Party Wife Rides the Celebrity Tsunami

My wife's uncle, currently featured in a Kansas City stage production of The Odd Couple, just busted open the secret world of celebs and let my wife right in. After his play Saturday night, we were inserted directly into the celebrity vortex with George Wendt (Norm from Cheers) and Tim Kazurinsky (SNL). Funnelled backstage, we shook a few hands and my wife, ever prepared, got Tim K. to sign an old Saturday Night Live book after making him go find a pen. Then we drove around the corner to a saloony restaurant and snacked within chip-passing distance of the stars.

Heather, her uncle Herman, George Wendt, and cousin Cassandra

the cast celebrates a whole evening of no one yelling "Norm!"

These guys were pretty cool, but the big payoff was yet to come. By the uncanny observational powers of Party Wife, it was found we were in the room with another celebrity of more subtle fame. While my pedestrian eye identified a tall "sort of Adrian Brody looking guy," Heather steamed ahead with the full processing power of a 16-kilochannel TV brain. After a few minutes she had it: "He's the Meat Delivery Man from Strangers With Candy!" David Pasquesi is his name, and he was the secret bonus-round celebrity of the day.

yes, even the wily Meat Man can be lured into view

As for me, the only observation of consequence I produced was this: from my seat in Kansas City's New Theater, where lots of people ate lots of awesome food under a Vegas-style tiered ceiling of lights and speakers, I realized that this was exactly the sort of decadent venue that terrorists—at least, socioeconomically minded Hollywood terrorists—would blow up with righteous glee... and in some way, those watching the movie would say, "See, when you chow down like caesars and watch plays, that's when terrorists kill you."

Bio of a Potato Guy

Cartoons allow all kinds of personification, which inevitably leads to confusion. For instance, the classic question, "If Mickey's a mouse, and Pluto's his dog, what's Goofy?"

In the case of my current "mini-graphic novel" project, I like taking human-world objects and using them in potato society: a penny becomes a discus, a cocktail sword can be wielded to fend off a rabbit, etc. But then things start getting weird, if you look too close. In the arcade where they play "Ring Toss" and a Pac-Man watch as stand-up arcade games, you see a small coin on the floor, and an Icee cup scaled down to fit the hand of a fruit-girl. Well, I guess sentient produce have attained modern manufacturing methods after all. 

Joplin Found

Sunday's tornado in Joplin, Missouri shredded, among other things, the records of St. John's Hospital. Soon they said x-rays from there were found up to 70 miles away. Well, today I found mine. This sort of debris has fallen on my workplace before, but this may be a distance record.

The back is spattered with pulpy insulation bits and fibers. In the close-up you can see the patient's name, hospital, date, and more.

I Forgot My Damn Juice!

Realized when I got home, I forgot my fucking juice at Dollar General. Left it at the bagging carousel. The cashier said, "You have a wonderful evening" with what seemed like full sincerity, and I walked off with just one bag. No way is it worth driving back there for just that, so I'm hoping the same guy will be there tomorrow evening so I can ask about reclaiming the son-of-a-bitch. It was V8 Splash.

Cranial Stomp International

What's more pointlessly fun than looking at one's blog stats? I like checking out the list of countries that I've had traffic from. None of it tells me anything, really, but I can speculate with abandon.

After the U.S. and the U.K., third in my all-time hits is Germany. I suspect this is because of my entry "Human Centipede Revisited," which expands the Human Centipede concept into the Muppets universe. While the movie is not German per se, I think the main actor is, and I put a link to my drawing on the Facebook pages of both Dieter Laser and Tom Six. This probably brought in my Dutch visitors as well.

Who knows why I have hits from Croatia, Slovenia, and Russia, but I do. My wife says it is because of the SLUTS. She has a slight but colorful obsession with Eastern Bloc women—she says they will do unethical things to my privates, come to America to seduce me into sham marriages, then kill me in my sleep. I think this is because I once wrote about entertaining myself on a "Russian Brides" website, which featured lots of impossibly hot photos. The Czech Republic seems to pump out more than its fair share of porn-worthy sluts, I'm guessing because lots of movies are filmed there now, so maybe hot girls flock there for job opportunities. In any case, I doubt I'm drawing much slut traffic, but it's fun to consider. That's why I mention the Czech Republic—I don't have them yet, but maybe I can attract them. Bring on the Eastern Bloc sluts!

In the past month, I've picked up a fan in Iran. Whoever it is, they've returned a few times, so they must have an interest in either beekeeping, cockleburs, frogs in pipes, or Easter candy. Or maybe they stand united with me in a universal loathing of Garfield.

Malaysia? Two hits. Your guess is as good as mine.

Canada is just good ol' Canada. Solid fourth in supporting Cranial Stomp. Could be this guy Brad Pine, a Red Rogue fan from way back.

My most-viewed page ever remains "Pirate Ship Name Generator," which is really just a plug for another site. Second is "World's Fattest Ferret," which is a lie because it's a picture of a cat—sure to enrage all the ferret-lovers who googled their way to what they hoped would be ferret fun-tasy.

Let's have some revealing comments, you foreigners! Especially if you are sluts.

Schadenfreude Pick-me-up

Whenever I need a little mood booster, I just look at this picture. For some reason, it makes me feel better. Thank you, W. P. Armstrong.

Swarm!

After two years humoring this bee colony in my building at work, they were starting to get me down. Twice last week they began swarming inside the hallway below, through some cracks in the wall apparently. I just had to show up and spray them all dead, which was gross because, not only did I end up with hundreds of dead bees, but they basically death-barfed honey everywhere. I guess when they prepare to swarm, they load up on honey for the journey, so they're like living honey bombs if you kill them.

After two rounds of exploring an area of ductwork and ceiling-to-wall joints where errant bees kept popping out of holes, I sealed all cracks with expanding foam and seemed to have them sealed outside again. The next day, I went on the roof to check on an air conditioner problem. Just 20 feet from the main hive, I found this pile of bees.

iPhone shadow converging on honeybee convention

Just a few days earlier, I'd seen this on the hive wall and called a beekeeper, but by the time he got there a few hours later, they were gone. He'd said he was going to spray them with sugar water and scoop them into a wooden crate, so I decided to try it myself. I had a jug of Sprite syrup from a soda fountain. I had kicked the habit of adding it to water to make a Sprite-flavored kool-aid drink, so this would be a good use for it. I mixed a spray bottle of around 4:1 water to syrup. I punched some air holes in a 5-gallon bucket lid. Then I put on a ski mask, hooded sweatshirt, and heavy gloves.

The sugar water was supposed to keep them from flying, which didn't really work. There were always a number of flyers whose job appeared to be air defense. I kept misting the pile and the flyers, but there was really no keeping them down. Luckily, most of them remained docile in the swarm heap. I started scooping them up with a plastic dustpan and dumping them into the bucket. Soon everything became sticky with Sprite. My shoes were sticking to the roof and I was trying not to step on bees. Every minute or so, the flyers would get more numerous and aggressive, so I'd mist them, back out, check myself for mad bees, and start again.

Soon I had about 90% of them in the bucket. I sent a picture to the beekeeper and told him I was catching them. I put the lid on the bucket so they wouldn't fly out, but for the most part they just sat in there regardless of what I did. I took the bucket down to the ground, then got a small cardboard box and put the last few hundred bees in it. The beekeeper said he would come get them in a couple hours, and said I should put the bucket out of the sun, so I did.

is the queen in here?

inside the bee bucket

So I handed the bucket and the box off to the bee man. I never got stung, which I think is more about the bees being good and less about my technique. The main hive seems normal again. Hopefully I sent the swarm off to better opportunities, where they won't get sprayed with poison or flat pop. Now pollinate, my swarm!

Easter Aftermath

My wife always says Easter is her favorite holiday in the "candy" category. About a week ago, I asked her if she'd "blown her load" on getting her Easter candy fix. I knew the answer would be NO, and it was: "Oh God, no! I still need more jelly beans and peanut butter eggs and all kinds of shit--I'm going to Walgreens!"

Well, now we have been basically satiated, but we're not finished with all the candy. Knowing my sister's candy-eating prowess, and that she has two small daughters, I assumed there was probably lots of candy there, too, and maybe some fighting over it. I decided to write them a play involving all the Easter candy I could think of.

It has been confirmed that the gist of the scenario is dead on, but my characters are calmer and more civil than the actual toddlers... still, I can say: BASED ON A TRUE STORY.

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/11891440/easter-debate-georgia-raleigh

Frog in a Pipe

Beefy treefrog sheltering in a PVC pipe. He scooted downpipe when I started eyeing him, but I found that when I covered the opening completely with the camera, the interior was lit by sunlight coming through the pipe--eerie vortex effect achieved.

Down with Garfield

If you've lived more than ten years on this planet, you may have figured out that the least creative, least surprising, least mind-taxing comic strip in print is Garfield. If you have made this assessment, you will be pleased to know that I began boycotting Garfield as early as 1983. Years previous, in second and third grades, I’d finished a few of my friend’s Garfield collections and felt comfortable with them. However, by grade 5, Garfield was an altogether too-accepted running dog of grade school mediocrity, and I was rapidly souring on it. Mrs. Hampton, my teacher, had Garfield and Michael Jackson plastered on our classroom’s every surface. They became a one-two punch of Orwellian brotherhood–”join us in predictable vapid loyalty to Mrs. Hampton’s mainstream tastes or just sit there deprived of fun.” Stephanie Long and Michelle Hawkins rubbed Teacher’s shoulders while I fumed. Garfield was not funny, and Michael Jackson was not cool. I wasn’t joining. Our big rewards were Garfield stickers and, for a recreational milestone after completing some big study unit or "fall quarter," we would be shown “The Making of Michael Jackson's Thriller.” For Willard, MO in 1983, this was probably pretty progressive, but I was already poisoned. My only feeble resistance to their bogus mass-consumption was “not really being into it.”

Eventually this would lead to minor displays of “bad attitude,” and it finally culminated in my refusal to do a report on some topic because I felt all the good topics were taken by the students who were in the fold. When confronted over why I failed to complete the assignment, I said, “Because I thought it was a buncha shit.” This got me put in the hallway with, among others, Richard Peck, the mean kid who once pushed me down on the playground and ripped my favorite corduroy pants. So began the corrosion of my conformity, and my bitter, near-everlasting gobstopper of virginity.

Thanks Garfield, you unfunny piece of shit.