Irrelevant Cheetah

Announcer 1: So now we come to our next event: Synchronized Snoring.

Announcer 2: That’s right, Bob! This event is probably one of the most difficult we’re going to see today, if only because both team members are, as part of the rules, asleep.

Bob: So, refresh us on the rules, would you, Jerry?

Jerry: Sure, Bob! Basically, both teammates must be snoring for this to work at all. There’s a human team member and his canine counterpart. Snores must be audible – the louder the better. Snoring in perfect rhythm is what you’re going for, and every now and then you’ll get what’s called a “Stream” in the sport.

Bob: A “Stream?” What’s that, Jerry?

Jerry: Wow, you’re kind of an idiot, aren’t you, Bob? A Stream is what happens when the human is inhaling while the dog is exhaling, and vice versa. The end result is a perfect stream of snore, uninterrupted by respiration.

Bob: That’s awesome, Jerry! Oh, and by the way, I love the new toupee.

Jerry: Thanks, Bob. Now, as I was saying, a Stream is unusual. Only the best teams get them. Basically the judges are looking for a good solid rhythm. Let’s go to our first team, Wolf and his dog.

Bob:  I gotta tell you, I’ve seen these two perform before, and when they get into rhythm, it’s a beautiful thing. Here’s the drop off…

Jerry: Well, it’s going to be a few moments while they get their breathing settled. Let’s have a word from our sponsor, Nyquil®.

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

Bob: Aaaaand we’re back to this year’s synchronized snoring event. Wolf and his dog are settling in to a nice rhythm. They had a rocky start, but they’re making up for it.

Jerry: Bob, it looks like the Wife’s awake.

Bob: That’s great, Jerry. If the team can keep the spouse awake, it’s a point in their favor with the judges. Now, I – Oh, wait a minute. Looks like the dog dropped a beat, there.

Jerry: He certainly did. Looks like he rolled over on his ear. That’s going to be hard to pull out of. If they’re looking to beat the Swedish team, they’re going to have to do better.

Bob: Did I tell you I met the Swedes last year after they took the gold? Nice team. They- Wait a minute. What’s he doing?

Jerry: I didn’t think I’d see it, but… yes, Wolf’s using the apnea! See, by not breathing for a minute or two, he can get back in sync with the dog. Oh, that’s brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. They’re going to pull it off.

Bob: Let’s take a look at what the judges have to say… An 8.5, a 9.2 and a 9.4! Those are great scores, Jerry. We might be looking at some medalists, here.

Jerry: Well, like you said, this can truly be a beautiful thing. I’m glad I saw it. We’ll be right back.

Humor-blogs.com probably takes sleeping pills.

A few weeks ago I stumbled on a blog, Ask and ye shall receive. A simple blog, really, with one purpose: to review submitted blogs truthfully, not pulling punches, not sugar-coating the review. There is a group of reviewers that take turns with the submitted blogs, and I gotta say – the reviews are often as much fun to read as the blogs.

Yup, you guessed it: While my forebrain stepped out for a smoke, I submitted the Cheetah for review. The review’s up today, and while I didn’t get a “I f***ing love you,” I got three stars, and I’m pretty happy with that. Especially considering that one of the alternatives is a flaming middle finger.

Anyway, head over and check out the review if you like.

He appeared behind me in the bathroom as I was combing my hair and getting ready to go to work. There was a pop! and standing behind me was what looked like a grumpy leprechaun in a three-piece suit.

 “Wolf, I’ve got some bad news for you,” he said without preamble. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to cancel you.”

“Cancel me? What do you mean?” I decided to ignore the fact that Danny DeVito’s ugly twin brother had just appeared in my bathroom and concentrate instead on the specter of imminent cancellation, whatever that was.

“Well, your ratings are way down. You’re losing viewers faster than we can attract new ones, and I think we’re just going to have to cancel your life.”

“You mean –”

“Yeah.” He attempted to look remorseful, but it looked more like someone had stepped on his foot. “We’re gonna have to switch to reruns. Syndication, baby!”

“Wait! I can be funnier! I can do more dumb things! I can do more bathroom humor!” Without warning, the gaseous digestive side effects of last night’s artichoke dip exited my rear end. “I can do less bathroom humor!”

He shook his head. “I just don’t know. Viewers love adventure, controversy and scandal. You’ve got nothing. Look at yesterday, for instance. You stayed home with the Offspring because he had a sore throat and a cough. Plenty of opportunity for hijinks there, but what did you do? You wrote some of your so-called book, read a bit, and watched Return of the Jedi. Hardly stimulating entertainment.”

“Well, summer’s coming, and I do live in Alaska. I plan to do some hiking, take some pictures, maybe try some whitewater rafting.”

He appeared to consider. “Might be a possibility. Rafting, did you say?”

“Yup. Plenty of chances for bodily injury.”

“Yeah, they do love the bodily injuries. What else you got?”

“Um. Replacing my water heater?”

“No, that won’t do. Any chance you can be linked romantically to Paris Hilton or Britney?”

“Are you kidding? Not only am I happily married, but even if I weren’t, I wouldn’t touch either one of them with somebody else’s penis!”

He shrugged. “All right, can’t say I blame you. I gotta tell you, though – we need something to keep people interested. Gotta keep ratings up.” His eyes started wandering around the bathroom, and I could tell he was losing interest in the conversation. My mind was racing as I tried to figure out how I could convince him to let me stay on the air.

Suddenly, I remembered that he was in the entertainment business. I leaned over and wiggled my ass at him. “How’s about if I let you –”

He held up his hands and fell over himself trying to back away. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! We run a clean show here! None of that!”

“What?” I asked him, confused. “I was going to let you pick my pocket! What did you think I meant?”

He shook his head. “All right, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. If you can promise to spice things up a bit – you know, break a limb or two, cause some local neighborhood chaos, that sort of thing – I’ll tell the board to renew you for another year. Can you promise me that?”

At that point, nothing else mattered to me. “You bet I can! Just wait! I’ll have you guys in stitches! You’ll have to book me on Oprah and Letterman to keep up with my new fans!”

“All right.” With a flourish, he produced a sheet of paper from somewhere inside his jacket, scribbled something on it, and handed it to me. “Step it up, wolf. I like you, I really do, but it’s not up to me. Savvy?”

With a pop! he was gone, and I was left alone in the bathroom, holding a chartreuse piece of paper that renewed my contract for another year. Apparently my negotiation skills suck, because a salary increase wasn’t even listed. Still, I suppose I should be happy I didn’t get cancelled.

In the meantime, I need to purchase a chain saw, two model rocket engines, fifteen bags of Fritos and a “Don’t Walk” sign.

Humor-blogs.com drives a hard bargain, or so I hear.

Interesting.

I finished editing and submitted my book about a month ago. (No, nothing yet. Or, rather, lots of “No, thanks” and no “Yes, please, I’d like to read it” responses yet.)

So what’s happened? I’m knee-deep in another book, and this one I’m pretty excited about. It seems that I was right, and that submitting the novel would get it off my creative plate, so to speak, and let me move on.

I closed the book on it, you could say.

Okay, sorry. That one was uncalled for.

But anyway, the new one’s coming along nicely, I think. I’ve only been writing seriously for about three days and I’m already 4,000 words in. I’m trying some different things this time (a la Stephen King’s On Writing, et al,) and so far they seem to be working.

So I’ll just keep going until something makes me stop. As I just read from Jodi Picoult, “you can always edit a bad page, but you can’t edit a blank page.” Awesome quote.

Regarding my first novel: the more I think about it, the more I’m pretty sure it’s not going to sell. No problem. Selling a first novel is rather rare, or so I hear. So I’d like to offer you guys a chance to read it – on the condition that you give me some feedback when you’re done. I’ve got some pretty good ideas what’s wrong with it, but I’d like to hear some other viewpoints.

So – anyone interested? Let me know in the comments, and I’ll email you the file. It’s in M$ Word, in case you need to know, and it’s a fantasy.

In the meantime, I’ve got pages to fill.

It’s Earth Day today. Regardless of how you feel about politics, and war, and whether or not global warming exists and, if so, how much of it is our fault: try and do something ecological today, okay? My kid, and your kid (if you have one or more) and pretty much every furry/feathered/scaly creature around all thank you.

And if you can do it more than once, even better.

After a few false starts, I’m posting (again) today over at Burt’s Stache - an interesting look at sneezes and paleontology.

This post title would make an awesome name for a band.

The Offspring and I were enjoying our dinner (Mom had to work late) when he looked at me quizzically.

“Dad? What part of the chicken does steak come from?”

“It’s not from chicken, buddy,” I answered. “Steak comes from cows.”

It took a moment, but then his eyes grew wide as he realized the implications of this statement. “You mean,” he said, “I’m eating a cow?” On cue, his mouth opened, his tongue extended, and the half-chewed piece of steak was ejected onto his plate.

“What’s wrong?” I asked him. “Does that bother you? How come?” Meanwhile, my brain was spinning furiously. Is it that cartoon he watches, with the talking cow? Is he thinking of the cows on the animal shows on TV? How many vegetarian recipes do I know?

 “It just does,” he said, looking at his plate as if it were covered with live botfly larvae.

Unable to contain myself, I blurted out, “You know, hamburger is cow, too.” This, of course, is another example of my innate intelligence stepping out for a drink just when I need it the most. If ever we don’t know what to feed him, we know that a hamburger is a foolproof fallback. My perfect sense of timing, along with my inability to keep my mouth shut, might have just ruined that, too.

Horror washed over his face, and he reached for his milk. “I don’t want to be eating cow penis!”

Luckily, my brain returned from being AWOL, and I managed to explain to him that steak comes from other parts of cows, and that nobody else would want to eat cow penis either, and though we had a short issue with cow buttocks, that too was resolved quickly.

Tonight I think we might be having a salad.

Humor-blogs.com prefers filet mignon.

I was going to jot down a quick ‘Questions I need answers to,’ but then I thought that has kind of been done, and it’d be boring, and it would bring up uncomfortable questions like “Really? Eight times?” and “Why haven’t you solved the Riemann Hypothesis?” and “Huh?”, and I don’t want to concern myself with that right now. No, the problem I’m having is that I’ve got all of these answers and I don’t know their questions. Not a common problem, perhaps, but pressing, nonetheless.

So what follows is, as you can see, a list of burning answers. Feel free to join in, if you can help me out here. There are no right or wrong questions, but you will be judged on accuracy, originality, and usage of seasoning.

Oh, and #8 is, of course, a given in this sort of discussion.

1. It’s small, brown and furry
2. Charles
3. 7.5 light years
4. “Elementary, my dear Watson.”
5. pumpernickel
6. Because side effects may include dizziness, vomiting and the inability to finish sente
7. to cluck like a chicken
8. 42
9. well-chewed
10. It’s all there in the highlighted portions

Thanks for your help on this, honestly.

Though they claim otherwise, humor-blogs.com doesn’t have all of the answers either.

Having observed these beautiful creatures in their natural habitat for quite some time, I feel compelled to share what I have learned about them.

The Common Internet Blog, or Bloggus Internetalia, hereafter referred to as ‘the blog,’ first appeared on the landscape several years ago. After some time settling in to the local ecosystems, there was a population explosion among the species, and they seem to be here to stay. With no natural predators, the only hindrances to their continued existence seem to be overpopulation, starvation (see below) and evolution; death of the less intelligent blogs is considered to be not only necessary, but a favorable circumstance.

The range of the Bloggus covers all seven continents. There are many subspecies, the most common including the ‘mommy’ blog, the ‘author’ blog, and the ‘emo kid ranting about how much the world sucks’ blog. Species-specific markings and behaviors are quite varied, ranging from humor to angst. While misspellings and poor grammar are by no means uncommon, they can have the (often desirable) effect of shortening a blog’s lifespan.

Mating Season

Although the blog is by nature a solitary creature, it does occasionally attempt to attract others of its species, sometimes for mating purposes and sometimes merely to socialize. It goes about attracting others of its kind in several different ways. Joining social groups such as blogcatalog is a common tactic. Often, in what seems to be an attempt to ‘pretty itself up,’ the blog will place ‘widgets’ on its sidebar. It will also give ‘awards’ to other blogs, a practice which may lead to mutual preening and displays of affection. Despite many hours of research, I have yet to see the birth of an infant blog. They seem to almost spring into existence fully formed. Since this is, obviously, biologically impossible, further research is needed in this area.

Groups

Although blogs can be isolated, they can (and often do) congregate in herds. The two biggest blog herds on the planet are the Blogspot herd and the Wordpress herd. Having seen both of these groups, I can attest to the fact that there is nothing quite like seeing these majestic herds of animals thundering across the plains. Smaller herds are also in evidence, such as the Facebook and the Livejournal herds, and there are a good many blogs that eke out a lonely existence, far from others of their kind.

Death

Blogs must, like all other creatures, eventually die. While there seems to be no agreed-upon lifespan of a blog, two to five years is not uncommon. It is, perhaps, too early to tell, since the species itself is rather young. Death can be caused by many things, but the most common cause seems to be lack of the blog’s main sustenance – comments. A blog can subsist without comments for quite some time, but at some point it unfailingly weakens and dies.

Research

While some blog-research organizations such as technorati.com have sprung into existence, making classification and study much easier, I was able to perform most of these observations while posing as the blog’s main food source – a comment. While the main group of my research subjects appears in my list of references on the left, I feel I must thank specifically a few of the animals with whom I have managed to form a special bond of trust. Montana Outdoors, Pinhole and WordVixen are unique and hopefully long-lived members of the species. The Ominous Comma and Mattress Police seem to be quickly leading their respective groups in new directions, though whether those directions are valid remains to be seen. This study was financed by the sale of day-old sweat socks and used moose-girdles, which may say something about the results.

Humor-blogs.com may help to ensure the survival of the species, but then again, it may not.

It began like any other morning. Humming brightly as I faced the new day, ripe with possibilities, I started my morning ablutions. I hopped in the shower, grabbed the shampoo and tried to avoid looking too foolish as I started scrubbing away.

You know what I mean. There’s no way to look cool or graceful or sexy when you’re standing in the shower, eyes closed, with a huge glop of shampoo running down your head. Brad Pitt couldn’t do, it, Heidi Klum couldn’t do it, and we all know where I stand in terms of social acceptance. I once memorized Jabberwocky to impress girls, for chrissakes. (No, it didn’t work.)

But I digress. So there I was, eyes squeezed shut, standing in the most defenseless position imaginable, when something landed on my lip.

Now, I had no idea what it was. My eyes were squeezed shut. It could have been a stray hair. It could have been a spider. It could have been a dollop of shampoo. It could have been the tentacle of an octopus demon from Dimension X, performing some twisted form of foreplay just before it anally raped me. Whatever it was, it had landed on my lip and showed no signs of vacating the area. It just sat there, quietly taunting me.

Not knowing the identity of this upper lip intruder, and unable to open my eyes, I probably should have wiped it off, or at the very least run my face under the stream of water to wash whatever it was away. But no, this is where my innate intelligence failed me. I opened my mouth and stuck out my tongue to taste it.

This is where I imagine you, Dear Reader, leaning forward on the edge of your seat. “What was it?” you are asking, nearly screaming at the computer monitor. “What did you feel? Did you feel tiny spider feet, tiptoeing through the taste buds? Did a hair wrap itself around your tongue? What was it?”

It was none of these, thankfully. It was, however, a healthy dollop of shampoo. And not shampoo that had been diluted by shower water, either. No, it was a glop of straight-from-the-bottle Suave (hey, if I can’t tell the difference, neither can you, right?) that immediately coated my tongue like Vaseline on a proctologist’s finger. Needless to say, I gasped, spit, and scrubbed my tongue, but to no avail. That crap wasn’t coming off without a pressure washer.

And here it is, several hours later, and I still taste shampoo. I almost wish it had been the octopus demon.

As far as I know, humor-blogs.com showers daily.