Phil Fact 4

Depending on how you look at it, I can be connected to actor Richard Gere with only one or two people between us.

Every Party Has A Pooper and....

the pooper is me. Well, it's me if it's one of those "rah rah" employee meetings designed to boost morale and make us happy about our place of employment. I think I got tired of those ice-breaker, let's be nice to everyone, kind of meetings about 5 minutes into homeroom in the 5th grade. Unfortunately the people that run large companies seem to think that everyone finds these type of shindigs endlessly entertaining no matter how many years in a row we are forced to do them. In junior high school and high school it was usually in health class at the beginning of the year when we were forced into these fake friendship rituals. Then in college at some residence hall/dormitory function during the first few days we were forced to do some silly kind of self-disclosure/where are you from kind of game. Then when you enter the work world they either force new employees to get to know each other through a workplace Pictionary equivalent, or your department has to go meet some other department from your company. What always astounds me is the people, who despite having advanced far into adulthood, continue to seem endlessly enthusiastic at these pep rallies. Don't you just love the games where you have to put a post it note on your back or forehead and guess what it says based on how everyone talks to you? Then there's the social rejects who seem to take pride in answering the rhetorical questions that the corporate dancing monkey asks us at these ridiculous, time wasting torture sessions. "Everyone, can anyone tell me one way to make our customers feel welcome when they enter our place of business?" Inevitably some dope who still derives their self-esteem from the approval of others raises their hand like Arnold Horshack, "Ooh! Ooh! Pick Me! I know the answer! It's smile. We can smile at them!" I imagine that if I ever go to heaven I'll probably be forced to sit through one of these rituals during my first week. St. Peter will say, "Can all our new angels tell everyone their name and one thing in life they did to deserve to go to heaven?" Man is God going to be pissed when I roll my eyes at this.

Quick Phil Fact Number 3

I can also be connected to Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb with only one person between us. And yes, when I get done with all the Phil Facts I'll explain them.

The Cult Scouts of America

I hate the Cub Scouts. If you don't have a male child you wouldn't understand. The Cult Scouts, as I like to call them, is an insidiously evil organization recruiting young children and brainwashing them into thinking that their arcane rituals, and subsequent trips into secluded locations in the woods to practice these rituals, are actually fun. This evil organization has secret handshakes and hand signals and forces children to repetitively chant their propaganda slogans. I also think they're distributing a mind control drug to the general population through their popcorn sales. I mean really, who in their right mind would buy a giant can of caramel corn for $15? The worst part is that as a parent you're a hostage to this whole process. We are the human sacrifices of this particular cult, giving up our free time for 8 months of the year. The really brainwashed parents actually buy themselves an oversized child's uniform and do this crap year round. They're the cult leaders. I think they're children who grew up in the Cult Scouts and never took off the uniform. Weekly meetings to practice the rituals and incantations. Then the occasional trips into the woods to practice their brand of evil away from the prying eyes of the public. Once last year we actually slept over at the airport! See what I mean? That's not a field trip! Travelers who have had flights grounded because of weather know that sleeping at the airport isn't fun. But the Cult Scouts brainwash their young charges into believing it is. I think I'm the only sane parent there and I've infiltrated the cult to reveal their secrets. I couldn't stand to watch these incompetent dopes in their childhood uniforms trying to waste my child's time, so I've volunteered to help. Mark my words, I will not wear the uniform. If they ask me to turn over all of my worldly belongings, I'm out of there. If I suddenly stop blogging you can assume they killed me on one of these trips into the woods. Send help!

Another Quick Phil Fact

Using the 6 degrees of separation theory, I can be connected to Jerry Seinfeld with only one person between us. I'm also fairly certain that if you go to Jerry's blog he's probably bragging about his connection to me. Maybe next week I'll invite Jerry and Fidel over for dinner.

My So Called Mid-Life Crisis

I'm thinking about having a mid-life crisis. Part of my problem is that since I don't plan to die, I'm not sure when my "mid-life" will be. Despite my vow never to die, I'm having a hard time convincing my body that it doesn't have to get older. When your cholesterol score is higher than your SAT score it might be time to acknowledge the aging process. If I don't start eating better, after my first heart attack the doctors will tell me they found an entire McNugget lodged in my aorta. Sadly, I realize that I no longer have the body of an 18 year old, but that's only because my wife found out about her and we had to stop dating. A lot of people hear Snap, Crackle, and Pop in the morning, but now it comes from my joints. So far I'm too ashamed to dye my hair to hide the gray that is creeping in at the temples, so I've started telling people that I'm adding gray highlights. I'm hoping to convince enough people that it will become a new trend. From watching television and movies, mid-life crises look to be really fun. Should I quit my job, find the Dali Llama and take up transcendental basket weaving? I'd buy a sports car, but I'm already pretty happy with the car I've got. I'm not really questioning my identity or place in life, but just completely going nuts for a while seems like a pretty fun idea. So needless to say, before I am forced to admit that I am in fact aging, I'd like to start a mid-life crisis just to have one last fling at re-capturing my quickly fading youth. I'm just not sure how to get started. Any suggestions?

An Unusual Phil Fact

Using the 6 Degrees of Separation theory I can be connected to Fidel Castro using only two other people, and one of them is his brother.

The Male-Female Dictionary Part II: How Men Interpret The Crazy Things Women Say

As you learned in Part I, everything men say is not always what it seems. Just as it is when interpreting a foreign language, interpreting what the opposite sex says can be difficult too. Women often wonder why men don't call the next day, or why we say we're going to the store and then don't come back for a week. Often it's something you said that set us off. Men's ability to accurately find hidden meaning in women's words is as good as the governments ability to respond to hurricane disasters, and usually with similar results. Ladies, I'm talking to you: If you want men to know something, just say it. Don't assume we should just know something. We don't. We don't know anything. Treat us as if you're training a dog. If you want your dog to sit, you don't give a series of elaborate hand signals and hope he figures out what you mean. That being said, here are a few examples of how women's' words are interpreted by perfectly normal, intelligent men.

When Women Say, "You don't have to do anything special for my birthday. It's no big deal"
What Women Mean is, "This is a test of our relationship and how well you know me. If you don't get the right, thoughtful, romantic gift it will forever alter how I think of you."
What Men Hear, "You don't have to do anything special. It's Ok to go out with your friends to watch football."

When Women Say, "Does this dress make me look fat?"
What Women Mean is, "I know I'm not a supermodel, but I'd appreciate it if you'd act like you think I am. If you don't, you have no chance to sleep with me anytime in the near future."
What Men Hear, "DANGER! DANGER! Red Alert! Relationship test in progress! You'd better say the right thing or this relationship is over."

When Women Say, "It's just lunch with an old friend. Just because he's a guy doesn't mean anything."
What Women Mean is, "I'm meeting my old boyfriend for lunch just to see if the spark is really gone. If it is, you get to keep me."
What Men Hear is, "I'm having lunch with someone I had sex with."

When Women Say, "I love you."
What Women Mean is, "My ovaries are doing back-flips just thinking about conceiving. I've had the wedding planned since I was 9 years old. If you don't say 'I love you' back, I'm going to break up with you and tell every woman in the world that you have commitment issues."
What Men Hear, "If you say 'I love you' back you can have sex with me."

The Male-Female Dictionary

As women have often bemoaned for centuries, it seems that men and women speak different languages. Yes, I know a lot of self-help experts have published books on this very subject, but their political correctness often destroys their usefulness. When women want to know what men are thinking they don't need some touchy, feely, self-help, bleeding heart, mother substitute therapist telling you that your boyfriend is only with you because you're just like his mother. EEEEEEWWWW! Even if that's true, no one really wants to know that. The television Dr. Phil is a hack and only has a show because he helped Oprah cut back on the Twinkies. I'll be your internet Dr. Phil and will provide a useful translation of men's innermost thoughts. My first bit of advice is to lose that misconception. Men do not have innermost thoughts. Here is a preview of my soon to be released book, "Men: We're As Simple as We Seem to Be, So Stop Hounding Us."

When Men Say, "I don't know."
What we really mean is, "I honestly haven't given it any thought. Please stop obsessing about it you clingy, smothering nutjob."

When Men Say, "No, that dress doesn't make you look fat."
What we really mean is, "Are you really expecting me to answer any other way if I want you to ever have sex with me again?"

When Men Say, "I don't care where we go to dinner."
What we really mean is,"I don't care where we go to dinner." We just like eating. We don't care what it is.

When Men Say, "I'll call you tomorrow."
What we really mean is, "If you don't go bunny boiler on me I'll hook up with you the next time I run into you at a bar, and if that works, then maybe we'll have a long term relationship."

When Men Say, "Yes, I'd love to go see that new Kate Winslet-Brad Pitt love story movie."
What we really mean is, "If I spend two hours watching that crap and pretending to care, you damn well better sleep with me afterwards."

When Men Say, "No, I wasn't looking at her," or "No. I definitely do not find women like that attractive."
What we really mean is, "Are you really expecting me to answer any other way if I want you to ever have sex with me again?"

When Men Say, "I love you."
What we really mean is, "Will you have sex with me?"

When Men Say, "Of course I'll skip my fantasy football draft to have dinner with your parents."
What we really mean is, "I love you."

This is a just a taste. I won't give you the whole book here free. If you need an individual translation done feel free to ask. Next, stay tuned for a preview of chapter 2 : "How Men Interpret The Crazy Things Women Say."

NUMB3RS

I meant to write this post about 6 months ago, but I didn't have a blog at the time. I was perusing the Fall TV schedule when I noticed that the show NUMB3RS is coming back. Last Spring this show was a mid-season replacement. It's about a detective who enlists the help of his Rainman-like brother to solve crimes with math. Based on that premise, I never watched even a second of the show. I hated math! I chose my career based on the complete lack of math needed. Who in their right mind is going to watch a show about math?!!? What's next, CSI:Trigonometry? Is there homework at the end of the show? Television should not make my brain hurt. If I wanted to be smarter, I'd study. Solving crimes with math! I'd like to see someone try that crap in real life. Let's see math-boy stop a hail of gunfire with calculus. Someone at the network must be sleeping with a really hot math teacher in order for this idea to even leave the drawing board. I mean, your brain has to be seriously impaired by sex for anyone to think this was a good idea. The scariest part is that if this type of idea is successful, there will be copycat shows. Before you know it we'll be watching things like Poetry Party and The Physics Family. The worst part is that the commercials for this show are on in prime-time, and some poor impressionable child exposed to this mayhem will spend the rest of his life thinking that stuff you learn in school is useful in real life.

Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining

Who says George Bush isn't supportive?

Diggin' the Amish

Is it just me, or is everyone fascinated by the Amish? I'm pretty sure I can make fun of the Amish here without fearing retribution. I doubt there are very many Amish bloggers. Why do we all find the Amish so interesting? Is it their stylish black outfits? They say black is very slimming. Have you ever seen a fat Amish person? Why the hell are they so quiet? Maybe they're all actually telepathic and they're mocking us and our flashy colors without us even knowing it. If they don't talk much, how do Amish men and women meet? Do Amish guys use pick up lines? Jebediah-"You look great in that plain sack dress and bonnet. You can raise my barn anytime!" Do the Amish get jiggy with it in the back seat of the horse and buggy when they go on dates? If they don't use electricity, how do Amish women operate their vibrators? If there are any Amish out there who can answer these questions, feel free to chime in here.

Just A Story

Since I'll be gone for the weekend again I didn't want my last post to be Thursday, so I'm telling a great story from work. If reading my blog didn't convince you that the internet is dangerous, then this story will. Occasionally I work at the emergency department of a local hospital. (That's already a scary thought isn't it?) I evaluate the mentally ill people who come in, or are brought in by the police, and decide if they are safe to go home without being a danger to themselves or others. Occasionally one of the inpatient medical units in the hospital will call and ask for an evaluation of a patient they may have discovered was depressed or possibly psychotic. So one day I'm sitting in the emergency dept. enjoying a good game of bedpan bowling when I get a request from the urology unit to come up and evaluate one of their patients. For those of you who rode the short bus to my blog, urologists are doctors who treat the part of you that goes pee. So I go up to the unit and this is what I learn: A 26 year old male had cut open his scrotum, gotten one of his testicles out, and called an ambulance when he couldn't get it back in. Here's how my interview with him went, Me-"So, can you tell me why you're here?" Patient-"I did something stupid." That had to be the Hurricane Katrina of understatements. He then went on to explain how he had a few beers, was looking at some websites, and got curious about what was inside his marble bag. Now I've been drunk before, but never so drunk that I wanted to go Extreme Makeover on my genitals. In case you're curious, I'll give you the link to the site he was looking at. HA HA! Just kidding. No, I didn't ask the website. I didn't want to know. The temptation might be too much. The story had a happy ending as he promised to leave all his future surgeries to real doctors and I cleared him to go home the next day. Be thankful that I didn't include any pictures with this post.

Adult Attention Deficit Disorder

I'm pretty sure I have it. At least I have it on my drive to work each day. On a good day I'm generally a danger to myself or others on my morning commute. Especially since I got satellite radio. I have 30 pre-programmed stations and a little screen that scrolls the name of the band and song constantly. It's hard to watch the road, especially when you add in my new found love, the cell phone. When I do have a good song on the radio and I'm not receiving any important calls on my phone, I watch other drivers. It doesn't matter if we're speeding along on the highway or stopped at a light. I'm always watching other drivers. I think my ability to multi-task while driving without killing anyone is pretty good, but I'm a rank amateur compared to some of these people. Here is a list of some of the activities I've seen other drivers engaged in while driving:

Of course there are the women applying their morning make-up. I have also seen a woman doing her hair with a curling iron while the car was in motion.

Putting in contact lenses seems to be a popular activity. To me that seems like a pre-driving thing.

Just yesterday I saw a guy flossing his teeth while driving at 60 mph. (That's about 100 kph for you metric folks)

There are people who seem to have psychic control over their vehicles as they drive with a cigarette in one hand and a cell phone in the other. These people have a death wish. If their driving doesn't kill them the cigarettes will. I can only assume that their using their cell phone to make funeral plans.

My all-time favorite was when, at 8:00 a.m. I saw an Asian gentleman eating corn on the cob while driving on the expressway. Eating while driving is no big deal,in fact I consider myself the master of that particular skill, but who eats corn on the cob at 8 a.m.?!!?

Anybody have any other good ones?

OOPS!

No, the title is not referring to how I felt after offending many bloggers and Canada with my last post. I'm thinking of situations in your life in which you definitely do not want to hear another person say "OOPS!" Oops is a very small word that can sometimes have very big implications. It's not even a word really, but those four little letters can cause an unimaginable amount of immediate dread. Once while getting my haircut by a friend I heard her say, "Oops!" followed by a very nervous giggle. It was a free haircut. You get what you pay for. Once an oral surgeon actually said, "Oops!" while sticking a needle in the roof of my mouth, just before my blood spurted out on his scrubs. A time you definitely don't want to hear "oops!" is when a medical professional is working on you. Especially if you're a guy getting a vasectomy. I can imagine that would cause a bit of a panicked feeling. Obviously hearing "oops!" during sex can have many meanings. It can mean, "Oops I just leaned on your hair. Sorry." It could mean, "Oops I just impregnated you." Or it could means , "Oops I think I just bit off a part of you that you wanted to keep." Some of you may even be familiar with the, "Oops, I thought I was kissing someone else." Feel free to add your favorite "oops!" stories in the comments. This should be entertaining.

Celine is French For Satan

*WARNING* The following may contain material that is offensive to Celine Dion fans and Canadians (not that there's a difference).

Yes, I agree that the results of Hurricane Katrina have been tragic. On that point Celine Dion and I agree. After that point, however, I believe that Celine and I would come to fisticuffs. And believe me, Celine would be in for an ass kicking like no other. The arrogance and piousness of some celebrities just astounds me. Over the weekend Celine Dion used some television interview to criticize the U.S. government response to the disaster in New Orleans. Let's see Celine....when was the last time you voted for our President? When was the last time you paid taxes here? What? Never? Then shut up. Sure Celine, it's fine for you to make millions in CD sales and concerts in the U.S. How about we hear how much of that you've donated to the hurricane relief effort. Yes, Celine, I'm sure our government is just sitting back thinking, "We'll get to that hurricane situation right after the holiday weekend. What? Celine is upset? Oh! We'd better get right on that." Hmmmm....What's the Canadian government doing to help the hurricane victims? Why doesn't the Canadian government send some of their military down to help? Oh yeah, that's right, the Canadian military consists of a bunch of guys in Dudley Do-Right costumes riding around on horses. The only reason Canada exists as a sovereign country instead of a suburb of Buffalo is because there's nothing up there we want. Did anyone else see the live broadcast over the weekend where rapper Kayne West deviated from the script to criticize the government too. His partner on the stage at that time was comedian/actor Mike Myers. Did Mike say anything to interrupt? Nope, of course not. Mike's a Canadian.

I'm Off For The Weekend

It's the Labor Day weekend and I'll be gone until Monday. Why do they call it "Labor" Day when everyone takes the day off from work? That makes the name of the holiday ironic and an oxymoron. Doesn't the word "oxymoron" sound like what you'd call someone who's too stupid to figure out how to open their container of acne cream? Just to keep you all busy while I'm gone, try to find the only word in the English language with three consecutive sets of double letters in it. While you're at it, look for words that rhyme with orange and silver. 1000 Phil points go to anyone who gets any of these.

Something Stinks

For about 6 months now I've been seeing these ads for a product called Scent Stories. Basically what it is, is an air freshener where you put a CD in which causes the little machine to emit a different smell every 30 minutes. That sounds like one of my kids. The woman on the commercial says, "Now my nose will never get bored." Nose boredom?!!? As far as I know, my nose has never had feelings or thoughts of any kind. If nose boredom is such a big problem in your life that you have to spend $30 on a machine for it then you need to get your ass kicked in some way.