Today when I was jogging, I saw a kid with a huge hard-looking hunk of snow cocked back and ready to throw it at his dog which looked to be only around 35 or 40 pounds. Now, I would give him the benefit of the doubt and say he was throwing it at his brother or some other target, but when he saw that I was looking at him, he stopped.

What I should have said was, "Hey, you kids! Don't throw snow hunks at your dog," but all that came out was, in my stern teacher voice, "Fellas . . ." With that one word, I hope I conveyed that they shouldn't hurt their poor little dog, who came running over to me to greet me.

Also, I saw this snowman today, and you may notice that he/she is holding a Starbucks cup, perhaps a latte, and he/she is wearing a scarf, or maybe one of those hipster ascots. That's what I get for jogging through Lincoln Park in Chicago; even the snowmen think they're all that.

So, I'm off to Florida tomorrow morning to stay with one of my best friends (guy from this post) and his wife, a great couple that I hardly see these days. HLP (Heterosexual Life Partner) and his wife are also coming, so while I'm not too enthused about being the 5th wheel, I am glad to be spending New Years Eve with some of my greatest of friends. Remember people, we often make a big deal about what we're doing for NYE, and then we're horribly disappointed when it's not the perfect night. Well, let me lay this one you: It's not about where you go or what you do; just surround yourself with great friends you care about and who care about you, and you're going to have a terrific time.

I'll be signing off for a few days, having a ball in Florida, but I wish you all a "Merry New Year!"

More Crap You Don't Need To Know About Dr. Ken

I couldn't think of a good topic today, so what you're going to get is one of these flipping questionnaires. No, I'm not going to tag any of you to answer these because then you feel obligated to do it, and you feel like a jerk. Just enjoy. Or don't. Either way, but I'll do my best to make it interesting.

1. If you could build a house anywhere, where would it be?

I'm going to say somewhere in Colorado because I like the mountain air out there, but if we're saying anywhere in the world, I think I'd say somewhere like Sweden or Norway. I'll let you know more if I make it out to Scandinavia this summer. Actually, I think I'm more of a city guy, so it might just be here in Chicago. It's all very stressful - probably why I'm a perennial renter.

2. What is your favorite article of clothing?

I just bought a Cleveland Browns shirt that looks good on me. I became a fan one day at the bar when my Bears quarterback threw 3 pics to the same player in the same game. I decided at that point that I'd go sit on the couches with the Browns fans in the bar, and they played an awesome game, beating the defending champ Saints. After that, they beat the Patriots! The rest of the season they started to suck again like they usually do, but I always liked "The Brownies," and I always will.

3. Favorite physical feature on the opposite sex?

I'm not sure there is a name for it, but I like that hip bone area where you can grab onto it - and I don't necessarily mean that in a sexual way. It's just one of the many contours on a woman that make them beautiful, and I appreciate it.

4. What's the best CD that you bought?

A buddy just downloaded the entire Kyuss catalog for me (they are the guys that went on to form Queens of the Stone Age), and they are unbelievable and great to listen to at the gym. A reformed version of Kyuss without the guitar player are touring right now but only in Europe, which seems to be the case with every band I get into.

5. Where are your favorite places to be?

At Wrigley Field and anywhere with my friends and family, "wrastling" with my nephews, making them laugh uncontrollably.

6. Where's your least favorite place to be?

Waiting. For anything. When I was a kid, I'd ask my parents before we went out to eat, "Are we having fast food or slow food?"

7. What's your favorite place to be massaged?

My hands. The gal who cuts my hair puts a hot towel on my face while she gives me a hand massage, and it's like heaven. She also does the scalp, which would place in a close second.

8. What's most important: strong in body or strong in mind?

The mind for sure. What a dumb question - must have been written by someone who is week minded but with shredded abs and shit.

9. What time do you wake up in the morning?

7 AM on weekdays
10 AM on weekends

10. What is your favorite kitchen appliance?

I'm big on the blender lately, whipping up protein shakes most every day with bananas, peanut butter, and sometimes coffee - because I'm a caffeine junky. A good question for one of these things would be, "Would you rather give up caffeine or alcohol?" As a guy who likes vodka/red bulls, having both drugs at once, I don't have an answer for this. Told you it's a good question.

11. What makes you really angry?

People who suck and can't have a good time and seem to have no problem sucking a whole room of people into their suckiness.

12. Do you believe in an afterlife?

Sadly, no. I don't, but I hope I'm wrong. Odds are if it is true, and I spent my whole life not believing, then I probably wouldn't be going there, but it would be good to know people deserving of going would.

13. Favorite children's book?

"A Light in the Attic" by Shel Silverstein. He was the man, and he wrote "Boy Named Sue" too. When I was a kid, I really thought that he had a beard covering his whole body like that one goofy cartoon of him in the book.

14. What's your favorite household chore?

I really don't mind cleaning the bathroom that much, and it feels so good to have it done. Jeez, that one was boring. Sorry.

15. If you have a tattoo, what is it?

I don't, but I always wanted to get the Autobot and Decepticon symbols on each shoulder blade, as my shoulder region is one of my presentable regions. However, then the "Transformers" movies came out and sucked, so I scratched that idea. Still, since I'm turning 34 in like a week, I think the whole tattoo thing has passed me by, and with it tattoos based on toys.

16. What's in the trunk of your car?

A baseball bat. I work in some tough neighborhoods sometimes, so I like to keep a perfectly legal Louisville Slugger in the old trunk for emergencies.

17. Do you prefer sushi or a hamburger?

Well, you caught me immediately following a terrible sushi experience, so I'm going to go burger, being the more consistent of the two. So tonight, I was already giving the driver a really generous tip, and then he conveniently didn't have enough change, making me tip him even more. Then they forgot my wasabi, and the rolls were falling apart and not very good. A burger is always a burger - hard to mess up, unless it's at Hooters, but then there is good scenery, usually.

So, yeah, if you want to do this questionnaire or another, go for it. If you want to comment on one of these in the comment section, great. I will probably suspect that you only read that one question, and I'm not saying I would blame you for that.

Gance on.

The Olive Race

When my dad was pledging his fraternity he participated in something called The Olive Race in which a bunch of pledges had to run across a big room with an olive held in their asses, and the last place finisher and all who dropped their olives had to eat their cargo. I'm proud of my father for a lot of things, and one of them is that he finished first in this race.

This is out of character for my dad, seeing as he's a college professor who I've never seen drink more than two consecutive beers in one sitting. I mean, he's a jogger like me, so the race I can see, but things in our butts is not a Noisewater thing.

So, yesterday while standing around the appetizers, including olives, before Christmas dinner, I said to my dad, "Hey, do you fancy an olive race?" We all had a good laugh about that, as we've heard the story many times. I had to ask him this time who lost the race, and he knew his name straightaway: Ron Wilson. I asked if he got dysentery and died shortly thereafter, to which my dad said, "I hope so. I hated his guts." I guess old Ron Wilson flunked out not long after eating an olive that dropped out of his own butt. Not a good college experience, I'd say. Go Noisewaters! We're winners!!

Burritos

So, what makes a good burrito and what makes a shit one because good ones need to be a little bit shitty to be any good. After all, when you get one from Chipotle, it's always nice and quick and clean, but that rice sucks up all the grease, and can you really have a good 'rito when the grease doesn't soak through the bag, making an awesome grease stain?

Another qualification is they have to have Jarritos, the Mexican soda, preferably Lemon Lime if they got it. Furthermore, they need to have tongue on the menu. I don't want to actually order it. Fuck no! Can you imagine actually eating some disgusting cow's tongue? Putting the inside of a cow's mouth into your own mouth? No! That sounds like the worst thing ever, but they need to have it as an option to give it that street cred.

Also, it's bullshit if they have things like hot dogs and cheese fries on the menu. Don't try to cater to us Gringos and our horrible taste. We're idiots! Haven't you learned that in your tenure in our shitty country?

So, have some grease, but not too much, and throw some Mexican soda our way, don't have any bullshit like cheese fries on the menu, and I want some tongue on the menu - but I don't want to eat that disgusting shit. Then again, if I'm drunk enough, I really don't care about any of this; just fill my belly so I'm not so damn hungover in the morning.

I have to go Christmas shopping tomorrow. Alone. It seems like this is always the way I end up doing it, wandering through a mall with no idea what the hell I should get anyone. I usually pull it off pretty well, and I typically get one of those awesome mall pretzels. By the end of the day, I have consolidated all the gifts into two big heavy bags, and then I'm paying those two bags off until mid April.

After that, I drive out to my parents' place, wrap up all the gifts, usually doing a pretty half-assed job at it, since it's only going to get torn up anyway, and then I spend the night by my sister's place with her and the nephews. Only one and a half of the three still believe in Santa Claus, but that's enough to make it a lot of fun when they come down the stairs in their jammies and see what St. Nick brought them.

I really do love my family, and this is the time of year I really appreciate them. And those mall pretzels.

How are you doing with your shopping, and how are you spending your holiday, Seven Readers?

The Rocky Button

I feel like I have a lot of ideas through out the course of a day, most of which are totally stupid, impractical, and a little nuts, but occasionally there are some gems, such as "The Rocky Button." What is this, you may ask? Well, you know that feeling when you're nearing the end of your workout, skipping through songs on your MP3 player that will pump you up, but the lactic acid is bubbling up to your throat, and you feel like not even Jeffrey Dahmer chasing you with a knife and intentions of cutting off your head and pouring battery acid into your ears would motivate you to run any faster? That's when you hit the Rocky button, and voila! On comes the most uplifting song, at least for Caucasian America, of all time!

But, guess what?

Someone already thought of it. I burned a workout disc for a ladyfriend recently with "Gonna' Fly Now," and when I told her about this awesome idea I had years back, she said that it already exists - a button where you can set a certain song to play whenever you hit it.

God damn it.

This always happens to me. Why can't people just steal my stupid ideas.

P.S.: This is a combination a bit of trivia and just something that occurred to me that I'd like to know: Do they ever mention how many pounds Rocky is giving up to fight Ivan Drago in "Rocky IV"

Vaginae

I was typing to a friend online, and I was saying something about vaginas, don't ask why, and I noticed that the squiggly bad-spelling line came up under vaginas. I figured that it must not be the proper plural form of the word, so I looked it up. Sure enough, the plural is vaginae (click here if you want proof).

Vaginae is quite lovely, actually. It sounds French.

Glad I could educate tonight, and if you click over to the dictionary page, be sure to click the sound thingy where the guy pronounces the word because he sounds mad creepy.

A New Hood Term

I was working with an African American student on the west side of Chicago today, and he claimed to be tired from playing "the game" all night. Sidebar: African American kids always say that they play "the game" in reference to video games in general, whereas kids of other nationalities will say "play video games," or just name the system, such as "play Playstation" or "play my D.S."

But, that's not the new term I wanted to share with you. He went on to say that "Gran Turismo" was humpin' all night. In other words, he was playing the game for a long time, and it was a lot of fun. The game wasn't literally humping the console; they don't do that quite yet.

I looked up the word in this sense on Urban Dictionary just now, and the only sense they had it in was to say that you're working hard on something as fast as you can, as in, "I'm humpin' it, so get off my back!"

What do you think, Seven Readers? Do you think you can use this most modern of slang terms in daily conversation in your lifer or least in the comments section?

Here's mine, "I was out at the bar drinkin' my tits off, and UFC was humpin' on the plasmas til midnight!"

Is Facebook Killing Blogger?

So, I blogged long before Facebook, but now it just feels like I can make a lot more people laugh with instant results on FB in a way that I just can't with Blogger. Still, I know that Blogger is more O.G., and it's a smarter media in most every way.

Well, either way, I already put this on Facebook, but it's too damn funny not to share with you all, my intelligent friends that may not spend their day playing farming games and Family Feud knockoffs. As always, hit pause on the music player on the right before hitting play and hearing this awesomeness.



I never had Bieber Fever until he dabbled in death metal. What a voice on that kid! Sounds like one long sustained belch!

Caption Contest Part Somewhere Around 5

I'm not sure what's going on here, but it's awesome. Maybe one of you can make up a scenario because I know I have the funniest Seven Readers around . . .

Someone Asked Me To Go To "Tron" . . .

. . . on opening night, and I said, "I don't really like going to 'the show' that much anymore.

Let me tell you why this is an old guy thing to say:

1. The fact that leaving the house to see a movie is too big of an outing for me.

2. The fact that I said "the show." It's the first time I've ever said that, and the only people I know to say that were my friends' parents when I was a kid.

How about you, Seven Readers? Have you had any signs that you're old lately?

If you're anything like me, your stream of consciousness went a little something like this tonight:

"Man, this Rainbow Bright Touchdown Wand is scoring these Patriots way too many touchdowns today, but I'm really glad I didn't participate in wine bombs on a Monday. At what age can I start to be considered a barfly? Gosh, I like to think I'm not old and annoying enough to qualify next to these folks. Shit, tomorrow I have to go into work early so I can leave early enough to make it to that chess meeting on the south side. You know, I only came here tonight to see redhead, Blind Melon artist girl, and she just stopped in for 12 seconds in her Mega Man boots to pick up her makeup bag. Still, she did grab/pinch my waist on her way out, which is a good sign, but she has a boyfriend. She is adorable with her robot artwork . . ."

That all makes perfect sense, right?

Macbeth in the Hood

I was teaching Shakespeare's Macbeth to some inner city Black kids the other day, and I got off to a bad start when I called one kid a nickname he didn't like, some kids snickered, so he called me "whiteboy" in response. Now, I knew I was in the wrong, so I just explained to him that I won't call him that name if he won't call me whiteboy. It's not a name that offends me, it's just punking me out in front of the kids, which is kind of like what I did to him. He said he meant no disrespect, and by the end of the class, we were cool - he was reading the part of Banquo.

I hate to stereotype, but oh well: As usual, the girls were participating better than the boys. It was hard to get the boys to even read parts like "Murderer 3," where they would only have a line or two. After Banquo's parts were up, he volunteered to read other parts! This was after starting the class by saying MF'er around 19 times and calling me whiteboy - now I had him on my side, and things were looking up. What's more, these kids were into it.

Our friend Banquo said of Macbeth, "Damn, he just killin' everybody!" That's true, actually.

This is interesting though: after Banquot dies, his ghost comes back to visit Macbeth. It was around this time that our Banquot hit his knee on his desk and let out an impressive chain of obscenities. I said, "Banquot's ghost has returned! And he's swearing!"

That even got a laugh out of some of those too cool for school kids who didn't want to do anything.