Comedy Gold...

Since I work in media, I can truly appreciate a good article and a good headline writer. The Salt Lake Tribune hit comedy gold with this today, and I had to re-post. You can either read it below, or follow the link here.

You can also Digg the story here and while you're at it, put in a good word for me with Kevin Rose.

Restroom requiem: 'It was a good toilet' gunned down in line of 'doody'
Centerville hamburger joint offers commode consolation

By Kathy Stephenson
The Salt Lake Tribune

What should you do when your toilet dies in the line of "doody"? Have a funeral, of course.

On Friday at 10 a.m., the Carl's Jr. restaurant in Centerville will have a "moment of silence" for the potty that was destroyed last week when a patron's handgun fell out of the holster and fired as he was hitching up his pants.

The bullet shattered the toilet and sent sharp shards into the man's arm. The 26-year-old, who had a concealed-weapons permit, was treated at the scene for minor injuries.

But the "john" was destroyed, and the national hamburger chain is feeling the loss. "By all accounts, it was a good toilet; reliable and well liked by customers and crew members alike," wrote Brad Haley, executive vice president
blasted commode
The late, well-liked and oft-visited deceased. (Tribune file photo)
of Carl's Jr. marketing, in a tongue-in-cheek note posted on the company's Facebook page.

"It seems only fitting to have a formal service to let everyone say goodbye to such a critical member of our team that was in very close contact with the public each and every day," Haley eulogized. "Our thoughts go out to the surviving men's room urinal and porcelain sink. We only hope that the new toilet can fill the void left by its predecessor, but so far it hasn't made much of a splash."

The outpouring from the community has been overwhelming, said Carl's Jr. manager Christian Martinez. "We have received e-mails and cards from all over the country expressing condolences for our loss," he said. "People will have the chance to say
goodbye in their own way at the memorial service."

Employees at the restaurant, 385 N. 800 West, will hand out bottles of Kaboom® Bowl Blaster toilet cleaner to the first 50 funeral attendees, he said, as "it was the toilet's favorite."

Asian Priority

I had to run an errand for work today and ended up driving past a place I saw yesterday which confused me quite a lot. In Salt Lake City, there exists a new Chinese restaurant called "Asian Priority." I wondered why the restaurant was called this, and as we celebrate the new Year of the Ox this week, I am concerned that I am the ignorant one. Maybe the restaurant name was lost in translation.

I have never made $4.95 Chinese Breakfast "a priority." For that matter, I have never made getting Chinese food "a priority." Except for on Christmas night when I was drunk and nothing else sounded good and it was snowing outside. That is the only time I've made it "a priority." One time, I had a "pressing situation" after eating Chinese food, but the "priority" didn't involve food going into my body.

When I Googled "Asian Priority," I found that debt markets "should be the 'Asian priority,'" (Bloomberg News) not "Tasty Delights of Three." I clicked on the link, and read a little about the future state of exportation, but my eyes glazed over and I had to check out Hello Kitty Hell instead. (Hey, Hello Kitty is Asian!) I also found various sites for "naked Asian priority," "sex Asian priority" and "massage school Asian priority," but I did not click these links.

Don't believe me?
I sacrificed my life taking this. I also apparently sacrifice my life not being able to properly see out of the driver's side window. Winter window-washing is clearly not "my priority."



Explain this to me!

Back, to the Future

I think I came up with the title because my boss and I both, unbeknownst to each other, used the term, "What, should I just jump in my Delorean and go back in time and change that?" within, literally, 15 minutes today. Then tonight, I went back in time.

Tonight, I auditioned for a play, the first audition I've done in two years. I have sort of felt like Austin Powers when he lost his mojo (what, two movie references in two paragraphs?) but for some reason felt like I've been... re-mojonating? Still, it was tough. I've gone through a lot since I was last on stage, and I'm not sure how that fits into my life now. I went back to a place that used to be my entire life, and tonight it felt a little bit foreign. I was like the Ghost of Christmas Past wondering how I can go back when I've tried so hard to move forward?

Whatever. I also ripped a towel in half today and that was a little bit disturbing too. I was drying off my itchy back, with much force when I realized just how itchy it was. I was pulling, tugging, delighting in the itch relief I was getting from the towel, my savior. When... RIIIIIIP! TWO towels. One in each hand.

Either my back was really itchy or I am okay with cheap-ass towels. I thought the towel was Ralph Lauren. Now I apparently have two Ralph Lauren washcloths.

Reminisce...

It was four months ago yesterday when I last saw him, and tonight I can't shake it. Some days, it's easy to go on. Other days, it's impalpable. I could go crazy, but then I stop and ask, "What would Aretha do?"

I never loved a man (the way I loved you)
By: Aretha Franklin

You're a no good heart breaker
You're a liar and you're a cheat
And I don't know why
I let you do these things to me
My friends keep telling me
That you ain't no good
But oh, but they don't know
That I'd leave you if I could

I guess I'm uptight
And I'm stuck like glue
'Cause I ain't never
I ain't never, I ain't never, no, no (loved a man)
(The way that I, I love you)

Some time ago I thought
You had run out of fools
But I was so wrong
You got one that you'll never lose
The way you treat me is a shame
How could you hurt me so bad
Baby, you know that I'm the best thing
That you ever had

Kiss me once again
Don'cha never, never say that we're through
Cause I ain't never
Never, Never, no, no (loved a man)
(The way that I, I love you)

I can't sleep at night
And I can't eat a bite
I guess I'll never be free
Since you got, your hooks, in me

Whoa, oh, oh
Yeah! Yeah!
I ain't never loved a man
I ain't never loved a man, baby
Ain't never had a man that hurt me so bad

No
Well this is what I'm gonna do about it...

Gearing up

It's that time of year when I come off the Christmas/New Year's depression, into the inversion/cold weather melancholy, spiraling toward the Valentine's Day batshitcrazy. Maybe it's because I've spent day two sick on the couch watching a Bravo reality show marathon (yesterday was the Real Housewives of the OC, today was Top Chef), but I'm not feeling extremely optimistic.

I have learned that next year I will not get a flu shot if I'm just going to get sick anyway. But I digress...

Next month, we'll give in to yet another commercialized holiday by purchasing stuff meant for professing our love. I'm talking Valentine's Day, one of the lamest days of the year. I would prefer to tell loved ones that I feel strongly for them regardless of the time of year. Simply, just because it's Valentine's Day, doesn't mean that's the only time of year we should tell people we love them.

Still, what better way to say it than with a Conversation Heart? From this brief history of Conversation Hearts on candyfavorites.com, these candies started off as peppermint lozenges wrapped in printed foil and then eventually came to be the heart-shaped staple that we know and love. I feel the candy hearts are a little behind the times, so I have come up with some of my own Conversation Hearts for this century, courtesy of the ACME Heart Maker:

First off, here's a simple turn of phrase for the person who tells you they love you and then bails:


Next, this heart is for the gift that keeps on giving:


This heart is to show appreciation for the well-developed, by whichever means they become so impressive:


Finally, I couldn't resist making this heart for an SNL "Sean Connery" to give to "Alex Trebek":


This heart generator provided me with hours of fun as I tried out different combinations of phrases. Though you're only allotted two lines of four letters each, you can still come up with clever sayings. For instance, you could say that someone with a three-letter first name S-U-X. Or, you could put aside all the Valentine's Day cynicism and profess your affection for Kevin Rose:

A Pox on my House

Literally, there is a pox on my house. I woke up sick this morning and after a stint at the doctor, it's possible I have chicken pox. As an adult. Maybe I'm like Benjamin Button and I'm reverting back to kindergarten, which means I will have to take a stop at highschooltown, and my dating life will complete the proverbial swirl down the can.

While passing the time today, in between naps and inauguration, I ran across this post of fancy toys courtesy of the folks over at Neatorama. While I do love the paranormal and supernatural, I most certainly have a warm spot in my heart for the cryptids out there in the universe. Chupacabra, yeti and Pope Lick Monster, to be precise. I am further fascinated by the Sci-Fi Channel's show Sci-Fi Investigates. In a past life as a radio co-host, I was fortunate to interview Loren Coleman, the country's foremost cryptozoologist, who once spoke about local cryptids around the Bear Lake area in Northern Utah.

Giant. Beavers. "Beavers as big as Volkswagons," I remember Coleman telling us, thrilled to enlighten the masses. And so I find myself passing up the previously mentioned cryptid toys because they do not include the giant beaver. However, I do know of some folks who might just pass as a Yeti from time to time.

Nice beaver:

From a post at Cryptomundo referencing our big, bucktoothed buddies.

Illustration...

Because I'm sick and don't feel like typing:

Out with the old...

Without turning this blog into yet another political rag, W's final address tonight got me thinking about our country and the optimism I am starting to feel with the prospect of a new leader of the free world. I also got thinking about the Bush administration finally vacating the White House, and wondering if the prospect of their soon to become "ex-girlfriend" status is leaving the Bushies a little bitter. Sure, we've already seen the current administration's little jab by not letting the new first family move into the Blair House two weeks early, but will it go beyond that?

Come to find out, most vacating administrations leave their former offices and living spaces completely trashed. Allegedly Clinton's administration all but stuffed chicken bouillon cubes into the incoming President's shower head, turning to high school pranks by cutting phone lines, gluing drawers shut and rendering door locks unusable. Hell, forget the chicken bouillon cubes, it sounds like they did everything but leave a hearty upper-decker.

And now, apparently Bush's folks have done the same thing. Vacating their offices, it seems they have already done some damage. Why do people have to trash their former living spaces? Isn't it good enough just to leave? Why stop to short-sheet the bed or fill a blocked-off doorframe with packing peanuts?

Maybe I'm relating to this since my former neighbors finally vacated the other half of my duplex just a few weeks ago, and they left the place such mess I am shocked I don't have a hazmat incident over on my side. I got home today and was able to see a bit of the work the maintenance guys have ahead of them, and the guys who lived there completely trashed the place. It is going to cost so much money to gut it that firebombing might be a better option. Maybe I'm still just a little bitter that one of them died inside the apartment leaving me to deal with any creepy residual paranormal activity that might prevail.

So, my plea for tonight is this: do a good deed in 2009 and leave wherever you go in the same, if not better, state in which you found it.

That goes for you too, Lame Duck.

p.s. Many of you might be scratching your heads right now, asking yourselves, "Chicken bouillon cubes?" Yes. It's one of my favorite pranks to pull on someone. You squash the cubes into the shower head and then screw it back on. When the unsuspecting showerer gets in and turns on the water, they are bathed in chicken soup.

I believe beef cubes work too, but aren't as effective.

p.s.s. Many of you might be scratching your heads right now, asking yourselves, "Upper-decker?" I'll let you research that one on your own, but probably not while you're at work. From what I've read, it could be considered extremely offensive to upper-deck one's dead grandmother's casket.

Sort of Dickensian

After being haunted today by ghosts of relationships past, two hauntings within six hours by people I still care about, I decided to head to the gym tonight for a good, old-fashioned treadmill-fest.

What actually transpired was that I ended up for beers at the bar next to the gym.

In my workout clothes.

And as I allowed myself a two Guinness maximum, while pondering life, the universe and everything, I marveled that I could at least see the gym from the bar where I was sitting. Swilling the heavenly, dark beer like it was going out of style.

I also marveled that when watching ESPN without sound, commercials take on a very different meaning. The "Axe Sensitive" shave cream commercial, to be specific. In this commercial, sporty-clothing-clad women are spraying each other with foam. Is there anything more blatantly sexual than sporty-clothing-clad women spraying each other with foam? And how does this relate to the common chore of men shaving? The women giggle, the women spray their foam, and then the commercial ends. I dare say that men I know would not stop to shave if they were faced with an arena of sporty-clothing-clad women shooting foam.

I turned my attention to a silent ending of the Rachel Maddow Show, and then the beginning of Hardball, where Chris Matthews was reviewing the making of Barak Obama's 500-pound inauguration Chicago cheesecake. Between the spraying foam, creamy cheesecake and sizable Guinness head, I continued to be confused by the days' events, and had to get out of my sportsbra.

I don't think I'll wear a sportsbra to the bar ever again.

Happy Inbox

Things like this in my inbox make me happy for carried-over vacation time:

"This has grown tiresome..."

I loved Mike Meyers on SNL whenever he would play Dieter the host of Sprockets, an East German television show. I loved that they used a sped-up version of Kraftwerk's "Electric Cafe" as the theme song. I loved that John Malkovich was a regular "guest" on the show. I loved that they asked us to "touch their monkey." Mostly, I loved that whenever they were going to end the show, Dieter would announce, "This has grown tiresome. Now is the time on Sprockets when we dance!" and black-clad beatnickesque dancers would fill the screen and Vogue. To Kraftwerk.

Admittedly, I've always had an active imagination: Sometimes on the way to work I pretend that I am in a play called "Work" where I am just one of a cast of colorful characters. Sometimes I get all dressed up, even when going to the grocery store, because I'm convinced that a scout from MTV will walk up to me in the Doritos aisle and insist I move to New York to be a VJ. (which is even more imaginative since MTV doesn't even play videos during waking hours anymore.) And sometimes when things in my life grow tiresome, I am on East German television and dancing and somehow it seems to make it all better.

But there are some things that grow so tiresome that dancing around in a black turtleneck and leggings simply won't make it better. I will now share for you the list of the top five things that have grown tiresome for me:

5.) I have grown tiresome of concerts with one guy and a guitar on the stage. I'm a little over John Mayer and is giant orange-on-a-toothpick cranium. I'm tired of Jason Mraz who I do not feel is "The Remedy" for anything. And even though Crosby Loggins (Kenny Loggins' son) is so very very cute (though not as cute as Kevin Rose), he sounds like the rest of them. I've even seen a few lately live, Matt Nathanson, Marc Broussard, and each one of them is as cookie cutter as the last. It makes me long even longlier for Devotchka later this month.

4.) I have grown tiresome of police officers in Utah who get convicted of sexual assault. In the last little while it seems this has been in the news quite a bit, including the Ogden officer who was previously a "hero" in helping out during the Trolley Square Mall shooting spree a couple of years ago. Then just today, a Murray Utah police officer was put on the other side of the cell when he was allegedly similarly stupid. I grow tiresome of this because I just want them to "Protect and Serve" and not "Protect, Serve and then when you're feeling safe, grope your titties."

3.) I have grown tiresome of shows on MTV. I didn't watch The Hills last season. I hate The City this season. I have no interest in Bromance in any season. Daddy's Girls is right out.

2.) Coming up with five things that have truly grown tiresome... Guess I'm gong to stop now. Guess things really aren't that irritating after all.

Kevin Rose, I will never grow tired of watching Diggnation.

Love Bus Lowlights

Just when the Rock of Love franchise couldn't get worse, the producers at VH1 decide that putting a bunch of slammy, drunk bitches on a tour bus is a good idea. And God love 'em for it! Last week, we learned that there are some things too much even for Bret Michaels (I won't say where one of the lovely ladies stuck a shot glass) and this week, I'm giddy as the stripapalooza heads to Indiana.

For the first challenge, the hos write wedding vows for a fake walk down the aisle with Bret, and then present him with a gift. I didn't find it at all surprising that none of the girls chose a white wedding dress. What I did find surprising was that the gift that Bret seemed to appreciate most was a freshly-removed vaginal piercing.

The group proceeds to drink heavily and play a friendly game of "Who is smarter than a rock star?" which is a little like the blind leading the blind. Very few questions get answered.

The three girls who won the wedding challenge go on a hayride and lunch with Bret. Two wear extremely short skirts, which can not be comfortable when sitting on bouncy hay. The date was pretty uneventful, however impressive that none of them seemed to itch.

Finally, the rest of the episode sucked, and at this point nobody is worthy of my support-- yet. Next week one of the girls allegedly gets their implant popped.

Here are some key lines from this week's episode of Rock of Love Bus:
"I'm from Utah and there are Polygamists and Mormons and guys who marry, like, 10 girls... so bring it on, I'm used to this."

"If ever a tear falls from your perfect face, I will kiss it away..."

"I wrote these vows like if we were already in love..."

"I promise to cook you the best, rockin' food... and not ever wear panties."

"Getting a plaster mold of someone's torso is a little creepy."

"My mom loves me, and my family loves me and I WANNA' GO HOME!" (sob, sob, sob)

Plastic for Plastic

What to get for the expressionless this Valentine's Day:



Just so that Kevin Rose knows, I naturally look younger than I am, so I don't need botox like some women feel they do. One day, it might all catch up and surpass me so that it looks like my nasal labial folds belong on a basset hound. Until then, I'm hot. I also get bonus points for using "nasal labial folds" in context and not giggling.

I'm Baaaack!

In the immortal words of little Carol Ann in Poltergeist, "I'm back!" Okay, I paraphrased that. She says, "They're back!" but that would imply that I have more than one of me, split personalities if you will. Peanut gallery, insert your jokes now.

I had a rough holiday season, I became a bit anti-social, but in the end, I decided to show some love to my blog. For a little while there, I had no desire to write on this since there are so many people out there who think they're funny and amazing writers, who actually end up contributing very little to the blogosphere. I am going to regularly write on here because I figure it might just motivate me to finally finish my book I've been trying to finish for years now. Maybe one day I'll finish it. Maybe one day I'll publish it. Maybe one day I'll print it out on toilet paper, have a party and invite guests to rub the sheets on their "no-no zones."

And I have another goal in 2009:
Get Kevin Rose from Digg to go for drinks with me.

Tonight, while sitting in a focus group with some fantastic women associated with UtahMama, (and no, my recent blog disappearance is not hint that I suddenly became a mama. I was there representing my work, if you must know) I professed my crush on Kevin Rose and was encouraged to pursue that. I figure it makes me teeter on the ledge of stalker, but if you can't be a stalker on the Web, where can you be a stalker? Seriously?

So no, every post won't be on my unrequited lust for Kevin Rose, but I will certainly track my progress. If any progress is made.

And I might occasionally even be marginally funny. Oh, and I'll post more pictures. For Kevin.

For the first random picture of the year, this is a screenshot of someone who lives near me:

Considering somebody died a couple of months ago in the other side of my duplex, I'm slightly concerned I might have a late-night brain seeking visitor. So sit back, relax and enjoy my regularly updated new outlook on blogging. It's bursting with fruit flavor.