364

i dont know who the fuck is watching over me but i passed the police fitness test.




i beat you, you motherfuck.

365

i want to play a game.

the rules are simple:

i provide five statements; without performing any research, you tell me which one of the statements you think is false.

if you happen to know the answer write your response but dont qualify your answer by adding insights or anecdotes until i post the correct one a week later.

remember:

the integrity, success and fun of this game depends on no research whatsoever.

the first person to accumulate seven correct responses will win a postage-paid, autographed packet of iodized sodium chloride.

good luck...


of the following five statements, which one is false?

1. barack obama's middle name is "hussein."
2. chevy chase's middle name is "cornelius."
3. harry truman's middle name was "s."
4. penn jillette's daughter's middle name is "crimefighter."
5. michael fox's middle name is "andrew."

366

1913-2006.

367

the folks at bestessays.com probably should have concentrated a little more diligently on their homepage syntax.


perhaps best would it be to elsewhere your papers get.

368

i took this picture in my backyard just prior to sunset.

if i had aimed the camera an inch lower you would have seen a sea of vehicular traffic.

if i had aimed the camera an inch higher you would have seen a vast expanse of grey.

i aimed at the gossamer neuronal tangle of amaranthine weeping willows.


illimitable.

369

from the crush depth knowledge archive:

this year's winter solstice occurs eight hours and thirty-four minutes from now.

370

i think ive finally found the dumbest cigarette advertisement known to man.

youll want to click on the following two pictures to fully appreciate the nuances of bullshit in crystal clear, 1080p high-def:



"in our effort to create exceptional products in a thoughtful and sustainable way, weve pioneered our own earth-friendly and organic tobacco growing programs and committed to renewable energy sources, including wind power and reforestation."

thoughtful and sustainable?

thats fucking classic.

if you believe that cigarette companies care about anything else other than cash i would bet a tall stack of clevelands that you also believe reforestation powers your dyson vacuum.



a free sample of lung cancer, heart disease and emphysema is just a mouse click away.

smoke up, johnny.


natural american spirit cigarettes: "we dont use additives because nicotine is all we need."

371

1911-2006.

372

"ill take fifties or less please."

"okay," tina said.

"would you like to open an account today?" he asked.

"no," i said.

"why not?"

"had one. closed it."

"what was the problem?"

"ask tina about 1/1000th of one percent."

tina softly smiled while counting money.

"we could open a new account for you," he said.

"we could but we wont."

"why not?"

"i have no money."

he looked at the cash tina had finished counting.

"it all goes to my pimp."

he almost recognized the futility.

"what about convenience?" he asked.

"what about it?"

"dont you like it?"

"i like inconvenience."

he had no contingency plan.

"inconvenience, huh?"

"yeah."

tina handed me the cash.

"thanks."



another day, another thirty-seven cents.

373

i think the world is a poorer place in the absence of john candy.

i still remember the loss i felt the day he died and i still find myself wondering what he might have accomplished had he not died at the young age of 44.

most people simply remember him as a charismatic, overweight comic actor.

during the final few moments of both planes, trains and automobiles and uncle buck you can clearly perceive an underlying aura of profound sadness and layered, psychological complexity that distinguished him from his contemporaries and continues to define his aesthetic excellence.

not to mention his last name was "candy."


i miss you, john.

374

1935-2006.

375

affirmative action and racial preference with respect to employment is total bagpipe bullshit.

those of you who are familiar with my brain know reams of arguments, facts and data about enslavement of blacks and taking land from native americans and internment of japanese and the subservient manner in which women have historically been treated.

life is fucking tough and history is a hamster wheel.

how long must we say were fucking sorry?

how can we possibly apologize for social and humanitarian blunders of such grandiose magnitude?

offer jobs?

what fucking nonsense.

we have fucked up big time in this country. lets not make the mistake of feebly attempting to unfuck our indiscretions by fucking them more.

"im sorry our great-great-great-great-great ancestors whipped your great-great-great-great-great grandfather's back, thaddeus. you know what, though? were going to make it up to you by letting you join the burger king family."

ugh.

i see no progressive connection between senseless, degrading historical practices and the granting of reparations by offering professional nudges.

i dont care if an applicant happens to be a trisomic blue dwarf from the isles of zanzibar provided they represent the most qualified individual for the position.

what happened to success via merit?

in some instances hiring practices based on race or background are epidemiologically benign; however, in other professions, the decision to hire a minority on the sole basis of being a minority can easily translate into the difference between saving a life and destroying one.

if my wife is giving birth to a premature baby the last thing i want to see is a pakistani, racial quota, "eh it was just plagiarism" doctor waiting with a catcher's mitt while the umbilical cord wraps around my child's neck and cerebral palsy makes itself at home.

i want a doctor who studied so thoroughly that the brachial plexus is brach's candy.

if im trapped in a blazing oil well with baby jessica i dont want the clueless assistance of some hackjob fireman who was hired simply because he received an extra ten points on his written exam for having dark skin. thats absolutely outrageous.

i want the strongest, smartest, sharpest, most qualified firefighter the applicant pool had to offer.

i want this to occur in every state in every county in every city in every neighborhood in every instance.

always.

furthermore, i want promotions solely based upon demonstrated records of achievement with no regard whatsoever to race, color, gender, creed, religion, sexual orientation, affiliation, country of origin or what instrument they mangled in their high school's marching band.



well, maybe the glockenspiel.

376

bring it on.

377

even as i single-handedly destroy my jewel career i still experience micromoments of dispositional zen.

an older service clerk named andy asked me whether or not i was attending college. i told him i had already received my 80,000 dollar sheet of paper and was seeking work in the field of forensics.

im not sure why he decided to inquire but he seemed satisfied with my response.

several minutes later he approached me on the sales floor and asked how long i had worked for jewel. i told him i was flirting with fourteen years.

"here?" he asked.

"uh huh." i said.

he peered at me through his coke bottle, playground-pedophile, thick-rimmed, black, harry caray glasses and gave me a priceless look that appeared to be a hybrid between a nod of consummate sympathy and the facial expression of a horrified individual who is standing in a packed elevator and realizes the diarrhea simply wont wait.


it represented the kind of majestic, weightless comedy i want to capture in a mason jar, keep close to my heart and deeply inhale when a doctor tells me the biopsy was positive for small cell lung cancer.

378

amazon.com describes doom metal outfit swallow the sun's latest musical effort:

"ghosts of loss is the group's sophomore album and follow up to their debut album."

yeah.

sophomore albums generally follow debut albums.

why not go for broke?

"ghosts of loss is the group's second album and follow up to their first album."

379

the associated press reports that "moses hardy, believed to be the second-oldest man in the world and the last black u.s. veteran of world war i, has died at age 113..."

moses was born in 1893; to place this feat of longevity into historical perspective, consider that president rutherford b. hayes and russian composer tchaikovsky were both still alive when he entered the world.

a regimen of broccoli sprouts, co-q 10 and strolls around the block might add a few years to a person's life. individuals like moses hardy are genetically blueprinted to live a long, long fucking time.

he died of natural causes.

a 100-year-old, newly inducted centenarian has lived to experience 36,500 days. supercentenarians, the name ascribed to those who attain 110 or more years, watch history unfold for 40,150 spin cycles.

mr. hardy exceeded that benchmark by more than a thousand.



less than a dozen american world war one veterans, each living legends in their own right, are still alive.

380

each pallet of product that gets delivered to jewel foods comes affixed with a white, rectangular sticker bearing the name of the warehouse employee who stacked and packed the merchandise.

i collected the following list of names from a smattering of pallets over the past few days:

1. ephraim nailor
2. mance baylor
3. larry mothershed
4. gerard golek
5. lazarick franklin
6. larshemore morton
7. aurel ladd
8. johnny stamps
9. gino vegetabile

i know that huge retail chains are fond of hiring cheap illegal aliens who write burlesque names on their employment applications but these doozies constitute some of the most ludicrous pseudonyms upon which my eyes have ever feasted.

maybe mance baylor is a real autonym.

perhaps gerard golek is a genuine hancock.

ephraim nailor starts to ride the fence that divides porno names from actual names.

johnny stamps stuffs my phrenic envelope to the limit. i tend to question the legitimacy of a persons surname when its a verb.

gino vegetabile, my friends?


i dont fucking think so.

____________________________________


one more thing.

enough with the phrase "random chance."

its redundant, it sounds like the byproduct of a starving, novice screenwriter whos grossly overstating a theatrical point and it pisses me off whenever i hear it.

chance implies the involvement of a random element; likewise, random tacitly expresses an element of chance.


a probable likelihood exists that you get my drift.

381

what the fuck, vicks?



no more original formula nyquil?

who the fuck buys nyquil syrup to isolate the pseudoephedrine and convert it to methamphetamine?

seriously.

fucking who?

whos doing it?

you want to know a good starter product for methamphetamine? pseudoephedrine tablets. not. fucking. syrup.

hmmm...i can use this fucking multiple ingredient, flammable, ooey, gooey, sticky, viscous s-y-r-u-p or i can just go straight to the tap, use pseudoephedrine tabs and save myself ten quintillion or so steps. what kind of doggy-bag meth lab speed junkie uses fucking syrup? do they fucking dump ten bottles into a cauldron and boil it down for several years to produce one granule of meth?

jesus fucking christ.

you know what i used to like about nyquil?

it treated my fucking symptoms.

it represented the nighttime, sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, stuffy head, fever, sleep better to feel better medicine.

it tasted like absolute shit but it was absolutely the shit.

it worked.

now its fucking kool-aid.



hey kool-aid man. hey there big fella. whats up?

ill tell you whats up, kool-aid man:

i might as well walk up to the pharmacist with six bucks, place it on the counter and tell him to kick me in the junk as hard as he possibly can.


at least ill forget about WhyQuil.

382

thats right, homeslice.

two for a dollar.