Passing the Time

The bet was this: Grind 10 Altoids into a powder and snort it for $20.

The guy at work who came up with the idea knew from the start that I was the only one stupid enough and insecure in my manhood enough to even consider doing it. Given that I only come into the office once a month or so he knew that it was now or never and so really went to work on me. His carefully considered decision to use the whole 'wuss' genre of taunts was a conception of Machiavellian genius. "You're too much of a wuss to do it". "What's the matter wussy boy?". "Here wussy, wussy, wussy". He must have thought that I'm a total moron. You will undoubtedly not be surprised to find out that he was correct.

So the bet guy announces over the office intercom the afternoon's entertainment. He's really into it. I get the feeling that if he had more time this could have been a real extravaganza, complete with coat check and valet parking. He decides that the best place for this to happen is the conference room, so that everyone gets a good look at the moron and his mints. After a long delay of getting everyone into the conference room and setting up we get ready to start.
I grind the Altoids into a powder with the back of a spoon. When the smell from the squishified Altoids hits me I start to get a bit nervous. Altoids must have been created my some overly enthusiastic mint psychopath any ways. Why the fuck are they that strong? Seriously, the guy who came up with these must have been some sort of mint extremist who, perhaps disturbed by the unholy flavor mixers who desecrate the purity of mint with such degenerate flavors such as chocolate, felt the need to bring a certain purity to the entire mint experience. This lunatic mintmonger is one thing, but why do people buy these things?

OK, the Altoids are now all ready to go. I hum 'Eye of the Tiger' for a bit to get me all revved up for the next few minutes, which are basically guaranteed to be memorable. The guys are by now convinced that this is actually going to happen, and so are a bit excitable. Nervous laughter is surrounding the table and the guys are pressing in close. A quick glance around the table confirms the ethnic variety of my work place. Indians (of the Indian subcontinent variety, not the running from cowboys who want to kill them variety), Chinese, Koreans,Russians, and other diverse representatives of their respective ethnic groups are all shouting, laughing, and in general really looking forward to seeing some idiot feeling some pain.

For a moment I get the feeling that I have been dropped into the movie 'Kickboxer' and that this is all just a prelude to my getting the crap kicked out of me by some overly muscular yet incredibly stupid behemoth, until said behemoth makes some comment about my mother or dead wife or kidnapped baby and I summon the intestinal fortitude to ignore that pain and give him a righteous beating. Upon reflection however, I realize that we're talking about snorting some mints and that furthermore, I am a gigantic dork.

So, what the hell, I grab the straw and let 'er rip.

Pain.

Apparently Altoids have some quasi-mystical properties of dislocation. I distinctly remember getting the sense that my consciousness had separated from my body and was hovering about 8 feet above the floor. I could clearly see myself sitting in the chair, straw still inserted in my nose.

Very calmly and quietly I heard myself say "no".

Fuck, I'm back in my body, or what's left of it. Actually, much like Barbara Streisand, although I actually have a complete body the only thing that seems to matter is my nose. This nose is clearly unhappy with the situation and is doing a bang up job of letting me know. The pain is exquisite. It felt as if some wayward sailor had felt the need to test out a flare gun and had chosen my nasal passages as a suitable target.

After about 10 minutes of rocking back and forth in my chair, nose and eyes streaming snot, and several hundred glasses of water and milk, I finally get my shit together enough to rub the crap from my eyes and sort of see again. The crowd is still there although they're hushed. While clearly the festival of pain I've gone through has touched these guys in some primal way, these fuckers seem to be expecting something more. What the fuck are these cockbags waiting for? My death? I'm all for making fun of someone else's pain but waiting for me to die seems a bit over the top.

Oh shit. I had forgotten.

In a terribly misguided attempt to look cool, as if I hung out with the Eagles back in the seventies and knew my way around snorting various powders, I had cut the Altoids into not one line but two. Oh man. I imagine the pioneers on the Oregon Trail must have felt the same way when they got their first sight of the Rockies after already travelling for weeks. "Fuck, we deal with Indians who want to kill us, we haven't had any water for weeks, riding through Iowa and Nebraska was fucking boring because we can't play the license plate game for the good reason that cars haven't been invented yet, and now just when we thought we were almost done, some asshole with a sense of humor decided to drop fucking mountains in our way." I mumble some stuff to the effect of there is no chance that I'll do the second line, only in a more colorful and longwinded way. After about 5 minutes of sitting there and whining I hear two of the Chinese guys exchange something in Mandarin that I do not need a translator to figure out means "fucking wussbag".

What the hell, I'll never be able to smell again any ways.

PAIN.

Apparently the first snort merely served to clean out the snot so that the second blast could get to the real work out scouring to the bone. Jesus, this really hurts. What feels like pulpy flesh is running down my throat. I'm surprised to hear my own voice when I ask for some "fucking water". I sound a bit like Henry Kissinger, only two octaves higher and after bingeing on Drano and bourbon cocktails.

It took about three hours for the pain to dull enough so that it wasn't the only thing I thought about. I still feel the after effects today, about 24 hours after the fact. All in all I wouldn't do it again, but it was entertaining. And I can honestly say that for once work was not boring.

Sexy Demotivator Day

I've Got Issues/Julie Andrews is Really Disappointed

I was talking to a friend of mine recently, we were discussing the relative charms of the scantily-clad young women who passed us by on the street in the city in which I live, when he made the statement, “Dude, you will literally fuck anything, won’t you?”

I was initially taken aback by this statement. I mean, let’s face it: we’ve all banged that one-off chick—the fat girl, the ugly girl, the hair-lipped friend—it’s every man’s responsibility to play the wing-man from time to time. It’s man code. And that’s cool because you’re taking one for the team; you’re basically paying it forward.

But no matter how many sub par skanks you’ve bagged in the name of male solidarity, no dude ever wants to be accused of pining for porcine panocha or of voluntarily fornicating with hideous monstrosities…it’s like someone accusing you of eating your meals from a trashcan or of wetting your bed. It’s embarrassing and degrading.

And yet there I was, enjoying a beer and a piece of pizza on a beautiful spring day as half-naked women pranced about, displaying their feminine wiles in ways that would get them stoned to death in pretty much any country east of Italy and south of the Mediterranean, and this piece of shit “friend” was accusing me of being this most deplorable and shameful of Lotharios.

And yet despite my self-loathing, it occurred to me that he was right. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I DO have standards; they’re just not very high. And then suddenly I realized that this wasn’t shameful, it was wonderful. This wasn’t like eating from a trashcan but instead it was like eating strange food from foreign countries that would make most people vomit. Sure, you may have to choke down a scorpion or some monkey brains from time to time but at least you’re eating. And one day, if you find yourself in a situation where the fare is somewhat limited, you’re going to eat a lot better than your buddies who've been dining solely on Alaskan King Crab and Filet Mignon.

Take, for example, the bisexual dude who works two cubes over from you: he’s basically normal, bangs some decent looking chicks, plays sports, and drinks beer but he’s better off than you because in a pinch, well, he loves the cock too and that essentially doubles his options. So while you head home to a calloused palm, a bottle of lotion, and a computer with the volume turned down so your wife won't hear, he’s getting some real action that gets him off just like you would if you had some 18 year-old, fresh out of high school trim.

Now I’m not saying that we should ALL be bisexual, hell, I know I’m not gonna be. I can’t do that shit. I’m just saying that you can’t argue with the numbers; he’s gonna get laid more than you. And while his methods may sicken you, I know there’s no guy out there who hasn’t look at a fine filly’s ass and thought, “I gotta get up in THAT!”

It’s like Coop says in the move, BASEketball, as he bares Squeek’s ass: “How to speak San Franciscan: vagina!”

And that’s cool.

But then there’s this guy:

Not Really Christopher Plummer

Meet Josef Fritzl, the Austrian man who held his daughter captive for 24 years in a windowless dungeon and sired 7 children by her. This is a guy whose definition of pussy is WAY beyond anything you or I have ever imagined.

Police spokesman Franz Polzer told CNN that 73-year-old Josef Fritzl admitted holding his daughter, Elisabeth Fritzl, 42, hostage in the windowless cell and fathering seven children by her.

"The mother had memories [of the outside world] and got used to the situation," Polzer told a press conference Monday afternoon. "The others knew nothing else."

The main question reverberating from the small Austrian town: How could a man keep his daughter locked in his basement for 24 years, where she gave birth to seven of his children while her mother and three of those children lived upstairs without an
inkling of the horrors in the cellar?

Fritzl explained Elisabeth's disappearance by saying she had run away from home, a story backed up by letters he forced Elisabeth to write, including one that begged her parents not to look for her.

Fritzl, who looks frighteningly similar to Christopher Plummer:

Christopher Plummer

...is currently facing up to 15 years in prison for REPEATEDLY RAPING HIS DAUGHTER WHILE KEEPING HER IN PRISON FOR 24 YEARS.

I'm no legal scholar but 15 years seems pretty light for this kind of crime. Particularly when you take into consideration the fact that his daughter was locked up for almost twice that. And she didn’t have the possibility of parole.

Jesus.

I’m sorry, this is just so totally fucked up that I can’t find anything cynical to say about it.

Oh wait, yes I can:

"I guess it was God’s will. After all, the Lord of Hosts works in mysterious ways."

Fuck god.

I was on Wikipedia today and noticed a glaring and inexcusable omission from their lexicon. Nowhere in that (seemingly) most relevant encyclopedic archive is there a listing, definition, description, or catalogue of the word “Assmonkey”.

Now, I recognize that many of you may wonder why this is important. You may question the term’s relevance to and application in your everyday life. You may even think me foolish for spending my time writing about assmonkeys. The answer is simple: fuck you and suck my balls.

An Assmonkey (aka: asshat, ass, assclown, asshole, asswipe, bag, bastard, bitch, cock, cockmaster, cunt, dick, dickhead, dipshit, douche, douche bag, dumbass, dumbfuck, fag, faggot, fool, fuck, fucker, fuckhead, fucktard, fuckwit, gay, George Bush, homo, idiot, ignorant, jackass, jerk, loser, moron, n00b, retard, retarded, shithead, stupid, tard, tool, twat, or wanker) is defined by the Urban Dictionary as:

Ass·mon·key: [ass-muhng-kee] noun, plural -keys, verb, -keyed, -key·ing
–noun
1. A close relative of an asshat.
2. Someone that asks stupid questions.
3. A complete idiot.
4. A politician.
“Hillary Clinton is such a fucking assmonkey.”
–verb (used without object)
5. Informal. to play or trifle idly; fool (often fol. by around or with).
“Jim was assmonkeying with the banana and now it’s stuck up his butt.”
–verb (used with object)
6. To imitate foolishly.
“I was assmonkeying John McCain yesterday. It was totally hilarious! What a fucking douche bag that guy is.”


Here’s the deal. Hillary Clinton is a fucking assmonkey.

Assmonkey

Can you believe this bitch’s gall? For the first time in I don’t know how many years the democrats have a candidate that almost everyone likes…rather than one that people simply detest less than his opponent. I mean, a candidate that smoking women write songs about and that dudes want to have a beer with. You know what, that candidate ain’t Hillary.

Look, I’ve been a Republican all my life. When I was kid my parents used to take me hunting for liberals—and this is back during the Reagan administration when liberals were endangered. I was weaned from my mother’s teat with the tears and crushed dreams of the poor. For fun during the summer we used to go to orphanages with a bunch of toys and a cute little puppy, fill out all the paperwork to adopt one of those little bastards, and then, just as we were leaving, refuse to take him home. Thos were some good times, I tell you, good ole’ Republican fun.

The point here is that I have been a hard-core porn addict right-winged, elitist, democrat hating, Machiavellian, dick-hole Republican for as long as I can remember.

But now I find myself actually starting to care about people who are not me. And I’m beginning to think that maybe we should interject some responsibility into our environmental policy, or our foreign policy, or our education/health care/economics/poverty/etc policies.

Maybe it’s time to realize that it’s not okay to get rich on the broken dreams of your employees. Maybe we actually have an obligation to take some of the unparalleled wealth possessed by the upper class in this country—wealth that they’ve obtained largely by paying their employees minimal wages, giving them pitiful benefits, and driving them like rented mules—and give it back to those who did the work in the first place.

Maybe there actually is a better system than Capitalism. I don’t know what it is but somebody should figure that shit out.

I find it ridiculous that we can look back at the conditions that existed for the working class during the industrial revolution with such horror and not see the parallel in our own society today. We call the Catholic Church barbaric for the Inquisition and the Crusades and we abhor the idea of slavery and segregation and racism and yet we still despise homosexuals and tell them that they’re not as valuable as the rest of us and they don’t deserve the same opportunities.

How is dragging a gay man to death behind a truck any different than killing a Jew in a concentration camp? How is bombing an abortion clinic any different than burning protestants at the stake? How is refusing a gay couple the right to adopt any different than forcing a woman to wear a scarlet letter A and making an outcast of her and her illegitimate child?

The amazing thing is that we view ourselves as modern and progressive and educated. And yet we destroy lives in the name of a faceless, unknowable god who is petty and vindictive and cares about what you eat or wear or say, even when it hurts no one. A god who says that infant children who don’t get baptized are going to hell or who demands that women be circumcised by having their clitoris cut out. A perverted and voyeuristic god who watches us while we have sex or take a shit.

The list of human stupidity is literally endless.

And so today—when we’re faced with 4 more years of incompetent, indifferent, and belligerent leadership by a fossilized shell of a human being who lacks the character to be what he says he is—when we have an opportunity to elect as our President a man who has consistently attempted to raise the debate above a petty popularity contest and make it about what this country needs…that fucking assmonkey, Hillary Clinton, is so self-obsessed and so ethically bankrupt and willing to whore herself to anyone, anything, or any cause that will get her elected that she is destroying the best hope for hope that we’ve had in 20 years. That’s effectively a generation.

How tragic it is, the lost opportunities of a ruined life.

Folks, dear 8 pounds 6 ounces baby Jesus...new born...not even spoken a word yet, isn’t it time that we actually take responsibility for our government? Can’t we please just tell that frigid, lying, hell-spawned assmonkey that she’s not getting the fucking nomination and start building again—and I don’t mean like we had Halliburton do in Iraq, I’m talking about building bridges to our former friends, building up our broken domestic policy, building up America's greatness again.

Or hey, maybe not. You gotta admit, "Assmonkey in '08" makes a great fucking bumper sticker.

Paris Hilton is a 15 yr-old skank

I’m not a huge fan of celebrity blogging. Having said this, I admit that there’s much enjoyment to be had by mocking the celebrities. Then again, I suppose one can derive enjoyment from mocking anyone (after all, it DOES make you feel better about yourself—like when I tell my neighbor’s kid that his parents wish he’d never been born or when I tell my wife she’s ugly and if I left her I could get someone WAY better in about 15 seconds) but I just don’t really care about the pathetic lives and ridiculously insulated ideologies of America’s celebrities.

That being said, I felt as though a recent comment by Ms. Hilton exceeded normal levels of absurdity regularly displayed by the Hollywood elite. Yesterday several news sources (including Fox, MSNBC, CNN, et al) reported that the semi-retarded heiress was planning to wed Benji Madden in a dual ceremony with fellow short-bus rider Nicole Richie and her baby-daddy Joel Madden.

There are so many things wrong with that statement that I don’t even know where to begin.

Let me start by saying that I am a fan of lists. Oh, not like The Dude is a fan (I’m semi-pro to his pro) but I have a predilection for making top 10 lists of all sorts. For example: top 10 coolest cars, top 10 chicks who need to bang me, top 10 politicians I’d like to see fit with cement shoes, top 10 threats to my sanity, top 10 people I’d like to punch in the penis and/or vagina, and so on.

Paris Hilton is on several of the lists I’ve made. In particular, she ranks very high on the last list I mentioned: the top 10 people I’d like to punch in the penis and/or vagina (so does John Madden, my arch nemesis). In Ms. Hilton’s case, however, I would require a level “B” MOPP suit (at a minimum) to protect me from the gaping, viral cesspool that is her cooter.

The bottom line here is that I hate that disease infested, empty minded, publicity whore with all my being. The bitch has no talent, is about as attractive as my aunt’s grundle (my aunt weighs like 300 lbs), and her “that’s hot” saying makes me want to blind myself with the golden brooches from my mother’s dress (that’s an Oedipal reference for those of you that are confused).

But as I usually do, I digress.

So here’s the deal. The United States in currently involved in two wars, more than 4000 servicemen and women have died in Iraq alone, we’re paying $4 a gallon for gas, we’re facing an unprecedented threat to the dollar (China effectively owns our currency—and therefore us), we’re in the middle of massive economic downturn (today’s word is recession), global warming is occurring at an alarming rate (and nobody really seems to know why), killer storms are pounding the heartland, and we have a Presidential election in less than 7 months. Why, in the name of the blessed, tap-dancing Christ are we reporting on the vacuous shit that comes out of Paris Hilton’s mouth? Does anyone really fucking care?

And what kind of sorry, stupid slut would make a public display about wanting to get married to a guy she’s been dating for like 4 hours in a dual ceremony with his brother and the starving scarecrow from my neighbor’s farm? I bet she got the idea when they were swinging in unison on the playground swing set. Because you know what that means. I swear to jumping Jesus, that girl is an intellectual giant. Somebody should name a scholarship fund after her. Or a school.

Times they are a-changin'

A new era has begun here at The Dude's blog.

As many of you know, The Dude is an intensely reserved and private guy. He's kind of like a turtle: slow, not particularly intelligent, kind of useless, ugly, and spooks easily. I can't stress the ugliness factor enough. In fact, to prove my point, here's a picture I took of The Dude at a recent family reunion:

But I digress. The Dude’s monumental ugliness aside, a new era has begun here on the blog because, for the first time in its short, ignominious history, this blog will actually be moderately enjoyable to read.

“What? Why?” you ask.

That’s a fine question, my friends. A fine question indeed.

So enjoy the new, quality content and check back every day. Because we’ll be updating regularly (and by regularly I mean at least every couple of weeks) with high-brow stuff like this:

All the best,

Walter

The Triumphant Return of John Brown

Following his 1859 raid on Harper's Ferry in an attempt to spark a slave uprising, the noted abolitionist John Brown disappeared from history. If you're anything like me and The Dude--hell even Jesus and Donny--then you've spent countless hours wondering what happened to this handsome, well coiffured man and the thought of finding out fills your body with an almost sexual excitement and longing.

Well, I am happy to report that Brown is making history again. Resurfacing in London, Brown is in the news again and women the world over are rushing to their boudoirs to pleasure themselves to his rakish good looks and perennially long facial hair.

John Brown in West Virginia circa 1857 and again in 2008 in London, England

Calling himself "Aubrey de Grey" and gripping a copy of his 1999 Action/Romance novel "The Mitochondrial Free Radical Theory of Aging", Brown sat down with the BBC recently to answer questions ranging from his theories on life expectancy to the effects of his molestation by a Catholic priest in 1975.

His book, a NY Times best seller for 61 weeks in 1999 and 2000, has recently been updated and new claims made by the erstwhile revolutionary are creating a new stir. Specifically, Brown is claiming that "aging is a physical phenomenon happening to our bodies, so at some point in the future, as medicine becomes more and more powerful, we will inevitably be able to address aging just as effectively as we address many diseases today."

Brown's theories, which include a typical life-expectancy of "a few thousands of years", have received mixed reviews from the scientific community. S Jay Olshansky, a PhD at the University of Illinois at Chicago, disagrees with Brown. Olshansky says, "The fact is that nothing in gerontology even comes close to fulfilling the promise of dramatically extended lifespan, in spite of bold claims to the contrary that by now should sound familiar."

In their book, "Fantastic Voyage", techno-guru Ray Kurzweil and physician Terry Grossman agree with Brown. "Do we have the knowledge and the tools today to live forever? The pace of scientific and technological discovery is accelerating. According to models...our paradigm-shift rate—the rate of technical progress—is doubling every decade, and the capability of specific information technologies is doubling every year. So the answer to [the] question is actually a definitive yes—the knowledge exists, if aggressively applied, for you to slow aging and disease processes to such a degree that you can be in good health and good spirits when the more radical life-extending and life-enhancing technologies become available over the next couple of decades."

Still others had a completely different view. ZZ Top bassist Dusty Hill said, "Look, I respect John Brown--the abolition movement, the fact that he's from West Virginia, hell, we even drink the same beer--but Jesus Christ man, fucking shave every once in awhile!" Hill then put on his sunglasses, twirled his fuzzy guitar, and walked from the room.

Britney Spears could not be reached for comment.

Regardless of their position on the plausability of Brown's argument, everyone agrees that the idea of physical immortality is seductive. The ancient Hindus sought it, the Greek physician Galen from the 2nd Century AD and the Arabic philosopher/physician Avicenna from the 11th Century AD believed in it.

Alexander the Great roamed the world searching for it, Ponce de Leon discovered Florida in his quest for the fountain of youth, and countless stories of immortality have permeated the literature, including the image of Shangra-La portrayed in James Hilton's book Lost Horizon, or in the quest for the holy grail in the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

What do these ancient purveyors of physical immortality all have in common? They're all dead.

But with today's ever expanding technologies and scientific understanding growing exponentially, maybe a form of immortality is within our grasp. Just think of the benefits. You'd get a 1000 years of this:

And this:

And this:

On second thought, just fucking kill me now.