While I’m away, you should read Squirrel Bait. Her tagline says it all, “Love is misery in the pupal stage.”

[regarding a new make-your-bath-a-jacuzzi toy:]

“Even on the gentlest setting, the BubbleSpa made the water boil furiously, spurting five-inch jets of water into the air. Worse, the suction cups weren’t strong enough to hold the air-bubbling mat down; as air in water is want to do, it rose briskly, with me on top flailing and fighting it back down. The air-hose kept coming detached and flying wildly through the bathtub, sending water spraying everywhere. Plus, the water was churning so hard and taking in so much air that it went from almost-too-hot-to-sit-in to ice cold in less than two minutes… even with the BubbleSpa set to add heat.

Basically, imagine me buttnaked in rapidly boiling ice water, thrashing around on a 1×4 air float and trying frantically to grab a hose doing its best rattlesnake-on-crack impression.

It was my first aerobic bath.”

[on marriage]

“Yeah, I think I’ll just get 75 cats, a collection of Franklin Mint commemorative dolls, and a really big vibrator and skip the whole thing. ”

“Men of the world, please do me a favor. All I ask is a little truth in advertising. If you’ve got something you’ll be saying to me later under awkward, pained circumstances, just say it to me when you meet me! It’s not so much harder than hello, really it’s not! Repeat the following phrases after me:

1. Hi, I’m Andrew. I’m exclusively homosexual. Hitting on me will do you no good, and will only embarrass us both.

2. Hi, I’m Stephen. I’m proposing to my girlfriend this weekend. Although I may seem to be interested in you, in fact I am merely an incredibly friendly, touchy-feely sort of person. Please don’t misinterpret my attentions.

3. Hello! I know we haven’t seen each other in a while, so I thought you ought to know that while it used to be okay for you to grab my wee-wee, I now have a girlfriend and such behavior is no longer acceptable. And how have you been?

See how simple that was? Cleared the air right up front, didn’t it?

I am going to go blush into my pillowcase now.”

“From here:

A few years ago, Fisher recalls, a typical Silicon Valley cube might have measured 8 feet by 8 feet. No more. Now cubes are more likely to be half or two-thirds that size. In some cases, companies are ordering cubicles as small as 5 by 6, or 30 square feet.

As a result, cubicles — sometimes referred to sarcastically as “veal fattening pens” for their claustrophobia-inducing size — are now smaller than enclosures provided for calves.

In fact, according to recommendations from the University of California Cooperative Extension, a calf should be allotted a minimum of 35 square feet, possibly 30, in structures known as “superhutches.”

The guidelines did not address how much space a calf needs to program in Perl script while drinking diet soda and eating cheese puffs. ”

prerecorded

While I’m away, you should read Stuff and Stuff.

Dave is the greatest untapped genius of our time, and the ladies love him. Perhaps you think I’m only kissing his ass because he’s posting for me while I’m gone, and the world may never know. But before you get all high and mighty, try handing your Blogger password over to some schmo off the street and spending your vacation nights in a cold sweat wondering if he’s entering Necrophilia and Neo-Nazi into your meta tags.

I also like Dave because he can take little jokes like that without doing anything nasty to exact retribution, like, oh say, entering Necrophelia and Neo-Nazi into my meta tags. Right Dave? Did I mention how handsome you are? And funny too:

I had the most awesome Bachelor-Morning today. Not only did I wake up to find that I had no more clean underwear,
(forcing me to wear yesterday’s pair) but, I also discovered, upon shoving a spoonful of cereal in my mouth, that the milk
had gone decidedly bad. The best part was, (as I sat on my chair half-dressed in dirty boxers) that I looked at the bowl
with a quizzical expression on my face, smelled the milk, and then went in for another bite. Just in case my synapses had
mis-routed the “ummm, good” message to my brain, you see. It was like I was that lab rat that keeps going back for the
electrified cheese.

They say the world gets smaller and smaller as the means of communication get easier and
easier. Consequently, I am taking up a small collection for a select group of us to move to
Jupiter. On second thought, I am taking up a large collection for a large group of everyone else
to move to Jupiter. Operators are standing by.

As if we needed more reminders that we are decidedly not a Thirld World nation, McDonald’s
has entered into a devil’s pact with Compaq to put video-game McKiosks in their stores. I
suppose this is better than the cool playgrounds McDonald’s had when I was growing up, as
this new system protects children from both the dangerous sun, and inconvenient exercise.

prerecorded

[editor's note] The above wouldn’t have been possible without the help of Evhead, ’cause Meg forgot to give me her ftp password. Nice. Thanks Ev…

I have purchased a little red bikini, 3 gallons of 30 SPF Waterproof sunscreen, and a two-week supply of Pepto Bismol chewables. I can’t lift my left arm, so the tetnus shot must be working. All of this means, I’m-going-to-Ba-li-and-yoo-oo-oou-are-ent!

OK, that was cruel, and possibly inaccurate. I mean, I have no way of knowing what’s up with you, and you seem like the jaunty, world-traveling sort (I think it’s the sports sandals). So if you plan to be on Bali or Lombok in the near future and you see me, come say hi.

I wanted to have a guest blogger while I was gone, but I couldn’t decide whom to ask. Instead, I’ve compiled some entries from sites I like. My trusty friend Dave will be posting stuff for me while I’m gone, though he won’t receive a single sexual favor in return–he wants me to bring him back a monkey mask. (Dave could use some help with his bargaining skills, my friends.)

Well, I’m off to take bucket showers and purchase carved items. No parties while I’m gone, and take care of your sister.

8:41 a.m.

How come you don’t get any of the really good compliments until you’re dead?

“She would rather light candles than curse the darkness and her glow has warmed the world.”

-Adlai Stevenson Eulogy of Eleanor Roosevelt, November 7, 1962

12:47 p.m.

Overheard: Young Love outside the Hush Hush.

The characters: Ranting college girl in hip pigtails. Dull, pretty young man in baggy jeans.

Her: So it’s like you just hurt me as much as you possibly can, you fuck me over time after time, you destroy my self-esteem, you fuck around on me. YOU FUCK AROUND ON ME! (Taps his sternum with her finger to emphasize point.) I was stupid enough to think we could still work it out, and just when I think we can, you dump me for someone else. And now you want me back?

Him:�Yeah.

10:56 a.m.

Megnut on the urge to bite:

“Sylvia gave me some nice wine glasses for my birthday. They’re very thin and delicate,
with elegant slender stems and a simple, clean design. And I wonder as I sip from
one, tasting its thinness through my lips and my tongue, what would happen if I were
to bite? What if I were to bite down on this thin slender elegant curve of glass? Would
it cut my tongue and my lips, blurring blood and wine? Would I swallow glass or get
shards embedded in my gums? Or would it simply break into a million little diamonds,
little elegant hand-blown diamonds which would stud my tongue, beguiling people as I
talk?”

2:14 p.m.

A friend soundly rejects my “can’t hang out” excuse:

“That’s why? That’s so, ‘I have to wash my hair.’ It’s like, ‘Yeeeah. I’d love to but, you know what happened to me today? I was paralyzed. Shoot.’”

9:48 a.m.