The End of an Era

We stand, my friends, at the very brink.  On a precipice, as it were.  Staring down into a void of infinite possibilities and unsure what stirs in its Stygian depths.  Is it some variety of salvation, a desperate yearning to be free, to escape the void?  Is it Bats?  Cupcakes?  Bat-shaped cupcakes that I can keep in a belt pouch like I was some sort of baking/rodent hybrid super hero?

I'll stop the Riddler...with diabetes!

Or, more likely, is it just a bit of uncertainty and the constantly shifting winds of change?  It's probably that last one.  Although I do love me some cupcakes.  And vigilantism.  In fact, since it's almost the Christmas season if you'd like to pay for me to master the martial arts and maybe be trained as an expert cake artist in my spare time, feel free to leave a comment and we can sort out details.  I'll thank you for one, Ladytoa is sure to appreciate the other (she effing loves Karate, after all)

Internet, oh my dear, sweet Internet...very soon now, I will no longer be living with my hilarious cast of housemates (tm).  Being myself a married man, I'm sure you are thinking its strange of me to have a bunch of housemates in the first place, and you might be correct in some empirical, factual way.  But I assure you it happened pretty darned organically.  And just as organically the time is right for us to go our separate ways.  Not in life, mind you.  There was no falling out or explosive fight or anything as dramatic as all that and these people will always have a special place in my heart, and in my life.  No, the house is just full of people who are all ready to be living in their own space.  Or at least space that they cohabitate only with their nuclear families.  

That's a good thing, by the way.  I applaud the heck out of my friends for moving from our rental and transitioning into homeownership.  It happened a little more quickly than was originally scheduled, but that's ok.  They found a great place to call their own and are in the process of firming everything up.  

But where, you ask, does that leave me?  I know you're wondering because the ins and outs of my daily routine are surely the most riveting facet of your work day.  (A fact for which I really pity you, by the way.  I can barely be interested in my ramblings and I'm living through them.  I can recommend a few quite good therapists if you need someone to talk to, though.)  That leaves me, oddly enough, in a state of transition.  I don't feel the drive to go out and rent another apartment.  This is a time for me to put down roots.  To buy a home of my own, although I'm not quite there yet.  This is also a time in which I may find myself pushed outside of my liberal-elite Northeastern United States comfort zone.

Ladytoa and I had been thinking of moving, for some time now, down to the "South" which is where my mother in law lives.  The schools are good for our as-yet-nonexistant children, the costs of living are significantly lower than what I pay now and the job market and wages are right about spot on with what we're living right now.

I worry, a little bit, about the implications.  I have people up here that I know.  Places that I go and that know me.  The idea of starting completely from scratch is both slightly terrifying and dizzyingly exciting.  I can't wait to go off into the world and start a home for my wife and I.  I look forward to starting a family.  And I find myself looking with anxiety and joy and hope and fear all at the same time.

It's a great time to be me...even with a little tinge of sadness seeing a chapter close, I can't wait to start readliving the next one.  Stay tuned, people for my further adventures.  (Read-living is what you do when you make book metaphors about life.  It was, as you can see, originally a hyphenate but it grew into its own over time.  The more you know)

Knowing *is* half the battle.  The other half? Rocking out.

Markatoa - Closet Misogynist?

Alright, it's not really that much of a secret.  Obviously, I hate women.  I mean, why else would I have spent the post-pubescent, pre-marriage years of my life trying to foist my grabbing, disturbingly moist attentions onto them?  Females of the universe, you owe a mighty debt to Ladytoa.  A debt that can never be properly repaid as she has taken it onto herself to deal with all the amazingness that is my love and desperate, clumsy, amateurish "affections."  She likes money as a thank you.  Or video games.  And of course, the booze.

But enough about my abilities to devastate the libidos of the world.  I mean it.  Eventually I'll even become self-conscious about it and then where can I hide?  This blog is already where I go to hide from the rest of the world.

Anyway, Ladytoa saw a picture on the internet (where pictures live these days, after all.) that essentially said "Chivalry isn't dead, it just followed where ever 'Being Ladylike' went."  This led me to thinking.  Unfortunate as that may be for all of us about why those two concepts present a problem in this day and age.  As always, I blame the children.

People are so damned concerned with not being labelled that they do things just to be contrary.  Or get offended when offered help.  Like trying to be polite is somehow a backhanded insult because a lady could never possibly open her own door, or lift that heavy thing or stand on the subway when your ass is in a perfectly good seat.

You know what, though, women of the world?  I don't care.  I know that you're perfectly capable of all of those things.  In fact, I'd be willing to bet cold hard cash that you could probably perform any of those deeds way more efficiently than could I with my floppy noodle arms and waves of vertigo that assault me when I think of anything other than Cheetohs.

However, just because you can do a thing doesn't mean that you should have to do that thing.

Thanks for the wisdom, Dr. Malcolm.

(the above bad joke brought to you by...Jurassic Park.  Back in theaters, in 3D!)

Now, the thing is I understand that these ideas are pretty firmly rooted in a sexist view of the world.  You know the one.  The one that says women need to be protected and that you should treat them nicer than you treat other men, because.  Well, because of ladies that's why.

Now here's the thing (you knew there was a thing.  There's always a thing with me.  Sometimes it has to do with Thomas the Tank Engine, sometimes it has to do with my love of black cherry gelato.  You can never tell with me.  I'm a wild man) - I understand that there's no reason for this behavior except for the fact that the other people in this equation are women.  I know that and I'm ok with it.  Because it's polite.  Because even though the implication is there if you look for it (not too hard, mind you but you still have to look a little) that these poor, frail girls couldn't handle it on their own we all know that isn't true.  But it's still nice and it's still how you're raised.

Now this wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that some of the people in the world go around looking to have fights.  And if those people were looking to have fights just to have an excuse to sing "Anything you can do, I can do better" that would be fine.  But most often, these same people who complain when you hold a door are the same people who complain that "real, polite gentlemen" don't exist anymore and that the world has been populated by barely-sapient pigs.

You know the ones.

But you can't realistically complain about a behavior disappearing when you are also simultaneously complaining that the behavior objectifies you and you hate it.

I, for one, do my best to be a gentleman.  It requires a little forethought and forces you to be courteous when you would maybe rather be selfish.  I would also say that rather than denigrating women and their valuable contributions to society that trying to treat them well in general is done as a mark of honor and respect.

Of course, thanks to the 1990's telling us that men and women are from different planets and will never, ever understand each other in any useful way (with the possible exception of full-on, nasty rage-sex) I don't think we'll ever defeat this impasse.  So, we'll just end as we began.  Do I for real hate women?  Of course not.  But I remain (and am proud, in this very specific case only, to be.) Markatoa, Closet Misogynist.

The Neverending Story is a Trainride through my Nightmares

Yeah, Internet, you read that sentence correctly.  Yes, I know it's a beloved children's classic that is supposed to teach you the power of...I don't know, love?  Stick-to-it-iveness?  Teamwork?  Who the hell cares what it's trying to be preachy about?  Not me, because every damn scene in that film is designed to take a child's soul, tear it into a million pieces, light those pieces on chemical-fueled fire and then poop on them to smother the oxygen.

And I know what you're about to say - "Markatoa, in the more civilized portions of the world we pee on things to put out the fires."  Well, you're wrong.  There's nothing civilized about the Neverending story.  It's an insane world of barbarians at the gate, constantly straining to get into the Rome of your heart and sack the hell out of that shit.  That's right - Neverending Story is the Visigoths of the children's movie world.

Falcor hates your soul.  

How can I say these things and actually mean them?  That's simple.  Two reasons, really.  We'll tackle the first one first.  Fact number one - the movie is a lie.  It ends.  It ends after like 102 minutes, which is hardly "never".  It's not even long enough that the ability to measure its length becomes meaningless.  Nope, a simple one hour and forty two minutes, then nothing.

Now, I've heard apologists say that while the "movie" ends, the story that it represents is a truly cyclical tale of personal growth and as such it can never be said to begin or end (it's so deep) and that just this one tiny snapshot is shown.  Because it only effects the one person and the story is really happening inside all of us.  Or some other bullcrap.  And you know what, hippy?  That sounds all nice and placating but at the end of the day you're just making crap up to feel better about the fact that some director pulled the wool over your eyes and you'll never get that time back.

The second, and far more disturbing reason, is that the whole goddamned movie, and I mean the whole thing, is predicated on and pretty much solely about dongs and children.  It's a film that exists just to put kids and penises together in a way that won't get those responsible incarcerated for the rest of their lives.

Seriously, go to a park right now (do not do this).  One that has children playing in it (seriously, don't do what I'm about to say.  It's a bad idea).  And just in a conversational, somewhat jolly tone say "Would anyone like to ride my furry luck dragon?" (disclaimer - if you did not listen to my first two attempts to tell you not to do this, you will be beaten and pepper sprayed).  Go ahead and try it.  I dare you.  You'll end up in jail being rogered by a lifer sooner than you can say "I meant that literally."

And don't even get my started on that oddly phallic turtle thing.  The one that just sprays its manjuice all over unsuspecting kids?  You know the one.  Sure, they call it a "sneeze" in the script.  That's how they got it past the censors.  But you show a dick shaped thing spraying a sticky white substance on anyone in any other movie and you're getting an X rating.

Who thought any of this was a good idea, and to what purpose?  Not that author of the book who asked that his name be removed from the credits.  Is it some sort of secret mid-80's code to the children of the world that some day they're just going to have to grin and bear it while the dongs of the world grease them up and use them?  Just don't worry about it, it happens to everyone eventually because the whole world exists to do nothing other than eff you?  Possibly in the "a"?

Don't get me wrong, there's a valuable life lesson there to the my wives of the world. Just get through it, because in the end everything in this seemingly neverending marriage is about my privates.

I suppose in the spirit of full disclosure I should mention that I haven't watched this movie in like 24 years and it's ever so slightly possible that my memories are a little fuzzy and jaded.  But probably not.

Crass Consumerism out to get your momma.

There are times when I wonder why we, as a country (we being the United States of America in this instance), are so fat.  I mean we've got wide open plains and mountains and whatnot.  We can run and jump and climb trees.  I live in a not-huge suburban town and there are no fewer than four gym/health clubs within two miles of my house.  This should not be a thing that is a gigantic worry, but it is.

And during my recent attempts (successful thus far) at losing weight and becoming shapes I have come to a realization.  A realization that people throughout the rest of the world have probably come to before me but which reverberated down into the bottom of my soul.  It nested there and then spread throughout the various other layers of body and soul - ba and ka and kidneys.  The thing I realized is this:  America is, as they say, straight trippin', boo.  And that is a thing that they're still saying.

Now, you might think that with our correct reelection of the President (ooooh, Politics) that we as a people no longer "be tripping" but you would be wrong.  Wronger than literally every move that monkey made when I tried to teach him Parcheesi.

It's a simple goddamned concept.  Stupid monkey.

I ran into a situation not too long ago where the world was literally attempting to make me a fatter person.  Like somewhere, in a room there was a group of people dedicated to making everything about my life less healthful.  Not even that group that tries to tell me that smoking is cool or that it doesn't hurt to be "a little addicted" to meth.  Nope - it's a group of people in the food service industry.  And they can suck it.

Every day during my lunch hour, I take a walk down to a local franchise eatery.  Since I've been trying to lose the weights I transitioned to the point of having a "roasted chicken salad".  Then I walk back to work.  Total caloric balance for those playing along at home? Intake of about 150 kC, output of approx 340 kC as of my most recent measuring (this past Monday).

This fine day, the young lady who works the counter advised me that the cost of my salad had gone up.  Ok, whatever.   I can get that.  It wasn't a huge increase, and really why bother complaining?  I'm still getting out and exercising, at least a little bit.  Right? Right.  Well, then she tells me that I can save some money by buying the double meat version of the salad.

Wait...this place which advertises itself as the more healthy alternative to fast food would like to encourage me to eat pretty much twice the calories of what I intend to put in my body?  Why could this be?  Do these diabolical madmen want me to eat more calories just so my weight loss goals are harder to attain?  Then, I'll keep eating there since it's the only "healthy" alternative?

I get selling in volume or giving people a slight discount to make a "meal" instead of buying things a la carte.  I do, I accept that as a thing that happens.  But what can be the business decision here?  You are providing me less of a product.  Less of a product that is of the same kind and quality as your other offerings and yet you would like me to pay you more for the benefit of you keeping more of your product to sell to your other customers?  And if I wanted to eat that much meat on a sandwich it would cost me extra?

Has the entirety of the food world gone all topsy-turvy?  Become peopled solely by the most insane minds that could claw their way into positions of corporate governance?

Never mind.  I guess we all knew the answer to that.

I managed not to strangle the poor girl, but only just.  I know that some of you are probably thinking "why not just buy the cheaper salad and not eat all the meat?"  and while that's a valid thought process and sound argument (I suppose) it misses the point.  And the point is, I wanted to complain.  I wanted to complain in a place that I own and where there is literally no accountability whatsoever.  A place where I can complain in my underpants without my wife reminding me that company is coming over tonight.  (Yes, I am writing this at work.  My boss yelling at me is totally different than my wife harping on me about covering my hang down.)

And for that, as in so many other ways in my life...Mission Accomplished.

God Created Holidays to Test the Faithful.

Or maybe that's Dune.  I don't know.  I can never tell.  In either one, though, there's some crazy people with weird all-seeing blue eyes just looking to straight up destroy us.  Which, when you think about it is sort of weird.  I mean, blue eyes in the desert?  That seems like just a bad plan - I get that the Spice is making them more sensitive to the future, but also...more sensitive to light?  On a planet that's pretty much always bright?  Good job there, Shai-hulud.  Praise the Maker indeed.

(and no, photophobic increase in light sensitivity is not a myth.  The myth is that you're more likely to experience permanent damage due to bright lights if you have lighter colored eyes.  God, read a book.  Internet.)

Anyway, in a topic that's probably not entirely related to the struggles of Arrakis - the Holidays.  See?  I brought it back there.  After only like two paragraphs, too.  I'm getting better at this.  So - if you're in North America (like I am) or even more specifically the United States (again, like I am) you will have noticed something of late.  Something dark.  Something sinister that waits for you to show the slightest moment of weakness.  Something a lot like this tubby bastard.

You can tell he's evil.  He's smoking the pot.

The day after Halloween this year, I noticed that as stores were in the process of throwing out their plastic headstones and "bleeding" candles and whatnot that in their place they were proudly starting to display their Christmas decorations.  What what WHAT?  Christmas decorations in November?  Early November, no less?  The hell you say.  THE HELL.

I had a conversation that sounded a lot like that the other day with a member of my hilarious cast of housemates (remember them?  I know I do.)  Housemate A was upset because they were cheapening the Christmas spirit, and commercializing the holidays while even cheapening the awesomeness that is Thanksgiving, which is also too commercial these days what with all the parades and the shopping and such.

I mentioned to H-A that the only person she has to blame for things like that are shoppers who are willing to buy things so incredibly off season and patronize stores having Christmas sales this early.  She admitted that I was probably correct.  Which I was, because I'm gorram awesome.  I then told her that the simplest way to reverse this trend was if all of the people who wanted to loudly complain about this problem in person and on Facebook (which is where the 21st century goes to complain and literally do nothing else. EVER.) 

To which she responded..."but I like sales."

BAM!  Woman, you are the exact problem that you're in the process of complaining about.  And not in that way where "if you're not part of the solution, you're a part of the problem"  or "if you're not with us you're against us" or "fifty-four forty or fight!" or any of the other great propaganda slogans used throughout history.  I mean that you are the literal cause of people extending the holiday shopping season.  You spend your money and then ask them to make it so you don't need to wake up at 3:00 am on the Friday after Thanksgiving...and when they do you bitch.

As much as I love my friends and appreciate the fact that my hilarious cast of housemates allows me to continue to, ya' know, not be homeless, I find it ironic that people demand to have their needs met and then complain loudly when people are providing them a service they asked for.  

It's for reasons like that that Santa Clause has retreated deeper into his subterranean layer, forcing his elves to make ever more complicated toys (and also death rays) for the day that he rises up to take back the day that was his but has been hijacked by ingrates.  One day soon, he'll hitch up the reindeer and lay waste to the entire world in just one night.  Because, after all, the spirits can do it all in one night.

I have completely lost control of anything resembling a coherent narrative at this point. Which is, I'm sure, the problem with sitting down and talking about Santa Clause when I should be doing work.  But if I don't talk about Santa then I'm way more likely to get coal.

Deep in the Sounds of Silence.

Not the Dr. Who villains (spoiler alert - they don't like sound).  Not even in the manner of a classic Simon and/or Garfunkle song.  No, I just mean general silence.  Silence like not posting on my blog terribly often.

I know that no one in the world is terribly concerned with that silence, but I am going to comment on it nonetheless.  As it turns out, Internet, I have feels.  I have feels that I feel very deeply at times.  Sometimes these feels amount to what therapists and other medical whatnot folk refer to as "depression".

I mean, not like I'm horribly self-abusing or anything.  But I have had a hard time finding the jokes in life, and there have been some serious issues going on in my headspace that require actual things to be said to actual people.  Sadly, since the entire purpose of this blog was to make sure it was only seen fleetingly and accidentally by the world at large, it's not like this is a thing that I can appeal to for help for well-intentioned strangers who are willing to listen to my problems.

Also, the person who I would mostly talk to these sorts of issues with has been acting sort of like a douchehorse so I don't really want to have that conversation with him.

Anyway, point being - if you are one of those accidental viewers who sometimes found my crappy posts to be at least vaguely amusing I apologize for my absence.  Hopefully soon I'll be back in the world and telling ever more ridiculous thoughts that exist in my brainpan.

Governments of the world, prepare your watchlists!

That's right, ladies and gentlemen - Markatoa is back and with far less of those namby-pamby "feelings" or self-reflections that seem to be all the rage these days.  Self reflection is the exclusive purview of high quality hotels wherein the champagne is cold and the ceilings are made of mirrors from here on out.  (That's not entirely true - sometimes also the walls are mirrored.  Also, thinking is often pretty fun.  But let's not let facts get in the way of what we've got going on here, shall we?)

I spent most of this morning engaged in activity that I can only assume will end up having my employers internet provider flag us as possible terrorist threats and lead to me being taken away in the night.  What did I do, you ask?  Watch Al-Jezeera while streaming video of us burning the flag?  No.  I don't speak Arabic and well that other part is just a little declasse.  Especially when not used as a legitimate form of peaceful protest/resistance.  But especially especially in my work office.  Because people would notice, and then I would be the one fired.  Instead of the flag.  It was...an admittedly bad joke.

America disapproves of crappy humor.

Annnyway, it is neither of the above things that will have the FBI watching me like I was this weeks new episode of Friends circa 1995.  Nope.  It's the fact that I sat down at my desk today and the first thing I did was start looking up things about how to create home made smoke bombs and (very minor.  tiny, even) explosives.  I saw my google search history and realized that this is what psychos and really bad terrorists and people in movies do.  (The people in movies do it so that later the "hero" who is "computer savvy" can do two and a half seconds of "detective work" to out the bad guy.  In addition to which, air quotes.)

In my defense, I was looking for (and found) a relatively cheap and non-toxic way to produce practical smoke effects.  Why?  Because of reasons, that's why.  And also Halloween, I suppose.  But mostly reasons.  It felt like it would be a fun thing to learn how to do and that way, if successful I can always throw the smoke grenade at my feet and vanish into the night like a surly, fat, nearing middle age ninja.  Which is notoriously the most dangerous type of ninja.  People always expect svelte assassins who look like they have a commitment to the gym, or at least not needing a breather after eating a few Cheetohs.  Which is awesome for me, because they're far less on their guard when they see the jolly, jowly dude just creeping up on them with a "shucks, ya' got me" look.  They're more likely to think I'm simple.  Or playing an obscure game of hide and seek the rules of which remain obfuscated to the casual player.

Then...BAM...fat ninja killed.

I have realized that talking about how I would like to ninja-murder people and use my smoke bombs to escape is not making this sound more innocent.  I'm just going to quit here, while I'm ahead.  Mostly ahead, anyway.  My point being, if I suddenly disappear and cease all of the communications ever - I'm in a lightless cell, probably being waterboarded.

On the plus side, if that doesn't happen...homemade chemistry experiment smoke.  I'll report on my success/failure and my starring role in the United States Federal Penitentiary System depending on what happens next.  Stay classy, Internet.

I thought about being serious, once.

It just didn't take.  Ok.  It might have, at least a little bit.  But then during the work day it's so hard to stay focused.  I mean, really, if I can get away with writing crap like this and get paid in actual, American dollars (or at least data sent to my bank that represents actual American dollars) for it what incentive do I have to make this blog have a coherent point?

The answer, of course, is none.  I had a thought once upon a time - also known as a couple of months ago - of setting myself one of those ridiculous internet goals.  Instead of, say, cooking everything in Julia Child's the Art of Cooking and letting the world know about its effect on my love life I was going to do a movie review blog.  Because if there's one thing I love (other than my wife and family, of course) it's watchin' movies.  Sweet, sweet movies.

The idea was to dedicate some of my time to this hobby and actually put together a blog-thing that would have features like actually being edited and coherent (mostly) along with providing if not a vital service at least some sort of value.  My idea was to write a blog that would involve the watching and reviewing of 100 movies.  A mix of classics, Netflix finds, art films and present big-screen blockbusters.

I think I could watch 100 movies in a year.  I don't know that I could convince Ladytoa to do the same.  Who knows, maybe it will be my New Year's Resolution blog.  If nothing else, it can help keep my critical eye and my pimp hand strong.  Not as strong as Luke Cage's, but who's is?

The answer to that is no one, Internet.  No one will ever have a pimp hand stronger than Power Man.  Deal with that reality.  It's ok to be second best to Luke Cage.  No one is judging you for it.  Except possibly your girlfriend who wishes you were that awesome.

Wow - a whole post without too much incredible randomness.  Do we take this as a sign of growth or of the fact that work this morning has attempted to squeeze my brain out of my ears and I just don't have the energy to actually think in my normal fashion?  I don't know, yet.  But I'm interested to find out.

There's something off about Yummy Mummy

The other day in a store, I was saddened (as I am every year) by the discontinuation of the Yummy Mummy cereal brand.  I mean, don't get me wrong, the passing of the Fruit Brute always tugs on the old heart strings as well, but...Yummy Mummy, man.  Yummy frickin' Mummy.

The poor guy.  He's just stuck there, damned to walk the Earth forever, dispensing deliciously cursed treats to the children of the world but never able derive any enjoyment from them.  No amount of strawberry banana marshmallows will ever fill the hole left in his heart since The Incident. They turn to ash in his mouth and the milk they swim in transforms into bitterest blood. (Yes, I like to assume that all cereal mascot characters have something in their backstory that can only be referred to as "The Incident".  Don't even ask about Snap, Crackle and Pop.  Your mind would be blown.  I don't judge you, and expect the same courtesy in return.)

I might have mentioned in passing to Ladytoa that if they brought that back every year for Halloween that I would be, and I quote, "All up in a bowl of Yummy Mummy's business."  I might have added a "Like whoa" to that statement for emphasis, but I don't honestly recall.  For our purposes today, we'll assume I did not.  If later fact checkers prove me to be mistaken I will happily take full responsibility.

My wife got upset at this statement.  And I don't mean in that simmering way that wives are always upset (you know what I'm talking about, gentlemen.  It's cool.  You can pretend you don't while they're in the room watching you read this but you know. You always know.) and just waiting for a chance to pounce at a sign of weakness.  I mean she was legitimately bothered.  Like I did something horrible and shook a baby or mistook a local funeral for an underground "food rave" (again. She puts up with a lot, my wife).

I thought that she was messing with me.  Who in their right mind can actually be upset about Yummy Mummy?  People the world over love things that are Yummy.  Yum! Brands, Rachel Ray and others build their whole damned brand identities on it.  And Yumminess, make no mistake, is implicit in the mandate of the Yummy Mummy.  But, no.  She was for real offended by it.

Could it be that she's bothered by the fact that Mummies might have something to do with ancient Egyptian paganism and therefore they're not appropriate for children cereals?  I suppose it's possible, except for: A)the woman loves things based on ancient Egyptian paganism.  Like books.  And Kittens.  And Senet (looks like it's back to the House of Repeating Life for you, scummy) B) We don't have any children to worry about exposing to such things C) She's never expressed repulsion at Harry Potter, or comic books or Mega-Dino-Ultra-Laser Jesus -an invention of mine that will bring people roaring back to the Church.  The kids love lasers.  The fact that I have no real interest in bringing people to Church has no bearing on my love of lasers.  and D) that's an absolutely stupid thing to worry about.  If crap like that offends you, explain to your kids why it's not appropriate and make sure they have the information to make their own decisions while secretly hoping that they'll follow your way of thinking.

Well, it turns out not so much.  This is a thing that people in other parts of the world (not the Northeastern United States.  Mostly in the Commonwealth of Nations) call young ladies with children.  Young ladies with children that you might like to get to know in a sexy way.  What kind of a sick bastard takes something pure and innocent and already cursed to walk the earth in abject loneliness and turns it into this:

I assume she has at least 900 children.  Bonus points for a "Chav" Calendar though

I admit a certain amount of confusion even so.  Someday, if there is to be a little Markatoa or Markatoette the mummy in question will be my wife.  So if I want to talk about being all up in there where's the harm?  It already would've happened or someone has some 'splainin to do when it comes to those kids.  Maybe not the most romantic way to phrase it, and probably not a thing that needs to be talked about in public (haHA.  Take that, it's all on the Intertron now.) but can you let it ruin your love of childhood sugar memories?  I don't think that you should.

Pump the brakes, Parents of the World.

Say it with me now, Parents.  "I love my kids."  "I want the best for my children."  See?  That wasn't so hard, and I even believe you when you say it.  Now, I want you to repeat after me, or at the very least admit the following sentence deep down in the subsurface crevices of your soul.  Those dark, seedy places where you want to have someone call you by your Mom's name in bed or wake up with a stranger in your mouth on Date Night.  You know the ones I mean?  (You sick bastards.  No, really, that's just off sides.)  Down there where no one will ever see or hear what you have to say outside of a therapists couch or a bar stool, make the following admission. "My job is to get them successfully to the age of 18 with as little emotional damage as possible."

Not zero damage.  Not provide them with  a bucolic life filled with nothing but splendor and endless gold coins raining from the sky (although if you have that capability, my own life is kinda lacking in the gold coins department.  I tried to smash my head on bricks until coins came out.  It did not work.  You know what comes out of bricks when you headbutt them?  Concussions.)  Why do I bring this up to you right now?  Not because I've found out about any surprise children from my sordid past that have finally caught up with me after the last three states and four false identities - not that that sort of thing is ever likely to happen of course.  pay no attention to this blog post, The Man.  No, it's because far too often these days I see people who are so obsessed with being good parents that they're not letting their children actually be, well, children.

Neighborhood kid wants to babysit?  Not in this house - I only hire professionals who are at least neonatal emergency room nurses.  At least.  Preferably neonatal surgeons who come to the house and convert my kitchen into an operating theatre.  You know.  Like this guy.

Best surgeon ever?

Primarily this issue has come to be top of mind because I have a coworker who we can only refer to as Insaña.  This woman has a two year old daughter.  Yay!  Two year olds!  They're so cute, still relatively bouncy and will luckily never remember any of your horrible parenting from this time of their lives.  You have a totally valid excuse to come up with whatever bizarre parenting theories you want and try them out before they can cause irreparable damage to the tiny human in question.  Insaña, though, has decided that instead of trying to teach her child to communicate solely through Karate (that's mine, Internet.  Well, mine and Batgirl's dad's.  I would have referred to him by name, but it would've been confusing) she instead has taken the option of preemptively smothering the living hell out of this creature that she spawned.

She refuses to let her child play with other children outside of daycare, because they might be bad people.  She calls her daycare five times every day in order to verify exactly which teachers and children are being allowed to interact with her daughter and remind them exactly what words are acceptable to be said to the girl.  Oddly enough, she's pulled her daughter out of, or been asked to leave three centers before the current one.  But obviously that has nothing to do with her being full on Caligula-crazy.

Now, this is a bit of an extreme example but I see a lot of parents doing similar, if slightly less insane, things to protect their kids.  I get it.  I want kids to be safe too.  But I also want them to be human being when they grow up.  People who are raised solely by their parents without access to anyone else will just not be able to interact with the world at large when it's that time of their lives.  Like college.  Or work.  Or trying to find some sort of meaningful friendship (never mind any future romantic endeavors.  Because *damn* if you can't match that level of psychotic attention to my most minute desires, you can die in a fire.)

My point inasmuch as we can claim for there to be one is that life is simply wonderful.  It's a situation fraught with dizzying highs and truly abyssal lows.  Absolutely unmitigated beauty and heart-wrenching horror.  Eventually, some of that will get through your carefully modulated shields.  Someone will make fun of them when you're not around.  They'll need to get a job or talk to a snotty waitress without you there to back them up.  And if you haven't let them live at all for that first eighteen years, they will not at all know how to handle this situation.

I'm not saying to give your toddler a pointy stick, some wetnaps and a half-eaten sack of teething biscuits and drop them at the Hobo Camp by the train tracks but just understand there's a whole life out there.  It exists past your living room window and if you don't let them live at least a little bit of it, you're ultimately doing someone a disservice along the line.

I would like to point out, however, that hobotoddlers would be hella cute.  I might start abducting children to draw stubble on them and give them bindle sticks for my own personal amusement.  (Attention, governments of the world - when I say that I'm intending to start abducting children what I really mean is: I have no goddamned intention whatsoever of kidnapping anyone.  There.  Disclaimers managed)

I appreciate all the appreciatings.

I know.  I know.  I've done it again - I'm a month ahead of my holiday schedule.  Talking about Halloween in September and bringing what is clearly a Thanksgiving conversation into the mix today.  But ya' know what?  I don't care.  Maybe I'll mix the two things together.  Halloween/horror and Thanksgiving can never go poorly when mixed together.  Right? Right.  Observe:

If you haven't already, watch this movie.  I'll wait.

That picture right there represents all that is good and right in the world of giving thanks.  I may be making that up in order to fool you into watching it, but for now (and until you actually do watch it and curse my name) I stand by my previous statement.  The one thing about being thankful when it's not yet quite the Time of the Year for that sort of thing is that it doesn't matter.  You can be thankful whenever the damned mood strikes.  Although I will totally wear a pilgrim hat later.  To show my thanks.  Also, they're called Cockel hats officially speaking.  I learned that while looking to purchase one.  On the Internet.

Unlike some other things that I've been known to ramble about, I vaguely have a point this morning.  And that point is that I appreciate the heck out of my wife.  I appreciate her in the way that bull elephants appreciate...peanuts?  Lady elephants?  Lady Elephants that are suggestively laying down on a bed of peanuts?  (Note - I am not, in point of fact, comparing Ladytoa to an elephant.  That way lies madness and bruises on my face.  Because I'll likely fall down some stairs afterwards)

I am not what most people imagine when they hear the phrase an "easy man to live with".  Like many other people on this wonderfully spinning ball of mud I have issues and triggers and bs piled on top of my soul like toppings on a delicious Subway sandwich.  Sometimes, these things will cause me to explode in a bitter tsunami of self-recriminations and doubt.

My wife lives through these times, is kind to me and then (and this is the amazing part) comes back for more of me.  This broad likes me and that makes my entire life a better place to inhabit.  The thing is that every once in a while it really hits me how much what has to appear like the "simple" parts of being with someone really mean.  Just listening when you have a crappy day or holding your hand when the world decides it would rather zig than zag.

Because for all the grand gestures and surprise presents and lavish trips to exotic countries where virginal women will massage me with the finest quality oils redolent of the spices of far-off Araby (about which I am in no way complaining, let the record show) it's the simple kindnesses that make me feel at home.  Ladytoa - let me tell you - she gives good kindness.

Like other men have before and will after me, I sometimes find myself thinking "what have I done to deserve this person in my life?" (Except that I mean it in a good way.)  and I realize that the answer to that question is nothing, really.  Not to be down on myself but that's just not how the world works.  I can't just tally up my cool points in column "A" and if enough are present cash them in for sweet prizes from column "B" right?  Because if I could, I would totally have a mansion that had roller-rink floors.  Everywhere.  Changing floors? Ramps and Elevators.  And none of those hippy-dippy roller "blades" or whatever the kids are using these days.  Nope.  You wanna skate at my house you do it Old School.

No - it turns out that amazing wives are not handed out for skee-ball high scores or being able to trounce everyone at the local arcade at Mortal Kombat (those are still valid expressions of your manly teenage self-worth, yes?).  They are just a sort of universal mystery and the best you can hope to do is enjoy their company, try to be worthy of the continuation of the same and enjoy the ride.  And every once in a while let them know how much better they make your lives.

So, in the most publicly-private way the internet will allow, and with all the rambling for which you've come to know me, I just want to say thank you to my wife (who's real name is also a secret, but is not Ladytoa.).  You make my every day better, and there's no where in the universe I'd rather be than wherever you are.


Except maybe Cybertron.  Transformers are pretty bitching, after all.

Cybertronian wives.  Best of both worlds.

Holy Salty Cow-nipples! I'm profane!

Yes, obviously, some would argue.  I do not currently take place in the temple.  To you people who are using literal definitions of "sacred" and "profane" which have been out of vogue for a few centuries, bully.  But wouldn't you feel bad if this particular post was being written while I was hosting a black-light and soap-bubbles rave in the Aedes Iovis Optimi Maximi Capitolini?  Because that would be as sacred as Baby Jesus playing polo while mounted on the Apis Bull.

I'm not doing that, but it would be awesome and now I know the theme of my next Birthday Party.  It's defacing international landmarks and blacklight.  Mark your calendars.

What I mean by my profanity (this time) is that the adWords team has rejected my application.  See here if you're unaware of what I speak.  It would seem that the content of my blog violates their terms of service for profanity reasons.

I know I don't exactly censor myself too hard here, but I don't think there's a single word or photo on this blog to date that a fifth grader couldn't find for himself in three seconds.  Hell, they'd probably be worse and then show me pictures of some horrible, sweaty cat-man loving a wheel of cheese.  I'm sure that exists on the internet and that children would be able to find it before I finish this sentence.

Like this, but a million times worse.  Thanks, Cracked.com

Oh well.  I suppose I'll have to go back to gyrating my glistening self to the sad beats of stripper songs to make a little extra money.  My wife has habits that I need to maintain.  Expensive habits.  Baking habits.  And now, thanks to Google, I'll be slathering myself in oil again to put on the show no one wants to see but everyone has to watch.

Someone best be bleeding out the head

I admit it - I'm not what philosophers might call a complicated man.  In fact, it's like the song says, "Simple songs about simple things is what makes my Markatoa swing." (you didn't know that I knew Big Bad VooDoo Daddy, did you?  And if you recognized the above song, I promise I also do have eyes like an angel.  Smile like the devil?  Not so much.  I end up with a smug, ridiculous look of barely concealed condescension when I try.  I feel like the devil would be way more suave than I am)  Part of that simplicity is the belief that if someone is calling me at or after midnight on a day that I have work to go to the next morning that someone I know better be in the process of dying or being born.

Failing that, maybe a close friend who accidentally is calling or having a moment of crisis can be forgiven.  Maybe if you're down in Rio for Carnivale and some buxom lass has been feeding you booze and promising to do things to you that will make your family blush for a hundred generations in either direction if only you called your Norteamericano friends.  Those situations are acceptable.  In the case of the last (and admittedly incredibly unlikely.  I've met my friends - none of the mansome ones would really inspire intercontinental lust in pre-Lent Lascivious Latinas.  I told you I liked alliteration.  Also, most of them are married.) I might give someone a pass.  But only because I would seek sweet, sweet revenge on them.  Also, because if you sleep with that kind of girl the mouth-herpes that you get infested with are almost punishment enough.  Mouth.  Herpes.  Ladies and gentlemen of the internet, don't be that guy.

You know who never gets forgiven for that sort of behavior though?  No matter how much herpes they get? Ex goddamned wives.

This is what ex-wives look like, right?  It's not just mine...please?

Now, Markatoa, that seems oddly specific.  I can hear these thought-questions rumbling around in your web-soaked brainpans.  How?  Both because I am amazing and therefor know what you're going to say before you do...and also because it's incredibly specific and sort of an obvious question.  To that I say well done you.  You've unraveled my motives.  You can win a prize.  It's almost Halloween so it'll be a fun-size candy bar (Fun size candy bars are no one's idea of fun)

The other night, my ex-wife sent me a series of messages.  Once I cleared myself out of the dream addled haze that I found myself swathed in, my trembling hands grasped my phone.  I wondered what might have happened.  Did my mother have a slip and fall?  In-laws devoured by an elevator? A friend giving birth to a secret baby at the Prom and needs an out?  Nope.  As I clutch the phone in my hands and try to stop my heart palpitations I find that...some bands are playing somewhat nearby and she was thinking that maybe Ladytoa and I would like to go see them.  For serious, woman?  In the process of the divorce you lost: all access to me after bedtime, my prodigious knowledge of 1970-1995 in comic book lore and my not-inconsiderable skills as a lover. (Disappointing people is a skill.  It's on my resume and everything.)  It's not that I hate my ex wife.  She's pretty cool and all that.  It's not that I mind the idea of seeing bands.  I like bands.  It's just...well, damn...a little consideration, maybe?

Maybe it's just a sign of being old.  Maybe it has to do with the fact that along with me, everything else is constantly getting older.  I have concerns about family and friends that I would never have imagined being serious when I was younger.  A slip and fall?  That right there is comedy gold.  Especially if the person slips and falls into a giant novelty pie that was for some reason sitting on the ground.  Or like, the most gigantic whoopie cushion of all.  That would be pretty boss, actually.  Now I hear someone fell and I think of what hospital they'll be admitted to and who can care for them while they recover.  That's not a bad thing - I want my friends and family to be taken care, but it's a very different, pretty foreign set of concerns than I used to have.

I'm sure there was a time five or six or eight years ago when if someone texted me at Midnight I'd be all like "what?  the party's just getting started up.  just make sure you're here by like, 4:00 or so.  that's when these bastards start passing out."  But ya know what, Intertron?  I'm sure you know.  Mostly because I've said it before.  I'm not in my gorram 20's anymore and that sort of crud just doesn't fly.  The lesson here?  At least in my world (which is where you are when you come to look at this collection of default fonts and unedited layouts in a blogger.  My world is pretty limited in some ways.  But also filled with whimsy.  The world is like an autistic child's snow globe like that.  Ooooh) you think about what you're doing before you do it.  Unintended consequences are still consequences and saying "well, I didn't think about it" has never once been a successful defense in court.  Except when it will be in the future, when all jury decisions are reached by a panel of telepaths.

Two Men Enter, One President Leaves

Alright boys and girls.  Get ready, grab your popcorn, put your head down and let's get through this.  Today will include pretty much zero talk of anything that most people are interested in.  Or at least most people who accidentally wander into the mental killzone that is the Markatoa Triangle.  (So far, interestingly enough, only two sides of the Markatoa Triangle have been discovered and documented.  Where is the third?  Well, if you knew that you'd know far more about the world than anyone ever needs to.  Ever.)

For those of you who are outside of the United States or are inside them but just don't really care/fear that electricity is the devil and is not to be dealt with under any circumstances (in which case, how are you even reading this?  In your dreams - sandwiched in between that time you fled the chainsaw clown and that horrible thing you wanted to do with Rosario Dawson and some home churned butter - that's the Markatoa sweetspot right there.  You're welcome), tonight is the first of the American Presidential Debates.

For the love of all that is Holy, never search "Celebrity Butter" at work. 

This will be a night where we see two intellectual titans at the top of their respective games try their damn hardest to sound as bland and unoffensive as possible.  To take complicated matters of policy that many people are hungry to hear more about and distill them into "America is Great, and will be like, even greater if I get the big desk."  Seems counter-intuitive doesn't it?  Well, we can blame that on one of those things I mentioned disliking a long, long time ago (on the Internet anything longer ago than 43 seconds is statistically "long ago").  The American Two-Party system.

See, in a country the size and complexity of the United States does anyone really believe that all (or even most) points of view and policy positions can be boiled down into two visions?  Of course we don't.  It's a ridiculous thing to even contemplate and that's why we have socially-progressive, small-government Republicans and intensely conservative Democrats and all sorts of seemingly contradictory nutbags in between.

And big-tent style parties constrict people's thinking in a lot of cases.  They'll say "well, I like that my grandma has Social Security and is not eating cat food today, so I'll vote for this guy.  Democrats like Social Security, right?  Right.  So even though this particular person hates gay people and believes that everything on earth should be censored I think his party has my interests in mind more than the other guy."  It goes both ways, too.  "Gee - I sure do think that maybe we've been wasting a lot of our money as a nation lately.  And I sure hate the abortions.  Well, this guy here is Republican, so he ought to do everything I want.  Even though he fights his party on women's rights for which I passionately disagree with him."

The sad thing is, I think that if we were able to get over this whole thing and get a few more parties that could make a difference into the world, some functions of government would become smoother.  You know, if you had to work with other people and couldn't just have strict party-line majorities but were forced into compromise for the betterment of your fellows?  It's radical and amazing, I know.  But it's also how almost every company, group of friends and/or family ends up getting things done.  No one side gets every single thing that they want, but everyone gets enough to go forward.

Now - I know that the Intertron is filled with people who care intensely about this sort of thing and can't wait to tell me that I'm wrong.  So, go nuts, people.  I dare you.  I've seen that you're looking at this from time to time.  Didn't know that, did you?  Oh yeah...I saw you hear me.

Who knows, maybe one of you will even convince me the error of my ways and make me think the two-party system is the even more awesome than a chicken stuffed into a turkey stuffed with French Toast and baby's tears.  But I doubt it.  That was pretty much the best dinner I ever had.  Even if the tears took forever to collect.

Markatoa Sells Out!

Warning: the above statement is not a true thing that happened.  Unless, of course, it becomes true in the future.  I know that no one who reads this blog does so for my deep commitments to the Arts.  Except maybe that one dude.  You know, the 80 year old Art History professor who frantically tried to use the internet to prove to his Intro to Art class that he was "hip" and "with it" and that he "had his finger to the pulse of society" and then couldn't get his googlebookss to search anything but this page.  The poor bastard.  He, and his classes, have my deepest sympathies.  On the plus side, last I heard he had taken to projecting my awesome ramblings onto the walls of his classroom as a sort of commentary on post-modernism.  Study it hard, kids.  It's all going to be on the final.

That right there?  Also most likely untrue.  I can't really speak to it though, because now that I mentioned it I think it would be awesome so it might as well be my braintruth.  I should totally hire April O'Neil to investigate this.

Next on the docket?  The mystery of my pants.  

However, I do get a lot of things from Adwords telling me that I should sign up for having ads appear on my shiny, completely unrefined and stock-themed blogotubebot.  Because that's what the modern kids love these days - completely unpersonalized, stock crappy webpages.  (Needless to say, the kids these days have problems.)

Now, given the number of people who look at the crud that spills out of my mindfingers (those are like normal fingers, but controlled by my subconscious.  Or at least my stream of consciousness.  Also, you can blame them for typing all this stuff.  It weren't me.  It was the One-armed mindfinger.)  I have absolutely no dream about this replacing all the sweet, grubby, filthy luchre that my boss flings at me to dance and prance and every once in a while to do the job for which he initially hired me.  Which is way less sexy than my dances.  Ask my wife.  She loves it when I dance.  That and my amazing ability to make dinner and wash dishes afterwards (ladies) is why she married me.

I am, however, freakishly, frankly fascinated by the concept (not to mention alliteration.  It's one of my favorite things about language that's not onomatopeoeia; which ironically doesn't sound a damn thing like what it describes).  Mostly because all the things that they tell me include the fact that the ads will be targeted based on my blog's content and that all I need to do is keep writing to start raking in phat sacks of internet cash.  I can't help but wonder what that would look like.  Ads about Prince Phillip or SexRhinos (tm) or Ninja Turtle Porn and the CyberBritish?  I feel like it's almost my civic duty to have those ads appear if for no other reason than to see what kind of entirely asinine companies would pop up on the page.

And then possibly to patronize them.  Ladytoa will be quite sad if one of them provides Halloween Rhino Costumes, but at least I'll see one of my dreams fulfilled.

Point being in the near future, there may be ads.  And I may fuel my next binge on the revenue generated by all you sick bastards clicking on links for gods only know what.  If they end up not being as funny as I hope they'll be I'll take them down.  Because I'm a fickle bitch.

Oktoberdongfest.

For those of you who stayed past that horrible title, (for which I really apologize, but I just couldn't think of anything else to say.  You're lucky, this post was almost about my unreasonable and mostly unfathomable attraction to Christina Ricci.) thank you.  Also, you'll be happy to note this isn't actually a dong festival or anything.  Also also, for our foreign readers, dongs is a thing we here in America sometimes call penises.  I'd like to get it going so that they could be called Penii but I just don't have the support...yet.

I know, right?  It was a confusing time in a young man's life.

Now, in my defense it was sort of a childhood crush that developed with me as I grew older.  I mean, sure, her forehead could probably devour most of the third world and still be hungry for souls, but at the same time...ok, no.  We're done with this part of the conversation.  I remember that now.

Anyway...I did a thing last night.  Two things, actually.  First, I went to a place and paid a Korean woman cash money to touch my wife (hot) while I sat down and watched (hotter?) and read a book (maybe not so hot.  Fine, I admit it.  My wife got a massage while I held her purse.  Like a champ, though.  No purse has been better held in the history of things that have been held.)  After that was done and the lady was all nice and limbered up we wandered into the Lingerie Store.  I could tell you the name, but here at the place in the internet that's looked at by literally like five people (at best) it would be inappropriate to use my powers to sway the natural course of commerce that much.  My wife, you see, needed a new bra.

You'd think this a normal situation.  Boobs being any country's most valuable resource their care and maintenance is a vital National Security thing.  Anyway, within a step or nine of the door no fewer than four women offered to get really handsy with Ladytoa's chest region (I just came up with that name for her because I am hilarious.  If you have read this and figured out my secret identity, say nothing if you value your lives) ostensibly to "take her measurements" and "make sure she was comfortable."  Followed by a Bra Specialist - which is a job that actually exists and that I DO NOT HAVE which just shows the ultimate unfairness of all life - going into the fitting room with her so that they could try stuff on and see what worked and what didn't.

While I would be lying if I told you I wasn't amusing myself with sultry tales of the Fitting Room while they were gone (I was.  And they were good.  Like, I should totally write for Red Shoe Diaries if this was 1994 or whenever that godawful show was on good.  Daytime softcore porn Emmy good.  That's a thing, right?  And if it's not we should get Hollywood on that pretty much immediately) I couldn't help but just think of the huge difference between ladyshopping and manbuying.

I understand that this is a serious issue that can cause discomfort for the ladies and any discomfort of the sweet chestal vicinity needs to be minimized but I just cannot imagine for the life of me a situation in which men would just hang out with a stranger (Not even a friend or a bible camp counselor.  See you thought I was going to make a Catholic Priest joke.  And I would have, but it wouldn't be a joke.  Because it's a tragedy and also you were already thinking it, so why bother?) and chat while trying on undergarments and touching each other. (Note the above situational awkwardness depends on a certain level of heterosexuality and attention to the idea of personal space to become, well, awkward.  We'll say anything over 39% hetero will count and anything less than or equal to up to 97% communist.  I just made up those numbers but I stand by them firmly)

I don't mean a tailor fitting you for a suit or anything like that.  I mean, dude walks into a store to buy a jock strap or even some boxers and some other guy walks up with a tape measure and says "Hi there, I'm John Thomas, may I measure your dong for comfort?"  I just don't see that going over very well.  Assuming there was no immediate violent reaction and the measurements got taken, I feel like a man would say thank you, and take his options with him into the fitting room and then make his own damned decisions about how he was or wasn't enjoying the package wrapper at issue here.

You better get the extender, Johnny.  I'm kind of a big deal.

I certainly wouldn't be comfortable with someone else (of any gender, actually) coming with me and then trying to help me adjust my genitals.  I mean those are my personal business that exist only between me and my closest friends.  They're not for you, stranger. I've lived with these bad boys for 30+ years of my life, through good times and bad (Looking at you, High School!). I'm fairly certain that I know when they're being pinched or restricted.

I know, I know.  There is a difference between breasts and Penii.  There better be, or I've been doing this all wrong for years.  It would explain some of the confused looks and divorces I get from time to time, though.  Further investigation is obviously warranted.  But when a young lady has gotten, ya know, in that situation.  A boob situation, as it were, you would think that she would understand how it all goes.  I trust like 97% of all ladies to know what's comfortable and what's painful when it comes to their own bodies.

Is it a perceived customer service issue?  Is it because when you're spending like $60-$100 on a single item of lace and wire (sometimes) they want to go the extra mile so you feel like you weren't taken advantage of? I just don't know...but I can't for the life of me consider how any other undergarment purchase would make sense to do this with.

So far, I have received zero comments from people who are not me.  While my opinion is obviously amazing (why else would you be treating your eyespaces to all the glory that my words transport into your very brains?) I wonder sometimes if I'm wrong or people have alternate thought-processes.  (I do not really think that since my thoughts are the best goddamned thoughts.)  Let's have one of those healthy discussions.  Maybe some of the ladies would like to tell me why it's not weird at all for a stranger to violate their breast orbit?

I'll be back soon, Internet.  Sooner than you'd like and with all sorts of things to talk about.  Maybe Christina Ricci things, if you're not lucky.

**EDIT** - Dammit! Dongtoberfest!!! How could I have missed that?  Oddly enough, that came to mind while I was supposed to be fixing a pretty major mix-up at work.  Don't worry, though, only 14% of my job function requires anything that could possibly impact your life, gentle reader.

This is Halloween.

Yes.  Ok.  I know that it's really the end of September.  I get that, people.  I can read date stamps also as it turns out.  Not well, nor with any depth of true understanding for the metaphor they represent or anything, but I can get the very surface level message that today is September the 27th.  (If you can read further into the mysteries surrounding date stamps, don't hoard your knowledge.  Share, man.  Share.  There's a whole world out there waiting to unlock your forbidden secrets.  Maybe we can get to Shangri-La or something)

Or Something.

...and with that out of the way, I think we're all better off.  Don't you?  I mean, if you've actually read anything that I've posted (and if you're not interested in being all up in my life-biz why would you?  People are talking about important stuff out there.  Like national debts, and how best to prepare a sautee of endangered species) you know how this works by now - I write a paragraph or two and then put up some variety of picture.  Sometimes funny, mostly non sequitur.  If this is your first rodeo here in the land of Markatoa, strap in, son.  It only gets bumpier from here.

I have a legitimate love for this season.  I'm not sure entirely why.  Maybe it has something to do with the perfectly crisp weather before we get into the harshness of winter.  Maybe it has to do with the joy of watching people be excited about dressing up and playing games?  Maybe it's the fragile, fleeting hope - soon dashed - that this year, finally this year will be the time I see some poor girl just trying her hardest and dressed as sexy rhinoceros or, even better, a Sultry Social Conservative.  One would be hilarious because I have to imagine it's the result of someone who just doesn't quite understand what is and is not sexy.  Like a person who was raised by wolves or something (or me.  I have no idea on earth what makes dudes desirable.  I know that I have enough of it to make my wife stay around though.  Hint: it's not money.  I don't have a lot of that at all).  The other would just be a great mind-blowing costume when you get right down to it.  Crazy do-me shoes and just straight up advertising that she shags like a minx, but only within the confines of a sanctified, legal marriage which she believes should be between one man and one woman.  You'll never catch her, Halloween Party Guy.  No matter how hard you try.  That broad is like the unicorn of holiday party hookups.  Happy hunting.

None of that had anything to do with the point I was trying to make.  Nearly 0% of it moves anything along.  I told you it would get bumpy, kids, and I meant it.  My point is that I love me some Halloween.  I think it's one of those few things that Americans (and maybe Canadians.  Who can tell?  Those seal-lovers have maple syrup where their souls ought to be) never quite outgrow and that makes it pretty amazing.  When you're a kid you like to go all-out, get a costume go Trick or Treating until the sun comes up and your parents are almost frantic with worry that you're not home yet.  You get a little older?  Casual vandalism, candy.  Great Pumpkin.  Slightly older than that you hit that one rough patch everyone seems to where they're too jaded to enjoy anything, but like a year later?  Bam - looking forward to seeing kids and passing out candy.  Maybe go to a party and get all jiggy with it (in my head that means getting black out drunk while you hope none of the adults know what you're doing.  I have no clue what Will Smith might have meant but I like to think it's the same).  Then you just get to age gracefully with the holiday.  Watch some movies, give out candy to cute kids and surly teenagers.  Maybe go to a haunted graveyard for a seance/wait for the Great Pumpkin.  Whatevs.  It doesn't change the fact that almost everyone can find something to enjoy about Halloween and that is the best thing ever.  You can't bitch that it's too commercial now, man.  Because it's always been commercial since the dawn of time.  Druids were known to put little clingy spiders all over their Henges.  For real - look it up.

Ok, don't really look it up.  I might have just lied to you.

While I sit here avoiding talking to my boss I think I've finally understood the thing that I love most about Halloween, though.  I've had, as Bob Hoskins did before me, an apostrophe.  (RU...FI...OOOOOO!)  Halloween is the one time of year that you get an amount of joy that is exactly commiserate with the amount of effort you put into it.  Wanna sit at home and pass out candy?  Maybe catch a movie?  You're in the zone.  Want to decorate your house and scare the poop out of youngsters?  Well, get on it, sparky.  Those pants aren't going to shite themselves.

There is no other Holiday (on the American calendar, at least) where you can say the same.  Thanksgiving - someone is doing all the work for the joy of a lot of other people.  Yeah, you can be happy that people are enjoying themselves but it's still way more work than one dinner should require.  Christmas?  Forget about it.  That is the most wonderfully stressful time of year.  Getting the right gifts, worrying about money and making sure you don't offend people with lack of cards or presents or visits.  It's downright exhausting.  In a good way, but it is.  Don't try to deny it.  Arbor day?  Blow me, Arbor Day.  Nobody likes you anyway.  Not even hippies since to them every day should be Arbor Day.  And also Whale Saving Day and Let's-all-be-Vegan Day.

But Halloween, man.  It's entirely voluntary and so you get exactly the level of participation and joy that you want.  And that, my friends, is sexier than a girl in a Rhino suit.

Or is it?  

 

What's up with that Jesus guy, anyway?

So here I am.  Being at work.  Doing work things (like listening to songs about superheroes and thinking about what my sweet Halloween movie marathon is going to include.  Current thoughts?  Originals/Remake double features.  Halloween, Nightmare, Friday the 13th.  Chainsaw Massacre?  If there's time.  I'd consider House of Wax, but have you actually watched the travesty that is the Paris Hilton version?  I wanted to vomit my eyes at the screen so that the filmmakers would have to taste the ocular jelly of my distaste.  Live with that sentence).  Naturally I start thinking about Yom Kippur, which is today for those of you who don't know.

Almost made the whole thing worth it.  Almost.

I am not (to some people's vast disappointment) Jewish.  It's ok, I've made peace with that long ago.  With the help of my therapist and the ability to eat meat and dairy at the same time without fear of damnation I have soldiered on.  Kippur thoughts led me to think about Lent, followed generally about the theory of institutional penitence.  During my vague wonderings I came across a comment on CNN and couldn't tell if it was brilliant satire or an honest belief.  Someone, in response to the question "what do you atone for?"  responded by saying "I don't need to atone for anything.  Jesus Christ has already atoned for every bad thing I have ever done or ever will."

Look, I'm all for folk believing that Jesus Christ did his thing to "take away the sins of the world" (those aren't sarcasm quotes.  those are quote quotes.  People say that at church.  Sometimes in the form of catchy songs in four-four time) but can you really, honestly say that you have never done anything wrong because 2,000 years ago a walking man/god hybrid did something to help symbolically cleanse sin from the planet?  I don't think it works like that. Maybe it would if we were talking about the Endless Calm and finally "Defeating Sin" or otherwise attempting to shoehorn a Final Fantasy X reference into the conversation. We're not doing that, though, so if you do believe that what are the limits?

I just shot this dude, but it's cool.  Jesus says I don't have anything to feel bad about.  Because he made it, like, preemptively cool for me to do some murders.  Sure, Your Honor, I engaged in a little bit of light genocide with a side order of racial cleansing (not always the same thing, people).  Do I feel bad?  What kinda hippy crap is that?  Why would I?  Work to change?  Heck no, Your Honor.  My boy J-dubs says we're all cool and the gang over here.

You know who says crap like that?  Psycopaths.  Sometimes people do bad things, and you know what?  You ought to feel ashamed of them and let that shame make you a better person.  I think that (please note: I am not myself religious and you may completely ignore my opinion as being ill-informed if you'd like) religions, any of them, are at their best when they attempt to ennoble the human spirit.  To cause people to strive to do good and to be better.  Whether it's because they want to emulate someone they really think was groovy back in the day or even if it's the more mercenary thought of being rewarded for being sweet as hell here on Earth.  Whatever the motivation, it can be a positive, uplifting factor.

Then there are people who just do it wrong and use it as an excuse for every ridiculous behavior they can think of.  Sadly, these people tend to be the loudest.

Alright - I'm done now.  For now, anyway.  Because I'm at work and should be doing work things. I'm sorry, I didn't even really try to make with the funny this morning.  I told you that would happen sometimes.  This is one of my rants.  Now you too have experienced it.  tell your friends. Or don't.  Since, you know, it's a secret and whatnot.  Either way.  Maybe tomorrow will be more chuckletastic.  You might even have a chucklegasm.  If you're lucky, and somewhat patient. 

Chuckling is a tender though demanding lover.

There and back again and there again.

I know a lot of nerds.  Let's just get that out of the way right now.  If there were some variety of "social graph" of my life (one not owned by Facebook for its attempt to sell me gaudy jewelry or play crappy games) it would, I think, be a pie chart.  Why?  Because, pie, you goddamned heathens.  Pie is delicious, sometimes not filled with arsenic or unexpected dead animals, and charts things nicely.  In this Pie Chart that is my life, like 95% of my friends would be solidly nerd-green.  (Green?  Yes.  Like Arrows, Lanterns, decently readable Hulks, Godzillas, and soylents.  No, I do not know what a pluralized form of soylent would be.  It's a made up word.  Get off my case about it, The Man!)  The remaining five percent would be my mother.  And then my wife's parents.  That's about it, really.  I don't get out much.  You can probably tell that because I'm claiming to be famous to an empty room that may be accidentally glanced at by strangers on their way to see new and exotic boobs.

Why bring this all up?  Because there are times when I find myself turned off by things that should make my nerdy little heart sing.  Things like three. goddamned. Hobbit movies.  Seriously, Hollywood?  Three movies?  There are not enough pages in that book to justify that much movie.  Let alone making it darker and more gritty or whatever the hell they're attempting to do with it.  Yes.  I know that technically they could be taking information out of the various appendices and whatnot and filling out  the world (and that this is the alleged tactic that they're using).

The information isn't a part of the narrative, though.  It's somewhat interesting "this was going on in the rest of the world" fluff that the author essentially invented to explain the change in tone between the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings.  It's cool.  It's interesting if you're a somewhat obsessed lore-junkie (I am.) but that doesn't make it captivating film.  Sorry, Mr. Jackson.  I think you're pretty awesome.  The Frighteners was the bee's knees and all, but I just can't get excited about it.  I want to watch the first one and then I want to go home and talk about how badass it was that Sherlock Holmes turned into a dragon and solved crimes with a Hobbit and a Wizard.  That's amazing.  I don't want to wait 9 hours of my goddamned life to see Bard the Bowman do his sweet Brad Pitt in Troy jumpshot.  I could read the book in nine hours and not need to look at Orlando Bloom's clearly confused face while he contemplates which Dwarf would best suit his depraved needs. The depraved needs that got him banished from his father's kingdom only to redeem himself by helping the Ringbearer and meeting his new love, Gimli.  (Triva alert!: Legolas loves him some hairy little men.  If you look hard enough, you'll find Mr. Bloom in the special edition of Return of the Jedi creeping on Wicket.  True fact.)

Exotic Boobs are only for the patient.

I know that I'll eventually get over this because my wife will make me go see the movie.  I know that when I watch it I will be transported by the majesty of New Zealand and the artistry of Mr. Jackson's work and that I'll probably be in line for the follow-ups with bells on.  Because I'm a sucker and need to finish everything I start. (Damn you for taking advantage, Terry Goodkind.  I hate your face).

Has there ever been anything you've felt you should be excited about but couldn't quite muster up the energy for, Intertron? I don't know...like the birth of your child(ren) or something?  It's ok, you can admit it here.  Your spouse won't see and your therapist probably thinks it better that you stop bottling it all up anyway.

Fitness can, at times, suck it.

I'm fairly certain that no one will be surprised to find out that I am not what one might call a Paragon of Physicality.  (Well, I suppose it might shock someone, somewhere.  Maybe in one of those sweet villages where the modern world never interfered and people like HRH Prince Phillip or me could be considered gods.  That's right, me and P-love.  We're boys like that.  Please never tell him that I called him P-love.  Also, never tell the Queen.  She will straight mess my shit up.)  What may surprise you is that my wife (who is nowhere near as imaginary as the Elves in my office.  I promise.  I've even seen her nekkid) is hot as all hell.  That doesn't really have much, if anything, to do with the narrative I'm speaking of here, but it is true.  Like mega-hot.

P. Love.  Tell no one.  

I don't take any sort of perverse joy in being a fatty or anything like that.  It's just always been a bit of a fact of life.  Gravity.  Sunrise.  Fire-breathing mice that live in my nightmares and also my walls.  Being a little on the chubbly side.  (note: "chubbly" is not a typo.  It's a word now.  At least in my head, and therefore soon on the Internet as well.)  These are the core truths of my existence for the purpose of this paragraph.  Lately, however, I've been thinking about the "future" and finding that it's not as nebulous as it was when I was a child, or even in my 20's.  The future is going to be happening on the quick and if I don't beat my body into submission now and show it who the boss is (it's Mona, by the way.  Angela might have paid all the bills but Mona had that whole town locked the eff down.  If you don't know what I'm talking about, well then, shame on you. Also, congratulations on not being raised on 80's sitcoms.) then when the rest of my life realizes that it's in the future I'll have way more work to do.  

I want to be able to run around and play outside with my kids.  My non-existent kids.  They might or might not exist in the future, but if they do I'm going to be ready for those little bastards.  I want to avoid creating a situation where I've got the diabetes or the heart problems.

I've lost about 30 pounds so far this summer.  I'm aiming to lose another 60 by next summer, if I can.  To draw a comparison, my wife was very concerned about her weight.  She needed to lose maybe 10 pounds to be considered healthy.  She's succeeded marvelously and now accompanies my to the gym so that I don't become lonesome and cry.  Or eat ice cream while on the treadmill.  My gym is pretty liberal with stuff like that.

It's been surprisingly easy to do so far.  There are times that I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.  I know that eventually, probably sooner rather than later, my body will get to a point where I've lost all of the "easy" weight and I'll need to start really working hard to lose the rest.  Those are the days I dread.  I mean, I'm going right now on a not-incredibly difficult path.  Watching what I eat with the amazing help of MyFitnessPal (it's a great app.  They're not even paying me to say it.  Who would?  No one has read this blog on anything other than a "Next Blog" moment, I'm sure.  But seriously - if you're looking for something to help your weight loss and you've got a smartphone, get there.  Like now.  On the hop, people.) and hitting the gym somewhere between 1 and 4 times a week.  With that, I've been consistently losing between two and five pounds each week.  Because fat people burn a lot of calories when they run.

Eventually, though, I'm going to have to go that three or four or five times a week and be losing 1 pound a week.  That will feel a lot less motivating, even though it will mean I'm doing better because it's harder for me to lose weight.  Stupid bodies.  Still, I'd rather do it now and make it to my hypothetical children's college graduation than be lazy and die at 50.  Because I would be a horrible ghost.  I'd want to haunt literally everywhere at once and lose direction.  I'd end up just sitting home and playing ghost-games with myself because I couldn't achieve my otherwise noble goals of scaring literally seven billion people at once.

What about you, internet?  How are you feeling about working out?  I was happy that I recently was able to increase my bench press weight and my former max speed on the elliptical trainer is now what I use during my cooldown.  Like a boss.  A sweet, sweet, personable but not sexually-harassing boss.  Ooooooh yeah.