PLASTIC SURGERY

My main beef with plastic surgery is that there isn’t enough of it. I want to see an entire race of peoplecats take over the planet. Catlandia, as it will henceforth be called, will be ruled with an iron fist by the sinister Diane Cannon. This will lead to a period of deep oppression stemming from her ban on any new procedures in order to galvanize her position as the most stunning feline beauty in all the realm. Such despair will give rise to an underground revolution led by the brave thundercat Meg Ryan and her dangerously witty sidekick, Carrot Top. Michael Jackson will come back from the dead to declare his love to the man-jaguar Bruce Jenner. Their deep love will inspire Meg “Cheetah-Che” Ryan to challenge Queen Cannon in a no-holds-barred cage match to the death. Cheetah-Che will emerge victorious, helping foster decades of peaceful peoplecat existence. That is until her daughter, the bubbly bobcat Heidi Montag, turns to the dark side and threatens to destroy everything we’ve worked for. 

ORDERING AT JAMBA JUICE

Fact: Jamba Juice is delicious. Fact: Jamba Juice is the category-defining leader in healthy blended beverages, juices, and good-for-you snacks. Fact: ordering the Berry Fulfilling makes you feel like a complete dillweed. Fact: telling a 16-year-old with a smirk on his face that you’d like a large Mango-A-Go-Go makes you question if you’re even a man. Fact: they called it a Razzmatazz just to mess with customers. Fact: The Peanut Butter Moo’d looks gross so I’m glad I don’t have to order it. Fact: starting a sentence out by saying “Fact:” is extremely annoying and will be the subject of a future post.

WATCHING HOARDERS HUNGOVER AT A CONVALESCENT HOME WHILE IT'S RAINING

There's something about watching Hoarders hungover at a convalescent home while it's raining that really bums me out. I don't know what it is. Maybe I just have a shitty attitude. Or maybe it's the fluorescent lighting, which always reminds me of the DMV. Or it could be the TV they have over there. Is that what it is? I'm so accustomed to a 40-inch flat screen that I can't watch anything unless it's in high-def? Wow, that's sad. Leave it to someone from my generation to find the bad in any situation. Why can't I just look past the constant smell of impending death in the air? Who cares if the coffee tastes like athlete's feet? Me and my country club expectations need to just get over it. Still though, it's difficult. Especially when every time I look over at Melvin he's staring deeply into my soul and rubbing his nipples. Gives me the willies. Then there's the fact that Regina stopped giving me half her pills. What a selfish bitch. I didn't mean that. Maybe it's all these things. Maybe it's none of them. Sigh.

MIXED NUTS AT BARS

Dear son, I know you haven’t been born yet, but I want to give you a quick head's up before I forget. For now I’m going to call you Clyde because people named Clyde are always cool as shit. Anyway Clyde, I need you to listen carefully. Never eat the mixed nuts at bars. Seeing as how your name is Clyde I predict you’ll find yourself in more than a few extremely sketchy bars. I’m talking about some real shitholes. The kind of places where a guy shivs you in the back one minute and hands you a pickled egg the next. So please son, take heed. In these dingy, dark and awesomely depressing bars people will visit the restroom and handle their dirty bits. Often, they’ll get a little pee on their hand, or worse. You’ll know what I mean by “or worse” because you’ll be a bright kid who can make connections easily. These people will then leave the bathroom without washing their hands and rejoin their companions. What comes next? A wrist-deep dive into a bowl of mixed nuts. After that point it’s just a big bowl of Hepatitis. Listen, you’re going to face a lot of challenges in your life and I can’t promise to prepare you for every one, but when it comes to the mixed nuts situation, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

SPOKEN WORD

Chicken in the rooster coop. That is life. The mother. Raising. Reaching. Reciprocating. Flowing through a cross-pollinated monochromatic half-lens. Slipping. Slipping. Slipping further down the pitch-black ether. And I deny. I deny this rooster game. But not yet, not ever. Mother. This mother. Mother Earth. The goddess of all who portend the enflamed liquid hopelight. Light be the majesty. Darkness be the void. Like so many wretched receipts responding and reacting to this paved-over blindfold. And paved-over once again. And again. And again. And again until shhhhh. Commercial in its emptiness. Filled full with regret. Damage done. And yet, the shadows speak in muffled tones! But the echo is real. Mother magnificence make me whole. Bring me into your womb. Leave me awash in that glorious placenta. Oh mother. Cover us all. From the liars and the thieves and the greedy greed greed of the political machine. Bring the rain that makes the rust that stops the system that kills the birth of a yet one more system. A new stream engulfing man and woman in one. Fell. Swoop. Buried. Into the deep nothing. A ripple-scorched landscape. Left bone dry but for one. Impossible glimmer. A drop of utopia. Waiting. Waiting. To keep us from evaporating.

UNNECESSARY USE OF THE WORD “LIKE”

The word "like" is a bigger scourge on society than cancer. And if you think that’s being too dramatic, you’re right, I already regret starting out that way. Cancer is far worse. Let me begin anew. The word "like" sucks nads. Better. My statistician, Romeo, informs me that the average American says “like” 782 times a day. Astonishing. Romeo goes on to explain that 98% of us say it in 98% of our sentences throughout 98% of the year. Astounding. In a This Guy's Pet Peeves Exclusive, it has come to light that during the early part of 1982 an Al Qaeda sleeper cell embedded itself deep inside California's San Fernando Valley. Their central focus: to whisper the word “like” in the ears of unsuspecting teenaged blondes. Positioned conveniently next to Hollywood, the cell also disseminated the word into popular culture through such films as Valley Girl, Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Hardbodies. From there it took on a life of its own and none of us are safe from its clutches. Young or old, smart or stupid, its wicked tentacles have turned us all into mindless drones bent on turning everything into a simile. Resistance is, like, futile.

ONLINE SECURITY CODES

You need a 90-inch monitor and an advanced degree in computer engineering to figure out some of the security codes they lay on you. I'm no computer wiz and I hate to question protocol, but can't we at least stick to the keys on the keyboard? What are they testing anyhow, if you have eyeballs? Nope, that kid put farnimagin instead of famimagin, that's a code one breach. Access to professional wrestling tickets denied. I think this is what happened to the Unabomber. He was trying to surprise his wife with tickets to the symphony when he came across one of these. He snapped, yelled "Fuck It!" and marched into the woods.

CHINESE TOURISTS IN CHINA TOWN

I don’t speak Chinese, but I can tell they’re being total snobs about how crappy all the stuff is. It’s pretty obvious that they’re getting a good chuckle over the shitty craftsmanship on some of those Zodiac paper placemats. Just one look at their body language tells you that none of the mooncakes comes close to the quality you’ll find in Shijiazhuang or even Guǎngzhōu. How is a lady from Nebraska supposed to feel after she picks up a hot little silk imperial dragon cheongsam to spice things up with the husband back in Lincoln only to have some O.G. Chinese folks smugly laughing from overall lack of authenticity? All she’s trying to do is honor your country by initiating some awkward, sweaty and heartfelt sexytime. And what do you do? You sit there and laugh at how ripped off she's getting. Not cool.

POOPSMEAR™

That ain't chocolate, kids. Poopsmear™ angers me on a number of different levels. It angers me because it's, well, poop on a sidewalk. It also angers me for the person who steps in it. There's something about seeing Poopsmear™ that immediately transports you to the moment it occurs. You can see them reaching new levels on Angry Birds as they walk. You can feel the moment of impact; the shoe pressing down hard on the hot, wet dog (we hope) poop; the unmistakeable mix of disappointment and rage on their face. And we can empathize with the emotional trauma it will surely cause during cleanup.

Every Poopsmear™ tells a unique story. In the one pictured above, Wolverine was out walking his dog Pickles. The night before, as Wolverine was making his nightly spot of tea, Pickles saw his chance to devour the bread bowl of clam chowder sitting on the coffee table. Pickles was in heaven, but it didn't come without a price. During their morning walk he had to let loose the lion something fierce. Wolverine tried to stop it, but even he isn't fast enough for that kind of action. Being the good guy he is, he tried to pick it up. With bag in hand he gave it a fair go, but the situation quickly escalated. They had no choice but to flee the scene. Moments later, I mosey up and nearly step in it. But I don't. Because I'm not into Angry Birds.

VAMPIRES WITHOUT MULLETS

Since when did it become okay for vampires not to have mullets? Since never if you ask me. Call me traditional but I think it’s every bit as important as red velvet furniture and sharp fangs. In fact, the vampire mullet is the only cool mullet out there. I can already hear you throwing Blade and this new guy Eric Northman in my face, but the former is only a halfie and the latter is a glorified bar manager. All I’m asking is that we have a little respect when it comes to the way we treat the undead. And by that I mean super-pimpin’ clothes, bejeweled canes and glorious, flowing mullets. I’ll leave you with a collage of things done right.

KATY WALKER'S DECISION TO GO TO HR

I don't understand what her deal is. She went to HR and said I’m stalking her. Me. Stalking. I know. How crazy is that? We’ve been working together for just over eight monthsK and I thought we were pals. You can imagine how flabbergasted I was to hear this news. Sure, I’ve run into her a few times outside work, but it’s a small world. That’s going to happen. Like when I saw her at the coffee shop on Sunday morning, total coincidence! She looked at me all cross-eyed like I was some sort of psycho freak. The table next to hers was the only one open. What was I gonna do, stand and read my Muscle and Fitness magazine? Not likely. I thought it was a little weird that she was wearing a guy’s sweatshirt and I probably shouldn’t have mentioned it, but still! Also, is it my fault her house at 1426 Grove Street is basically on my way to work? No, it’s not. We're going to run into each other! Listen, nobody was more embarrassed than I was when I saw her with some dude at that wannabe-chic restaurant. I actually tried to hide behind a menu because I thought to myself, she must think I'm stalking her. The bar was directly in her line of sight. What am I supposed to do! I think the guy she was with's name was Brad or Bret or Brent or something. Whatever, he looked like a tool and I'm pretty sure they're not dating anymore. He probably doesn’t even get her adorably dark sense of humor. When I happened to bump into her at the farmer's market, I was like, this is too weird. She must be stalking me! That's always been my farmer's market. It’s a little far from my house, but it’s the only place to get those amazing hand-foraged golden chanterelles we both love so much. Anyway, I smoothed it over with HR. We chalked it up to a really long series of unfortunate coincidences. I hope it doesn't affect our working relationship. Or any other relationship that could possibly sprout up. I bet her hair smells like flowers.

WEARING BASEBALL PANTS TO SOFTBALL

Listen dude. The dream is over. You didn’t make the cut. Sure, you had a good stretch during your junior year of high school when you batted a serviceable .289 with 12 RBIs for the 8-and-7 JV squad. Back then, you should’ve taken things seriously. Who knows, you could’ve had a stellar off-season and really come into your own on Varsity the following year. Perhaps that would’ve led to a tryout with the Kane County Cougars or the Burlington Bees. Maybe then you find your stride in the Triple-A where you spend a couple years honing your game when finally, look at that, the starting third baseman for the Cincinnati Reds breaks his leg. Suddenly, you’re in the show. And you do well, not great, but well. Well enough in fact to meet a beautiful and exotic Hawaiian Tropic model. She’s not brilliant, but shit neither are you. You have a couple kids, you go bone fishing once or twice a year off the coast of Key West and you’re able to buy your mom a house so she doesn’t have to stay in that apartment building that always looked like it was going to burn down. Then guess what happens? You buy a car dealership and things really take off. You’re elected to city council and your life actually starts to mean something to you, and more importantly, to the people around you. But none of that happened. No, you got cut. You moped around for a bit then finally signed up for drama club where you played Joe Crowell Jr. in a really bad production of Our Town. And you were awful but you didn’t care because it looked good on college applications. It helped you get into Kansas State University where you studied accounting. Why not, you had a knack for numbers. After college, you eventually passed your Series 4 and got a decent paying job with a local accounting firm. Problem is you’ve grown to hate that job over the last 12 years, but you’re stuck with three kids and an ex-wife who’s bleeding you dry because you cheated on her at an accounting conference in Chicago. The softball league is the only thing you look forward to during your whole miserable week. So you take it very seriously. So seriously that you keep track of your stats, refuse to drink beer during the game and you wear baseball pants, just like the big leaguers. Because, if only for a moment, when the light is just right and you stretch that single into a double, it makes you feel like a pro. It makes you feel like a winner.

WIDE WALKERS

Whilst moving unnoticed in rural outcroppings, the quasi-mythical Wide Walker may be spoken of in the same breath as the Front Fannypacker or Speedlane Clogger. These creatures have an innate knack for commandeering an entire sidewalk no matter how large it may be. Powerful instincts draw them to any side the passer attempts, as if guided by an internal magnet. Acute psychological skills have developed over centuries to make others believe they roam completely unaware of their powers of frustration. Upon being snapped at, one of their more devious methods of trickery is to make bustling young urbanites feel super-guilty. The most skilled Wide Walkers do not need a large body mass to be effective. However, many of them do thanks in part to The Olive Garden's liberal endless breadstick policy. They are at their most insidious during rush hour when their enemies are required to be swift and direct. Police are always on the lookout for instances of sidewalk rage, so do your best to avoid them at all costs.

PRONOUNCING CHILE CORRECTLY

We get it. You’re amazingly well traveled. You speak four languages. You actually write in your diary. You have a serape from Papua New Guinea draped over your couch below masks from Mozambique. You went on semester-at-sea in high school. Your dad is a missionary, but a cool one, not a creepy one. You actually saved a whale once. At some point you'll open a hostel in Costa Rica where you'll teach yoga. You think Eurail passes are for pussies. You’ve developed your immunity so you can drink the water in the Okavango Delta. You made your own sling thing to hold your baby. Your baby is half African. You once wore a Patagonia jacket in Patagonia. 98% of your facebook photos are shots of food you’ve eaten outside the United States. 12% of your facebook friends don’t speak English. You once made it from Portland to Cape Horn on a bike for only $6 a day. You’ve seen Like Water for Chocolate nine times. You've seen Dodgeball zero times. You also think The Amazing Race is for pussies. You don’t have a TV. But if you did, you’d only watch Frontline. We get it. You’re sucking the marrow out of life. And that’s awesome. Just don’t say freakin’ Cheelay. 

THE DAILY RECOMMENDED AMOUNT OF WATER

In order to consume the daily recommended amount of water you’d have to drink a glass every 4 minutes for 24 straight hours. You’d have to make a neck strap for your laptop to do work in front of the toilet. You’d have to buy a really good straw, for snorting Flomax. You’d have to wear a camel back and a camel front. You’d have to trade in your water bottle in for a water bucket. You’d have to sleep with Depends under your wet suit. If just 5% of the world drank the recommended daily amount of water we’d have to melt more polar ice caps. Those are better if read in Bob Hope’s voice.

Checking yourself out in the mirror at the gym

Nothing cheeses me off more than when a guy can't stop eye-banging himself in the mirror while I'm trying to isolate my glutes. Some of us are at the gym to actually work out. To us, the mirror is an important tool, like a jump rope or a stability ball. We need it to focus on our technique in order to prevent injury and maximize our intensity training. To these tools, it's a personal buffet featuring a wide array of themselves for which to feast on. If these guys weren't so huge I'd tell them to get back in their corvettes and head to the local singles bar where they can stare at themselves in the mirror while sipping mojitos. Freakin' posers. It's almost enough to spoil my post-workout smoothie. Theses guys make me sick. I say guys because I'm not sure if women are guilty of the infraction. I'm too busy checking out their expertly sculpted buns.

Aaron Neville's Mullet

DANTE CONDOR'S LIFE DECISIONS

Dear Dante, there’s certainly nothing wrong with being a bathroom janitor. Cleaning up other people’s shit is what most of us do for a living every day. It’s a whole lot more honorable than being a celebrity lawyer or blood diamond merchant or Donald Trump. There’s absolutely no shame in it. Unless your name is Dante Condor. Then it’s time to aim much, much higher. You’re Dante Freakin Condor, man. Just saying your name makes me feel like I could punch through a brick wall with my face. You should be saving defenseless women in dark allies or threatening to fire a missile at the world from SpaceLab Dante IV unless they hand over Fort Knox and Hawaii. Whichever way you want to go, it’s yours for the taking. I’ll even be your sidekick. I could be Andre Falcon or Eagle Steve or something. You’re right, I’m not bad-ass enough. I’ll be your wise butler slash father figure. Who knows, maybe you’re working up to things, filling out your back-story, creating solid alibis. Or maybe you’re leading a double life, but then you wouldn’t use your real name but maybe your real name is even more awesome. Who am I kidding, it can’t get any more awesome. Listen Dante, sorry, Mr. Condor, this is only chapter one. How the remainder of your epic tale unfolds is up to you. That being said, when I have extra time on my hands I sit at home, blast Motorhead and think about what you should be doing instead of cleaning bathrooms. Here are a few:

-Barracuda rancher

-Ballet Dancing Assassin

-The man who finally tracks down and kills Santa

-The man who actually saves the whales through the most human of all tactics, vengeance

-Electrify the fashion world by creating pleated pants that gay men actually want to wear

-Hollywood super-agent who resurrects Steve Guttenberg’s career.

-Sarah Palin’s fluffer

-Parlay your Mr. Universe title into a lucrative action-movie career that helps you meet and marry a beautiful and highly connected TV news personality which propels you to become governor of California where you cripple the state with hilarious policies because you’re focused on a passionate love affair with your maid who has a heart of gold but ain’t too easy on the eyes which you don’t care because she bears you a child named Conan the Condor who goes on to be the fiercest Barracuda Rancher in all the land

-The first black, non-muslim president

-The first Guatemalan to score a basket in professional hoops

-Rhinestone cowboy

-Hard and/or soft-core porn director, writer and actor

Corporate Buzzword: Trousermeat

I’m sure you’ll agree that trousermeat is one of the most annoying corporate buzzwords to come down the pike in a long, long time. People think they’re so smart when they break it out. I can’t help but bight my lip when I hear a colleague say something like, “let’s drill down to the trousermeat” or, “we should embrace a more holistic approach to trousermeat,” or the absolute worst, “let’s just take the trousermeat as it comes.” So lame, right? I realize that moving at the speed of business requires vigorous, free-flowing discourse, but it usually ends up coming off so dry. You certainly don’t want the conversation to peter out before it begins, but why must we always climb on top of the same stiff, unimaginative language? I don’t know, it all gets a little hairy.