A call out to Michael Ian Black

Mr. Black, I am an avid fan of your work, yes, I even watched NBC’s Ed. My wife got me My Custom Van for my birthday a year ago and I thoroughly enjoyed every sidesplitting essay. The collection of compositions even made me look at the world in a slightly different light. Upon reading your book, I joined a jug band and started stocking up on day glow magic markers and gorging myself on candy corn. I even had a taco party that incorporated a swimming pool filled with guacamole. When these acts of flattery to your comic genius didn’t get me any closer to being a dropout from NYU with an uncharacteristically intelligent comedy show on MTV with negative 2 ½ stars from the NY Post, I lost my hopes of ever being completely silly. However, last night my hope s of silliness returned when I found something on the shelf at my local convenient store. I found something that you were looking for and if I could convey the message to you that I had found it, you might be able to extend some of your zany wackiness to me. What could it be that returned the joy of foolishness to my heart? Could it truly brighten your day if you did not know of its return? Well, my friend, I am glad to tell you that Doritos has finally gotten its s**t together and released a limited edition of Taco Doritos.

I know, I probably built your anticipation a little too high for the news of the limited release of the chip that made you hate Mexicans less. You probably already knew anyway because you probably have super bowl breakfasts with PepsiCo on a regular basis talking about outrageous foods and flavors. I thought I would just let you know in case you only found out after the “limited edition” run was over. I hope you are happy with the re-launch of the not-so outrageous flavor.

Just in case you didn’t believe me I have added photographic proof of the legendary chip bag:

Bask in its glory (AAAH!)

See, I told you they were limited edition

It's that time of year to share

I know people always say that we need to have the Christmas Spirit all year long. O also know that I strive to always have it, but no matter how hard I try, I always notice it more around Christmas. I am going to share a story of a Christmas miracle involving me and my friend, Gerry.
One Saturday, I was driving my motorcycle to work and I saw a sign that said, "Yard Sale." I had about another 30 minutes before I needed to be at work, so i thought I would stop by to see if they had any musical equipment. I saw the house and I dismounted my bike. As sson as I saw the first table I saw a bass guitar that looked something like this:

It just had a bunch of stickers on it and it was a little dinged up. The price tag was $25. I told the yard sale vendor that I had $20 in my pocket and that I couldn't take the guitar with me at the moment due to my current means of transportation. I asked her if she could hold it for me until later that evening when I could show up with my car. She agreed to my terms and I was the proud owner of a bass guitar that cost me $20.
So now I will give you a back Story about my pal/Christmas miracle cohort, Gerry. He and I had been friends for almost a year around the time I bought the guitar. About two weeks prior to the purchase, he and his brother came to my house to hang out. His brother plays guitar very well, so we started playing. During this mirth of music, Gerry saw that I had a bass guitar and amp, he asked if he could dink around with it, just for kicks. I told him that he absolutely could play with it. His brother and I showed him acouple of things, and he picked up pretty well.
The night matured a little and he and his brother had to return to his respective home (They live next door to each other, how cool is that?) Before they left I asked if Gerry wanted to borrow my bass so he cold learn a little more. He asked if I was sure he could borrow it. I told him that it was fine b/c I hardly played it due to rocking out on the guitar. So, homeward he went with my bass in hand.
Upon purchasing the Peavey, I promptly told Gerry about the fantastic acquisition. He was excited for me and was kind of sad that he could not find as good of a deal on a bass guitar. I told hiim that I was going to sand it down and stain and seal it, just for kicks. He said he thought that was pretty cool.
Due to its poor aesthetics, like I mentioned previously, I planned to strip the bass of its factory paint and take off all of the stickers, and subsequently stain the would and seal it. Since I had never done such a thing before, I had my buddy, Trevor come to Lowes with me to help me pick out the right materials for the job. We got a custom wood stain, kind of cherry color, and a decentsealant, I didn't want a heavy duty grade because I wanted the seal to fade away with usage. I now had the materials for the project, so now it was time for the action.
I arrived home and set my bass guitar project in motion. I took the bass apart so I could sand it and paint it. It took about 20 minutes to sand it down. I put the first stain on and waited a few days to put on another coat. It took a few applications to get the stain that I wanted. I had to go away for business for a few weeks after I put on the last wood stain layer.
When I returned home, I knew that there was little work left to be done on the bass. I put on the first coat of sealant, and at that moment I decided I would give this awesome bass to my friend, Gerry. I was filled with anticipation as waited for an entire day to put on the final coat of sealant. Then I needed to wait one more day for the final coat to dry. I arrived home early from working out the next morning and put it all of it together.
It was around 7:30 and I thought Gerry might be awake, so I would give him a call to come over. I called Gerry and he didn't answer. I left a message for him to call me and possibly come over before he went to work to check something out. He called me back about 30 seconds later. He said he could show up around 8:00 to check it out.
Gerry showed up at around 8:00 and knocked on the door. I told him to shut his eyes for a moment. I went to grab the bass and said, "Merry Christmas, buddy!" Needless to say he was speechless. He said he couldn't accept it. I told him that it was okay, but I had a stipulation for it (I know one really shouldn't have stipulations when gifts are involved.) I told him that if he ended up not playing anymore and no one in his family used, that he couldn't sell it, he would have to send it back my way. That made him pretty happy and probably made him feel better about receiving the gift. He went to work and then went home and played his very own bass guitar.
I was so happy to shwre the gift of musical instrumentation with my friend, Gerry's wife later called and told me how happy he was to receive it. Merry Christmas to all and God Bless us, everyone.

These are pictures of what the guitar looked like after I sanded, stained and sealed it:




This is Gerry, receiving his Christmas Present

Sometimes It's Torture

Did you know The Korean word for "consultant" is the same as "torture"?
I was translating some Korean the other day and I was using A Korean to English Dictionary and the online translator, Babel Fish. I stumbled upon a word I didn't know, so I decided to use babel fish so I could brush up on my Korean typing skills. The word was 고문실 (pronounced Ko-moon shil). I typed it in the translation box and when I hit the translate button, Torture Room" appeared. Now with the reasoning skills I inherited from my family, I realized that Torture room didn't quite fit, so I reluctantly pulled out the old dictionary and found out that in this particular instant, 고문실 meant "Consultant's Office". A few things went through my thoughts when I made this discovery. First, "Man, Korean is confusing sometimes." Second, "computer programs don't have the reasoning skills of even unintelligent people." Third, "Could you imagine what it would be like if a babel fish couldn't feed off of brain waves and just gave the first meaning of a word with multiple definitions?"
Some of you may now be scratching your heads, while others are laughing, about the babel fish. "Let 'splain. No time, let me sum up." The babel fish is a creature with an extremely odd existance created by the genius mind of Douglas Adams in the first novel of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It feeds off of brain waves of individuals communicating with it's host and makes the communication understood by said host. To share the technical definition for those of you who aspire to engineers and love to explain everything in a way that can no longer be understood by those individuals who share the same field as you I have an exert from h2g2.com

"The Babel fish is a small, yellow and leechlike, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on brainwave energy received not from its own carrier but from those around it. It absorbs all unconscious mental frequencies from this brainwave energy to nourish itself with. It then excretes into the mind of its carrier a telepathic matrix formed by combining the conscious thought frequencies with nerve signals picked up from the speech centers of the brain which has supplied them. The practical upshot of all this is that if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language. The speech patterns you actually hear decode the brainwave matrix which has been fed into your mind by your Babel fish." http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A3728441
And for even more information:
So now that you have a little understanding of the babel fish you could imagine how tickled I felt when I started thinking about babel fish translating without discernment of the intent behind the words. People may go wonky and fear for their lives.
Just imagine it, Kim Jong-Il could want to negotiate with other nations for food and energy resources. The visit could be going along so well and the babel fish has yet to encounter any tricky words and all of a sudden, Mr. Kim tells the ambasadors that he is taking them to the (babel fish translation) torture room, Obviously meaning the Consultant's Office. The body guards of the ambassadors then tell their clients to run like crazy and start firing at small but very aggressive Korean Soldiers. In the cross fire Kim Jong-Il is killed creating an internaational incident making North Korea demonstrate that they do indeed have nuclear capabilities. They fire their missiles at the countries represented by the ambassadors. To the dismay of the Korean Government, they shortly find out that the discount craftsmen they used for the job of nuclear facilities made very ineffective nuclear weapons. In response to the use of Nuclear missiles all nations attacked by the substandard weapons fired all of their nuclear weapons at Noth Korea, destroying the entire Korean Peninsula, to include South Korea:( All of that nonsense because a simple fish made a simple mistake. Fish are silly.
Sorry about the randomness of this post, that's just how I roll.