I’m Going to Be SO Much Better Next Year…

     So, it’s almost the first of the year, and I’m still too busy playing with my new Nook to write any in-depth blog entries.  Instead, here’s a list of my 50, count ’em 50 New Year’s resolutions.  Enjoy, and I’ll see everyone next year!

1. Lose weight.

2. Exercise.

3. Stop cutting off Asian women in traffic “as revenge for Pearl Harbor.”

4. Convert to Islam, steal all their recipes, convert back.

Totally worth having a jihad put on me.

5. Tell family the bank has foreclosed on our house.  Pack everything, put furniture in storage, and move out.  After three days in hotel, announce “Just kidding!” and move back home.

"Dad was just joshin', Cupcake! But the "no Santa" thing? Still true."

6. Swear more.  A lot more.

7. Help reduce/care for the homeless pet population by feeding stray cats to stray dogs.  Win/win.

8. Stop pooping on neighbor’s lawn every time she lets her yippy little dog poop on mine. 

9. Be more narcissistic.

Man. Even dressed like a reject from Troy, I'm hot.

10. Subject Wifebread to fewer “Dutch ovens.”

Guess again.

11. Teach Biscuit to stand on street corner wearing an eye patch an a wooden leg, saying “Aaargh, can ye spare some doubloons for an old sea dog?”

12. Stop stalking Fred Willard.  Start stalking Kelesy Grammar.

13. Stop impregnating Wifebread every 10 months.

14. Read more tawdry crime novels.

True dat.

15. Refer to all women as “it/its” instead of “she/her.”

16. Refer to all men as “Broseph.”

17. Try to get my name and picture on the grocery store cash register as one of the “Do not take checks from…” guys.

18. Use the word “honkey” more often in reference to myself.

19. Wrestle two midgets at once.

Preferably ones without porno mustaches.

20. Eat an entire jar of Marshmallow Fluff just to see what my poo looks like the next day.

The "after" will probably look suspiciously like the "before."

21. Spend less time worrying about Africanized bees.

22. Create a safe room stocked with shotguns and canned goods.  When people ask what it’s for, just say “zombies,” then spit and walk away.

23. Write another book that no one wants to buy.

<sigh>

24. Ask everyone at work if I can borrow a “unimalichidor.”  Be insulting and dismissive when they say they don’t know what that is.

"Next you'll be telling me you've never heard of a maxilinastrobulator. Idiot."

25. Randomly spank my kids and tell them “That’s for nothin’.  Don’t do somethin.'”

26. Approach a minority, start telling an offensive joke about their race.  Halfway through, stop, squint eyes, and lean in until my face is inches from theirs, then turn and silently walk away.

27. Give out free gynecological exams in a rented storage unit.  I mean, hey, it worked for this guy.

28. Be more of a pompous, pseudointellectual ass: carry an unlit pipe everywhere, wear corduroy jackets with leather elbow patches, and liberally quote Kierkegaard and Nietzsche.

"'It belongs to the imperfection of everything human that man can only attain his desire by passing through its opposite.' Also, I'm a massive tool. Simply massive."

 29. Take Biscuit and Cupcake to PetSmart, try to enroll them in obedience classes.

30. Walk into local PETA branch with pizza box and loudly ask, “Who ordered the ‘Meat Lover’s’?”

31. Constantly talk about “all the good things Hitler did.”

32. Wear roller skates everywhere, tell people I’m “in training.”  When they ask for what, just roll my eyes and skate away.

33. Learn as much about an obscure sport as possible, keep trying to engage people in conversation about it:

            Me: Did you see the polo match on ESPN 12 last night?  US versus Argentina?

            Coworker: Nope.

            Me: Man, it pissed me off.  The pivot fouled in the third chukker and the ref totally blew the call.  I was livid.

            Coworker: I have no idea what you’re talking about.  I don’t know how many times I have to tell y….”

            Me: USPA!  USPA!

34. Remind random strangers the world’s going to end on 12/21/2012, then flash my handgun and ask if they “want to go out in style.”

35. Start going to work with an Italian sausage shoved down the front of my pants, act like I have no idea what people are staring at.

36. Start going to work with an Italian sausage shoved down the back of my pants, act like I have no idea what people are staring at.

37. Use confusing, made-up acronyms, refuse to explain them.  “I can’t believe he did that!  I was totally M5CLQ.  I mean, really.”

38. Legally change my name to Grizzle McFizzle, ask Wifebread if she’d make me the happiest man alive an become Mrs. McFizzle.

39. Go on long, violent, curse-filled diatribes about the metric system.

"Hectometers? Kilopascals? I'm going to *$&#ing kill someone."

40. At work, start yelling out the time once an hour, but not on the hour.  “IT’S TWO SEVENTEEN, EVERYONE!  TWO SEVENTEEN!”

41. Try to convince people I invented canned tuna.  Rail against “dolphin-safe” tuna, saying it “goes against the spirit of putting tuna in a can in the first place, damn it all.”

42. Eat more Spam.  It’s spiced ham, people.  How could that possibly taste bad?

This is how.

43. Go into Dollar General, have them ring up $2,000 worth of crap, then say all I have to pay with are temporary third-party out of state postdated bad checks. 

44. Drink more, yell a lot, then tell my daughter it’s because she cries.

45. Start a rumor involving LeBron James, Miley Cyrus, and the gear shift form a 1985 Ford Escort.  See how long it takes TMZ or Perez Hilton to report it as fact.

46. Photoshop a guy’s face into my wife’s place in the pictures on my desk.  When coworkers ask about it, say I’ve always been married to Ricardo and if they don’t stop commenting on it, I’m going to sue them all for harassment.

47. Dress up like Gandalf, go to airport, and stand at the end of the moving walkway, yelling, “You cannot pass!  I am a servant of the secret fire, wielder of the Flame of Anor!  The dark fire will not avail  you, Flam of Udun!  go back to the shadow!  You shall not pass!”  Slam staff down dramatically, see how long it takes TSA to respond.

Just imagine the Balrog pulling a carry-on, and this is pretty much spot on.

48. Take skydiving lessons.  Just as we’re jumping out of the plane on my first tandem jump, tell instructor onto whose back I’m strapped, “I gotta go number one.  Real bad.”

49. Buy a sailor hat, make people refer to me as “Commodore.”

"No, no no! That's totally the wrong kind of Comm.... Oh, never mind."

50.  Stop making lists of things to do and not do. 

REMINDER: You can get a PDF of the first 1 1/2 chapters of my humorous nonfiction book I, Superhero!! just by writing me at whitebread@theamazingwhitebread.com and asking for it!  Your address will not be shared, sold, added to a mailing list, or otherwise used for anything other than sending you this FREE sample of my book.

It’s the Most Blood-Curdling Time of the Year…

     So, I just read about this guy in prison who sued to be able to celebrate Festivus.  For the uninitiated, Festivus is a holiday made up by George’s dad on Seinfeld several years ago.  It’s celebrated by putting up a big metal pole instead of tree and participating in “feats of strength” after dinner.  

God bless you, Jerry Stiller.

       What with Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, and now Festivus, it seems like we’re being overrun by holidays this time of year.  So like a good American, I decided I want to cash in on this crap as well.  I want to create my own holiday to compete with Christmas.  However, to really stand out, I’ve got to think of a new angle.  Something to set my holiday apart from the others.  I had to think about it for a long while before it hit me: if Christmas is the “most wonderful time of the year,” maybe I should go in the exact opposite direction and make my holiday the scariest, most frightening, most disturbing day of the year.  Something truly horrifying, that both children and adults can fear together.

     Some people will say, “But we already have a frightening holiday: Halloween.”  Bah.  Halloween’s the most fun day of the year.  You get to dress up, eat candy, stay up past your bed time, and watch monster movies.  You can’t beat that.  Unless you’re an adult on Halloween, in which case you get to go to parties full of drunk skanks dressed like whores.  So really, the only thing to be afraid of on Halloween is syphilis.  The holiday I’m talking about needs to be truly bone-chilling.  And so, ladies and gentlemen, I offer you: Bloodterror Day.

Mike’s New Holiday

Name: Bloodterror Day 

Date:  December 23rd

Character: Instead of a jolly old elf, Bloodterror day will be represented by a child-eating half succubus, half chupacabra, senior IRS agent named Deathfang Skinripper. 

 

 

More or less like this, but with boobs.

On the night of Bloodterror Eve, Bloodfang flies around the entire planet on her leathery, razor-tipped wings and sneaks into the houses of all children, testing their bedroom doors to see if she can get in.  Sometimes, she tries to sneak in by taking the form of a beloved teddy bear or favorite blankie, so those should be burned just before bedtime.  On her way out of the house, Deathfang checks all of mommy and daddy’s filing cabinets, looking for past tax returns to audit. 

 

 

"You're in violation of Section XII, subsetion iv, paragraph (d), United States Tax Code. Now cry for me, meatsack."

Plants:  Replacing Christmas trees, mistletoe, and wreaths will be Tacca chantrieri, also known as the Bat Plant or the Devil Flower.

 

 

 

I’m literally terrified right now. Of a flower.

    

These should be placed strategically throughout the house so as to surprise anyone getting up in the middle of Bloodterror Eve night to use the restroom.

Décor: Foregoing tinsel, manger scenes, colorful glass balls, etc., the household celebrating Bloodterror Day should be liberally and haphazardly strewn with animal pelts, bat plants, pentagrams made from the femurs of nuns and dearly loved family pets. 

 

 

"Happy Bloodterror Day!"

Kinda like I imagine Rob Zombie’s house is all the time. 

 

 

"Fl...Fluffy?"

 

Food: In lieu of baked ham, candied yams, and pumpkin pie, Bloodterror Ever dinner is bacon babies, human body part bread, and Tab.

Pictured: The kitchen of Hell’s Luby’s.

 

Real bread. Not joking.

 

Can we go back to the meat babies and decapitation bread, please? I’m starting to get queasy.

Bloodterror Eve

     The day starts with a trip to the pet store, where the family purchases the cutest, sweetest-looking chinchilla it can find. 

 

 

"This isn't going to end well, is it?"

     On the ride home, the youngest child gets to name the new pet.  In our example, we’ve decided to call it “Youthful Innocence.”  Back home, the children spend an hour with their Youthful Innocence before skinning it alive, drowning it in a pot of heavily salted water, and draining its blood  A baby doll is then dressed in the clothes of the youngest child, dipped in blood of the chinchilla, and hanged from a tree or the eaves of the house in an effort to appease Deathfang Skinripper.   

 

 

 

"You never play with me any more, Cindy."

That evening, a dinner of bacon babies, decapitation bread, and Tab is eaten in silence.   Afterwards, the children are locked in their rooms for the duration of the evening.  In case the locks and the blood-soaked diversion hanging outside doesn’t work to fend off Deathfang Skinripper, daddy gets the biggest knife from the kitchen, dresses up as a clown (Deathfang hates clowns), and spends the night periodically sneaking into the children’s rooms through the window in an effort to catch Deathfang in the act of stealing their souls. 

 

 

"Don't worry, sweetie. Daddy's here."

Bloodterror Day

     Provided the children have survived the night and mommy and daddy haven’t been sent to jail on tax evasion charges, everyone comes downstairs at the crack of dawn, gathers around the biggest Devil Flower, and sings the official Bloodterror Day carol (sung to the tune of “Jingle Bells):

Dashing through the snow

Get the *$#% out of my way

Through the fields we go

Shrieking all the way.

Deathfang’s talons gleam

Ripping at my skin,

How horrible to run and scream

Through piles of dying men.

Ooooh, Blood-terror, Blood-terror, it’s Bloodterror Daaaay,

Oh how ter-ri-ble to die in such a gruesome way.

     This is followed by the first of two central Bloodterror Day activities: “The Desecration of Memories.”  Father shows a slideshow of happy, treasured memories, and each family member tells the others that they were only acting and never really enjoyed spending time with them. 

 

"I was totally faking it, dad. Or as I'm going to refer to you from now on: Steve."

Finally, the family caps the celebration with “Previews of Death.”  Everyone sits in a circle and, starting with the youngest, tells each family member in turn how they think they will/should die.  Afterwards, everyone is given a cup of lukewarm water and a slice of stale bread and sent to their room for the rest of the day. 

 

"I'm starting to miss meat baby again."

     

So, I’m really hoping Bloodterror Day will catch on in a big way.  Sure, it’ll start with the Satanists and serial killers, but don’t all positive changes in society start with the Satanists and serial killers?  Huh?  Huh?

REMINDER: Get the first 1 1/2 chapters of my new humorous nonfiction book I, Superhero!! FREE when you write me at whitebread@theamazingwhitebread.com and ask for it! 

My Kids Want Me Dead, Chapter I: The Boy Makes His Move

So, I’ve been married for almost five years now, and we have two beautiful kids (Grant, 3; Gracie, 1) with another en route (Graham, -2 months).  My wife has long suspected our children are out to get us so they can come into their inheritance early (Said inheritance consisting of: two dumpy cars we don’t quite own outright yet; plus or minus 500 books; 4 boxes of comics; and approximately $2,587,000 in debt.  They don’t have to kills us to get all this.  All they have to do is ask.).  I never believed her, thinking it all a product of her pregnancy-hormone-deluded mind, but the other day an incident occurred which convinced me  she may be onto something.

"Father! Your life is forfeit! As is your 2004 Toyota Solara...."

We have baby monitors in both kids’ rooms, with the receiver for the girl’s on my wife’s nightstand and the one for the boy on mine.  We’ve frequently half-joked about what would be the most horrifying thing to hear coming through on the monitor: animal noises, the sound of the window sliding open, the child quietly reading a Michael Moore book to himself   You know: the stuff nightmares are made of.   Well, a few weeks ago, we had our worst fear come true.  I’m talking a Defcon 1, Homeland Security Level Red, pick-up-the-Batphone emergency: adult voices coming in over the boy’s monitor.

"Batman? This is Mike. S**t just got real."

“Honey, do you hear that?” asked Wifebread in hushed tones, so as not to disturb the kidnappers’ concentration.

I don’t even answer, I just jump.  I’m halfway down the hall before I gain full consciousness, at which time I briefly wonder if I should stop by the kitchen and grab a knife or apple corer or potato peeler or something.

I can kill you with this 17 different ways. The first 8 involve stabbing you in various spots about the head and neck. You don't want to hear about 9 through 17.

I decide not to stop.  I’ve heard about these kidnappers.  They can have a kid out of his bed faster than an auto thief can short-circuit a car alarm.  As I sprint my 25o lb. ass up the stairs, all the horrible things they could want my boy for flash through my mind.  I’ve worked in law enforcement before, and I know they probably don’t plan to fly him on an all-expenses-paid trip to Disney World, where they’ll feed him ice cream and grape juice all day, then return him safely back to his bed with a new teddy bear and a voucher for college tuition at the non-state school of his choice.    It would probably be something less savory than that.

Example: Agent Mulder could steal your baby and sell it to Jo from "Facts of Life."

My fat butt barely makes it up the stairs.  Between the panic and the adrenaline and the running, I start running scenarios on how to kill whoever’s in there in under 10 seconds, because I’m pretty sure that’s all I have left myself.

"If I go out, I'm takin' you with me. Eat feet, Duchovny!"

It stagger into the boy’s room, panting for breath, and there’s…nothing.  No one.  Window’s closed, boy’s sleeping soundly.  Then I hear the voices again…coming from his radio.  Apparently, in the process of randomly pushing buttons on it that day, he’d set the radio alarm to come on at midnight.  I try to laugh with relief, but it comes out as a sad wheeze, like the last breath of a slaughtered cow.

I searched for "dying cow" and this is the picture that came up. Blame Google, not me.

I slowly make my way back to the room, tell the wife what happened (Of course, she thinks it’s hi-LARIOUS.), then lay quietly in bed for the next hour, waiting for my heart to either come to a sudden and complete stop or fall below 150 bpm so I can get back to sleep.  While I’m awake, all I can think about is what the odds are against him setting the alarm like that.  Just before I doze off, I make a mental note to lie to the boy tomorrow and tell him he’s been written out of the will.  Not that he did it on purpose, but there’s no use leaving temptation in his way….

Golden Globes! Golden Globes! Sweet holy crap, it’s the Golden Globes!!!

So, it’s that time of year again, and everyone’s crapping their pants over who did and didn’t get nominated for a Golden Globe today.  As an expert with an encyclopedic knowledge of motion pictures, actors, actresses, directors, and all other aspects of the movie industry, I feel it is my duty to provide in-depth analysis of the nominations.  You can thank me after you win your office pool….

Best Motion Picture: Drama

Black Swan: Haven’t seen it.  Heard Natalie Portman and the girl from That 70’s Show make out.  That will probably sway some voters.  I give it a 75% chance of winning.

Pictured: Award-winning acting.

 

The Fighter: Haven’t seen it. Boxing movies usually do well, though.  I give it the other 25%.

The King’s Speech: Haven’t seen it.  Heard it’s about a guy who stutters.  If I wanted to see two hours about a guy overcoming his stammer, I’d watch the VH1 Behind the Music episode about Mel Tillis.

"Anyone remember me? Anyone?"

 

The Social Network: Haven’t seen it.  It’s about Facebook, right?  Here’s how I picture it going if I tried to watch it:

<opening credits roll>

<fade in>

A young man appears on screen.

Young man: Hey.  I’m the guy who started Facebook.

Me: Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Inception: Pretty cool flick.  As the only one on the list I have seen, it won’t win a single award.  Sorry, Leo.  Didn’t mean to jinx you.

"Dammit, McMullen!"

 

Best Actress: Drama

Halle Berry/ Frankie and Alice: Haven’t seen it.  Halle Berry should get an award just for convincing anyone to hire her after Catwoman.

Nicole Kidman/ Rabbit Hole: Haven’t seen it.  I didn’t realize she’d crawled out from under Toby Keith or whichever redneck country star she married (they all look the same to me) long enough to film a movie.

"Hey there. I may or may not be Eskimo brothers with Tom Cruise. Who knows?"

 

Jennifer Lawrence/ Winter’s Bone: Who in what now?  Haven’t seen or heard of either one of them.

Natalie Portman/ Black Swan: See?  Those swarthy foreign press types will give chicks making out an award every damn time it happens.

BOOM! Two more awards, right there.

 

Michelle Williams/ Blue Valentine: Haven’t seen it.  She was married to Heath Ledger, right?  Glad to see she’s back on her feet.  There’s no joke there.  I’m sincerely glad she’s back on her feet.

 

Best Actor: Drama

Jesse Eisenberg/ The Social Network: No matter what character he played, I probably would have been vastly more entertained had it been played by Jesse Ventura instead of Jesse Eisenberg.  Vertura probably would have shot someone with a chain gun.  That’s what Facebook’s missing: chain guns.

Better yet: LEGO Jesse Ventura with a chain gun. I'd watch that all day long.

 

Colin Firth/ The King’s Speech: I’m all for him winning, so long as he doesn’t do his acceptance speech in character.  I don’t have 15 minutes to wait for him to spit out “I’d like to thank my agent.”

James Franco/ 127 Hours : Haven’t seen it.  Apparently, it’s just James Franco trapped under a rock for two hours.  Sounds like Castaway without all the action.  Or Wilson.  “Wiiiiiilsoooooon!!!”

Ryan Gosling/ Blue Valentine: Blue Valentine is an acting vehicle—it exists to document a highly physical, totally immersive performance by Gosling.

OK, I just stole that line from an online review of Black Swan.  I just switched “ Blue Valentine” for “ Black Swan” and “Gosling” for “Portman.”  There are just so many times I can repeat that I’ve nether heard of nor care to hear of a movie. Blue Valentine being one of those movies.

Mark Wahlberg/The Fighter: I’m sure he doesn’t want to hear this, but “Go Marky Mark!  Go Marky Mark!”

"It's such a sweee-eeet sensation!"

 

Best Movie: Comedy or Musical

Alice in Wonderland: Haven’t seen it.  The promo pics of Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter and what’s’ername with that huge noggin really freaked me out.  I skipped and saw RED instead.

RED: Yeah!  A really good, entertaining movie that I’ve seen.  Again, kiss of death.  Sorry, Mr. Willis.  Sorry, Mr. Malkevich.

"Seriously, McMullen! Imma hold you while DiCaprio kicks you square in the gooch."

 

I’m not apologizing to Morgan Freeman, the old pervert.

The Kids Are All Right: Haven’t seen it.  From the previews, it looked like a bunch of people sitting around a table, talking.  That’s not a movie, that’s a political show that comes on PBS on Sunday afternoons.

Burlesque: Haven’t seen it.  Here’s a quick algebra lesson for you: a + b = Complete indifference on my part.  In this case, a = Cher and b = Christina Aguilera.

The Tourist: Haven’t seen it.  According to IMDB, The Tourist “Revolves around Frank, an American tourist visiting Italy to mend a broken heart. Elise is an extraordinary woman who deliberately crosses his path.”  Good for you, Golden Globe people.  Way to reward Hollywood remaking the exact same movie we’ve already seen 1,000 times before.  Asses.

 

Best Actress: Comedy or Musical

Annette Bening/The Kids Are All Right: HOLY CRAP! Annette Bening’s still alive? Well, kudos.  Kudos to her.

Anne Hathaway/Love and Other Drugs: Anne Hathaway gets naked/Anne Hathaway gets nominated for a Golden Globe.  Coincidence?  We at the Webulastic Logstastic think not.

That's a good start. You're halfway to a major award, kid.

Angelina Jolie/The Tourist: Haven’t seen it.  And doesn’t she have, like thirteen kids to take care of?  When does she even find time to pee, much less make a movie?

Julianne Moore/The Kids Are All Right: The second person from this movie to be nominated.  Man.  That must’ve been some dinner conversation.

Emma Stone/Easy A: Sorry, Emma.  I saw your movie.  I loved it.  I loved you in it.  You’re dorked.  Right in the ear.

"See that, McMullen? That's the way Leo and I's attack on your scroat is going to end. There won't be enough left of you for Willis to urinate on. But that won't stop him from trying."

 

Best Actor: Comedy or Musical

Johnny Depp/Alice in Wonderland: Is it really acting when they’re just being themselves?

No. No, it's not.

 

Johnny Depp/The Tourist: I believe my thoughts on all things The Tourist have been made clear, thank you.  Let’s move on.

Paul Giamatti/Barney’s Version: Haven’t seen it.  I love Paul Giamatti, but if this movie has anything to do with a giant purple dinosaur, he should probably just sit back, enjoy the ceremony, and bide his time for another shot another year.

Jake Gyllenhaal/Love and Other Drugs: I think any outstanding work he may or may not have done in this movie should be cancelled out by Prince of Persia.  I’d rather rent Brokeback Mountain and watch him make out with Heath Ledger for two hours than sit through that again.

Kevin Spacey/Casino Jack: Haven’t seen it.  I have no idea why, but this sounds like a combination live action/CGI movie about a kangaroo who lives in a casino.  I may or may not see that.  Depends on how well executed it is.

Kevin Spacey, in a role that will make you question everything you thought you knew about animated kangaroos.

 

Best Director

Whatever.  Whoever wins Best Picture.  What else ya got?

 

Best Original Song

No one cares.  It’s like lighting the unity candle at a wedding: it’s inherently pointless and just put in there to drag out a ceremony that everyone already thinks is too long.

Best Original Score

This is Best Original Song’s more annoying cousin.  If Best Original Song is the unity candle, Best Original Score is the unnecessary solo that gets thrown in so the bride’s fat sister will have something to do.  They’re both there to draw out the time, and therefore the tension, before the big awards are announced, but this one is somehow even more irritating and difficult to sit through.  Especially knowing that cake is coming soon after.

There you go: everything you could possibly want to know about the Golden Globe contenders.  Just send me a percentage of your pool winnings and we’ll call it even.

REMINDER: My humorous nonfiction book I, Superhero!! is available now!  Get a FREE PDF of the first 1 1/2 chapters just by writing me at whitebread@theamazingwhitebread.com and asking for it!  (Note: your email address will not be added to a mailing list, shared, sold, or otherwise used for any purpose other than sending you the free book sample.)

Chips n’ Puke, Anyone?

So, I just read there’s a great new snack on its way to America via Scotland: Mackie’s Haggis and Cracked Black Pepper Chips.

On aisle 5, between the poodle-flavored cookies and the "Spam & Spackle" dip.

For those of you lucky enough not to know, haggis is a traditional Scottish dish made by stuffing a sheep’s heart, liver, and lungs, along with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, into the animal’s stomach (therefore ensuring you’re eating every single thing but the meat, which is actually pretty yummy), and boiling it for three hours.

Are you sure you used stomachs here? Just askin'. No reason.

Not only did the Scots defile the very concept of potato chips by making them taste like the boiled major organs of Lambchop,

Although that's probably preferable to whatever's happening to her here....

they loved it so much they awarded it “Product of the Year” at the 2010 Scottish Food and Drink Excellence Awards.  This leaves me no choice but to assume the only other entrants were “Pickles n’ Turds” brand snack mix and “Hot and Spicy Leper Cracklin’s.”

In honor of this new culinary travesty, here are a few real foods from cultures around the world that like to mix something good with something unspeakable/inedible and then serve it for dinner, gleefully licking the drippin’s from their fingers afterwards:

 

Casu Marzu

Yummy Italian Pecorino Cheese

plus

Yes, those are exactly what you think they are.

equals

That's right: maggoty cheese.

Most everything you need to know about Casu Marzu is that the literal translation is “rotten cheese.”  It’s made by taking what might be otherwise perfectly good, if a little pungent, pecorino cheese, and lovingly cultivating rot and decay until it reaches maggot-riddled perfection. The entire process and finished product are so unsanitary and disgusting that it’s been outlawed, although you can still get it…if you know who to ask..

"Crack...heroin...casa marzu...."

If the thought of picking up a lump of stinky, rotten cheese with the insect equivalent of snot squirming around in, on, under, and through it doesn’t sound appetizing, I believe I have a solution.  Just serve it in one of these:

Indisputable proof that God loves us.

No muss, no fuss, and hopefully the propellant will kill the fly larvae before you have to eat them.

 

Stinkheads

Salmon. Delicious, delicious salmon.

plus

Botulism. Delicious, delicious botulism.

equals

Hint: The name "stinkheads" isn't just them being ironic.

I love fish.  All kinds’a fish, done all kinds’a ways.  Salmon in particular.  I’ll eat it grilled, smoked, on salads, on rice, on a bagel, even raw.  I don’t, however, do fermented.  Especially when “fermented,” as here, is merely a polite term for “rotten as all hell.”

Stinkheads are mostly eaten in Alaska, where the people’s taste buds and odor receptors don’t see sunlight for eight months a year, thereby becoming atrophied and making such a culinary abomination possible.  Making this “dish” is a simple 3-step process:

1. Bury salmon heads in ground, or just throw them into a rain barrel if you’re too lazy to dig a pit.

2. Wait until well past that time at which you would have thrown the fish out if it had been stored in your clean, sanitary refrigerator.

3. Dig up/scrape from the sides of the barrel with a putty knife.

Is anyone else starting to get hungry?

According to one website,

“What has struck the ‘gross-out’ nerve is the overriding fact that much of the stinkhead prep process is less about fermentation and more about rot and decomposition.  The dish…is nothing but rotten salmon heads….”

I can only imagine what a putty-like, disease-ridden mash of decomposed fish heads smells like, but you can assume it’s rough when, given its many other unpleasant attributes, the one that stuck out enough to name the dish after was the smell.  Ever left town in summer and forgotten to take out the full trash bag in the garage?  Then you come back in a week or two and dry-heave your way to the curb with it, praying to a merciful God that it doesn’t rip and send a stream of garbage water into your shoe?  I imagine that’s a similar smell to stinkheads.  I don’t think I could even get it close enough to my mouth to even attempt to taste it.

So how to make this culinary equivalent of a lost bet more appetizing?

Ever had a “Chicken in a Biskit” cracker?  No?  Run on to the store and get some.  I’ll wait here.

Hm hm hm hmmmm.  La la la la la….

Oh, you’re back.  Not eat one.  Taste that?  That’s what “happy” tastes like, and not even stinkheads can take that away from me.

 

Mongolian Boodog

Goat: Almost as cute as it is tasty.

plus

You're probably wondering where this is going...

equals

Re: the bottom picture. This is what ottomans in hell look like.

Boodog is a traditional dish in Outer Mongolia.  And before you get too pissed/creeped out, there’ s no actual dog in it.  It’s merely an otherwise delicious goat that’s had its legs broken and been hung upside down and drained of blood before being stuffed with hot coals to cook from the inside out.  That’s boodog, and the most disturbing part of it is the way it looks, as if Ethan Allen got into the goat-cooking business.  Really not all that nasty, but I believe it could be made even more appetizing by setting it in front of your Laz-E-Boy, propping your feet up on it, and enjoying a Big Mac like a normal freakin’ human being.

 

Fugu

Just a regular ol' happy fish, just swimmin' 'round...

plus

...but wait! What's this!?!?

equals

Fuuuuuguuuuu!!!

One of the more famous delicacies in Japan is raw fugu, or “puffer fish.”

Not content with the health risks associated with eating regular raw fish, the Japanese decided to man it up a notch by heating highly poisonous raw fish.  It seems the fugu’s vital organs are just sloppin’ over with tetrodotoxin, a naturally occurring, well, toxin, I mean it’s right there in the name, which paralyzes any and all threats (i.e.: you).  get a sushi chef with a shaky hand, and some of that toxin may end up in your bite of puffer, rendering you not just paralyzed, but asphyxiated and dead.

Just to make it more exciting, there’s no known antivenom for fugu poisoning, so if you get it, you’re pretty much S.O.L.  A chefh as to have tons and tons of training to even be allowed near the fugu, which still doesn’t stop several people a year from dying of fugu poisoning.

If that’s not bad enough, the”best” chefs, and we mean that here in the sense of “most insane,” intentionally put a trace amount of the fish’s toxin on the dish before it’s served.  This produces a tingling sensation in the diner’s tongue, an effect known as the “taste of death.”  Yeah, I’ve tasted death.  It’s called jr. high.  No need to revisit that feeling again.

So how do you make deathly poisonous food even better?

Turn those bitches into fish sticks.

I mean, if a highly-trained, elite chef can do it, why can’t the mechanized, assembly-line process of bulk food preparation?

"I tell ya, Marge...if I have to devenom ONE MORE highly-toxic Japanese fish, I'm just gonna scream."

 

Balut

You know it's going to be bad when even the "good" half is a little gross.

plus

Awww, it's a cute little...

equals

...aaaah! Aaaaah! Send it back to hell!!!!

Here in ‘Merica, we men like our eggs like we like our women: unfertilized.  Not so much in the Philippines and Vietnam, where balut is a common street food.

What is balut, other than something to scar my eyes and my dreams forever, you ask?  It’s a fertilized, partially-matured, soft-boiled duck egg/fetus.  Aaand, to a lot of people, it’s what’s for dinner.  Or at least a snack.

Not gross enough, you say?  Did I mention you eat it by basically punching wide-bore straw through the shell and sucking out the insides, like Satan’s Capri Sun?

"Partially matured, murdered, fermented waterfowl! Thank you, Lord Mephistopheles!"

And how does one make this more appetizing?  Well, you can’t.  You…you just can’t.

 

After taking part of this smorgasbord of food, culture, and “this is exactly how many %#*’s I don’t give about what goes into my mouth,” you’re bound to be thirsty.  So what pairs well with maggots/fetuses/poison?  I’m glad you asked…

 

Baby Mice Wine

Morty and Ferdie: the bastard spawn of an unnatural love between Mickey and "Aunt" Minnie.

plus

Mine usually comes in boxes.

equals

Words fail me.

Baby mice wine is drunk as a “health tonic” in some parts of the Orient.  It’s pretty much exactly what it looks like: infant mice are kidnapped from stable, loving homes and stuffed into bottles of alcohol, where they spend the rest of their short, agonizing lives wondering what kind of loving rodent god would let such a thing happen.  Then the drowned mice ferment (Must we ferment everything, world?) into an aperitif that reported smells and tastes like gasoline.  This makes sense, as I would require the sensory-receptor-scorching power of gas immediately before downing a flute of Chateau de Vermin 1936.

Finally, what could be better after a fine dining experience than chasing it all with a cup of the world’s most expensive coffee?

 

Kopi Luwak

plus

No, I didn't insert the wrong picture by mistake.

equals

Those ain't Baby Ruths, kiddo.

Selling for up to $600 a pound, Kopi Luwak is the Kobe beef of coffees.  If Kobe beef came pre-digested and dug out of its previous owner’s feces.  That’s right: Kopi Luwak is coffee beans that have been eaten, digested, and “dropped off at the pool” by civets.

I gots 'bout $150 worth of coffee I needs cut out of my fur back there, mac.

According to one source, the beans are washed but “given only a light roast so as not to destroy the complex flavors that develop through the process.”

I’m sure my butt babies develop “complex flavors,” too, but I don’t presume others would want said flavors in their coffee.  In fact, given an unfortunate episode at a former job involving a break room, a security camera, and me getting pissed off ay my shift manager, I’m certain others don’t want them in their coffee.

 

REMINDER: My humorous nonfiction book I, Superhero!! is now available!  To receive a PDF of the first 1 1/2 chapters, just write me at whitebread@theamazingwhitebread.com and ask for it!

Keith Sweat Isn’t Dead! You…You Mean He Was Alive All This Time?

So, there’s been a rumor going around that Keith Sweat is dead.  My heart pretty much stopped until I researched it and discovered he wasn’t.  Then I realized I had no idea who that is.

Looks like Jay-Z's little brother. But he does have that awesome monogram....

Oh yeah.  That guy.  Singer.  Alight.  Having not heard the guy’s name for about 15 years, I wondered if he’d made any music in the interim that I’d be familiar with.  Again, I researched it, and came to the conclusion that pretty much the only people who should currently be aware of him are people who buy CD’s like the following, all of which his music appears on:

This was actually billed as a "holiday album." I *$&# you not.

It's pretty bad when you have to black out the name of the album itself.

Is that Chris Brown? Well, at least he's not punching her.

I almost went ahead and showed you this one. It was pretty impressive. That entire black box is her ass. No lie.

So no, no music I should particularly be aware of.

After I got over my relief that this guy I hadn’t heard of since the early 90’s wasn’t dead after all, I wondered who else was still alive that I assumed had died or been shot into space or otherwise been swallowed up by the earth, yet never cared enough to find out for sure.  So here it is: five people whose non-deaths didn’t really effect me much either way:

1. Jerry Mathers

Famous for:

Being “The Beaver.”

Insert "beaver" jokes here. I'm too classy for that &%$*.

Looks like now:

Check again...are we sure he's not dead here?

Last seen:

In the 2008 Mother Goose Parade, which was led by grand marshal Tori Spelling.  No idea what that is, but I strongly suspect folks like Robert De Niro and Meryl Streep had “previous engagements” the day of the Mother Goose Parade.  Hell, folks like David Lee Roth and Pee Wee Herman probably had “previous engagements” that day….

"Some of us just have higher standards."

2. Lee Lee Sobieski

Famous for:

Being that one girl in Deep Impact. Plus some other stuff, I’m sure.  Also famous as “Helen Hunt went back in a time machine and restarted her own career.”

So, I noticed your mom's slightly more attractive than you...

For a while there, she was the “next big thing” in Hollywood.  She even got naked with Tom Cruise in Eyes Wide Shut, which should be every young girl’s dream.

Until it actually happens.

Last seen: In The Last Film Festival.  Her credit?  “Stalker.”  That’s right.  She’s not even playing characters with names anymore.  Congratulations, you’ve gone from “a-list” to “struggling actress” in less time than it takes most folks to do the reverse.  The good news is, I think Bennigan’s is hiring waitresses.

3. Richard Dawson

Famous for:

Playing Cpl. Peter Newkirk in Hogan’s Heroes,

hosting/passing VD’s orally on Family Feud.

Survey says...syphillis!

Also, looking like a big ol’ pimp on The Match Game.

I'd dress like this every day if Wifebread let me.

The smarmy, overly-affectionate Dawson kinda dropped off the map after appearing in The Running Man, where he basically played himself.

Only he kissed Schwartzenegger less. Well, a little less.

Last seen:

Patiently waiting for this woman’s bra to fall off.  Or for his colostomy bag to fill up.  Whichever happened first.

4. Matt Frewer

Known for:

Being “Max Headroom,” the most psychologically disturbing product spokesman of all time.

"I will haunt your dreams."

I’m not sure what else there is to say about Matt Frewer, other than I frequently mistake him for Doc Brown from Back to the Future.

Last seen:

In the made-for-TV movie The Battle of the Bulbs.  I think all we need to know about that is presented here:

Cue "wa-wa-waaaa" music.

4. Ernest Borgnine

Best known for:

If you’re over 50, he’s best know for winning an Oscar for the movie Marty.

If you’re under 30, he’s best known as Mermaid Man from Spongebob Squarepants.

"My name is Ernest, king of kings. Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair." A little joke for the well-read out there.

Last seen:

In quite a lot, actually.  Dude’s made something like eight movies in the last two years.  If anything, he was probably last seen desperately panting for breath from keeping so busy.  For a freakin’ ninety-three year old.

Has anyone seen my oxygen tank? Or my teeth?

 

REMINDER: The Amazing Whitebread’s new book I, Superhero!! is available now!  For a FREE PDF copy of the first 1 1/2 chapters, just write me at whitebread@theamazingwhitebread.com and ask for it!

Free Stuff, Anyone?

Sooo, my humorous nonfiction book I, Superhero!! was released at the end of October, and my publisher and I have been trying to get the word out about the book.  It’s hard, without having a big name attached, to get any publications, TV or radio programs, etc., interested in telling everyone about how great it is (and oh, baby, it’s great.).  The most frustrating part is that 9 out of 10 people I’ve spoken to who’ve read it really enjoy it.  So how do I get people to read it in the first place, so they can really enjoy it? 

Give it away for free!

Starting to get the picture?

OK, now that I have your attention, I’m not giving away the entire book for free.  That’d be slightly counterproductive to my goal of selling lots of copies.  What I am doing, however, is giving away the first one and a half chapters to anyone who writes me at whitebread@theamazingwhitebread.com and requests it.  That’s right!  Just write and ask, and I’ll send you a PDF file of the first 40-odd pages (and they are quite odd) of my book for free.  Your name and/or email address WILL NOT be added to a mailing list, sold, or otherwise redistributed. 

So tell your friends, tell your family, tell people you don’t even know.  Forget Team Edward.  Forget Team Jacob.  Forget Team Coco.  Get on Team Whitebread. 

free books free stuff free novel free swag free

Everything I Know About WWII I Learned In…Wait, I Never Learned It To Begin With

In honor of the anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, I submit the following outline of the major events of World War II.  (Disclaimer: All facts brought to you by the American public education system.  So don’t blame me if the below isn’t 100% accurate.)

Dubya Dubya Two: A Chronological Outline

Year: 193somethingorother

Septemberish: A humorless Germany invades Poland in an attempt to capture some of those “Polock” jokes they kept hearing about.  Two days later, Britain and France declare war on Germany because, hey, nothing else was going on.  The US says, “My name’s Paul, and this is between y’all,” returns to its Charleston contest.

Your great-grandmother was a whore.

 

Following Germany’s lead, Russia invades Finland.  No one really notices.  An emboldened Russia continues on to Norwegia.  The Norwegians fight boldly and effectively until France arrives with reinforcements, at which time all resistance crumbles and Norwegia surrenders.  France says “My bad, guys,” goes back to smoking little girly cigarettes and whoring around with hairy, unwashed chicks.

Mayish: In a historic election, Britain elects a chain-smoking bulldog Prime Minister.

"Don't think I won't slap the ever-lovin' spit out of you. 'Cause I will."

 

Winston “Winnie” Churchill takes office the same day Germany starts its Blitzkrieg (literal translation: “blitz krieg”), a new form of warfare combining the Wehrmact (“We’re the mack.”), which consists of fast, armored tanks, and the Luftwaffe (“air waffles”), which dominates the skies.

The terror of the skies.

 

Holland and Belgium quickly fall, and Germany moves on to France, which meet them at the border with a document outlining their unconditional surrender, grandfathered to the beginning of the year.

Germany turns its attention to Great Britain.  Germany is unable to attack by land, since Britain is an island…or is it Germany that’s the island?  I forget.  Oh well.  Six of one, a baker’s dozen of the other.  Regardless, Germany uses its Air Waffle Brigade to launch “The Battle of Britain,” a battle fought solely in the skies.  The Brits eventually pull out a squeaker in that one, which forces Germany to focus its attentions elsewhere.

194somethingorother

In a classic mistake made my Charles XII of Sweden, Napoleon, and anyone else who’s never played Risk before, Hitler puts on his big boy pants and invades Russia.  Events on this front initially go poorly for Russia, who can only throw up its hands and say, “What the hell man?  I thought we were friends!”  Then winter sets in.  Or, as it’s known in Russia, “Holy #*@% I’m Freezing My ШароВ Off Season.”  Apparently, Der Furher is unaware that Russian winters get a tit nipply, and soon the cold, combined with the Russian’s elite Bear Cavalry, brings the German war machine to a halt.  Or as they say in German: “ halt.”

You thought I was kidding about the bear cavalry, didn't you?

 

Oh, and around this time Italy, which for some reason is siding with Germany, maybe they lost a bet or something, invades North Africa.  They spend the next few years futzing around in Ethiopia, where the Italians’ advanced military tactics and tanks are unable to force so much as a draw against the Ethiopians and their spears.

Despite a few setbacks, the war is actually going fairly well for the bad guys, also known as the “Axis Powers” in honor of the Milton Bradley game “Axis and Allies,” until the Japanese step squarely in it and pooch the screw for everyone.  On December 7, 19somethingorother, the Japanese radical Islamic communists unexpectedly attack Pearl Harbor in what will forever be remembered as a totally dick move.   Luckily for us, the US president at the time, Franklin “Teddy” Roosevelt, has mutant psychic abilities that allow him to see the attack coming.

"I sense a great disturbance in the...wait, wrong movie."

 

Unluckily for us, Roosevelt owns a lot of stock in Halliburton, so he goes ahead and lets the attack happen so he’d have an excuse to invade Iraq and steal their oil.  The commie Japanese kamikaze (translation: Hey sarge, why weren’t we issued helmets?)  pilots destroy more than 350 ships, including the battleships Arizona and Oklahoma, and the Starship Enterprise.

"Hirohitooooooooo!!!"

 

After the attack, President Roosevelt makes his “Day of Infamy” speech, in which he famously states, “Yesterday, December 7, 19somethingorother—ooh, you bitches has done it now.”  He then uses his psychic abilities to stand up out of his wheelchair, take off his shoe, and throw it at the screen.  Intelligence later reports that, upon seeing this, Japan and Germany screamed like little girls and hid behind the recliner in the living room.

194somethingorother + 2

America now squarely in the center of things, as is should be, dammit, the Allies win a major victory at the Battle of Midway.  This battle marks the turning point in the Pacific War, which I guess everyone should have foreseen at the time, given its name.

"Man. I should have seen that one coming."

 

194somethingorother + 3

A bad year for Der Furher and his boys.  First, they finally cry “Uncle Vanya” at Stalingrad, marking their first major defeat.  At the same time, Germany’s U-boats are taking heavy losses, with much of the credit due to England’s code breakers.  But to be honest, Germany was using last year’s Little Orphan Annie Decoder Ring for classified communications, so it wasn’t that big a challenge.

"Don't..forget...to drink...your...Ovaltine...."

 

Also, Italy surrenders.  Remember Italy?  Some time later, Mussolini (Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the leader of Italy was Benito “Il Duce” Mussolini.  “Il Duce” being Italian for “douchebag.”) is hung by the resistance.  Well-hung, by all accounts.

On the Pacific front, American progress continues in the Aleutian Islands, New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and other places no one heard of or cared about before or since.

The only reason I've even heard of the Aleutians is this book. Thank you, Scott O'Dell.

 

194somethingorother + 4

During this year, the Allies make a buttload of progress.  First, they land at Anzio and bomb the monastery at Monte Cassino.  What the strategic value of this monastery is, I don’t know, nor do I care enough to find out.  I also don’t know why they put a monastery in the middle of a gambling Mecca like Monte Cassino.  Maybe to throw us off the scent.

194something+4 is most notable, however, for the allied invasion of France, known as D-Day.  On this day, Tom Hanks and Vin Diesel lead the allies in a successful invasion of the French mainland (If there are any countries out there who haven’t successfully invaded France, please send us a postcard or something.)  Thus starts the beginning of the end for Herr Hitler & Co.

194somethingorother + 5

The Russians march into Berlin.  Hitler “kills himself” (wink wink, nudge nudge) before they arrive.  Dr. Mengele smuggles his boss’ frozen head to South America, starts planning a series of crappy movies about Hitler being alive in South America to be released upon America during the 1970’s in a case of revenge being best served cold.  Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Germany surrenders.

With the Nazis out of the picture, the US focuses on the Islamo-commie terrorist in Japan.  We suffer a flight setback when Roosevelt is brutally murdered by Magneto and his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.

America’s new president, Harry Tubman (founder of the Velvet Underground Railway, which provided a musical track for slaves escaping the north during the Civil War), decided to forgo an expensive, casualty-ridden invasion of Japan, and decided instead to just bomb the unholy piss out of them.  Soon, America had dropped two nuclear bombs on Japan: one on Hiroshima, a second at some other place I’ve never been and couldn’t find on a map with a…well, with a map.

Looks fairly accurate to me.



 

Then some other stuff happened, but that was pretty much it for ‘Merica vs. The Bad Guys.  Until they thaw out Hitler’s brain, that is….

 

NOTE: Please don’t take this post as making light of the sacrifices made by the brave men and women who fought in World War II.  Rather, it’s meant to point out the deficiencies on our educational system, which has given us the following statistics:

63% of Americans can’t find Iraq on a map.

90% can’t find Afghanistan.

50% can’t find New York state.

30% put the US population between 1 and 3 billion.  (It’s around 300 million.)

74% believe English is the most commonly spoken language in the world.

In a recent survey, a large number of high school students “Mussolini” as a foreign country.

25% of high school students can’t identify Adolph Hitler.

Almost half can’t guess, within 50 years, when the Civil War was fought.

Nearly 25% of students believe Christopher Columbus sailed for the New World after 1750.

45% think that The Scarlet Letter is either about a witch trial or a piece of correspondence.

55% could not identify Oedipus in a survey.

40% don’t know the first world war was between 1900 and 1950.

72% don’t know Geoffrey Chaucer wrote the Canterbury Tales.

50% don’t know that the Bible’s Job is known for his patience in suffering.

So, a big thank you to our veterans for saving our asses.  Sorry we sat on them and didn’t learn anything.

Not Just Crazy: Tom Cruise Crazy

So, last night, I saw an ad for Tom Cruise’s latest travesty of cinema, “Knight & Day “ with the only slightly less annoying box-office poison known as Cameron Diaz. I thought, “Man, Cruise used to be a stud. Whatever happened to that guy?” Then I remembered: Scientology.

So crazy it hurts.

I’m normally not one to openly mock another’s religious beliefs. Secretly, that’s another story. But not openly.

I make an exception for the “church” of Scientology. The only thing you really need to know about Scientology is that it was founded by a mediocre science fiction writer named L. Ron Hubbard. If you’d like to know more, though, feel free to read on. Below is a summary of what Scientology is based on, with my own comments thrown in to explain why, other for the obvious reasons, it’s utter BS.

Let me caveat this by saying I’m not a Scientologist, I don’t know any Scientologists personally, and I’ve never read Dianetics, so I don’t have first-hand knowledge of what they believe.  However, when multiple ex-Scientologists and professional BS hunters all say the same thing (see links at end of entry), I start to give it creedence.  But again, since I have no first hand knowledge, let me officially state that this is merely what they are reported to believe.

By a lot of different people.

Who seem to be pretty credible.

According to Scientology, it all started seventy-five million years ago, when an alien named Xenu (sometimes Xemu) ruled a section of the galaxy containing 76 planets, including Earth (known at that time as Teegeeack).  See?  Right out of the box, and it already sounds like the beginning of a cheesy Marvel Comics story from the 60’s.

Well I'll be damned....

Each planet was home to an average of 178,000,000,000 people (roughly 18 times Earth’s current population). This, apparently, was just too many folks, so Xenu came up with a depopulation plan so cunning it should have had whiskers and a bushy red tail. First, he brought in billions of people under the guise of doing tax audits. Then, with the help of psychiatrists, he paralyzed the people and loaded them onto space DC-8’s. (Why he had psychiatrists paralyze them instead of physicians , I have no idea. It does explain this, though). Plus, a DC-8? Seriously?

Space conveyance of choice for intergalactic tyrants.

The DC-8’s transported the paralyzed victims to Earth, where Xenu had them stacked muzzles to butts around the bases of volcanoes, after which he lowered H-bombs into the volcanoes and detonated them simultaneously, killing everyone.

So again, what they're saying is that the superadvanced, space-faring empire hadn't progressed much past technology America had circa 1945.

So Xenu’s problems were solved, right? Ehhh, not so much. The victims’ souls (called “thetans”), hung around, being blown willy-nilly until Xenu captured them all with electronic beams and contained them in boxes.

Sound familiar?

OK, soooo now Xenu’s problems are solved, right?  All the Ghostbusters of 75,000,000 B.C. have to do is toss the boxes into the sun or something, and that’s it.

Ehhh, not so much.

Instead of just sending the boxes on a one-way ride into the heart of the sun, or the vast, infinite coldness of space, Xenu, acting exactly like the equivalent of a 21^st century bureaucrat that he was, did the most logical thing he could think of: took the boxes to movie theaters, where he showed the thetans 3-D movies (Did they have to pay an extra $5 for the glasses?) that “implanted” them with false images of what their lives were like (Whaa?). Then, like any sensible bureaucrat, Xenu released the souls he’d just gone through all that trouble to capture. Because why the hell not? Maybe he was really just a big ol’ softy.

Xenu: Actual Photograph

At that point, the souls, because they’d all been shown the same movie, congregated together in groups of a few thousand because they all thought they were the same person.

(If you’re not following this, you’re in idiot, because if capturing billions of people, murdering them, and imprisoning their souls, only to release them after forcing them to watch the equivalent of a Michael Moore “documentary,” doesn’t make perfect effing sense, then nothing does.)

There happened to be a few people left alive on Earth (Well, clearly, if there are enough movie theaters to seat 178,000,000,000.), and the thetan clusters—sounds more like a candy bar than a threat from outer space—inhabited the living bodies.

I guess at that point, Xenu’s superiors got wind of what a cluster—literally—he’d made of everything, because he was overthrown and locked away in a mountain on one of the 76 planets he’d been in charge of, where he’s contained by an electronic force field powered by an eternal battery. And there he lives to his day, plotting his revenge and being denied parole more times than Charles Manson.

"I'm Jesus Christ! I'm Satan! I'm Xenu! Wait...even I'm not that crazy."

So how does this all affect Tom Cruise? Well, the thetans are still hanging around today, infesting all our bodies like pubic lice (Everyone has pubic lice, right? Right?). And if you want to be “cleared” of all your thetans, the Church of Scientology can do it for you, all for the low, low price of up to $500,000. Paid in easy installments, of course. There are several levels of Scientologist, and once you reach “OT III,” or Operating Thetan III, you gain the ability to communicate with your thetans telepathically, at which time you can just politely ask them to leave, and they will. Why Xenu didn’t just try that in the first place, we’ll never know.

Oh, and as a final thought, I’ve just doomed you all to death. Sorry ‘bout that. According to the man himself, L. Ron “I Can’t Believe They Bought This $#!+” Hubbard, if you hear this story before you’re prepared (read: “fleeced”) by the CoS, you’ll contract pneumonia and probably die. So again, sorry I just killed you.

"Suckers."

So who, besides Tom Cruise and John Travolta, would be dumb enough to buy all this? I mean, literally buy it, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to be “cleared?” So glad you asked. Below is a list of surprising (and not so surprising) Scientologists:

Surprising: Jason Lee

His mustache, maybe, but surely not HIM?

Noooooo! He’s so…cool. And funny. And cool.  And he’s Earl.  Earl wouldn’t fall for that, dammit.

Not So Surprising: Lisa Marie Presley

The second day in a row I've had a MJ joke. Talk about beating a dead horse.

She married Michael Jackson. I think being a Scientologist is the least of her problems. Hell, forget the thetans: she was probably trying to get “cleared” of him.

Surprising: Danny Masterson

My head's an almost perfect triangle. Deal with it.

Once again, someone whose TV character is smarter than them. Hyde would have smelled this manipulative, money-grubbing BS a mile away.

Not So Surprising: Beck

Not a thought in that pretty little head of his.

Yeah, it’s not completely surprising that the man who wrote the lyrics

In the time of chimpanzees, I was a monkey

Butane in my veins and I’m out to cut the junkie

With the plastic eyeballs, spray-paint the vegetables

Dog food stalls with the beefcake pantyhose.

is into some weird crap. Maybe he was channeling his thetans that day. I don’t know.

Surprising: Ethan Suplee

His publicity shot is probably slightly more serial-killerish than he intended.

I’m just going to assume his co-star Jason Lee told him it was some kind of 12-step food addition cure thing and leave it at that.

Not So Surprising: Juliette Lewis

Putting the "batsh*t crazy" in "batsh*t crazy" since 1984.

I rest my case.

Sources:

Holy Smoke.org

Yoism.org

Wikipedia 1

Wikipedia 2

Xenu.net

Out of the mouth of L. Ron his own self.

Mike McMullen’s new book of humorous nonfiction, I, Superhero!! is now available!

No, Really: This’ll Totally Work

I’ve done it. After millenia of other failing, I’m the guy. “Which guy?” you ask. I’ll tell you. I’m the guy who came up with a solution to everything: poverty, teenage pregnancy, stupidity, welfare moms, lack of productivity…everything.

“How?” you scream at me, desperate for the answer.

Well first of all, stop yelling at me. I don’t respond to that kind of tone.

Secondly: OK, I’ll tell you. It’s pretty simple. In fact, it’s one word: castration.

Now, just wait and hear me out (I’m talking to the guys here—the women are already going for the hedge clippers.). We all know that the main reason guy are unproductive, angry, frustrated, violent, and generally douche-baggish, especially between the ages of 13 and 35. The cause of this doucebaggery? Horniness. The cause of the horniness? Hormones. The cause of hormones? Testicles. Balls. Nuts. Or, if you’re the more urban type, nutz. Two little spheres of tissue (or in Hitler’s case, one) have been the cause of more suffering and loss of productivity and than any other cause in history. So what’s the solution? Get rid of ’em.  Just as they hit puberty, every man on earth should be castrated.

That's what I'm talkin' 'bout.

But not without first donating a healthy supply of baby batter to be frozen and stored away for future use, of course. But we’ll get to that later.

So what would be the immediate positive results of universal castration?

1. Increase in productivity.

It’s been established in study after study that men think about sex once every 7 – 57 seconds.  That being the case, pictured below is a typical business meeting in a world with testicles:

 

We're doing business!

In this example, the woman on the left is thinking about how to lower overhead, the woman on the right is thinking about ways to maximize their limited advertising budget, and the man is thinking “Good lord, I think I can see her bra.  Well, I’m done for the day.”

In a world of castratii, however, the meeting would be closer to the following:

Not a gonad in the room.

Guy 1: If we maximize synergy, we can…

Guy 2: We should really reallocate resources to support our core competencies….

Girl 1 : Dear god, please let someone ask me out soon.  It’s been months….

Girl 2:  Thank goodness I’m a lesbian!

2. 99% decrease in douchbaggery.

With loss of testicles, we’d immediately lose the type of behavior that made these guys infamous:

Douche.

Two for two.

Trifecta.

Plus, these guys would shrink up and disappear completely:

Mystery: Man of a Thousand VDs

OK, so God beat me to this one.

The Farm League of Douchebaggery

I’ll let the idea of a world without the above influences sink in a bit.  Bask in it.  It’s sunny.  It’s warm.  Every tear shall be wiped away, and there shall be no more grieving, for the old order of things has passed away.

3. 100% decrease in teen/unwanted pregnancies/big-ass welfare families.

Here’s where the frozen semen part kicks in.  If and when someone decides they want to have a child, they’ll have to provide four documents to the National Baby Batter Bank: 1.) a marriage certificate; 2.) proof of employment showing you and your spouse earn enough money to raise the number of children you’re applying to have; 3.) the results of a recent IQ test, and 4.) notarized certificates from 10 witnesses, two of which must be Ph.D.’s in abnormal and criminal psychology, all affirming you and your spouse are fit to raise children.

As an added step, the woman must ask the man for it really, really nicely.

Not really. I just wanted to use this picture.

Then, and only then, will the fertilization frosting be retrieved from your spermatic safety deposit box.

"It's in there somewhere, guy. Just gimme a sec'."

So there you have it: no unwanted children, no families who can’t support their children, no imbeciles cranking out 8 kids to the genius couple’s 1.  I know “eugenics” is dirty word, so I’ll just call it “family planning.”  That already covers a lot of less-than-seemly areas, so it shouldn’t mind the company.

4. Substantial decrease in idiocy rate/bad decisions made by men.

This is a little-known fact (amongst the women-folk, at least), but when a man’s particularly full of, um, hormones, it’s as bad or worse than being drunk as far as bad decisions go.  For example, both alcohol and hormones can lead a particularly effected guy to think he’s leaving a bar/club/wedding reception with this:

She's attractive, I guess. But only if you're a leg a/or butt and/or chest and/or face man.

only to wake up later with this:

I would gnaw off my own leg to escape this trap. And hers, and yours, and anyone else in the immediate vicinity if required.

I mean, why would Prince Charles, who, despite his ears, and his nose, and his mouth, and his eyes, and his body, could have had more or less any English woman he wanted (Did I caveat that enough?), trade this:

Perfectly acceptable princess material.

For this:

Somewhat less so.

Because his leather hackey sack told him to, that’s why.  And even in his dotage, his genitals are still making him act like an ass:

At least she doesn't look like a horse in a cotillion gown.

Which leads me to another aspect of the depths to which men with enough hormones for 10 bull elephants raging through their bodies will sink to when rutting: uncontrollable groping/rubbing against stuff.  I can’t explain it, but at a certain point, the sex fairies sprinkle their pixie dust on your lap, and you just have to touch something.  Anything.

Doesn't even have to be organic.

In our defense, this seems to be a purely mechanistic function of being male, outside any choice our higher thought processes have in the matter.  My proof?

Is it just me, or is she not fighting back hard enough?

Even monkeys do it.  Granted, that’s not much of a defense, but I’m clinging to what I can here.

So in summary, we have decreased bad behavior, decreased fiscal drain on our already craptastic economy, and a 10,000% increase in productivity.  I guarantee you, if every male in Detroit was castrated tomorrow, they’d go from this:

And this is the country club area.

to this:

in about 4 1/2 days.  And that includes 2 days for the materials to be shipped.

Think about it, America.