Hair-ummm...?

After searching my nose this morning for candy and other buried treasure, I discovered a single white nose hair (not to be confused with a single white female). Is this an indication of old age? Is my time on this planet starting its slow painful descent to the grave? Am I gradually transforming into Santa Claus?? I did also find a belly on my stomach this morning, but that's nothing new. It would be truly ironic if I were suddenly morphing into St. Nick considering I recently purchased reindeer sausage. I have yet to eat it. I'm saving it for Christmas Eve. I hoped it would teach Santa a lesson for leaving lit coal in my stocking last year and nearly burning down my house (the gingerbread variety).

This single strand of monochromatic nose hair is dangling out of my right nostril like an escape rope for whatever miniscule damsel is trapped in my nasal passages. At first I thought it was finely woven mucus, but upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a long strand of hair-string peaking out of my nose and looking for an eye of a needle to pass through. My immediate reaction was to clip it with a nail cutter (I don't have skissors handy) or to grasp it between index finger and thumb and yank it out like there's no tomorrow.

[Sidebar: If I yank, then I am the yanker and therefore, the hair would be the yankee. If that's the case, who is the yanker of the yankees? A-Rod's girlfriend? Heyyyoooohhhh!]

But then I stared at it for a moment longer and realized how unique it was. This single white strand asserting itself in a bushel of black hairs. How could I destroy this ugly ducking when it may yet still transform into the nose-hair equivalent of a swan? I'm really not sure what that would be, but I am excited to find out. Maybe it'll turn into cashmere. Who knows? Not to mention, I also have the irrational fear that if I yank the thread-like hair, somehow my whole sweater will unravel.

So hanging out my nostril it remains, oscillating in the wind like the pendulum of a grandfather clock. Perhaps it's just my nose that's turning into a grandfather. I hope the rest of my hair doesn't go salt and pepper on me. How odd it would be to have white leg hairs. I could just say I was wearing mink boots. But let's not get ahead of myself. My one nostril hair is enough. I shall call it Snowball. I just really hope this whole white hair thing doesn't start to, you know, snowball.

Germaphobic Waste Management Question of the Day

The Germaphobe Dilemma (not to be confused with a Germanphobe --one who fears all things bratwurst): When a male germaphobe goes to the restroom to relieve his bladder after having interacted with the filthy city, does he wash his hands first before handling his waste hose? If he does, he runs into the risk of having wet hands while undoing his fly, inevitably covering his crotchal region with water stains. Though he may get the satisfaction of relieving his bladder, he will exit the bathroom giving others the impression that his bladder relieved itself all over him.

To avoid being called Mr. Piss Pants, he may decide to wash his hands first and then go through the process of drying them. In public restrooms that attempt to save the environment by providing blow dryers mounted to the wall instead of sand paper that pass as towels, this could easily become a long, drawn out process. By the time his hands are drip-free, his anxious member won't be.

If the germaphobe has an extreme phobia, would he also be afraid of re-dirtying his hands by touching his zipper, his buttons, his draws, his nethers? He may have to purell after every step of the way. This could be a very troublesome process given that the man-snake is known for lashing out if frustrated by an excessively long amount of waiting. It may spit hot venom all over his pants.

Portable catheters and daily-use disposable rubber gloves seem like the only viable solution for the male germaphobe. The former can deposit into a bag neatly strapped away to his calf. It can double as a heat pack. The latter will help deter any possible human interaction so as to avoid germ encounters since the rubber gloves raise his creepiness level to an all-time high (or should I say low?). Plus in the event he finds himself disrespected for any reason, he can finally challenge his disrespector to a duel since he will be equipped with a glove with which to slap this person in the face. Germaphobes everywhere, you're welcome. I just solved your life.

Funky Cold Nostalgia

With a certain blogger's birfday drawing near (PS3 or Red Bull BC One tickets please, Birfday Santa), I am inclined to look backwards on my life. Note: Do not try looking backwards while also walking forwards. You may unknowingly run into oncoming traffic, a lamppost, or worse, an exgirlfriend...you know, the one with the herp. OCK WORD.

As far as reminiscing goes, I tend to view my life in the form of a cartoon. My first day at school takes the shape of a Tiny Toons episode. My first crush is an episode of Care Bears (my Care Bear "stare" has never been more inappropriate). My first time playing basketball morphs into ProStars with MJ, Gretsky, and Bo Jackson. My first encounter with a little person: David the Gnome. And the list goes on.

When thinking about my first black friends (of whom I carry pictures to prove to people I'm not a racist), one particular cartoon jumps from my memory banks: C-Bear and Jamal. It features a gullible young boy Jamal and his smooth talking, sunglass-wearing, fuzzy wuzzy teddy bear C-Bear, voiced by real life teddy bear Tone Loc. You may remember him for his visionary and seminal rap hit, aptly titled Wild Thing.



I was gonna say this was my favorite cartoon growing up until IMDB dutifully informed me that it aired in 1996, when I was already 13 years old. Based on this trajectory, that means I hit puberty when I was 24. That sounds about right.

Unlike other cartoons that featured token characters coded as black (read: Panthro from Thundercats, Jazz from Transformers), C-Bear and Jamal put the black family upfront and had plenty of non-white, non-black, non-animal characters to boot. The show also taught me about peer pressure, social problems, and re-enforced the notion that taking the advice of a talking bear is actually the wise thing to do. Ha, and they laughed at me in high school for walking around with a Teddy Ruxpin doll. Those fools.

So when in doubt, trust C-Bear even though he may sound like he's been smoking herb and slapping around hookers. Yogi, Baloo (naked or pilot version), Berenstein, Gummi, or Care are also bearable substitutes. You'll bearly notice the difference. Bears are our moral compass and best friends, but only as long as they have the ability to talk. If however they only speak in roars, I recommend a different cartoon, one that taught me about Latinos: Speedy Gonzalez. Better make quick and "Andale! Andale! Arriba! Arriba!"

The Nighty Nose Def

It has just come to my attention that a friend of mine has a serious disability. It pains me so much to see him suffer that I felt it was my obligation to inform the world of his condition even though he has not authorized this entry.

I discovered his unfortunate circumstance recently. It all started at a slumber party in my friend's basement last weekend. I brought my Masters of the Universe sleeping bag. It glows in the dark so not only is it kickass, but neon green He-Man protects me from the dark too. My friend's mom made chili and we devoured it like crabs on crotch fuzz. And as these boys-only slumber parties go, the evening devolved into a veritable fart-fest, as in a festival of farting, as in a continuous celebratory display of flatulence. We called it Difwarti (high five for culturally competent puns!).

But there was one problem: my friend, let's call him Luke, couldn't join in on the fun. You may be wondering, does Luke suffer from a mute colon? No, far from it. But he does suffer from a deaf nose. That is to say, his nose knows no scent. So while we continued to release putrid gaseous waste into the air, Luke sat there unkNOSEngly and incogNOSEnt of what was going on. The nose-cripple bastard ruined Difwarti! 90% of the fun comes from making someone cringe at the vile sent emitted from your escape pod (the other 10% comes from the satisfaction of emission), but alas, Luke cringed not. That's when he came out to us and said, "You guys, I've been meaning to tell you this for a long time...I'm nose deaf...I hope we can still be friends."

We were shocked. A few guys even stormed out of the room. One yelled, "I knew you were lying when you said I didn't have B.O.!" As for myself, everything suddenly made sense. I always found it odd that Luke never put his nose up to scratch-n-sniff snickers, but instead just kept scratching, kind of like a pathetic dog trying to get into the house. And rarely did he ever have blue or red marker ink on his nostrils from getting too close to the Mr. Sketch markers. And never once while we were in a public restroom did he laugh at my joke that "damn, this bathroom sure smells like a bathroom!" Then again, no one ever did, except my cousin Borris who can give you a contact high just by breathing on you.

Luke went on to describe his condition to us and how it's affected his life...how he loves hard-boiled eggs and tuna fish sandwiches, how he never knows when to change his baby sister's diaper, how he's tasted spoiled milk more times than he can remember, and how this one time, someone told him to stop and smell the roses, and he cried himself to sleep that very night. This after he surrounded his bed with a roomful of crushed roses and he screamed over and over towards the ceiling "I CAN'T!"

After hearing his heart-wrenching story, I committed myself to finding a cure, not just for Luke but for all the nose-deaf people out there deprived of enjoying the full experience of a warm apple pie. I don't care if it involves shoving smelling salts covered in Sex Panther(made from real bits of panther) up his nose, I will find a way to jumpstart his malfunctioning sense. Just call me Nostrildamus 'cuz I only see his nose in my future.

As for the rest of you, you can learn more about Luke's condition here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anosmia. And I encourage you to donate to my foundation NoseNoLimits.org because you just never know who might be nose-deaf or eye-dumb or mouth-blind or ear-mute or brain-impotent.

Paranormal Activity, I’m Glad You Weren’t in 3D

excerpt from my review:

I really dislike scary movies (and the Scary Movie series for that matter). When I saw The Ring, it was on HBO at 10 in the morning in the middle of July with the summer sun beaming into my living room, and I still couldn’t bear to see a television screen for an entire month afterwards. I totally went analog and had to read books for entertainment. It was terrible. All the characters sounded like me!...

Read the rest of my review at pinkraygun.com!

The Hand-ler

Today on my morning commute, I nestled my buns in between two seated passengers on the train. While hunched over with my head down, the man to my left caught my gaze with his peculiar actions. He sat there with his arms rested on his lap, and continuously wafted each of his hands with methodical consistency. And when I say wafted, I mean the same way one might discreetly waft away the gaseous cloud of stank after a public display of fartulence. He would extend his left hand forward, palm turned inward, and waft it with the right hand for three times. Then, he would extend the right hand forward, palm turned inward, and waft it three times with the left. He performed this absurd act over and over for at least four stops. Was it some kind of ritual? Was he blessing his hands? Or cursing the attractive male to his right in a fit of jealous rage? Or maybe he was trying to cool down his palms after handling hot coals? [Tangent: When Santa Claus leaves naughty little boys and girls coal in their stockings, is the coal lit?? That's just cruel Santa. Way to burn down the house.]

It actually reminded me of this one time in high school when we caught the Latin teacher (not to be confused with the Latina teacher, Profesora Gomez) at his desk doing what only can be best described as seated tai chi with the intent to kill. Whatever the guy next to me was doing, I prayed to Jesus (my Chicano friend, not the son of God) that he did not have the intent to kill.

In any case, he was clearly focused on his hand routine. He breathed heavily and in rhythm with his actions as he did it, kind of like lamaze class (uhh, not that I've ever been...). Maybe he was about to give birth I thought. Then suddenly, he sped up the wafting. Instead of three wafts per hand, he went down to two wafts each, and then to one each. My head was spinning watching his hands go faster and faster and faster and then....the train screeched to a halt. He stood calmly and deboarded. "What the hell just happened?"

As soon as he left, I did a seat slide-over. Now, directly seated in front of the window across the way, I could see my reflection. My head had shrunken to the size of a kiwi.

Words with The oGRE

That's not a hug, that's an abduction.

A passage written almost entirely in GRE vocabulary:
The stolid but stalwart novitiate prevaricated the inimical harangue by fallaciously paraphrasing the elegic obloquy of an urbane and spleen progenitor. However, the impetuous, saturnine, and jejune tyro equivocated inchoate intimations that inveighed veracity and engendered disultory promulgations, fomenting a proliferation of inauspicious opprobrium. The neotitialate remonstrapulated the exigentuousity of the falendipitous resplengence akin to a malifstontae capalictus deronstata and pusillanimous puissant forendent nakamura pluribus unum poughkeepsie duodenum oblongata krzyzewski teppanyaki veni vidi vici optimus expiallodocious pinky toe.

Translation: Fuck Your Life cuz you're not getting a good score on this exam, you torpid-minded ignoramus. Even Ghostwriter can't help you now!

A passage written almost entirely in Boogie Brown vocrapulary:
I don't get it, you walk on a "runway," walk forwards on a "sidewalk," and sit down at the "movies." wtf?

Translation: I need friends, but there are obvious reasons why I don't have so many in the first place. I was so disappointed when I found out that "Paypal" wasn't a rent-a-friend service. Platonic escort FAIL.

Needless to say, I didn't score quite as high on The GRE as Zack Morris did on the SAT (fifteen hundred and two to be exact).


I think Stansbury is calling.

When will the hurting stop?

The guard at the door made me turn my front pockets inside out. He then had me turn around and said in his coarse blase voice, "now the back pockets." I was at a loss as to how I was supposed to turn my butt pockets inside out. I settled instead for stuffing my hands into each pouch and molesting my own butt cheeks to prove the pockets were empty. I thought my performance deserved at least a 20 dollar tip, but he was no bachelorette party and I doubted a desk jockey like him would carry anything bigger than a five anyway.

After proving I was contraband free, he led me into a sound-proof room with soul-sucking fluorescent lights, and sat me down at my station. Big brother looked down at me from a series of cameras hovering over each station. They broadcast to a bank of monitors at the guard's desk, where I'm sure he looked on like the albino from Princess Bride delighting in every year extracted from my life by "the machine." Where was Andre the Giant and the jerry-curled swordsman when you needed them?....To my knowledge, the former is 6-feet under (but laid horizontally, not vertically; otherwise his head and torso would be sticking out of the plot) and the latter got typecasted and now appears as the omnipresent swashbuckler on bottles of spiced rum. But I digress...

I clicked start on the computer screen, and the game of torture known only as the GRE began. For those that don't know, GRE stands for Generating Responses of Excruciation. It's more like a psychological experiment testing my ability to endure pain for 3 hours than it is an aptitude exam. The GRE (pronounced "gree," short for "grief") comes in the form of a computer adaptive test that adapts to my every move. It's like a Darwinian bird and I'm the environment, and unfortunately, the environment always gets shitted on.

The problem is that the GRE does not function like normal evaluators in our society, utilizing positive enforcement for accomplishing goals and strong performance. It does not give gold stars for sharing my toys or smelly stickers for raising my hand before talking. Instead of high fiving me, The GRE rewards correct answers by sweeping my leg with harder questions! That's like a firefighter that saves a cat from a tree and gets rewarded by being thrown into a lion pit with a bread knife and a half can of spam. It's like winning the 100 meter dash at the olympics, and instead of gold, you get your left leg chopped off and then forced to run the New York City marathon. Abu Ghraib, eat your heart out...too soon?

I frantically clicked away as my body sunk lower into my chair with each passing question. Several times during the test I looked up at the cameras and gave the guard the finger. My brain was getting bruised worse than Kanye's ego at the hands of POTUS B-HO. Images of mushroom clouds erupted in my mind over and over and over. After nearly three hours, it was finished...or so I thought. The GRE decided to throw an extra 30 minute section of "experimental" questions at me. It was the encore to the show that no one asked for. A second helping of Aunt Tom's wild meat surprise while you're still trying to hold down the first serving. But I endured.

At the end of it all, I was slumped over the side of my chair, drenched in my own sweat and other anonymous wastes, my mouth agape and begging in dry whispers for water and/or my mother. A pair of burly men in white lab coats came and dragged me away. I think one of them stole my wallet and flicked me in my teeth. When I came to, I found myself in a barren field half naked (I'll let your imagination decide which half...left or right). I crawled to the side of a lonely road where I stuck out my thumb with a cracked nail. A weathered Chevy pickup pulled over beside me.

The driver leaned out the passenger window and asked, "Where ya headed?"

"Grad school," I replied.

"I see. That explains why you look like shit. The GRE..."

I climbed in and we drove off into the horizon.