TOP TEN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIAN REACTIONS TO RAIN

10. Crash their cars while trying to avoid each drop
9. Call in sick to work, school, and any other activity besides "blankets"
8. Crash their cars because windshield wipers "Didn't look cute" so they had them removed
7. Get a cold after the first 2 minutes of rain
6. Crash their cars because their necks are turned away from the road looking at another accident
5. "WHAT ARE THESE DROPS OF MOISTURE FALLING FROM THE SKY??"
4. Crash their cars because the person in front of them just slowed down to 10mph and the person behind them sped up to 80
3. "I'm not a Southern Californian, and I can't even tell it's raining, I'm dead!" (applies to Abe Lincoln only)
2. Crash their cars because they think they're supposed to pump the gas when they hydroplane
1. "Hey look, it's raining."

Sock and Awe

Dear Socks,

Hi.  It's me.  The guy who's been wearing you a lot lately.  For work, basketball, and even around the house.  I wanted to thank you for all you've done.  The way you've kept my shoes from smelling, the lack of blisters after a long game, the warmth, and, let's be honest, your work as puppets is nothing less than stellar.
But I'm on to you.
That's right.  Your little game.  You think you can be all cute, with your fuzzies and your pure whiteness, sleek professional black look, or your adorable animal prints.  But don't think I don't notice what happens when I'm not looking.  Yeah.  It's a little convenient - I go on a trip with 16 socks and come back with 15.  I do a load of laundry and end up with a random floating sock that seems to have lost its partner.  I know what you're doing.  I caught you on the floor of the laundry room when I went back in the garage to get a drink after I got my clothes from the dryer.  I saw one of your buddies making his run at freedom.  Well look- that's not how it works.  I'm fair, you get a hole in you, I draw two eyes and a tongue on you, you're free to go.  Otherwise, you're a foot device sock- not some sort of runaway.  And where do you think you're going, anyway?  Off to New York to make it big in the city?  I have news for you pal- that city eats socks like you for breakfast.  My feet don't even smell bad.  Really, you could have it a lot worse.  And it's not only because I feel betrayed, I care about you, I promise, I do.  I don't want you ending up in some dark alley, covered in rain and gunk from who knows what, or even worse- you could get cut up and end up as some makeshift glove for some hobo!
So quit hiding in the dryer, sneaking out of my basket, or jumping from my suitcase socks.  It's best for the both of us.  And I'll go back to sandals, I mean it.  I've been through that phase once already, I can go back.

I am excited for a fruitful and long lasting relationship going forward.

With love,

Foot Owner

Science Friction

Hello.  I'm here to talk to you all about a serious issue.  And by serious, I mean the kind of serious that's actually serious, not something you say is serious in order to set up a laugh by immediately following that statement with something that has no seriousness to it.  This serious thing- is something...let's call it a disease, that over 14 million men are affected by every day in America alone.  It is known as the silent killer.  It's scientific name is rubintas firetas, but its more common name is:
Chafing. 
Over my lovely stay in the city of Seattle, I was befallen by this terrible crime towards humanity.  For those of you who don't know- sometimes when a man- a burly, stocky, or otherwise out of shape man partakes in copious amounts of walking, his....legs can rub together.  It's not pretty to picture, I know.  But our lack of awareness and refusal to take this dreaded life-altering disease seriously is precisely why I started this blog.*
If you're skinny, or aren't chained to a computer desk every day for your job and actually walk sometimes, let me give you an example of what chafing feels like.  Take your hands and rub them together as fast as you can.  When they start to hurt, this is absolutely nothing like what it feels like to be walking around uphill in a city after you just saw a ridiculous Oliver Stone movie.  Light your legs on fire and then rub sea salt and vinegar chips on them.  And then save a few of the potato chips that were leftover and didn't get rubbed into your legs for me.  I love those.  That's the 2nd reason I started this blog.**
If the chafing continues for more than 2 hours, consult a physician.  And if there's not a physician nearby, just walk around like you just got off of a horse after a 15 mile ride.
If you know a loved one who has been chafed, do your best not to laugh at them, chafing is a hilarious issue, but only to people who are watching someone else walk around like they're pretending to be a giant blueberry.
If you have a family history of chafing, make sure you immediately run out to your local drugstore and....on second thought, maybe you should bike.  Or just call someone else to go.  Try to eat better.
If you have pets, think about all the times you laughed at them for not having opposable thumbs, and think about how amusing this whole situation must be for them.
Do not drink or operate heavy machinery while chafed.


Please, act now.  For the children.







*No, it's not.  I really started it for the babes.  Blogbabes.

**This one is actually true.

SINCERE, URGENT, HEARTFELT, AND DELICIOUS APOLOGY TO READERS

So as I'm sure many, many of you have noticed, I haven't been able to keep up to my own rigid standard of posting a new blog every Sunday - Thursday.  This is because I have been on vacation.  Now, I haven't had a lot of time to distract myself from life by browsing yahoo, msn, and ESPN, so I haven't been up on the news.  This means I haven't heard of any sort of rioting, increase in clinical depression, or excessive itching amongst the public due to a lack of activity on this blog.
If you have been negatively impacted by the irregularity of this blog, I cannot apologize enough.  Mostly because I probably don't know you, and therefore have no means of apologizing, but also because I don't think anyone has been negatively impacted.  Please accept this extra bonus blog as a form of payment.  It has been valued by google as worth .008 US dollars.



I've been to a lot of sporting events in my life, hundreds- and I've heard a lot of National Anthems.  Last weekend was the first time I've heard someone mess up- which is pretty impressive.  The poor girl sang "...for the LAA-AND OF THE BRAVE......(pause).....(pause some more while helicopters fly overhead, we're all wondering how she's going to end it- if she's going to flip the brave and the free or just go as planned) ....and the HOME.  OF.  THE ..........BRAVE."  It was one of the most dramatic interpretations of the song that I've ever witnessed.  I was thankful though, because we were treated to a double brave, or as my brother put it "THE NATIONAL ANTHEM: NOW WITH EXTRA BRAVE!!".  From then on, the rest of the day whenever anyone did anything good or anything good happened, it was "extra brave".

Gillette Hates the Pacific Northwest

Greetings!  From intermittently sunny Seattle! (which is locally pronounced like it rhymes with "beetle")  The land of no shaving, or as I like to call it "the 3 1/2 day shadow".  Really, those Seattle hipsters were on to something.  Instead of just being known as lazy, they decided to make it a movement and call it "grunge".  It's my kind of place.  I think I'm going to wear some sweats out to dinner tonight.  Maybe I'll even bust out the one with the stain on it.  It's a terrible double-standard however, as the women in this city seem to be expected to have the decency to be groomed like a half-respectable human being.  Injustice rearing its ugly head yet again.*

Abe would have felt right at home in Seattle.**

Overall though, I have to say Seattle's been impressive so far.  It's the laziest big city I think I've ever been to, and I've been to a lot of them.  All the stores and shops close early, the streets seem almost eerily vacant, and even the danger factor seems low, which can only be attributed to lazy criminals.  It's the least hectic and stressful big city I've been to- maybe this could be attributed to all the men being so relaxed because of all the time and money they've saved not shaving.

Here in Seattle they seem to be very proud of the Orca, otherwise known as the Killer Whale, in the same way New York city is proud of the rat, otherwise known as the Garbage Squirrel.  But unlike New York, I haven't seen one walking the streets.  Highly disappointing, but I guess good, because if I was going to get shanked by any kind of whale, I bet it would be the Grey Whale. But the Killer Whale would probably be too busy eating a seal to do anything about it.  Lazy Seattle native at work again.

It's also funny how pumped we were when someone asked us a local sort of question.  I don't know why it always feel like you're super cool if someone mistakes you for a local.  Like you pulled off some sort of grand con.

And on a note unrelated to travel, someone over 40 asked me today where they "Could find the wi-fi."  Technologies' greatest achievement might be making the generations above me sound so ridiculous.  That will teach them to think they're so smart with their years of experience and accumulated knowledge!


*When something is "reared" why is it either an "ugly head" of something, or a child?  If it's an ugly baby being born, it could be both.

**Did Abe shave his mustache?  Or did it just grow that way?  CURSE YOU JOHN WILKES BOOTH!  NOW WE MAY NEVER KNOW!!

I Have Two Fold Settings: "Half" and "Wrinkled"

Packing before you leave is always one of the most stressful parts of a trip.  For me, I always think I'm going to forget something, but I usually end up remembering to wrinkle everything that I don't want wrinkled and stuffing all of my socks and underwear in such a way that I need to unpack them and redo it the way I should have done it in the first place.  It's sort of a pre-trip tradition.

Trunking

Football should be proud- of all the sports that are least suited to having grown men wear their jerseys as regular clothes, football is by far #1.  With golf clothes a close 2nd*  They're shirts designed to go over hulking shoulder pads and a chestplate.  And yet, here we are.  With half of a stadium (myself included) sporting a uniform for the intense sport of sitting and watching.

The whole idea of tailgating is pretty funny too- I guess the point is to get as close to the event as possible without actually being AT the event, and being around it as long as possible.  That sounds a little needy, doesn't it?  But I guess it makes sense, where else could you go sit- on pavement- in the hot sun during the fall or the incredibly bitter cold in the winter and sort of cook an array of meats (hot dogs or burgers) in as regulated and cramped of a space as possible?  A space designed to hold one car?  BUT- people these days have found a way around all the hardships that come with tailgating.  The bean bag toss!  I'm not quite sure how or why, but this has suddenly become a parking lot tradition.  Maybe that just shows how lazy Americans are getting.  We can't bother to lift our arms over our heads to compete anymore.


And so we tailgate.  But what if your car doesn't have a tailgate?  All you would have is a trunk. Let's stop getting cute here, and just call things what they are.  "Trunking".  It's confusing the children.



*You see, because golf clothes are in most circles considered quite ridiculous!**

**Yes, I know this joke is outdated by about 10 years, and the whole reason golfers probably stopped wearing such crazy clothes is because of how terrible the joke is, I apologize.  Really, I do.

Sheepwhale or Whalesheep?

Even better than the office birthday is the office baby shower.  In an office where the ratio of women to men is 10:1.  And for all you bros out there thinking that "would rule", it doesn't.  Especially not when most of the women have already had babies and much of the talk ends up circling back to the birthing process.  Not what I want to hear.  Come to think of it, I'm confused as to why any of them wanted to hear it.
For those of you who are curious, it's called a baby shower because in the olden days, when a baby was just another mouth to feed, the women would gather round and shower each other with babies.  The ones that survived were the strongest, and therefore, had the greatest aptitude for pulling plows and other oxen-like behavior.  Fortunately, today, there was no showering.  Not even a sprinkle of baby.
I was fascinated to learn though, that there is a few standard games played at baby showers, such as "guessing how fat the woman is" and "pretend there's poop in a diaper" which is somehow a game that women enjoy because chocolate is involved.  I played "see how hard it will be to steer the conversation towards football"- and I lost.
Actually, I didn't play that game, because as with most large gatherings around tables, I talked to the two people I ended up sitting next to and every once in a while shouted something to the people who were there that I actually wanted to talk to.

When the gifts were given out, they were thoughtful gifts, and I have to say I'm a little jealous of babies being able to wear hilarious outfits- most of which are all one article of clothing.  I'd really like the ease of having a uni-shirt-pant-shock-shoe combo in one piece of clothing.  Especially if the feet were made to look like some sort of animal.  But alas, society has deemed this "weird" so I guess that's another trend I'll have to sit and wait for some hip kid or rockstar to start.
My favorite gift was a stuffed animal called the "Sleep Sheep" which was very much like it sounds, a sheep that made noises to help the baby sleep.
Only it was evil.

Haha!  It really looks like it's going to stab whoever offended it last in their sleep!

And to top it off, it made sounds like "heartbeat" and "whale".  The heartbeat was to simulate the mother's heartbeat while the baby is still in the womb but ended up sounding like Darth Vader, and the whale noise is so the baby....thinks sheep make whale noises?  I don't think the thought of some 150 ton jerk swimming around with that big creepy grin on his face is something that would help me get to sleep either!



So, in conclusion:  buy a Sleep Sheep.

Whipped Cream and Donuts: What Sir Mix a Lot Really Should Have Been Mixing

Root beer floats.  They are ice cream combined with root beer.  And the root beer floats in the ice cream.  And I defy you to find a person who does not love them.  Not really, because I'm sure there's plenty of people out there who love to be buzzkills and are saying out loud "but I don't even like root beer!"
But really, this concept of combining two delicious treats has to be put to greater use.  Somewhere along the line, peanut butter and jelly were mixed.  Someone thought to put milk from a cow together in a bowl with oats and marshmallows from a leprechaun.  I have thought to mix some crushed up Cool Ranch Doritos* with spaghetti.
So I challenge YOU, dear reader- to combine some delicious foods and share this idea with the rest of the world!
Be bold!  Put a reese's peanut butter cup in a sandwich!  Make a carne asada cheese bagel!  Let's get something crunchy on our pizzas!  Do we really want to bring our unborn children into a world where we haven't been the best that we all could be??
Probably not, because bringing unborn children into the world sounds really unhealthy for the baby, and frankly, like a really big mess.





*I never understood- were they supposed to be "cool" as in temperature or as in awesomeness?  And were they supposed to taste like ranch dressing or were they supposed to have come from some sort of "cool ranch"?  Like some really rad/cold place in Texas?

PERSONALITY QUIZ

Everyone enjoys quizzes- that's really the only way we can tell how much we're worth!  That, and the amount of money we make, the attractiveness of our significant others, and the success of our offspring.  So with that in mind, I'm going to write up some questions for you to answer, if you get most of them right, you're probably a better person than most of your peers.  If you get a lot of them wrong, well, I'm sorry, but there's really no point in getting out of bed tomorrow.
Good luck!


QUESTION 1
The Moon is:
A) A large piece of rock
B) The main factor in having tides on Earth
C) God's marble
D) Some idiot that comes out when the sun is still up sometimes.

QUESTION 2
Dogs are:
A) Dogs
B) 4 legged animals that have been largely domesticated
C) Mangy varmints
D) Hilarious because most of the time they're thinking "Huh?", "What?", or "...HEY!!"

QUESTION 3
A woman is trapped under a rock.  Do you:
A) Help her by calling for help
B) Put together a makeshift wedge using the strongest stick nearby to create leverage and spring her free
C) Also trap yourself under a rock, but you make sure it's a bear instead of a rock, to make her feel better.  A Dino-bear
D) Wonder if the part that is stuck under the rock is 2 Dimensional like a cartoon

QUESTION 4
Robots:
A) Will be around soon to help me with daily tasks around the house
B) Are a machine or device that operates automatically or by remote control
C) Will soon destroy us all
D) Have largely disappointed me due to their collective lack of dancing "the robot"

QUESTION 5
The Dollar Sign:
A) Means money
B) Are meant to resemble a ribbon wrapped around the pillars of Hercules
C) Mmmm pancakes.
D) Is what robbers put on their sacks of money to remind them that the thing they are stealing is money

QUESTION 6
A) There is no question 6
B) There must have been an editing issue with this post
C) Question 6!!!
D) Who does "Q" think it is?  Bossing around "U" all the time!

QUESTION 7

Two cars belonging to two brothers are in two towns two hundred miles apart. The brothers decide to meet for a cup of coffee. The first brother starts at 9:00 a.m. driving 60 mph. The second brother starts at 9:00 a.m. driving 40 mph. What time do they meet?

A) Oh man, math sucks
B) 11 am
C) 500 lollipops
D) Wow, that's a long way for two brothers to drive to meet each other.  I wonder what could have been so important they couldn't have just talked about this over the phone?  And couldn't we just assume that the two cars belonging to the two brothers are in the town they live in?  How else are they going to start driving at 9am, with bulldozers?  Ha.  That'd be funny.  Driving a bulldozer on the freeway for 100 miles......oh crap I haven't started to think about answering this yet....is this timed?

QUESTION 8
The best part of waking up:
A) Is Foldgers in your cup
B) Is eating a healthy breakfast in order to increase blood flow to your brain and start your metabolism
C) 5 THOUSAND lollipops!
D) Is hitting the snooze button, then spending each minute after that expecting the alarm to go off for the next 9 minutes until you fall asleep again and then it really does and startles you half to death

QUESTION 9

A) That's adorable!
B) This is not a question
C) OPRAH!
D) Ahhhh flying terror banana alien!!

QUESTION 10
This Quiz:
A) Was kind of flat
B) Did not stretch my brain in any way shape or form
C) Bubbles always pop.  Why do we wrap valuables in a wrap made of them??
D) Was a better idea before I started




Congratulations!  If you answered D, C, B, or A for any of the questions, it turns out you do, in fact, have a personality!  If you didn't answer, it turns out you have a serious problem, one of which could be you are illiterate.  Which would then mean that you have someone reading this to you.  You! The person reading this to the poor illiterate- shame on you!  Enabler!

Let's Throw it Back to the Studio

Being a football announcer is easy.  All you have to do is proclaim the player who just made a good play "the BEST _____ in the NATIONAL.  FOOTBALL. LEAGUE.".  It doesn't matter if he just said that about another player who plays the same position 20 minutes earlier, apparently the title belts switch hands easier than a WWE champion's does.  It also doesn't matter how small the skill is, it's possible for a player to be the BEST shoelace tie-er in the NATIONAL.  FOOTBALL. LEAGUE.  Or the BEST arm scratcher in the NATIONAL.  FOOTBALL. LEAGUE.
I wonder if the women who are married to those guys are happy or if they're about ready to literally run away and not stop Forest Gump style. 
"Honey, did you like the steak?"
"OH!  Darling!  This was the BEST steak I've ever had in. MY. HOUSE."
"Oh really. How was the corn?"
"Pound for pound, this was THE best corn I've EVER come across PERIOD...I mean...WOW!!  You want a CLINIC, eat some of this corn!"
"A clinic on what?  Making corn?  Why would they have a clinic on that?"
"HA!  That's right Jean."
"....I want a divorce."

The worst part about all of this though, is they usually put "arguably" in front of what they're saying because they don't want to offend the guys they're going to try and get crappy interviews from later on.

ANNOUNCER: So, Antonio, you knew you had to come out tonight and have the game of your life, with all the pressure added on this week, what did you do to prepare?
PLAYER: Oh, you know- I just went out and trusted my teammates and uh- put in a lotta hard work.
ANNOUNCER: The other team was CLEARLY double teaming you- what did you do to combat that?
PLAYER: Uh- you know- I just made sure that I found my teammates and all the extra effort we made in practice paid off.
ANNOUNCER: I am attempting to make some sort of joke.
PLAYER: (doesn't get it) I am answering your joke as if it were a serious question.
ANNOUNCER: (Guffaws no matter how un funny the answer is) Alright, thanks so much, good luck!
PLAYER: (already turning around and 3 steps away) ?  yeah, thanks.

It's the MOST Wonderful Time of the Year

Curious that we don't say "Most ____" very often.  Such as "Oh, Francine, that dress looks most lovely on you."  Or "Well, I'll be, Margaret, that is a most dead horde of wildebeest*."  Or even, "Bill, that phone booth time machine is most excellent."
What time of the year is it most wonderful?
Why, football season, of course!  (American football, for all you bloody chimney sweeps reading this in-between your spots of tea and other things that Mary Poppins taught me British people do.  Oh, and every other country except America that likes soccer more than American football and calls soccer football.  Just pretend I mentioned some HILARIOUS stereotypes for your country as well.)
But yes, it's time to watch slow but powerful fat men, fast and nimble but not as strong skinny men, and regular sized, regular powered men play sports at the ultimate level.  And no, I was not talking about Ice Hockey for the NES.

I'm talking about good ol' football- a game even the drunkest of drunks can appreciate.  Wait....that doesn't sound good.  A game that even the Boorish of Boors can appreciate.  ....eh, good enough.  Anyway, it is a shame there's a lot of drinking/incoherent yelling associated with football, because it's a lot of fun to play, and to watch.  Unless you are a woman in my life, apparently.  I've tried, but football just isn't for them.  Probably it's because of the ridiculous length of games and time between plays, lack of facetime for the stars, objectification of cheerleaders by the NFL and networks broadcasting the games, and oh yeah, and all the jackasses involved.
OR it could just be that I haven't gotten any of them involved in FANTASY FOOTBALL!!
That's right- all caps and TWO exclamation points.  I went there.  You see, fantasy football is a game that's growing exponentially in popularity.  The object of the game is to pick players from any team, then proceed to tell as many people who don't care as you can about them.  I came in 5th in my league last year, but only because Drew Brees was interesting to a few people in San Diego.
But of all the games of partial skill and a majority of luck, Fantasy Football is probably my favorite.  Right behind 21 blackjack, the game of Life, and Hungry Hungry Hippos.  (A game which originated in Hungary, believe it or not.)










*Apparently that's how you spell "wildebeest".  I would have spelled it "wildebeast".  It's a BEAST for goodness sakes!  In fact, every animal should have "beast" after the name of it.  Lionbeast.  Bearbeast.  Bunnybeast.  I'm going to start signing my work e-mails "Humanbeast".

Stock up?

I'm sure those of you who aren't being oppressed by communist China love having free reign of the internet, and have been to msn.com and yahoo.com, two major news/email/search engine sites.  As you've noticed, many of the articles aren't "news" at all- in fact, msn.com has a section they deem as "must-see" when the articles are nothing remotely resembling something someone HAS to see.
Case in point:  here are three actual headlines from the "must-see" section of msn.com
"Jeter's bachelor pad goes up for sale"
"Surprise!  Facebook users are jerks"
"Which city was the hottest?"
"Bing: Man sentenced for attacking pelican"*

And these are all from right now!  It's not like I've been writing down the best ones over the course of the month and saving them, as of 11:23pm pacific time, those are the headlines under "must-see".

Whereas I need to go cnn.com to find a headline like "Jobless slide continues to reach 2 month low"

Anyway, that's not what this blog is about: More so than the Earth-shattering headlines that these websites produce, I'm fascinated by the stock photos they put to accompany these stories.

Like this one:

What did the call sheet for this look like?

NEEDED FOR PHOTOSHOOT: 5 young, attractive, professional looking white males.  Must have suits that kinda look like suits an actual person would wear.  Wait, on second thought, we don't want to seem sexist.  Better make it 2 women and 3 men, that's fair.  Oh, no, but then it could be considered racist.  Make one of the women black.  Oh man!  They can't be too young or good looking, THAT'S discriminatory too!  OK- 2 women, 1 white, 1 black, sort of good looking, but not ugly- that would be disgusting- and young enough to not be old, but not really young looking.  And 3 men, 1 young, 1 sort of older, but not like grandpa old- gross- and maybe one of them could be gay.  But not TOO gay, we don't want to offend anyone.

That's how most of these pictures look- google search "business group" and take a gander.

It's terrible!
And how sad they work in this colorless empty void!  I thought my office was boring-yikes, at least we have objects in it.
Also, no wonder the unemployment rate is so high, apparently there is no room in the workplace for anyone of Asian or Latin decent.

How awkward must these be to shoot?  What kind of direction are they getting?  Especially for the pictures that are supposed to illustrate "bad" working conditions, like so:

This was a picture under an article through msn called "how to address an annoying coworker"
I wonder if they had to tell the guy to have a "more annoying" look on his face?  And I wonder if the "annoying" coworker bragged about any of this to his friends and family. "Hey, guess what!  I was paid to have my picture taken!  ......I'm the guy everyone hates."


But what has to be even worse, and even more uncomfortable, is shooting the sexual harrassment pictures:

"Tom?  That was great, but can you give me more "lecherous"?  That was only a 5 on the creeper scale, and I'm looking for an 8.  Perfect!!"




*Extra kudos, msn, for not only giving us that gem, but for linking us to a site that links us to multiple links possibly containing the story.  Efficient, to be sure.

Smart Talk with Art Krenshaw: Sep. 8th

Alright everybody!  This week's Smart Talk With Art Krenshaw question comes from a disgruntled artist.  Take it away, Art!

Art Krenshaw is an expert in human behavior.  He's studied sociology and anthropology at Northern Kansas University and currently teaches on the side.

 SMART TALK

with

ART KRENSHAW

Mr. Krenshaw,
Recently, I've tried to practice my craft and better myself through art.  It may have just been a hobby for me before now, but over the past few months, I grow more and more certain that this is what I want to do with my life.  I've put a lot of time and effort into what I'm doing, but when I've shown my friends, family, and other loved ones what I'm doing, none of them seem interested.  I am confident in what I've produced, what should I do?
Sincerely,
Disgruntled

Disgruntled,

I am incredibly sorry to hear about your situation.  There is nothing worse than wanting acknowledgment for something you've put  a lot of yourself and a lot of hard work into and then not getting any of it.  I know from my time spent at Northern Kansas University there were a lot of students there who poured months of themselves into a thesis, only to have it widely panned, and that caused a lot of tornadoes over there.  That's right, the weather system is trickier than you might think.

Back to your question though- my first instinct, and probably anyone else's is that whatever type of art you're doing, be it painting, playing the piano, dancing, or even writing a semi-humorous internet blog- is probably bad.  I know that that's rough to hear, but honestly, if everyone doesn't think what you're doing is the best thing they've ever seen or heard- you should probably give up.  I know for a FACT that Beethoven was never criticized, and you never see anyone saying anything bad about George Clooney.  If you did, he would probably stop whatever movie he was making and decide to quit being famous for the rest of his life.  Even the great R.L. Stine must have known that there isn't a soul out there not buying his scary teen/pre-teen horror yarns, otherwise, why would he keep making them?  So my first and most important piece of advice to you is quit.  Just quit now, and I don't think you should try whatever you're doing again either.  Spare everyone the tears.

BUT- let's assume that by some great miracle, what your doing is actually good!  Then my advice to you would be to simply remove everyone from your life.  Clearly, they're terrible friends, relatives, and loved ones.  They don't really love you if they can't take a minute out of their day to watch the short film you're making, help you rehearse your lines for that play you're in, or even if you happen to be blogging about childish real life observations and ripping off your favorite late night hosts- they should be able to read SOME of that.  I'll tell you one thing I've learned- you don't need friends.  Friends are for people who need someone to complain to.  If you live your life in a perfect manner, there will be nothing to complain about.  It's as simple as that.  And family?  Well, I can tell you if it wasn't for the therapy industry, there would be no such thing as family. It's just something that psychologists and psychiatrists cooked up, much like the greeting card companies made up Labor day to sell more cards and candy.  And look- you might have a special someone in your life, but love is really a four letter word.  In fact, I can taste the soap in my mouth from when I was young and Mrs. Krenshaw used to wash our mouths out for saying it!  Disgusting.
So, all in all, I think your best course of action would be to just give up trying to be creative, and ditch all of your friends, family and anyone who claims they love you.  You might as well cover your bases and move to Latvia while you're at it too.

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Thanks again Art!  Insightful as always!  Until next time, this has been another edition of Smart Talk- With Art Krenshaw!

TOP TEN SIGNS YOU ARE, IN FACT, NOT SMARTER THAN A 5TH GRADER

10. You went to Burger King to demand a burger democracy.
9. You went to Burger King to eat.
8. You posted something in the "comments" section of youtube.
7. When people look up the word "dumb" in the dictionary, they don't see a picture of you, but that's only because there's not that many pictures in a dictionary- although there should be.
6. You posted the last two entries on this blog.
5. You're in 6th grade, but all the 5th graders see you and think "look, it's that doofus!"
4. 7 Dwarves would have added you as the 8th Dwarf "Dummy" if not for height requirement.
3. You're in 2nd grade.
2.You're a rock.*
1. You went on the show "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" and couldn't get any of the questions right.









*Don't take it too hard if you are though, I think the fact that you've learned how to navigate the internet and read despite being an inanimate object is something to be proud of.

Sleep Deprivation = Interesting Deprivation

It was a long weekend- one of those weekends where you don't sleep because you're in a different bed- not that the bed is uncomfortable or there's anything wrong with it- for some reason the mattress gods become angered that you're not using your regular one and decide to punish you for it, then you have a random wakeup the next night due to a cat or sickness or bad dream, and the next night you can't go to bed- nothing in particular is keeping you up there's just shiny things like the internet around to distract you.

If there was a point to this, I'm not going back and putting one in.  At least not tonight, but maybe I'll do something creative tomorrow.  Like not sit at my computer for 45 minutes trying to think of something new to write on here only to write down exactly what I'm thinking.

On an unrelated but equally uninteresting note, the spellcheck on my firefox doesn't recognize the words "donator", "spellcheck", or "firefox".

Labor Day Out of Office (Out of Blogfice?)

I am in the lab, laboring laboriously, and will return on the next day that is not a holiday.  For all of you very pregnant women out there- heads up.  Labor day.
The rest of us will be working very hard- probably in a cave somewhere pushing a giant wooden wheel in circles while being whipped.
Labor day.


If there is an immediate/urgent need to find someone using the internet to try and be funny, ask someone if they've seen a youtube video that you liked, and watch them spend the next 5 minutes poorly describing videos they find funny.

"Mammoth" is the new "Epic"

I'm glad that our civilization has advanced to a point where we can do things in a more well....civil manner.  Like how we buy things.  The exchange of designated paper, or in a lot of cases, transfered data, is deemed valuable, and we can all agree on that.  If I use what we classify as "money" to buy things, most of society agrees that it is mine, and no one tries to take it.
For example:  I can go online right now and look at tickets for the Chargers vs. the Seahawks, and agree on a site run by people I've never met to give someone else I've never met a fairly decent amount of money with the hopes that I am not getting scammed by the fake prince of Zimbabwe.  Then, when I go to the game, the piece of cardboard that has the corresponding seat number printed on it we can all agree is MY ticket and those are MY seats during the game.  Well done, humanity!
Then, I can see people become belligerently drunk, yell profanities at other grown men for ruining their fantasy team, and become physically violent towards other humans because they're wearing a different colored shirt than they are.  We've come a long way since spearing mammoths, everyone!

Mans Gliseris ir Pilns ar Zušiem!

So it only took a little over three months for me to learn that you can view all sorts of interesting stats about your blog through a control panel on blogger- or on the "dashboard" since apparently writing this blog is like driving a car.
I can see all sorts of neat things like how people I are am getting to my site- what websites they I use to look for it, what specific posts they're I am looking at, how many times it is getting viewed (by me), and where in the world those people I are am.
Upon closer inspection of the data, here's what I've found:

I'm pretty sure 180 of those views in America were me, and 10 were probably someone looking to go to the "Highly Rated Blog of Cheese" and ended up here.  Pretty interesting.  That's great The hosers from up North viewed this blog a few times, and the good people of Australia and China took a gander, plus the bad guys from movies from 1950-1990.  I have to say, I'm most proud of Latvia!  A very tiny country, some wonderful person in Latvia took the time to read MY blog!  I'm so honored!  The ratio of people who have read my blog to people who haven't in Latvia must be off the charts!  But- you're able to view how many people viewed your page and from where in the past week!  So as you can see here:

LATVIA!  NOOOO!

What did I do to scare off my one loyal reader?  I realize that maybe my blog isn't very friendly to the Lithuanians, and it doesn't exactly scream "Belarus", but Latvia?  This blog was MADE for Latvians.

Look!  Latvia's flag is nice and simple, with a red and white color scheme:

Remind you of anyone's blog? (hint: this one)

Latvia's official insect is the ladybug*, and I've never purposely gone out of my way to kill a ladybug!

69% of Latvians are of the ages 15-64 and 99% of them are literate, I'M of the ages 15-64 and am also literate!!

Here's a photo of Latvia's prime minister in 2006, Aigars Kalvitis:

Clearly, he is not a fan of officials, and whenever they make an unfavorable call towards my favorite team, I'M not a fan of officials!  We're practically brothers.

Not only that, but I'm pretty sure Dr. Doom rules Latvia with an iron fist, and I LOVE Dr. Doom!  He's at least top 6 of my favorite doctors, and I know whenever I have an itch or a desire to bring doom to other people, he's been on call, or at least left the less powerful but still competent Dr. Doomberg around to take care of me.

So adding all of this up, I just don't understand what drove the Latvians away.  Besides the fact that I don't speak Latvian, their official language, I couldn't be speaking their language any more than I already am!!!

But unfortunately, I don't think it's as simple as that.  There has to be a reason for this Latvian dissent.

What could it be?


I don't know, but I plan on setting it right.  I'm determined to set it right.  So with that, I say to you:

I could tell you all of the wonderful things that I know about Latvia, but I figured I'd let their official travel website, www.latviatourism.lv  do the talking for me.  From the "what to do" section of their website:

Latvia is the country where you can enjoy your trip - come with the tourist group or have a nice time together with your family. You can have a variety of choices from taking a number of exciting tours to spending several weeks in the guesthouse near a river or lake, far from the hustle and bustle of the city. This web page will help you to get to know Latvia and it will help you to choose the best pastime to suit your mood and make the most of your trip to Latvia.

I think that more than sums it up nicely.

Not enough?  Worried there won't be enough for you to do in Latvia?
Well, according to the same website mentioned above, you can:

• Go dress up in medieval costumes in one of Latvia's many medieval fairs
• View a recreation of a different medieval fair
• Go to the Latvian observatory and look at the Latvian night sky
• View "Medieval Entertainment" at Jaunpils castle
• Go to the Karaosta prison show!**

Or finally:

• View "Medieval Shows" at Cesis Castle!

If words aren't enough to get you there, here's a view of Latvia's most famous skyline- from Wikipedia, of ALL the pictures they could have chosen to put up from Latvia- this was the one they chose, so it has to be the best:

It's the Hansa Banka!  Isn't it marvelous?  A mighty skyline if I ever saw one.  In your FACE Empire State building and Sears tower!

So why not come to Latvia?  I can't think of one good reason.  So I say visit next August, and stay for the official "Passing of the Constitutional Law on the Status of the Republic of Latvia as a State and Actual Restoration of the Republic of Latvia" day!  It's on August 21st, and is much better known as POTCLOTSOTROLAASAAROTROL day in Latvia.
And who cares if under wikitravel's Latvia page there's nothing written under "see" and "learn", who needs to see or learn things anyway?

Latvia, I am sorry.  Or as you say there, "piedod".  Because what better way to say I'm sorry than with pie?  Please accept my apology and the gift of increased tourism to your mighty land.





* I got all of my information from Wikipeda and Latvia's official site.
** Yes, this is an actual thing on the "to do" list on Latvia's tourism site.