Weekend shenanigans

What’s up, everybody? I will be going out of town for my first book signing and appearance this weekend. I will be traveling to Huntington, WV, where I will be signing copies of my book this Saturday, April 29, from 3pm-5pm. Friday evening is a reception for authors and such; a little gathering to rub elbows and chew the fat and the like.

The location for Friday and Saturday’s signing is at the Borders Books booth at the Big Sandy Convention Center, located in downtown Huntington. It is all a part of the Ohio River Festival of Books. I hope some of you can attend! Also, if you have any friends, family, or even eavesdrop on a conversation about someone going to Huntington, please inform them to stop by and say hello. I might even have candy for you. If you show up and don’t purchase a copy, I’ll bust out the Sharpie to sign body parts for all you cheapskates!

I will be sure to take a few photos over the weekend, so none of you will feel completely left out. That way, you can almost feel the experience with me. I will be sure to keep my camera on me at all times, in case someone gets arrested or a nipple pops out or something interesting like that. Otherwise, it might be just be photos of me, sitting at a table looking all classy in my sports coat and white tube socks.

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend and I will be sure to check back in on Sunday.

Miss USA...Kentucky style

I know I shouldn't give a crap about who won the Miss USA pageant, and normally I don't..until last night. Of all the girls up there, my fellow Kentuckian, Tara Conner, pulled down the top honor of Miss USA! Normally, I watch about 5 minutes of beauty pageants (usually the 5-minute swimsuit section), so last night I must have been accidentally drugged or monumentally bored, for I watched damn near the entire thing. It was good comedic fodder, though. I laughed out loud several times - mainly at the cheesy house band singing unintelligible songs in what I thought was Spanglish. Last time I checked, it was the Miss USA pageant, right?
Anyway, it was lame as hell, from the Mutt and Jeff hosts (Nancy O'Dell of Access Hollywood and little Drew Lachey, from Dancing with the Stars and very short brother to Nick Lachey) to the uber-gay commentary by some Queer Eye guy, to Donald Trump Jr. as a judge. I am not lying when I say that the Access Hollywood was almost a head taller than that guy. I was embarrassed for the little squirt. And, after looking at Donald Trump Jr., I can honestly say there is one person in the world with a worse hairdo than his old man's. I laughed out loud when I saw him; I could have given myself a better haircut when I was 6.
And back to the Queer Eye fella. I am not a homophobic (or at least I don't think so), but he just gave me the creeps. He is too flamboyant. Gay people probably think he is too flamboyant. He makes that really gay guy on Will and Grace look straight. He told dumb jokes and literally cried after the evening gown session. Cried, I shit you not. The worst part was when he longingly stared into the camera for what seemed like a minute. I felt violated. I felt like a piece of meat. It was a Top 5 creepiest TV moment.
But, in the end, it turned out OK. A ditzy, good-looking, country girl with suspect grammar from Russell Springs, Kentucky, was crowned Miss USA, and Donald Trump Jr. is still really, really ugly.

Be careful, my pretties!

How well do we know our blogger friends? How well do we really trust those whom we converse with on our blogs on a regular basis, and, sometimes on a daily basis. How many times have we stumbled upon some rambling, weird, crazy-as-a-shithouse-rat blogger freak? Well, I have stumbled upon a few. I have found more than my share of freaks, simply by pressing the “Next Blog” button on the top right-hand of the screen. Once, I got onto a blog site and as I scrolled down I saw naked woman on all fours exposing her brown eye for all willing and wanting to see. I am no prude, but c’mon! I was at work on top of that. Hey, to each their own, I guess.

Since I have a lot of female blog bunnies (thanks BV), I figured I should keep you all up to date on all the creeps and sickos out there. If you are a male reading this, I am posting this to help avoid becoming a creep!

I am a talker. I love talking to people in person, on the Internet, via e-mail. Not much of a phone guy, because my ear gets hot when holding the receiver to it for a long duration, and, I am a little antiquated when it comes to cell phones. For the life of me, I cannot seem to welcome the ear-bud-while-talking thing. Maybe it's because I have made fun of countless people who look like lunatics talking to air people while wearing them, and I don't want to be hippocritical. Nah, what do I care! I'll be making fun of people until the end. I'll be making fun of the abusive, overweight, orderlies at the old folks' home. Who'll in turn probably urinate in my oatmeal every morning.

I am also an Internet guy. I love it. I love most things about it. Sadly, the conundrum lies between both of what I love and hate about it: anonymity. I really enjoy talking to you, and while I realize I am one of a few who posts my full name, I do so for a reason, and that is to help promote my book. Hell, that is why I started the blog in the first place, so it might seem a poor business choice to ask people to buy a book from a person who goes by Hoss or Aliecat or something along those lines. There are hundreds of thousands of bloggers who wish to remain anonymous, and that is totally cool, because for whatever their reasons are I am sure most are valid. For females, it makes a lot more sense, since as I will discuss in a few, there are a truckload of weirdos out there, Blogland being no exception.

Here is a link to a story about a person charged with murder and actually planned to eat his 10 year-old victim. What? I couldn't believe it when I saw it, either. Here is a link to his blog, right here on Blogger. Now, I know it is an extreme case, but the truth is that there are some sick bastards out there. His profile reads, "Single, bored, and lonely, but other than that, pretty happy." How can you go from single, bored, and pretty happy to a murdering cannibal?
Sorry to have such a crazed story on here, but, consider it a PSA for all of you to be careful on here - especially all my adoring, lovely, female groupies, er, I mean, friends.

For another PSA on creepy males to avoid (this is funny), check out these guidos:

NOTE: There is one use of the "F" word in here.
To see if you are guido material, take this New Jersey Guido IQ test.

Later kids!

Hope springs eternal rhinorrhea

No, this drawing isn’t of me, but a close resemblance indeed. Well, another weekend has come and gone, and another weekend filled with a variety of events. I am proud to say I actually peeled myself out of my chair long enough to do a little spring cleaning outside, mainly yard work, which encompassed: pulling weeds, mowing the lawn, pulling more weeds, and planting all the nice, pretty flowers and vegetable plants that my negligence will eventually kill off later in the summer. A couple summers ago, Bruce (my twin brother) and I got together and came up with yet another hare-brained idea: To start our own garden. We planted a variety of melons, corn, beans, and a few other items that I fail to remember. I blame my memory problems on my youth, when once, back in my hometown we had a family that got caught growing pot in the midst of their massive corn fields, and the ATF came and burned all of it. Being the dumb-asses we were, we drove by inhaling non-Clinton style in a vain attempt to reap the benefits. Oh, and there was the time we smoked an entire pack of cigarettes at once. Yes, all twenty of them.

Anyway, Bruce and I started “farming”. It was cool. We had sweet looking International Harvester and Bush Hog hats to ensure our standing in the farming community; we rented out several rows to plant our seeds, and then we got lazy. All of a sudden, we had no less than 10,000 weeds in the mix. There were so many of them we accidentally pulled out stuff we planted. When it was all said and done our wives were correct: we should both stick to golf and fishing. We have had a million ideas and the overwhelming majority of them amount to little, but, all we need in one great idea, one plan that is foolproof and easy enough to combat our adult ADD. When that comes to pass, we will sit back and count our dough!

I really do love this time of year, though. Fresh flowers; nice cool, crisp mornings; longer days; warmer weather; lots of rain; swollen, crusty eyes; continuous sneezing; pulsating, fluid-filled ear tubes. Yes, the joys of spring. I was awoken this morning my by dog who just had to go outside and do his stuff at 4:30am. No sooner than my feet hit the floor did my eyes begin to water profusely, my ears pounded in response to the excess fluid accumulation, and I sneezed a good portion of my parietal lobe out. Even as I sit here in the basement at my place of work I am sniffing and sneezing and my eyes are beginning to swell. They look better now than they did, though; at 4:30am this morning, I looked like a Fight Club victim.

On top of all that, we have a massive beehive somewhere close by which is housing bees the size of small schoolchildren. Note to self: DO NOT USE A MAGAZINE TO TRY TO SWAT HUGE BEES OUT OF THE SKY – IT WILL ONLY PISS THEM OFF.

Thank goodness I only have a couple months left of spring; otherwise, I’d be in serious trouble.

The Timeless Art of Seduction

And you want to be my latex salesman? I tell you what, I cannot remember a day when I didn’t experience a Seinfeld-esque moment. I mean, seriously, every day I hear something that reminds me of a Seinfeld episode. For those of you who love the quirky, goofy, extremely funny show, you can relate. I am not a TV junkie, but I do love my Seinfeld. Why, just the other day at work, me and a group of co-workers – mostly female - were sitting around eating lunch, when someone mentioned pastrami, and I casually replied, “Oh, yeah, you talking about pastrami reminds me of something I've been thinking about. I have been trying to incorporate salted, cured meats into my lovemaking sessions at home, but to no avail. Any suggestions?”

I thought a few non-Seinfeld watchers were going to report me to HR.

I honestly can say I think Seinfeld has made me a funnier person, especially to those who have no idea what the hell I am talking about. How could you not be thought of as funny when you scream “Bad chicken! Mess you up!” every time I see someone eating fried chicken? Even if it is in my own mind, I think I am funnier now than I was pre-Kramer.

In the history of TV, there have been very few shows that one can integrate one-liners into the daily conversation. Master of your domain? I like to shop at the duty-free shop? Hoochie mama? I get excited when I actually see an episode that I haven’t seen before, that, or my long-term memory is failing me and I just cannot remember. Regardless, it is pretty cool. For those who share the Seinfeld love, here is a good site.

_____________________________________________

I have a book signing scheduled! I will be in Huntington, WV on Saturday, April 29^th at the Ohio River Festival of Books. It is held at the Big Sandy Convention Center, and I will be signing from 3pm-5pm at the Borders booth. For anyone who might be close to there or have friends/family close, I encourage you to come out and attend. For more information, click here.

I will be posting this information again once it gets closer to the end of the month.

______________________________________________

I am planning a Chicago trip in May for my wife’s birthday – any suggestions as to where we can go or do? We do have Cubs tickets already, but I am open to any and all suggestions.

______________________________________________

I finished teaching my physics lectures last night, so now I am very relieved. I have been working on them for two weeks and now they are over. Whew! The good news is that it will free up lots of task-avoidance time at work, and that equates to increased blog-stalking.

That’s all I gots for today, kiddies. Later!

Assorted sundry

Well, another week is flying by, and all I have to show for it is a crappy new haircut. For those who remember my hair stylist post, let me tell you, this weekend was no difference. Actually, if you look past the massive herpes blister she was a really nice girl. My haircut no so nice; I look like a kid with the “head lice haircut”. You know what I’m talking about. Sad.

After perusing through the news this week, I have found some disturbing stories that I had to comment on. First, there is a rise in New York City with teachers having trysts with underage students. One teacher was having sex with two underage brothers; one female student actually went to prom with her teenage “boyfriend”; one female teacher got impregnated by a student; one male teacher had sex with a student on the 50-yard line; and, another gave a bunch of GED students a lap dance (complete with crotchless panties) as a Christmas present. These teachers almost make Mary Kay Letourneau normal – almost. Sad and sick.

There is also a story about a 41 year-old teacher in upstate New York who got arrested for giving a 10 year-old student a wedgie. Sad, but still kind of funny.

Hey, did you all hear the one about the Swedish doctor who got fired for performing “anal massage” on patients? Seems this technique is a cure-all for an assortment of ailments from headaches to lower back pain. Call me crazy, butt I would not be too comfortable with a doctor trying to treat my headaches that way.*

On a lighter note, here is a feel good story. Have you ever been looking for new digs, and when you finally find that perfect place, the rest it astronomical? Well, look no further. You can locate a reasonable, affordable apartment online. The only requests are that you be female, in good shape, and willing to give it up. Check it out here. And They say our morals are in the gutter? Poppycock!

Not to digress on the utter abundance of idiots in the world, but I ran across a site that is comparatively on par or worse than My Space. Never before in my life have I seen such a sad assemblage of sloping foreheads so desperate for attention. It's called Rate My Body and it's great. It's so great I give you two links - this one's just for the ladies....
The first one deserves my undying respect, because if you can publicly call yourself "JustSpankMe" you have more nerve than I ever could. I'm thinking of posting a photo of some my enemies on here just for chuckles. **

Last but not least, there will be a story on me in a local, hometown newspaper this Sunday – the Danville Advocate-Messenger, located in Danville, KY. It will be in the Arts and Entertainment section. They should have an article online by next Tuesday.

Please check it out!

* Notice the misspelling of “but”. God, I am a clever bloke.

** I'm bullshitting you; I don't have any enemies. Yet. I will have at least two from Rate My Body if they ever catch wind of me goofing on them, though.