When I first saw this headline, CALLING ALL LOS ANGELES - AREA LOISES!, I clicked on it, because I thought for sure it was a mistake. Was LOISES supposed to be LOSERS or NOISES? Not that it would make much sense, but they were at least words I recognized. But then, as I read the press release, I realized that they were looking for women named Lois, and Loises being the plural of Lois.

Here is the complete release.

This is amazing. I kind of wish my name was Lois.

Most ladies named Lois have only met one other Lois in their whole lives. Imagine how thrilled you'd be to discover just how many fun-loving Loises there are.

I would like to know where they got that stat. That most Loises have only met one other Lois. I can't imagine having to be the researcher on that one.

Hello, is anyone in your household named Lois?

No.

Thank you.

Hello, is anyone in your household named Lois?

No.

Thank you.

Hello, is anyone in your household named Lois?

No.

Thank you.

Hello, is anyone in your household named Lois?

No.

Thank you.

Hello, is anyone in your household named Lois?

Yes, my name is Lois.

Thank y- No shit?

I beg your pardon?

Your name is Lois?

Yes.

How many other Loises have you met in your life?

I think only one.

OK. Um, are you fun-loving?

I suppose.

Thank you!

Here is the official Lois Club web site. Take a look at these tasty fun-loving ladies named Lois.



My favorite is the one on the far right. I bet she gets shitty drunk. The one on the left is the idea lady. She probably organizes everything and was the first to realize that they'd save a lot of money on not having to buy "HELLO MY NAME IS ____" nametags. The one second from the right is obiviously there to put a pretty face on the Lois posse. And the big one, front and center? Used to be a man named Louis. And she fucking loves broaches.

I also like the question. Do you fit the Lois personality? There is no description of what that really is, but I'm guessing you've got to be old and named Lois. And three out of four Loises have poor eyesight.

The more I look at this, the more I'm actually convinced this is some sort of terrorist web site. It's all in code. And from what I can gather, there will be some sort of terrorist attack in Louisiana. Lois... Louisiana. It all makes sense. Terrorists are now calling each other Loises. Like this post where they call for all "Loises" in the UK.

Shit is about to go down.

The other day I was in Manhattan, and while I was there, I thought, Hey, lemme call Kat and see what she's doing. It seems to be so rare that I'm ever in Manhattan anymore, so I'd like to spend as much time as possible there. So I call Kat, and this conversation happens:

Kat: Hey.

Me: Hey.

Kat: What's up?

Me: Well, I'm actually in Manhattan and wanted to see if maybe you wanted to get a drink or something.

Kat: Oh... well, I'm actually going out for drinks. You should totally come.

Me: Where are you going?

Kat: Um, Mars 2112.

Me: Are you serious?

Kat: Yes. Apparently they have a really good happy hour.

Me: Hmm.

Kat: So are you coming?

Me: I'm not sure.


For those of you not familiar with Mars 2112, it is a tourist trap restaurant near Times Square with a Mars theme. It's like eating and drinking on Mars. My old office is right around the corner from the place, and it was always kind of a joke. Whenever people discussed where to go for happy hour, Mars 2112 was brought up, but only in jest.

For Kat, though, this was no joke. So once I got passed my high-falootin' thoughts of "I would never go to Mars 2112" I decided that it would at least be a unique experience. And it most certainly was.

First, Kat was right. They do have a good happy hour. Two dollar beers. You don't find things like that anywhere in Manhattan, especially midtown. And it also leads to great jokes like, "Hey, the exchange rate on Mars is great!" There were many Mars jokes throughout the eve, none of which I can recall right now. As I was walking there, I did think that it would be funny to say, "Hey, what happens on Mars, stays on Mars." Kat's friend Morgan beat me to it.

The place was pretty crowded with people who seemed kind of ashamed to be at Mars 2112, but proud that they found a happy hour with two dollar beers.

I think it's safe to say that the next time I get the chance, I will be headed back to Mars.

I would also like to thank Kat for answering her phone with a "Hey," which signifies she knows it is me. Being that we all have cell phones, and names show up when people call, I can't stand it when people still answer with a classic response of "Hello?" Because then you have to be like, "Hey, it's Mike. You know, the guy whose name just showed up on your cell phone when you looked at it before you answered it. Yeah, that's me." Of course there will be numbers that show up which you don't know, but for the most part, you should almost always be answering with a "Hey, I know who you are so don't bother identifying yourself; we can just skip that" rather than a "Hello? (pause so the person can identify themselves, even though I already know who it is, but I'm such a dick that I like to make the other person awkwardly say that it's them, even though they know that I know that it's them)."

Thanks Kat. And fuck you to everyone else. Yes, even you!

I am very tired. I'd say that I've been this tired for the last 10 years or so. But that would be a lie. I have entered a new kind of tired. Wait, no, not a new tired. It's a reborn tired.

I used to work at 6 AM. I was always tired. Then my schedule changed to 7 AM. Oh, the difference. It was amazing. I would still be tired here and there, but not the constant state of being tired. Now that I am working in Jersey City and my commute is longer, so I get up earlier, I am back to being beyond tired.

I daydream about sleeping. I actually take naps. Naps! My yawns are monumental. Not only are they contagious, but they've been known to cause sudden narcolepsy in those who witness them. I urge people to treat my like the sun when I yawn; don't stare directly at me. It can hurt.

Oh, I know there are people worse off than I with worse schedules and worse commutes and worse lives, but I don't care much for them.

Speaking of assholes with worse lives, this douche who tried to kill himself, but in the process killed 10 others... dude. What the fuck? I feel bad for the victims of the family. What a shitty way to die. Because some dipshit didn't have the balls to suffocate himself or start the car in the garage or jump into the sea.

If you are going to kill yourself, please don't inconvenience others. Suicide gets a bad rap because of people like you. If your life blows, I am sorry that it's gotten so bad that you want to end it, but please don't interrupt my commute by jumping in front of a train.

So anyway, I'm tired.

I just went to a new doctor and he asked me how old I was. He's giving me a normal old check-up, looking up my nose and into my ears, conversing. Then he says something to the effect of how when men get older, approaching their thirties, they become less satisfied with their erections. He brings up Viagra. He was like a spam subject line. I wonder how he was able to gauge my erection by looking into my ear, but I guess this is his speech that he gives to his male patients.

I say, "No, I'm good." Very tempted to add, "I'm quite satisfied with my boner performance."

So that was a little awkward. He also gave me his email address in case I wanted to get in touch with him. Contacting doctors over email is odd. I've not done it.

"Hey doc, it's me, Mike. I was just in your office a few days ago. You stuck your finger up my ass? Anyway..."

He didn't stick his finger up my ass, but who knows what the future holds? You know, maybe we could start chatting via email, then somehow we start talking about sports or movies and we have a friendly old relationship, but then for some reason he has to stick his finger up my ass. I think the emails would cease. At least from my end.

"Sorry. Can't talk. Finger up ass. Uncomfortable. Mike."

OK. I think I'm about ready to go to bed. It is 6:30, eastern time.

It's no secret that TV imitates itself. One reality show becomes successful, there are twenty more that spring up that suck. It's really any sort of show that this happens. Once Everybody Loves Raymond became popular, family comedies were all the rage again, taking the place of the too hip for their own good Friends imitators.

One of the most surprising rip-offs I've seen in a while is Celebrity Blackjack, which is trying to share the thunder of Celebrity Poker Showdown. I'll admit that when I first heard about Celebrity Poker, I was less than intrigued. Seemed kind of boring. But then I actually watched it, and I'm not saying it's the most exciting show on TV, but it's pretty damn enjoyable. Part of that reason is because they get decent celebrities, and there is a strategy to poker. It can be fun to actually watch people play.

But Blackjack? There is no strategy there aside from what the "book" tells you what to do. You know, stand if the dealer is showing a six and crap like that. Boring. And they don't get good celebrities. This picture is from the web site, where they don't even identify these people.



"Tonight on Celebrity Blackjack, we have that guy that hosted Talk Soup! No, the one after Greg Kinnear. You know, real likeable, had that gray patch in his hair? And the guy from Malcolm in the Middle! No, not Frankie Muniz, the guy who works at the supermarket with the mom. He's kind of fat, but it looks like he lost some weight. That guy. And also playing is um... some black guy with a hat! Probably a comedian of some sort! And finally, I think that's my cousin Greg! I think. I'm not sure. Maybe it's John Favreau? I don't know. Anyway, they're all here to play blackjack! No, not poker. Yes, blackjack. Yes, where they try to get to 21. No, they play against the dealer. Hey, where's everyone going?"

My point is this is that if there was going to be any card game turned into a TV show with celebrities, it should be Asshole. Celebrity Asshole Showdown. If you aren't familiar with Asshole, it's a drinking game where the goal is to get rid of all your cards first. Whoever does that becomes the President, and the last person to get rid of their cards becomes the Asshole. So the President is in charge and can command everyone else to drink, and it's most fun to pick on the Asshole.

So get five or six celebrities, a couple of cases of beer, and let the magic of Hollywood take over. How much fun would it be to see someone like the dad from Frasier playing Asshole with James Vanderbeek? The dad from Frasier could be like, "Drink, asshole. Hey asshole, drink." It would be awesome. The tag line could be, "Celebrity Asshole Showdown. Because all celebrities are assholes."

Don't steal my idea.

All it takes is some Coors Light, a little whisky, and iTunes to make me realize that the 4 Non Blondes song, "What's Up" (is there another) is fucking great.

And I don't think I need to remind you that Coors Light is the COLDEST tasting beer ever!

OH my GOD! This beer is so COLD! How'd they do it!?!?!?!? I love cold beer! It tastes so cold. This beer actually TASTES cold!

I won some money tonight because the Patriots won by more than three points. This was the last bet I made on my Tahoe trip. NEVER bet against the home team if they're not the favorite, they said. I do what I want, I said! And now I won $150 during my trip. That's a nice trip, word?

Word!

There has been some talk this past week at work about a mustache contest. I've got some nice growth, but I'm getting the feeling that my opponents are wussing out. Yes. They are wussing! I don't care. If it's just me come finals time, I'll show my 'stache off to whomever wants it.

Tonight I watched the Fox 5 news because I wanted to see something about Johnny Carson. They talked about the snow for 15 minutes. I'm sorry, but Johnny Carson is bigger than a blizzard. I fucking love Johnny Carson. I love that when he retired, he just fucking retired. He was done. It was such a shock to people, including me, because here was a dude who was on TV every night, then all of the sudden, he said, "Good night," and he meant it. I'm not sure he realized what an effect he had on people.

Am I getting sappy? Maybe a little. He was a funny motherfucker. And he was from Nebraska. Who do you know from Nebraska that is funny? When I worked in Disney World and drove a boat, some random dude asked me where I was from, and I said, "New Jersey."

He said, "Well, obviously not born and raised, right?"

I said, "Um, yeah, I was born there and have lived there all my life."

He said, "Oh."

I said, "Where did you think I was from?"

He said, "I don't know. I would have guessed Nebraska or something."

I almost jumped into the water to drown myself. I was shocked. But if Johnny could come out of 'braska, well, then, maybe that was a compliment. I still don't see it as such, but I'd like to think that maybe it was.

Here is me being happy that the Patriots won.

Let's all drink to the death of a clown.

Next time someone says to you, "Let's get shitfaced," you should say, "Yes, let's get our faces full of shit!"

I found out tonight that it's kind of funny.

For some reason, I am getting slaughtered lately with searches from MSN.com. I don't get it. Maybe they signed a deal with Blogger to increase visibility or something. All I know is that I'm third in line when you search "Paris Hilton's Vagina".

I almost feel like looking at those search results and saying, "Well, my work here is done." But no, dammit, I want to be number one.

So I got to thinking, if anyone should have a blog, it's Paris Hilton's vagina. And hey, what do you know?! Here it is, just coincidentally arriving at the same time as me talking about it. What a coincidence!

On my way home today, a group of high school city kids all got on the subway. About eight of them. If you live in a city, you know that high school kids treat public transportation the same way suburb kids treat their basements -- almost anything goes. You can curse, drink beer you're not supposed to, make out with your girlfriend, pee in a Snapple bottle... anything!

So as you can imagine, it can be very annoying to be on a subway car with these kids because many are obnoxious. The kids all got on, I read the paper, preparing for the onslaught of cursing and laughing at anything and everything else that gets done. But there was silence. Yet from the corner of my eye, I could see that they were still all looking at each other and doing something. So I look up and they are all using sign language.

It was so bizarre. I was totally expecting to hear the normal, "Oh shit, nigga" or "Oh, word?" or "I'm tellin' you, son." But none of that. At least, none that I could tell, because I don't understand sign language. It was really interesting to watch them, because they were pretty spread out, but they were all talking to each other. And then they were making fun of this one girl (actually, I don't know if they were making fun of her, but one pointed to her and most laughed, one shook his head as if to say he disagreed, so I'm just assuming), and I thought that was a great quality about being deaf. You can openly talk about someone who is standing in between you and the person you are having the conversation with, and they'll have no idea, unless of course they know sign language.

Anyway, I really took a liking to these kids. There was one that you could tell was the funny one. He told a story to the rest of them that was about two minutes long and they all watched his hands and his facial expressions, which were great. He would also occasionally mouth a few words, and he definitely said "fuck" more than once. Normally when kids curse, I don't like it. But with a deaf kid, it was like a novelty. I thought, Hey, look at the deaf kid cursing. How 'bout that? I even found myself enjoying the story, although I had no idea what it was about.

So I guess what I'm saying here is that I wish everyone between the ages of 10 and 19 was deaf.

So I took the red eye from Vegas (where my layover from Reno/Tahoe was) to home. I should be asleep right now, because all I've had in the last 5 days were four nights of drinking sleep, and then five hours of airplane sleep, the worst sleep there is. Drinking sleep isn't so bad if you do it right. There is that window. You can be black-out-pass-out-stupid-drunk, wake-up-with-a-boulder-on/in-your-head headache or you can have that three beer buzz that doesn't let you go to sleep. Or you can have that wonderful in-between where everything from the night before is crystal clear, nothing to regret, and there is nothing groggy in sight. It's that kind of drunk where you think, "This is why people drink. To get to this right here." I don't know what that fine balance is, what the trick is, but sometimes it's just downright smashing.

Anyway, airplane sleep. Ugh. Luckily, I had a window seat on this completely full flight. Unluckily, I was stuck next to an old man who kept touching me. That sounds gross. He wasn't creepy touching me, he just couldn't keep to his side of the armrest. So he kept waking me up. I couldn't figure out what he was doing. Every time I looked back at him, he appeared to be looking for something. He looked all nervous and his head would look back and forth and then he would stare. He reminded me of me when I had mice in my old apartment. They would wake me up with there little feet tapping the linoleum. I would sit up and stare at the crack of light beneath my door to catch a glimpse of the little fuckers. This guy was me. I think he wanted a flight attendant to take away some trash he had, so he could put his tray table up.

Anyway, he kept hitting me and waking me up. I had fallen asleep with the help of a Tylenol PM, otherwise there is no way I would have fallen asleep. I can't sleep on any form of transportation without help. Unless of course I am driving, then I can nod off with the best of them. So I fell asleep with my seat back in its upright position. I don't like putting it back because it's an odd angle. It's a tease of an angle. So at one point during my ever so fragile slumber, I wake up with a jolt. It was my seat crashing back to its "reclined" stage. The fucker next to me pushed my button. And when I looked at him, he didn't say sorry or have an apologetic face on. He pretended as though he was just looking beyond me and through the window, as he found his button and s l o w l y reclined back. After a few more bumps into me during the flight, I finally said to him in my cranky airplane sleep mode, "Could you please. Stop. Hitting me?" It started off really forceful, but ended kind of with an "Oh, what's the point" intonation.

The worst part about the flight was a lovely couple who wouldn't shut the fuck up sitting across the aisle. As I mentioned in my previous post, this was the proud Puerto Rican guy who paid for his ticket, so he could do whatever the fuck he wanted.

So he and his girlfriend, who resembled a doormat with acne, talked as loud as possible to each other the entire second half of the flight. It woke me up here and there, but I'd fall back asleep. I think someone might have said something to them at one point to keep it down, but no one listened. If you have never been on a red eye flight, or one that is traveling at a time when most people would be sleeping, it's common for everyone to be as quiet as possible. They turn off most of the lights in the plane, so it's perfect for sleep. If you do speak to each other, it's with a whisper. But I guess that unwritten rule doesn't apply to a Puerto Rican from the Bronx who paid for his ticket. At one point he said "fuck" kind of loud, and then said, "Pardon my French. But I'm Puerto Rican and I don't really give a fuck."

It wasn't until we landed and everyone was getting their bags from the overhead when he really flipped out. There was a tall, middle-aged white guy who was standing very close to him, which prevented Puerto Rico to lift his bag. In Puerto Rico's defense, the guy was a little too close to him, which I think was a passive aggressive attempt by the white guy to communicate to Puerto Rico that he didn't appreciate how loud he was for the flight. So Puerto Rico says, "You know, if you just get out my way, we could bofe be getting our bags quicker." True that, but I think white guy wanted trouble. He said something back, which I didn't understand. Then this brilliant dialogue took place:

Puerto Rico: Step off and don't hate on me.

White guy: Don't hate on me?

Puerto Rico: Yeah, I said it. Don't hate on me.

White guy: Don't hate on me? I don't know what that means.

Puerto Rico: You don't want nothing to do with me.

White guy's daughter: Dad, come on, this is stupid. Don't...

Puerto Rico: Everybody got a problem with me 'cause I talk loud, well fuck that. I paid for my ticket, none a y'all did, so fuck it. You don't want to mess with me. I'ma go home right now and drink a Colt 45, because that's how I start my day. I'm from the Bronx. And oh, by the way, I'm also an ultimate fighter, so I don't think you want to bring it.

Effeminate Male Flight Attendant: Sir, you have to be quiet right now. One more word and we will have security meet you at the gate.

Puerto Rico: OK see, I respect you. I respect you, I'll do it for you.

Effeminate Male Flight Attendant: One more word. These people don't need to be subjected to this language.

Puerto Rico: OK, well I just want to let you know... (he trails off)

Effeminate Male Flight Attendant: One more word.

Puerto Rico: (mockingly) One more word.

End scene. It was fucking retarded. Seven in the morning. No one wants that, although it was quite amusing. The best part by far is the casual mention of being an ultimate fighter. I'm not sure if he was or not (I didn't have time to fact check), but it did make me laugh.

And just so you know, I was killing this guy with my internal monologue. If I was someone who enjoys confrontation, I would have been able to go toe-to-toe with him. At least verbally, not ultimate fighterly. I was on. I forget exactly what my comebacks would have been, but I remember thinking to myself, Oh, that one probably would have gotten a round of applause from the rest of the plane. They would have claimed me their hero and carried me out, all the while chanting, "Two four six eight, who do we appreciate? The guy from seat 22A who stood up to the Puerto Rican from the Bronx that may or may not an ultimate fighter and starts off his day with a Colt 45 and has an odd respect for effeminate male flight attendants! That guy! That guy! That guy!"

There was much more from my trip that I had wanted to mention, but that guy stole the thunder and pushed other memories from me skull. If I remember them, I will regale you. You will be regaled.

Hi. I was on a little vacation over the holiday weekend out in Lake Tahoe. You know, skiing and whatnot. I apologize for leaving you with that Marmaduke cartoon and no explanation about my whereabouts. I will post more later when I have time, but I'll give you a teaser. My trip ended with a guy on the airplane yelling, "I paid for my trip, none a y'all did. I'm a Puerto Rican from New York City, motherfuckers."

Welcome home, Michael. Welcome home.

Marmaduke is just plain awful and perverted. Look at this.



Yesterday, there were dogs watching dog porn in Marmaduke's dog house, and today he is full on humping his owner. Check out the heart coming from his ear. I'm not so sure the husband doesn't want it. He's not putting up much of a fight, with his hands all to the side and his feet all quivering. Punch that bitch in the face!

And the wife is kind of getting off on the whole thing. Damn. This comic is disturbing. I am going to write to one of those Families for Good Entertainment or the Coalition for Tepid Media or the Organization to Make All Shows Like Seventh Heaven or whatever those things are to get this pile of poo out of the newspapers.

In other news, here are a few things I thought about today which kind of make me hate me:

-- I often buy Starbucks, although I know I'm getting ripped.
-- I pay someone to do my laundry.
-- I think the King of Queens is a pretty funny show.

Hey baseball fans, isn't it going to be fun to watch Randy Johnson implode this season? It's going to be awesome. He might actually eat a reporter.

Being that I have a longer commute than I used to, I read much more of the newspaper than ever before. So you'd think I'd maybe get the Times and try to look educated in the morning, but fuck that with its uneasiness to read ina ll its sections. I read the Daily News, so I don't look like a total idiot reading the Post.

Anyway, I thought I'd take you through a little bit of today's Daily News. My favorite story is about the neighbor... From Hell!

Here are two of the things he did while a resident at the London Terrace Towers in Chelsea (despite London and Chelsea being in the name, this is in New York... don't be confused):

* Roaming the halls half-naked.

* Having sex with a homeless man in the building's health club showers.

Ya! Holy moly. This guy blamed his behavior on misunderstandings and occasional bouts of sleepwalking. I had a roommate who used to sleepwalk. He once woke up and tried to hang up some posters that we hadn't hung up yet. I convinced him it would be a better idea to wait until the morning to do that. He agreed and fell back to sleep, horizontally. Here was our conversation the next day:

Me: You sleptwalk last night.

He: Shit, really? What'd I do?

Me: You wanted to hang up your posters, but I told you to put them down. You pretty much went right back to sleep.

He: Oh. Sorry about that.

Me: No problem.

Now imagine how much funnier it would have been if this was our conversation:

Me: You sleptwalk last night.

He: Shit, really? What'd I do?

Me: Fucked a homeless guy in the shower.

He: Oh. Sorry about that.

Me: No problem.

I also read some comics while I was on the train. I can't believe people still read comics. I used to when I was a kid, except for Doonesbury, and now if I ever read the comics, the only one I read is Doonesbury.

Anyway, I will share a few with you now and try to explain what they mean.

Here is today's Cathy.



What this comic is saying is that all women are fat and stupid.

Here is today's Marmaduke.



This is either scathing social commentary on how obsessed our society is on material items and/or media, or it's just another log on the crap heap that is Marmaduke. I'm going to go with log on the crap heap. Why isn't Marmaduke watching the TV with the rest of the dogs? I don't get that. And who is the one actually talking in this? You'd think it would be the lady who is on the side of the fence with Marmaduke, who I assume is the owner. But the old lady seems to be the one talking and pointing. I bet the creator of Marmaduke recycled this drawing and just put a new caption. Lazy shit. The old one probably said, "That's where Marmaduke gets all the other dogs to watch TV and then they get all horny and do their leg humpin'." You can see how horrified the owner is.

This next one is For Better or For Worse. I used to read this all the time as a kid, because it actually had story lines. It was like reading the easiest book ever. As you can see, they are still on the serious side.



Elizabeth is the daughter who I remember was a little younger than I was when I used to read it. She's got boobs now, and unfortunately, is taking after her mother. She's not very attractive. Maybe she should read Cathy and put herself on a diet. Then men will love her and she wouldn't feel like crying every time someone hugged her.

Enough comics.

Finally, on the back page is Carlos Beltran, the newest Met. As a Mets fan, I have no idea what to do with this news. I am used to them not signing guys like Pedro and Beltran. I'm confused. I am used to washed up guys who will disappoint. I'm excited. Reluctantly excited.

This morning when I walked above ground from the beneath, Jersey City did not smell like bacon, as New York used to (and probably still does, it's just that I can't smell it). It smelled like burnt marshmallows. Disgusting. I hate marshmallows, particularly when they're burnt. Stupid Jersey City and its mysterious smells.

Another line of dialogue that should never be allowed to be spoken anymore in film is this one:

It's what's in here that counts... (pointing to his chest).

I'm talking to you, Seabiscuit.

Some songs should not be allowed to be played in public spaces. I was just at a restaurant (OK, it was a Taco Bell/KFC, so I use the word 'restaurant' loosely... I guess 'cow testicle/chicken beak depot' would be more appropo), and they were playing that Shania Twain song where she says something about being a little crazy and then she goes, "Oh-oh oh oh, I feel like a woman."

The reason I loathe this song, aside from the obvious (the obvious being the fact that it's ear poison), is that it gets stuck in my head for hours on end. So I'm walking back to my apartment and I'm practically singing to myself, "Oh-oh oh oh, I feel like a woman." And I don't know the other lyrics so it's just that line over and over.

I always had a fear that dead relatives can listen to my thoughts if they chose to, so I'd hate to have my grandmother be like, "Let's check in on what Michael is thinking about. Such a nice boy." Then she taps into my brain and hears "Oh-oh oh oh, I feel like a woman." Then she says to my grandfather, "He's a gaylord."

I have many unreasonable fears, and each and every one of them can somehow be traced back to Shania Twain.

Yesterday I was at a funeral for my aunt (my mom's cousin, so not technically my aunt, but you know, she was my aunt, understand?). She died completely unexpectedly on New Year's Eve morning. She was 62-years-old.

I'm not a good consoler. Never have been. When my grandfather died, I spoke about how there needs to be something else mourners can say to someone other than "I'm sorry." When I saw my uncle and my cousins, all I could really say was that. I'm sorry. And this was probably the first time I actually meant it. It's not just the usual, almost casual and routine, "Hey, sorry about your ______." This was a "My God, I am so sorry, my heart hurts" kind of sorry.

I couldn't think of anything else to say. There is always the "If there's anything I can do..." but who really ever follows up with that? I know I'm not going to get a call from my cousins in the next couple of days asking, "Hey, if you aren't busy, could you come over and make me a tuna fish sandwich? And my room is kind of a mess, so if you could bring a vacuum and maybe some rubber gloves, that'd be awesome."

At the wake, I'd look at my uncle or one of my cousins and they'd be talking to someone, laughing about something, seeming completely normal. Two minutes later, you'd look back and see them staring at nothing, completely lost. You could punch them in the face and they wouldn't blink.

I was at my uncle's house in between the viewings, and I'd look around and see all the Christmas decorations and the gifts and all of my aunt's stuff and I can't imagine what it was like for him to go home after the funeral, after everyone is gone, and just see all of that. I think they've been together since they were 14 and married for 43 years. I once lost a hat that I really liked that I had for two years, and that almost made me want to cry. A hat.

My aunt hated being around smokers. She had a magnet on her fridge that said, "If you are smoking in my house, you'd better be on fire." I always found that funny, although never really understood her scorn until recently. Last week when I was in New Jersey, where you are still allowed to smoke in bars, I was telling someone how I was turning into my Aunt Maryanne. When I see people in bars walk by me with a cigarette, I want to slap it out of their mouth and give them a lecture on how rude it is to make my clothes smell like shit and clog up my lungs. Maybe I'll start doing that from now on. I don't think my aunt ever did that, but perhaps she'll look down on me and feel a little pride.

Hmph. So that was my last couple of days. All that and a lot of great family gossip. Some of the stuff in my family is worthy of Page Six.

And on a lighter note, I won my fantasy football league and someone got to my blog by searching "is tony danza a smoker". Oh great Internet, what did we do before you? If I do find out that Tony Danza is a smoker, I am going to write him one scathing letter.

This is one of the worst lead paragraphs I've ever read (article):

Tsunami scientists and public safety officials are closely watching an earthquake-prone nation with thousands of miles of crowded coastlines for signs of an imminent disaster. Indonesia? Japan? Try the United States.

Indonesia? That'd make sense, since they just got clobbered. Japan? I could see that, because they're um, Asian. But the united States?! No fucking way!

That line, "Try the United States." Terrible. It's as though nothing bad can happen to the United States.

Try the greatest fucking country in the world, bitches. Yeah, that's right the fucking U.S. of A.

I think after this whole tsunami thing, we are all pretty much aware that this can happen to any place on a coast. Stop trying to scare people. It's such crappy journalism. I don't need a scientist to tell me that this could happen to the U.S. I know this now. If I am at a beach, right coast or left, and I see that the water suddenly disappears, I should run like hell. We've all learned a valuable lesson. Water that goes out quickly will come back really pissed off.

I love that CNN has been interviewing Bill Nye the Science Guy about the tsunami, and now the Mars rover. I fucking love that guy with his bow tie and knowledge of geology and rovers.

Before I went out and reveled last night, I decided to donate some cash to CARE. Before Christmas, I was feeling like I should donate money to something or other, but wasn't sure what. So thank God this tsunami came along and made it easy for me!

Anyway, after I donated online, it said, "Thank you for helping save lives!" I didn't really think of it as saving lives. That's a lot of pressure. I just wanted my money to buy some bottled water or something.

So that was my last good act of 2004. It also might have been my first. I wasn't very charitable this year. I helped a lady carry a stroller up the stairs from the subway. That's all I can remember.

I'll change my ways in 2005, just you wait and see. That's a lie. Damn, not a good way to start. Telling lies.

My New Year's Eve was fine, thanks for asking. Some asshole brought tequila.

Hmph. I'm tired. Most likely the fault of the tequila.

Happy new year, me bitches!

I was looking for a New Year's photo to post, and came across this one from France. Here is the caption:

French fire fighters extinguish a burning car torched during New Year's celebrations in Strasbourg, eastern France, January 1, 2005. At least 29 cars were torched and 43 people arrested in what has become a New Year's Eve tradition. REUTERS/Jean-Marc Loos



What a bunch of le douche bags.