My day starts with this instant message transaction.

That movie you recommended me was a piece of shit. 🙂

Oh, why do you say that?

Because only an Americans could enjoy this sort of dog shit! 🙂

The Czechs make some pretty bad movies, don’t they? I have seen Gympl.

F*ck you, you f*cking asshole! I never want to see you again! 🙂

Um…OK.

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It’s Friday at 5:30 p.m. I await a friend at a back table at The Troop (Krčma U parašutistů). The bar is full of people celebrating the end of a week by hiding from the early dark days of late November and pile-driving their livers with beer and spirits. The center table is filled with regulars; old men who have spent every day at that table for twenty years. It shows. All in all, it’s a normal Friday in Prague.

Oh yes, except for that the men at the middle table are the undead. To be fair, since reading World War Z, everybody is the living dead.

PJ arrives and we do a brief recap of the week: Lazy students, cleavage, good gulaš somewhere, we should go jogging, learned a new word in Czech, good book. World War Z turns the conversation. We chat about the plot and some of the more spectacularly disturbing scenes, then some of the extremely unsettling elements and notions. We have a shot.

“I am becoming a paranoid freak,” I admit.

“So did I.” PJ takes a drink. “So, what would you do if this happened?”

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It’s Saturday and I’m gleefully ignoring and putting off writing by fashioning tiny cat socks out of one large sock. Appreciative though I was hoping she’d be, the B Monster responds by standing on the sock(s) and circling until she finds a comfortable position in which to plop down. When I attempt to remove her, she emits the CATCON 3 warning sound: a short, low growl that states ‘go ahead and see what happens to those pudgy fingers.’ I leave her to her militant, yet comfortable mood and step away. (90)

This is not the first time she has thwarted my procrastinatory plans today. She has also lick-cleaned her poop-cannon on a game of solitaire I was playing and played a game of ‘toes look like mice’ during an early afternoon nap. (131)

Though these are pretty common feline torture tactics, I sense a disturbance in the kitty Force. She is not working alone. And I know exactly with whom she in cahoots. (161)

Stephen King. (163)

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Who doesn’t love a good adventure story? I don’t know what’s better than sitting in your favorite armchair reading about someone else risking life and limb to keep me entertained and make me feel as though I did the journey myself.

Here are five books about five real journeys that will entertain, excite and educate. They may even inspire you to take that off-the-beaten-path journey  you’ve always wanted to take, far from the screaming crowds and urine-soaked floors of Disney World and Bourbon Street.

Jaguars Ripped my Flesh (Tim Cahill)

There are titles people strive for in life: President, Sir, Doctor, Sex-Beast, just to name a few. I want Explorer in Residence and Editor at Large. Cahill is Editor at Large of Outside Magazine. Prick.

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As she puts in the movie it’s the first moment all afternoon she hasn’t talked about how the movie is a Czech classic and how it’s been rated the number one comedy in Czech history. I have long-since promised myself that I am going to love this movie – out loud – even if it’s the Czech equivalent of the latest Demi Moore film (stop trying to figure out what that was, it does not matter).

The title comes up: S tebou mě baví svět (I enjoy the World with you) accompanied by the most recognizable music in the entire history of the Czech Republic. The film is about three married guys who want to take a ‘Guy’s Weekend’ in the mountains and whose wives allow them on the condition that they take their children. About fifteen minutes into the film the men and kids are in the mountains skiing and being awkward with each other.

And about ten seconds after that, for the rest of the film, I am laughing in a manner that is illegal in Amish communities and in most Midwest states.

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The End

As we all know, Earth is just winding down its time until its Mayan destruction comes to foot in a few weeks. This comes as a bit of a hardship for those who have not gotten to their Christmas shopping yet and those whose birthdays come right at Christmas – It’s true that they’re always being screwed.

The bad news is that we will all be dead. Also there’s a chance that through some fluke of nature most of us die and the only remaining people will be Snookie and Donald Trump.

But it’s best not to think of these unspeakably horrible consequences.

The good news is that astronomers have recently discovered a “Super Earth” about 44 light years away from Earth I (aka: the Earth you are reading this on). Planet HD40307g, as it is sexily named, is known as a “Goldilocks Planet,” which means that it has sufficient atmospheric pressure to be able to maintain liquid water on its surface. So, should Earth I explode or be taken over by zombies on December 21^st, we could consider Earth II (HD40307g) a possible new home.

As it could be our new home, I have outlined Earth II’s specifications.

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Abraham Lincoln’s second career as a vampire hunter is well-known these days. And while I am warmed in the belly by visions of Ole Abe plunging wooden stakes into chests as he steps up on the dais at Gettysburg, I am fairly certain it is a fictional second career.

Still, it’s fun to think about.

These days, we tend to equate the term “President of the United States” with a picture of a stuffy older man standing behind a podium, starting wars on a small tribe in Timbuktu that’s rumored to sit on an oil deposit.

We rarely imagine our presidents as men of action or daring or danger. It is rather difficult to envision an American President as we know them in office heading a charge against an enemy stronghold or bailing out of an airplane under fire.

But several U.S. presidents did heroic acts such as these, and in almost every American war. This post is dedicated to the top five bad ass Presidents of the United States.

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“Oh, for the f*cking f*ckers f*ck f*ck of f*cking f*ckerville!”

It’s at this moment that I remember that I am not alone. There are seven sets of eyes on me.

Letting loose a few curses is fine, especially when you’ve just dropped a hot dog and run over your pinkie toe with your office chair at the same moment. Doing this in a departmental meeting is another story.

Always a genius at covering my tracks, I say, “Uh, you were saying.”

I have a potty mouth. This can be attributed to many factors. First of all, my dad was never one to, uh, hold back his anger in moments of acute strife. I have a very clear memory video of him trying to put in a ceiling fan. And failing. Spectacularly. The tangible quilt of obscenities that sprung from his mouth over that half hour would have made a Tarantino film look like an episode of Sesame Street.

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Halloween at Different Ages

Some of the benefits of stampeding towards your middle years are that you accrue pill bottles, a stash of good excuses and experience. It also allows you perspective on what people call the “circle of life.” With the advent of Facebook and the ability to see into each others’ worlds so easily, it has occurred to me just how differently all age groups celebrate Halloween and yet how similarly.

Baby’s First Halloween

OK, let’s be clear about something: If you are an infant, you are a human doll. Yes, you have a heart beat and yes, you did come flying out of someone’s nether regions and yes, your wailing and screeching does force your feeders to drink and hide their weapons.

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