Via the magic that is MNSpeak, I recently learned that local band G.B. Leighton is now a partner in an 11,000 square foot bar, restaurant, and live music venue called G.B. Leighton's Pickle Park. As much as I want to limit my critique to the website, allow me to stray for a moment to nominate Pickle Park as the dumbest god damn name for a mainstream restaurant ever. Pickle Park sounds like a cleverly cheeky name for a gay bar or a nickname for a semi-secluded urban park with a seedy reputation. Apparently he had a song by that name in the mid-90's. I've never heard it, but perhaps it really was about a seedy park full of hookers and meth.

But now let's take a look at the establishment's website, hosted at www.gbleightonspicklepark.com. First off, the website designers pulled a misbehaving chihuahua by having music that plays when the site loads. Having sounds, music, videos, and other shit automatically load is rude, annoying, and angries up my ethers. You'd expect it for a band website or maybe teenage girl's MySpace profile (not that I regularly look at teenage girls' MySpace profiles *cough, cough*), but not for a restaurant's site.

Another thing about the site that irks me is the curious punctuation conventions, or lack thereof. For example, the name of the restaurant, if relying solely on the logo, is apparently GB Leighton's Pickle Park. However, this blurb is on the front page:

Saturday, June 30
G.B. Leighton
with Tony Sims and Abdomen
It Just So Happens Its G.B. Leightons Birthday!

So is it GB or G.B. with periods? And what's with the last sentence? Let's suddenly capitalize every single word in the sentence for no reason whatsoever and do away with apostrophes for contractions like "it's" and possessives like "Leighton's." Where did those apostrophes go?



Oh, apparently the apostrophes were stolen and tacked on to the end of the "MMM's" in "IT'S MMM' MMM' GOOD." MMM' MMM'??? Ok, what purpose are the apostrophes serving here? I don't see any 's' in them, so they must be contractions. Contractions of what? MMMM? MMM NOT? Wait, I think I'm misunderstanding here. From the quotation marks, it appears that "Daily lunch and dinner specials" is a quote from someone that goes by the unusual moniker of IT'S MMM' MMM' GOOD. I wonder if that is his legal name or his stage name?



But if that is the case, then who said "Ladies night every Thursday night?" If you're going to quote people, you really need to cite your sources. I'll assume this one is from "anonymous."



Is it ironic to put so much EMPHASIS on the word EMPHASIS? Or is it just random and stupid like putting equally unnecessary emphasis on 10 YEARS OLD!!! And WE STRIVE!!!!!!! BELIEVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I PUKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



Double click?? I double clicked it, and the calendar window opened twice. I clicked it once, and guess what happened? It opened ONCE! Who wrote the fucking copy for this shit?




Ok, now we're getting into some useful stuff. You can actually download the full menu as a series of jpeg images or a PDF. You can also download the above activity sheet for kids which asks, "Can you color in GB Leighton?" I couldn't find a picture of GB Leighton on the activity sheet, only what appears to be a political map of Baltic nations. So I colored this publicity photo of this dude instead:

I just got back from rocking an even prime in the handicapped stall. That was one quality dump. Total cobalt picture window. But my satisfaction was marred by the previous jerkhole to use that stall. A solid 3 to 4 square feet in front of the toilet was littered with ass peanuts, the little rolled up wads of shit-covered toilet paper that form from the friction of wiping your gaping stinkchute. If I wanted to dance around a pile of someone else's ass peanuts, I'd go to the ass circus. When you wipe your ass, do you typically stand up, walk two feet away from the toilet, and dig around in your ass crack, letting hair, chunks of crap, and ass pennies fall all over the floor? What the fuck, dude? Or perhaps, as one of my coworkers suggested, he actually was wiping while straddling the toilet facing the tank, letting his ass hang over the front. "Sprinkle, sprinkle little floor. Let me cover you with ass peanuts some more!"

I have a sneaking suspicion this is an escalated level of piggish restroom use by the same disgusting prick who has been dusting the toilet seat with TP, shit, and butt hair from the first day I started using that crapper. I'm tired of having to kick the toilet seat up to knock that shit off or wad up toilet paper to sweep it from the seat and now from the floor in front of the toilet. I'm glad they stock Lysol and sulfuric acid in bulk here.

Upon hearing of my bathroom travails, another coworker related a tale of being an RA in his dorm in college. Someone kept building a nest of toilet paper on the seat to prevent any physical contact between their precious (and apparently sterile) ass with the porcelain. The problem is they left their toilet nest perched high on the potty for next person to dispose of. Thanks, asshole, but can't you take your nest down after you're done laying your eggs? I'm pretty sure they aren't going to hatch.

Oh my God! iPhone! IPhone! IPHONNNNNE!!!1111!!!! Run to the store, people! Buy an iPhone. It surfs the internet and plays music... and it's a god damn phone, too! Did you hear me? A fucking phone! You can read the Wall Street Journal, talk to your mom, and listen to Maroon 5 at the SAME TIME! FANCY FAT FREE CHRIST IN A HAMPER! GET AN IPHONE!!!!!! AUUGGGHHHHHH!!!111!!!!!!!!

[Jeremy's head spins off his neck and explodes in the sky before he realizes he doesn't give a shit about the iPhone]

A certain dating website continues to email me a list new "matches" daily. I say "matches" in quotes because 99.99% of the time I'm not interested in swinging at any women they're pitching to me. Today was no different. Well, it was a little different. Today this gentlecock crossed the threshold of my inbox. Yet another poor schmuck who doesn't know how to select "man seeking woman" instead of "woman seeking man" when creating his profile. Dipshit. Usually I would blur his face, but when your profile headline reads "Tom Cruise look alike seeks Beauty," you better be able to back it up with a fugly mug that looks just like Tom Cocksucking Cruise. Ladies, what's the verdict? Is this motherfucker going to be the star of Mission Impossible 4 and your dreams about sexual healing?



Tom Cruise's profile says, "I like computers and I travel to Hawaii every winter to visit my dad. I also prefer Blondes. I am 5'8" and I'm looking for someone 25-45. and 3 feet to 6 feet. I have been told that I look like Tom Cruise." That's it. That is his entire profile. Every single word. The end. He really paints a picture. Thank you for sharing with us that you like computers. Do you do something with computers? Write software? Install hard drives and bits and bytes and computery shit like that? Or do you just like them as a concept? "I like the idea of computers. I don't know what they're for, but I like being around them. I keep one in my bathroom to cover up the smell when I make poopy." And apparently there is a new nationality called "Blondes" that requires capitalization. I look forward to visiting the nation of Blondia with my shiny new passport. And 3 feet? Hey, we're all entitled to our fetishes. You dig little people. It's cool, man. Tom Cruise is a little person himself. A wee little guy is he. Kind of like Zacchaeus!

UPDATE: I've pointed hedydevine.com back to Hedy's blog, as she is now giving people access on an individual basis. It may take 24 hours for the settings to propagate completely, so if you were given access and still can't get to her blog yet, give it until Saturday night (June 30th).

Originally posted at MNSpeak:

My blog is now private because someone, maybe even one of you, maliciously tried to sabotage my life. I don't know who, and I don't know why. At this point, I don't even know the full extent of their actions, but having a public blog is definitely not worth the risk.

If you want to keep reading my blog, and if you are not the aforementioned saboteur, feel free to send me an email: devine.hedy@gmail.com.

xo HDV

NOTE: If some of the comments on this post seem disjointed, it was originally a vague message from me saying Hedy's blog was private, not giving any sort of details or reason as to why. The message above was posted by Hedy today (June 29th) on MNSpeak, and I replaced my original message with hers. This post will continue being updated or changed as circumstances warrant.

It is my firm opinion that google searches are the newest medium in which to express one's thoughts. I think it would be fascinating if we could find a person whose every web search has been meticulously logged. Looking through this person's search terms and phrases would reveal much about their personality, their character, their interests, and even their morality. What television shows do they like? What music do they listen do? Do they have children? What are there sexual preferences and proclivities? But how many of their searches ultimately give them the information, nay, the enlightenment, they truly desire? How many of your searches have given you that which you desire? What if all of your questions and thoughts that you typed into that little search form could be read and thoughtfully answered by a real human being? Well, we'll never find out, because I read them and plan to answer them in the only language I speak: asshole.

These are actual searches that referred people to my blog.

Search: child tells me "i don't like you"
Location: Patton, Pennsylvania

Dear Patton,

Children are brutally honest because they haven't yet learned the finer details of social interaction. Your child is simply telling you what adults in your life are afraid to say: you are a sniveling cunt puddle and nobody likes you. Just ask your mom.

Search: rug doctor fuck
Location: Aberdeen, Washington

Dear Aberdeen,

Be careful!! The Rug Doctor is a delicate piece of cleaning equipment designed to gently remove stains from your household's carpeting. I contacted its manufactuer, and they tell me in no uncertain terms that the Rug Doctor was not designed to handle even the most gentle of fucking by hand, fist, or erect penis. In fact, rigorous testing in their labs with volunteer steam cleaner fuckers revealed that the Rug Doctor's delicate rubber seals erode almost instantly upon contact with most manners of love juice. So please think twice before inserting your unit into the air intake. You may be voiding your warranty or forfeiting your rental deposit.

Search: rug doctor doesn't work
Location: Little Rock, Arkansas

Dear Little Rock,

Dammit, man! What did I just tell Aberdeen about man on Rug Doctor loving? Hope you know how to replace a jizzy air intake seal.

Search: email addresses of fat single usa ladies
Location: Nigeria

Dear Nigeria,

All the good fat ladies I know are currently taken by other Nigerian scam artists who emailed them first. Maybe there's an old man you can convince to send you a "wealth transferrance [sic] fee" to get his share of the millions of dollars you inherited from your rich oil baron uncle.

Search: how old is a butthole?
Location: Battle Creek, Michigan

Dear Battle Creek,

My regular readers probably expect me to make fun of you. "Why, a butthole is obviously as old as the person it's attached to, silly goose!" Au contraire, mes amies! It's a question of which came first, the baby or the butthole? For centuries, scientists believed that the human fetus first formed as a solid, unbroken cluster of cells. However, in the late 1950's, Dr. Vernham Von Braun discovered that the human fetus actually grows around empty space which eventually emerges as the butthole in the second trimester. Amazing!

Search: kids light colored poop upset stomach
Location:Gainesville, Florida

Dear Gainesville,

I'm not exactly sure what it is you're searching for. Either you're concerned over your kids' symptoms of an upset stomach with light-colored poop, or your own stomach is upset because you caught your kids in the kitchen setting fire to poop they had dyed like Easter eggs. A little help here.


Search: cock measure big laundry neighbor shorts
Location: St Paul, Minnesota

Dear St Paul,

vagina weigh small mowing stranger pants


Search: who do you talk to about changing the electrical box on your house?
Location: Wakefield, New Hampshire

Dear Wakefield,

I love how you think that talking to google like it was the old guy behind you in line at the supermarket will help you find anything. You're interacting with a search engine, dipshit! Not only that, try calling it a fusebox or circuit breaker box. An electrical box could be about anything from part of your home's electrical wiring to a plug-in mechanical vagina.


Search: rate my moose knuckle
Location: Canton, Ohio

Dear Canton,

I give it a 4.6.

Search: swollen and red testicle in child
Location: Minneapolis, MN

Dear Minneapolis,

Again, you people need to be more specific in your searches. Your phrasing is ambiguous at best. Why "in child"??? Are you trying to find help for your child who has a swollen, red testicle, or did your child accidentally swallow someone else's swollen, red testicle such that it is now inside of them. Oh God! Your child doesn't have a swollen, red testicle stuck in his ass, does he? It's yours, isn't it! I'm calling the police, you sick fuck!

Search: dating websites that keep out ugly people
Location: Los Angeles, California

Dear Los Angeles,

Look in the mirror. If such a dating website exists, they probably won't have you as a member.

Search: what bike tickles jake's butthole
Location: Chicago, Illinois

Dear Chicago,

Again, I'm not clear on the desired result for your search. Is there some sort of special bicycle with a feather-covered seat that you're trying to find? Why do you care specifically if it tickles Jake's butthole? For that matter, who is Jake? And using a bicycle to tickle his butthole seems like a lot of overhead in the process. Just tickle his butthole directly. He'll probably let you do it if you ask nicely and drug his juicebox.

Search: genius world records for oldest women to get babies
Location: India

Dear India,

Since you clearly do not speak English as a first language, I'm going to cut you some slack on this one. I think we Westerners have too little tolerance for those trying to learn our language. Please do not take offense at my constructive criticism. I'm not making fun of you. *snickers quietly* First, it's the Guinness Book of World Records, not the Genius Book of World Records. Second, when a woman gives birth to a baby, she has a baby. She does not "get" a baby. Saying that a woman "got babies" makes it sound like she contracted a sexually transmitted disease. Wait a minute! In your naiveté about the English language, you may have unknowingly espoused great wisdom. Babies ARE a sexually transmitted disease. They are little parasistes growing in a woman's belly who emerge to leech off of her, the dude who knocked her up, and society at large. Yes, from this day forward, whenever I describe someone getting pregnant, I will say that she got babies. And yes, they do have pills for that now.

Search: simply gorgeous vag
Location: Halsey, Oregon

Dear Halsey,

You've given me an idea for a new personal care product for women. Ladies, are you tired of parading around town with a 4.6-rated moose knuckle? Do you have to roll up your labia and tuck them into your urethra before you can pull up your panties? Then try new Simply Gorgeous Vag™ from Vidal Sassoon. Only your OB/GYN will know for sure!

Search: buttholes and boobies
Location: Atlanta, Georgia

Dear Atlanta,

You just described the meaning of life.

Usually I'm loathe to repost videos circulating the internet. But I can't help it with this damned prairie dog incorrectly labeled as a chipmunk.

Just a minute ago, I got a spam message that could herald the next wave of internet fucknuttery. It was an email with a PDF attached to it that contained an ad for a penny stock. Motherfucker!

I hadn't seen my friend Ange in a few months. She's been busy with work, school, and her boyfriend, who I will call Hans (Ange wants me to use a pseudonym for him because he killed a donkey in the Czech Republic and stole Subway spokesman Jared's fat pants) so I was excited when she suggested we get a few people together this weekend. She, Hans, Alie, and I went to see a few bands at The Fine Line in Minneapolis. It was the CD release party for White Light Riot, and the opening acts were The Villains of Verona from Chicago and another local band The Alarmists. The Villains of Verona played blah, nondescript pop, but Alie and I both agreed that we wanted to honk on the adorable blond lead singer's perky hooters. I claimed the left one, and Alie could have the right one. The Alarmists are a talented band (also, the lead singer is a dead ringer for a young Anthony Michael Hall), but fuck their songs were long! Maybe they just seemed long because I was hot and tired of getting bumped into by pop-collared playa wannabes and slutted up suburbanite barbie dolls, and of being visually assaulted by the fat girl with Virginia ham arms dancing in front of us with far too little clothing. They make bigger sizes now, lady! Alie was equally tired of that scene, so we apologetically excused ourselves, as Ange and Hans wanted to see White Light Riot.

Lesley had expressed an interest in meeting up with us after the show, so while Alie and I zipped and weaved through hooting, hollering, stumbling drunkards spilling out of every doorway, I called her to let her know we were meeting at Chambers at Ange's suggestion. Walking into the ultra-modern, starkly white decor of Chambers, a boutique hotel with a bar and restaurant, I felt out of place. This joint was a little fancier than I was used to, and as I wandered around trying to find the pisser, I realized the place was stankass with modern art. Augh! It's like we were in the Walker Lite! And we all know how much I love the Walker and its sterile rooms full of canvases crapped on by Bulgarians and films of children reading books quietly to themselves on grassy hillsides, also crapped on by Bulgarians. Ok, so I didn't freak out to that degree, but I initially wasn't very comfortable there. It was full of hipsters with funky glasses and impossibly fashionable gay men with asses so fabulous, that wilted flowers sprang to life in their presence. I'm not comfortable around the hip or fashionable, because I am neither hip nor fashionable and have no interest in being either. Plus the fact that things other than flowers were springing to life around those fabulous asses raised uncomfortable questions.

By the time Ange and Hans arrived, with Lesley appearing shortly thereafter, I had warmed up to the joint. My seemingly simple BLT with avocado and spicy mayo was perfect. The toasted bread was crunchy and buttery, and the bacon crisp but not burned to a cinder . And everyone who ordered a drink (I was not among them since I had opted to take it easy on the drinking) raved about them. Hans had a ginger margarita, Lesley had a cucumber mint cocktail, and Ange had a pineapple mojito, which I believe Alie also ordered after tasting it. We talked, we laughed, and when midnight came, Ange suggested we go bowling at GameWorks at Block E. We had talked about doing that earlier, but I was getting tired. It had been a long week, and I didn't want to be out all night. I felt lame ending the evening so early on a Saturday, especially after ducking out of the Fine Line, but I'm old and tire easily, god dammit!

Alie, Lesley and I girded ourselves and pushed against the teeming masses of drunk assholes to get to my car in the City Center ramp, just a few blocks away (in addition to taking Lesley home, I had agreed to drop Alie off at her car since she was parked a hell of a hike from Chambers). On the way to City Center, we noticed one tippssssyyyyy "li'l" gurrlll sloshing about ahead of us in a denim skirt that barely covered her massive jello salad ass. Somehow the poor thing had pulled her skirt askew such that its very prominent seam traversed the prime meridian of her jiggling banana and grape-filled left buttock. Alie and Lesley wanted to bum rush her (pun intended) and do a twist-and-run orientation correction on her skirt. However, the very real threat of being caught in the blowback of this chick's swaying, quivering cottage cheekage led them to abandon that ill-conceived plan.

It didn't take long before the three of us were crammed into my car and zipping merrily along toward... a cascading clusterfuck of gridlock traffic and inebriated dicksacks standing in the middle of the god damn street. Block after excruciating block, I laboriously changed lanes from side to side, squeezing my way in front of unyielding taxis to make it over for my next turn. The light would turn green, the cars would move maybe a half car length, and then the street would be flooded with hooting fucknuts draining from the nearby bars and clubs. I just wanted to get home, and this shit was really starting to piss me off. Traffic would be moving fine if these meandering taintlickers would just cross with the light! Once we were just a couple of blocks from being free and clear of the bars, the biggest wave of drunks I've ever seen spilled out onto the street. Except this group didn't keep moving. They just. Fucking. Stood there. The light turned green. They teetered in place and laughed uproariously. I honked my horn at a group of them right in front of me and yelled out my open sunroof. "Get out of the fucking street, dipshits!" They moved along, but seemed quite offended that I would dare to honk and yell at them. How very rude of me! They tripped up onto the curb, right past the large congregation of cops standing right there talking to each other with their thumbs up their asses, and disappeared into the cacophonous crowd.

I dropped Alie off at her ramp, and then Lesley, apparently unaware of how far north we were, directed me onto I-94. Except the next exit was miles north of where she lived. Lesley was deeply apologetic, but I couldn't have cared less about the directional snafu. I was so relieved to be speeding freely on the wide open road, far from the liquored-up assfaces and the urge to run them over, that we could have ended up in Fargo for all I cared. It wasn't a big deal. I took the next available exit (yeah, it was far away, but did I mention it wasn't a big deal?), swung it around the opposite direction on 94, and had Lesley safe and sound at her apartment building in no time. As I drove away, stress still draining from my chest, I realized that the rigors of the evening were more than made up for by getting to hang out with Ange and my other friends, even if it was only for a short while. Plus I got to honk and curse at some drunks. That was pretty cool, too.

In observance of this past weekend's gay pride festivities in Minneapolis, I'd like to weigh in here, if I may, on the topic of gay adoption. I haven't done a lot of reading, research, or listening on the topic, but I don't get why people are so upset when it comes to gay rights in this area. Should sexual preference be a factor in the adoption process? Should rules and regulations define who has the right to be part of a loving family? I think gay babies have just as much right to be adopted as straight and even ugly babies. They shouldn't be abandoned in warehouses full of orphans, filed in a cooing, writhing drawer under 'q' for queer just because they breastfeed with flair and have an eye for color. That doesn't seem right to me.

After receiving my passport and a couple certified copies of my birth certificate in the mail last week, I decided it was time that I had a safe place to store my theftables. I was keeping my social security cards, title papers, and other important documents in a small fire safe that I've had since I was in high school, but it's small and would be extremely easy to walk out of my house with. Then there's the little issue of me losing the keys for it and having to drill out the lock a few months ago. I could be mistaken, but that probably nullifies any fire or theft protection it once offered. Now Steals McBurgledick is yanking my identity, opening credit card accounts in my name, and claiming to own the equity in my house and trying to set up a domestic partnership with me. Well you might be painfully attractive and engaged in lucrative thieving endeavors Mr. McBurgledick, but this is my house. You hear me?

Now some of you are probably tsk-ing at my paranoia, but you'd be paranoid too after watching two seasons of It Takes a Thief and seeing how much of your life a single thief can walk away with in 5 minutes. You would also be bored out of your skull and stop watching it since every episode is the same formula -- break into a volunteer's home, steal their crap, tell them what they did wrong, give their crap back, and shore up their security with prohibitively expensive security systems and equipment you can't afford.

One of the few relatively affordable items given to the homeowners in each episode of the show is a combination safe that can be bolted to the floor from the inside. I thought that was an excellent idea, so on Friday, I dropped $150 on a big ass fire safe that, thanks to a little sweat, a drill, and a socket wrench, is now securely affixed to the skeleton of my abode. What they do not mention on the show is that these safes are so heavy and unwieldy that no lone wolf thief could possibly abscond with it. Maybe that's why it was clearly marked on the store shelves with a sign screaming "Team Lift!" featuring a pictogram of a guy with what appear to be lightning bolts coming out of ass. I wish I had known that means that you will prolapse your rectum carrying the fucking thing into the house. Here I thought it was just a motivational sign for store employees. Lift those spirits! And your ass is carrying high voltage for some reason. Go team!

I saw a link to to this article that said "Average man sleeps with 7 women." Before clicking, the figure in the headline shocked me a great deal. "Good God! I'm 31 years old, and I'm behind the average! I've only ever slept with ONE! How could I have let this happen?" I thought. Then I read the article and was relieved to find that they didn't mean at once. Whew!

No, not THAT juice (speaking of which, any takers? No?). I was well overdue for my regular blood donation, so thought I better get off my ass, and I made an appointment for this morning. Unfortunately they told me I could no longer just stab my thigh with a steak knife and mail them a Ziploc freezer bag full of my hemoglobular lettings, so I had to wake up at the crack of 11, wolf down some breakfast and fluids, drive 10 minutes to the donation center, and otherwise make an effort. Usually my giving back to society involves writing a check or setting up automatic charges to my credit card. Peace of mind and a tax deduction without getting out of my chair. What more can you ask for?

But obviously blood donation is hard work, cowhand. You have to get up out of that chair and go sit in someone else's chair. Then they ask you a shitload of questions about your travels, your sexual history, and where else you gave blood. "Have you ever been to Camaroon? Have you ever lived outside of the United States and Canada for a length of time adding up to more than 6 months? Have you ever cockshanked a male prostitute in the poop chute? Are you masturbating right now? You are, aren't you! Oh my God!" Then you are asked to leave before actually giving any blood. It's a strange process, but it saves lives apparently. So do your part and let off some of your juice.

It's actually a prairie dog, but go on, click it:

The lunchtime conversation today was over superheroes, which eventually led to Spider-Man's webbing. In the comic books, Peter Parker invented (or found?) a chemical for the webbing and created web shooting devices that he affixed to his wrists. Rabid fanboys foamed at the mouth when the first movie came out because they changed it so Peter actually developed the biological ability to shoot webbing out of his wrists sans mechanical or chemical assistance. I have to wonder if this webbing is warm and gooey when it shoots out of his wrist. It stands to reason that it has to remain a sticky 98.6 degree liquid until it hits its target and quickly cools and hardens into a webby mesh. Maybe it's kind of sexual for him. He's banging away on Mary Jane's tight little red honey hole, and without even pulling out, WHAM!! He blasts her in the face with hot n' fresh wrist jizz. "Peter! EWWW!! I told you I'm not into that! Now I'm going to have to dunk my head in turpentine to get that shit out of my hair."

"Sorry, MJ. My Spidey dick was tingling. I had to work that shit out, baby. It felt so good." [rolls over and falls asleep with streams of webbing still running from his wrist to her chin and nose]

I say such nutty things! I'm so crazy! I say things that are off the chain, ya'll. Hooooboy! I'm fanning myself over here 'cuz I say things that are SO CRAZY. Aren't I nutty? Woooo, LORDY, I'm a nut! I can't stop laughing at the nutty things I say, 'cuz they're so off the chain! I'm so sorry I'm so CRAZY all the time, y'all. I'm so crazy it's distracting, isn't it? Oh my goodness! I'm laughing so hard at my craziness I'm tearin' up! Oh Lord in Heaven, why did you make me so off the chain?

Disclaimer: If you constantly feel a need to tell people how nutty, crazy, funny, etc you are, then you are not nutty, crazy, or funny. I'll tell you when you're nutty and laugh when you're funny. If you are none of these things, then I will stare at you blankly, just like I'm doing right now.

Grandpa Art and I (left) in 1982. Visible through the window, a garage full of dynamiteA couple of summers after my maternal grandfather died of cancer, Dad and I loaded up the pickup for a very special father-son road trip. We were men on a dangerous mission. For decades, Grandpa Art had stored 30 gallon drums of arsenic in a dirt floor pole barn on his farm near Hettinger, North Dakota. Now the state of North Dakota was holding an amnesty collection of hazardous chemicals in Bismarck, and the time was right to properly dispose of the drums without legal or financial headaches. We just had to fetch them ourselves.

Arsenic is a poison that was widely used as an insecticide on crops well into the last century. Once the dangerous effects on human health were made public, Grandpa heeded conventional wisdom and the rule of law and stopped applying the poison to his crops. The proper storage and disposal of his arsenic, however, were apparently of little concern to him.

Dad was one of the most safety-conscious farmers you'll ever meet. No piece of machinery or container of chemical on our farm was to be touched by the uninitiated until every technical detail and horrible result of neglectful operation and handling had been described in lurid detail. Once he had completed his lecture, he would often give specific example of people who had paid horrible prices for failing to follow proper safety procedures on other farms. "You know old Coot Simonson who worked a couple seasons on the Miller farm? The guy with two half-arms and a glass eye. Well, he got that way when took the safety guard off one of these augers and got a sleeve caught in it. Now he eats his sandwiches with two metal claws and a lack of depth perception. THAT'S WHAT HAPPENS, GOD DAMMIT!!" Grandpa Art's far more relaxed style of farm safety practices, which included keeping old, nitroglycerine-oozing dynamite in a garage a few dozen feet from the house, drove Dad up a tall tree.

Including stops for lunch and fuel, the drive to Hettinger, situated in rolling ranch country in southwestern North Dakota, took about 8 hours (Mr Safety was also a stickler for the speed limit). We pulled into town in the early evening. Since the farm house had been rented out, we stayed at the fleabag hotel next to the nursing home. After a big, greasy dinner at the cafe downtown, we watched some television at the hotel and went to bed early. Temperatures were going to be in the triple digits the next day, and we needed to get an early start to beat the heat.

At dawn, dad roused me from a deep slumber. I was so groggy that I barely knew who or where I was. When I said we went to bed early, I really meant that he fell asleep early while I laid awake for hours listening to him snore like a pissed off mountain gorilla running a leaf blower. This was going to be a long fucking day.

After breakfast, we drove out to the farm and announced our presence to the renters so they wouldn't become unnecessarily concerned over who was dicking around out in the barn. The temperature had already climbed into the 90's, and you could practically see the steam in the air. We backed the pickup into the barn, and immediately spotted the notorious barrels sitting in the corner. It was worse than Dad had remembered. The barrels sat with the lids loosely propped on top. Piles of spilled powdered arsenic sat on the dirt floor surrounding the barrels. This shit had probably been seeping into the groundwater for 30 years. We couldn't just leave that crap behind on the ground. It wasn't until then that I started to have questions over why my presence was necessary for retrieving these barrels. We only had one Level C hazmat suit and mask between the two of us, and there was no way Safety Dad would ever allow someone without proper protection near the arsenic.

"Ok, son, why don't you throw that suit on and move those barrels. You're going to have to dig up that dirt." Oh. Now I get it.

Inside the sun-baked aluminum pole barn, the temperatures were a good 10 to 20 degrees warmer than it was outside. And I was covered head to toe in a heavy disposable hazmat suit with a spade in my hand. The moment I pulled the hood and mask over my head, sweat gushed from every pore. I gingerly moved the heavy metal drums, trying not to spill more poison in the process. My mask was fogged with sweat, so Dad had to guide me by voice. "No, no. A little to the left. More. More. There you go. Just scoop that into the barrel. What are you doing, god dammit? You spilled half of it on the ground again!"

Finally I finished shoveling up as much as was feasible, but I needed a break. "Dad, I don't feel so good. I gotta sit down."

"Ok, ok. Let's get that mask off and get some water into you."

I felt a little faint. I felt like I'd just sweated off 20 pounds of water into my boots. They squished as I walked to the pickup. I took the mask off and WOOOOSH! The muggy 90 degree air felt like a blast from the Arctic Circle. I already felt better, and the water was an added godsend. After a brief rest, I cursed under my breath and pulled the mask back on. With tightly sealed lids and copious layers of trash bags and duct tape for good measure, the drums were as ready for transport as a couple of saps like us were ever going to get them. Using the edge of the pickup's tailgate as leverage, I pushed, grunted, lifted, and strained to get the barrels into the back. At long last, I had everything loaded, and I desperately stripped off my stifling shackles of safety and sealed them in another trash bag.

I fumed quietly for the entire ride to Bismarck to drop the drums off. I felt like I had been suckered into coming on this trip to act as slave labor. This was total bullshit, man! The outrage!

It wasn't until many years later, years after my dad had died, that I realized the true purpose of dragging me to Hettinger that summer. Dad just wanted some quality one-on-one bonding time with his increasingly temperamental teenage son, the son he was slowly losing to hormonal outbursts and moodiness. Sure, having me do all the work and avoiding exposure to toxic powder was a bonus for him, but he also knew that I was a lazy, shiftless bastard who could use a little extra hard work under his belt. I've lived over a third of my life without him now, but he's still here, yelling his god-dammit-peppered expectations at me when I can't see through the steam of my own sweat.

You're at home after a day at the office. You just want to sit down, eat a little dinner, and jerk off 4 or 5 times in peace. You're sitting around in your underwear eating cumin and tarragon straight out of the bottle because you're too lazy to cook, when the doorbell rings. Ooh! Maybe one of the neighborhood families is worried about you again and wants to drop off a casserole or pie. It's been a few years since you had that mental breakdown and sawed a dog in half, using the tail end to draw hopscotch squares on your driveway, but perhaps they're just checking in again. How nice! You rush to find the rumpled pair of basketball shorts you tossed somewhere on your bedroom floor that morning, jump into them, reflect for a microsecond about how silly you look wearing basketball shorts and the dress shirt you wore to work today, dismiss the thought, and throw the door open to find... some bearded hippie with a clipboard. Shit. And so it begins.

The warm weather of summer sets people to pounding the pavement selling cleaning products, magazines, newspapers, coupon books, and even meat. If they're not selling crap you don't want (or wouldn't dream of buying out of the back of a dirty van), they're begging for money for every social cause and disease of the week under the sun. The doorbell ringing season began in earnest last week when a high school kid selling the Star Tribune came around. The money would help him pay for college he said. Now I'm amenable to buying items of interest and use from kids, but unfortunately for him, the newspaper is not only something I'm interested in paying for, it's something I wouldn't even accept as a gift. I tell him that outright, cutting off every possible sales rebuttal at the ankle. Aw, you're only $4 away from paying for your first semester of tuition you say? Looks like you'll be selling the paper through Christmas, kid. Now hit the bricks.

The latest disturbance came earlier this evening when the aforementioned hippie came a-callin'. He was kind of an odd duck. He greeted me far too enthusiastically for my comfort and engaged me in a couple minutes of awkward idle chitchat before finally telling me why he was casting his gangly shadow on my wrinkled basketball shorts. He was going door to door talking with people about keeping our state's water clean. He asked if that's something I supported. Well, shit, dude, of course I support clean water. But obviously you're gunning for a petition signature or donation or something, and you've already wasted 3 or 4 minutes of my time with your jawjacking. Rule of thumb, if you ring my doorbell, you have 45 seconds to make your pitch. If I have to feign interest any longer than that, I don't care if you're selling naked gymnasts with vibrating cooters for a dollar, I'm not buying what you're selling.

When he quit his yapping about chemicals and sewage leaking being dumped into the water by corporations, he handed me the clipboard and asked if I'd be willing to sign up and give a small cash donation. I handed the clipboard right back and said point blank, "No, I'm not giving you any money." He seemed taken aback. "Well, even a small donation of $10 or $15 can make a diff-" I interrupted him and truthfully told him, "Sorry, but I give money to other groups, and I have to draw the line somewhere." I bid him a good evening and closed the door.

I admit that even I feel somewhat bad about being so blunt with these fuckers, particularly when individually, most are rather pleasant. But add up night after night of horribly timed doorbell rings, searching for scattered pantaloons, and standing uncomfortably listening to meandering pitches, and I get more than a little frustrated. I've finally had enough. At the risk of seeming like a batshit shut-in misanthrope, I printed up this sign on a 4x6 card and taped it to my front door. Do you like how I told everybody to fuck off but then made sure the neighbors still knew that I like them (when really they can fuck off, too, but I still have to live next to these breeders).

Holy shit! I just got my passport in the mail already, barely a week-and-a-half after sending in my application. I'm confused as all hell because I thought the new laws about requiring passports to return from Canada and Mexico had the application process backed up into the next century, even if you had paid for expedited processing. What's with all of these horror stories of people not having their passports 3 months after applying and mine taking less than 2 weeks? I'm stunned.

To the 12-year-old kid at Jimmy John's in Lakeville today, when you're taking a dump in a single occupancy public restroom, lock the fucking door! And for God's sake, when some unsuspecting guy just wanting to take a leak throws the door open and walks in on you, don't leap to your feet in surprise! I can only be thankful that your shirt was long enough so I didn't see your prepubescent dangly bits. Not only did you create an embarrassing situation for the both of us, but in order to be certain I would not be labeled a boy hungry pervert, I had to go back to my table and loudly proclaim that "some fucking kid is in there taking a dump with the door unlocked." You also forced me to go into the women's restroom, splash pee all over the seat, and press greasy dick prints into the mirror. Ok, you didn't force that last part. I suppose you created the opportunity. Either way, just lock the god damn door!

Oh, and I took photos of you with my cell phone and emailed them to "Little Boys Pooping" magazine. Hope you don't mind.

For those who read Miss Employed's blog and were pleased to see she started posting again recently, I thought I would pass along that she had to temporarily make it private due to some privacy and safety concerns. Once I have time to help her with some technical details, she'll have her blog visible to everyone again, hopefully by the weekend.

My apologies to Miss E for not being able to walk her through all of the fixes on the phone just now, but given how much smack talk goes on about certain unnamed individuals who seem to do nothing but engage in personal phone conversations all day, it would be hypocritical of me to spend 30-40 minutes of my work day doing tech support for a friend.

Just saying.

Read.

Worry.

Discuss.

Tonight I made the as-always questionable decision to run to Leeann Chin for dinner. And as usual, I walked in about 5 minutes before they were going to close, so the selection was paltry. I ordered a bowl of sesame chicken with white rice and a half order of cream cheese wontons, which usually gets you 3 wontons. Fortunately, under the heat lamp, 4 shriveled wontons remained curled and crumpled like little aborted fetuses set out on a rock to dry in the sun. The lady behind the counter snapped up 3 peaceful looking fetuses with a pair of tongs and plopped them into a plastic container. As she snapped on the lid, her face brightened and she gasped with realization. "Oh, I might as well give you this last one, too. No one else is coming." Having shifted the tongs to her left hand, she scooped up the last wonton with her bare, sandpapery right hand, and held it out to me with a look of benevolence and grace befitting an exalted saint. You'd think she was delivering the Eucharist.

I was momentarily confused. What exactly is the expected method of exchange here? I looked at her grubby ape paw wrapped around my food and then looked at the plastic container still sitting in front of her. This container, mind you, could hold twice the volume that it currently held. Apparently I was supposed to follow her unsanitary lead and just grab this extra wonton with my bare hand. I love to get chewy fetus grease all over my fingers then get into my car to rub that nasty bid-nazz all over my steering wheel. It seasons the leather like mineral oil. I looked at her and said "Uhhhhhhhmmmm." I paused, hoping she would realize the most sensible course of action would be to put it in the container with the rest of them. The container. Sitting right in friggin' front of her. But I realized that I had no intention of eating her greasy finger fetus and didn't want that it mingling with the others. I smiled weakly and snatched it from her chubby hand, immediately feeling the slippery sensation of hot grease on my fingers.

Unmistakable expectation rose in her eyes. She looked at me with her mouth open in a stupid grin as if to say, "Wellllll?" Well, what?!? What could she possibly want after this? I grabbed your grimy-ass wonton, what else is there? WHAT?!? Oh no. I knew where this was headed. She expected me to eat it right then and there. Pop that hot grease baby in my mouth like a peanut at the circus. Good God, this chick was demanding, and she'd hardly said a single word! I didn't know what else to do, so after a few more moments of awkward silence, I quietly mumbled, "Um... I'll just... uh... put this in... here." I opened the plastic container, still sitting two inches in front of her, and fumbled to drop in the finger-handled straggler. She seemed satisfied with this move, so I paid for my meal, let her bag it, and hot stepped to my car.

Thankfully, the wonton she handed me was markedly darker and more shriveled than the others, so when I got home, I zeroed in on it and dumped it in the trash. Normally I wouldn't be quite so squeamish about eating something in that situation, as I actually witnessed her wash her hands, but this is the same food worker who once demonstrated to me how she could peel long strips of skin from her fingers. It's one thing to have it described to you or even see it with your own eyes, but it's quite another to think of her dry strands of finger skin quietly wrapping themselves around your cream cheese babies and tickling your tongue on the way to your throat. Thanks, but no, lady with weird finger issues who handles my food. Thanks, but no.

It would seem I have been a shitty hominid, or more specifically a shitty blogger. I have failed to post 2 weeks of bingo photos, not including last night's set. But let's focus on last night. I've been posting the photos from prior weeks here and there in unrelated posts and think I'll continue to do that. We'll pretend that makes it more fun.

Last night we welcomed back a couple of B-Mobbers who have been MIA quite a bit the last few weeks. Elizabeth has had a few other things going on, and Hedy, of course, has been studying her ass off for the bar exam. Or so she claims. I think she and Elizabeth are secretly drinking elsewhere and gossiping about the rest of us.

UPDATE: For additional pics of the fun, Alie's got the goods.

Amber is amused by Elizabeth's anecdote about capris jeans.


Look as hard as you like, girls, but the song isn't "She Bangs" and none of you will find it on your cards.


Come get some, bitch!


Is Hedy flipping off Alie in front of the camera or me behind the camera?


Question answered. She's flipping us both off. "Fuck you, and especially fuck YOOUUUUU!!"


Oh yeah, Hedy? Well, two can play at this ga--HEY! Don't lick my bird, dammit!


Pissed off and super foxy.


You keep drinking, but don't think that Alie and I forgot being given the finger, Hedy.


Alie considers my request for a lap dance.


Seriously, Hedy! What the fuck did I ever do to you?!? Wait, don't answer that.


I call this one "Jeremy is a pathetic douchebag attention whore."


Amber's going to show us the disappearing cigarette trick. And no, you don't want to know where she hides them.


Alie ended up giving a lap dance to every man, woman, and child in the joint except me, then teased me with her tip money.


Psssshhht! You call that a wad of tip money, Alie? Here's what I made before you even got here tonight. Next to me is a handy copy of Candy Girl for helpful reference.


"Shit, that's a lot of dough, Jeremy! I've I'm going to catch up, I'm going to have to ease off on my dignity standards. Here goes! [gulp]"


Hedy, your shoes are cute, but I think you've got enough pervy internet stalkers as it is. Don't throw the foot fetish crowd into the mix.


Alie writes a check for a motorboat. From the looks of it, that's a check she can cash and then some.

Some people put a lot of importance on getting laid. Now there's a difference between importance and desire. Sure, we all want to get laid. You were probably already thinking about it before you started reading this, particularly if you're guy. Even if you just collapsed into a moaning, writhing heap of sweat and flesh with your partner, immediately threw on your clothes, got into the car, and headed directly to work not 5 minutes ago, you are already thinking about getting laid again (and way to go on the loving and leaving -- high fives!).

For me, it's not important that I get laid. I think about it 24x7 like all guys, but if it gets to be too much, I excuse myself, launch a targetless heatseeker into a sock or onto the wall behind the couch, and carry on with my day. I can go months on end without a good pipe cleaning and not get terribly concerned about it. After I broke up with my last girlfriend a few years back, it was almost a year before I put my thing down. Maybe it's all about what you're used to. For me, that's par for the course. I haven't been in many relationships and am not used to getting a regular groinal spit and polish. For other people I know, they have spent the majority of their adult lives in committed relationships (or they tag ass like they're pricing Hamburger Helper at Wal-Mart), and periodic clearing of the cobwebs is expected. A month without sex for them is a nightmare with no end in sight.

So I'm here to say that if it's been a while for you, it's going to be ok. Just take matters into your own hands. Get your battery-powered buzz on or wet dock one into your special rag. I won't judge you, but I will record you and post it on YouTube.

On Monday, I had my twice-yearly dental exam and cleaning. As always, both the hygienist and the dentist had nothing but praise for my teeth and my brushing and flossing habits (I thank my Sonicare and genetics more than my personal care routine). The appointment wasn't without hassle or annoyance, however. Originally my appointment was scheduled for 8 am. I live a mere 5 minutes from the dentist's office, so I slept in until about 7:30 and quickly got ready, paying extra attention to my brushing and flossing. Upon my arrival, I was informed that the hygienist was running late and that it might be 8:30 or 9 before she got there. I could wait until she got there, come back at 5, or reschedule for another day. Normally I probably would have simply waited, but I had rolled out a huge enhancement to our system at work on Thursday night. Since I'd been out of the office Friday, I was somewhat anxious to get there see how everything went with the updates. I opted to come back at 5.

When I came back to the dentist's office after work, the hygienist led me to the exam room. She and the dentist had stayed late specifically for my appointment because of the scheduling issue, so you would think that would entice her to hurry things along, but her love of idle chatter was far too enticing evidently. For some reason, she couldn't start the cleaning until she had spent a good 10 minutes explaining why she had been late that morning. Then it morphed into stories about her son's school trip, retrieving items from safe deposit boxes, and her daughter's job interview with a big company downtown. Hey, it's cool if you want to talk about all of this stuff I'm completely uninterested in, but since you haven't stopped for a breath in the last 15 minutes, and I'm obviously not required to be a respondent in this conversation, maybe you could just go ahead and jam your gloved fists and sharp tools in my mouth while you're blathering, huh? Fabu then.

Once she somehow connected all of her stories to her tardiness, she felt that she could begin the cleaning. The talking continued. One of her daughters just graduated from college. Traffic makes her nervous. She saw a motorcycl