Wear a disguise in public.

"I'm not sure why you're trying to get a second cup of free water sir, but the disguise is unnecessary. Because the water, like I just mentioned, is free and all."Why wear a disguise in public? Why NOT wear a disguise in public? Think about how you'd react if you saw someone wearing a fake Burt Reynolds 'stache with a weird dreadlock wig and some Super Mario suspenders. Would it be the highlight of your day? I guess that depends on how shitty your day was, but it at least has potential to be the first thing you tell to someone else when they ask you about your day:

"I was just walking down the street, minding my biz, and all of the sudden I glance left to see Super Burt Marley shakin' his junk, sarbling all up and down the street! And I think he was eating some old mac n' cheese with his bare hands. It was weird." (see last post for made up definition of "sarble")

Something tells me you have an eye-patch in your bedroom. Not sure why. But I think you do. Wear it tomorrow. Wear it with some overalls and a Raggedy Andy red wig. I see good things in your future.*

*good things may or may not include a day full of people pointing and/or laughing at your expense

Oh, and don't duct-tape your fucking face. Why, Sweet Sassy Molassey, WHY would you ever think this is a good idea?


So in recapping, once again:
-Wear a diguise.
-Don't duct-tape your fucking face.

Good day everyone.

Coin a phrase.

I was considering creating the term "Peanut Formalwear" to use when I see someone stylishly dressed in top-hat and monocle, but for the life of me I can't decide if that phrase should only be used when the person is also not wearing any pants.I doubt you can go a day in your life without hearing a phrase or term that, upon further examination, doesn't really make a lot of sense. Heck, even though all words were at one point made up out of thin air, some that we take for granted came much, much later than others. I just learned that the word "laser" is actually an acronym for "light amplification by the stimulated emission of radiation." How on earth the acronym for that mouthful of words ended up sounding as kickass as the word "laser" is just pure luck.

Today, as an exercise in creativity (and a plea from me to you to use your time on something other than the many godawful quizzes on Facebook), it's time to develop a word, phrase or term. Ready? Go.

Oh, right, you haven't been creative since you made that video presentation for your 11th grade world history project. You're probably a little rusty. Here are some quick examples to get you started. For all of these, I decided to get the assistance of the animal community.

• "Ostrich holiday": A day off from work or school when you don't do shit, but simply bury your head in the ground and pretend you don't have to go to work or school the next day, aka a rather poor use for a holiday.
  
• "Ride moose" (wink!): Poor execution or misuse of a perfectly advantageous situation, kind of like trying to ride a moose, which is not quite the best use of such an unpredictable beast, i.e. "That kid was given every opportunity to succeed, but instead he decided to ride moose for 4 years of college with no degree to show for it, and now he works at McDonald's and smells like french fries. Why the hell does he always smell like french fries, even on days when he doesn't work? What's up with that guy?"
  
• "Frog-n-toad": A term to describe friendship, in an effort to replace the term "BFF" which drives me fucking insane, i.e. "Jill and I are frog-n-toad." It can also be used to downgrade a perceived romatic relationship, i.e. "No we're not dating, we're just frog-n-toad." It's derived from some books I read as a child. And yes it would sound even more annoying that "BFF," but I'm ok with it because I created it.
  
• "Beaverly": Someone who is resourceful and hard working, like a beaver making a damn out of whatever supplies it can find. Or potentially, "beaverly" could be used in the context of "You're looking rather beaverly today", aka "You've dressed in a manner that allows me to see that you haven't shaved your pubes in a while."

And that's just some quick ideas based on animals. You are not limited to that whatsoever. It can be a completely made-up word like "sarble" which I'm going to say means "to walk awkwardly due to your undies riding up your crack." It can be an acronym like "WAYALAD" (Why Are You Acting Like A Douchebag?). Or it can be a phrase like "bringing donkeys to a horse party." I imagine that's when you bring a slightly inbred family member to a high-class social event and they decide to piss off the balcony into the swimming pool below. Although I guess I reverted back to an animal reference on that one.

Once you've developed your own word or phrase, make sure to start using it in conversation around your friends, family, co-workers, and complete strangers in public. When they look confused, explain what your word or phrase means, but give a really arrogant look to them like "Seriously...you've never heard that before? What rock do you live under?" Your confidence in using your term is key to making it catch on. People are sheep. If they think everyone else says it, they'll say it too.

So get creative, put sunglasses on a goat, and try to contribute to pop culture.

Paul Bunyan Day.

Paul Bunyan, whose body-type was modeled after a combination of Larry King and the Nutcracker, is seen here with his beloved ox Babe, who apparently glows in the dark.In what I hope to be the first of many obscure holiday blog postings, I'd like to point out that tomorrow (Saturday, June 27th) is Paul Bunyan Day. So I'll give you some pointers on how to celebrate PBD in style, right after a brief explanation about P-Buns.

You may be asking why in holy hell Paul Bunyan gets his own day. Well, he doesn't. He shares it with "Sunglasses Day," a day in which you...wear sunglasses. I'm unsure whether this is to appease the Sun gods, piss them off, of help Ray-Ban with a struggling quarterly earnings statement, but it seems like a big pile of crap to me. Step off of Paul Bunyan's day, you retina-relaxing devil-goggles. Paul Bunyan SHOULD get his own day. After all, according to my sources (the same Internet that hosts such accurate and well-researched pools of information as my own blog or Fox News), Bunyan can be credited with:

• Creating logging in the U.S.
• Scooping out the Great Lakes to water Babe, his ox.
• Clearing the entire States of North and South Dakota for farming.
• Training ants to do logging work. They were, of course, Carpenter Ants.
• Babe's large footprints created Minnesota's 10,000 lakes.

See...that's a lot of important stuff right there! Logging? Without Paul Bunyan, your houses would have to be made out of brick! Oh...oh brick is actually a better choice? Ok, but the Great Lakes! Yeah, that right there effected...only 8 States. Fine, fine. But clearing out the Dakotas for farming was...hey wait a minute, Mt. Rushmore is in South Dakota. You didn't clear out the entire States, and you can't farm on a fucking mountain, Paul! This whole story is becomming less and less believable. Training ants? Who gives a shit? Get your giant ox to procreate and make baby giant oxes to learn the logging trade! It's gotta take months for trained ants to cut a tree. One giant ox just needs to run into one and you get to yell "TIMBER!" And what's this about more lakes? We already heard you bragging about the Great Lakes, and now you're going to go on about some lesser lakes you made? In Minnesota, no less?

You know what? I don't feel like giving anyone advice on celebrating Bunyan's big day anymore. Forget it, Paul. Your ox is adorable, but you haven't benefitted my life nearly enough to warrant your own day. I'm just going to shut my mouth on Saturday, wear some sunglasses, and watch Al Borland on Home Improvement. That's one lumberjack-looking doughboy more deserving of my attention.

Sell your shit.

"See, officer...it's windowless because...um...because the Barbies might be damaged by sunlight. Or the kids might try to escape. Wait...scratch that last part."You've got a lot of shit, you know. Lots of it. You've got shit you didn't even know you had. Shit all over your room, shit you're stepping on just to move around in your home. Shit EVERYWHERE!

I'm of course not using the word "shit" in place of "poop." Why would I ever turn down the opportunity to use the word "poop" - it's much more fun to say. No, no, I'm talking about all the materialistic "shit" you buy that you more than likely use once and should probably discard, but rather than admitting to yourself "hey self, you sure did fuck up on that purchase...dumb self, dumb!" you instead keep that stupid purchase around "just in case" you find a use for it. "See, not such a bad purchase after all, cause I might use it again, and I've got it in case I need it!" Right, self. Right. Who are you fooling? That Napoleon Dynamite t-shirt lost it's mojo (assuming it ever had mojo, which I don't agree with), and it isn't going to be ironic-cool for another decade. The beginner guitar hurt your fingers when you tried to teach yourself to play...and guess what, the next time you pick it up in winter 2010, those fingers are going to hurt just the same. And the penis pump...my god, don't get me started on the penis pump. What a mistake, friend. You never should have bought that penis pump.

So do you have a garage sale for all your shit? Do you bother your neighbors with a door-to-door salesman routine? Craigslist? Nay on all accounts (ok, you probably should go with Craigslist, but this blog post wouldn't be as fun that way). Here's what you do, broken down into simple steps.

1. Rent an unmarked, windowless white van. Super legit. It screams "I mean business," even if that business happens to be smuggling immigrants.
2. Load all of your unwanted, ready-to-be-someone-else's-mistake shit into said van.
3. Park near the front of a Goodwill Store.
4. Hang a big sign on the side of the van that says "Greatwill."

Need I say more? Seriously, should I? This thing sells itself. I learned the hierarchy of superlatives in first grade. Good is ok, but great is surely better, always. The only way you'd be fucked is if someone else parked next to you in a van marked "Greatestwill," and gave out free cherry Kool-Aid. Fuck that, add on another step: #5. Bring purple Kool-Aid for customers. Suck on that, Greatestwill. Everyone knows grape tops cherry in a Kool-Aid contest. Everyone.

And there you have it. Park your van and SELL SELL SELL in your mobile Greatwill store. Seriously, hurry it up with the selling of all your shit. You probably have about 15 minutes before Goodwill calls the cops on you.

You look like a celebrity.

Sometimes you don't want to look like a celebrity.For this activity, you'll need:

• A friend or two
• A car
• A mall
• Balls, in the metaphorical sense.

Get in the car with the friend or two, drive to the mall, and take out the aforementioned "balls". Have a list of celebrities that people would probably not enjoy being told they resemble. Kirstie Alley (pictured above) would likely not be flattering. The trick is to find someone that looks NOTHING like the celebrity - the more ridiculous, the better. It goes something like this:

You: "Hey...excuse me...holy shit, it's Amy Winehouse!"

Stranger: "Huh? I'm not Amy Winehouse...I'm a dude. WTF?"

You: "Oh, I'm so sorry. But seriously, wow, you could have totally fooled me." (friend conveniently passing by) "Excuse me, who does this person look like?"

Friend: "No waaaayyy!! Amy Winehouse! Hold up, let me get a picture with you!"

In the meantime, if you've brought another friend with you, that friend is currently wrangling up shoppers at the mall who look like they might participate, telling them to walk over to the stranger and ask for photos, autographs, or in the case of Amy Winehouse look-alikes, cocaine.

Other potential celebrities:

• Artie Lange (the fat guy from MadTV and the Howard Stern show)
• Will Ferrell doing an impression of Janet Reno
• Flavor Flav
• Renee Zellweger without makeup
• Clint Howard (I didn't know him by name either...he was in Austin Powers...click here)

Have fun at the mall. Video capturing encouraged.

Lower your carbon footprint with felines.

Only 14 more loads of these furballs and we're on a ROADTRIP!!!From the advancement of the very first horse-drawn carriage, man longed to bring their best friends (dogs) along for the ride rather than some stupid pony. But one man in Alaska had 12 canine best friends. He couldn't fit them all in the carriage, so he decided to let his horse go (actually, he ate the horse), and strapped up the pups to the front of a sled. From there, he sledded into town and showed off his new mode of transportation. By the time he got there, 7 of the dogs were hobbling and one got his tongue stuck to a metal pole. This story is completely fabricated, but that's just because I didn't feel like researching why dogsleds even exist. I'm pretty sure they shouldn't. It seems sort of cruel to me, but if we're going to be mean to the canine community, there's no good reason why a "catsled" should exist either. Fuck it, let's make it happen.

I did a quick Google search for "catsled" and found that someone did their homework already, claiming it would take 220 cats to pull a human and the supplies needed to go any stretch of distance (much of the weight being from catfood itself). Stray cats are EVERYWHERE. You telling me you can't find 220 of them? OF COURSE YOU CAN. It'll be easy.

Oh, you don't live in Alaska, or anywhere near snow? Well go for the urban version of the sled...the shopping cart. Sit on a shopping cart, strap 220 cats together with a maze of yarn, and get a long fishing pole to hold out a live mouse in front of them. The cats will go nuts for the live mouse. They'll be meowing in unison. It will be your own personal cat choir. Can you imagine anything more beautiful on your ears? Here's a drawing of what it will look like (I added a oversized novelty cowboy hat to the driver because I thought it would add to the overall experience):


On a serious note, there are far too many stray cats. For the love of all that is good and pure in this world, please have your pets spayed or neutered. If you do, Bob Barker will personally come to your house with the Plinko wall and other fabulous pricing games. And Drew Carey will be far, far away.

K.I.T.T. your automobile.

Hoff not included. Except maybe on Thursdays. I think he's free on Thursdays.Imagine you're driving down the road in your car/truck/van/wagon/douchey-Hummer with your friend. There's a lull in the conversation, when all of the sudden, out of nowhere - A VOICE. It's soothing tone is unlike your passenger's, and surely not your own. Your passenger is freaking the fuck out, you're playing along as if you don't understand either. Your car speaks again (and in this hypothetical, your name happens to be Ryan)....

"Hello Ryan, would you like a soft pretzel?"

You respond, hesitantly: "Uhh...yea...sure, I would."

"Look under your seat, Ryan."

And HOLY SHIT, there's a soft pretzel under your seat.

There are all sorts of technologies out there that could probably yield the result of a talking car. Some could run you a pretty penny. But thanks to FM transmitters and mp3 players, you can record a whole shatload of audio clips in a sequence on your mp3 player, keep the player in your left hand out of view from your passenger, and flip through them to create the elusive "talking car" phenomenon. Messages should be recorded rather vague in many instances, since your passenger will likely want to ask your car questions. Assuming your passenger's name is Andy, how about some of these responses?

"Suck a dick, Andy."
"I did not understand what you just said, Andy. Maybe learn to enunciate your words better. You sure do suck at talking, which is a fairly easy skill to obtain. Also, you have a stupid face."
"Really, Andy? Really? I'm not even going to dignify that with a response."
"Fuck that. Ryan, can you drop this guy off somewhere and pick up someone who doesn't make me want to puke up my lunch?"

But where, oh where, are you going to get the voice to say such things? Our friends at AT&T have a website for that. Personally, I like using the voice of "Mike" because he sounds a bit like Adam West, but give them all a shot. I have a feeling you might be wanting to bookmark this website...it's just plain fun.

http://public.research.att.com/~ttsweb/tts/demo.php

If you're reading this at work, be sure to let your co-workers hear what you really think about them. But do it in the voice of an old English dude. There's no way that will be detrimental to your office relationships. None at all.