freak up your day

Meet my Irish cousin, Hal O'Ween

Nobody knows where the fingernail clippers came from. A handful of people used to know, but they have all lost their memories now, as a result of a tragic incident involving me punching them all in the head over and over so they wouldn't spoil the secret. Now, sadly, nobody knows where the fingernail clippers came from, and thus, i have fodder for another of my phony histories. This one might be fun.

In medieval times, men had trouble getting dates with women because their long fingernails made them look like girls. This caused a sharp decline in reproduction, and the population decreased by the millions throughout Europe. (This phenomenon was later nicknamed the "Black Plague," after the color of the unwashed fingernails.) Something had to be done. Enter the great physicist Albert Einstein, who realized early on in his career that the medieval depopulation of Europe would be responsible for the extinction of the human race in the year 1982. Using his Relatively Theoretical Theory of Relativity, as well as a lesser known principle known as the Bill and Ted Postulate, he traveled back in time and bestowed the Golden Clipper of Fingernails upon Carolus Magnus, King of the Franks and First Holy Roman Emperor. Unable to overcome the language barrier, they communicated through gestures and charades, the highlight of which was Charlemagne's flawless portrayal of Willy Wonka. The time came for them to say farewell, and so they did. Several sentences later in the story, the world was saved, and mercifully allowed to live through the magic that was Boy George.

That's all for now. Those who do not freak up history will be doomed to repeat it.

I know how to use toilet paper! Let me try!
(today's title brought to you by arguably the best halloween cartoon to date)

Welcome to the first and, so far, only edition of Ask Bensaki®, an advice column in which people disguised as other people ask me embarrassing questions that they wouldn't want their friends to know they're wondering about. I never reveal the names of my readers to anyone else, but i do have a pretty good laugh at their expense myself. In that spirit, here is my first letter:

Dear Ask Bensaki®,
I have a problem, but I can't decide whether this problem is "haunting" me or "plaguing" me. Please help me find the right wording for my letter to an actual advice column.
Yours truly,
John McMade-UpName

Dearest John,
Yes, the old "haunting" vs. "plaguing" question. Which word to use? This depends on the nature of the problem. If the problem is a ghost, then i'd say it's haunting you. A rat? Pretty safe bet it's plaguing you. But what if it's something more abstract than that? Simple: you use the rule of association. Say, for example, you're a really nice, likeable guy, yet everybody's mean to you and you have no friends. Same thing happened to Casper, the Friendly Ghost. Ergo, the problem is haunting you. Or, say you have plenty of friends, but they're dying by the thousands in medieval Europe. This problem falls under the "plaguing" category. One last rule of thumb: If your problem involves some quantity of celery, no matter how small, avoid using the word "stalking," lest you summon the spirit of Pun-Tor the Avenger, who has eaten the souls of headline writers around the world ("Mr. T Alarm Clock Causes Rude Awakening," "Chicken Farmer Suspects Foul Play"), inspiring worse headlines such as "Giant Axe-Wielding Man Eats Newsmen; Can't Stomach Puns."
Ever,
Bensaki®

Dear Ask Bensaki(with a little "R" in a circle - my computer doesn't do those, I think),
When and how is it appropriate to tell a close, longtime friend of yours that his supposedly "humorous" blog is terrible and that no one reads it? You would think he'd get the hint after nobody "inscribes" his "book of guests," but he just keeps right on writing stuff everyday. I just want to let him know gently that nobody cares about disco fenceposts or whatever, without hurting his feelings. Any advice?
Your close, longtime friend,
"Punching Baggins"

Dearest Punching Baggins,
In addition to punching you, i can tell you this: Telling your friend what you just told me is not a good idea. Why crush his very spirit in one instant, when you can let him build up his hopes for eventual crushing by some more hostile force? Besides, he's not hurting anybody. Just let him keep on writing to his heart's content. But i'll tell you one thing: i sure feel sorry for the guy. Not being hilarious like me must be a terrible thing.
More sincerely than before,
Bensaki®

Dear Ask Bensaki®,
I'm a really nice, likeable guy, yet everbody's mean to me and i have no friends. This problem has been haunting me for years. I keep going to dog shows to try and meet people, but I can't help feeling like I'm barking up the wrong tree.. BOOM! CRASH! KAPOWIE! ET CETERA!

No! Sweet caramel delights, no! You've summoned... *CRUNCH*

(*awfully eery silence follows. i mean, eerier than most silences. doggone eery.*)

Musical Earmuffs

If i ever met Bilbo Baggins, i'd change his name to Punching Baggins, and then i'd punch him.

Yes, but it's not cocaine, Rachel, it's only snow!

I remember one time when Haystack Man Todd tried messing with the Electric Disco Fencepost. (HMT, for those of you who don't know him, is made out of straw and talks like a robot, because he is a robot. Nevertheless, he thought he could mess. ... :-O Holy crap! That rhyme just owned the entire known world! Let me get out my calculator and... hm... yes... let's see... hm.. and... to the fourth power... yes... yes! That's an ownage rate of 2.8x10^5 square miles per second! Such rapid ownership defies the very laws of physics and real estate! An incredible breakthrough! But back to the story for now.)

Ah yes, it was a cloudy and antisocial day. Spring was in the air, summer was on the radio, and winter was up your nose. The lakes were burning, and nobody knew how to peel a banana. That's when Haystack Man Todd charged the Electric Disco Fencepost with revenge in his eyes, cheese sauce in his hand, and cholesterol in his heart. Thoughts raced through somebody's mind. Somewhere in the distance, kitchen utensils were falling in love. The Roman Empire staged a fall for Funniest Home Videos. And the Electric Disco Fencepost shook with all of its might. Haystack Man Todd felt the cows nibbling his hands and feet. His robot brain couldn't understand the sensation of pain. His robot brain couldn't understand human emotions, or hip-hop music. His robot brain couldn't sharpen a pencil. Dust from the volcanic pool party settled far and wide across the land. Ham sandwiches rose up from the earth to conquer the savage toaster ovens. All of a sudden, the Untamed Geometric Theorems of Euclidia began stampeding toward Haystack Man Todd, but the merciful Electric Disco Fencepost spared his life, turning him into a Go-Kart for the Homeless and selling him half a burrito wholesale. At last, our friend the Electric Disco Fencepost took up his pickling salts, devalued the nickel, and collided off into the sunset.

The moral of the story is a croissant.

There may be flies on some of you guys, but there ain't no flies on me. As a consolation, however, there IS a potentially fatal head wound on me.

When i say "freak up your day," i'm not just saying it. I'm typing it too. And i'm not just typing it, either. I'm sort of whispering it to myself so i don't forget what i'm supposed to be typing. It's no lie. I spend a lot of time and energy remembering this little four-word phrase, the essence of why i write. I'm like one of those dumb fast-food restaurants that spends millions in advertising to convince you of its commitment to quality, so that it has no money or energy left to invest in actual quality. Yes, that metaphor pretty much sums up my methods. I'm like the Emperor's New Clothes of websites. All the hype, none of the content. And that's a promise.

So i stepped in some cotton by accident the other day. I was just walking along, picking branches off trees for my modern art project, "A Bird's Nest The Size Of Cleveland," (the beauty of the name lies in its straightforward simplicity) when my foot hit a little piece of Dixieland right here in Minnesota. I stopped right in my tracks and thought, "Hey! What's that i'm feeling underneath my feet? Why, it's as soft as... as... what is there besides gravel?" This stuff was way softer than gravel. It was so good, i had to eat a live scorpion just to make sure i wasn't dreaming. (to be honest, as good as the cotton was, i wished i had been dreaming after eating that scorpion. i should have just pinched myself or something instead. stupid.) Immediately, i knew i had to share this feeling, this feeling so fantastic, with everybody! The entire world must know my joy! And this is how i'm going to do it: Instead of paving the entire earth with cotton, which was my original idea and turned out to have logistical problems, i'm going to make foot coverings out of cotton and give them to everyone to wear! It'll be like you're walking on cotton all of the time! Amazing! I'm going to call them Söks®, after me, Bensöki (as it was spelled in the original Egyptian hieroglyphics.) Give me a call and i'll make sure you are among the first insanely lucky people to try them. Wow, i'm going to be a zillionaire.

:P not doing today! pbbbbt.

Everything i say is like a simile. So maybe valley girls like, talk in similes. If "catastrophe" rhymes with "dance with me," then i can rhyme with "sing with me." Everything i say is like a simile.

Hot dang. If i knew how to conduct a survey right on this here site, i'd do it. It would rule. I could ask people for suggestions about posts and get all sorts of ideas and never have to think of anything myself ever again. Oh baby. Maybe someday i'll procure the vicious skillz to do such a thing. Until then i'll just look at whatever is on my desk at the moment (hmm... a glue stick) and cook up a post about that.

Okay, so one day a glue stick was walking down the street or something, when all of a sudden some girl walked up to a glue stick, or maybe a guy, whatever. She said some stuff. A glue stick didn't respond, but rather began to munchify a grilled cheese sandwich or something. There was anger in a glue stick's eyes, and something. Some more stuff happened. All of a sudden, there was like a toad or something someplace near to wherever they were. A glue stick didn't know what to make of this new occurrence, but to his dismay, the world exploded, or something. Aliens abducted a glue stick, or else they didn't. I'm pretty sure there was some upholstery involved somewhere in here. And then there was some conclusion involving some faux fur and milkshakes, or something. I don't know, you guys have imaginations. Use them.

So now, i guess, is the time for that survey; it will be very low-tech. Copy the following, paste it into the guestbook under "comments," and add your opinion.

SURVEY NUMBER $: COOLEST SURVEY EVER
saki's story, it was good?
it was not good?
why?
WHY??!??
i can have a nickel, yes?

Gopher, Everett?

I have a confession to make. Among other tasks, i work as a milk boy in our school cafeteria. It is a shameful career, and my elderly Chinese martial arts mentor is no longer talking to me because of it. I cannot say i blame him. Anyway, the milk we use is brought to you by Land O' Lakes, a brand name that evokes, paradoxically, a land which is made of lakes. To further the unbelievability of the name, one would almost have to presume that these lakes are filled with milk; otherwise, why even bring them up? Land O' Cows would be a more fitting name, but they never asked me. And even if they did, i would never sell out my brilliant ideas to corporate dairy.

This brings me to what i hope will be the point. On the outside of the cardboard boxes inhabited by milk, there is printed a concise description of the contents, i.e. type of milk, expiration date, etc. As a result of the brand name, the abbreviation on the boxes reads something like this: "LOL SKIM 02/19/04." My mind sees this and knows it means "Land O' Lakes," but my better instincts cannot help suspecting there is something funny about this milk. I can just picture the Instant Messenger conversation between purchaser and wholesaler now:

xMiLkMaNx172: hey
cafeteria_cutie19: hey mlkmn! ;D
xMiLkMaNx172: whats up?
cafeteria_cutie19: nm, u?
xMiLkMaNx172: nm
cafeteria_cutie19: hey, what kind of mlk ru delivering 2day?
xMiLkMaNx172: LOL 1%!
cafeteria_cutie19: LOL! mlkmn, ur teh greatest! ^_^
xMiLkMaNx172: i no
xMiLkMaNx172 cya l8r
cafeteria_cutie19: bi-bi!

Yes, something is definitely going on between those two. But we're not going to get into that. Just remember this: Next time you laugh and milk comes out of your nose, you might not be the only one laughing. MOOWA HAHAHAHA!!!

(Today's title brought to you by "O Brother, Where Art Thou?")

And i said "What is that? But it was just potpourri.

Yes, my blog has been a bit low-key lately. And for that i apologize. You see, i was at home for fall break, and our computer at home is pretty slow/i wasn't all that motivated to sit in front of the computer when i was on vacation. But all that will be, say it with me, "rectified" today. How? I'm going to write the longest freaking post this blog has ever seen. It might not even be very good. But even if i end up having to type "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dogmatic hedgehog-wielding lard burglar" 50 times just to fill space, i'm going to write this post, darn it! Because your day deserves to be freaked up, and that's not just some cheesy slogan that came off the top of my head. It's a cheesy slogan that i more than likely stole from somewhere.

On to the post. I thought it might be fun to write a comparison/contrast essay, since they don't give me any homework here. I also thought it would be fun to chop off my leg and use it as a tennis racket, since i enjoy pain. So here goes:

YAAAAARRGGGHHH!!!!

and,

Celebrities or Dead Caterpillars: About Whom Do I Care More? an essay

Whereas myriad man-sized living eggs have come pleading to my doorstep, to redeem the fowl-born of refrigerated regions to freedom and hatchery, asking only of the wholesome and brave heart of the pure men to forge for their essay a ridiculously wordy introduction. That being said, a paragraph shall henceforth be dedicated to the merits of celebrities and of dead caterpillars, consummating in a dramatic decision at the thrilling finale of what is sure to be an overhyped essay.

At times i find much pleasure in the thought of celebrities. These times are as follows: When i am dead, when they send me money, never, and certainly not when they do trivial things like shop at a store or pick their noses or get engaged. The remainder of the time, the most herculean effort combined with the highest dosage of prescription drug and cranberry juice cannot produce interest in the thought of a celebrity. Toads are green and warty (see footnote). Furthermore, i want some ice cream.

Caterpillars, when dead, much more closely resemble very short sticks than animated yogurt monsters. I remember the day when i got my first elbow sock. In your average tree, there may or may not be several dead caterpillars. This depends largely on the weather and the daily wardrobe of a certain man named Bradley. Scientifically, dead caterpillars are much more llikeable and punctual than celebrities, but do not be easily swayed by the scientific facts. I still like pickles.

(This paragraph will be a short break from the essay, in which we will all get some cotton candy and soda pop and sing folk songs. It will be a lot of fun, and trout will fall from the sky.)

All things considered, if celebrities were available for purchase and use as doorstops, they could perhaps be considered more valuable than dead caterpillars, whose doorstopping capabilities are questionable at best. In real life, however, i could take a handful of dead caterpillars, a handful of popcorn, and a very attentive knowledge of which hand holds which, and then i could go down to the train station and have a jolly old time. Could i do that with celebrities? Well. I think we all know the answer to that. Being that we all know the answer, i will not insult your intelligence by stating the answer, which is "no, i couldn't." Dazzling conclusion goes here.


Need i say more? Very well, then. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dogmatic hedgehog-wielding lard burglar. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dogmatic hedgehog-wielding lard burglar. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dogmatic hedgehog-wielding lard burglar.

I do what pleases me, and I win kidney beans with it.
(The Johnnies know what i'm talking about...)

How come the motion sensors on sink faucets never work, and yet whenever i break into a bank at night, the alarm ALWAYS goes off?

It all depends on the moral character of the biscuit.

If i were a priest-turned-fitness-guru, i would definitely invent an exercise program called The AbSolution.

Lookin' for a lover who won't blow my cover.
(Today's title brought to you by The Eagles, winners of the Cheesiest Lyric Ever® award)

Victory is ours once again! My blogging friends (Isral, Anna, Carlene) and i have brand spanking new guestbooks, brought to you by somebody who isn't out to steal your very soul (as far as i can tell). And when i say "spanking," i mean literally spanking. These guestbooks will spank you when you sign them, and they will spank you even harder if you do not sign them. There is no escape for you. Is your butt red, raw, and perhaps bleeding? Well, it's going to be.

On a related note, mad props to Ryan for already having a guestbook like this on his site, which is what led me to get one. This guy knows what's going on.

Now it's time for the post. Wouldn't you say? I don't know, i mean, you tell me. This site's been up for like a month and a half now, so you should probably know by now when the proper time is to begin the post. I mean, it's your day i'm freaking up here. You know what you want. You're smart people, and you don't give in to flattery. Oh no. Not you. You're far too clever for such things. You demand freakage of the highest quality, and i, bensaki, am one of only an estimated 25 billion people who deliver that kind of quality. So why go anywhere else? Why even look anywhere else? Why even type the phrase "anywhere else"? This paragraph is going nowhere.

Maybe i'll start the actual post in this paragraph. Then again, maybe i'll spend it analyzing the mechanics of my posting, vacillating between aimless babblings and inconsequent details. Frankly, that sounds like a lot more fun. I could go on for pages. Or i could stop all this nonsense and get to the point already. What do say, faithful reader? I will take your advice and steer the pontoon boat that is this post in the direction you wish it to take. Then again, maybe i'll just ignore your imploring outcries and wrench the helm hard a'starboard, running us all aground on the shoals of pointlessness. You never know what i'll do! It's like one of those suspense movies, only without the excitement.

You know what else i could do? I could start an entirely new paragraph, tricking you into thinking i'd gotten somewhere, when in fact i am further from anything coherent than i was at the beginning. That would be fun. No, no, it wouldn't. Do you ever get the feeling i have no idea what i'm doing? I think it might be true. Then again, maybe this is all leading up to something...

bla bla bla...

...

bla bla bla...

...

bla bla bla...

...

*URGENT MESSAGE FROM SOMEONE IMPORTANT, PROBABLY*
Bensaki®, former author of "Freak Up Your Day®," has been spun into a Web of Internal Conflict®, and the Spider of Uncertainty® has sucked out his organs. He is now Dead®. He will presently be replaced by several Vultures of Corporate Marketing®, as is the custom.

$$$$$$$$$ Welcome, fans of (name of site)! If you liked (name of site), be sure to check out (name of product), the official (product type) of (name of site)! (Name of product) is recommended by (number) out of (number+1) (professional expert)s! (Name of product) will greatly improve your (whatever)! Buy (name of product) today, and remember, (name of site) would have wanted it that way! But we own (name of site) now, and it's not coming back. So stop emailing us. $$$$$$$$$

Do your worst, fiend! You'll not get MY $10!

As we speak, countless legions of flying, Corn-Nut-machine-gun-wielding frogs, led into battle by the pheerless Electric Disco Fencepost, are decending on the headquarters of theguestbook.com, former host of my guestbook. In quite the heartless display of shaftism, they pulled a drug-dealer on all their innocent, harmless constituents, making their services suddenly and conspicuously costly, leaving us thousands of e-junkies in a back alley with ragged clothes, no shoes, and the digital shakes. The worst part is, not even i can access my guestbook's entries without signing up for "premium membership" (selling my very soul). So i've lost some really priceless entries by you guys... which is worse than losing the actual guestbook. So until i find another free service, or the frogs return victorious, you'll just have to email me at my school account - mlodzik@stolaf.edu - which comes free with exorbitant tuition. Oh yeah. And you won't even be restricted to 500 characters or less!

So let's take our minds off this downer for a while... I've got a brand new recipe that you're just going to love. It's a recipe for disaster. More specifically, Disaster Goulash. Mix the following items together in a meteor-proof bowl and prepare for a severe butt-kicking... of flavor.

Disaster Goulash
-8 cups lard
-17 generous footfuls toothpaste
-1 hornet's nest rebellion
-2 pints brooding animosity
-1/2 tsp. elephant
-precisely 297 grains salt
-6 sarcastic comments, freshly sneered
-1 metric crapload mayonnaise
-3 monkeys, quite wise
-5 wallops

Beat lard and toothpaste in younger sibling's hair. Add mayonnaise. Discourage elephant with sarcastic comments. Pack a wallop. Empty contents of monkeys' brains into hornet's nest of rebellion. Stir in animosity. Pack remaining wallops and sprinkle with salt. Serve to ex-girl/boyfriend in galvanized iron bucket. Run.

Make my delicious Disaster Goulash and make an example to everyone: flirt with you, and they're flirting with disaster.

Nevertheless, your Vegas revue career could just be beginning...

I just got back from a hogwash, and boy, was it ever fun. If you had seen the color of those hogs before we washed them, you'd swear they weren't even the same species as the clean hogs. But they were. Now, don't be turned off by the word "hog"... these fine, divine specimens of swine were as clean as they could possibly be. After we washed them, that is. Before we washed them, you can just take all your usual negative connotations of the word "hog" and apply them to these hogs, because hooooooo-doggies, was them hogs ever sloppier'n a pail o' pigeon poo. (and i say that in the most countrified of ways.)

Now, the basic mechanics of a hogwash are simple: you get yourself a pail (not of pigeon poo) and a paintbrush (preferably of penguin plumage), or in the painful absence of a paintbrush, pick a pancake (of plum or parsley, perhaps) and approach the perimeter of the pig pen. Pause, patiently pleading the pigs to permit your presence. Presently, pounce on the pig in closest proximity. Procure a pint of Pine-Sol, then pour prudently on the precariously positioned pig. Perspire. Perpetually paint the pigskin with Pine-Sol till permeated. Pack a potato in the pig's piehole, then pick up your person and park it on the patio, post-haste. Perfect.

I hope you can join me at the next hogwash. Peter Piper's going to be there.


(*update: oh man, i just had to add this... right after i wrote this post, the next two buttons i clicked were "Preview Your Post" and "Publish Your Post." i almost died.)

I get freaked with a little help from my friends...

A couple things:

My good friend Carlene just started a blog the other day that you need to go check out. I have it linked on my sidebar, but i realized that i haven't said anything further about it. She's got a thing for wordplay, which is quite entertaining.

Also, Isral and Anna have done some of their best writing in recent posts, so check those out as well. (I'm assuming here that you don't have anything else to do, since you're already reading my blog.)

Note that in saying these things, i'm still not telling you anything about my actual life, which i strive to avoid on this blog. All you can really tell about me from this is whose blogs i read, and they say you can tell a lot about a man from the things he reads, so... oh, crap.

And don't fear, this won't be my only post today. Your actual freakup will occur later. Stay tuned!

I tried to warn them...

Follow up on Friday's bear research:
Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear.
Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair.
Fuzzy Wuzzy mauled all the members of Lynnyrd Skynnyrd.
And that took care of that.

The Electric Disco Fencepost

Grrrrrrr. That's the sound a chicken makes. No? Well, it does when it's been turned into a lion by the Electric Disco Fencepost. Is there anything the Electric Disco Fencepost can't do? Well, i'm glad i asked. No, in fact, there isn't. It can reverse the magical Toast Curse, cleansing bread of its burns and restoring it to its pure state. It can tie shoes from a great distance. It can identify counterfeit bagels. It can benchpress Europe. It can READ your MIND.

So the Electric Disco Fencepost was walking down the street one day, and it came upon a duck. The duck was acting all feathery, and the Electric Disco Fencepost was shining like the Midnite Diner at noon. They busted out their inflatable oversized boxing gloves and struck a fighting stance. The sparring dialogue was legendary. The weather was incognito. The landscaping was ridiculous. All of a sudden, the duck was down for the count. That's when the Electric Disco Fencepost made its move. It scrambled the duck's brain so that nothing made sense any more, chained him to a table in an all-night ice cream parlor, and filled all the oceans with cold black coffee and butter sauce. And it did all that in the space of one paragraph.

Fear the Electrico Disco Fencepost.

a post without a title? can you DO that?

Oh, i see. You think bensaki don't gots what it takes to freak up more than one consecutive day? That he needs to take an entire day off between posts? That he looks like a girl? Well, i've got news for you: the Tetris Club Council elections just took place, and incumbent treasurer Hubert Ferguson was surprisingly defeated by newcomer Hubert "Not Hubert Ferguson" Perguson. Drastic changes are expected this year in the Tetris Club Council treasury, most notably an increased budget for TGALP, a top-secret research project that no one can decipher the acronym for, although it has been tentatively nicknamed "The Getting A Life Project" by rival organization The Anti-Tetris Club Club, which spends most of its meetings tossing darts at large posters of brightly colored squares. But i was talking about something before this, i think... Well, whatever.

I know this thought has been hibernating in the back of your mind for a while now, that you've been thinking to yourself, while somewhat embarrased, "Gee...*nervous giggle* i wonder when bensaki's going to give us some hot fashion tips! tee hee..." Well, wonder no more, for the day has come! Though it has been quite a while getting here. At first, i just stole some fashion tips from a senior citizen who had gotten them at discount from a local supper club, but it was only when i was fourteen city blocks away that i realized they were sirloin tips. So that alone set me back several minutes in my search. For a while, i was considering cutting the tips off some pencils and giving you those to see if you'd notice, but i decided no, saki don't play that game. I'm here to give you FASHION tips, or NO TIPS AT ALL. Take off your newpaper hat and write these down: (like, on the hat, i mean)

-Ties are back in style. Wear them in your hair, around your neck, as a belt, or as a playful, fun tourniquet.

-Hair is back in style. Grow some. (On your head.)

-Shoes are back in style. But don't let this discourage you from trying the great new sport of barefoot asphalt skiing.

-Hats are back in style. Great as an alternative to washing your hair.

-Rayon: It's not just the last five letters of "crayon" anymore.

-When in doubt, just buy an ultra-expensive marble statue of a person about your size, then try out possible outfits on it. Renaissance mannequinism is back in style.

That's all for today, kids. Wear your fashions with freakish flair, and you can't go wrong.

Freak when froken to.
(this post is dedicated to Zimmerbloke for being so whiny yesterday.)

When you're a bear, how do you decide whom to maul? Is it based only upon hunger, or is there a certain special something about certain special people, a kind of "maulability," if you will, that interacts with the smell receptors and sends the nostrils into rollicking spasms of desire? I don't know. But it's a good question. A question that begs large-scale, state-funded scientific research by an unqualified researcher like me, who would use most of his research budget to buy banana cream pie and dental floss, then watch back-to-back episodes of Winnie-the-Pooh to document as evidence. And that's just what i did.

Mind you, Winnie-the-Pooh never mauled a soul, so most (all) of my findings are inferred from common misconceptions about bears. I have posted these findings here in "LIST" format, which is an anagram of the last names of the four scientists who invented the list: Ladyman, Ikebert, Stevenson-Sarkovsky-Sandwich, and Ted.

On Bears And Their Mauling Preferences:

-It is a commonly known fact that no one is ever mauled by a dead bear.

-The "maulability" of an individual is not increased by wearing a t-shirt that reads "Maul Me I'm Irish."

-Kidnapping baby bears and dressing them in the aforementioned t-shirt, however, does increase one's "maulability."

-If you are being mauled by a bear, be sure to yell loudly and flail your arms about, in case somebody is videotaping you.

-If i were a bear, i would probably maul Zimmerbloke for being so whiny yesterday.

-Beware of bears who do not share your political affiliation when election day comes around.

-Though not technically part of this study, getting mauled by a fish probably wouldn't be much fun either.

-I like banana cream pie.

Look for these findings to appear in an upcoming issue of "Total Science Magazine 5000" on the shelves of your local bookst...er... my room.

This is a song for you, far away, far away...

I was listening to "Secret O' Life" by James Taylor today, and it reminded me of this one time when i was really sick and that song was inextricably stuck in my head. It was in the middle of the night, and i woke up every hour and ten minutes (exactly) to do my sick thang. You know what i mean. Anyway, every time i woke up,, which ended up being like five times, i'd be singing this song to myself, and i remember thinking it was so bizarre. If you've heard the song before, you might know what i mean; if not, i'm reprinting the lyrics here. I have no idea whether this will be funny or not, but i'll risk it. After all, if you're good little girls and boys and follow directions, you'll have already been about the business of freaking up your own day, so it won't matter if this fails. Anyway, just read these lyrics, and picture me booting repeatedly while singing this to myself.

"Secret O' Life" by James Taylor

The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time
Any fool can do it
There ain't nothing to it
Nobody knows how we got to the top of the hill
But since we're on our way down
We might as well enjoy the ride

The secret of love is in opening up your heart
It's okay to feel afraid
But don't let that stand in your way
'Cause anyone knows that love is the only road
And since we're only here for a while
Might as well show some style
Give us a smile

Isn't it a lovely ride?
Sliding down
Gliding down
Try not to try too hard
It's just a lovely ride

Now the thing about time is that time isn't really real
It's just your point of view
How does it feel for you?
Einstein said he could never understand it all
Planets spinning through space
The smile upon your face
Welcome to the human race

Some kind of lovely ride
I'll be sliding down
I'll be gliding down
Try not to try too hard
It's just a lovely ride

Isn't it a lovely ride?
Sliding down
Gliding down
Try not to try too hard
It's just a lovely ride

Now the secret of life is enjoying the passage of time

There. I hope you enjoyed it. And i hope you can one day have memories like this of your very own.

Because Titles Are Really Just Capitalized Sentence Fragments

I have nothing to say on this perfect afternoon. Freak up your own day. Better yet, just go outside. Maybe i'll be back to freak up your evening.

Right. And I bet the rotten eggs just got up and threw themselves at my squad car, didn't they?

Ha ha. Goldfish with Afro hair. Now that would be funny.

Let me tell you a story. It's a story about a little boy and his dreams, and how those dreams nearly destroyed the entire known universe. But then all of a sudden they didn't. Obviously. (You know, because it's still here, and... yeah. You figured that out already.) Now the story.

Puking Todd was a troubled young boy of 5, whose every move was closely monitored by robots and genetically altered skunks who sprayed Lysol instead of gaseous raunch. After every meal he'd sit around in a puddle of unstrategically placed vomit, dreaming of things to come. And one day, things came. Not "things" so much as "a magical talking eggplant," but you get the picture.

So the thing (which, as you'll remember from the last paragraph, was a magical talking eggplant) said to Puking Todd, "Barfing Billy, I'm here to fulfuill your every wish and dream." Of course, Eggplant Roger had the wrong house. Barfing Billy was in the house across the street, leading a very sad existence as a fortysomething stockbroker. But since Puking Todd had neither the ability to talk nor the ambition to send such a magical, benevolent vegetable away, he didn't say anything about it. His previous dreams about "things to come" began to come true, in a very literal way. Things came. Lots of things. Refrigerators. Maple trees. Crumpled copies of the New Yorker. A banana. Slabs of limestone. Entire swing bands. That sort of thing. Puking Todd's room was on the verge of becoming a black hole that would swallow everything, when his mom called out from the other room: "Toddward Upcharles von Püken! Stop that racket right now!" Well, you can guess what happened then. Eggplant Roger wasn't amused in the least. He undid all his wish-granting, hopped on his motorized lava-lamp, and drove away in search of Barfing Billiam. And they all lived sloppily ever after.

The end.

This is the result of several years of cornslappings.

Poker is a whole different game when you use live pirahna as chips.

(today's title brought to you by my cousin Robin)

When did the french fries start tasting like potatoes?

Wow. I feel like all my life has just been in anticipation of today's post. Like before today, i was just making milkshakes out of wood shavings from the bottom of a hamster cage with a wooden spoon in a mayonnaise jar, and today i'm tasting real ice cream in all its non-diseased splendor. I don't know what they slipped in my diet bottled water with just a hint of jasmine today, but i feel like i could conquer the world! Give me a spatula, and with it i will lift the hearts of the entire nation! Then i will turn them over, drop them back into the frying pan, lightly brown them for an additional three and a half minutes, and serve warm with butter and head cheese. Today's post will be utterly invincible, the Ultra-Strong Titanium Post of the Future. If you take a power drill to this post, it will drive back the bit, jam the apparatus, and make the whole thing explode. That's not just quality engineering -- that's day-freaking precision like you've never seen before.

Oh, i know what you're thinking now. You're thinking "He's just going to go on for a paragraph or two about how great today's post is, without actually ever getting to the post." I can just hear the voice of Isral now: "Dude... when are we going to get a real live actual post here?!? All these descriptions about how much non-existant posts rule and speak of why you couldn't complete the post... I NEED SOLIDITY!!!!" So lifelike, that voice of Isral... as if he were actually talking to me... on a speakerphone, through a walkie-talkie, via translator, from Inner Mongolia. Well, fear not, my friends! Today, i will not just sit around and brag about how great today's post is... how it could beat all the major presidential candidates in a debate/beauty pageant... how it can dispense nacho cheese from its fingertips... how the mere sight of its smile spawned a multi-million-selling hit record by some pop singer... NO! Such things are behind me now. Also behind me: a giant, Ultra-Strong Titanium Post of the Future who is threatening me with a power drill and demanding his freedom. I'm gonna have to go now.

Peter Piper picked a pack of puking piglets...

All right, Anna, i'll take you up on your question. How much wood could a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood? And more importantly (as you pointed out), why?

It all started in Woodchuck's hometown of Goodchuck, Mississippi, with his mother, Couldchuck, and his father, Shouldchuck. There were four children: Woodchuck, Wouldchuck, Wüdchuck, and Charles. The oldest of the three, Woodchuck set out at a young age to explore the wonders of the greater Goodchuck area. He wanted to break free from his parents, Couldchuck and Shouldchuck, and the oppressive moral implications of their names, which had psychologically damaged him since he was a young chuck, forcing him to go through such phases as joining a secret antichuck society and changing his name to WoodBlinky The Clown.

After wandering for a few days, he happened upon a town called 'Hoodchuck. As the apostrophe in its name suggests, this was a somewhat run-down urban area. Walking cautiously down each street, Woodchuck kept an eye out for suspicious types and suspicious typewriters. Soon he found both. Notorious street journalist Shouldhavechuckedbutdidn't was sitting at the end of an alley, typing regretful and quite poorly composed memoirs.

They struck up a conversation. Not being fluent in Chuck, i can't tell you what their words meant, but i can give you a pretty accurate transcription of the conversation, just in case someone out there has the linguistic skillz to translate it.

Woodchuck: "Chuck chuck chuck chuck chuck."
Shouldhavechuckedbutdidn't: "Chuck chuck?"
W: "Chuckity chuck chuck McChuck."
S: "Chuck. Chuck. Chuck. Chuck? Chuck."
W: "Chuck Taylor."
S: "Chuck Berry."
W: "Chuck Wagon."
S: "MacGuyver."

After that, Woodchuck went back home, a more enlightened and appreciative woodchuck, and chucked as much wood as he possibly could, which happened to be seven metric inches, or its equivalent. I hope this answers your question.

Quality lumber doesn't grow on trees, you know.

Even if you read yesterday's post, you'll want to read today's too. You might even want to tune in for tomorrow's, although i haven't written that one yet. Who knows? One of these days, i might be walking down the hallway, unaware of not only the middle names of everyone in Scandinavia, but of my own surroundings as well, and trip half-unwittingly over something worth reading, falling headlong into vast expanses of linoleum and waking up weeks later to finally write it down for your enjoyment. Unlikely, i know, but it might happen.