squad cars and point their “radar guns” into traffic right behind an overpass, giving you a fucking heart-attack, even though you know you’re only going five miles over the speed limit.

Penicillin

Although the anti-bacterial attributes of Penicillin were discovered by Sir Alexander Fleming in 1928 (due mostly to the fact that he was a slob that kept dirty dishes all over the laboratory and never paid his half of the utilities), the first patient successfully treated with Penicillin wasn’t until 1942 (in America, I might add.)
It’s been thought that the use of Penicillin, even as woefully under-supplied as it was back then, was responsible for saving the lives of an estimated 7.5 million servicemen and civilians.

Penicillin is also a Japanese rock band in the style of “visual kei,” which is just a fancy way of saying they dressed like women and pranced around like fruitcakes, but were way less talented than David Bowie.

Plastics

It started as parkesine, celluloid, bakelite, it even faced competition from organic materials like rubber and gutta percha, but it wasn’t until 1941 that the scientists at DuPont developed a chemically inert, super light weight, inexpensive material known as neoprene. It immediately replaced the much more expensive silk in the parachute and went on to meet endless industrial applications in mass production.

You can tout the “plastic is forever” shit like the hippies do, but never forget that the low cost and complete availability of plastics make modern life what it is today. From the bumper on my Toyota, to the keys I’m typing on now, to the nylon stockings clining to every curve of my hairy legs, to the “Wee Man” XS condoms (ribbed for somebody’s pleasure) that I wear on my shamefully tiny penis, plastics are the building blocks of modern society and sexual perversion.

Nuclear Weapons

Nuclear weapons have been […] working for peace in the post-war world. They make the cost of war seem frighteningly high and thus discourage states from starting any wars that might lead to the use of such weapons. Nuclear weapons have helped maintain peace between the great powers and have not led their few other possessors into military adventures. Their further spread, however, causes widespread fear. Much of the writing about the spread of nuclear weapons has this unusual trait: It tells us that what did not happen in the past is likely to happen in the future, that tomorrow's nuclear states are likely to do to one another what today's nuclear states have not done. A happy nuclear past leads many to expect an unhappy nuclear future. This is odd, and the oddity leads me to believe that we should reconsider how weapons affect the situation of their possessors.

-“The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: More May Be Better” by Kenneth Waltz, Professor, Emeritus, Political Science, UC Berkeley



The list goes on and on (and, unfortunately, gets even more boring). However, as the great Richard Dawkins once wrote, “There are innumerable ways to die, but only one way to live.” For every invention that hit the mark and found some, if even minor, use in the war effort, there were countless inventions or innovations that were too impractical, expensive, and sometimes just plain dangerous. The best ones, though, were just really, really fucking stupid.

In his book “My Tank is Fight!” Zach Parsons chronicles the most absurd inventions to arise out of the WWII war effort. The book details everything from wooden jet-packs for Nazi Sturmtroopers, to an attempt by the American Army to invent a tank that could fly, to the P1500 “Monster,” (funnily enough called the “LandKruezer”) which was to be the biggest cannon ever built (800mm) stuck on the biggest tank ever built (200+ tons).

The best one that Parsons writes about, however, is the one in which even the most brain-dead among us can see the flaws: the aircraft carrier made of ice.



It was called “Habakkuk” (a biblical reference, specifically a paragraph having to do with awe-inspiringly stupidity) and the plans put it at 2,000 feet long, 300 feet wide, displacing 2,000,000 tons of water and was to be made out of 280,000 blocks of Canadian ice. The question “why the fuck…?” comes to mind, following by a headache and a little drooling. The answer is summed up rather well by a great critic of the project, Sir Charles Goodeve:

"Ice," it was pointed out, "was plentiful and didn't sink. Let us build large unsinkable aircraft carriers of ice and thus provide air cover for an attack on a remote and unprotected part of France. Steel limits the size of our carriers to tens of thousands of tons; with ice we can throw off our shackles and build carriers of millions of tons each.
"Ice is plentiful! Ice is unsinkable! Ice is hard! The enemy will never suspect it! Ice will win the war!"

Certainly, the limitations of steel can be endlessly expounded upon, but it does have one distinct advantage over ice: it doesn’t melt. Needless to say, the project soon evaporated (ha!), but I daresay, mostly because the British didn’t have the $70 million dollars it would have required.

Where exactly I was going with this, I don’t know, but what I do know is that people, especially people faced with a hardship like fighting fucking Nazis, come up with a lot of really great ideas, and a lot of really shitty ones. We can all agree war is the worst thing we’ve ever invented (aside from Hot Pockets), but it’s the kind of necessity arising from conflict and fight for survival that puts human ingenuity, an already awesome force, into overdrive.

So next time someone mentions that the war in Vietnam was bullshit, you can say “Hey buddy, without the Vietnam War, we wouldn’t have napalm, or Kevlar, or Apocalypse Now.” That oughta shut ‘em up, unless they look like they’re about 60 years old and they’re missing a leg or something, then it’s best to just agree with them.

A Note From the Management

If you're like me and tend to read, or perhaps "author" (the word "author" is in quotes because I hate it when people improperly employ "quotations," also, "authoring," as a verb, is a super-pretentious thing to say, much less "type") a blog or website that is irregularly updated (which is the best way to put it, I suppose) but don't want to have to bother with all that RSS, Atom, Gator, SharpReader, BubbleJump, SansaBelt, and various other things I just made up, may I recommend Feedwhip. You subscribe (for free, of course) and they politely send you an email letting you know when that drunken asshole finally gets around to posting some inane shit on that fucking blog you're still checking out every now and again, partly because you want to see just how annoyingly self-depricating he'll pretend to be this week, but mostly to see just how long a single sentence can be, or perhaps how many commas can be used in one sitting.

Also, I think you all need to see this.

Viddy Well Little Brother

I have a love-hate relationship with television: I love TV, and I hate myself for it.

I love TV because it’s the best way to turn off your brain for as long as you want it turned off. I hate TV because, in the classic “opiate of the masses” kind of way, one could easily argue that after significant exposure to American Idol, The Biggest Loser, The Apprentice and Deal or No Deal, the mind-numbing effects can easily to seep over into the periods of time not spent drooling in front of a cathode ray tube. Optimally, one should spend less time in front of a glowing television, than not.

Groucho Marx once said, “I find television very educating. Every time someone turns on a set, I go into the other room and read a book.”

I love television because, from a purely sociological point-of-view, it’s changed the world fundamentally in ways that could never have been predicted. Instant information bouncing all over the atmosphere twenty-four hours a day, just waiting to be plucked form the airwaves, and usually at no cost to the consumer. How many people do you know don’t have at least one television in their homes?

I hate television because it reminds me of “the wire” from the Ringworld book series by Larry Niven. In Ringworld, narcotics are a thing of the past, and “the wire,” a powered crown that jacks directly into the cerebral cortex of the human brain, is the “stimulant of choice” for those weak of constitution. The crown directly stimulates the pleasure center of the brain, inducing what is at one point described as “an intense orgasm that lasts for as long as you’re jacked in.” In Ringworld, the streets are littered with people, literally wasting away from malnutrition, rolling in their own feces, with ecstatic smiles across their soiled faces. That’s right, it’s just like Eugene, Oregon.

I hate myself for loving television because it’s so pedestrian and, at heart, I’m just a snob that’s better than everyone else. Then I hate myself a little more for thinking that, because I hate people that ascribe to those types of pop notions of intellectual elitism, like those assholes that think there’s nothing to be learned from anything on television. “I don’t watch television” is like some badge of honor for people that can’t actually accomplish anything else with their time other than to pretend to be smarter than everyone else in the room. As if announcing that you haven’t eaten meat in five years is supposed to make us fall to our knees and wipe your feet with our hair. Well, as Jim Gaffigan says, “I haven’t eaten a banana in a month. Big whoop.”



Certainly, “Three’s Company” isn’t going to help you understand the world any better than you already do, but just try to tell me there’s nothing to be gleaned from Mythbusters, or Bullshit! or The Wire. Not just truth, entertaining truth, just like OTR.

On one hand, I constantly fret about all the books I’ll never be able to read before I die. This anxiety has worsened of late, since the Lafayette Public Library just had their annual book sale, resulting in me purchasing more books than I can read in a year, but that’s neither here not there. As much as we’d like to believe that time spent reading good literature is not deducted from one’s lifespan, I think that there’s a grand delusion that all written word is noble, and all television is plebian.

In his book “Everything Bad is Good For You,” Steven Johnson proposes that the beneficial aspect of television and video games is not the subject matter, but the format itself. As a consumer of “good television” (reality shows, low-brow sitcoms and anything involving Howie Mandell will hence-forth be known as “bad television”) you are required to explicate complex plots and storylines, getting a “cognitive workout” that math problems, chess games and the digestion of quality literature would impart. Johnson postulates, “No one evaluates the benefits of chess based on its storyline or monotonically militaristic subject matter.”



Can the best of modern television drama approach the cultural importance of, say , Shakespeare? With certainty. Take, for example, HBO’s Rome. For my money, there’s no better television. Drama, violence, sex, politics, deception, war, rivalry, anguish and mythology, all of a caliber that can only be appreciated in the context of the ancient world. Compared to Shakespeare’s histories (the third and often neglected category of his works) they prove to be, for all intents and purposes, the very same thing: Political intrigue, dramatic rivalry, forlorn affection, savage violence and sex, all set in the exciting and idealistic periods of ancient human history, when men were men, women were women, and a tooth infection was more likely to kill you than an enemy’s arrow.

At his peak, Shakespeare enjoyed great popularity, but was generally considered by the intellectual elite (yes, they’ve been around that long) to be popular drivel with no real meaning, context or truth: precisely the way your typical intellectual snob would describe prime-time television.

However, while a comparison between The Bard and “Everybody Loves Raymond” might be intellectually feasible, you won’t see it in this forum.

The main reason TV gets such a bad rap (aside from Aaron Spelling) is that it’s so ubiquitously available, and as we all know, something everyone else has, is generally just not worth having. The irony is that the near limitless availability of television programming is the medium’s greatest strength. The ability to reach most people, regardless of age, race, wealth or disposition, with a message, whatever it might be, is the alpha and omega of politics, culture and economics.

“I was born in a house with the televisions always on” goes “Love for Sale” by Talking Heads. It’s worth mentioning that David Byrne meant it as a damnation of the culture in which he was raised, but I see it differently. I was also born in a house with the television always on, and I’m smarter, more culturally literate and, if I do say so myself, a good deal funnier and quicker on the draw that those that weren’t.

Pop culture junkies unite! (except for you, Quentin Tarantino, you keep your seat)

Now, am I advocating raising all future generations “Clockwork Orange” style with pliers on their eyes, forcing them to watch re-runs of Green Acres for days at a time? Not yet, but those parents who refuse their children access to the singularly most popular medium of information and entertainment are denying them the cultural literacy and common ground with others upon which modern society is built. Any perceived advantage a TV-less child might have, which no study has ever confirmed, would far out-weighed by their inability to relate to everyone else, especially me.

And the consequences of a world without me are simply too devastating to imagine.

There is one criticism of television, however, that even I can’t defend. As Tom Robbins says, “There’s no better way to avoid a wonderful night of love-making than to spend it watching television.”


At it’s best, television, like literature, cinema, and “legitimate theatre” (the two words have to spoken aloud in a snooty British accent) is engaging, thought-provoking and at times cathartic. At worst, it’s a waste of time. Just like OTR.

Wrong Again, Albert

I was on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, the one from Next Generation, not the original where there were only like six buttons that did everything. We were approaching an unknown planet, and anxiety gripped the officers, though I couldn't explain why. I wasn't the captain (Patrick Stewart was there, but thankfully, Jonathan Frakes was not) but I suppose I was someone important, being on the bridge. Suddenly, my little brother, I'd have to guess to be about six years old, comes off the turbolift and onto the bridge, wearing that ubiquitous red uniform sported by the sad underlings on the ship, and holding a bullhorn in his hand. He raised the bullhorn to his mouth and began to emit this most shrill and nauseating squeal that turned rhythmic and peircing after a second or two, forcing everyone on the bridge, especially yours truly, to cup our hands over our ears and start running about like crazed orangutans.

I was late. Shit.

I jumped out of bed, trying not to dwell on the fact that Ensign Wesley Crusher hadn't been wearing any pants, and started the shower. It was then that I heard the sound of the truck down the street. The garbage truck. Double shit.

No, to answer your question, the garbage had not been thoughtfully placed at the curbside the previous evening. I threw on a robe to hide my bulbous, pasty shame and opened the garage door just in time to catch two scruffy-looking dudes jump off the back of the truck and walk up my driveway to meet me. The first one grabbed the can from me, looking expectantly. In retrospect, he may have been waiting for a tip, but if you're stupid enough to think that some dude wearing only a robe and a pair of crocs has any cash on him, you should be prepared for a long career in waste management.

After the awkward moment passed, the garbage man casually swung open the lid to the garbage can and proceeded to rifle through my garbage right in front of me. In one hand he grabs an empty bottle of booze and and in the other, an old button-down shirt I'd thrown away the day before. He gives me a long, accusatory stare.

In retrospect, in his left hand, he was holding a bottle of Highland Park 12 year single malt, which I'd purchased months earlier for $42.99 to get me through the troublesome Christmas holidays. My other goal was to advertise to any house guests what type of scotch I liked to drink, in case they ever get invited back. If they knew what I drank during the week (J&B, the jug with the handle, $29.99) I'd never get anything else. It just so happened I'd finished the last drops of that sweet, sweet Highland Park the previous evening. In his right hand, he was holding a shirt with a Structure label, a shirt I'd bought years before at a second-hand shop in Boston for $2.00. What he couldn't see was the giant grease stain on the back, or the fact that the ugly shirt never fit me worth a damned anyway.

So there I am, standing in a bathrobe in my driveway at 7:45 AM while the garbage man secretly chides me for living the type of life of which I can only deam, where I drink Highland park every night and throw out designer shirts like so much kleenex.

Well, I thought to myself as I looked at the high-ceilinged, well-proportioned, palatial homes that surrounded our own, welcome to the neighborhood.

Like so many other of my seemingly endless barrage of erstwhile posts, I must begin with an apology. Not only because you, dear reader, have sunk so low as to find yourself reading this drivel in some puerile attempt to amuse yourself, but because, of late, you’ve had so little opportunity to do so.

This will be one of those rare narratives in which I talk about myself, so you may want to get another cup of coffee, and possibly some pink bismuth. Your only solace is that this post will also feature news of the new Maison d’Awesome, the fetching Mrs. Sonnier, the good brindle kitty, and the bad, bad black kitty.

The indomitable duo that is Team Awesome has vacated their previous Pacific Northwest headquarters at Fort Awesome and are proud to introduce you to the newest base of operations: Maison D’Awesome. As an organization, we feel this recent acquisition will strengthen our presence in the ever-growing American South and allow us a more strategic foothold in our plan for global dominance.

First, Acadiana, then the world, then Detroit, then we’ll give Detroit back and apologize.



May I introduce Maison D’Awesome (troublesome crack of lightning added for dramatic effect.) She’s a beautiful three-year old, two bed, two bath marvel located around an artificial retention pond that’s unevenly oblong like a Mike n’ Ike candy. She’s 1,634 square feet with a sweet garage, extra-big lot and, though it cost us a pretty penny, verification by the National Indian Burial Site Survey to be %100 vengeful Indian spirit free (margin of error %10-%45).



This is the great room. Very popular these days. The only drawback is that when you drop a dinner guests’ steak on the floor, they’re seated only a few feet away sipping on that wine you gave them that they never thanked you for. The amount of time you have to deposit spit on said steak is limited: these rooms are only for professional ninja-chefs.



I discovered that the so-called “great room” is not so great as to easily include most of it’s proportions in a single photograph. Alas, you shall have to make due with a tiny sliver of a view from the dining room. You may note beautiful Persian rug the fetching Mrs. Sonnier picked up for us and a recent estate sale. If you blur your eyes and shake your head, the pattern in the rug kind of looks like you’ve inexplicably blurred your eyes and are shaking at your head at a big reddish blob. Awesome.



This is my awesome kitchen. I say awesome because I have more counter space, prep space and storage space than any other human being on the planet. Go ahead, prove me wrong, you’ve never even been here.



The bitchin’ fireplace was definitely a big draw, especially for me. You see, the fetching Mrs. Sonnier is very torn when it comes to fireplaces: like most of us, she feels that a gently crackling fire not only warms the bones on a cold winter night, it also provides soothing ambiance and calmness to a room. On the other hand, Elise seems convinced that at any given moment, a golem of burning embers, comsumed with pure, bloodthirsty rage will spring forth from the fireplace, incinerating any and all who dare defy his will. Thankfully, she just drinks a little more on fireplace nights.



This is the Sweet Baby Kitten. She’s licking the furniture. This caption sort of writes itself.



If you ever find yourself in the unenviable position to be eating a saliva-covered meal prepared by yours truly, you have four seating choices: the dining room, the bar, the precious little breakfast area (pictured here), or your car. If you’re of the Irish persuasion, I would like to recommend your car.



This is our big boring yard. I say boring because we haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of its possibilities. I say big because it fucking huge. Thankfully, Elise’s mother has given us these beautiful rose bushes to liven up the view. See, aren’t the beautiful?



I’m kidding, of course. Once spring hits, these puppies will be throwing out more color than a Turkish butcher shop. And I swear, if I catch you kids fucking with my roses one more time, I’m gonna tan your hide like it ain’t never been tanned.

Our backyard is the future site for the fetching Mrs. Sonnier’s painting studio. I will be overseeing the construction project and personally tending to all the necessary demolition. That’s right, I can build. Once I become a notary, I’ll be a triple threat. As an aside, I’d like to make a small mention of the fetching Mrs. Sonnier’s upcoming art shows at Gallery Hibou here in Lafayette. Snapshots of her recent work can be viewed here.



This is Edgar, and he likes to poop on, in and around inappropriate things. Once again, this caption writes itself.



Once again, I’m limited by aperature. To give you the full effect of our master bathroom, I would have to take about thirteen photos, not only because it, like my genitalia, is so friggin huge, but because it, also like my genitalia, is so oddly shaped. So just picture it, if you can (the bathroom… not my genitalia): sixteen foot ceiling, extra-large stall shower, extra-large Jacuzzi tub and right off to the left, is a walk-in closet. The elephant circus and off a few miles to the east, and the monkey butlers serve your every need.

The weather has not been overly cooperative of late, and it’s been dreary and cold. The sun will soon make its appearance, though, and by then we’ll have much more to photograph. We’re hoping to have the moat installed by the end of the spring and I’ve already begun measuring for the portcullis. As it stands now, we can probably house, feed and defend up to seventeen people once the zombie war begins. If suggest you get your spots early, and remember, no matter what the price, your family is worth it.

To view the rest of the (poorly executed) photographs of the new house, point your browser here.

Equal Parts Harmless and Sad

“I once caused your cells to shimmer,
and you once caused my cells to shimmer
and now we go all the night
without love.”

-All the Night Without Love by Elvis Perkins

Human beings have been given an immeasurably valuable gift by evolution: extraordinarily large brains. This single physical characteristic represents perhaps the greatest divide between we homosapiens and the rest of the life on this planet. The enormous size of our craniums affect virtually every aspect of our existence, and with every extraordinary gift given in the natural sphere, it comes with extraordinary costs.

Humans, unlike the majority of the creatures on this planet, are extremely fragile, susceptible to illness and injury, and oddly proportioned in virtually every way. Our astronomical craniums are the reason the young of our species are born at such an early developmental stage, usually born only one at a time, and almost always with some difficulty. Have you ever watched a calf or a colt being born? They plop out, mom gives them a lick, and they’re on their own four feet in about twenty minutes, if somewhat wobbly.

Humans, on the other hand, require constant care and protection for the first three to four years of their lives. Why this grand disconnect? Our inordinately large heads, designed to hold our inordinately large brains, have to be pushed though our mother’s ordinarily narrow hips before they get so big they won’t fit at all. This tends to happen around the ninth month. Unfortunately, the human brain does not entirely develop until age four to six.

You women out there try to imagine passing a six-year-old through your vagina and thank the forces of natural selection.

The payoff is obvious: I think therefore I am. We don’t just see the rain and run for cover, we see the signs, we learn why it rains, learn it’s purpose, learn to predict it, and we’re not that far from being able to control it. Old Greek tales of Gods and Monsters would tell of the early days of Man during which the Gods would hunt humans like stock. Certainly, they didn’t have sharp tusks like boars, or strong jaws like lions or swift feet like deer, but their brains made them the most exciting game of all. Instead of simply running from the arrows, they would question from whence they came, and soon enough, would be wielding similar weapons of their own design.

Comparatively, we’re a soft, squishy pink, virtually hairless species that just lucked out to have enough abstract computing power to figure out that when you bang rocks together, you sometimes get a spark. We’ve transformed this strange ability into a myriad of skills that have brought our species, MAN, to the top of the heap. With everything, the golden rule of nature decries, there is a price.

Anxiety, depression, jealousy, hatred, envy, loathing, boredom, these are the prices we pay for our brains. The truly double-edged sword of consciousness and “feelings” is what ultimately sets us apart from the other beasts that call this rock home. Elephants don’t feel inadequate, lizards don’t feel anxious, monkeys don’t feel anguish, animals don’t feel empathy.

Animals don’t love.

Ah, love, the ultimately beautiful and horrible state of the human mind, the emotion to end all emotions, total, inescapable, unavoidable, unconditional and completely mind-bogglingly annoying love. What is love? This is a question that has plagued poets and scientists alike since men first emerged from their caves and stood upright, blinking at the sun.

Is it chemical? It is mental? Is it spiritual?

This very thing that separates us as a species from the beasts, is the very thing that keeps us deeply separate from each other: You can never know what goes on in another person’s head, the same way they will never know what goes on in yours, no matter how many hours they waste at a keyboard blogging to no on in particular, for no particular reason. As a species, we are islands of loneliness in tumultuous seas of subjectivity. As a gregarious species at heart, we may never be truly alone, but as thinking minds, we will never be anything but.

Is love simply what you want it to be? Can the subjective definition of love vary so greatly person to person? If love can be anything, then it can be nothing, and the concept loses all meaning. The ethereal nature of something as simultaneously ubiquitous and rare as love is both simultaneously gratifying and infuriating.

As a married man, in a happy and functional union, I have the good fortune to experience of love on a daily basis, often many times a day (depending on how much vitamin E I can get my hands on). Words alone cannot describe the feeling of looking at another human being knowing the deep value of that love when she pledged it to you in front of both your families, all your friends and a creepy statue of a frowning and bleeding Jesus.

Equally as valuable is when you offered the same to her, and she accepted it without gagging.

Something even the happiest man is rarely reminded of, however, is what it feels like to fall in love. The awkward first steps taken just before you start running towards that cliff edge, hoping desperately that the bungee cord holds and you don’t end up with your overly large brain smeared on the rocks below. As functional as our brains are as storage facilities of memories and knowledge, sometimes, especially after many years, something as important as how you got someplace as hard to find as love, can be a bit fuzzy around the edges. The good news it that the mechanisms of memory work quite well when someone takes the time to remind you.

Required reading for every man is the illustrated novel by Craig Thompson called Blankets. To those that have yet to locate and conquer love, this book will prove beyond the shadow of doubt that the venture is worth the blood, sweat and tears. If you’ve had the good fortune to find yourself in the enviable position to claim love as your own, but got your eviction papers late in the game, this book will be the scrapbook you wish you had, but never had the gumption to make for fear your friends would find it.


Finally, for those of us that enjoy the benefits (and withstand the tribulations) of love every day, this book is a near-perfect journal of youthful obsession and of love that is only felt by the fortunate few.

People often recommend books with phrases like “it changed my life” or “my perspective” or “my opinion” on something as meaningless as opening chess moves or weight loss programs or whether or not Jesus had a wife. This book will do precisely the opposite: It will remind you of how you felt when you first loved, and if you’re lucky enough to still have that person in your life, it will strengthen that love and reassure you of what you already knew: It’s worth it, it really is.

So what is love? The quick answer is (a phrase that has never, and will likely never again appear in this forum) I don’t know. You may as well ask “what is pain” or “what is expression?” For certain, love is not simply what you believe it to be, because beliefs are always changing and fluxing as we grow and know the world a little more, which happens every day. Love is what you know it to be, you just may not have figured out how much you know about it just yet.

I had the good fortune to be the best man at my best friend’s wedding and I was asked to give a speech at the rehearsal dinner. I tried for days to think of something both meaningful and witty to say (I know, shocking that I couldn’t come up with anything, says every reader if this fine forum) but came up blank. The fetching Mrs. Sonnier offered to help, but I assured her I had it all under control. As usual, I was only fooling myself.

For all the people that were gathered that night, I remembered for them a conversation he and I were had some years earlier while we were deciding where to hang our movie posters in our (ill-gotten) apartment. He asked me when it was that you know you’re in love, when does it become clear. I can only imagine that he felt I might have some experience in the matter because the future fetching Mrs. Sonnier and I had been hand-in-hand for several years at that point, as if I had any say in the matter.

Having virtually nothing of any meaning to tell him, I just told him that once you have to ask, you probably already know the answer. This, as it may shock Luke to know, was a huge cop-out. I really didn’t have anything to say, but they seemed to receive it well, nonetheless.

I hope these recently passed holidays found you all well and just rolling in love and good tidings from all directions, requited or otherwise. I also hope you all will accept my apologies for my recent “under-the-radar” status, which hopefully can soon be rectified.

And finally, thanks for reading. I love you all. Like a father. Or perhaps an alcoholic uncle. Something non-committal, and sort of equal parts harmless and sad like that.

Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here

Simply saying “the holidays” can conjure up images of warmth and togetherness that are so necessary during these cold and lethargic months. Gatherings where the family awkwardly watches your uncle pour himself another double Old Crow into the mustard jar he’s been sipping from since 10 AM, all the time certain that the “turtleneck” he’s wearing under his off-white, cable-knit, reindeer sweater doesn’t extend past his shoulders. Images of the children, bathed in the yellow glow of the fire, as they sip hot chocolate and stare pensively at the smattering of wrapped gifts under the nearby tree, forcing you to fight the urge to smack them in their respective mouths for being so ungrateful for the food you put in their bellies, the roof over their heads, and the expensive methamphetamine-based narcotics you choke down their throats to dull their senses enough to make decent grades on their geography exams and make it into an ivy-league college, the cost of which will drain you of every last penny like some long-fanged vampire with a taste for retirement funds. The heart-warming memories of cutting into another of your wife’s bone-dry and flavorless turkeys, sawing back and forth at the breast like a hunk of granite, all the time dreading your auntie’s green bean casserole that every year tastes more and more like the cat urine in which her entire home is steeped, your vegan hippie sister’s curried cabbage casserole, which is at that precise moment filling the room with the unmistakable reek of backpacker’s crotch, and your mother-in-law’s fruitcake which, you’re quickly becoming certain, is made from some sort of fissile material that fell to the Earth sometime before life began to stir in the planet’s oceans.

Maybe your uncle doesn’t have such a bad idea after all.

The terrible food, the awkward family gatherings, the obligation to tell everyone that you know doesn’t give a crap “how you’re doing,” the cheap gifts, the uncomfortable silences after someone tells you you’ve had enough eggnog, the old people constantly talking about “waiting for the Lord to take them,” the malcontent teenagers that complain because grandma’s house doesn’t have HDTV and on top of all the personal struggles with which we all must contend during this most heinous of times, every manufacturer, retailer and street-peddler in the industrialized world is desperate to get everyone to spend money they don’t have, to buy shit they don’t need, to give to people they don’t like.

We can speak endlessly about the dangers of consumerism, especially during this time of greed and gluttony, but this ignores the basic tenet that every individual is responsible for their own actions, their own decisions and the consequences thereof. Take a quick look around eBay and you’ll see the new Sony video game console, the Playstation 3, on account of very limited supply, selling for $4,000 and up. Some have even sold in the $8,000 range. Sorry, the ones with auction end prices of $40,000 are just too high to believe, even this time of year when a human’s basic sense of self-preservation is casually thrown by the wayside as they claw a child’s eyes out to get at the last Elmo TMX doll.

In terms of hysteria, these things always have a way of combusting on a fuel of their own creation. Remember the mild hysteria when Microsoft released their next generation console, the Xbox 360? Pathetic losers camped out in front of department stores for days in advance, hoping springs eternal that they be given the opportunity to pay $500 for a few oddly shaped hunks of plastic so they can go straight home and sell it to some even more pathetic loser on eBay for $1000. Interest is peaked, more people see an even better opportunity now, least of all because of the growing holiday gift-chasing paranoia, so even more people can be seen camped out weeks ahead of time, which garners an obscene amount of media attention, both nationally and locally, because with the elections over there’s nothing else worth covering (except possibly the genocide in Rwanda, the Europe-shaking PM elections in France, record low gas prices, etc.) which fans even higher flames of interest, which makes the bidding for the pre-orders on eBay sky-rocket because the most pathetic of the pathetic losers (you guessed it: overpaid, absentee parents) are foaming at the mouth for this one material object they have deluded themselves into thinking will guarantee an intimate and deeply satisfying relationship with their alienated twelve-year-olds.

God, I need a drink.

Look, don’t get me wrong, stuff is cool, especially cool stuff, but there is a limit. Anyone willing to pay %1000+ over retail because your child MUST HAVE this doll or this game or this bike is doing no favors for anyone, let alone the kid. Sure, yours is the only kid on the block with a PS3 or that new at-home tattoo kit, but what has the young lad or lass learned about the most singularly important financial concept that can be taught to an individual that will soon enough be expected to freely participate in this most beautiful of concepts we call capitalism?

In case any of you misguided and self-absorbed parents are reading, the concept is called delayed gratification.

Wanting stuff is normal, don’t let the Commie anti-free marketeers convince you that you should feel guilty for wanting something that’s cool. The wanting is normal, the anger and the resentment and the aggression is not. Buddhists believe that all of life is suffering, and that all suffering stems from desire; that is to say, unfulfilled desires. The logic of the Buddhist is that suffering can only be assuaged two ways: get everything you want, or stop wanting stuff. Since getting everything you want is impossible, especially when you consider that most people don’t even know what they really want, the only achievable goal is to stop wanting altogether.

Of course, this is a lot easier when you live in a monastery in the mountains with no electricity and you’re brain is barely working correctly because all you eat is boiled carrots and no matter how many times you ask, they still give you that funny look when you ask if they have any coffee in the house. Clearly, the life of a committed Buddhist monk is not a realistic option for the typical citizen of industrialized Earth, but there are many lessons we can glean.

Getting everything you want is not a good thing. Aside from being pretty much impossible, it creates unhealthy expectations that can never be achieved, leading to disappointment, resentment and disillusion (read: Buddhist-style suffering). It also only serves to engender a grand disconnect from the other %99.9 of humanity that, not only doesn’t get everything they want, often don’t regularly get what they need. This disparity breeds animosity, discontent and envy. And let’s admit it, we’re a gregarious species, and despite what we tell ourselves, we really do care what other people think about us.

Just think about that douche-bag you went to high school with that drove the nicest car, got all the most expensive toys, and is now in prison for possession and distribution of child pornography. Sub-lesson: sky-high expectations also tend to warp one’s perceptions of behavioral boundaries. To illustrate that point, I recommend you all read The Dirt by Motley Crue.

Clark Howard, a nationally syndicated talk-show host and wildly successful author, speaks about people whose debt outpaces their earnings, a problem that is growing in magnitude in the United States, but also in Europe and Asia. His main point is that there’s plenty of money in the system, and average wealth is the highest it’s been since the economic boom after WWII, but in 2005, for the first time ever, for every $1.00 earned by the average American, they spent $1.01. Mr. Howard calls this a “wait problem.”

The problem is not that this person can’t afford that new car, or that new handbag, or that new computer, or that new PS3, (though, may times this is the case) they just don’t want to wait. That’s where the credit cards, the equity loans, refinances and debt, debt, debt come into play. After interest payments, that $6,000 PS3, paid off three years later (if you’re lucky) cost you $12,000.

Despite this Curmudgeon McScrooge routine, “the holidays” do have their limited charm. The annual box-load of underwear my mom gives me, despite the seventeen pairs she gave me last year have barely been worn, always reminds that she thinks about me all year long….while in the underwear department. The opportunity to buy the fetching Mrs. Sonnier another piece of dazzling jewelry, guaranteeing that tenuous affection she holds for me will last at least another six months (just until the anniversary) is also a bonus.

If you’re unfortunate enough to be watching television at any point during this time of the year, you’ll be bombarded by children’s specials and PSAs and the like explaining “the true meaning of the holidays” (on account of the PC Nazis having virtually obliterated the word “Christmas” from the routine vocabulary”) as a time of giving, and generosity, and family and all that horseshit. Just remember, there is a grain a truth somewhere in there, even if you have to get waist-deep to find it.

What the hell is an aluminum falcon?

Needless to say, it’s been an eventful and all-consuming week. Then again, if it’s so needless to say, why did I say it?

Because I’m complex.

The drive down was particularly uneventful. By “uneventful,” I mean driving for 14 hours a day for three days will cause a person’s brain to turn into a viscous goo, making it virtually impossible to retain any information input during that time.

A few items of note are the two piles of dog shit outside the hotel room in Evanston, Wyoming, the cows fucking in New Mexico, that decent fried okra can be had at the only gas station in Bellevue, Texas, and that my cat goes into the litter box to fart.

The offices of the OTR Institute are still in the transition period, and for the time being, will be making broadcasts from our secret remote location, that’s right, the same one where they send Dick Cheney when the compressor in the White House refrigerator clicks on and spooks the cook staff. We got our cans of beans and our potable water, try and find us you pigs!

Life is still somewhat surreal, and until I start my new job, I most likely will not be able to shake this feeling that I’m on vacation. However, much like vacation, the familial obligations seem to be piling on the Smurfs at Smuckfest. That’s right, I’m Smurfette.



In the meantime, I’d like to point the attention of my local readers to an organization in its infancy. The Young Professionals of Acadiana is a group that meets monthly to give the nubile corporate fodder in this town the opportunity to shake each others hands and talk about how great they are for a few hours while sucking down imported beers and using words like “litigationary.” All in all, the first meeting was a success, especially for an organization so young, and I wish the heartiest of congratulations to its founder and president, Captain Turdy McPoop-Bottom.

Way to go, Ace.

As the Captain and I were chatting on the sidewalk after the “event,” we were approached by strange-looking fellow in a baggy hoodie. He immediately began to mumble incoherently and hand Luke his driver’s license. I managed to glean a few words from Mush-Mouth, and pieced together that he’d been in prison for something and would like some money, or at the very least a cigarette. Luke gave him some change, and as he turned away, we both immediately left the scene for our respective cars, parked in opposite directions.

About a block away, I began to replay the encounter in my head. “Did he say what I think he said?” I asked myself. I thought about calling Luke as I fingered my cell phone.

Suddenly it rang.

“Did that guy say he was in prison for assault for putting a stick up someone’s ass?” asked Luke.

“Yeah, I heard that too. I think he said he went to prison for sticking something up someone’s ass because ‘that’s how they fuck with you up there’” I replied.

“Yeah. That’s what I heard too.” Luke agreed.

So, who knows what colorful characters you’ll get to meet at the next YPoA meeting. A drunken sailor bent on fondling your kneecap? Perhaps an insane ex-toll booth worker who wishes to extol the group with his fascinating collection of memorabilia from the set of Biodome? I have my fingers crossed for the guy that gets paid to watch paint dry.

In any case, our pirate broadcasts of the OTR Institute’s brainwave patented brainwave-altering info-tainment will be erratic in the coming weeks, until we can find a legitimate base of operations from which to unleash our wretched and rancorous musings on the unsuspecting internet.

Until then, in the immortal words of Wilford Brimley, “Check your blood sugar, and check it often.”

America's Poop Idol

As much as those kooky Libertarians might like to think that we human are beholden to no one, we do, in fact, live in a land (and by and large, a world) that is goverened by basic rules of behavior and standards of law.

There are those, however, that would say that these standards have become so lax over the years as to have lost virtually all of their meaning. Their logic is that with each explitive ridden t-shirt or scantily-clad bimbo, we lose a little bit of the groundwork that holds this whole thing we call society together and takes it one step further into the darkness of chaos and despair.

They might have a point, especially in the legal sense. The limp-wristed, namby-pamby judges we have in this day and age, the very gatekeepers of that rule of law, are letting the baby-boomer "I'm okay, you're okay," "wheatgrass before my morning meditation" mentality seep into their professional lives and ruin it for the rest of us.

I refer you to the case of a Vermont judge who sentenced a man to 60 days in prison for the repeated rape of a seven-year-old girl. According to Judge Edward Cashman, "The one message I want to get through is that anger doesn't solve anything. It just corrodes your soul."

Yeah, thanks. I'm sure that's gonna help that little girl sleep at night.

As it turns out, there a whole shitload of things you can get away with, even if you do them RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE JUDGE.

From Brietbart.com

A Chicago man apologized for spreading his feces around a courtroom during his trial on drug charges.

Vandale Amos Willis, 28, apologized Wednesday before being sentenced to more than 10 years in prison. Willis was convicted earlier of importation of a controlled substance, cocaine, and two other charges.

"Im going to take full responsibility for everything I did in Duluth," Willis told the court. "I want to apologize for everything I did in court. Im sorry, your honor."

He asked Judge David Sullivan to put him on probation. Sullivan told Willis his actions wouldn't be held against him, but there was no reason to depart from sentencing guidelines.

Ladies and gentleman, we have officially reached crisis point. When a man can smear his own feces in a hall of public justice, and have the judge, or any human being, offer him a shred if sympathy, we have crossed the raging river of despair and entered into dark, dark territory.