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Internet Rundown: February 25, 2011

Finally, a decent video of three men taking on fifteen hungry lions. [YouTube]

You'd be surprised to learn what women will give up for a sharp dressed man. [My Daily]

This Venn diagram will help you keep track of Denzel Washington's various head/facial accessories. [Huffington Post]

Find out how much of your favorite caffeinated drink it would take to kill you. [Energy Fiend]

Don't start your weekend without a thumbs up from a six-fingered cat! [Geekosystem]

The Left Side Of The Staircase

You know what grinds my gears? When there is a huge line of people walking up the right side of the staircase (in the USA) and someone decides to go up the left side. Listen fucker, I am quicker, faster, smarter--I'm just better than you in every way. Why am I going "slow"? Because there is a crowd.

But okay--maybe I am being unfair. I know me some economics. This is a risk/reward thing--you are taking the risk that someone will come down that left side of the stairs, and if you manage to avoid that, you win--you got up the stairs 7 seconds faster than I did. Nicely played--but I'll still silently pray that you slip and crack those two buck teeth.

But know this--no, really, you must listen to this. In the event that someone punks you and starts coming down the left side of the stairs, DO NOT try and insert yourself in front of me. Why do you think I would let you in front of me? You are no better than the bloody smegma from my "cut and play" sessions. I would rather insert my member into the anus of whatever penguin is slowly waddling up the stairs than let you in front of me.

And why am I being a jerk about this? Because without that there is no "risk" in the economic analysis. Being an asshole keeps the order. Why wouldn't everyone do that if there is no downside? Oh, because doing that would be a cunt move, you say? Exactly. And cunts deserve to get fucked by a wretched penis--me.

Buses and Boobs

The following is a list of things to do while riding as a passenger on a bus (or other public transport). I realize most sane humans already follow these guidelines, but I feel a friendly reminder can always be helpful in case, just maybe, you forgot.

1. If you will be traveling in a bus, please make sure your personal hygiene is up to par.

(This obviously also applies to everyday life, please take note.)

2. It is fine to listen to music on the bus, but please limit this listening to ear buds and not a speaker surround sound.

I understand your love for Justin Beiber* but I would rather shove a pencil in my eye than listen to his music for my hour commute.

* Justin Beiber can be replaced with any other annoying generic singer or group like Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus, Nickleback or Creed.

3. Talking on the phone is allowed because, obviously, you have time to kill, but please note the difference between talking and yelling.

I get it, you are upset because your boyfriend forgot to send you flowers for some non-descript holiday, and you want to vent to a friend, family member, pet, etc., but leave that conversation for the two of you and let me fill my own thoughts with delusions of grandeur.

4. If you are not handicapped, crippled, or sick, don’t sit in handicap seats.

This rule is similar to the handicap parking principle except not worthy of a fine. Listen, we all get tired, we all have days where walking three more feet seems like eternity, but when you look in the eyes of a poor old woman who can barely stand and just wants to knit her new grandchild a pair of mittens how can you say no?! Personally, this story breaks my heart for all the old ladies out there with an affinity for knitting.

5. Don’t take off your shoes.

This is not your living room. This is a bus. Don’t confuse the two in your need to make yourself comfortable. Also, the foot odor that you are letting escape through your shoes is filling the recycled air and the nostrils of all 30+ passengers. Need I say this is disgusting? Well let me be clear: this is disgusting! Keep your shoes on! I don’t care about your hard day nor do I want to smell it.

6. If you need to breastfeed your child in the seat next to me, please don’t use my boob as a baby head rest.

First, breastfeeding your baby on a public bus is weird for the most part and the bus isn’t even the place to have such a private moment between you and your child. With the 30+ onlookers you are just allowing strangers to oogle at your nipple as you wait for the baby to latch on. I forget when the bus became a place for one’s inner exhibitionist to come out and play.

Now, I don’t have a child, and after watching this, probably won’t be having one anytime soon, so I am very naïve to the breastfeeding process. With that said, if you know you will be commuting with child, don’t you prepare yourself with bottles of breast milk or formula? Isn’t this the logical resolution? I’m just saying!

Anyway, I digress, if you are to breastfeed your child in a bus don’t sit next to me and then use the leverage of my chest to pose as a pillow of sorts for the baby to rest on while you breastfeed. When I came on the bus after my 8 hour work day I did not sign up for this job! When I sit in the bus I would like to be encapsulated by a bubble, a “bubble effect” if you will, don’t fuck with that! You are breaking my bubble with your annoying baby and with no care for my feelings.

I get it, babies, in general, have to eat and the baby probably thinks two sets of jugs are better than one, but leave me and my knockers out of it. Just because I am female does not make me any more inclined to be alright with this; in fact quite the opposite. I am horrified that I am sitting next to this. But I am an adult, so I show restraint. I would love to start yelling and embarrass you enough in the hope you would find a new seat mate who would be more inclined to deal with your shit. Instead, I choose to pretend this is not happening until I feel the pressure of your baby's head squeezing my boob and then I am back to the reality of my cramped bus seat and met with the smirks of other passengers who feel bad for my situation but find this delightfully entertaining.

So to people who find this process the norm, what the fuck is wrong with you? Find another place to feed your child that doesn’t involve nipple-sucking, me, or my boob. Let it be a singular act that you and your child can enjoy together. Let me offer a few places to do this:

- A BATHROOM, maybe even one with a stall made for this activity,

- an office with a closed door,

- did I say bathroom?!

There are many places. Find one and leave me and my bubble the fuck alone.

I hope these bus rules have helped you in determining your behavior the next time you take on public transportation. I know this will definitely be beneficial to me and my hour commute home.

Menstrual Cycles + Hot Tub + Social Construction = ?

As conversations go, the cornerstone of any great friendly dialogue touches on politics, metaphysics, science, and female/male pubescent shame. I will not go into great detail as to the time and location of this conversation… but there was a hot tub involved.

The only reason I bring up the hot tub is its’ importance in allowing the soon to be discussed conversation to occur. A hot tub is small, you cannot meander to the bathroom to break a conversation, order a beer or take your shot at the pool table; you are always present. Another element is the lack of clothing. As a semi-adult, any long pauses in a conversation where you happen to be partially clothed always flips a switch in the male brain that maybe I should make a move, a sexy move.

A sexy move was not an option in this case due to reasons I can discuss at another venture. Needless to say, the conversation needed to have a few pauses so any possible topic flagged as inappropriate was fair game.

Tampons were the topic du jour and that progressed into the idea of women sharing the same domicile match their “cycle” to the most dominant female. Two females were present and offered great insight with little shame. I fear neither, tampons, periods or vaginas so I continued to probe….with questions. The females agreed that women tend to match their “visits” from “Aunt Flow” to whoever the dominant female is in the shared living space.

As a man, this came off to me as an elegant, advanced way of determining a pecking order. Men living in the same space don’t match up masturbation cycles or even farting order. Men have to rely on feats of physical strength, intelligence, or income level to understand who the alpha is and who the omega is. Even those determinants can be debated.

Maybe that is one reason why women may be less aggressive or competitive as men, nature will tell them who is more dominant regardless of who wins the wet t-shirt contest or receives the most drinks at the bar. Granted, bleeding once a month is a drag and tampons and other sanitary napkins aren’t’ free. While women enjoy their hot water bottles resting on their cramped tummies, eating frozen yogurt and watching Lifetime movies of the week absent the pressure of competition; I’m entering arm wrestling competitions, working 80 hours a week and convincing my roommates to sync up to my masturbation cycle.

I Am One Hundred and Ten Percent Sure that This Is the Stupidest Sentence You Will Read All Day

Let’s stop using the expression “one hundred and [n additional amount] percent,” all right? Let’s stop saying things like, “I’m a hundred and fifty percent sure that my boyfriend is cheating on me,” and, “Though they lost, the baseball team gave it one hundred and ten percent.” This expression is no good.

First, note that this expression is hyperbole because you can’t have more than one hundred percent of these things. If you have the highest possible amount of something, you still only have one hundred percent of it. Why? Because “percent” literally means “one part in every hundred.” So “one hundred percent” means essentially “one hundred parts of one hundred parts,” or “all parts.” Because there can only be one hundred individual percents, being “one hundred and ten percent sure” about something is kind of like thinking that if wearing one condom is 99% effective, then wearing two condoms is 198% effective.

But I get that this phrase is not meant to be interpreted literally. That’s fine. My problem with this expression is that it is, ironically, not expressive. First, when someone says, “Timmy gave one hundred and ten percent out there on the field,” I think, “Why didn’t he give one hundred and fifteen percent, or one hundred and twenty percent?” The speaker could have gone infinitely higher in expressing Timmy’s effort, and I’m left wondering why the speaker settled on the arbitrary percentage that he chose. The expression thus loses persuasive and expressive force because it is distracting—while the speaker continues with his comments, my mind is careening down the railway of cacological speculation.

Second, and more importantly, this phrase makes me think of those classless troglodytes that get paternity tests on the Maury show. These jokers are invariably “one hundred and [insert some arbitrary additional amount] percent sure” that Tyson is/isn’t the father of eight month old Vanessa. When you say this expression, I think of you as one of those Maury guests, which is neither flattering to you, nor helpful to whatever point you’re trying to emphasize. So, unless you think evoking a comparison to deadbeat parents is useful for your claim, forego this phrase.

Of course, percentages over one hundred can have useful meanings in more scientific or mathematical contexts where they are not merely idiomatic phrases. For instance, a doctor might find that a patient’s T-cells have “increased two hundred percent,” meaning they have tripled. But the chief difference here is that the doctor is contemplating a change in amount of something by more than one hundred percent rather than a raw amount that is more than one hundred percent of itself.

And that’s it, folks. Now that we’re clear on this, let’s delete this idiom from our vernacular and leave it exclusively in the capable hands of scientists, mathematicians, and putative fathers.

It is what it is

Coming to the realization that you have been un-friended by someone on Facebook can be a tough pill to swallow. I myself take great pains to cultivate meaningful connections, and consider how to keep my posts fun for the whole family. Furthermore, I have always strived to limit my status updates—to only that which at least five of my friends could actually give a fuck about at any given time.

Sure, I am often tempted to err on the side of shock value, and spread as much libel about you idiots over the internet as I possibly can. Yet I do understand the value of censorship, and the important role it plays in our God-fearing society. To that end, offending or annoying my fellow Facebookers is actually very low on my list of priorities. I typically summon my faculties of judgment and discretion before posting shitfaced photos or statuses re: my latest sexual exploits, fetishes, and the like. You know, so as to not alienate my friends and relatives, co-workers, and even a tech-savvy terrier.

Despite my painstaking efforts to appeal to the entire crowd, my friend’s mother decided to sever her social networking ties with me. Yes, it is true. I was mindful of her demographic (old, crotchety), and she still gave me the axe. What hurt most about this severance was the fact that she was a parent of a friend. And parents have always historically loved me. So of course, it was a real blow to my ego.

Days went by. Questions began to fill my head. Did she ever really like me to begin with? Will it be awkward to see her in person? And most importantly, was she uncomfortable with the fact that I like to start my mornings with a cup of Joe and a naked tantric yoga sesh?

As anyone would naturally expect, my curiosity soon developed into anger and violence.The next Saturday morning, I decided to relate my angst over the matter to my lover. I queried him as to why anyone in their right mind would ever want to un-friend me??

Poised in downward facing dog, he responded with Zen-like focus, “It is what it is.”

Now, if you know me at all— do. not. ever. say: “It is what it is,” to me. This phrase is an outright slap in the face to anyone who gets off by venting their frustrations on a given topic. Sometimes, I simply need to complain. And not only does "it is what it is" indicate to me that you do not care about my issue, it also demonstrates that you were not even listening to begin with. It is an unoriginal one-size-fits all response used by anyone who cannot appreciate the therapeutic benefits of a good rant. Furthermore, what does “it is what it is” even mean?

Let’s break it down.

So, you’re telling me that the thing that I am talking about, is in actuality, what I am talking about? Get the fuck out! Thank you for that insightful gem of wisdom. Before you were here to offer me absolutely nothing in the way of supportive feedback, I was under the erroneous impression that the thing I am complaining about was actually something completely different than what I am complaining about. Thank you so much! I was forever doomed to think that it is what it isn’t, or rather, isn’t what it actually is. But now you’ve clarified for me, that it is, in fact, what it is. I am now completely fucking enraged and you have contributed nothing to this conversation.

How close is TOO close?

The other day I was at my desk and one of the girls came over to ask me a question:
“How do I copy and paste this?” she asks.
I replied, “Did you try the copy and paste options up top?” Crystal clear.
"Oh, yeah" she says...

Maybe if she would have opened her eyes it would have saved me from an uncomfortable experience. Come to think of it, her computer illiteracy inspired me to speak up.

Bottom line, this question could have easily been “googled”.

Google me this interwebs?!

Do you think invading my personal space is acceptable in today’s society? I’m sorry I do not want to smell the tuna sandwich you had for lunch, nor do I care to smell your horrible perfume [GLENDALE!] And the last time I checked, belly to elbow is unnecessary.

You have your bubble.
I have my bubble.
Please stay out.

Let’s do an exercise - stand up and do a helicopter (a sprinkler will suffice). If you hit someone in the process – do not apologize, repeat this exercise until they fully remove themself from your bubble.

_{[Belly to elbow is defined as such: trespassing in my bubble to the point where I can feel the baby in your belly kicking my elbow.]}

It's Official: The Pharaohs Should Have Won the Egyptian Revolution

Last week's audience poll concerned the recent Egyptian revolution. Abuse of Discretion readers were overwhelmingly "rooting for the pharaohs" during the 18 days in which millions of Egyptian protesters from a variety of socio-economic backgrounds and religions lamented police brutality, lack of free elections, and uncontrollable corruption. The results of the poll are as follows:

Which of the following best sums up the recent Egyptian revolution?
I was rooting for the pharaohs.: 50%
Who cares? Brown people are so drama.: 27%
A great victory for democracy!: 18%
This won't change anything, but it was entertaining.: 4%
(Percentages rounded down.)

These results suggest that more than three in four Abuse of Discretion readers didn't really care about the militant political oppression imposed by dictator Hosni Mubarak, nor were readers particularly concerned with the hundreds of deaths and thousands of injuries caused by rioting in the wake of Mubarak's deposition. Also, people really like mummies.

Please take a moment to answer this week's poll, which has nothing to do with brown people.

Internet Rundown: February 18, 2011

Do you notice anything odd about this "Chance" card from an early edition of Monopoly? [Adena]

You've heard of a jack in the box. You've even heard of a dick in the box. But have you heard of this? [Huffington Post]

There's nothing angelic about this new Dodgers shirt. [OC Register]

Autocorrect errors should be the least of your worries. [Wrong Number Texts]

There's no other way to explain this: an elephant devoured in "seconds." [Huffington Post]

If your vagina is a flower, my penis is Mount Etna

The potential for sexual maturity among men and women can be understood by how each gender perceives their own genitalia. Famously, The Vagina Monologues relates each monologue to the vagina in some fashion. A recurring theme throughout the piece is the vagina as a tool of female empowerment, and the ultimate embodiment of individuality. Most pull in social and political issues working as a platform for female expression.

On the other hand, the most notable expression men are able to muster is the performance show known as the Puppetry of the Penis which can be summarized as a theatrical contortion of the male penis, scrotum and testicles into various positions.

Where the The Vagina Monologues tie in social concerns and female norms personified through the vagina, Puppetry of the Penis involves making your schvantz look like a giraffe.

Each demonstrates a clear difference between what men and women want sexually. Women are concerned with meaning, significance and an expression of their hopes and dreams. Men want to be pleased on a purely superficial level, quick with low time and emotional investment. You relate your vagina to breaking the glass ceiling in corporate America; I make my penis looks like a bat.

Problems With Having Abnormally Large Pupils

Those of you who were unaware that there are problems with having large pupils, it's probably because your pupils are average-sized. You were born normal. Please, don't pity us; don't judge us; don't laugh at us. Put yourself in our shoes, for we only want to be understood:

1. You are always the only one with red eye in pictures. Every picture brings back memories of your grammar school nickname, Baddy Maddy, given to you after Suzy brought pictures to school from her birthday party in fourth grade.

2. When you are inside, filtered sunlight is always more than enough, but someone will soon notice you "sitting in the dark" and proceed to turn on every light in the room while exclaiming, "I can't see a thing in here. You poor thing, sitting in the dark!" Yeah, they couldn't see a thing, and now you can't. You squint until they leave and then turn the lights off again.

3. Your eyes are blue, but people think they are black which, in many ways, is worse than red.

4. You are forever dependent on sunglasses. When you lose your only pair, you seriously consider not leaving the house until after sunset.

5. People, especially police officers, never believe you when you tell them you're not high. Even when you aren't.

6. Noon is your arch-enemy. When the sun is directly overhead, you have to walk with your eyes closed, even with your sunglasses on. White walls, sidewalks, and reflective surfaces threaten you like carnival clowns and you decide it's fun to pretend you are legally blind.

7. Cloudy days are the most deceitful. They seem dim; you are hopeful. The clouds, however, are mysteriously luminous and they make even the air in front of you extra bright. The brightness is nauseating. You are the only person wearing sunglasses on a cloudy day and people think you are pretentious. They don't understand that you just have large pupils.

8. Lamps are your best friends.

9. Sometimes you feel like an animal in a petting zoo. When people hear about your large pupils, they lean into your face and say, "Wow...Look at the light...Now back at me...Now at the light...Now at me..." Then they decide they need another subject, "Someone else get over here so I can compare pupils!"

10. You avoid certain restaurants and retail stores solely based on their lighting.

11. Yesterday was cloudy and you were suckered in. While driving to school, you had to watch the road through your eyelashes. Your crow's feet are already beginning to emerge.

Justice Scalia...Through Time!

Substantive

It is not pronounced "sub staaaaantive." It is "sub stin tive." See http://mw1.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/substantive. There are dogs that know this. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12067099.

Milk Chocolate And Citrus

I hate the mix of milk chocolate and citrus. It is a woeful combination. My first taste of this elixir was when I was aged 7.

My parents were getting ready for work and I was preparing my breakfast. I normally had Rice Krispies with a couple of tablespoons of sugar. So I got a bowl out, poured some Krispies in, got the milk--poured that shit in. Then I was lost in my own thoughts--about Thundercats.

A little background: My parents are both workaholic doctors--without decorum. So one day when I was with my babysitter, I happened to catch an episode of Ricki Lake. So, I grew curious. What is sex and why is that dirty man claiming that he and his rotund girlfriend are going to have sex in the bathroom? So I asked my parents. They were stumped by the latter inquiry, but they gave me a more than thorough description of the former question. Remember, I'm 7.

I began applying this newfound knowledge to everything I knew. Enter Thundercats. So I was wondering whether Lion-O had sex with Cheetara. I assumed for the sake of further inquiry that they were. But when they did, did they prefer cat position?

While I was wondering this, I got the orange juice and poured it into my cereal bowl. So milk, cereal, and oj.

I figured I had to eat this shit. My dad had told me about all the poor Ethiopian children. I was still at the age where I cared about the plight of Ethiopian children. So I started eating it. It was the worst--milk and citrus don't go together. It was the cottage cheese, curdled, sour nonsense.

So some of you might be thinking--that's milk and oj. That ain't milk chocolate and oj. Well morons, I don't think much would change if I dumped cocoa powder all over that shit. It would still be shit. And yeah, I'm right. I had one of those Toblerone chocolate oranges. It was terrible. Terrible. In fact, my ex-girlfriend handed that to me on the train and I puked all over the place. That was the same day I went down on her while she was having her period. The chocorange was the worst thing I had that day.

So, in summation, if you like milk chocolate and citrus, I suspect that you are a child of incest.

The Unwritten Rule of Ballparking

Listen, the rule is that you don't get to ask for a ballpark estimate. If someone wants to offer one up, that's fine - good for them. But nothing irritates me more than when someone asks me a question, I respond with, "I have no clue," and they then follow up with, "Well, just give me a ballpark." No. No. No. That's not how this works. You might as well ask me to make up a number.


I don't have an answer. That's covered under the statement, "I have no clue." If I had any concept of the answer, I would have provided it up front, ballpark or otherwise. So, don't sit there and insist that I give you an answer. I stated very clearly that I don't know. And if I don't know, then your guess is as good as mine. How about you ballpark it?


Well, I'll tell you why they don't. They don't because they understand the gravity of the situation. This isn't about ballparking the amount of jellybeans in a jar. If it were, then they wouldn't even be consulting you. No, this is about something more important, something for which they are expected to provide a legitimate answer, something on which people are going to rely.


The truth is that this request for a ballpark estimate is not about finding the right answer; it's about creating a scapegoat. What they really mean to say is, "I want a guess from you because I don't have any clue about this subject matter. However, if I present your ballpark estimate, it sounds good, and everyone buys it, then I sound experienced and knowledgeable on something of which I know nothing. And if it turns out your ballpark is wrong, then I can simply point the finger at you. 'Amber gave me the wrong answer. Dang, that Amber is stupid.' "


Yeah, that's right, I'm on to you ballparkers. It's not about pitching, batting averages, and the crowd's roaring shout. No, it's about Casey and making sure I strike out.


Next week, we'll discuss guesstimate.

Ten Things Men Want in a Woman

I saw a post on a women's dating site titled something to the effect of, Ten Things Men Want in a Woman. It was allegedly written by a straight guy, and it listed qualities like "allure," "surprising laughter," and "wants to explore/travel."

To set the record straight, I've compiled my own list of Ten Things Men Want in a Woman:

1. Good looks.

That's it. There aren't nine other things.

Goodbye.

Blog Finds Fans, Estonia Is Still a Country

As Abuse of Discretion builds a fan base, I want to thank all of our readers for giving us a few minutes each week to read our rants and remarks.

Particularly, I'd like to thank our readers in the Republic of Estonia. Our data indicates that a couple of Estonians are really into this site, and we hope they'll propagate our work around the Estonian water cooler.

In truth, I didn't even know Estonia was still a country. I thought it was like the Aztecs or sphinxes or something: a long-forgotten civilization of yestermillennium. But apparently Estonia is still around and has Internet hookups. So that's great.

Thanks also to the handful of readers in Europe and Canada, and both readers in Belize.

Kids Lie...Except When They're Telling the Truth

When I was a little girl, every time my birthday rolled around, there were only three things that I ever wanted: a dog, one of those silver, jingly medical bracelets*, and a Ring Pop. My expectations were tempered in early childhood, so mostly, I just wanted the Ring Pop—you know, that huge, pre-diabetic sugar rock stuck to two prongs of plastic intended to fit on one’s finger (there had to be an opening in the band, since the kids who received Ring Pops presumably had chubby phalanges, i.e., “hot dog fingers”).

In old home videos, whenever I opened a birthday present—no matter the size of the package—I would squeal in delight and declare that it was a Ring Pop. Come on, folks, I knew; I was no dummy. In elementary school, kids used to tell me to speak English because they couldn’t understand my advanced vocabulary. I knew the comparatively oversized boxes did not contain a Ring Pop. It was a manipulative, desperate act to obtain my candy bling. It didn’t work, though, as I never did receive one.

Fortunately, I was more successful when it came to the dog. After ten years of enthusiastically telling my mother that I would eat the dog crap if I did not remember to pick up after it, she finally relented. It was a total lie—the likelihood of my consumption of canine excrement was akin to the chance a man is telling the truth when he denies having ever masturbated (yes, I have met men like this; for your own sake, please, do not date them). In actuality, she bought me the puppy as a last ditch effort to lift me out of an emo, teenage funk partially precipitated by the breakup of my first not-worth-it relationship. But, I knew the influence of my words couldn’t be underestimated, as she still reminds me in nag sessions of my promise when I reluctantly pick up after him.

So, with all this seemingly-innocent deceitfulness going on, how do you know when children are being honest? If they state they broke the ant farm in the kitchen, contradict daddy when you ask, “Do I look fat in this dress?,” or inquire if you’re a boy or a girl, you can rest assured that your little darling is telling the truth.

*I found out years later my mother was adamantly against medical bracelets because “pedophiles could use the personal information and address” and, well, I was adorable.

It's Official: Gingers Are Scary

Abuse of Discretion's first audience poll returned unsurprising results this weekend when readers declared that gingers are scarier than clowns, heights, and Resident Evil 2. The results of the poll are as follows:

Which of these things is the scariest?
Gingers: 47%
Clowns: 26%
Heights: 15%
Resident Evil 2: 10%
(Percentages rounded down.)

These results suggest that a ginger's naturally pale skin and red hair is much scarier than a clown's pale face paint and red wig. Also, not enough people have played Resident Evil 2.

Please take a moment to answer this week's poll, which is a bit more topical.

People Are Still Eating Mini Muffins

I walked into class yesterday and the guy who sits next to me was eating mini muffins. Mini muffins.

I didn’t know mini muffins were still around. I thought we had left them behind with Fruit by the Foot and Gushers and brown paper bag lunches. Since elementary school, they’ve made occasional appearances at hotels’ continental breakfasts, usually paired with the meal-in-itself Jumbo muffin. I’ve also seen evidence of them in my mom’s mini muffin tins she keeps buried in the archeological drawer of disregarded things, with the Styrofoam tortilla holder and tulip shaped cookie cutters. I thought they had only been a fad.

His mini muffins were clustered together in a little package like fruit snacks and he would pop a whole one in his mouth with grape-like ease. I didn’t hide my bewilderment. Are those mini muffins?! He was excited to tell me that he had been craving mini muffins when his roommate called him from the store. “He asked me if we needed anything. Did we need anything? Toilet paper? Toothpaste? Milk? I don’t know. I didn’t check. I just wanted the muffins.”

What is it about mini muffins that is so appealing? I asked him. He held a mini muffin up to his eye level and went into detail about their high level of moisture, their crumb-less-ness, their sweet and glaze-y top and edges, their total surface area, and he said that every once in a while, he would even get a blueberry.

Backless

I was on Austin's famed 6th Street with a group of friends. We were going to an Indian dance party hosted at one of the local clubs. There was a long line to get in, because Indians love their Bollywood music. Walking through the line, we see a lot of girls styling fashionable outfits. Not a bad view. We take our place in the back of the line. Not a good view. Why? Because of the backless shirts and dresses.

Every one of these girls sporting the backless had bacne. And look, it was dark and there was a lot of commotion--so we aren't talking about a light blemish. I mean, one of these rotund women--her back was like the Pacific Ring of Fire of puss volcanoes. One glimpse of that and I was done for the night. I told my then-girlfriend that we had to go. She protested. She wanted to dance.* I told her my reason and she didn't understand. I calmly explained to her: What would happen if this pumpkin of a woman rubbed her bacne against my arm or something? I'd have to amputate. And then my ability to sexually pleasure my girlfriend would be greatly diminished.

She agreed that this was a weighty risk. We decided to rap our arms in extra Wal-Mart bags that I kept in the car. It was an okay night, but it was really hot in those plastic bags. I sweat through my favorite shirt. Fucking backless.

Some of you may think I am being overly harsh on women. No. Same with men. When I go to the gym, I often encounter these roided-out gym rats who wear some kind of ripped, cut-off up under shirt. Much of their back and inevitable bacne is exposed. It's awful. You know what's even worse. The other day in the locker room--this fucking meathead was naked and he was talking about his sacne. Yeah--that'll make a mess of your lunch.

*: See my previous post Women Don't Actually Like To Dance--They Just Like To Say They Like To Dance.

Love means showing it at least one day out of the year

Valentine's Day stands unique among other holidays in its ability to elicit very different feelings by its celebrators. Example, single men often feel the same sense of joy taken women do. Inversely, taken men may feel similar feelings of hopelessness single women may encounter.

Once we got beyond elementary school where Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Valentine’s were exchanged in class and we all got to chip our teeth on dried plaster Sweethearts®, Valentine’s Day became a day riddled with pressure. The vast majority of men that have found themselves in a committed relationship on this abject day know that some level of romancing and genuine expressions of love is expected.

These expectations I partially blame on (the eternal scapegoat) the romantic chick flick. The amount of romantic sentiment displayed in such films as, The Notebook, Say Anything, Casablanca, Love Actually, Love Story, Sleepless in Seattle, The English Patient, Titanic, and my favorite Pretty Woman is impossible to replicate in the real world.

This type of gross romance may be obtained if you happen to catch yourself in 1940’s Morocco fighting the Nazis, the two of you are separated by a continent, one of you is going away to their dream college, you have just one more night together, I just painted a naked portrait of you with the hope diamond or one of you has an incurable disease. Now it’s not as if ladies are asking for romantic overtures all the time, but if there is any day they are expected, its Valentine’s Day.

Guys shouldn’t look at Valentine’s Day as their shot to show how much they care or to finally woo her into trying that thing you saw online last week. This day should be looked at as, “just don’t piss her off.” I see it as a group of campers out running a bear. You don’t need to be the first to get away; you just can’t be the last. Or the high school basketball star who needs the 2.0 gpa to earn his scholarship, just enough is good enough.

On a random day in August, you hit her with that elaborate wine tasting weekend in Napa at a bed and breakfast and it will have twice the effective romantic quotient than it would on Valentine’s Day. A surprise weighs more than meeting an expectation.

This year I’m in the group of single men that feel free of the pressure to “not piss her off.” For me, it will just be another weekend crying with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s watching Breakfast at Tiffany’s in my sweats.

Yahoo! It's Valentine's Day

Yahoo! News recently published an article about the Top 10 Things NOT to Do on Valentine's Day. Romance pioneer that it is, Yahoo! News addresses all the preeminent V-Day concerns: "Dinner, chocolates, roses, and candelight dinners." But because I know that not everyone is into dinner and candlelight dinners, I provide a brief appraisal of some of Yahoo! News's top ten Valentine's Day gaffs.

• DON'T sit at home if you are single. This is the worst thing you can do on Valentine's Day if you are single.

Actually, I thought the worst thing I could do was break into the local orphanage and prick parentless children with my AIDS needle, but apparently, sitting at home alone and watching every twentieth Cheese Nip fall in between my couch cushions is worse.

• DON'T compare. So your girlfriend got two-dozen roses on Valentine's Day and all you got was a single stem. Don't get jealous.

This advice is moot. If all you got for Valentine’s Day was a single-stemmed rose, then your boyfriend is 15 and you can count on his mom to give you some great home-baked cookies after she picks the two of you up from the movie theatre.

• DON'T make excuses to avoid this holiday. Maybe you can’t afford to eat at a nice restaurant. So what! Be creative.

I disagree. If you can’t afford to eat at a nice restaurant, you don’t deserve to be in love. Or healthcare.

• DON'T make other plans. You have 364 days in the year to meet the guys for a beer or watch a football game. This whole day should be set aside for your significant other.

Honestly, I’d love for this statement to be true. I’d love to have “364 days in the year” to get drunk with my friends. Unfortunately, I don’t really get 364 days of freedom after subtracting our anniversary, her birthday, and the 40 hours a week I have to work to pay for the gym membership she never uses.

• DON'T be typical. Guys, don’t just do roses and dinner at an Italian restaurant. It’s been done a million times. Please be creative!

Girls, you know what’s “creative”? Blowjobs.

Internet Rundown: Valentine's Day Edition

Here's a cute collection of bad date stories. And you thought your dating life was pathetic. [Marie Claire]

T-Mobile is giving away all of its smartphones for free for Valentine's Day! Except not really. Fine print FTW. [CNET]

Single people rejoice as an annoyingly happy couple is stoned to death. [The Onion]

A twelve-year-old girl finds a naughty message on a candy heart. I guess some compliments are less flattering than others. [KCRA]

Still looking for that great gift to show your Valentine how much you love him? Try a bomb threat. [Newser]

Speaking of love, who doesn't love Austin? Seriously, if you click on only one link this week, make it this one. [City of Austin]

Women Don't Actually Like To Dance--They Just Like To Say They Like To Dance

I go out with these friends of mine from grade/high school--all female. They were all sub-5s (out of the 10.1 "repeating" scale).*

So, we start out with a lame-ish house party. It wasn't terrible. There were huge speakers stacked on top of each other blasting classics like: Informer by Snow; Enter the Sandman by Metallica; and, of course, Tubthumping by Chumba Wumba. Oh yes, it was dress up too. Many shortish men wearing suits bought from Ross:Dress for Less. One guy didn't have a shirt on--he did have a tie on his bare hairy chest. It wasn't real chest hair. It was the Asian mustache of chest hair.

I didn't dress up. Why? Because my $7,000 suit is too good for the riff raff. C'mon! But also because my female friends--a.k.a., women--wanted to go out dancing.

We get ourselves to this bar. It's already about 12:15. I figure we got ourselves like an hour and a half to break it down. And I can break it down. But, apparently, by "dancing" women mean that they want to go to the bar, take 30 minutes to order drinks, sip the drinks slowly from a straw, then--when some Kei$ha song comes on--pump their fists twice and do some awkward scuba/ass shake move. Dancing: check.

This was no dress-up, house party. The bar had some musical class. They played: What About Love? by Heart; This Is How We Do It by Montell Jordan; and even some Rick Astley. I was rick roll'd. My female friends were not.

In summation, women do not like to dance. Women like to say they like to/want to dance.

Sub-rant:
Too many people say "That girl was a 10." nowadays. She wasn't a 10. Shut up. If you weren't ejaculating upon the sight of her, she wasn't a 10. Even if you were, it doesn't count if you were that creepy guy who sits in libraries. And it doesn't count if you just have no control over your release. But this is a losing battle. So now I have developed the 10.1 "repeating" scale. Because no one says "10.1 'repeating.'" Somebody will say 10.1, or maybe 10.11, or maybe even a 10.111. And that just means she wasn't perfect.

This Is So Sad

Hi. My name is Madeline and I don't like reading. I didn't think it was possible for this to happen to me. I'm an English major and a writer. I own over 200 books and exactly 139 classics including a first edition of For Whom the Bell Tolls and every one of Austen’s insignificant pre-Pride and Prejudice works. I wanted to love reading. I tried to love reading. I pretended to love reading. I liked the way readers looked so intellectual sitting in studded brown leather chairs with their black rimmed glasses and turtlenecks. I especially liked the way they could look up from their weathered and annotated copy of Wuthering Heights to chew on the end of their glasses and talk about Heathcliff’s social position or the unreliability of Nelly Dean’s narration or Cathy’s larger-than-life metaphysical passion.*

Admitting it was the hardest part. I should have seen it coming when someone asked me to name ten books that have impacted me and I had to lie about four and make up two. Once I stopped denying it and became open with myself and others, I felt free. I found out there are a lot of other writers and English majors just like me. They said they know how I feel and they told me I’m not alone. Now I feel like I can relax and be comfortable with who I am and now I don’t feel like I have to be reading a book to wear a turtleneck.

*For these references, I searched “Wuthering Heights study questions” on Google. I’ve never read the book, nor do I know what it’s about.

A whale can generate enough semen to fill an Olympic sized swimming pool for every pool on Earth… ever

Earlier this week on my commute, I heard a story on the radio discussing the possibility of phasing the penny out from US currency. This debate comes about based on the fact that the penny now costs more to produce than its market value.

Aside from the monetary policy concerns, the story attempted to raise the stakes of this calamity by engaging the listener, me, to comprehend the massive amount wasteful pennies in use. The statement used to relay this was, “if you laid all the pennies in circulation side by side, it would circle the equator twice.” I don’t recall if it was twice or three times, but the fact that I don’t remember is where my point lies.

Whether I haven’t done enough traveling, or I didn’t pay close enough attention in my geography class, or I can only understand size by relating it to my penis, how many times anything can circle the earth is not only un-helpful but destructive in generating other moronic scales that fail to impart a better understanding.

A few examples are; it can travel to the moon and back twice, it could fill the grand canyon 10x, it has half the amount of water as the Pacific Ocean and it would weigh twice the amount of all of the iron on the planet.Provide me with a scale I can understand, perhaps the size of my house, or the length of my car, or the height of a basketball hoop. Unless I pull a Caine, a la Kung Fu and decide to traverse the earth on foot, I have no f’ing clue, in real terms, the size of the equator.

In protest I will start referring to the size of all objects on this "equator" scale. Sir, would you like a 6 inch or footlong sub, make mine a 1/131,479,800^th distance of the equator. Do you have these pants in a size that can circle the earth 1/26,295,960^th times? I was just looking for my shoes when I found a 1/157,775,760^th of the equator black studded dildo under my girlfriend's bed.

The Case Against the Serial Comma

The debate regarding use of the serial comma (aka: the terminal comma) is so clearly one-sided that it hardly needs me to spill ink on the subject. But I can’t resist:

To my readers, Mallory and Laura:
The serial comma is an unnecessary device that is used only by strict grammarians, the overeducated and nerdy people. Now if there aren't any rebuttals, questions about my writing style or comments, who wants to get some coffee, bacon and eggs and toast?