Democrats …. Always right except for when they’re wrong and then still mostly right. Yeah G-gank doesn’t do the photo captions. (Photo credit, Wikipedia)

Anyone who is a Jew is the Devil.  Anyone who is a Methodist is freaking jack-off.   Anyone who is Catholic has been brain washed.  Yup there are people that believe this, and say this…. Just like there are people who call you a fucking asshole for the political party you freely choose to endorse. Let’s just suppose that everyone in the United States became a Democrat….  Would the world be a better place?  I don’t think it would, because differences are what challenge people to achieve greater things.

Neil Armstrong America’s greatest cyclist. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If we were all Communists, then the space race would have never happened and Neil Armstrong would have been just another guy who raced in the tour de France.

If we were all from Jamaica, sure we would all have killer weed, but shit…. nothing would ever get done because we would all be baked.  (Actually, I firmly believe that the DEA should surrender all confiscated weed to Congress… that would be awesome to see them totally stoned…. it would totally promote harmony.)

You do not have to agree with a person’s political or religious belief but dam it you should not be critical to the point of making personal attacks on that person.  You should commend that person for their beliefs and think openly about the views of others.  It is the closed-minded person who is the real piece of shit for they never expand their thinking and will never achieve greatness.

I lived with a guy who was an atheist and for the life of me I don’t know how he could live his life that way, but I never ridiculed him for his way of thinking.  I have friends who are drum-pounding Democrats but do not think any less of them because of their beliefs.  In fact I try to understand what drives them.  Hell, I have voted for republicans and democrats….  For me it’s not what party they belong to it’s what the individual stands for.

Of course I wish everyone in the world was like me but that would be a really screwed up world.  More importantly, if everyone was like me, I would never be able to get a Tee time at the Golf Course…

Now to the point of this whole piece…

When you … I feel … Because …  And I want …

Todd Oliver (the guy running hadafewbeers) please sit down – this is your

Photo caption is “i got nothing” other than I totally stole this from the History Channel. Photo credit, the History Channel.

intervention.

I know you are my friend but:

When you  – say I am an idiot for supporting a republican, or being a Catholic,

I Feel – Angry and Sad.

Because – your words are hurtful I think it jeopardizes our friendship.

And I want – you to be more considerate for my feelings and have a little respect for my freedom of choice.

Is there anyone else in the room that wants to say something to Todd?

Ok, I see some of you are a bit hesitant to speak up and that’s OK.  Just the fact that you are here today re-enforces the fact that you love Todd.  Not the kind of head-banging love that would bestow upon a big-titted stripper but rather the kind of love one gives to a dear friend.

So the next time you are quick to judge any of us who pay homage to God, Buddha, Jesus, or that fucking 6-hose water bong just remember the world is a better place because we are different and not everyone has to think like you…  so stop forcing people to suck on that Democratic Donkey Dick, after all if we all sucked it there would be nothing left for you.

If only I had the ability to create a poll …

I’ve got a problem with my shorts.

Screw you they’re my favorite shorts and damn it they deserve an update.

This is important for Christ’s sake.

Yeah, yeah the wife feels better and that dude that drank lemonade and maple syrup and cayenne pepper didn’t die and to hell with him!   Who the fuck thought that was a good idea in the first place?  “Yeah let’s toss some raw lemon spooze, maple syrup, hot pepper and my balls into a glass and call it a ‘purge’, cause ‘purge’ is a hot word right now right?”

I wish I could write fad diets, I’d screw with all of you, one part unicorn, two parts Chinese bear gall bladder, five tears of a five year old … it’s modern day witchcraft and I’d have field day.

Anyway fuck the Master Cleanse dude he’s not dead (but hopefully writing here again), the diet was retarded and back to my shorts.

Also hihi GiGi … you rock.  To hell with you she does.

This is about my shorts.

My shorts man, my shorts.

They’re currently my favorite shorts because my real favorite shorts developed a hole in the butt that was so large the wife tossed them out.

She was right to do it though, damn her she normally is.   I mean you can’t wear them to the neighbor’s BBQ anymore at all.  “Hey great grilled pork Elka, have you seen my ass yet?  No?  Wait a moment and you will.  Hey Hans, did you catch the game?”

So here’s the issue.   They have a hole just above the knee on the right leg.   But every time I sit down my knee pokes through the hole and if I’m not careful, makes the hole bigger.

The quandary you ask, as in, “why the fuck are you bugging me with this bullshit” is this.

Should I just rip the hem off entirely or let it slowly die?

If I just rip off the hem entirely, I’m free of the fear that next Saturday morning I’ll inadvertently put my foot into the leg and rip it off like Bernard Madoff (which is the funniest last name ever, better than Anthony Weiner even, I mean MAD OFF, made off, I just pooped my favorite shorts laughing … ) but that exposes the shorts to undue stress and I’m not sure they can take it.

I need a shorts doctor stat.

I’m aware there are no shorts doctors.

Damn it.

P.S.  Dagmar says, after reading this, I’m just going to throw them out, it’s almost winter.

Related articles

• Spicy lemonade with a chance of hallucinations … guest blogger with a trendy weight-loss plan, what can go wrong? (hadafewbeers.com)
• Don’t Bother Mastering This Cleanse (gigieatscelebrities.com)
• Master Cleanse dieter not dead but wished he was… Also now eating ‘food’ (hadafewbeers.com)
• Sweet & Spicy Roasted Cashews (simplybittenkitchen.net)

The wife’s in the hospital for at least one night and I have total access to porn or I can blog.

I chose to blog so you know what kind of dork I am.  That or I’m typing this one handed.

It’s up to you which one you believe.

Okay, stupid jokes aside.  She’s fine, the doctor realized I needed a night to blog and kept her.

Okay this time I mean it.  No more jokes.  At least until we clarify that yes the wife is fine and that the doctor wanted to keep her at least over night to pump her full of some antibiotics cause he has a medical degree and who are we to question that?

She’s totally fine, they caught ‘it’ early and anyway she’ll be home soon.   Seriously.  She’s good.   I’m pretty sure spilling out too much of her medical condition, here, violates something.

It might have been in our wedding vows but I wasn’t really paying attention.  Something, something, something, don’t blog about this woman’s medical stuff, something, something.  It was in there I’m sure.

She’s fine and that’s not what this update is about, only it kind of is, but in a roundabout way.

This is more about you medical professionals.

From the person that checks you into the hospital to the nurse that takes care of you to the doctor that treats you … yeah you folks …

What the fuck is wrong with all of you?

Don’t get me wrong you’re all saints, salt of the earth really and I’ll never get how any of you do it.

Not in a million years.

I avoid the doctor like the plague, which is odd cause the plague could be the reason I finally see one.    The plague or gout, I hope its gout cause gout sounds medieval.

Me to my imaginary medieval wife: ”Well I WOULD go out and earn a living as the town drunkard tonight honey but fucking gout you know?”

Her:  “You just like saying gout.”

And I do like saying gout, so I’ll say it now.  You know to get it out.

Gout.

But back to you medical professionals, all of you are saints namely cause, I couldn’t do it for a second.

Oh I could do it for a second.   Hell I could do it for more than that but eventually I’d snap.

There would be a patient, in the waiting room looking down and holding one of those plastic bag things you puke into in the waiting room, looking pathetic.

Doctor me: Just fucking puke already, Jesus.  Use your finger asshat, are you sick or retarded?

My bedside manner would be level ‘Hitler’.

You’re all so fucking nice.  Surrounded by sick and sick and some sick, you’re nice.

I’d be depressed as shit all day long.

“And why are you seeing the doctor today?  You’re vomiting blood?  Jesus that fucked up, you’ve got some weird shit that makes that happen and you’re prolly going to die or something, god this job sucks.  Fuck everyone that comes in here is sick.  Hang on the boss wants to see me, again.”

I know, I know, my mom was a nurse.  Bedside manner, don’t call the patient a fucking retard and never, never anoint the doctor with ‘holy water’.

Doctor leaving my wife’s room:  what are you doing?

Me: Blessing the ground you walked on with holy water.

Doctor:  That’s a bottle of ‘smart water’

Me:  I know I blessed it in the car last time I had a cigarette, totally snuck a beer while I did it too.

Doctor:  You’re some sort of “religious official?”

Me: Totally, Doctor of Divinity did it in the 90’s.  The internet was a bit wild-west, loosey-goosey back then.   Two hundred bucks and bam you’re a doctor of divinity, I’ll send you the link.  Dunno if it’s still active or not though.

Doctor:  Please stop following me.

Me: I get that a lot, go in peace my son.

For likely the same reason I’d make a great dictator, I’d make a shitty medical worker.  You folks don’t seem to realize (of course you realize but for the sake of the following very-weak joke, you don’t realize) that you hold all the power.   Are you cold?  Fuck off and ask NICELY for a blanket.  Are you comfortable? Fuck you I’ll adjust whatever I want on my whim, you sick person need me more than I need you.

Seriously the surgeon, cause it looked for a moment like my wife was going into surgery, that did the consult with my wife found me wandering later in the hallways looking for a bathroom.  It was a familiar face and I asked him if he knew where a bathroom was figuring he just ‘knew’.    Shortly after I asked I realized he was in a hurry to the next appointment but he took the time to help me find one.

DUDE you save lives, I have to pee.  Hell if it gets bad enough I’ll pee my pants, I’ll pee in one of the hospital’s plants, hell I can just hold it.  Go, sir, go and tell me it’s ‘that way’ and go save lives.

I’d punch each of us in the face.  That in fact WOULD be the bill for each question.

I’ll answer your retard question sir or ma’am but the answerer requires that I punch you, in the face, yeah government regulations.  Sorry.

Mesh panties and pink saline bullets is a party medical people … we’re on to you.

I’ll end with the fact that she and I laughed snot out of noses about some of the names you all give shit.   Your fuckers aren’t funny, or maybe you are, cause the names of shit that ‘must be checked every shift’ are fucking hysterical.

Seriously mesh panties and pink saline bullets (see photo)?

What the fuck kind of weird sex parties are you fuckers having in these rooms after hours and can we get invites?

Please?

I mean once she’s better of course.

Or am I mixing up video games and real life again? Let that be a warning to all you young husbands out there, eventually the reward becomes you’ll agree to paint the fucking kitchen plaid if she’ll just shut up and leave you alone for 5 minutes.

Next time, I cut you.

Her: Honey I think we should paint your man-cave pink and decorate it with kitten photos …

You: Do you mean right now?

Her: No, no. Next week.

You: Fine as long as it’s not right now.

You get the drift.

The lesson, if she assumes it’s for her, it’s for her. I care not if you have to re-climb Mount Everest to get another item, the item you have that she thinks is for her, Is For Her.

You can stop reading right now, right here. That’s it in a nutshell. It’s a shitty intor to this update but it’s the gist of it.

There’s of course a reason I bring this up and that was the worst way to intro this story in the history of any damned story ever but here we are.

There’s a small convenience store not too far from my office. Close yet far enough away to warrant a general office-wide shout, “I’m going to the shoppette, does anyone need anything.” We all do this, sometimes people do want something, and sometimes they don’t.

Today the boss’s sweet tooth got the better of him and he wanted a bar of German chocolate. I was going to the store because I wanted a cup of coffee and the wife indicated she’d like a cup too she works, almost literally, next door to the store.

Yeah, yeah Dick Fucking Tracey you figured out where I’m going with this. Give yourself a ‘had a few beers special-little detective badge’ and keep reading.

So going to the store, two coffees and one chocolate (no I don’t need a bag but thank you mister check out dude with the weird pentagram necklace) later I find the Frau.

Who snatches up the chocolate like it’s her birth rite and I should be honored that I brought it to her.

Queen Lord Emperor of Oliverdom: “I see you brought me chocolate worthless peon! I will forgive you this time, that it does not contain nuts or fruits or other wholesome goodness as you have also brought the juice of the coffee

This chocolate does not contain nutty goodness … take it away!

plant, hot as I prefer it, but do not make this mistake again or you will feel my wrath though hundreds of trips to Ikea. Now be gone!”

Okay it wasn’t that bad but I was like, ‘fuck, now I have to go back to the store.”

The boss pointed out, when I told him he owed me double the cost of the chocolate that next time he’d send me for flowers.

He’s a laugh a fucking minute I tell you …

I also noticed that when she came home, the chocolate was in her bag, unopened.

Finally yes, she insists I ‘bold’ the words ‘Queen Lord Emperor of Oliverdom’.

Cause if I don’t … Ikea.

Kittens are cute, unless they’re killing stuff …

This is a Had A Few Beers Blog first.  This update is a confession, and its not going to be a popular one.  Most of you will exit out of this blog with haste, swear loudly for ever allowing yourself into being fooled into reading this in the first place.  

A few of you will vomit in revulsion.  Someone may in fact faint.

No. I don’t hate kittens (I love kittens).  I’ve never kicked a baby (I love babies) and I’ve never robbed an elderly person (more than once).

It’s just that …

The Olympics bore me.  

There I said it. 

Let the hate mail flow in. 

You see I was born without the sports gene.   I blame my Mom.   Dad’s side of the family has the sports gene, Mom’s side of the family clearly lacks it.

You see I’ll play your goddamn sport, I don’t care what it is I’ll go out on the field and utterly make an ass of myself trying hard and wrecking my body in the process but fuck if I care how professionals or Olympians (is there a difference) play it.   I’ll even enjoy playing (albiet poorly) it.  But I could care less about watching it.  

But I’ll play basketball with you and I’ll suck at it but I’ll try my best.  I’ll get creamed as in “OH SHIT THAT HURT,” by someone twice my size playing American football but I’ll at least get the ball a few yards closer to the goal before that happens.

But when it comes to watching any sport (pro or otherwise) on TV, here is my rating on a scale of one to ten of their importance to me.  Ten being more awesome than a topless beer drinking contest and one being equal to a math test.

College football:  1

Pro sports of any kind: -78

Army vs. Navy Football: 1.002

Army vs. Navy anything else: Who cares?

Baseball: My balls itch, I should Google why my balls itch.

Hockey: see next entry.

Boxing: Jesus, ouch!   Why the hell do they … okay 1.00000003.  No, no it’s like -1.0000001, screw that.

Golf:  I suck, and I had lessons too, GOD I really sucks -1,000,000!

Point is I don’t give a shit about most sports and surely don’t give a shit about the Olympics.   I don’t care if the Chinese swimmer snorted

What the hell do you mean the Chinese have six more medals than … oh who gives a shit …

performance enhancement drugs off the Olympic organizer’s penis, then looked into the camera and said “haha American I use ‘roids’ so f’ you”. 

I say load the bastards up on drugs.  We already KNOW what the limits of the human body can do and even if we don’t the difference is measured in like milliseconds.  

With dope these athletes will absolutely shatter the records.  The testing shouldn’t be a matter of ‘do they have performance enhancing drugs in their systems’ it should be do they have ‘enough performance enhancing drugs in their systems?’

Did competitor X from country Y just test positive for excessive amounts of feral-dog testicle extraction?  

Yes? 

This year’s Olympic Games are sponsored by Anabolic steroids!

Great get them on the field and for the love of god let the fans know.

I’m also the guy that wrote to Lance Armstrong and recommended that he put a nitrous canister into his anus for added performance during the race’s final leg so I might just be outside the mainstream here.

My phone just buzzed and that’s means there’s an ‘important news update.’  This happened because I set my phone to only buzz when there are important updates.

Like you know when Madonna flashed her over 50-year-old ass at a concert in Rome ?   Those kinds of updates.   You know, important shit updates.

No the ‘news alert’ is about someone, and I assume it’s an American someone, won a gold in something at the Olympics.   You can be on a cereal box now, congradufuckinglations.

We are so doing this wrong.

Which leads me to the following statement;  fuck sports on TV all together.

Seriously fuck them, fuck the players, fuck the coaches and mostly fuck you, the fans.

What the fuck do they do?  Why did Joe Paterno have a fucking statue on campus in the first place?  Because he led a group of young men to better fight over a football than another group of young men? 

A football costs like what, twelve bucks, maybe twenty, I don’t know.  Maybe it’s a hundred bucks but for fuck’s sake please stop fighting over it assholes. You’re not heroes to anyone and the game is pointless.   It may be fun to watch, sure, but it’s fucking pointless.

Same with the Olympics, and oddly they piss me off more.  Let’s just play a thought game.   What if fucking Guam wins EVERY gold medal there is.  I don’t care what the contest, they win every gold medal there is in it.  

The day after the Olympics, Russia is still Russia, Germany is still Germany, China is still China and Guam is still Guam.  

I don’t get it, I never will.  

I see the appreciation for a talented sports figure, I do.  Anyone that has trained themselves to that level deserves a look; they deserve your ‘appreciation’ maybe but do they deserve the level of fame they achieve? 

Certainly they do not. 

The Roman’s got this crap right 2,000 years ago.   Gladiators, charioteers and actors were famous but they were the lower rung run of society and you wouldn’t be caught dead talking to one.  Okay maybe it shouldn’t be that bad but they’re not glowing examples of all that’s good in the world with the exception of Michael Phelps and the bong incident, which was hysterical and classic.

My boss reads this blog.   I know because he has had to ‘talk to me’ once, twice or every update about the content here. 

He love’s sports.

I don’t. 

One of the most interesting talks we’ve ever had (non-work related at least) is about the whole Penn state fiasco.   

Child molestation aside, and no you can’t ever put that aside, I’ll never understand why we elevate people who are basically either A: chasing something meaningless (the ball) or B: directing the chasing of something meaningless (the game result) to hero like status.

Why did we do that?  What beyond their ability to chase a ball around did they do to tell us they were good people?  Sure there are exceptions, but they prove the rule.  They chase a ball around a court for no purpose other than it pays well.  You followed the ‘ball’ well, why?  It paid a lot of money and/or fame and/or the attention it gets you that’s why.

The result makes no difference and my brain cannot swallow it.

You know an award I could get behind?  The award that thanks Guatemala, China, Japan, the U.S., Russia and that country we all hate, yeah that one, for putting a manned mission on Mars and returning them home safely.  That award means something.  

Not to you?   Fuck Mars you say?  I don’t agree but I can get behind your disagreement, let’s put it toward ending world hunger, disease, war or stopping me from ever blogging again.

Any of that is better than the amount of effort we spend on fencing, I don’t care what your nationality. 

Because seriously fencing, who the fuck fences?

No idea why he chose then, he just did.

Now some of you apple savvy folks I can only assume read what I wrote back then and laughed your faces off, cause you realized I’m an idiot.   Some of the emails you sent me were uncalled for though, why bring my mom into it!

Some of you less savvy folks signed and thought, well that sucks.

But as a public service I will now tell you how to restore ALL your purchases on iTunes.

Literally every purchase you ever made on iTunes.  You’re welcome, I’d do anything for you.

Step one:

Approach the computer sober.

Step two:

Follow the very easy to find, very easy to use directions on iTunes.

Step three:

Wait for the downloads to download.

Of all the steps I recommend step one above the others because as it turns out apple DOES have an “I fucked up button”.   They just don’t call it the “I fucked up” button, oddly.

Now when faced with years and years of drunken iTunes purchases I’m realizing that my ‘HOLY SHIT WHAT IS THAT SONG’ desire to ‘BUY IT NOW’, even at .99 cents, when added together is the GDP of Guatemala.

Actually I just did the real math, even if every song literally cost .99 cents (and they don’t cause albums are less, I think) it’s only like $239 or so and hell I’ve been buying crap off of iTunes since at least 2007 or so.

But the list is funny to look at it.  The first iTunes purchase for reasons that prove I’m still 16 and cry at night because I’m a special sensitive flower, or something, was The Cure.   I literally haven’t listened to the Cure for more than five minutes in a row since 1993.

That was a purchase made while drinking.

The next few iTunes purchases are pretty boring, Spoon cause I like them and the CD was scratched beyond use (they make crappy beer coasters) and a few others that yeah, I’d totally see me buying that sober.

Then there’s a weird purchase by something called ‘Teagan and Sara” which I’m listening to now and it’s not bad.   But have NO memory of buying it.

Honey look I have an apple AND a snake, take me back PLEASE

Here’s a good one, guaranteed to have been a purchase made after many beers.   The entire soundtrack to season one of the Showtime series, “Californication”.    You remember that show right?  It’s the one where agent Mulder solves alien crimes and whores his way through a series of totally hot LA chicks in an effort to, well, win back his ex-wife.

Basically this was the show’s entire theme …

Honey, I banged a hot blonde, will you take me back now?

No?

Well I banged a hot chick with tattoos, will you take me back now?

No?  Crap.

Look I just banged two totally hot brunettes, at the same time, will you take me back now?

No?  Look you’re being unreasonable here.

Look the series had a lot of hot naked chicks in it, like in every scene and my wife was deployed.  You do the math.

What killed that series for me (besides that fact that I want to retroactively abort the person that wrote in the daughter) is the scene in season two where he goes down on the wrong woman in a dark room during a party.   Look, take it from me there is no <deleted — legal dept.   See me! – Ed.> and that’s how I know that scene was a bunch of crap.

Shit where was I?

Oh yeah.  Californication, umm season one good, season two bad.  Also purchasing the soundtrack put like a crap ton of artists I don’t know, all of whom have one song listed, into my selection of artist lists on my iPhone.

Fuck you Mulder you asshole, alien encounter that.

I guarantee I was reading SOMETHING by Hunter S. Thompson when I purchased this next song, and NO it didn’t have to be (but likely was) Fear and

I was digging Ralph Steadman before most people knew who Johnny Depp was. I even had a this on a Tee (and still do) in like 1994

Loathing in Las Vegas.   That song was, White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane.  And no matter how tanked I was when I bought that song, I stand behind it because the dormouse said damn it, that’s why.

Here’s one I cannot explain and I fall on my sword begging your forgiveness.  I don’t have a clue why I bought California Girls by Katy Perry, I just did.   I should have to give everyone that just read that a .99 cent refund.

But holy shit the Pogues, I missed the Pogues, and then I played them and I wondered if I could just make iTunes forget that little mistake?   The Pogues are okay, I’ve listened to them (sometimes A LOT) but the burn out on the Pogues hasn’t expired yet, back into the vault you go angry drunk Irishmen, you haven’t served your time yet.

I have no clue who the street dogs are, why I would pay money to down load them or even what they sound like.   Chances are I heard one song, liked it and bought the album.  They’re in the download queue and are expected to be next in the year 2044.

Seems I had a ‘rap’ phase.  I did.  In between Skyrim, Star Trek conventions and … Okay I like some Jay-Z.  Screw you he’s cool.

While everyone, sadly including myself, was flogging their penis (peni?) about what a genius Kurt Corbain was Sublime’s, with Bradley Nowell, was doing awesome stuff.    Bradley Nowell died chasing the dragon, I always thought it was a car crash – but you know you learn things here at had a few beers, it was the smack– , and I’m still convinced he was under rated by everyone.   Had they not broke up after his death I think they would have been as influential as the Pixies are thought to be today.  The surviving members I now know, from writing this, have released a new album.

I’m checking it out.

There’s a lot of comedy, which is awesome.

At the age of 14 learning all the dirty words, and HOW to use them, is awesome.

At about the age of about 12 or something I was watching HBO late at night, which was verboten.    But my parents slept well and if I was quiet and had the volume down low, they’d never know.   Then George Carlin came on, and I couldn’t help myself.  I was holding my sides on the couch in the living room laughing.   Mom of course woke up and instead of beating my ass, like I deserved, she sat on the couch with me and laughed a few times, Carlin wasn’t her thing but she appreciated the fun I was having with it.

It’s been a life-long love affair.  I was heart broke when Bobcat Goldthwait took his fatal, fire induced, career suicide on a late night show.   Oddly he was on NPR’s Wait, wait don’t tell me last week and is still just as funny.

I’m now addicted to Lewis Black, he’s funny.  Check him out.

Back to music, there’s a lot of ‘Clash’, good.  A lot of’ Buzzcocks’ which don’t suck and a shit-ton of Dave ‘god I’m so over that’ Matthews.

I’m not at all sure why Sugar’s “that’s a good idea” keeps popping up on every device I own but I can only assume it’s because I want to kill my wife or I just like the song.

Whichever, I’m cool with both.

And who the fuck are the Tune-yards?   Oh yeah that was that band I heard on NPR, what the fuck was I thinking buying that album.

Back to comedy, Jeanne Robertson should be held down while I poo … okay she’s kind of funny.  My mom would have liked her and dad would approve.

Rated G comedy, I have ONE thing they would approve of …

Go me!

Vampire weekend is there and if I didn’t like boobs so much even I would assume I was gay.

When the fuck did I find “Bowling for soup” that great band of suck, to be a great band of non-suck?  They had like two maybe three songs that didn’t suck.   Three albums Todd, what the fuck?

I also have a lot of before mentioned pixies, wait for it, tribute bands.

But no Pixies.  Fuck.

What the hell?  Most of the tribute bands are better than the original Pixies but not as good as the original Pixies, if that makes sense.  Back when I started this, a shocking and ancient 6 months ago, my first update was (going to be) about how the Pixies were a really influential band and I could back that up if research wasn’t hard.  Research IS hard let me tell you, trust me the Pixies were influential, to me at least.

Screw you start your own blog and make up your own headlines!

See it’s not so easy it is stupid face?

I’m sorry I got so gruff there and I’m sorry we fought.  Let’s move on past this dark chapter in ‘Had a few beers’, forgive me.

I became aware of the need to send a notarized document the wife and I had to send back to the U.S. sometime in June.   It was an email that said, boiled down, sometime during this process we’re going to have to, no shit, don’t delay, post haste, quickly now, send back a document that was notarized.

This image is here cause I felt like I needed three images for this update, no other reason. Well one other reason, it has a cute cat.

Also a hardy ‘screw you legal system!’, it’s not 1786 and no one is wearing corsets anymore in case you haven’t noticed.  I can send the gigabytes of data across the world with a click of a button but your retarded raised seal somehow is too important for all that.  My wife demanded during this process, which I’ll get back to in a moment, that we make ‘copies’ of the documents the notary had ‘notered’ (which isn’t a word according to … well MS word, I should said the notarized documents but this update is also complicated, SCREW YOU START YOUR OWN DAMNED BLOG STUPID FACE, sorry, sorry I’m calm again) but I fully realize that copies of notarized documents were as valuable as photos of copied coins, yeah sure it’s proof I copied coins but the coin is the point.

So my I hate the legal system rant aside and getting BACK to the fucking story at hand — I knew in mid, maybe late June that a requirement to send back quickly a notarized piece of paper was on the horizon.

And I prepared.  I knew where the legal office was, I even found out which floor held the notary.   This would be easy, this would be simple.  It would be with done with militaristic efficiency because as any pro knows amateurs study the tactics and pros study the logistics.

Okay I studied it through the bottom of a beer glass but I knew I could have this thing done and sent back pretty damned fast.  It wouldn’t be a challenge at all!  It was going to be easy.

One potential hiccup, if it came when we were planning to visit Italy, over the 4^th of July weekend (subject of this update), it would add, ‘difficulty.’

If you’re a military scholar you are laughing.

Stop laughing I hate you.

I’m sorry I don’t hate you at all, why do we fight like this?

Okay back to the story, we were leaving for Italy on the 4^th of July and of course the request, because of the time difference, came while we were sleeping on the night/morning before we left.

Still ha, I got you cold weird coincidence, in your face fates!   I had the document already printed out.  I’d talked to my friend Alex in Italy already about how I would execute the plan if needed and felt we had this shit down.  And we DID have a solid plan but it never included my epic hangover, Dagmar’s desire to spend 3.2 hours getting ready and the legal office breaking for lunch (stupid legal office).

Still though we got it done, we’re troopers.  Maggie drove us around, we got the document notarized, we made a pointless copy of the notarized document at my wife’s insistence and we went to (via mailboxes ect) the UPS office.

Me: Ma’am I need this mailed out with all haste, I need it in America as soon as is possible, spare no expense, whip the pilots if you must, these documents must arrive at the soonest opportunity.

Her:  we offer express service sir.

Had this been a pre-flight year, maybe like the year 1900, I would have charted a ship for the express purpose of delivering these documents.

Don’t believe me?  Read on.

I like how first it’s missing then it’s just fucking destroyed. When I called the WTF help line they were like, Oh it was in THE you’re fucked trucked, lemme connect you.

This was the 5^th of July.  In my head I did the math, of course the documents would leave Italy that night, putting them at whatever hub they use in Europe that very night then off to the U.S. for an overnight flight and they would land on the 6^th, a Friday. Then with a bit of luck, considering the weekend they would burn up in a fire-filled crash of epic fail.

Wait what?

Yeah somewhere around Philly they were involved in a traffic accident that either partially or totally destroyed (yeah, yeah totally destroyed, suck-it English majors) the shipment.   UPS was kind enough to inform me that they lost the document and then further explained that , “oh shit it was totally burned up dude and we had to mercy destroy it.”

I got this notification on the 11^th of July.

Fuckers.

Big, deep breaths, the date the ‘powers that be’ needed the documents had been moved back.  They now needed them by the 25, which is still, as I write this in the future.  By then we’ll have teleporters and I’ll be masturbating like a monkey in a zoo cause the virtual reality will be so good by then that you can basically tell the holodeck, “I want a scene with five Blonde midget chicks, three normal sized brunettes and a blender  …”

Okay that got a bit out of hand, sorry.

Anyway the 25^th is still like a few days away.

Aware of the importance of the documents, in awe of the fucking weirdness of “your valuable (to you) parcel was burned to shit message” I executed plan b, which consisted of me asking my wife for advice.

Me: What the fuck, what the fucking fuck?

Her: Calm down.  Let’s just do it again.

Me: The fuck?

I just, I’m sorry I’m crying here, just need this to get to America. WHY IS THAT SO HARD?!?!?!?!?!

Her: We are going to send it again via the U.S. post office, priority mail.  And stop saying fuck.

Me: great fuc …okay.

And off we went to the Notary for part two.   Interstate road fire be damned, FUC … I mean to hell with you UPS, we’re retired SOLDIERS, we’ll use the trust worthy and time tested United States Postal Service ‘thank you very much’.   They rode horses across AMERICA to deliver mail, they rock and you don’t and I was a fool to ever trust your fire-ridden trucks to start with.

Her:  look just send it espress mail, It’ll be there in like a 4 days tops. We can also track it, this is easy.

Me: I’m off to be your hero and mail this IMPORTANT DOCUMENT vial the U.S. Postal service, long may they live, do you think they’ll use an actual horse to deliver it like the pony express did?

Her: Express mail, Todd.   Do I need to do this?

Thus I was off, the first plan had met with a failure that burned but this plan was fool fire-proof.

I marched smartly into the post office and quickly noticed, or was noticed by, one of my wife’s fellow co-workers, she summoned me into her line.

How can I help you she asked, I need this to get back to the U.S. as soon as possible, it’s really important, I replied.

What is it she asked?

A power of attorney, I told her.

HOLY SHIT, she said, this has to go first class and for the love of god we need to add a return receipt.

I agreed, because what the fuck do I know about mail and yes, first class sounds important.  If you fly first class that’s good, if you stay somewhere and are ‘first class’ it’s great.

This first class sounds better than even espress … my wife’s such a cheapskate, damn her.

Me:  Yes, yes, (orgasm voice) yes!  Put me on this first class thing, where the hell have you been all my life?  Return receipt, can I have two? Insurance, hell the first one burned up, 1 million dollars please.  Track it while its standing still ma’am I care not!  Add them all please, damn the price, levy the fines.  Whip the men that are charged with moving, we don’t have a whipping fee? What is wrong with American these days?

Her: So that’s like ($20 bucks) and its ‘first-class, return receipt’.

Me: I have done my family a fine service, honor has been done this day and the gods have …

Her: Here’s your receipt dude is there anything else?

Me:  Well I had more to say about the honor thing …

Her:   I need to help the next customer.

Me: but honor demands I …

Her: NEXT!

Which led to me proudly explaining to my wife how I had sent the document extra insured, if I die honey you get like a billion bucks and it’s first fucking class love, how cool is that?

“I told you EXPRESS mail,” she said

“But your friend said first class, what the fuck am I a postal expert now?”  I replied.

“No but I am, you idiot.”

Had I a dunce hat, I would have worn it.

Adding insult to injury I sent a bottle of wine Italian oil to a friend in Chicago two days earlier and it got there first, it got there in like three days and I sent it “I don’t care when it arrives” mail .  I guess I just gave up the ending.   Yeah the super important document got there.  But not before I considered, honestly priced in fact, flying my wife back to the states on a 2-day see our daughter but mainly deliver the goddamn document (notarized for the 3^rd time mind you) to the powers that be.

Okay no jokes, but still it’s like 250 hits over all those days.

Most of you coming here, admittedly, are looking for sauna boners but still an impressive number.  Also the big joke there is that yes, sauna boners is still the hottest (get it?) search term here.

I want this update to be about thanking all of you, everyone that reads this.  I mean it, thanks.   The stuff I type here is, while fun, sometimes …

FUCKING ITUNES ATE MY SHIT AND I HATE MY FUCKING IPHONE.

Steve Jobs I curse you sir.

Yeah, no I don’t really curse Mr. Jobs but yeah really I hate iTunes right now.

My iPhone has exactly one band’s album on it and one song by another band on it.    I have an entire album by Mariachi El Bronx and one song by Alexandra Stan (Mr. Saxobeat).

Why, why do you hate me iTunes? Why?

Both of which I bought while drunk.

Everything else has evaporated into so many digital ghosts.

So, fuck you Apple.

To add insult to injury, Apple kindly provides you with a list of every fucking purchase you ever made on iTunes and HOLY shit there a lot of stuff that never made it off my old iPod to my iTouch to my iPhone 3 to my iPhone 4 and FUCK YOU want that stuff damn it!

While on a business trip  a few months ago, while tanked, I purchased  from my iPhone mind you, three episodes of Futurama and they have been stuck in my download cue since I was born.

Can’t download them, can’t delete them from the queue, can’t stab Steve in the eye with a bar straw.

Just stuck looking at them, never deleted, never watched, never downloaded.

Everything else downloads, not them.   A constant reminder of a night-time decision to watch a video on my iPhone, forever I guess.   Stop judging my night-time video choices Steve!  You’re being a dick!

Also protip kids, never purchase video downloads like this from your iPhone while drunk in Eastern European countries, it throws your credit card into anti-fraud hysterics.

You’ll have to talk the credit card help line lady off the ledge, literally.

“Stay with me, Fatima, I was in the Ukraine on business, I bought a funny video from iTunes, no one stole anything, don’t jump please!”

Some of you Mactarded fanatics are rolling your eyes right now and closing your browsers.   Don’t hit that little ‘x’ or whatever it is you elitist freaks select to close a ‘window’ (yeah a WINDOW, as in WINDOWS based).

It is likely my fault I lost my copy of the songs, “little black backpack” and “I’m popular”.  I’m also an idiot for downloading them I freely admit.   It is my fault though; I did this to myself, somehow.   You see back in the sane and rational world of non-Apple shit you have to manage your content, and I’m VERY comfortable doing that.

Download all your photos to this folder, all your videos to that folder.   Put all your important documents into another folder and hide your porn in a folder called, “totally not porn honey, never look in this folder, only boring shit is in here.”

Then, when you have to change computers you … wait for it … COPY THOSE FUCKING FOLDERS TO YOUR NEW COMPUTER.

Meaning you still HAVE them, computer after computer after computer after …

Retardedly too simple for iTunes it seems.

Which leads me to, Apple hates America.

They do!

They hate property rights too, those assholes.    They want to punch George Washington in the balls, They hate my copy of Lord of two boobs and return of the boobs too, fuckers.

In short they hate freedom.

Why can’t I just go into iTunes and tell it re-download all the shit I ever downloaded and be quick about it?   Because of piracy I know but why isn’t there an “I fucked up” button.

My life needs an “I fucked up” button on SO many levels (shout out to you Dagmar, love you baby!) but shit how hard would this one be?

Assholes.

Sure I know ‘kind of’ how it happened.  My iPhone was full of like a million gigs of “other” which when googled told me that all I had to do was connect to iTunes, do a factory reset, resynch and LOSE ALL MY SHIT.

They left the ‘lose all my shit’ off that helpful recommendation and fuck if I know where my shit is on the old computer.   I have a lot of searching to do in C:\\windows\programs\fuckifIknow\shitisitinhere searching to do if I ever want to hear another Pogues song soon.

So once more, fuck you iTunes, fuck you Apple, fuck you Macintosh and Steve, I’m sorry you’re dead but the shit you did pisses me off.

Fuck you my iPhone, really fuck you.

But mostly, really mostly, thanks for reading, assuming you got down here, down this far I mean.   Some of you put up with REALLY low quality, non-entertaining cat videos, plastic toys on a BMW’s hoods, photos of beer cans, rants about the Catholic church and posts about why I … well if you read this far you read it all likely.

Thanks for stopping me in the hallway and telling me you liked what I wrote, thanks for calling me and telling me you liked what I wrote, thanks for emailing me and telling me you liked what I wrote.  Thank you to ever complete stranger, and there are many of you, that reached out.   That’s the coolest, people out of the blue saying “wow I just laughed cause of what you wrote.”  You folks are flattering and scary, I mean I thought I was funny, I thought my friends thought I was funny but … STOP STALKING ME.   I kid, thanks man it’s ALWAYS flattering.

Thanks, honestly.  I’m flattered and shocked you all read, participate and come back.

Thanks.

No bad words, no rants, no jokes.  Thanks, you reading this, sharing it (always share it)  or telling me you laughed is why I will do it again tomorrow.  Maybe it will be popular, maybe it will fall flat, I don’t care.  I’m just glad you’re here and, I hope, having fun.

A few shout outs.   Special thanks to Val Henderson of course, for kicking me in the ass to do this and putting up with my juvenile shouts of joy when a post early on broke 100 reads.   Thanks to Dagmar for calling me out (here and in private – SAUNA BONERS HONEY!).   Thanks to Marni Sandberg for always reading.

Moar of these! Really I need like a million more if the way ahead is going to work.

Thanks to GG for always coming through, well mostly coming through, with the twins.  Thanks to  Lynn Davis for putting up with me.  Thanks to Maggie for telling me, years ago, YEARS AGO, “wow you can really write”.  Thanks to Alex for suggesting I do this 8 million years ago (I should have listened to you dude) and …

Finally, sauna boner hopefuls, I’m sorry there are no sauna boners.  But I’m glad you’re here.

Oh what a joy, the things you learn when you’re cooped up in a car with someone are remarkable.

Yes, yes I DO think history pod casts are interesting even after 8 hours!

For instance did you know that while the someone is exiting an autobahn rest stop, madly working the gears, checking mirrors and judging whether or not that Porsche in the left lane, driving a reasonable and insane 200 mph, is going to suddenly change lanes, that’s the perfect time to ask them to hand you things.

“Honey I know you’re pumping the breaks like a madman because of another of Germany’s infamous stau’s has appeared out of thin air but hand me that water bottle.”

Perfectly reasonable request.

In her defense she was probably close to insanity at this point because I’d subjected her to a collective 15 hours of Mike Duncan’s “The History of Rome” podcast.

Now I Love (yes, with a capital L) me some, “The History of Rome”, I love it so much I’ve listed to all the podcasts three times!   Yeah I’m dork so what, Cato the Elder would have said … oh never mind, sorry.  I should have been clued in though during hour 13 of the podcast when she literally started yelling at the radio, “Shut up, Shut up, Shut up!”

So maybe I missed a sign or something.

Also honey I give you a ‘C’ when it comes to bringing up uncomfortable subjects.    Sure you get an ‘A’ on subject matter, why WAS I flirting with that girl, but a ‘F’ on timing … I mean come on we were pulling into the driveway at that point.

Another point is that yes, maybe I am a male-chauvinistic pig but when I grew up dad did all the driving.  If they were both in the car, pops had the wheel.  I see it as the man’s duty, like mowing the lawn, re-shingling  the roof and looking at porn.   “No honey I can’t go to bed yet, this porn’s not going to watch itself is it?”

You, yeah you reading this, do you keep change in the car?  You know in the divider thing between the passenger and driver’s seat?  Maybe you keep it in the ashtray?  Do you?  If so never, I repeat Never, let Dagmar in your car.    This type of change storage is an affront to the very laws of our existence and it must be policed up, sorted and stored in a proper change receptacle (this little bag in her purse).    Loose change (both the kind in my car and the retarded September 11 2001 conspiracy movie) drive her nuts.  Makes no never mind that the next time I need 35 euro cents I’m screwed, everything has to be organized.

Which leads to another fun game I call, ’round up the trash!’  Now I’m all in favor of having a car that’s reasonably clean and who am I kidding, without anyone else in my car the interior quickly begins to resemble a public landfill.   But I’m not so stupid that I don’t pick up before she, or anyone else, gets in the car but it’s always amusing that during long trips she become litter patrol super captain of the world!    For instance, I’m a filthy smoker and yeah, yeah don’t smoke it’s disgusting and filthy (really don’t), but I’ll often put empty cigarette packs in a little cubby hole on the bottom of the driver’s side door panel.   Heck tons of stuff can go there, empty coffee cups, empty drink bottles, tissues whatever.

These are great opportunities for her to ask me to hand her things during my before mentioned attempts at passing a 1950s Winnebago while someone tries to park their Lamborghini in my ass.

“Todd can you hand me that empty cigarette pack?”

“Sure thing my love, just as soon as I’m done merging into a construction zone surrounded by Italian drivers.  I mean if we live that is.”

This is more of a suggestion in italy, I mean if you want to go right who am I to stop you?

Which, unrelated to my lovely bride and her adorable passenger habits brings me to crossing international European borders.   Entering Austria from Germany is a yawn, like visiting a sibling, they’re the same as you but different.  Entering Italy from Austria is akin to visiting Charles Manson wearing a shirt that says, stab me please while handing him a knife.

Want to drive 70 KPH in the fast lane, go right ahead in Italy.   Lane changes need not be indicated by signal lights, just change lanes damn it, extra points if you cut someone off and then slow down.   Letting someone merge into your lane means you have a small penis and yes, yes you can slow down to check out the hot chick.

Crossing back into Germany it’s like everyone flips a switch and the rules count again.

“Holy shit, did you see that?   That dude just used his ‘blinker’ to indicate he was making a lane change.  Someone should tell the Italian’s about this!”

I think I’m going to get a lot of support from the men reading this next point.   If the start time, for getting on the road, is agreed upon, say 9 a.m., then 8:45 is not the time to start elaborate philosophical discussions.   See we were visiting our best friends (hey Maggie and Alex) and I guess, the fifteen minute mark is the time to start a discussion about ‘what it all means’ or ‘why are we here’ or ‘are Oreo’s better than Chips ahoy?”.   But Alex I do want to add that I’m in.  In  retrospect, I’m down with the Somalia plan but you’ll have to navigate because …

Listen officer, the GPS TOLD me to drive over this guy’s lawn.

I confession I suck at directions.  Thank god for GPS.  I failed land navigation as a young soldier at the (then called PLDC) Warrior Leader’s Course.  I failed it AND because of a crap-ton of snow we were doing it in garrison.  Those of you that know what I’m talking about are laughing at me right now, go ahead … dicks.   For those that don’t know what I’m talking about the instructor basically told me, “go four blocks that way, turn left two blocks and tell me what the sign there says.”  Yeah, I fucked that up, repeatedly.So YES honey you DO have a better sense of direction than I do but that’s like me saying I’m better at golfing to a retarded, physically handicapped 5 year old.  It’s not much of a victory.

I always suspected, but could never prove, that she had snuck a peak or two at the blog. In fact I’d even conned her into proofreading a few of the entries. So both of those updates that were generally free of spelling errors, incomplete sentences and didn’t use the work fuck five times in a row where ones she proof read*.

I knew there were a few sentences or phrases or even thoughts here that she might, question. It’s not Howard Stern circa the mid 90’s wife level of “what the hell is he doing?” But still. There’s photo after photo of cleavage shots that don’t belong to her (I’ve thought about doing an entire update about cleavage shots … look for an exciting poll regarding that topic later in this update, if I remember! Oh crap I did remeber but I put it here and not at the end, because I’m awesome), there was a discussion of vacuum cleaner sex and hell there’s Sasha, remember Sasha? I do! Hi Sasha!

Also Blitzboy76 wants me to drink more and write more. I hear and obey Blitz, I hear and obey.

So what was her comment about the blog? It was, as you’ve guessed, sauna boners.

Now I realize this blog, because of a self-fulfilling prophecy at this point, is dangerously close to becoming the “INTERNET’S NUMBER ONE STOPPING POINT FOR ALL THING NAKED SUANA”. Hell I’m considering selling “sauna boner” coffee mugs, “naked sauna” tee-shirts here and … well no I’m not.

Her point was, and she was only mildly angry, that I shouldn’t write about sauna boners because people would think I was some kind of pervert.

I would like to all of you know that I am not some kind of pervert; I’m a specific kind of pervert thank-you-very-much.

When pressed, she explained, that sauna boners were not the kind of thing I should be writing about because again, people would think I was a pervert. When pressed, as in “I used the term in a very joking manner, never once referring to an actual erection (okay there had been that ONE time but that was ages ago) so I’m not sure how you could conclude that?”** She had no answer, meaning she hadn’t read much other than the headline.

I’ve known her too long for these kinds of shenanigans damnit!

Was I a better writer, better journalist, had I ‘had a few beers’ or even just been a dick I would have grilled her about her objection to the term.

Me: What exactly is wrong with the term sauna boners?

Her: It makes you sound like a pervert!

Me: I see perhaps erections in a sauna would be better?

Her: No, no that’s not what I mean.

Me: Wood in a hot wooden sweatbox?

Her: ewww!

Me: Stiffy in a sauna, that way there are two S’s in the phrase, but we should be careful with things like SS.

Her: No that’s not what I mean!

Me: Maybe something medical sounding? “Fully aroused male subject inside of a temperature controlled enviro …

Her: Shut up!

I wish it had gone that way but alas it did not. I asked her what was wrong with that term in the context I used it.

She of course couldn’t answer that because she hadn’t read it. I knew this, of course. Back, years back, when I was an Army journalist there had been a similar fight. She was mad about something I had written and when pressed I quickly learned she hadn’t read what I’d written.

Taking the time machine back to ; ; ; three, I was a young and eager U.S. Army journalist. Oh boy, eager beaver indeed! At the time there were two kinds of enlisted journalists, those that gave a fuck and those that didn’t. A sort of Tale of Two Cites opening paragraph if you will of Army journalists, meaning it was exactly the same as today. Most of the assignments the editor handed out were of the “cover boy scout troop 1043’s race-car derby this weekend” or “Go to this housing area’s meeting and find out if they’re going to change garbage pick-up day to Thursday”.

Boring shit right?

But then there were the other assignments, the ones where you, and I’m not trying to toot my own horn, but my horn shall be tooted (which is much dirtier than sauna boners for those of you still reading this), lived in the field or worked a long weekend or even worked all night. I always took these, always. I point this out because sometimes when something real to report on (real for Army journalism) came along I got first fucking dibs. Sometimes real was covering a forest fire on base and me and another of the journalists, John Barker, tag teamed that like meth addicted prostit … oh wait that’s as bad as sauna boners, maybe worse.

But a really, really sweet assignment came up when the installation I worked for canned the head chef of the officer’s club. I don’t know how much I want to disclose … okay fuck it, it was the chef at the United States Military Academy at West Point. The fact that they just hired a new one was my story but my editor turned me on to a lot of negative, very early, internet bitching about the old chef’s fuck ups. When I interviewed the new chef I had all the bad-ass questions about how he would address the complaints of the customers and to his credit he had all the answers. It wasn’t Pulitzer but it was Army Pulitzer …

Anyway as you can predict the story ran with me saying what a douche the old dude was and what a shit-hot addition the new guy was about to be.

Anyone that just read that deserves a look at some cleavage … here you go.

Did I mention that Dagmar worked there? Not as the head chef that just got canned but as a bartender. Some faithful ally of the old Chef’s regime had put the bug into her ear that I had called the establishment a filthy cesspool of filthy cess or something.

Basically, without doing what I just did in our imaginary back and forth at the start of this, she called and asked how I could call the place she worked at a shitty place to eat and I replied that I hadn’t, I’d said it was kicking ass these days. Yada, yada, three bags full, have you read it honey? No was the reply.

And that kids is how you write a fuck lot of words about sauna boners and never once refer to a sauna boner.

Also honey, if you’re still here, Sauna boners.

* There are a few others that proof read for me … they remain nameless as long as they keep paying me to remain nameless … July’s coming up girls!

** Look there’s plenty of retarded shit here that I would have to defend, maybe, if she ever read it. Sasha, the second helicopter (she doesn’t KNOW YET … SHHH!) and that fact that on the last night of this trip I plan to have a private candlelit ceremony where I knight my left testicle Sir Droopy

Thus …

Rules for business trips:

When drunk in your hotel room a close up photo of your balls texted to 45 of your closest friends will not be all that funny the next morning.

Okay, yes it will be, but only if it’s REALLY close … with a few ball hairs.   That makes the joke funny.    You need a few ball hairs in the photo.

Free for use internet images for herpies come up with some pretty funny results.

The fact that “Sasha” has offered you a dance in the “private room” does not mean you and her somehow ‘connected’ and anyway herpes doesn’t care.  More on Sasha in a moment though.

Internet porn is free.  Hotel TV porn is not.  Do the math.

Hotel porn really, really sucks too.

Married males only: Internet porn is best enjoyed in rationed doses.  If you find yourself looking at a naked midget clown mowing the lawn, literally mowing a lawn, it’s time for bed.

After a certain number of business trips you will likely shun all human contact after working hours.  No longer will you desire to see the local post card production museum in (insert town here) or go out with your fellow travelers but will wish to remain secluded in your room most, if not all, nights.   Refrain from building a fort from the hotel room’s pillows and sheets near the door.

If that’s impossible, build in an escape route, while giggling if possible.

The minibar in your own room should be treated with respect, only touched when needed.  The minibar in anyone else’s room should be used and abused like a roman slave.  #protip free beer is always available in someone else’s minibar.

Yes, yes you can have a beer in an airport no matter what time it is.   Literally most international airports have bars that are open always.   Use this opportunity to find out what you think is funny when you drink at 6 a.m. with no food.   Facebook the results for extra credit fun.

Any offer by anyone traveling with you to go ‘out’ that night that is not a ‘tried and tested’ companion can and likely will result in a hangover that is level eight.   Proceed with caution.

Currency conversion when drunk is best done by adding up the number of drinks consumed, multiplied by the hours spent in the establishment, divided by … just hand over the credit card.  If you’re in an ‘unusual country’ said credit card will be declined and you will have to call the fraud alert hot line in the morning to, technical terms follows, “unfuck it.”

There is a 50-50 chance the boss is as hung over as you are.   Should you find yourself not at all hung-over, spike the football.  If not hung-over

This was not the best free for use image I could find for hungover but it was the one that made me laugh the most.

and wondering if the boss is hung-over, invite him out.   If he gags, spike.   Works. Every. Time.

No matter how prepared you were you forgot the most important up-to-date document.   Deal with that.

The most important up-to-date document is really useless.   It won’t survive day one of the real reason you’re traveling anyway.

Anyone that has a “good idea” or plans a “fun” ice breaker should be savagely stripped of all their clothing and beaten by the group with large sticks … or congratulated for being the most awesome person ever.  Whichever.

Stripping a person of all their clothes and beating them with sticks should never be suggested as an icebreaker but would but a very memorable icebreaker.

Alone time in a hotel room is an excellent opportunity to go over every inch of your skin for weird shit. Odd bumps, hairs, anomalies, third nipples whatever.   You’re likely naked anyway.  Fuck the hotel furniture.

The hotel furniture is likely FULL of butt germs.

The temp of the hotel room can always be set to plus or minus five degrees of what you decide is awesome.

Printing any document while traveling will be a level 8-million clusterfuck, resign yourself.

The taxi driver will not speak you language … I don’t care what language you speak, he won’t speak it.  This somehow equates to a better tip.

Any decision made after 11 p.m. will have interesting consequences.

No matter how much fun you’re having at the club don’t call home to tell your spouse about it.

Don’t.

Trust me.

Never let Sasha talk on the phone to your significant other, the phone bill is too high.

Don’t give Sasha your phone number. If your SO gives her the number … flee south.

If Sasha and your SO talk for more than 5 minutes, find religion and pray, pray for all you’re worth, that the plane going home crashes.   This won’t happen of course so spend big at the duty free/gift shop … you will buy something they don’t want or even like but … okay hope the plane goes down.

While we are on Sasha, her ass is neither better than anyone else’s and you would not come to the “yard” for it in the morning.  It’s a cute ass but it doesn’t need to be spoken of tomorrow.

Never say milkshake when referring to a person’s butt.  Milk and butts are words that should not be combined.

When smoking in a non-smoking room always open and blow the smoke out the window.    Offer the housekeeping staff a liberal bribe because you eventually got drunk and just “smoked it up” anyway.

Did you just send out a heart-felt email to a long lost lover from high school?  Did you just cry?  Are you currently naked and peeing in the sink?  If yes, go to bed.

If any trusted coworker says at breakfast, “JESUS what the fuck happened to you!”  Trust them.  If you at breakfast say to a trusted coworker, “JESUS what the fuck happened to you?”  Cover their ass and extract all the tales.   Yeah that Sasha is a trip isn’t she?

These are my conversations with myself when I’m thinking about what to write here when I have no clear ideas.

Internal dialog starts now …

Damn it when you started this you said you were going to post something every other day yet you haven’t posted anything in like 18 years.

Chill out, the blogs only a few months old, you’re still finding your ‘focus.’

What the fuck is a focus?   I mean really it’s a retarded blog that mentions drinking beer in the very title.   It’s in the domain name for Christ’s sake, just post any goddamn retarded thing.  The name is www.hadafewbeers.com it’s right there in the address.   Just post “I like boobs.”   Post it over and over again ala Jack in the Shining but you know, with more boobs.

Okay I’d laugh at that but I’m not sure many other people would.  

Okay, okay then what about that time the dishwasher broke and some of your Facebook friends chastised you for using a dishwasher when only two people live in the house?   That could be funny.

Okay that’s kind of a funny but it’s a quick joke.  It’s like, “What are you nondishwasher people, Amish?”  That sort of thing is all the joke is.   There are a few jokes in there about giving the car up for a horse and buggy and … gah it’s not a very long post if I do that.

See that’s the point.   Every blog you like has a lot of short posts.   They’re all quick, witty, fun and short reads.  Do more updates like that.   “Sweet Mother” and “Oh God my wife is German” are two blogs you read a lot and they never post three page diatribes of profanity, boob references and ill-informed opinion on the catholic church (although either might do a boob reference piece tomorrow and how cool would that be?) 

Make this shit shorter, shorter is better.

Blah, write it the way you want to.  If it takes up three pages in a MS word document for you to ramble on about hookers, boobs and beer, that’s not a bad thing.

Okay then but about WHAT?

How about something silly Dagmar does.  You can play the fool and she can be the wise woman but it’ll be funny.   Those work great for Facebook because they’re short and simple though.  Dagmar says something, I say something, Dagmar calls you XYZ and a comment war starts out among your friends.

I might as well write a blog update that boils down to wives smart, husbands dumb.

Okay so then what?

What about politics.   You love politics.   Half of your iPhone’s podcasts are politics.  You read like 80 million political news sources a day … do one on politics.   Really.   You once had an entire conversation with yourself about whether or not you could actually force yourself to masturbate only to images of Andrea Markel*.   I think you concluded that ‘yes you could’.   See that’s kind of funny …

I did one on politics, two I think … both, together, were read by like eight people half of whom where spammers.  How many more Viagra comments do you want or need?  None.

Okay so what was popular?   Which updates had a good number of ‘hits’.   That’s easy, ‘Merican F’ yeah, Things you didn’t know about the military until you get out of the military and anything dealing with German/European Saunas.

Go with those no?

Yes but.  I have ideas for more of each of those (okay not another ‘Merica F’ yeah cause well I don’t live in America anymore so it’s kind of tough at the moment) but refine them.   Remember how much ‘Merica F’ yeah part two sort of sucked.   Yeah refine the ideas dumbass.   Turn down the flame on the idea and let it cook.   Besides the military one you’re close to finishing …

So you have nothing, is that what you’re saying?

It is.

Does that mean this one is the next update?

I just typed it didn’t I?

* I feel this needs explanation.  Once upon a time Dagmar told me that Henry Kissingerwas sexy.   A proclamation that I

Call me!

reacted too by asking, “WHAT THE FUCK?”  She explained thusly, he’s very smart, very powerful and to hell with what he looks like.   That I understood.  It led to many, too many, what if scenarios in my head though.   Hillary Clinton is kind of hot.   There I said it.  If by some odd chance Condoleezza Rice is reading this call me, please.    I’ll cash in one of Dagmar and my ‘get out of jail cards!’  Really I will.

I’m going to have to kill myself before Saturday.   Okay maybe kill myself is a bit strong but I’m talking totally believable suicidal gestures.   You know the kind, I’ll eat a bottle of Flintstone vitamins and post a suicide note here, or I’ll cut my wrists with a dull butter knife (but it’ll totally hurt) while listening to whatever Goth song is currently number one on iTunes or I’ll …

Okay never mind I’m not going to kill myself before Saturday but at some point this Saturday I’ll wish I had.

The first hint that I was about to be forced into doing something I consider equal to a colonoscopy on the ‘scale of fun’ came yesterday morning when Dagmar noted she hated the curtains in the guest bedroom.

We’ve been married a while.   I knew what this meant.  It didn’t mean she’d go find new ones more on her lunch

Ikea, we destory men's souls

break.   It didn’t mean she’d surf the web looking for the type and color she wanted.   No it meant something more ominous, something darker.  It meant I was going, with her, to Ikea.

I did the math in my head and quickly guessed that there was five percent chance that I could get out of going with her and a 95% chance I would be craving the sweet sweet kiss of death at about one p.m. this Saturday afternoon.

I did the smart thing, I kept my mouth shut and simply muttered something like “I like them but if you want new ones okay.”

It was ‘May Day’ a holiday for labors across the world (except for us non-commie ‘Mericans) and spring has sprung here in Europe.   Point is what should have been a quick (no traffic) and pleasant drive on a fine spring morning was ruined.   

My mind raced with thought about how to get out of the dreadful Ikea experience.

As I said Spring has sprung here in Deutchland.   The sun is out, there are bee’s in the flowers we planted last weekend and Dagmar has that insane’ let’s rip the house apart in a maniacal desire to remove the dirt’ look in her eye.

I get spring cleaning, I do.  It makes sense and while I’m not a fan of it (check my Facebook ‘likes’ I’m not) I understand it and don’t enjoy living in filth anymore than anyone does.   I’ll participate, if given detailed instructions I might even do the chore slightly better than ‘halfassed’.   I’m a man though I’m best turned loose in the garage with ‘clean this crap up’ as guidance.

But this, this Ikea trip, I did not see coming.   We’ve been in this house a few years, Ikea trips are what you do when you move in … this one was out of the left field.

I had to see Dagmar right before a meeting I had yesterday afternoon.   That’s when she dropped the bomb officially while we were discussing what we were going to do that weekend.    “We’re”.  Crap she used the word we’re (death sentence right at the sentence’s start.  “We’re going to Ikea.”   

I now calculated my chances of getting out of this at less than one percent.  Newt Gingrich’s moon colony and presidential nomination are more likely.  

I did what any other trapped animal does in this situation, I panicked.   I think I even started to gnaw off my own legs.

“I was going to hang that picture in the living room like you wanted,” I volunteered before realizing that would take about 15 minutes if I took a smoke break in the middle.  I needed something of substance.   I seriously considered ordering a hot tub from my iPhone (which how cool is that, we can do that today) with a hopeful Saturday delivery date.   I considered enrolling in one more college courses right that minute so that you know, “the weekends are when I study honey”.  

I had nothing, in fact I had added to my misery.   I was going to clean the garage I said which was met with, you ARE going to clean the garage but you’re still going to Ikea.

I know, I screwed that up royally.

If you’re a guy reading this you know exactly what I mean.   If you’re a girl reading this you’re saying what is the big deal it’s just a trip to a store.  

I’m going to break it down for you ladies …

We’ve seen this movie a thousand times before.  It’s a good movie to be sure and when we first watched it we loved it, but now we know that it’s the same movie.   The purchases change but the lead up the purchase is exactly the same, every time.

Every man, ever, eventually turns over these kinds of purchases to his wife, significant other, long time girlfriend whatever.   We do and we do it because you’re right and we have long ago conceded that.  When we turned those decisions over to you ladies, our input, in our minds at least, became irrelevant.   It’s not that we don’t care about the curtains in the guest bedroom it’s that we’ve learned from long and hard experience that you’re smarter about what shade of, insert trendy color here, goes with, other trendy color here, better than we do.

Thus we don’t care anymore.   If our opinion is generally, and I admit it is, wrong we stop caring about giving it.  

We’re just there as a cheer leader toward whatever side you seem to be leaning toward during the decision regarding what kind of throw pillow you should buy.  Mentally we’re going “well she seems to like that one at the moment, encourage that one.”  It becomes all about hurrying the process along so we can leave the goddamn aisle and maybe someday, before we’re old and senile, check out, go home and drink beer.

I’m pretty sure you can trace all this back to evolution or at least the study of primitive hunter-gather societies.  Studies have shown the gathers, typically woman, worked a whole lot harder than the men’s hunter role.    While women were out debating which berry was yummy and which berry would turn you into a dead person men were at the village wondering if they could ferment rocks to make booze and drawing crude stick figure porn in nearby caves.   

But when word came that the elk, buffalo, whatever herd was near the hunters of the tribe “saddled up and rode” bitches!    Meaning I can go to Ikea alongside Dagmar (and yes this is basically the same as the vacuum analogy) but I’m going to dart in, find the curtain that comes closest to the one you described to me and then get out.

You women though are going there to gather.   “Oh that shiny thing would be great in the hallway” and “Oh that would be fun to put in the bathroom” and “My cousin (twice removed and never met in person) would love this,” will be uttered countless times and the dreadful question, “what do you think” will be asked.  I’ll try to process the question but the “you’re not right, she is” gene will kick in and I’ll again boil it down to I don’t care at all.

Ikea is the worst of all the shopping trips.    The store is designed like one of those rat and cheese mazes making the possibility that even after we finally move forward three feet after an agonizing 30 minutes of looking at a

There is only one way in and one way out ...

picture frame we’ll stop again to see which vanity set for the bathroom would look ‘cute’.    The Ikea here even has a small restaurant/bar thingy in the middle of it (I think for asshole husbands like me) but I can’t even work up enthusiasm for it because there’s BEER at the goddamned house.

I even asked for suggestions on how to get out of this on facebook but honestly that compounded my misery is all as Adrian Schulte reminded me that Saturday Ikea trips were worse than ALL OTHER Ikea trips.   Cameron Christianson alluded to the mythical shortcut through the store but this kind of exploration isn’t authorized during our trips and Jerry O’Hara suggests a badly timed “gas” incident that just might work but in the end I resigned myself. 

I’m going to Ikea.

I want to give very specific instructions here about what should happen when I finally pass but realize, “well fuck I’ll be dead” so do whatever you want to with my dead ass.

I’ll give guidance and hope it’s followed.

Let’s just launch into that list and see who is in charge of what …

Adrian Schulte and Sarah Leslie get to pick the music.    I hope they fight over it, honestly I do, but they get to choose the tunes.    Back off peeps, I decreed from up above they get the final say.  If they pick anything by Celine Dion then that’s what it is.   They are further authorized to tattoo my dead body but only with Gary Larson “Far side” tattoos … they know what that means.

They also have to pick a wake venue that equals slip-and-slide level awesome but also incorporates hot tubs.  I suggest slip and slide into a hot tub but you’re both in charge.

yeah I have a woman I can turn too when I need a quick turnaround, original cleavage shot … don’t you?

Gina Gray I bequeath you ‘toplessness’.  Meaning you don’t have to be topless but I demand, DEMAND in the sense that I will haunt every woman that disobeys this order, all the women be topless during my wake.  Small tits, don’t care.  Big tits, don’t care.  Floppy tits, not an issue at all either.  I want all tits on full display at my wake.   Gina make this so.  GG … you have awesome tits, be the only chick at the wake with a top on.  You are authorized three other “exempt” rulings.    Use them wisely.

Rob Gowen also has to follow Gina around the entire time wearing flip flops, boxer shorts and a brown tee-shirt with a bottle of hair gel demanding of everyone, “where is my hair gel.” This will make me happy as I look on from the ever-after.

Mike Gianeeeteee …. You sir will ensure everyone is drunk as shit. 

If my grave isn’t muddy with beer (and piss) you fucked up. 

Don’t fuck up. 

Someone has to later donate me to a medical college.   I want college kids who will later view my autopsied corpse to go “HOLY fuck those lungs are torn up.  That is the most fucked up liver I ever saw and holy shit that’s a big dick!  Which is also why I expect Ray Coley to … never mind.

I want Nick Sternberg and Jerry O’hara to shoot 9 mm (13 rounds) in to the air, Saddam Hussein style … while drinking beers.

Ruth Sternberg has to ensure my foreskin is reattached.  If my foreskin cannot be located, she gets to direct a reenactment of that Monty Python skit where a ton of topless chicks chase a condemned man over a cliff.   I suggest you get Rick Bumgardner to help with the camera work.

I also give Rick my collection of plastic army men and dinosaurs.

I expect Maggie and Alex to supervise it all, I suggest an elaborate system utilizing clipboards, reading glasses, annoying whistles and safety vests. Don’t forget disapproving looks when some lady shows up and refuses to be topless.

Darcy Debase, bet you didn’t see this coming, you have to cater it.     I liked ribs.  So it should be ribs.  You should also be topless, figure it out.

Side note to Gina: There are no pasties allowed (Darcy will totally try to weasel out that way). 

Gina already knows this.  I’m just reinforcing the message.

Bron Berry has to show up and proclaim, “Holy boobs!”  You also have to announce a best tits winner.    From the crowd I mean.

Maggie and Alex will have to organize a best boobs contest, because that’s how I would have wanted it and because I just wrote that thing about Bron being a boobie judge and crap.

Dagmar, one year after my death, has to go online to buy something and surf for the highest price.  If she finds the same spatula for sale for $20 and $40 she has to buy the $40 one.   She also has to yell out during the wake, “That mother fucker fucked me again!”  I’ll be giggling from the afterlife I assure you.

Val Henderson and Lynn Davis will print out every post on this blog and hand correct, with red pen, the untold millions of grammatical, spelling and WTF errors.   They will then pass them out to the people in attendance.  They’ll be topless so you won’t mind.

Mike Lavigne has to take over this blog.   He also has to rename it, “Was that Todd dude a dick or what?”  I’d suggest asking Jesse for ideas Mike.

Matt and Marni Sandberg have to proclaim loudly during the funeral while whatever Christian priest you all pick is talking, “I thought he was Jewish?”

Mel Raymond and Mellissa Novakovich are in charge of snark, turn it up to 11 ladies.   They’ll understand why they were paired the minute they meet.  Also fuck you both.

Chad Oliver gets my remote control helicopter IF he promises to annoy Amanda once a week with it.

Eric and Bianca get my beer fridge, full circle kids.

Little Edward Oliver gets a car.  Nothing that exceeds like 30K IN TODAY’S prices so don’t be bankrupting my widow.   Also if he doesn’t have one, his own computer.

Leila and Jill get all revenues from my many super top-secret iPhone game ideas.   Hint they all suck and will garner like $2 at best.

Bucky, start raising funds now, this is gonna cost us.  By us I mean you.   I want a shit ton of hot tubs …

Put your books, phones, computers and iPads away … wait keep those last three so you can read this.

Look I only have an hour before the Preside … I mean the boss shows up.

What was going to be one of topics of discussion in Columbia before every Secret Service agent in Columbia was fired for failing to pay the going rate for a ‘Dirty Sanchez” with foreign hookers?

Was it:

A:  How much is too much for a quality Columbian hooker?  

B:  Homeless puppies in Central and South America how do we solve the crisis?

C:  A plea from Central and South American nations asking the United States to reevaluate its drug policy?

If you answered ‘A’ I want to party with you.  If you answered ‘C’, you’re like me and god help you.

I knew about the conference before the scandal broke.   I mean I read about the agenda and thought okay this will be good.   I knew about it not because I’m a drug junkie hoping U.S. drug policies are relaxed but because I’m a news junkie.  

And like most junkies my addiction pisses me off.  The media itself, when I boil it down, doesn’t piss me off.  ‘We’ piss me off.

The media isn‘t left, right or center.   They’re not.  They’re a business.  They’re there to make money.  The stories they cover and the ways they are covered are designed to attract readers, viewers or on the net, clickers.

They’ve also figure out that they have to cater to our idiocy, our base instincts and our lack of a desire to hear about anything more interesting than; shark kills swimmer, pretty white kid is missing and of course SEX!   

This is why the news is “filled” with stories about Secret Service agents banging hot Columbian prostitutes and not, wait for it, WHAT THE FUCK the conference was about in the first place.

Which story, at the end of the day, is more important?   Does the fact that some the secret service agents banged hookers really matter more than what our president discussed with the leaders of counties south of us? 

If you picked the first one I hate you and will soon fly to your house to personally punch you.

That’s why I love news but hate everyone, including myself.  

Before this story broke it was INTERESTING!  Okay it wasn’t exactly interesting, but it was relevant.  I mean it mattered.

I have a little problem with news apps! Also with bothering to read emails or listening to voice mails.

  For all I know Venezuela gave Obama a “we’re sorry we’ve been dicks” Hallmark card, Raoul Castro offered to have open and free elections and Mexico announced it just discovered a shit-ton of oil and that whole illegal immigration problem the GOP keeps bitching about would soon be over. 

Okay the last one is actually bad news for all involved but still it’s better information than a pissed off ‘woman of the night’ losing her shit in the hallway when some jackass refuses to pay her the agreed upon price.  Also honey, get the money first.   I thought that was in the hooker rule book.

The fact that men, with strong ‘type a personalities’, on business trips, fuck chicks that aren’t their wives is hardly news.   The fact that the people that travel a lot, with the president mind you, whore around barely registers on my radar as news.  It shouldn’t happen, and we should vet them better I agree, but it’s a sidebar news story at best. 

What did the leaders of all these nations just south of us discuss?  That’s the story.

You know the things that might have an impact on our lives.

It’s the pretty white girl missing/shark just attacked a person story … really it is. 

And those suck.  They always suck.  They have the nutrional value (news wise) of a twinkie. 

They also taste like twinkies, they are twinkie news items.   They taste good, they are always fresh but they are really, really fucking useless.

Natalie Halloways = “News Twinkie”.

Natalie Halloway didn’t matter.  You know it, I know it and that drunken bum on the corner knows it.  For that matter that homeless guy with the “great pipes” didn’t fucking matter but at least he was treated as feature material and not news. 

At the end of the day, when either Natalie Halloway’s disappearance or the Secret Service’s hooker breakdownapoloza , rode the high tide of the news wave, we missed out on important news. 

I wake up at 6 a.m. and watch, in this order, Fox news followed by CBS and NBC news.   Know what? They are exactly the same.  

They are exactly the same because you, me and the people next to us suck.  We love pointless news.   What was the big story before the attacks of 9-11?  Yeah, it was shark attacks off the coast of Florida, which are, if you read a bit, the most non-news event in the world. 

Seriously only about 20 people die a year from shark attacks.  You’re more likely to be fired as a U.S. federal employee than killed by a shark.   Maybe that’s why it’s on the news, rarity.

Does it matter really to the greater good if a pretty 18-year-old white blonde girl is missing? Not at all.   Does it matter?  Should it be reported?  Is it important?  Yes of course but does it deserve top story coverage on every news network for weeks, months and (Madeleine McCann) years later? 

Hell no!

And it’s always, fuck you I’m right here, ALWAYS pretty white girls.    Okay maybe occasionally it a white child or a very attractive non-white person but if the media is so damned liberal why are they so racist and/or misogynist when it comes to missing persons.

Also I’m getting older and REALLY bitchy.  

Here’s fun.   Open Google, select the news category and type in missing white girl.   Scroll down, drink in the results.  Now type in, “missing African American girl”.  Scroll down and realize that fuck the media doesn’t give two-shits about the left or right but only about what will get you to stick around so that the ad next to the story they did about that says “white teeth in just 7 days!” will get them the ad revenue they crave.

Charles Taylor’s conviction will make NBC, CBS, ABC and FOX’s news cycle tomorrow morning when I wake up.  It might even be the top story.   But by Monday it’ll be forgotten and I’ll still get to hear all about which Secret Service Agent resigned and which prostitute just signed a reality show contract for American TV. 

I’ll watch it or I’ll read it and it will be all my (and your) fault.

Related articles

• The Hooker that was Stiffed by the Secret Service (economicpolicyjournal.com)

When I asked her why she thought I broke it on purpose and because any answer she gave had a 100% chance of being blogged about here, I discovered the following:

1. I broke it so I wouldn’t have to vacuum anymore
2. I broke it so I could go buy a new one and get out of grocery shopping
3. It could be fixed if only I knew more about how to replace small, lost plastic pieces that snapped off of a larger plastic piece
4. Also I’m a dick for taking notes while she answers me.

Actually she’s right. I love buying new household appliances and enjoy in ways you cannot imagine, tormenting them. That’s right refrigerator, I’m looking at you and you’re next!

My confession follows. I viciously and with great malice in my heart snapped its thin metal telescoping handle of a neck with glee. “Take that you time sucking beast, never again will you keep me from video games, beer drinking or sitting on my ass watching TV!”

You can picture me doing a victory dance around the broken machine in my boxers if you’d like. I know I am.

In reality the vacuum cleaner is about 10 years old and that’s about three more than I expected of it. It was held together during its last few months with duct tape, hope and prayers. It had the intake power of a lung cancer victim and finding replacement bags was becoming so difficult that I was starting to wonder if you could just empty the old bag. Also yeah, it had bags unlike the new modern kind.

It was time for a new vacuum.

When it did break Dagmar was off shopping and I was allowed to stay home during one of those, “okay you can stay here if you do x, y and z chores arrangements.

The dearly departed is on the right.

(Hint: to any male reading this that is newly married. Always take these deals. You’ll win with more free time in the end, basically because men usually do a half-assed job at house cleaning)

When it broke I did think, “aww crap she’s totally going to think I did this on purpose.” As if tossing a few hundred dollars on a vacuum cleaner was something I found “fun”. Meaning, I can predict her reaction, but I cannot explain it.

So basically there are three ways the Oliver household is getting a new vacuum cleaner, assuming the German equivalent of a Kirby salesman doesn’t show up in the next hour.

I go to the store and buy it (most preferred method)

She goes to the store and buys it (second most preferred method)

We go together to buy it (unmitigated disaster ensues)

The first two options are about as close to a tie as they can get in my opinion.

The “I go to the store and buy it” will be the most cost effective of the three options, note I didn’t say cheapest, I said most cost effective. If I go alone I’m going to straight up throw money at this problem. Do they have optional beer holders on this model? Great, add that to the bill please. What’s that, the vacuum will synch with my iTunes’s library for an extra $50, sure add that too. It can answer the phone via your blender, shit we need that! How have we lived without that? Point is I don’t want to ever have to do this again so if I spend big on it, in my mind, the damn thing can be used to clean up after my wake, and you fucker’s better make a mess at my wake. I totally wanna see, cause I’ll be watching, vomit and crap!

The second option has its own appeal in that I don’t have to have to get off my ass and continue in my duties as Judge “boobieprofessor69” at ratemyrack.com … I kid but I cannot describe to you how little interest I have in buying a vacuum. Does it plug and suck up dirt? Great I’ll take it. The downside of Dagmar buying it is easy. First she’s cheap sometimes and vacuum buying would be one of those times. She’d return home with 8 million other purchases besides the vacuum cause all of you girls do that.

The biggest lie of any marriage or partnership is when you ladies tell us men, I’m only going into the store for one thing … you are all filthy, filthy liars and you know it. Confess, I demand it.

So if she goes to buy it, the vacuum itself won’t cost much – I mean it will actively shock you while you use it but it only costs like $20 – but she’ll come home with four U-haul trailers full of crap I didn’t know we wanted let alone needed.

The third and final (as in it feels like death final) option is that we go buy it together. Oddly the purchase of the actual item was pretty straightforward. A decent, yet sans beer can holder, model that I’m relatively sure our dearly departed vacuum would approve of was had without much debate. But then it starts. The endless gathering, the wandering the aisles of the store, examining this Rachel Ray egg yolk separator or fingering that Martha Stewart ‘stick-up-your-butt floral display guide’.

Look honey we don’t need new towels. I know because you shoved them all in those decorative baskets that, while look good I admit, ensure we only use the same towels over and over again. The towels at the bottom of the baskets have never touched human skin for Christ’s sake. Screw it if we get new towels can we leave? No? If we get the towels can we at least leave this aisle?

All department stores should have waiter service that serve drinks. That would solve these crisis moments.

So in addition to a new vacuum holder we have a new trash can even though I thought our old one was just fine in that it well … held trash! I also have to now remember a new trashcan bag size when shopping.

… Oh the humanity.

There are things you can, after a certain number of years as a couple, predict about your significant other yet still not explain. I could, and did predict her reaction to the broken vacuum cleaner but I could not explain it, not for a million dollars could I do that. Her bizarre attachment to the device defies any logical explanation I can come up with. I mean sexual vacuum cleaner relationships are, if Google is to be believed, mainly a male phenomenon. And that sucks.

Certain things are just given preferential treatment here.

For instance when we lived in Italy we bought a very nice, very high-quality Italian leather sofa – mainly cause I was a huge fan of the band Cake back then but also because they’re known to last a lifetime. What did Mrs. Dagmar “I loved that vacuum more than you” Oliver do with great condition couch only seven years into its existence? Did you say she replaced it with some run-of-the-mill mass produced crap from Lazy-boy that will be lucky if it survives seven years let along a lifetime?

You’d of course be right.

So why is the death of the vacuum treated as if a dear family member has passed on and the couch is carelessly tossed into a room we never use? Hell if I know. Though oddly the vacuum did break in that room so maybe there’s a connection I’m not getting. Couch hates vacuum conspiracy theories aren’t as plentiful on the net as you’d hope.

Another example is it’s only in the last year or so that Dagmar’s relented and actually used the, brace yourself, dishwasher. That’s right for years Dagmar chose to wash every single glass, pot, pan, knife, fork and plate by hand.

I’d like to say I stood my ground and maintained that with a fully-functional dishwasher literally inches away I never washed dishes but we all know that truth … I washed me some fucking dishes. But the argument drove me nearly insane.

Gina and Dagmar maintain I take shitty photos of them. I maintain they had hot sexy bubble fights after this photo ...

They went like this.

Me: Just use the fucking dishwasher, its right there, fully-functioning and meant to free you of your domestic shackles.

Dagmar: No I don’t want to!

Me: They even have crap that makes sure the glasses don’t have spots on them. You just load it and press some buttons, magic happens, and presto-chango clean dishes …

Dagmar: Washing dishes relaxes me.

Me: If that’s true why are we arguing? Look maybe you should start doing the laundry by hand? Hell we can eliminate the electric bill if we just follow this to its natural conclusion.

Dagmar: I like to wash the dishes by hand!

I took to taking photos of her washing dishes in all kinds of situations. I have photos of her and GG washing dishes in Italy together because it became funny as hell to me to see her washing dishes when poor Josephine Cochran went through all that fucking trouble of inventing the first dishwasher.

This photo would have been a 9.9 and not a 9.8 at ratemyrack.com but I couldn't draw a set of boobs using her moles ... that kind of stuff counts.

GG … btw I want to be clear I voted you a solid 9.8 (because we all know a straight 10 is a kids vote) on ratemyrack.com despite what rival judge tits4life may have told you.

He’s such a hater.

Then magically in this house the dishwasher joined such modern devices as the television, the iron the FUCKING CLOTHES WASHER which is basically the same kind of thing.

I can’t explain it other than I just said fuck it, buy some dishwashing detergent and just do it yourself Todd.

No matter how well you know someone, no matter the level of your understanding, you can predict but you cannot always explain.

So explain that to me …

So I'm a chick in an opera circa 1850?

Ever heard about something happening and jumped to a conclusion as to why it happened only to later find out you were an idiot for ever thinking that?

Welcome to my everydayoftheweek.

Okay, it happens to everyone.  

For example, You hear that Whitney Houston has died and you logically assume it’s because you wished a painful death on her because of that time you had to  hear her song “the greatest love of all” 14 uberillion times in a row while synching a slide transition for some slideshow or another.

“I hope that fucking bitch is beaten with garden hoses while angry (are there any other kind) cannibals rip at her still living flesh!” 

Then you find out she died having a glass of wine in the tub, which is basically how I want to go if you substitute wine with beer and tub with tons of naked hot chicks.

Or maybe, I know why Germany invaded France in both World Wars, the weather in Germany sucks and have you been to a French beach ever?    Oh, so it wasn’t because of the weather or the beaches, shit.

We’ve all done it and I think the older you get the harder it is to realize you did it.

Which means of course, I just did it.

Sometime between 1990 and 1991 Dave Bixler (I think that was the name) handed me a book titled The Straight Dope.   The gist of it is

also known as 'the dope'

the author, Cecil Adams (a fictional ‘world’s smartest man’ character) answered readers questions no matter how weird (why is poop brown) or conspiratorial (is the dull side of aluminum for food and the shiny side poisonous) or whatever.

Thus began my love affair with conspiracies and urban legends.   I purposefully wait a few weeks before going to www.snopes.com so there will be several additions to the ‘what’s new’ tab.   I love to read about how the government was behind the 9-11 attacks, or the fact that our president is a Muslim Kenyan Atheist and that aliens shot Kennedy with Cuban supplied CIA weapons and HOLY SHIT SOMEONE JUST STOLE MY KIDNEY … well you get the point.

Bizarre segue follows but bear with me …

In 1989, as a private at the Defense Information School at Fort Benjamin Harrison Indiana, I was informed by my drill sergeant that I was a prima donna.  

I had no clue what a prima donna was to be honest — so shit, maybe I was one.   To be fair the drill sergeant didn’t say, “Okay next week’s duty roster has been posted, we’re conducting physical training at 0630 tomorrow and Private Oliver, You’re a prima donna, dismissed.”

He meant all of us young aspiring U.S. military journalist and broadcasters … we were all prima donnas.  Of course this was said by the tough-grizzled drill sergeant in charge of a bunch of hopeful journalists and broadcasters, so there’s that.

Yes Drill Sergeant, I do have a question. What the hell is a Prima Donna? What's that? Do pushups? But that doesn't really ... awwww nevermind.

I heard it time and time again over my 20-year career.   Fact or fiction (let’s be honest here its more fact).  I heard it in different forms.   Rumors flew that during the Public Affairs Officer’s Course the instructors taught it as fact.  I was once told I would have been fired for some stunt or another but because I was a ‘creative journalist’ type the offense was forgotten and forgiven.

Fast forward (backwards?) to 2007 when I was told by my sergeant major that my beloved career field would for this day forward only take, as new inductees, people who were already non-commissioned officers from other military specialties.    Only people like infantrymen, tankers, artillerymen and cooks, you know non-prima donnas, would be allowed into the career field.

It was obvious, to me at least, that some higher-up fucktard in the pentagon had grown tired of our prima donna shenanigans like posting a close up photo of your testicles to face book titled “me and the little guy” constituted “artistic expression” and that the career field needed a few more hardened vets that knew the value of a hard day’s work

All my love of urban legends and conspiracy theories went out the window.

A little background for four of the eight people reading this may help.

In the U.S. Army’s public affairs career field, the officers generally don’t become public affairs officers until they’re senior captains or junior majors.   Thus when they graduate and become some commander’s public affairs officer, they’re generally two things.   First they are the most junior guy on the commander’s staff rank wise and second they have the least practical experience of any staff member.   This would seem bad but for the fact that they, at this point in their careers, understand a lot about how the Army and commanders staff’s work.   Pair them with a public affairs non-commissioned officer that’s been in the career field for 7 to 10 years, and is ostensibly a master of the nuances of the career field and you should have a great relationship.

In my own experience, paired as a young staff sergeant with a freshly graduated major, it was a good yin to yang.   I knew the basics of a broadcast news and I had mastered (or so I thought) the print side of things.    MAJ Stanford Angion, my PAD commander, understood how a brigade staff worked.

It was hand in prima donna glove love time … cue porn music.

So when I heard that they were going to only allow into the career field enlisted soldiers that were just as new to the career field as the officers, did I?

A: Understand that the military as a whole is a large, complex organization that doesn’t give two shits about my opinion?

B: Concede that the accusation of forces into our military is an ever changing goal line, more so in time of war?

C: Reach back into my bag of “those assholes think we’re prima donna’s and they’re going to fuck us all ‘cause shit should never change and also change is bad!

If you guess c, go have a drink … I’ll wait.

To my own credit I did, before writing this, question my own conclusions.   So, I turned to, among other people, Master Sergeant Mike Lavigne who during that time frame understood the nuances and realities that drove the decision. 

He looked at me like I was dropped a lot as a child (I WAS NOT, I was just shaken a lot, like a martini I hope) when I asked him if what I thought had any basis in reality.  He carefully explained the Army’s total acquisition system where the Army (I basically zoned out during these conversations … for all I know a wizard with a carrot up its butt declared it so) used force projection numbers for future years to arrive at the conclusion that only cross training Soldier’s should be allowed into the Public Affairs field.

To be fair Mike did say, yeah I can see where you might think that.   So there, I’m not a total idiot!

This was meant to be a rant, a snarky rant, not about many of the newly inducted NCOs into the PA career field over the last five years because they are innocent, but about the Army’s badly thought out process of moving the career field in that direction.  But the conversations with people that actually know what the hell they’re talking about kinda, well definitely, took the wind out of those sails. 

Finally I don’t want this to come across as a “if you just entered this career field as a NCO you suck” message.  I don’t.   I can, mentally get to where you are at.   You just left some career field or another where you were top of your game only to land in our personal little viper pit.    Someone might have told you that your news release was the biggest piece of shit they ever read and that you should hang yourself or that your news spot for AFN was so fucking bad you’re now the hand-receipt holder for the bathroom. 

You don’t suck.  Well you do, but we all do … the American Forces Network has a large room filled with broadcasters that they referred to as the shark tank.  Not because they have a love for aggressive fish but because on both the print and the broadcast side of things it’s expected that you’re going to have your products ripped to shreds and that you’ll rip others to shreds.   Fun stuff.

You, I assume picked this career field cause you thought it would be fun and great place to do some creative exploring.   To understand that a sentence isn’t always a cut and dry definition and that access to really good broadcasting equipment is FUCKING awesome gift.   If the story comes back soaked in red pen blood, welcome to the team.   It happens, always.  If your editing on the video is raped by the boss, it will happen again, again and again.  It’s always a team effort you don’t own it and those sharks make it better …

If you joined for the low cut off scores and the promotion rates.  I hope you are beaten to death with hoses while happy cannibals rip your still living flesh from your body.

So let’s jump right in shall we …

The music is bizarre.

Just your typical German pub

Its 5:30 p.m. on a Friday and you and your co-workers are meeting for a ‘let loose some steam’ beer at your favorite German pub.  One minute, while waiting on your friends to show up, you’re grooving on some cool, never before heard pop song on the radio desperately hoping your soundhound application will let you know who the artist is and the next goddamn minute it’s fucking 1975 and Paul Anka is ‘having my baby’ and I’m having a shit fit because why the hell would those two songs ever be played back to back?

Welcome to European radio.

German radio seems, to my American ears at least, to make no damned sense at all.  One minute you’re listening to newest, coolest song ever and the next minute you’re in the middle of a Twisted Sister revival.   

Pick one goddamn type of music German radio station and STICK to it!

The toilets are well …

Before I wrote this part about German toilets, while planning the next few paragraphs in my head, a little voice said, “are you SURE that’s the reason they are designed that way?   Yeah we’ve always been told that’s the reason but do we KNOW that’s the reason?”

Let me explain.

Poop talk follows and I’m sorry.

German toilets are designed with a small shelf that literally catches your poop for, and I’m not kidding, health reasons.

Okay I understand that’s a wiki stub and I understand what the note “citation needed” means but if anyone has a different explanation I’m all ears. Maybe those shelves are for books, papers, printed out blog posts from this site so that critics can say, “I literally shit on what you just wrote!”   Maybe it’s so when … look it’s called a poop shelf for a reason.

And at a certain level it’s another example of those damned clever and practical Germans.  That’s really kind of brilliant.  

A good friend of mine, an American that utilizes German health care system, said he loves his relationship with

Well you wouldn't want to put your car keys on this kind of shelf ... photo swiped from this very cool blog The Gringa Trail is pretty funny

his doctor.   It’s very personal, he explained.   The doctor knows him so well he’s even, according to my friend, able to tell when he’s stressed out or just isn’t feeling that well. 

My doctor, who I also like, starts a stop watch I think when I arrive. 

Doctor: What’s the problem?  (clicks stop watch)

 Me: My toe hurts 

Doctor: Broken toe

(Tape, tape, tape)

Doctor:  NEXT!   New clinic record bitches, less than 45 seconds!

Point is German health care may indeed allow for conversations about poop formation, color and for all I know location on the shelf.

German Patient:  I’m not pooping center poop shelf anymore.

German Doctor: What, this is terrible!

German Patient: I know!

German Doctor: Poop misalignment is a leading cause of … okay who are we kidding, you want a few days off right.

German Patient: shit you’re right

German Doctor: Fine but let’s leave the profanity out of it.

As clever and practical as that may be sometimes my American brain takes over I want to poop into a 50 gallon drum where I will never me confronted face to face with what was, three hours ago, a great bratwurst and 3 beers.

Do I need to tell anyone here what having poop underwater vice exposed to the air does for the, shall we say bouquet? 

If there are no closets, what the hell do gay Europeans come out of at the age of 23?

I live in a four bedroom, hell if you want to get a bit creative five or six bedroom house.  That’s right America, while sucking off of your hard-earned tax dollars (take that Kat … scroll down to the comments) I’m over here living in a fucking mansion with servants, a Mitt Romney inspired car elevator and

… okay no I don’t

While I’ve heard that the reason European houses don’t, as a rule, have closets is that the ‘closet is considered a room for tax purposes.   I doubt that’s true but the point is their houses generally don’t have closets, not the way we think of them at least.

So how many bedrooms do I have?  Two.  I’ve lived in 3 houses in Germany and one Italy, total “no shit that is a closet and not a room closets” in those houses?   None.

Actually it looks pretty cool ...

So what happens?  What do you do?  Those extra rooms, they become the closets.   One, likely two rooms become places where all your clothes go.    That and you buy the European version of a closet, a shrunk, a chest or just a giant against the wall thing.  Which again on some level makes sense, you go to a store and you buy an item that goes up against the wall of your house and you pick one that makes sense to you.   But I gotta say the American system just makes SHIT easier.   

Kitchens and light fixtures

We American military and government civilians living in Europe lead sheltered lives here*.  We do.   People can and do, sadly, spend entire tours here venturing no further into German culture than their drive to work.    Like any part of the world, except that one place (you know the one), Europe is steeped in culture and filled with mystery and awe behind every twist and turn of the road.

Mysteries like why the fuck Europeans insist on raping the kitchen and every light fixture in the house when they move. 

European kitchens are modular kinds of things, unlike our ‘fuck you I’ll get moved with you remodel or burn me down for the insurance money’ American kitchens.   If you rent, or buy , a German house you start with a blank room.  Hot and cold water hook ups coming in and a drain hole in the wall for water going out, electrical outlets and that’s it.  No countertops, hell nothing even to hold up a counter top.    I mean I get taking your fridge, your dishwasher and if you’re really pleased with it your stove but literally EVERYTHING? 

So if you’re putting in a modular kitchen, think this through, it’s likely purchased from Ikea and where do you think on the durability lies on a scale of one to 10?  If you guess somewhere around a knob falls off if harsh language is used around it – have a beer, you’re right.

Yes, yes there are gourmet European kitchens and people that have KICK ASS kitchens but the crap we end up renting usually has no drawer that ever closes quite right and the counter height was designed for use by midget dwarfs.

Don’t get me started on light fixtures.   Europeans when moving take them when they move.   I have negotiated with at least two previous tenants about purchasing their light fixtures and discovered that men left to buying light fixtures don’t really give a shit.   The conversation goes this way, “and I paid 5 euro for that light, and 6 for that one and oh boy we got crazy in this room, that fixture is 10 euro.”   It ended with me handing over 50 euro because I really don’t want to spend a day buying and hanging up new light fixtures either.

*We’re sheltered here because we generally have access through our base housing office to landlords that understand we’re retarded/lazy Americans and want our kitchens to have counters and our rooms to have light.     

Everything is FUCKING expensive

The average cost of a pint of beer in the United States $1.83, the average cost of in Germany $3.37* and HOLY SHIT THAT’S A LOT OF MONEY! 

Putting aside the discussion of which currency is stronger than the other and ignoring the general idiocy of people like this model, one euro is at the moment of this writing is worth about $1.32.     Meaning something that costs €100 ends up costing $132.00 is good hard American cash.

Then there is VAT.  The Value added tax in Germany is 19% which goes toward such programs as …

(left for three hours to play Skyrim)

Join my guild!

Stupid Grey Beards, those guys suck.

Value added taxes are used to subsidize poop shelves and doctor patient discussions of poop for all I know.   Point is crap here is expensive. 

Yes, I know, I know you can and should use a simple and easy to use VAT form to avoid the tax**.    But for a purchase under like $100 it’s not worth it.   I tried it at my favorite bar.  The tab was €46 (or $60 with VAT no tax saves me an amazing $11 dollars). 

Me: Can I use a vat form?

Hans: Fuck you Todd, €60

Me: That’s like 11 dollars!

Hans:  Do we have to do this every time dude?  Just pay the tab.

Me: Well then FUCK your tip

Hans: Dude stop tipping in Europe, you look like a douche every time you do it.

Me: I hate you.

Hans: See you tomorrow?

Me: Of course.

* The German beer verses U.S. beer price, while fun, was gathered through a ‘shit ton’ of retarded Google searches … your own price may very

** VAT avoidance IS easy in Germany.  In Italy you have to leave your first born child at the store, drive to Rome (which is a bitch from Sicily) sacrifice a goat and then two-years later your purchase arrives at your door, after you’ve moved.   They also keep your kid.

Yeah, there’s going to be a fourth.  Besides being (99% of the time) a great relaxing day they can be (1% of the time) hysterical … to me, and hopefully to you.

While I’ve had some rocking days here at Hadafewbeers.com (thanks for all the Facebook shares by the way) where there were TONS of daily hits … the series about being naked in a German sauna still gets a lot of hits every damn day.   While ‘Merica, F’yah generated a lot of hits the sauna stories continually get hits albeit in smaller numbers .   On days, hell weeks, I don’t post … in the search terms that word press provides on the stats page, German sauna is still the strongest, all around, hit generator. 

Which leads me to believe there’s a lot of perverts reading this, awesome.

The other two sauna stories for those that missed them are located here (part one) and here (part two).

Last time I posted on the topic I promised the following in this update.

Gay man hits on me in the sauna and the same gay man hits on me later story follow up.

What happens exactly when the whole place goes nude.

Three erections

Yes, Dagmar, okay I was looking at those girls cause they were hot

The Pee-Pee Patrol

Exhibitionist girl

Sailor man’s penis

We’ll get to the first three this time and the last four next time … I’ll even add in a bonus, what happens when you meet a fellow American at the sauna.

Finally Dagmar and I have gone to the sauna I’m betting a few hundred times and these are the exception not the rule to the place.    If you’re ever in Europe and thinking of hitting a traditional European sauna nothing like this will happen to you, but if it does tell me all about it.

So here we go.

Gay man hits on me in the sauna and the same gay man hits on me later story follow-up.

This is the funniest trip to the sauna and also it’s the one that makes Dagmar cry with laughter whenever it comes up in conversation.  Gay men have from time to time, since I was like 13 or some shit, hit on me.   Dagmar finds every single instance extremely funny and I hate her for it.

Fuck you Dagmar it’s NOT funny!  

Okay it’s pretty funny.

Did I mentioned crowded, the sauna's are crowded.

As I think I explained in a previous post at most big sauna’s there are sauna meisters and they, every hour or at the really big ones every half hour, run a special sauna where you rub honey on your naked flesh, rub salt on your naked flesh or for all I know somewhere in northern Germany there is a ‘smack yourself in the face with a dead fish’ sauna.  Point is there are special saunas, you have to get there early because they get VERY, in a way that capital letters cannot convey, crowded. 

By the time the sauna doors are closed you are packed in like sardines, naked sardines and I don’t know of any other kind.   Literally you are squeezed into your space on the sauna bleachers desperately trying not to make skin to skin contact with anyone you aren’t married to.

So this particular sauna was a salt sauna, where you sweat your balls off and then rub salt all over your skin because according to Germany evolution didn’t allow us to shed dead skin cells effectively enough and we need the help of salt.  Alternatively my skin feels really smooth and soft after this particular sauna which is why dudes think I’m gay a lot.   It’s a lose, lose situation … point is I like the salt sauna.

‘Get to the fucking point’ I can hear you all saying and ‘FUCK you’ is my reply.  You get hit on by a gay man while you’re nude with your WIFE LITERALLY glued to your side and then YOU talk about it in a humorous manner.

Okay so during the salt sauna, when you’re rigorously rubbing rock salt all over your body you, and I’m sure you figured it out, can’t do your back.  That’s okay though I have Dagmar to do mine and I do hers. 

Then it happened. 

I speak enough German to order a beer and to prove I don’t speak German.  What I mean is, I don’t speak German.    

The man next to me wanted me to rub the rock salt on his back.   I was naïve enough to, at the time, rationalize this in my

See the guy in the center, the one with the clothes, yeah that the's sauna meister.

head.   There are, I assume, plenty of gay saunas in Germany … anyone that was looking for gay sex would never come to these huge, mixed gender saunas looking for gay sex.  To this point in my, I guess then 3 years in Germany, I knew the Germans to be fanatical rule followers and I honestly assumed this was another German dedicated to the health benefits of the sauna.  

Still though there was the twinkle in his eye.  Never ignore a fucking twinkle folks, never.

I rubbed that salt into his back with the vigor of a German.  “Do a good job,” I told myself.  Work that upper back, scrub the middle back and damn it son don’t skimp on the salt, use some of yours if you have too. 

I introduce him to Dagmar shortly thereafter because even I, with the gay radar of a dead raccoon, am starting to get it.   I believe he told Dagmar at this point, “You are married to a beautiful man”.

Okay fuck …

Dagmar laughing her exposed boobs off the entire time.  

The sauna ends and I think nothing of this episode, other than glad that’s over.   She and I exit and shower.  She now has wonderfully smooth skin.  I now have wonderfully smooth skin and a wife that is in hysterics laughing at me. 

Outside of the main sauna area there are, in the summer time, numerous lounge chairs.  I mean we all love a cancerous tan right?  I do …

As Dagmar and I sunned ourselves, au natural, mister “you are a beautiful man” came back.  To again assure Dagmar that she was still married to a beautiful man.

Seriously.

What happens exactly when the whole place goes nude.

What happens when the whole place goes nude is the best, if only, transition to three erections.   It’s also telling me this is a four or five part update, not just a three part. 

Remember that as soon as the Sauna opens until it closes, most days, there is a clothed part that consists of fun slides, wave pools, mineral baths and then there is the nude side that has, in addition to the sauna’s a large heated pool and a few other things like a massage  area and a bar.   These are separated by an imaginary line on the floor.  Beyond that line everyone is naked, except when they are not.  Which is usually.   Outside of the sauna or the pool most everyone wears a towel or a robe.

Yeah there’s always some naked dude or 80-year-old woman that’s just said, “fuck it, no one is checking me out anyway,” but generally, everyone wears something.

This, obviously, was not after 7 p.m. on a Saturday. It is however the place we go to.

At approximately 6:55 p.m. though, on the clothed side there’s an announcement over the intercom that I think says “hey clothed people the naked weirdos are about to come over to the clothed side of the place so flee if you want to,” or something like that.   And then it just sort of happens, some people leave, some strip, others stray in from the sauna side and by 7:15 it’s a done deal. 

Not that exciting except it leads directly to three erections which, I at least, found hysterical.

Again even after 7 p.m. most of the people who are still there remain wrapped in a towel or robe when not swimming or laying in the sun (in the summer it stay light here until almost 10 p.m.).  

Most people.

Three erections

I don’t remember what time of the evening it was but it was just after the whole place went nude.  While having a cigarette (outdoors – near the snack bar) during one of our trips I noticed three 15 or 16-year-old males seated at a small circular table yelling at each other and apparently masturbating.   Yeah, masturbating …

Now before you close your browser and draft an email where you call me gay and/or a disgusting liar hear me out.  The three were seated at the table in such a way that they couldn’t see what the other was doing, though it was painfully obvious and the fact that they were yelling at each other made it a train wreck that I could not turn away from.   

I should have stamped my cigarette out, fled the German sauna world forever and immediately entered therapy but I was baffled and wanted to see what the fuck they were going to do.  

Besides the obvious I mean.  

And the yelling?  It seemed like encouragement but I have no clue what they were saying because again I don’t speak German but who the HELL encourages their other friends while they are … I know, I know get to the point.

What these three adolescent masterminds had in mind was this.   At a certain point in the, literal mind you, circle jerk they stood up, boner all a-poppin and marched directly through main area in what I guess was an attempt to scandalize the masses and or get a ‘rise’ out of my gay friend in the salt sauna.   Prank wise I think it’s a 4 out of ten.   Balls though?  You bet.

You can put anything you want into the Chocolate Fountain ... food, drinking cups, fingers ... not your wiener though; I found that out the hard way.

Living in Europe for the past ten years might, just might skew your perspective on things.  Although I have had a few chances to come back, mainly for work, nothing beats visiting family – for showcasing how bat-shit whacky this place really is.   Coming back to the U.S. for work means, hotels, meetings and hotel bars, boring.  Coming to spend a week near Fells Point in Baltimore means distilled crazy, and I love it.    Next week we head to upstate New York where I hope there’s nothing more to make fun of than cows and well cooked food – Baltimore it ain’t.

Holy shit the news isn’t lying.    Has 33 percent of America spent the last ten years in a non-stop donut eating contest?  Fat jokes are easy to make, easier when you’re skinny sure, but easy none the less.   I can’t say I was shocked by the overall weight here but I was shocked when visiting, all you can shove down your food-hole franchise, the “Golden Corral.”  Having made the rookie mistake of ceding that night’s dinner choice to a 17-year-old (‘Let’s go to the Corral, they have a chocolate fountain’ – should have been a clue that bad decisions were afoot) we set our GPS to deep-fried mistakes and off we went.

I want to call the Golden Corral a war-zone but that is very disrespectful to war-torn cities across the world.   Gluttonous, filthy and all around ‘gross’ seem more appropriate descriptions but they lack the ‘holy fuck are you eating MORE’ eloquence I was hoping to convey.  

Fine, I’m being uptight prick, but dear lord the this plastic dinnerware, heaping plates of half eaten food and the micro layer of something best described as ‘sticky’ that covers every surface (including I think the food) made the meal interesting.   One wishes they had a sociologist friend alongside that could help define or at least attempt to explain the ravenous herds of people vying for a plates full of pan fried shrimp covered in turkey gravy (I’m only sort of kidding).     Sadly, I think I can explain it without the use of a doctorate.  American’s like to eat, they like to eat NOW and every dish can be made better by deep frying.

I confess I’m very used to being the drunkest person in situations where no one is drunk at all.   I think nothing of having a beer(s) at the airport bar at 9 a.m.   I have no issue navigating a check out line in Germany with a head full of beer.   Eyes forward, greet the check-out lady, hand her the cash, bag the purchase and get out.  It’s really quite simple.   

Here in Baltimore, I’m an amateur.  At 1 p.m. on a Tuesday while the girls shopped for groceries I ventured across the street to pick up a six pack of beer.   Beer, wine and liquor can only be purchased in liquor stores here for some reason.  I was going to spend some time making fun of America’s draconian laws regarding liquor until …

While the young lady behind the counter and I had a pleasant discussion about the location of Heineken I was accosted by what I’m sure is the drunkest person in the world.  First, after stumbling into the store in what I was sure was the start of some brilliant street comedy skit, she corrected my greeting the clerk, informing me (with breath that would kill a lesser man) that she was not to be referred to as “Ma’am” but as “Mom”.    The 50-something African American Mom could barely contained her look of disgust and I can’t blame her.   The drunken 30-something Caucasian lady would have been (correctly) drown at birth if “Mom” had her way.    Then the drunken lady notices I’m purchasing cigarettes and loudly, but in the drunk loudly-slurish way, asks that I provide her with a cigarette.   This, and it’s obviously testament to my lack of dealing with drunk skills, seems like a way to sever the conversation so that the clerk and I can continue our discussion of the weather.  Cigarette in hand my drunken entertainer then informs Mom that I’m also going to buy her a 40 ounce … I’m not making this up, a 40 ounce. 

I loved every fucking second.

Dear America.  For a country that seemingly has the automobile as a centerpiece of its culture you fuckers can’t drive.   No one, that includes you reading this right now, bothers to signal a lane change.   Everyone passes on the right and that’s because there’s always some shithead in the passing lane doing exactly the speed limit.   Any attempts to merge are seen as a direct threat to the other driver’s manhood, patriotism or sexual orientation.    In fact most every maneuver that doesn’t include driving forward at a constant speed is met with a string of profanity that has taught me several new swearing lessons.  For instance I did not know I was a “rat-shit bastard fuck stain”.

You Baltimore, you’re the guy; right there you’re the guy.

Point is, for a nation that literally forces you to drive to the bathroom, the ‘rule of the road’ seems to be, ‘fuck you, go around.’  Look Germans are funny for a lot of reasons, driving isn’t one of them.   There are, to be sure, asshole German drivers.  I cannot count the times I’ve been passing a truck on the autobahn only to discover mister, my penis is too small

Not a single f-bomb was thrown during this drive

so I bought a Porsche, ramming the hood of his car up my ass while vigorously flashing his light in an attempt to let me know that he would like to continue driving at a safe and reasonable 310 Kph and I should kindly complete my lane change.  But it really is the exception and not the rule.   When German’s merge lanes they use the zipper effect meaning that if you’re in the lane being merged into you let a car merge in front of you and the driver behind you does the same.    Generally it works out for all parties involved.

Not here.   In a quick and simple trip to the mall I watched at least 5 different drivers fly into spittle flying, fist shaking rages of self-righteousness all due to some dickhead that had the balls to (without signaling) pull in front of them.  You need to watch it fatty; you’re ticker’s already working overtime keeping the blood pumping around all that girth.

 Okay when the hell did fucking pajamas become acceptable attire anywhere outside the home?   Even the endangered slim and attractive American female seems to have embraced this crime against the eyes.   Pajama bottoms, baggy sweatshirt and flip-flops?   Sign me up for the ballet, I’m ready to go!   At the airport rental car counter there was one young lady, who was either pregnant or a typical American, whose choice of apparel that evening seemed to say, yes I am fat and here’s a direct look at my fat.  Yes sir, I’m keenly aware that my shirt does not only fail to cover my ample stomach but that it literally screams look at my fried-food educed blubber. 

I used to love, literally I would become giddy and start to giggle, to make fun of the American Forces Network.    I’ve devised hours and hours of ways I could make fun of their command information commercials espousing those of us overseas to be good neighbors, pick up after our dogs and to not rape women.

No more.

Here’s my apology AFN:  I’m truly sorry from the bottom of my heart American Forces Network.  You provide quality programming to those of us living overseas at little or no cost and your commercials are generally (if not comically) correct, raping women is bad, turn down your goddamn stereo and pick up your dog’s poop.

I mean it.   My step daughter has something called ‘on-demand’.   Which, with a simple push of a button, shows you every television show ever made, anywhere in the world, in any language and at any time. 

No, no honey go on without me, I've got to catchup on every damn show ever...

Look, I know I can come off as a prick and saying things like “I don’t watch TV” makes it worse but fuck, I think I understand why America is fat (aside from deep-fried everything).   America is fat because holy fuck there’s ANOTHER show I want to watch and it’s on right fucking now.   Such wonderful television adventures as ‘Mob Wives’ ( what’s wrong with that woman’s mouth) to every single ‘I want to be famous show’ is available whenever you want.  No waiting until next week, no waiting until its 7 p.m.    It’s on right fucking now so grab that extra large bag (available at Walmart) of chocolate flavored Doritos and have a seat.

Sure making fun of one’s country is fun but man did I forget some of the good stuff.   America is convenient.  Anything you want, at anytime you want it is available with minimal effort.     I was informed at a clothing store that if they didn’t have the size of jeans I needed they would happily deliver them to my house.    They would literally call the other stores until they found the size jeans I needed and then DELIVER them to my house while I ate Doritos watching Tosh.o reruns using ‘On Demand’.  If you decide you need a chainsaw, lubricant and a blow up doll at 3 a.m. on a Tuesday (and who hasn’t)  you can get it here, no questions asked with minimal effort.  

While dinner at a restaurant in Italy can, and typically does, take four or more hours German is not much different.   Waiter service isn’t bad it just not speedy.    Here my beer is barely drained before the server is sloshing down another frothy cold one and asking what else I might desire.  Service is beyond good, the scientists studying the hadron collider should look to American restaurant staff member if they’d like a better understanding of how objects react at or near the speed of light.

After calling her a slut, a whore and demanding that she, and other sexually active women, upload videos of them having sex to the internet so we all can watch, Rush Limbaugh apologized to Sandra Fluke yesterday. Only he didn’t apologize and it’s our fault for not getting the joke. If the rest of America just had the ultra right’s sense of humor we’d all be … well we’d all be repealing the civil rights act, reversing Roe vs. Wade and women would get back into the goddamn kitchen where they belong (or uploading homemade porn, so maybe a win here).

Damnit you trying being funny while flying on this shit!

I need some help. I can’t find the humor in these statements; “Well, what would you call someone who wants us to pay for her to have sex? What would you call that woman? You’d call ‘em a slut, a prostitute or whatever” and “If we’re going to have to pay for this, then we want something in return, Ms. Fluke,” Limbaugh said. “And that would be the videos of all this sex posted online so we can see what we’re getting for our money.” Can you find the humor in those statements? Look I like David Letterman. I think Tosh.O is hysterical. I even like Black Adder, Arrested Development and that guy that works on the first floor of my office building, he cracks me up. If you can tell me where the joke is in those statements leave a comment, I’d love to have some insight.

But what the hell is the point of calling a woman, who during her testimony, never once used the word sex, a whore? It’s akin to me calling someone an alcoholic because they happen to be discussing grain. The closest she came to using the word sex is “women’s reproductive and sexual health care.”

That dirty, dirty whore.

When people criticize Rush Limbaugh by pointing out his girth, size and intellect as Senator Al Franken did in his 1999 book Rush Limbaugh is a big fat idiot (a great read if ONLY to show that in the last 13 years dear Rush hasn’t changed a bit) they do it with things called facts. These facts are proven to be facts by citing things that experts on a given subject have said. If you can do it using humor as Senator Franken did, great. It’s also clearly a joke.

One last note, just an observation really. While the President, who I’d argue is a bit busier than Rush, took the time out to call Ms. Fluke to express his support. Rush couldn’t (yet) even be bothered to say he was sorry on his talk show, let alone on the phone. That’s right he published the apology online. So come on Rush, it was just a misunderstanding as you put it and a bad joke? Let’s hear you get all hyped up and sweaty about it, the way you do when you’re talking to the party faithful, preferably during the third hour of your show, cause that’s generally when you’re all worked up and raving like a loon anyway.

Sure do hope those advertisers come back by the way.

Why the Catholic Church and the first amendment isn’t the same as Obama apologizing to Afghans*

I’m excited and baffled that this discussion is even happening at all. I am thrilled as a democrat though that it’s taking place among the GOP. Well I guess it’d be a kind of boring discussion among the democrats, something akin to “Hey this birth control thing, great or just good?”

But the government forcing religious organizations to do something is exactly what the first amendment is there to prevent! You hear this all the time on Facebook, message boards, right wing websites and well, everywhere.

I guess I could write – “who fucking cares”, “no it isn’t” or “This is fucking retarded” here and be done with it but that wouldn’t quite be the point.

This is why I love Obama, he pisses off both the Afghans and the Catholics. I also think Mike Lavigne is facebook's greatest troll ... and I love him for it.

I’m sure, certain in fact, that Catholic institutions be they schools, hospitals or (for all I know) pool cleaning services do a lot of good for the people that they reach out to. That’s nice Catholic Church, thanks. Now about those altar boys … I kid, I kid. Point is I’m sure they help people that they intend to help, provided you’re not an altar boy.

But while the Catholic Church runs those institutions do you know who pays for them? If you guessed “tax dollars” you’re right! Well 62% right anyway. So while we’re having this fun and fancy discussion about 1^st Amendment rights Cardinal George has said, “What altar boys? We don’t have any altar boys and besides we’re going to close down our Schools and Health Care institutions if you make us provide contraceptives.” Okay he didn’t say it like that exactly but he did say they’d close up shop, in two years.

This is the part where I say, “This is fucking retarded.” After providing them more than half their budget the Catholic Church gives the giver (that would be us, you and me) the finger and cries that the 1^st amendment has been run afoul. The absolute minute that the Catholic Church starts funding these projects with 100% of their own funds, without a dime of tax payer money, I’ll reverse my opinion.

I’ll still think the Catholic Church is a misogynistic organization that has a lot of crimes it needs to answer for, that desperately needs to modernize and face reality but I’ll drop my objection to their issue with contraceptives.

Finally to those of you that are so sure the mean democrats are trampling the first amendment there’s the little issue of the 26 other states that, all by themselves, already guarantee contraceptive coverage by insurance organizations, nine of which specifically address religious exemptions with clauses such as, “Go fuck yourselves, if we’re giving you money you’re gonna do it” and “Jesus the Catholic Leadership is fucking retarded” . I’m not a lawyer but I hope that’s what the clauses say.

* I just realized I didn’t talk once about the Afghan situation and Obama’s apology for the Koran burning there. Look one side of this is full of backward, misogynistic, religions freaks and the Afghans suck too.

Why this discussion is good for Obama and bad for the GOP

Anyone not remember how this whole discussion started? I do because I wrote about it here and I admit that when I first heard about it I thought, Wow the administration is doing what? That can’t be good idea.

Then I thought about it a bit, googled and remembered everyone in the administration is likely a thousand times smarter than I am. And maybe, just maybe they were hoping this discussion would make it into the mainstream media and maybe it’s the kind of discussion that will show the American people, specifically the American female voter, how backwards the GOP’s extreme right really is.

Guess what happened?

This thing is SO entrenched as a GOP problem right now that I hope someone in the White House is having an ice cold beer and a good laugh right now.

Here’s the brilliance of it. Women tend to, by sizable majorities, vote democrat. They haven’t, percentage wise, voted for a republican since 1988 and who can blame them. Even I thought Dukakis was kind of a dork. Now what’s more likely to piss off woman voters in 2012, pushing through a bill that guaranteed their reproductive rights be covered by insurance companies or a bunch of older men debating the very legality of contraceptives in the first place. If you raised your hand and said, “Um the second one,” you’d be right!

Look we got a black guy in here with us, doesn't that count for something?

Both Santorum and Romney, while SCARED AS SHIT OF PISSING OFF big daddy Rush, were quick to distance themselves from the language Rush used but not so much his position. Neither candidate seems to disagree with Rush’s opinion of the situation, just his words.

Having a position that basically says “sex is bad” and that a normal healthy adult woman shouldn’t have sex without a husband and without the express purpose of having a baby because doing so will likely damn you to hell is not a good 2012 position. What do you all think that aspirin comment was about anyway? These kinds of positions aren’t going to win over the MAJORITY of Americans to your side of the fence. That’s right 50.8 percent of Americans are women. While I’m certain not every one of them believes that women and women alone should be able to make their own reproductive choices I’d wager a large amount of money that most of them do.

If that dog so much as blinks, I’m snagging that umbrella

Okay bullcrap.  If he valued his damned umbrella so much he’d HAVE IT OVER HIMSELF.

Dear homeless man, here’s some help climbing aboard the clue train.  First stop, why animals have fur and why humans invented umbrellas.   See in the wild, dogs (wolves) get wet everyday! They have this hair ALL over them that protects them and makes it OKAY.   We, long ago, discovered that getting wet sucks because we don’t have hair all over us (well most of us don’t) and some goddamn genius invented the umbrella to protect us from the rain so that we don’t get sick and/or have bad hair.  Besides I bet you could get like $10 for that umbrella on a day like that and $10 would buy beer.  Then you, and the dog, will still be wet but you won’t care (and the dog never cared) because you’ll have beer.

You gave a shit enough to make this fucking sign though …

Again pure, distilled and fermented bull.   You know who else didn’t give a shit, the guy in the photo up above and look at his situation.   He’ll likely be trading sexual favors for drugs later on tonight but he doesn’t give a shit.   Life is a thousand times harder when you don’t give a shit and a thousand times easier when you DO give a shit.  You know who gives a shit?  Bill fucking Gates gives a shit and that man that asked you for spare change last Friday so he could get drunk buy food doesn’t give a shit (except about getting drunk).  Which of those two people has a better life …  I know, I know the drunk guy.  Fuck you.

You see everquest was SO much better because …

Don’t you think your little Facebook game has gone off the deep end when the bounty of someone is LARGER than the GDP of THE WHOLE FUCKING WORLD?!?!?!   What the hell did Hobo Ella even do that every nation in the world is ready to collapse their own economy just so you would FINALLY kill her.  Besides if she’s worth that much isn’t about damned time she changed her name from Hobo Ella to SUPERFUCKINGRICHANDAWESOME Ella?  I’m thinking if we’re nice to her she might get that moon base that Newt Gingrich has been talking about off the ground.  And what the hell are YOU going to do with all that money besides crash the world’s economy I mean.  Don’t get me started on you Farmville people.  Don’t you all know that Facebook is for seeing if your ex got fat and for spying on your kids … Jesus.

purple, the color of elves and shit, also purple. Bonus point, nice boobs.

If you ever posted this to your Facebook feed and are A: older than 17 or B: heterosexual and male contact me immediately.  I wish to study you.

Snarking on Jesus is funny … he told me so.

I don’t even know where to start with this one.   Mostly they have a tag that says, “will you let him in?”  Hell yes I would, he can even have the last beer if he wants it but SO WHAT.  He’s GOD.   Dude walked on water, turned water into wine and did a bunch of other crap why does he need me to let him in.   Can’t he just ‘jesus’ his way into the house?   I’m trying to watch Simpson’s reruns.  Posts like this are the reason there are fights on numerous message boards across the net.  This is the very reason that every internet fight devolves into someone being compared to Hitler.   If you post this in your feed you’re the reason that someone had to start a POE wiki … Also he is God can’t he modernize his clothes?

Men scan this, looking for boob references …

I promise you no man read the entire thing up above.   I didn’t even read it and I cared enough to copy it out of Facebook, uploaded it here and am about to write a (grammatically incorrect and largely incoherent) paragraph about it.   Ladies, because let’s be honest only ladies post this crap, men never read this shit.  That long ass card you got us for our anniversary or birthday or national boob appreciation day, we didn’t read that one either.     We don’t.   We stare at it constantly asking ourselves if we can stop pretending we’re reading it yet.  Generally we take some sentence in the middle and read it just in case you ask a question.   Her, “Didn’t you just love the part about beaches?” she’ll ask.   We’re just going to spout off the random crap we DID actually read back to you so you THINK we read it.   “Sure did honey but I really found the part about love being a never ending circle like our rings very special.”   It’s total shit I know but we’re all just hoping for blow jobs with minimal effort.  Amiright?

It’s up to sober me to filter them.

Here’s a hint drunk me, most of the ideas suck. Can you do a little better job at the filtering them yourself maybe? Help reduce the amount of ideas that you push through to morning maybe would really help? Perhaps you, drunk me, could apply some common sense sort of rules before you push the thought forward to the morning?

For instance you could ask yourself the following questions before forwarding the idea on to tomorrow.

1: Will the idea get me fired from work?

I'm not kidding. We really do have one of these at work. And I can verify, the temptation is overwhelming.

See this one is easy. At work we have a large, old fashioned, metal triangle fire alarm. Even sober I want to hit it with the handily provided medal bar while yelling nonsensical emergency things. “Salmon Attack” dong, dong, dong. “My balls itch”, dong, dong, dong. “Bring out your dead,” dong, dong, dong. “Antiquated fire systems test!” dong, dong, dong.

See it IS funny and I’ve often been TEMPTED at work to do just that. Thoughts about rigging cameras around the whole place to capture the reaction don’t help, so stop suggesting it. It would be funny, but only for about 10 minutes.

2. Does it involve me naked?

You’ve violated the wait till morning rule here a few times with mixed results. I admit the close up photo of testicles texted to, well more people than was sane or necessary, worked as a funny joke. But sober I never would have approved this idea. It was funny yes because the photo didn’t look like anything (other than a really close up picture of testicles) so the joke worked. I maintain you got lucky, most that received the text laughed and the ones that didn’t still talk to me so …

Don’t do that again, no more naked jokes unless I’ve (while sober) sanctioned it!

3. What does it cost?

I’m pretty sure I don’t need to remind drunk me of the strip club after the long business trip or the bill that followed.

like this only I don't remember and it was on a credit card.

After a grueling two-week trip in Italy I, the night before I left for home, made the decision, at the prompting of others and while blasted out of my mind, to visit a strip club. Sober, I in all honesty would never, ever, not in a million years, be up for this. Drunk though I think my brain did the math, boobies AND beer equaled me fully in. But here’s the thing just because I had a tough two weeks (you’re thinking tough, two weeks and Italy don’t go together in a thought, screw you it was tough) that was NO reason to go back into the private VIP area of the club and run up a visa bill that was both obscene and awesome at the same time. The memories from that night SHOULD HAVE BEEN epic yet all I can remember is at one point there were two girls with me, one said something to the effect of, “you can touch them” followed by me batting at large swinging breasts like a kitten plays with a ball of yarn. My wingman, sensing economic disaster, finally pulled me out of the back room and in the morning, when I asked him why he let me stay back there so long just said, “You looked like you were having fun.” He should have bought me a ball of yarn.

This reminds me, I should buy Dagmar something expensive. When I got home this was how the confession about the strip club went …

Me: Hey I should tell you something. I spent like 2k in a strip club.

Dagmar: Did you get laid?

Me: No.

Dagmar: You’re an idiot.

I’m thinking a necklace or ear rings but I’m taking suggestions.

Which leads us to …

About five days ago the $300 remote-control helicopter (Ar Drone for those that are curious) that I ordered while Maggie and Alex were visiting arrived. Even the next morning, sober, I considered canceling the order but besides that quote from Hemingway it passed the filter.

If nothing else I thought the damned thing would be good for a laugh and it LOOKED easy to fly. It synchs with your smart phone or iPad and you tilt the pad to the right and it goes right … how hard could this be?

The answer is hard. As Adrian pointed out in this video, the damned thing just sort of crashes a lot. The only bonus I can think of is that it scares the hell out of the cat and annoys the wife. Win some, lose some.

These things are very, very crashy ….

►

I say go left and it flies, with reckless abandon, right. Right into the wall getting one of its propellers locked in between two pieces of wood on the wall.

Forward, forward, forward … HOLY too much forward … BACKWARDS full … backwards into the clothes and into a full crash. The propellers are caught now in my shirts, the ones I have to wear to work. No wonder pilots are cocky … this shit is hard.

The battery lasts as long as your high-school boyfriend did, provided you’re a chick. If you’re a man the battery did an awesome job, high-five!

Here it is ... about to fly right into my face ...

You can kinda get it, hovering and adjusting the altitude easy enough. Spinning in a circle left or right — also easy. Movement from a stationary position is the trick. When attempting to command the helicopter to perform movements more complex than hovering a foot off the floor it all comes down to knowing what direction the helicopter is facing in relation to the iPhone… Work it out in your brain, calculate the direction it’s facing and the direction you wish it would go, add 2, subtract 67, multiply by 9, consider how old your grandmother was when she was happiest and it’ll fly into your wall with simplistic finality. Then subtract two.

This is what my life-sized cutout looked like, only less breasty.

DC Dana (who has her own very cool blog located here) was correct. What I thought doing a blog was going to be, other than a great big giant I love myself and I kiss my reflection exercise, I don’t know. When I told Lynn Davis I was going to do a blog she called it the worst idea since I had that life-sized cardboard cutout of myself made and kissed it, a lot, in the French tradition of course. And I admit that was a really, really, bad idea (it got all wet cause I was too cheap to pay for the laminate).

What I do know is that when I push something here (don’t click that link — see I told you not to) and link it to face book my next step is hitting the refresh button on the status page that comes with wordpress (The status page shows how many views by day, week and month, how many are currently reading, how they arrived at the blog, that kind of stuff) over and over and over again hoping someone reads this crap.

I had this huge, long paragraph that explained in detail why naked in a mixed gender sauna was the most popular post I’d made thus far. Then super-secret mystery guest writer that really, really hated Valentine’s Day blew that out of the water. For the first time in my admittedly short time doing this, more readers came in from Google than Face Book. That impressed me, and the fact that her update was very, very funny.

Basically her post, and the readers that read, it screwed up my reasoning for doing this update. Prior to that update, the most popular reason that a non Face Book reader would come here was to read about being naked at the German sauna (go ahead and read that but COME RIGHT BACK HERE!) which, even in the dust that I hate Valentine’s day left it in, still gets hits. I’m hoping that my thinking is correct in that once Valentine’s Day sucks has passed from recent memory the most popular search term that bring someone here will return to, “first time naked in a German Sauna.” Most popular as in one or two a day not the 40 goddamn million of you that visited cause; well Valentine’s Day does suck.

So that’s what this update is about, sort of (about German mixed gender sauna’s not Valentine’s Day I mean).

Just to reiterate to the Google god this will be about the first time you are naked in a German sauna and what to

I have no idea what the fine print on this demotivational poster says, it was just he least "WE LOVE GOD" image I could find when I googled, Google God. Also what are the rules about using capital letters with Google. When It's Google sure cap that G baby but when you are googling ... nevermind.

expect. Yeah I just want to milk out the hits that aren’t from Face Book … so let’s start with, What to expect during your first naked German sauna experience shall we? I don’t want anyone to miss out on, what will happen when they go to a naked German Sauna for the first time. Otherwise people that have the question, “what is a mixed gender German Sauna like?” will be without an answer. So let’s answer some questions about what your experience at a nude German Sauna will be like.

When I Googled “first time in a naked in a German Sauna” (to write this, not for the first time I went) I found a few really good articles about it, a few retarded Americans (let’s be honest they were all by Americans) who couldn’t get over their Americaness and one idiot, in the comment section on Yahoo answers (Mr. Maul) that said, there have to be separate gender areas otherwise there would be a lot of rape. There are gender separate saunas available in some German Saunas Mr. Maul and I was only raped once in the mixed gender sauna, sir. Only once!

Maybe it’s common knowledge maybe it’s not. The Europeans think that shooting a dude’s face off is disgusting and that a naked human body isn’t.

Backwards I know.

Obviously a naked human is MUCH more dangerous to a society than shooting a person’s face off. We understand this.

‘Merica, human body bad — unless filled with bullets — then human body good. We also like meat a lot which I think means something.

I digress.

I think that basically there are three types of people that Google “first time naked in a German sauna.”

1.  People that are about to go to a nude German sauna and are panicked like a high-school senior a month after prom night

2.  People that are about to go to a nude German sauna and are legitimately wondering what to expect

3.  Men who are about to masturbate, looking for a video that starts with a blonde girl in a towel walking into a sauna where a man wearing a towel says, “you know in Deutschland das towel is verboten” <cue porn music>

Let’s break them down.

In a perfect world this would a photo of a man with an erection, with lots of women laughing at him. This isn't a perfect world.

1. People that are about to go to a nude German sauna and are panicked like a high-school senior a month after prom night. (I figure one person in a hundred has this reason when Googling)

Look here’s the deal, if you’re freaked out about going to a German sauna where you will likely be naked in front of members of the opposite sex, don’t go. If you’re scared you’ll have an erection* or that men will be lusting after your exposed lady bits (you won’t and they aren’t) don’t go. The German sauna’s not for you. It’s about relaxing and taking care of you. If your cultural/family/societal norms are that mixed couples cannot be together in the nude for any nonsexual purpose then don’t go.

If you just read that and still think you might be interested I have golden advice for you. Safe advice, advice that won’t leave you with a publically exposed erection (take THAT Google) or lusted after by lusty men.

Every German sauna I’ve been too has an area where you can undress in private and put on a robe or towel. Wearing said robe or towel walk around the sauna, get a feel for it. You’ll see pretty quickly it’s not the kind of place you fear. Or you’ll run in fear (please report back to me which it is). My point is that you can explore a German (European) mixed gender sauna, without exposing yourself and make the decision based on what you actually see, vice what you think you’re in for.

2. Americans that are about to go to a nude German sauna and are legitimately wondering what to expect (I think likely that two in a hundred people Googling have this reason)

I had this long ass thing in my head that I was going to tell you but I can basically sum it up in a paragraph I think.

Truth is it’s a great day. You’re going to sweat it out, lounge in a pool and basically chill out. It’s Germany, they have an official way to do everything, and this includes relaxing. Insert your own, why did they follow Hitler joke here. But in this, and a lot of other respects, they are right. Germans have it down, give it up, yo.

They’ll have a little schedule, if you will, posted on the wall that says what you should do first, second, third and it ends with a drink. A boozy drink, wine or beer generally.

3. Men who are about to masturbate looking for a video that starts with a blonde girl in a towel walking into a sauna where a man wearing a towel says, “you know in Deutschland das towel is verboten” <cue porn music> (this the basically the only reason anyone is Googling naked in a mixed gender sauna, let’s be honest)

Please send me links to the best videos you find. Thanks.

* I have seen three erections at a German mixed nude sauna. So it does happen. It was all within the same group of men (I use the term loosely) and it was very much intentional (the erections I mean). It was also one of the funniest things I have ever seen. I promise with my next sauna update to explain it.

In fact with the next naked sauna update I will explain the following and likely not in this order:

The Pee-Pee Patrol

Three erections (see above)

What happens exactly when the whole place goes nude.

Sailor man’s penis

Exhibitionist girl

Yes, Dagmar, okay I was looking at those girls cause they were hot (cause Bron Barry was right),

Gay man hits on me in the sauna and the same gay man hits on me later story follow up.

Finally here’s a poll. It’s anonyomous (I think) …