The Year in Pictures! Well, part of the year. And a few pictures.

From the Big Picture! 

WITHOUT THE FUNNY CARTOON NOISES

I obviously didn't see it when it happened, but the paramedic told me on the way to the emergency room that I had slipped on a banana peel and fallen down a flight of stairs. A banana peel. I could even see the guy trying to hide his smile, and why not? I took a header down a flight of concrete stairs because I slipped on a banana peel like I was Tom and fucking Jerry. It's almost like I fell out straight out of a cartoon, but instead of bouncing off the sidewalk with an invisible tuba playing I broke my hip. But me, slipping and falling because of a banana peel? Man, that's something else. I'm not just a horrible injured man now, I'm a story to tell, a myth made clumsy flesh. If it hadn't happened to me, I'd be smirking at the cliche in action just like he had. I silently resolved to piss on his hand if he tried to put a catheter in me. And of course, if I had the bladder control.

THE BEST BARBECUE/LOVEMAKING TIPS ON THE INTERNET

The fires of your passion will burn bright, so be sure to step back at least three feet when you light the charcoal.  

As far as tenderizing goes, be sure to tenderly but thoroughly massage from top to bottom with your fingertips.  This will break down and soften the muscle fibers and lead to a more tender piece of ass.

Make sure that you listen.  Be caring, loving, attentive.  That salmon fillet will dry out in a second if you’re not paying close attention.

Know how long to let things marinate.  You don’t want it sitting in that mixture of jasmine and rose water for too long.  Nobody likes pruney, wrinkled skin.

Keep it lubricated!  Use a dampened paper towel to liberally brush vegetable oil evenly across your grill/lover.

Try not to flip it too often.

And remember: once the internal temperature has reached 130 degrees or you have been wildly pounding against your lovers loins- be sure to let it rest to preserve the natural juices.

EXPLANATIONS AND MOTIVATIONS

REASONS I TRY THIS:

1) Sanity.  Doing this will help me organize my thoughts.  During the day I don't have people to talk to (FUNemployed!) aside from my six-month old kid and two cats who were sadly not gifted with the power of speech.

2) Practice.  see here: I wrote a little bit of this piece right here.  That's me, talking about weird eggs I have eaten.  It was posted directly on the internet!  Right through the tubes!  And I would very much like to have more of this sort of thing happen.  So I figure if I can write semi-regularly here, then I will only improve my writing, which will then only improve my chances of getting more of my words on the internet in places that aren't Reddit or mischievous Wikipedia edits.

THINGS I WILL DO HERE:

A) Post silly things.  Some of these silly stories might be things that were rejected by others, some will be original things I think of on my own.  All on my own!  Aren't I a big boy?  Aren't I?

B) Find things to complain about, and complain.  For Andy Rooney is dead, and with him gone; produce can't complain about itself.

C) Write in complete sentences.  You don't see too much of that these days.

THINGS I WOULD LIKE YOU TO DO

Read my words.  They have been arranged in a specific order that I hope you will find pleasing to the eye and mind.  I welcome criticism so long as there is more to it than the 'you suck' variety.  If that is the gist of it, try and stretch it out into a paragraph for me.  It's the least you can do.

THE CLASSIC ENTREPENEUR SPEAKS

In late nineteen ninety and four, I was in a small crafts shoppe buying five pounds of paraffin.  Never mind for what.  That’s not what this story is about, friend.  You mind your own.  

On a whim, I picked up a small, floppy brown rat from a bin at the counter.  Not a real rat.  Use your head.  No kind of reputable crafts shoppe would leave a container teeming with rodents right by the cash register.  Man, you kids today.  It was a rat made of felt and filled with beans.  

I was thinking of perhaps giving it to my neighbor's granddaughter or grandson (whatever the little screaming ragamuffin is) in the hopes of getting back on their Christmas card list, which was itself the first step back into that sweet, sweet fruitcake circle.  There's nothing dirty there, get your mind out of the gutter.  I'm just a big fan of candied cherries and suet.  

I bought that little stuffed rat for the low, low price of two dollars and twenty cents.  And then not eight months later into 1995, I turned that little rat around for triple the price.  Yes, six dollars and sixty-six cents.  And that was when I knew that I was on to something big.  Something huge.

Now I'd been fooled before.  I have a closet packed with regret down the hall both as an investor and as a man.  I've got a couple dozen commemorative coins in a shoebox back there.  I'll always hate the 1984 Olympics, just so’s you know.  Charles and Diana fucked me over pretty good, those ‘forever in love’ tea sets are just collecting dust now.  DUST.  And I was eating off of the George H.W. Bush collector’s plates for nearly a year until the lead poisoning hit me.  Thanks for nothing, Parade Magazine.

But this Beanie Baby thing?  Friend; that was cake.  I rode that Beanie Baby thing all the way to the bank, and I rode it hard and I put it away wet.  Believe you that, my friend.  I was making money hand over fist, dollars and cents like you wouldn't believe.  That was upside-down pineapple cake, my friends.  I made a small fortune out of those cute little cloth pieces of shit.  My secret- I had an in with the source.  Mrs. Gertie Tinker.  Small business owner.  Senior citizen.  War widow.  Crazy as a shithouse rat.  I went to war with her husband back in the big one, all I had to tell her was "Well Gertie, we need felt for the war effort." and all I'd get in return was a healthy "Fuck the Krauts!" and I was up to my elbows in dogs, cats, birds, ponies, bears, the cuter reptiles, all of it.  

My old job in insurance?  I quit it.  I had a corner market on the lonely housewife market and it is a sweet, sweet place to be I tell you.   I'd be clearing at least six, seven, eight extra dollars every single time.  In the peak times, we're talking double digit sales.  Double.  Digits.  Friend.   My profits are in the high three digit range.  No, it’s not a fad!  Shut your yap.  do you know what you’re doing?  Do you know what you are doing right now?  You are literally arguing with success.

God, you damn kids.

So here I am, sitting pretty in nineteen ninety and ninety six when I find this peculiar little thing inside of my USA Today.  It had fallen off the rack by the cash register and gotten into the folds of my paper, this little green and white plastic jobby, hanging off of a keychain.  Well, that little green jobby was what is known as a 'Tamagotchi' and tell you what friend, in it I see the beginnings of my second fortune.

See, over in Japan they got all sorts of little electronical devices to pass the time with.  Mostly those damn video games, but this...this seems some kind of different.  Instead of some Italian jumping on vegetables this one is a lot less complicated. A little froggy that you have treat like a real pet.  You gotta feed it or play with it and take it on little electronic walks for electric shits.  If you didn’t do half that stuff every fifteen minutes it dies.

Can you believe that?  

Proven fact, friend.  I know the collectible market.  I’m a proven success, I have like a fifth sense working for me.  You know what kind of price margin there is on a digital frog in a plastic keychain?  One that poops?  Kids love poop.  Women love little animals.  I was right about the Beanie Babies, I’ll be raking in the loot off of those little bastards well into the next century.  You can’t argue with success, much as you might want to try.  

When I quit my job in insurance, they said “You’re crazy!  How are you gonna live?”  And you know what I told them?  “I am going to live large.”  And I kept that promise.  I’ve got a condo in Tucson that’ll be fully paid for by the Beanie Babies alone by about 2002.  When you throw in the Tamagotchi money I’m gonna be raking in, I’m pretty sure that I can afford that extra-long carport.

Yes, my friend.  Life is good.  I’m proud of what I’ve done here, I think I’m a classic american success story.  I don’t wanna pat myself on the back too much, though.  You asked me, I told you.  That’s all.  On my tombstone, let it be written: “a felt rat, filled with beans.”  I think that says it all.