Signs of the Apocalypse: Sign the 1st

As we all know, the apocalypse is nearing. It's not a question of if it's coming or even when it's coming, but of who gets into the heavenly VIP room with such greats as Martin Luther, Mother Teresa, and Strom Thurman.

With that in mind, I bring you Sign the First that the apocalypse is nigh:

Mathmatical Incompetence.

I was renting a U-haul the other day to prepare for my move to heaven (remember, it's nigh, and I gots a-heaven-of-a-lot of material possesions that I plan on bringing) when I overheard the following conversation, which is paraphrased in order to protect the innocent - and my crappy memory:

Customer: "What's bigger: the 6x12 trailer or the 14 foot truck?"
Employee: "I don't know. Let me check."

Needless to say, I pulled my spleen from trying to hold in a vicious laugh that would've certainly kept me off God's VIP list, or at least forced Him to take away my heavenly U-haul privileges.

This, coupled with the recent news that half of all Washington State WASL testers can't pass the math section of the exam, creates a two-headed hellhound of shameful arithmetical ignorance in this country. I call it "Spot." But I don't feed Spot, because I want that ignorant beast to die.

Unfortunately, it's looking more and more like Spot will visit us soon. The mark of this beast will be spread around the world, and it will look something like this:

12>14?

Girls I Haven't Known

Straight from a leisurely day at a coffee shop in Bath, and by popular demand (meaning Sara casually mentioned it), I bring you: what would happen if I dated the following random single girls from British Isles Quarter:

Janelle: This particular relationship would end when Janelle realized that she'd been mistaking Dylan for her Chia Pet. The split would also mark the end of Dylan receiving free weekly haircuts.

Jyl: This relationship would hit the skids upon Dylan attempting to claim the new Guinness record for world's longest fingernails. After a forceful attempt to trim Dylan's fingernails, armed with a pair of hedge clippers, Jyl breaks off the relationship, allowing time for her emotional and physical fingernail scratch wounds to heal.

Anna: After 20 years of marriage, Dylan becomes deaf to the unique and particular pitch of Anna's laugh. Thinking she no longer finds him to be humorous, Dylan releases his pent up resentment on their Bull Terrier, Footy, by kicking him in the hindquarters and telling the poor, ignorant animal that he should blame Anna for naming him Footy, thereby giving Dylan the idea to kick him in the first place. Anna, being oblivious and trusting by nature, assumes that Footy's bladder problems have resumed and Dylan is merely disciplining the animal. The next day, she calls the vet to get a prescription for Footy. Dylan overhears Anna ordering the medication, but what Dylan fails to hear is Anna laughing after joking with the vet that her husband "has a terrible problem down there." Thinking that Anna is referring to his unfortunate erectile dysfunction, and is finally willing to order a prescription to alleviate the problem, Dylan waits anxiously for the prescription to come. Upon its arrival, he immediately takes a pill and waits for Anna to arrive home from her book club. Anna returns exhausted from discussing Mrs. Dalloway to find her husband willing, but very unable to perform. Humiliated, Dylan runs out of the bedroom, slips on a puddle of urine and dies from massive brain hemorrhaging. Anna grieves while taking consolation in Footy, doting over him and curing him of the bladder problem that killed her husband, and was ironically caused by repeated concussive blows to the ass.

Obviously, England was taking its toll on me by this point.

My own little piece of transcedence

Yoshi, your post confuses me. Is this some sort of riff on TS Eliot, Jack Kerouac, or Nietzsche, or is this your own unique brand of insanity?

Whatever it is, it seems mystical, and I feel this precedent you've set has given me permission to share my own little piece of transcendence with you all. I hope it's pretentious enough for everyone, though it's not intended to be at all.

You see, this past July, I took a two week vacation from work and, well, everything productive for that matter. I spent most of my days laying in front of a box fan, eating fast melting popsicles while occasionally glancing at an enormous pile of books I was half-heartedly trying to read. The reading list included -- but was not limited to --- Albert Camus' "Le Mythe de Sisyphe," Lucretius' "De Rerum Natura," and the Marquis de Sade's "Aline et Valcour." While laying there in a pile of popsicle sticks and wrappers, lapping up the last drops of my firecracker and reflecting on these dissipated philosophes of yesterday, it hit me. I don't know if it was the sugar overload or the bleak outlooks of those gritty metaphysical adventurers whose words I was reading, but my mind was cast into the abstract realm of ideas...I was rapt as if in a vision.

There I was, accompaned by Jesus Christ in the desert. We walked together in the lonely void, when suddenly appeared the tempter. He was a scholar and it was clear that he had dwelt longer in this desert than either Jesus or me. The absurdity of the world had crushed the man's spirit, for what man could affirm a world that offers up a stone to the famished when they are in dire need of bread? When we approached, the tempter's jaundiced eyes lit up with fury. At last, the one he had long awaited -- longer than even his sharp memory could recall -- at last the Son of Man had appeared. But how surprised I was to see this cold man's face transformed in the presence of Jesus. It was as if one last colossal effort of the will was summoning up hope in this disillusioned man's heart. Tentatively he held out the his hands to his Lord. At first meekly, but with more assurance as he spoke, he declared, "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to be loaves of bread!"

I waited in the stillness. At first I wondered if Jesus would answer at all. I could tell that Jesus knew his tempter well. I think they may have been old friends, and there was certainly love in my companion's eyes. I almost willed Christ to consent because I knew that the scholar, whose clerical robes were torn and tattered, I knew his very life was dependent upon it.

Jesus broke the silence. "My brother, do you not see? You have been dwelling in a land of abundance, if you would only have it." Jesus then picked up the sand, stones, and scorpions nearby and handed them to his friend. "Are these not sufficient?"

The academic was dumbfounded. He was struck by the insanity of the question. He saw the absurdity of the world. Once again, he, a child of the world, sought bread and was given a stone from his father. The scholar shook his head and looked at the ground to veil his reaction. His body shook under his once dignified robes, veritable sack cloth. I couldn't tell if he was laughing or sobbing. Jesus' face betrayed no emotion. And with a firm voice of finality, "Is it not written that Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God?" Signalling to me, Jesus and I left the desert...

My dream continued in its wendings through my subconscious, but I think this is enough for you guys to get the gist. Needless to say I woke up from my glucose-induced stupor with a pulsating headache.

But most of all, upon awakening, I felt a most intense inclination not to share my dream with others. I felt as my great namesake Nick Bottom did after his premature arousal from sacred slumber. For I too have

had a most rare
vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to
say what dream it was: man is but an ass, if he go
about to expound this dream. Methought I was--there
is no man can tell what. Methought I was,--and
methought I had,--but man is but a patched fool, if
he will offer to say what methought I had. The eye
of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not
seen, man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue
to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream
was.

On the Pale Mutterer

-- "Ah! he is a philosopher! I ought to save his soul from floating into the land of the forms; alas, he is becoming an afterwordly! ...Ah! What is that? You believe in introspection do you?' Alas, she is becoming a retrospective wastebasket!... Who sings? I hear the grinding of instruments! A poet actor is drowning!"

-- "Bad air! Bad air! Bad air!: I smell the stench of dry, moldy prose!"

--"Plug your nose! Do you hear any words?"

--"Noise! Noise! Noise! I hear the squeals and shrills of their words--these logomachists!"

--"Can you make out what they're saying?"

--"No! Go on!"

--"These logomachists, these mutterers, these grinders of mistuned intruments, these delighters of noise are saying noth--"

-- "Enough! Enough!"

--"Wait! Open your nose again! Ah! Ambrosia! Where is that fragrance seeping from?"

--"A messager! An informer!"

The Oprah Haikus

On weekdays at 4
You appear with shiny hair
to give out free stuff

Why do you do this?
Cars, slippers, psychology
spring forth from your hands

Oh lover of poor
Oh lover of fine chocolate
always wear nice shoes

Even whipped husbands
stand up, cheer, sing your praises
But they are still whipped

the balding guru
god of the dysfunctional
Dr. Phil, your bitch

Can I have free stuff?
I want a new car lady
How do I get it?

An Open Letter to the Sarahs of the World:

Dear Everyone-named-Sarah:

You are ruining my life. Because of you, I have no identity. I feel incomplete, unheard, unappreciated, invisible. No one takes the time to ask me how my name is spelled, unless it is one mousy Starbucks barista who also suffers the indignity of being named Sara (no "h", NO "H"!!)

Why do YOU think YOU are better? Why does that one measly consonant at the end of your name give YOU the right to be more common, more popular, more correctly spelled? I have not yet met a one of you who doesn't think your name is so far superior to mine. Usually these sentiments of superiority are veiled in quiet contempt or sheer pity, neither of which are very much appreciated by me.

It is high time I took a stance on the issue and began promoting Sara-wareness. Unlike all you Hebraic Sarahs, steeped in Biblical history, running around flaunting your five-letteredness like a thing you flaunt while you run, the New Sara is demure, French in origin, desirable, and, most importantly, phonetically succinct.

We need to come together! We need to stand strong! No longer will our names be defaultedly incorrect. No longer will we silently bear the discrimination! The indignity! The SHAME!

And even if it is years before our sad state is finally recognized, at least we can be assured, as we always have been, that we are the ones with the correctly spelled name.

I'm outie.

Conspiracy Alert: Alternate Facts

Disclaimer: The following is a paranoid, conspiracy-theory laden look at the world through the eyes of a moderate who's too afraid to talk about how he really feels lest he be stoned by extremists. Enjoy.

I feel I may have been a bit hasty in my earlier conspiracy theory about XL T-shirts in my earlier post: "Conspiracy Alert: Expanding the Fast Food Market."

I didn’t even stop to consider an alternate theory, for if my first theory is proved wrong then surely the this one will be, nay, must be correct.

Perhaps it's not the Fast Food Industry whose at fault after all, but those conniving sewing-machine jockeys in 3^rd world Asia. Perhaps they are producing XL shirts by their own impetus to mock our girth.

If this is the case, we can’t allow them to link our proud national bulk with apple pie as an accurate way to describe what we are “as American as….”

Shut up. That makes perfect sense.

As a deterrent, I propose we give our sweat shop employees a pay cut to say... 9/10 of a cent a day. A preemptive strike would've been ideal, but some people want “proof” and “evidence” before action. These people are Communists. Or hippies.

I know, I know, it's not that big of a pay cut – heck it may even be a raise – but it's the message that's important. Besides, these people have to have enough money to eat three square meals a month so that they will have the strength to make my new Air Jordans in time for Christmas.

I gots to have my sneaks.

But that's not the only benefit of my 9/10^{th of a cent} Proposal. The ala mode on this Pac-rim pie comes from within our own impenetrable borders: that fraction of a cent is a clear shot at Big Oil, deflecting some excess mockery in their direction.

I mean, come on, 9/10 of a cent? Do you think I even care? Bring it on Big Oil, it doesn’t even cost me triple digit$ to fill up my gas tank... yet.