SYSTEM FAILURE

Every morning I wake up and start all over again. The first things that pop into my head are: Who am I? Where am I? What day is it? What time is it? It’s like I’m a computer booting up, and my system diagnostics take an inventory of my surroundings.

Loading OS ANYtK…

System belongs to: Terry Mertens

System ports: OK

Chicago, Illinois
2006

Today is Friday
***Launching Friday Feel Good Hormone…

It is 7:35 in the morning and sunny

Checking log:

“Good morning, Terry. You have work today. It is the last work day of the week. You need to pay your mortgage today. You have a meeting this morning at 10:00 a.m. - be sure to shave. Your car is parked in the garage. Your girlfriend is generally pleased with you - buy flowers to improve relationship performance. You do not have cash. It is going to be a cold day. Call the following people...”

And then my computer proceeds to fill up my system tray with all of the programs that will be running in the background all day long.

* Appetite Manager…loading
* Waketime temperature Monitor…loading
* Libido Doctor…loaded in sleep state at 5:23 a.m
* Social Awareness 2.0…loading

And then my body gets out of bed and start doing things without my even thinking about it. I make a cup of instant coffee. I turn the shower and television on. I start fishing through the pile of clothes on my bed for something relatively clean.

45 minutes later, the person I recognize as “me” stumbles out into the hallway, locks the door, and trudges with eyes half shut toward the elevator.

Do I really have free will? Or do I just think I do? Am I really behaving consciously, or am I noticing what I’m doing as I’m doing it and interpreting it as choice? I do not feel free. I do not feel like I am making choices. I feel like some invisible hand is typing in commands all day long, commands I execute without much thought. And when my battery life finally starts to fail and my central processing unit chokes and sputters, I am powered down for the night.

Every morning I am booted back up again and set to perform a multitude of functions that surely must serve a purpose higher than my own self-interest. I don’t and can’t know what it is – only that my participation is essential, and trying to figure it out is futile.

System OK.

I have created the following diagnostic report for my user. I think it's time I get some fucking upgrades.

WARNING! - SYSTEM UNSTABLE - RUNNING OUT OF MEMORY - PLEASE TRY OPTIMIZING HARD DRIVE - INSTALL NEW VIRUS PROTECTION SOFTWARE - DOWNLOAD LATEST SECURITY UPDATES - REMOVE ALL UNUSED APPLICATIONS - UPGRADE PROCESSOR SPEED - INSTALL PATCH FOR SOCIAL AWARENESS 2.1 TO IMPROVE PERFORMANCE

Please enter password: __

OSAMA BIN HIDIN

Bush announced yesterday that he was “confident” Prince of Terror Osama Bin Laden would be captured.

In separate news, a videotape, also released yesterday, shows Bush saying how confident he was that all necessary emergency resources were in place prior to Hurricane Katrina's devastating landfall.

And then there was Bush's speech prior to the invasion of Iraq during which he expressed confidence that Saddam Hussein was harboring a deadly cache of WMD.

Is anyone else unmoved by Bush's patented stamp of confidence? He seems a little OVER confident if you ask me. Consider his Administration - the team of people hand-picked to assist him in leading the country. Bush has always introduced his qualified appointees with a great deal of confidence, certain they were the best people for the job. And yet consider all of the presumably smart people who've either resigned or been replaced since joining Team Bush. Secretary of State Colin Powell. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill. Agriculture Secretary Ann Venneman. Education Secretary Rod Paige. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans. Chief Economic Adviser Stephen Friedman. Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge. Attorney General John Ashcroft. Press Secretary Ari Fleischer. The list is long and storied.

I do not think it would not be a stretch to say that a lot of these people were probably more qualified to do their jobs than Bush is to do his - and, for one reason or another, they all either resigned or were replaced! As Randy Jackson would say, "I'm just not feeling the confidence, dog."

So when Bush says he's "confident" we're going to get Osama, I have to wonder if that's code for: "We're sending Vice President Cheney on a quail hunting trip to Pakistan."

Because, in a manner of speaking, that's probably our best shot.

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BROKEBACK

I’m telling you people, this whole Brokeback thing is on fire right now. It’s cool to be gay! Check out the trailer for an upcoming film about forbidden love in deep space called the romance of the Jedi.

The Cher song kills me every time…

BROKEBACK FOUNTAIN

There’s been a lot of pre-Oscar buzz surrounding the smash hit “Brokeback Mountain,” a film about two cowboys, home-o-sexual on the range. Have you seen it? Does your wife know? Did you have a row all to yourself? Just curious. No – not curious like THAT. Let’s move on, okay?

I have NOT seen the movie yet, but I do plan to challenge myself to sit through the DVD when it is released – just to know what all of the fuss is about. (I’m secretly hoping there will be a setting on the DVD that will let me watch the film without having to watch two dudes flame broil each other’s Whopper.)

Homophobic? Me? Please. I just have a homopreference not to watch men kiss. I think gay marriage is a great idea. I think gay parents can raise a child just fine. I even checked out Chicago's Gay Pride Parade last spring. Gay is okay by me. As a male, however, I personally don't care for the sight of males getting it on. It's the same queasiness I get when I watch two ugly people pawing at each other in public. Yeah - you know what I'm talking about.

Anyhow, I can’t help but notice a lot of folks jumping on the whole “Brokeback” bandwagon to capitalize upon the phenomenaughtiness of it all. Here are just a few examples of what I’m talking about…

I read in Rolling Stone that in the works is a remake of an AC/DC classic, a true tribute to the band’s name, called “Brokeback in Black.” The tight-fitting tribute is set to be recorded by the recently renamed alternative rock band Nickelbrokeback.

At Target the other day I saw they were selling a board game called Brokebackgammon – the rules are apparently the same, only the board is painted in festive pastels and rolling the dice is called "hopping on the asswagon.”

I read in the Wall Street Journal that unemployed homosexuals are asking to be called Flat Brokeback.

According to the Sporting News, placing large bets on the San Francisco Giants or San Francisco 49ers is considered “Going for Brokeback.”

In Variety, Arnold Schwarzenegger announced he is making another Terminator film once the Cauliflowernians vote him out of office. His catch phrase in the sequel “Fudgement Day” is reportedly, “I’ll be brokeback.”

On the IRS website there’s a new section for gay marriage filers called “brokeback taxes.”

George Lucas has started filming his Pre-se-pre-pre-se-quel to Star Wars, the hidden story about Luke Skywalker’s infatuation with Han Solo called “The Empire Strikes Brokeback.”

I’m not sure what to think of this trend, but it sure does seem to indicate to me that Brokeback Mountain stands a fairly decent chance to take halter-top honors at Sunday’s Oscar Wilde extravaganza.

HAMMER TIME

When it comes to crimes of passion, you can't touch this.

Last month, two Florida men got into a rather heated discussion about toilet paper...and it didn’t end well for either one of them.

According to the police report, 56-year-old Franklin Paul Crow of Moss Bluff, Florida was sick and tired of his roommate Kenneth Matthews, 58, of always using up the last of the toilet paper without replacing it. Enough was enough! Or, I suppose it would be more correct in this case to say NOT enough was enough!

An argument over the availability of clean asswipes ensued, during which Kenny decided to up the ante by pulling out a rifle and pointing it at his beloved Bunkie – a move that, in hindsight, might be considered his “last mistake.”

Whether Kenny intended to shoot Franklin over toilet tissue will forever remain unknown, as Franklin did not wait for Kenny to pull the trigger. Finding himself in the crosshairs, Franklin grabbed a pair of hammers (a sledgehammer and a claw hammer) and began beating Kenny with them. In the face. As you might imagine, Kenny's ass was wiped out. Police on the scene had to use fingerprints to identify him afterward.

As for Franklin’s ass, it will likely play host to a parade of unwelcome guests in the months and years ahead as Franklin has been charged with, and confessed to, homicide. A new bunkie eagerly awaits at the state pen.

If you're looking for a moral in this story, there are many:

Don't keep shit all bottled up until you explode - things could get messy.

This is what happens when there's an ass in charge.

Don't leave hammers in the living room.

Don't threaten to shoot someone unless you have the balls to actually do it.

There's a good reason grown men in their 50's don't live together.

Something that starts out a little pain in the ass can wind up killing you.

It's important to work out your little issues before they become big ones.

People will go to great lengths to protect their ass.

Guns kill people, but hammers kill people with guns.

IRONIQ

Iraq is on the verge of all out civil war following last week's bombings of scores of Sunni mosques. Counter bombings are underway as we speak. These acts are being carried out by extremists who, instead of celebrating freedom from a ruthless dictator, seek to gain control through the elimination of their rivals. It's a deadly turf war that's made keeping the peace painstakingly more difficult for U.S. forces. So what's all this fighting about? Why can't they all hold hands and sing songs in the street together?

When a team of blind British invalids drew up maps of the region following World War I, they paid little attention to the cultural differences of the people who called the land home. It’s the same story in Africa, and Israel, and pretty much anywhere else in the world the British had a mandate to play bordermaker. To be fair, they had plenty of help destroying the region, primarily from the French. The two allies agreed to a double super ultra mega mega secret understanding in 1916 regarding their respective spheres of post-war influence. This understanding, called the Sykes-Picot Agreement, laid the foundation for the creation of the modern State of Iraq, which was later drawn up with, understandably, the political interests of the European powers in mind – and, unfortunately, virtually zero consideration for the PEOPLE living in the region they were roping off.

The consequences of these myopic modifcations to the world map weren't as significant back then for a lot of reasons. Nations of the West hadn't yet begun their deadly affair with oil-bearing Sheiks. Weapons weren't nearly as prolific. Communication and transportation weren't at all what they are today. The world was a completely different place. So the folks deciding how to carve the pie couldn't have imagined it would end up like this. They just wanted to get it done in time for tea.

Fastforward about 90 years. (Can you believe it's almost been a century since WWI?)

In the Iraq we have come to know and love (and pay for) so well, a variety of warring cultures had been kept peaceful by a menacing dictator by the name of Saddam Hussein. He was what you might call the common enemy who kept the citizens united. They hated him because he was a no-nonsense murderer who didn’t find discriminating a particularly effective use of time. People he didn't care for were tortured and killed. Sure, like most people, he disliked some people more than others – but at the end of the day he was an equal opportunity tyrant.

Say what you want about Saddam’s lack of humanitarian zeal, civil war wasn’t an issue when he was in charge. Homicide in the 1990’s, a period more and more Iraqi citizens are referring to as “the good old days,” was state-sponsored. The oppression was awful, but well defined and predictable.

Today, the Iraqi people still have a common enemy in, tragically, their great “liberator,” the United States military. In the power vacuum created by the deposing of Saddam Hussein, countless interests have stepped forward to influence the country’s future. Few (if any) of these interests share the Bush Administration’s vision of what Iraq should look like. They are deeply religious, passionately partisan groups and they fear the new U.S.-endorsed government isn’t going to give them a fair shake. So they march and protest, bomb, kidnap and assassinate.

If we offer Saddam a raise, do you think he’ll take his old job back? He may have been a bad man, but he was a good sheriff in a town that desperately needed order.

While I’m making ludicrous suggestions, here’s another one: Why not, finally, redraw the map of Iraq to account for the people living there. Give the Sunni folk a place to chill, the Shiites a hood of their own, and designate a central area around Baghdad the county seat where CNN reporters can go when they want to give their career a boost by taking a dangerous assignment.

I’ve got plenty more mind-blowingly cool ideas where these came from. Why don’t we let Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling run Iraq. They did such a great job making that money-pit Enron look profitable, let’s hand over the reins to Iraq and see what they can do. They owe a lot of Americans a lot of years of community service – sentencing them to prison would be such a waste of their god-given talent for bullshit. Shouldn't their punishment fit the crime? They made a fortune in the energy business – let’s give those geniuses control over some of the world’s largest oil reserves so they can start paying America back. Or at least make them drive important people around.

Wouldn’t that be ironiq?

RIDING THE PORCELAIN BRONCO

Being well-adjusted means you’re never more than a crap away from true happiness.

I love taking craps. I’m sure Freud would have something to say about that – but who the hell was he anyway? Why are his opinions on shit like that any more important than mine? You’re right – they’re not. Sometimes when I’m in a foul mood, all it takes is one long, satisfying bowel movement and I’m back on top of the world. Dumping is happiness. The irrefutable proof for me is in the ass pudding.

Craps are delicate moments meant to be enjoyed. That's why we call their arenas "restrooms." Rest. Take it easy. Relax. Enjoy.

And not all restrooms are created equally. Some are better equipped to handle your shit than others. Take this link, for example, sent to me by Dr. Gluteus Faber. Have a gander to discover the best crapper in America .

TICKETMASTERBATION

I’ve been trying to get Chicago Cubs tickets all morning, sitting in their virtual waiting room online and having zero luck. Today is basically a Cubs fan’s only opportunity to pay face value to see games of interest, as ticket brokers unscrupulously buy them all up the day tickets go on sale and then sell them back to the public at prices no less than twice the face value. They call it a convenience to purchase tickets through their service, but it’s really a money-making scam that’s been fleecing baseball fans out of their hard-earned money for years. Instead of doing something to prevent it, the Cubs organization has essentially JOINED in by sponsoring its own ticket brokerage where they scalp tickets under the guise of “service,” and cite "fair market value" for the egregious prices they charge. It’s rifuckingdiculous.

I thought I had the system beat when I called the Ticketmaster location in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan this morning – but was told they were unable to sell tickets for events in the U.S. And Ticketmaster locations outside of the Chicago area don’t have access to the games yet, so I had no luck there. The only real shot I’ve got is to continue monitoring all these virtual waiting rooms I’ve got on all the computers here at work and hope for the best – although now there’s a list of sold-out games that I can no longer get tickets for. They are games number 1,2,3, and 4 on my list of desired games. Go figure. They’re the same games EVERYBODY wants to go to, which is why the ticket brokers snap them all up first. Big money there. This whole scam is a loophole in the scalping law and it’s just plain wrong. But on the list of things to fix in this town, politicians don’t rank consumer corruption very high. They're more concerned with making sure cigarettes, which are legal to buy, are illegal to smoke in as many places as they can think of and enforce. Another tax hike well spent.

The message on this virtual waiting room, which refreshes every 30 seconds to remind me I should be patient, may as well read:

“Welcome to Cubs.com – we are actually laughing at your futile attempt to purchase tickets at face value. But try if you must. When you finally give up, here are some links to a number of local ticket brokers where tomorrow you’ll find tickets to pretty much any Cubs game you want…at a premium, of course. Not fair? Life’s not fair, bud. Figured an ugly asshole like you would be used to disappointment by now. Happy hunting, sucker!”

Looks like these two are going to be seeing the Cubs before I do!

A CULTURE OF WAR

Hate can be learned, and there's a whole lot of people teaching it these days. Where we bundle up our cherished little ones in colorful ski jackets for an afternoon romp in the snow, little tykes elsewhere are outfitted in army fatigues and handed toy guns before an afternoon protest.

This is the way of the world in some countries. This is everyday life. And in the nuclear age, this culturally militaristic frame of mind has fast become a global crisis.

A handful of cartoon drawings has sparked widespread global unrest. The bombing of scores of religious mosques has brought Iraq to the brink of civil war. Iran plans to move forward with its nuclear ambitions, in spite of international protest. Islamic militants have been elected to represent the Palestinian constituency in Israel. Abductions continue. Roadside bombs claim more and more lives every day. Vague warnings and terrorist threats continue to trickle in from abroad. Middle Eastern governments are beginning to buckle as anti-West sentiment mounts. It would appear, to a casual observer who's just tuned into world affairs, that the stage is being set for a massive global showdown, a religious and ideological battle without boundaries, and without rules.

The destruction of the World Trade Center in 2001 demonstrated a willingness and ability on the part of radical Islamists extremists to kill without conscience. This single act of terror was met with a swift military reponse - the invasion and takeover of the entire nation of Afghanistan. In the fear that followed, this hostile takeover was followed by the subsequent invasion of Iraq over the mere suspicion there existed a cache of potentially catastrophic weapons. What will be the West's response when a nuclear device is detonated in Tel Aviv...or a dirty bomb exploded in Times Square? Are these horrifying examples simply irrational fears, or simply a matter of time?

The pictures don't lie - there are tens upon tens of thousands of people protesting around the globe - furious and willing to die fighting for a cause they were assigned at birth.

Is lasting peace even possible at this point? Is a future of war inevitable? I am about as afraid of the future as I am optimistic for it...which isn't saying a whole lot in either case. Whatever happens will be. I'm just glad I'm on the side with TiVo. At least for now.

CONTROL FREAKSHOW

A lot of people are control freaks. We can’t help it. The mind requires order and the best way to make sense of an evolving, changing world is to control as many variables as you can. Or at least to trick the mind into thinking it is in control when, clearly, we’re all at nature’s mercy.

Shit happens all the time – unexpected and out of the blue – that changes everything forever. So to promote the status quo, or at least achieve some semblance of normalcy, we manipulate the variables in our lives in an attempt to control life’s outcome, as it pertains to us. Do some of us go too far? You bet. Think Hitler.

Or, consider the case of Travis Frey.

Travis is the sick fuck who’s been brought up on charges of kidnapping his wife. According to court documents, Travis drafted a 4-page “Contract of Wifely Expectations” that he ordered his wife abide by – even though she never signed it. The details of the contract are too unbelievable to mention – you really must read them for yourself at the Smoking Gun. They have images posted of the scanned contract for your review. This dude is one fucked up cat. Sincerely.

I don't know whether life unfolds as a function of chaos or whether we simply can't perceive its immaculate order, but either way, I do enjoy the taste of a cheesy quesadilla.

THE WHITEHOUSE EFFECT

Bad news, friends. According to satellite imagery, the Greenland Ice cap is melting far faster than anyone had predicted it would. Twice as much ice is dropping into the ocean today as just five years ago. It’s a dramatic trend environmental scientists fear could have major impact on the world climate.

And do you know what’s REALLY scary? The folks in Washington don’t want you to know about it.

The Bush Administration originally dismissed the concerns as “fuzzy science,” but has since announced the development of a “roadmap” to environmental wellness called “No ice left behind.” The 600-page proposal, which has not been made public yet, is said to be littered with practical, if less-than-helpful, suggestions on how to deal with the global warming, like moving away from the beach. The ambitious initiative also includes a plan to counter rising temperatures by enforcing a one-week period every year during which every home and business in the world with air conditioning must jam their unit on high with their doors and windows open. According to a section of the report released to the media on Friday, “The collective effort of all those cooling systems blasting at once should be sufficient to reverse the trends we’ve been seeing. And if we need to run a few fans, too, that can’t hurt either.”

All joking aside, the Bush Administration actually tried to prevent a NASA scientist from making these reports public. Jim Hansen is the director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, and President George Bush's top climate modeler. When he approached the administration with this news, they more or less told him to put a sock in it. Here’s a quick link to the article for your reference.

On the other side of the spectrum, hard core environmentalists are now predicting all of humanity will be under water within the next 72 hours. RUH-ROH!

The truth, as always, is neither here nor there.

YOU LOVE ME

You love me not.

You love me.

You love me not.

You love me.

You love me not.

You love me.

You love me not.

You love me not?

What?

No. I don't think so. Don't lie.

You know you love me.

ASS TRAFFIC

I work at a small marketing firm, and our office is located on the top floor of a renovated loft building in Chicago’s West Loop Warehouse District. Our office bathroom, for your reference, is situated just outside our main office in a common hallway. While the hallway is common, our agency bathroom is not. Or, at least it’s not supposed to be.

All week we’ve been noticing an awful lot of traffic out in that hallway and yesterday morning our worst fears were realized. It turns out folks from the office next door have been john-hopping – descending upon our throne whenever theirs is occupied!

Late yesterday, one of the partners here decided to casually bring it up to it up to one of the partners next door, who was quick to apologize for the extra business they’ve been sending our way. According to our neighbor, their architecture firm has been on a hiring spree of late and, with only one bathroom in their office, there’s been a lot of crapper traffic. Because we possess the only other commode of transpooptation on the floor, we’ve been catching their daily overflow. To make matters worse, the increase in activity has been occurring at particularly busy times, between 9-10:30am (after morning coffee), then again between 1-2:30pm (after lunch). In the business world, these time slots are also known as Flush Hour.

Since it is OUR private bathroom, and stocked with OUR private supplies, we politely asked if they would be able to keep their bathroom activities to their own bathroom. They apologized and agreed to stink to their own side. As I am sure you have already guessed by now, it was not long before they reneged.

This morning, after taking a visual audit of office occupants, I scampered off to use the restroom – confident it was vacant. But it was not! I tried the handle twice to be sure and it was locked. I was not pleased. To let the occupant know how surprised I was to find it locked, I rammed my shoulder into the door forcefully as if to bust it open. The offending occupant uttered meekly, “Just a mo-ment!” The tone in his voice assured me I had scared the shit out of him…literally perhaps.

I immediately retreated to my desk, bursting at the seams in more ways than one. My first instinct was to walk into the office next door, drop my pants, and dangle a hearty russet coil all over their nicely-buffed wooden floor. But that’s always my first instinct when surrounded by architects. My second instinct was to urinate in a plastic cup and – honestly, it’s really not important. The important thing is what I actually did, which was my 6th instinct.

I lifted a sheet of blank white paper from the printer tray and uncapped a Sharpie. The marker squeaked loudly as I scrawled a note in large CAPITAL LETTERS:

ENOUGH ASSHOLES USE THIS BATHROOM ALREADY – WE DON’T NEED YOU IN HERE, TOO.

I marched back out into the hallway and slid it under the bathroom door.

I’m hoping the unwelcome crapper got the message. If not, I am going to have to resort to plan B.

Plan B: The door handle has one of those small holes in the center, so to unlock it, all one needs is a toothpick or a needle. If our john gets raided again tomorrow, I am going to pick the lock, swing the door open, snap a photo, and disappear into the stairwell. I will then wallpaper the neighborhood with fliers featuring that photo:

“WANTED: Suspect known only as the “Turd Burglar” has been reported breaking into the bathrooms of area businesses to steal unflushed excrement. The suspect should be considered armed and pungent. Please avoid direct contact and always keep a clean bowl."

VICE PRESIDENTS OF MASS DESTRUCTION

Vice President Dick Cheney inadvertently made a case for stronger gun control this week when he “accidentally” shot a hunting buddy firing at a rising covey of quail. The victim was an acquaintance and contributor who thought Cheney meant something entirely different when he said the Republican Party needed a “shot in the arm” prior to upcoming mid-term elections. Initially outraged, most Americans were quick to forgive the Vice President upon learning that the man he shot was a lawyer.

The news got a little worse for Cheney when it was later reported the victim had suffered a minor heart attack thanks to some birdshot that had penetrated his internal organs. THEN today it was revealed that Dick had sucked down a beer at lunch that fateful afternoon. Tomorrow I'm expecting they will announce that Cheney has been legally blind for over a decade.

President Bush has remained out of the spotlight over the course of this drama, but unconditional support for the Veep has been implicit in his Foreign Policy philosophy: Shoot first and ask questions later.

Some have expressed concern over Cheney's admission to drinking a single beer at lunch, as everyone knows that one beer means at least three. Ask any state patrol officer who's ever pulled over a DUI suspect. They've got a cheat sheet for assessing true consumption levels based on admission:



If they admit to..........Then they likely had...
1 beer........................3-4 beers
2 beers......................5-8 beers
A few beers................No fewer than 9 beers
4 or 5 beers...............12 beers and several shots
6+ beers....................A controlled substance of some kind

According to administrators at the event, a small situation developed after the hunt when, on the way back to the parking lot, Dick asked, "Who wants shotgun?" and everyone within earshot scrambled for cover.

Want to try your hand at a little quail hunting Dick Cheney style? Click here. Be sure to check out the featured article after you take your best shot – it's a fucking scream.

A White House Story: "I want an Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle!"

Don't be silly, Dick. You'll shoot a contributor's eye out!



*******************************************


Get yours today! Hot off the presses...a bright orange “Duck! Cheney” T-shirt.

You know you want one.

BROKEBACK TO THE FUTURE

McFly is open! Check out this nicely crafted trailer for the upcoming movie starring Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd called Brokeback to the Future.

What’s up, doc?

OINK AND CLICK

I never knew how much a simple drawing of a pig could reveal about my personality! According to this Draw a Pig Personality Test, I’ve got a great sex life. Sweet! Of course, I didn’t need to draw a pig on a computer to know that. The alarming rate at which I lose underwear is testimony enough. But enough about makin’ bacon – go draw a pig and find out what it says about you!

Besides, naturally, the fact that you have too much time on your hands.

HAPPY V-D!

Something about that doesn't sound quite right.

TRAFFIC JAM

Stacy Keibler naked. Stacy Keebler naked. Stacy Kiebler naked. Stacey Keebler naked. Stacey Keibler naked. Stacey Keebler naked. Stacy Kebler naked. Stacy Keibler pics. Stacy Keebler pics. Stacy Kiebler pics. Stacey Keebler pics. Stacey Keibler pics. Evangeline Lilly nude. Evangeline Lily nude. Evangeline Lilly naked. Evangeline Lily naked. Evangeline Lilly pics. Evangeline Lily pics. Stacey Keebler pics. Stacy Kebler pics. Stacy Keibler nude. Stacy Keebler nude. Stacy Kiebler nude. Stacey Keebler nude. Stacey Keibler nude. Stacey Keebler nude. Stacy Kebler nude.

Don’t mind me – just an experiment to see if this drums up a few more web hits.

From what I understand about Search Engine Optimization, people searching for naked celebrities will be directed to visit AYNtK. They might consider it misleading of me to advertise naked pics of celebrities in this way, but I call it fate.

If you are reading this post because you came here looking for naked pictures of celebrities, don’t be discouraged. You were meant to find AYNtK. I am fate’s monkey, and I type what you are thinking. I am here to tell you that looking at photographs of naked women is not what you need to be doing right now. You need to be getting back to work – you ARE the President of the United States, after all. I would have expected this search string out of Bill, but not YOU!

DECORATIVE TOPOGRAPHY

Some close friends of ours just had a beautiful baby girl, so Geri and I drove out to meet their newest edition over the weekend. During the drive out, Geri’s 5-year-old (the H-man) initiated a very interesting discussion on breasts. In the question-and-answer session that followed, Geri carefully explained to the H-man that girls have boobs so they can feed their babies. The H-man was noticeably perplexed upon learning this interesting factoid, so Geri asked him, “Why did you THINK girls have boobs?”

“I don’t know,” he wondered aloud, “For decoration?” It is clear that the H-man is wise beyond his years.

“Well…” I chimed in with a laugh, “That’s not entirely untrue.” Geri could not disagree as we both admired his profound insight. Hard to fight the logic of a 5-year-old when there’s an entire cosmetic enhancement market thriving on the concept of decorative topography.

Given his new understanding of the biological purpose for breasts, the H-Man went on to make several brilliant observations, including: “So girls with big boobs don’t have babies, because if they did then they wouldn’t have the big boobs. They need babies,” he said, sure of himself. Or attention, we mumbled to each other. And then, of course, came the question that was sure to follow.

"Why do boys have boobs?"

Walking him through the mysteries of gender differentiation from Asexuality to Zygote would not have been a good use of time, so we defaulted to your standard blow-off-the-child-with-too-many-questions-phrase and offered only: "I don't know, dude. That's a good question."

In related news, a team of researchers studying the possible causes of homosexuality have identified one of the first signs a male child might be gay, illustrated in this photograph (removed). Results of the study are not expected to be final for another 14-18 years.

WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

I'm not going to stop pestering you until you push a pin in my Guestmap, dammit. Do it now!

(Unless you already have, in which case you can expect the winds of change to carry good fortune your way.)