For the Record

I have never:

1. Bought a car
2. Made an omelette
3. Been hunting
4. Seen more than a few minutes of "Titanic"
5. Worked as a waiter
6. Understood how a pica pole works

A brief interlude for hatred

My last name doesn't seem complex to me. I grew up with it, a bunch of my relatives have the same name and, phonetically, it just makes sense.

That has not stopped countless teachers, counter workers and order callers from perverting it horribly. I mean, they get the first two or three letters right and then it's like they got distracted and just went with whatever sounded kind of right.

If a simple, though admittedly uncommon, name like mine can be mangled so easily, why then do today's parents seem so willing to fuck up the names they can choose -- their children's?

Driving home the other day, already filled with rage for no good reason other than it's kind of my default setting, I was stuck behind an SUV. Normally that's enough for me to launch into my "don't you care about the Earth" speech in my head -- a speech that conveniently glosses over the 20 mpg I get in my smoking (literally) hand-me-down car -- but these people went further.

There's a soccer ball stencil on the car. Normally, I don't care. I mean, are you that interested in telling people that your son or daughter is number 12? And then you also put their name up there? Why not just dress them in nothing but underwear and nipple-tassels, huh? Must have bought some kind of a molestation policy on that kid.

Well, this SUV had a forgettable name and number on one side of the ball (14-37 are all forgettable numbers, and thus I cannot count them) and on the other side, a vile slur against imaginary God.

"Kolyn."

Kolyn is not a name for a human. Especially not a human soccer player. That is a name for a new drug that stops restless leg syndrome. That is a name for a porn star appearing alongside Randy Bottoms.

Are there so many Colins out there that parents were worried about him getting lost in the crowd? Is misspelling the name the right answer in this situation, or, maybe, why not name the kid something else?

I'm not planning on naming my kids Jennifer or Jason -- not that I have anything against those names, but I don't have a strong family connection to them and they are, honestly, pretty common. But there are a lot of names that don't get much play that are perfectly decent names. No need to get crazy.

You want to get crazy with your kids? Teach them Esperanto. Tell them they're allergic to cheese, even though they aren't. Raise them Republican. Just don't fuck with their names, because guess what -- they don't have to speak Esperanto, shun dairy or vote Retardlican when they grow up -- but they're still going to be Kolyn or Gasmeen or Paetrycea when they're 40 and fucking miserable.

And, coming soon, existential angst!

Two Weeks is Perfect

Here's the thing about Valentine's Day:

I hate it.

As holidays go, it's about the worst. Unlike Memorial Day, you don't get Valentine's Day off. And while Arbor Day doesn't let us off work, it does get people to plant trees.

There is gift-giving on Valentine's Day, but it's rarely the kind of gift you actually want, at least if you allow the greeting card/chocolate/candy/flower corporate industrial complex decide for you.

This year I gave Dr. Wife a DVD set she wanted. She got me a tool to ensure better preparation of steaks.

But what I really hate about Valentine's Day is what it stands for: "Love." Not love, mind you, but "Love" -- that idea of what love should be but rarely is.

You know that bullshit from First Corinthians? "Love is patient, Love is kind, It does not envy, It does not boast, It is not proud, It is not rude, It is not self-seeking, It is not easily angered, It keeps no record of wrongs..." That's "Love," which has almost no relation to real love.

Love is impatient, especially when hungry. Love can be mean without even knowing it. Love envies almost everything. Love looks down on others and makes out and buys sexy underwear and gets pissed off and remember grudges.

Love is human. "Love" is an idea that, frankly, makes people in real love worry that they're not really in love, because it's not fucking perfect.

Today is my wedding anniversary, exactly two weeks after Valentine's Day, as it always will be. Four years now has Dr. Wife been put through the wringer of matrimonial bliss with me and let me tell you, we don't "Love" each other. I don't know that we ever did.

She gets mad at me and the feeling is returned. She doesn't like when I express attraction to women on TV shows and I'd prefer to think her dating history includes a lengthy coma with no male visitors and when she woke up we got married.

We pay bills together in a dispassionate manner. We eat burgers and fries out of the bag and heat up LaChoy Chinese food when we're feeling fancy. We drink box wine (but not that Franzia crap with fruit juice mixed in) and beer and diet cola.

She is still an object of lust to me and I don't see it ending any time soon. In return, she closes her eyes and has the decency to imagine what I looked like when I was attractive when we kiss.

I know this is like three straight posts about my wife. Well, too fucking bad. You want a post about something else, try making shit happen. My life is my job and my wife and my dogs and TV shows.

And I love my life. And I love my wife. And I'm looking forward to many more years of hanging out with my best friend and occasionally feeling her up, because she's sexy. And that's real love.

Valentine's "Love" can run a hot bath, open a vein and die as far as I'm concerned.

My wife is awesome

Yes, Dr. Wife is awesome. She is awe-inspiring. There is an aura of awe about her. She's awe-dorable.

Are you getting the point? She's great. But you knew that already. Everybody on earth knows it, except for Dr. Wife.

I tell her. I do. I'm not one of those "You ought to know I love you without me saying or doing anything" guys. I have made her awesomeness known to her.

Still, she doesn't get it. That's why I'm going to stop talking to her.

See, everytime I tell her about having a drink with my friends or chatting with someone online and I mention that she was a subject of discussion, she immediately gets on the defensive. We must have been saying something bad. I must have implied she was frigid or mean or hateful or no fun or very bad or something ridiculous.

The truth is, Dr. Wife is the beloved one. It's true. I've had friends tell me, unbidden, that if our marriage ended, they would be her friends and not mine.

So, when I joke with my friends about the look she gives me when I say something stupid, the point of the joke isn't "Boy, my wife sure is mean." It's "Boy, we're lucky to have someone around who isn't afraid to tell me to shut the fuck up, because I have a tendency to say the wrong thing on purpose because I think it's funny, but it makes everybody else uncomfortable."

Believe you me, I wish she was mean. I wish she was unreasonable. It would make my life so much easier if, just once, I was right about something. But I'm not. I never will be. And that is my role in this marriage.

That's why I'm cutting off all communication. It's the only way to make sure she doesn't think I'm talking smack about her, which is impossible, because she's awesome.

And don't you go telling her she's awesome, either. She'll think we talked and then I'll be in for it some more.

This has been a good week

I have had plenty of bad weeks in my time. I seem to remember a lot of them happening between the years of 1991-1998.

But you have to love it when a good week comes along. And this one will be hard to top.

I got my first freelancing check in the mail. The irony is that I had to leave my old job in order for my old bosses to start paying me for the work I'd been doing all along. And my second freelancing gig got the coveted cover spot in the local competition's paper.

My first big PR event came and went with very little drama and everybody seemed genuinely happy when all was said and done, especially my boss, who isn't generous with the praise.

But the best of the best is clearly that Dr. Wife had her fill of the bullshit and pushed her boss into changing her schedule into a "marriage-friendly" format -- and just before our 4-year anniversary.

She works this Saturday and then Sunday of next week and then...as I have been led to believe...she will work day shift on weekdays and no weekends.

That is so fucking huge. I mean, we've struggled with this for so long. We've fought about it. She's thought about quitting to work at Pier 1, I've thought about switching to a shittier job to get on the same schedule with her, and now everything's coming up right for old Liz Lemon.

Which means, by the way, that in the coming weeks, the wife and I will be -- how you say? -- available for events, parties, luncheons, movies and motivational seminars. Also we're probably going to have kids, which seems less awful lately.

The Wire: An Eulogy

Before my aunt Vel died, she had a funeral. I know it's supposed to go in the other direction, but that's what she wanted -- a chance to see her family and friends again and tell them she loved them.

And now, I'm going to take this to a crass place and compare my aunt to a TV show.

Well, "The Wire" isn't dead yet -- two more episodes remain -- but I don't want to wait until it's over to praise it.

Us OnDemand viewers are watching things a week early and this last episode -- fuck me running -- it's brilliant. The entire show is brilliant, which is why it hurts so bad that this is the final season.

For anybody who hasn't watched it, "The Wire" is about cops and drug dealers in Baltimore. It's hilarious. It's infuriating. It is affecting, as in, when I watch it I get honest to goodness anxiety about what is going to happen next. And not like I'm afraid somebody is going to die. Hell, for most of them, it'd be a vacation. I literally can't stand to see the characters fuck up their lives any more than they're already fucked.

It's tender and juicy and green, like asparagus. Wait, what? No, no, it's just the best thing ever.

That's right. "The Wire" is better than "The Simpsons," better than "The Venture Bros.," better than "Newsradio" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Barney Miller."

The DVD sets are out there for the first four seasons and, truth be told, the prices are untenable. But I have the first three seasons (thanks silent auctions at the old job where people don't know the good shit from "Blossom: The Complete Third Season") and if you want to borrow them, for a small fee, I will allow it. But you have to leave your keys as collateral.

My car was asking for it.

Have you met my smoking (literally) hot (figuratively) car, Lil' Brudder?

If so, have you sexually abused my car? I only ask because something traumatic has happened to him.

After driving to work this morning -- in record time, I might add -- I pulled my oil-burning chariot into the parking garage and went through my normal morning ritual of trying to get my keys and iPod in the correct hands to easily stash them in my pockets without dropping or scratching either of them.

Since I'm a moron, this takes some time. So, with the door open, I remembered to put my keys in my right hand and my iPod in my left. Victory!

That is when a flickering light caught my eye. It was red and faint, but I could sort of make out a silhouette of a car with an open door. It faded, then grew brighter, then faded and flickered and finally came on strong.

Normally, cars aren't so afraid of being beaten or raped that they can't tell you a door is ajar. So, which one of you fuckers fucked my car? Because you shouldn't do that again.

Dr. Wife is an unlucky woman

It's cold comfort, but if my wife wants to blame anybody for my lack of romance, she can go after Jamie Janota. Or Tiffany. Or Brie (a girl, not the delicious cheese). Or Jennifer.

Or me.

But she's got plenty of other reasons to be mad at me -- the odd smells, my inability to watch TV without telling her what other shows an actor has been on, my complete lack of earning potential -- and these girls are all at least somewhat culpable for my feelings toward romance.

In my youth, my stupid, stupid, goddamn, retarded youth, I was very romantic. I believed in the idea of souls touching. I believed in love at first sight. I believed all that shit in movies about girls falling for unattractive and completely dorky guys.

"Can't Buy Me Love", anybody? Yeah. That was me, except I don't look on my best day like Patrick Dempsey did on his worst.

I brought flowers to girls. I wrote poems. I felt, deep down in my heart, that SHE would be the one and our love would live forever. But it didn't live for a day or a minute, because I was a huge fucking dork and no girl with an ounce of self-respect or common sense was going to come near me.

Meanwhile, I saw assholes and jerks get the girls I thought I loved. You know, that's unfair. I don't know if they were assholes or jerks -- I wasn't even cool enough to get close to them to find out.

Little by little, romance died. And as it did, my success with women grew. You know why? Romance is creepy.

It is. Romance is scary and stalking and showing up unexpectedly with gifts or items that you shouldn't know about, because who are you again? Romance is expensive, more often than not, and involves the kind of planning that only obsessives should possess.

I know this because my wife was my last ever romantic conquest. I wrote poems for her. I pined after her. I spent nights staring at the ceiling wondering what she was doing, what she was thinking and if she was ever thinking of doing me.

I buy her flowers, still. I'm not much for writing poems anymore, mostly because I was shitty at it back then and I can realize it now, but also because our kind of love doesn't need poems. I get her chocolates.

But I also pay half the rent. And we bought vacuum cleaner. We've cleaned up dog poop and we've had fights and we've said the wrong things at the wrong times and we've failed at romance, because romance is ridiculous.

On Valentine's Day, we made dinner together. Potatoes Diane. Mixed green salad with asparagus, pine nuts and balsamic vinegar. Angel food cake with berries and cream. Pan-seared strip steaks.

But we could make that dinner any time. And I don't need a day to tell her I love her or to know she loves me. I'm not a romantic because romance ends. The love she and I share is more than that. It is strong. It is weird. It is practical and stupid and it always feels right.

It will last the rest of my life and the rest of hers. And maybe that's not so bad, romance-wise.

Howard Johnson is right!

I don't like agreeing with things. It makes people want to talk with you or associate with you, and I've got too much TV to watch, too many comics to read and too much porn to enjoy to spend time with "people."

Regardless of the time it takes to properly enjoy "Big Butt Sluts 17," I will agree that the treatment of Hillary Clinton in these primaries is shitty. Way shittier than the men treat the women in "Big Butt Sluts 17." That's right, Hillary is getting it worse than women who are slapped with penises.

Why? Because the women getting dick-slapped are also getting paid handsomely, while Hillary's metaphorical dick-slapping is costing her money.

I have too often seen ads for the "Hillary Clinton Nutcracker" or heard of men at Hillary's rallies yelling "Do my laundry!" and other such sexist crap.

Now I'm not a fan of Hillary. If she's the Democratic nominee, well, she's better than a Republican, but she's not my first choice. That said, if her treatment were translated to any other candidate, it would be immediately vilified.

Nobody would stand for a second while people at an Obama rally yelled for him to "Pick my cotton!" or let someone get away with selling Barack "jungle bunnies," would they? We'd all be disgusted at how coarse and narrow-minded that level of discourse is.

Sadly, as I said over at Brit's site, there's really no translating it to the GOP's candidates. It might make me laugh, but if somebody yelled "Read me a story, Grandpa!" at McCain or "Teach a class on Intelligent Design!" at Mike "Fuckame" Huckabee, it just wouldn't have the same sting.

I am not having sex with the dog you broke up with

Seriously, I love that post title. I plan on using it a lot. A. Lot.

But, onto more serious news. Macy (the dog) is at the vet's office in Stillwater going through tests to see if we can rid her of snot (the mucus) which she's been flinging everywhere for a few years now.

The house isn't silent with her gone. We still have Tink (the other dog), who, in the absence of Macy, was pretty clingy. It's not unusual for Tink to press her ass up against your body, but she did it nearly non-stop for 4 or 5 hours yesterday.

I really hope we get some good news for Macy. The wife is spending a lot of money to get a diagnosis -- x-rays, MRIs, cameras up the nose -- before we can even start spending on a cure. Needless to say, we love that damn dog.

And we started loving her even more Sunday as we loaded up the car to come home from the in-laws' house. We'd eaten Mexican the night before and had put the leftovers in the car while we said good-bye.

We weren't fast enough by half, because when we turned around to get in the car, Macy had wolfed down a good quarter-pound or so of fajitas.

For the rest of her life, Macy has earned the name Tex-Mex. It's good to have a new nickname, especially now that "Ol' Snotbucket" may no longer apply.

I am not having sex with the guy you broke up with

For the record, I'm not having sex with any guys, so you can stop asking, Phil.

But, someone who is having sex with only one guy got a call from somebody who things she had sex with another guy. Read all about it here.

Meanwhile, the title for this blog post (and her blog post) is by far my favorite title ever. I'm thinking of using it on restaurant reviews.

Not a moment too soon

I don't know that the end of the writer's guild strike was all that happy.

I mean, I'm glad the writers are back working, as are a lot of Hollywood's ancillary businesses, but I don't know that they got the deal they deserved.

If anything, there's a good chance they took what they could get out of respect and love for us.

You think I'm blowing smoke? Let me put a few words out there to convince you otherwise.

Moment of Truth. American Gladiators. Dance War. Girlicious. Lipstick Jungle. Cashmere Mafia. Deal or No Deal. The Baby Borrowers. My Dad is Better Than Your Dad. Welcome to the Captain. Do You Trust Me? Survivor. Almost anything on The CW.

These people are entertainment Marines. No viewer left behind.

Now, where's my "Office" and "30 Rock," writing monkeys? Get to it!

Leave Britney Alone!

Oh, you can still be mean to her about a lot of things. Here's a list:

1. Married Kevin Federline.
2. Made shitty music.
3. Got fat.
4. Went nuts in front of cameras, drooling and having a psychotic episode.
5. Can't bring herself to go to court to even try to get custody of her kids.

But, Internet denizens, I demand you stop making fun of her fakey British accent. Why? Because it happened to me on the way to work today.

The local NPR affiliate (Wooo! KGOU! Rock it out!) was talking about British pop stars and interviewed some British people who speak with British accents.

Anyway, about halfway through the interview, the driver of the car in front of me slammed on his brakes and I yelled, in my car, in my fakey British accent, "Come on! Get out o' ther way!"

So, blimey, leave Britney alone. She's just listening to NPR.

Seriously?

Oklahomans went to the polls yesterday and they sent a message loud and clear to Washington D.C.

That message?

"Don't bother paying attention to us, because lord knows we're not paying any attention to you."

McCain was the Republican nominee, proving once and for all that Okies don't care about religion or the economy -- we just care that the person we vote for pretends to care about those things.

And on the Democratic side, 55 percent of the vote went to Hillary Clinton and 31 percent to Barack Obama. That adds up to...uh...wait a second...86 percent?

Oh, that must be because so many of our local morons cast ballots for John Edwards (10 percent), Bill Richardson (2 percent), local nobody Jim Rogers (1 percent) and political powerhouses Chris Dodd and Dennis Kucinich (1 percent each).

Yeah, were you guys trying to "send a message" with those votes, because what it says to me is, "Us cunt'ry folk ain't payin' no attenshun to who is still in the race."

That sentence, in my head at least, was followed with a chorus of belches and farting.

Congrats, Oklahoma. I'm sure morons from other states did it too, but that's no excuse. Fucking morons.

An extremely short and very witty review of the first episode of the new CBS program, "Welcome to the Captain."

More like "Welcome to the Craptain."

Mississippi is Bat-Shit Crazy, y'all

You know the problem with fat people? It's that they eat too much!

(Seriously, there's a ton of other things that make people fat -- a sedentary lifestyle, genetics, psychological issues ... and eating too much.)

So, in the progressive state of Mississippi, lawmakers have come up with an idea. Take a look at House Bill 282.

If passed -- and this shit will NEVER pass -- this bill would make it illegal for restaurants that a) have 5 or more seats, b) are in an enclosed building and c) are required to have state permits to serve obese people food.

I can't for the life of me tell if this would be a good thing or not. I mean, I can make plenty of unhealthy shit to eat at home, and I often do. I mean, have you met my gut, Lester? That boy is home-grown.

Meanwhile, I'm more interested in the legislation over at Shortpacked.

Dear Hanna-Barbara

Bob is correct that I glossed over the visit she and Billy paid to the C of OK in yesterday's post. And I apologize profusely.

But, the thing is, I don't just think of you guys as friends. It's more than that. In a lot of ways, you guys are the foster parents who always wanted to, but never quite molested me.

Still, it was kick-ass seeing you all and drinking beer and eating pot roast and watching you flash/have-a-mental-breakdown-at our waiter. You went from zero to "do you think he'll spit in my drink?" in no time at all.

To make up for my egregious error, please enjoy the music of Hot Chip:

Der Boule del Superior

I like my friends.

OK, I know most people like their friends, but for years, I didn't. They weren't good people and I felt anything but satisfied when I was with them.

So, for a while, I just didn't have any. I mean, I was married, and Dr. Wife is my best friend. She's great. But we didn't see much of each other (sometimes we still don't), and I was just alone most of the time.

Now, you won't find many fans of being alone, and there's plenty of things I'd like better, but it had advantages. For one thing, when you're alone, nobody cares if you wear the same clothes over and over again.

Never, in my years of solitude, did my dog look up at me and say, "You know, that shirt is starting to smell funny." If anything, she was pretty excited about the smell. And when I did take it off, she was apt to fashion it into a nest and take a nap on it.

I was surprised by friends. I was surprised to find people I cared to spend time with, because previously, these people had been nothing more than acquaintances. They were people that would sometimes get a beer with me. To make that transition -- it was a shock.

Last night was a Super Bowl party that I really enjoyed. I don't know if my friends are forever friends -- I don't know if I had a problem that I could approach them. But they are certainly now friends, and given the choice between seeing them and doing almost anything else, I will choose them.

Also, fuck the Giants. Ruined my goddamn night.

You know why I like Matt Damon?

You know, I'm not a huge fan of Hollywood stars. So often they're pretensious without any justification, they're shallow, stupid and when they do what they're paid to do -- act -- they're not very good at it.

But I like Matt Damon.

Matt Damon has done some weird shit. Matt Damon has done of pablum. Matt Damon has done action movies. And I loved all of it.

I like "Good Will Hunting." Sorry. I just do. And I liked "The Incredible Mr. Ripley." His part in the "Ocean's" movies? Excellent. "Rounders," "Dogma," anything "Bourne"? Loved them.

And when he did "EuroTrip" -- a bit part made amazingly funny by his presence? He won me over for good.

But if you want to know why I like Matt Damon, all you need to do is watch this: