I never thought this would happen to me.

Figure 12: I have a tail now

I swear to god it was an accident. I never planned it out this way. If I could turn back time, maybe things would be different. Nobody can live a life without regrets, you know, and if I could choose just one thing to change over all these years so various and full of detail, I'd never have accidentally grown this tail.

Look, I understand if you don't want to be my friend anymore. I mean, I have a tail now. Things are gonna be different. I can accept that. I got no one to blame but myself. I let my guard down, you know? God help me but I let my guard down, and now I have a tail.

I thank you all in advance for your continued support/condolences as I ponder my next course of action. Certain tails are reversible, but that's pretty much only in the movies. I'm afraid this one may have reached a certain "escape velocity," so to speak, and has now doomed me to a life of sitting in ever higher chairs to keep my tail from brushing the ground. I hate high chairs.

Don't cry for me. Don't you dare. You have a wonderful head of hair with all the correct protuberances befitting. Don't waste this gift. Sometimes the Lord will open a window, and another window will open out into a door with a window, but sometimes when He closes a window He opens a window. It's like, you can see the Universe in that window. Its like, there were two footprints in some places but in others there was a third footstep, but only the third footstep was just a faint dragging line, because all along my tail was behind me, and now it is all sandy. And it's like in each grain of sand is a whole entire Universe, and in each Universe is a man, a man who has accidentally grown a tail. There is a place for us, though. Dont you cry. Don't you cry tonight. For everywhere a child is mesmerized by the ever-rising spiral of the classic barber's pole, I will be there. Everywhere a man walks into Great Clips not looking like Bob Saget but walks out looking just like Bob Saget, I will be there. Every time a woman tells her hairdresser to make her look like Jennifer Aniston, but then she doesn't, I will be there. No, don't cry for me. As sure as "two bits" must follow "shave and a haircut," as sure as each day somebody responds "all of them" to "did you get your hair cut," as sure as even the most unobservant man happens once in a blue moon to guess correctly when asked if he "notices anything different about me," I will be there, my glorious tail fluttering majestically in the breeze behind me, the mane of the mightiest lion, the tail of the mightiest ass.

Know this: the mightiest ass is me, dear reader. And this is my tail.

Jesus fucking christ did I pick the wrong fucking day to try to take a fucking nap.

Fuck.

I made up a new word

"Adaptacious." It's a word for when you are trying to describe why some trait evolved. Kind of a mix of "advantageous" and "adaptive."

Example usage: Flashing lights capture our attention because it was adaptacious for early humans to notice sudden luminance changes in their visual environment, such as those when say a giant flaming meteor was coming down to kill their dinosaur buddies, or a burning bush was trying to tell them it was that it was.

I will fight you if you don't start using this word.

Tiny Fractal Tuba: Science Fact or Science Fiction?

Hey, look, I'm not one of those dudes who's all into fractals as a Thing. I mean, you're not gonna see me hangin' around in like a fractal shirt and you're not gonna hear me talkin' about how if we could understand fractals we could like solve hunger and racism and probably travel to distant reaches of space besides.

Figure 12: I'm not this guy

But check it out: have you heard about fractal antennas*? It is so cool. They can make antennas with a ton of surface area but still tiny, because all the surface area is from all the little tiny details instead of in broad lines, you know? Shit, there's probably one in your cell phone! Believe it.

Figure 12: Believe it

Well anyhow I was thinking: why can't we use this technology to make a tiny tuba? It could have a pretty small tube, diameter-wise, but one that is just outrageously long, but you know, long from being all bent around into outlandish, somewhat psychedelic shapes that are produced from the same kind of self-similarity iteration type processes as those t-shirt patterns.

It would make such a low sound, but yet it would fit in the palm of your hand. (If your spine isn't tingling right now, either you don't care about the inconvenient size of the commercially available tubas of the day, or you maybe have some sort of neural problem you maybe should get checked out). I'm serious. This could change everything.

Scientists! Metallurgists! Help me! Now we make our millions! This is the dream that John Phillip Sousa never even knew he had!

Figure 12: Every Single Music Video in the History of the Genre was Leading Up to This Moment, But Still, Imagine it With Four Tiny Fractal Tubas

*I dare you to tell me I should say antennae. I fuckin' DARE you.

A new tongue-twister / This is serious.

I accidentally thought of a tongue twister. It is "ghost titty." You gotta say it ten times fast, but you can't just make one "T" sound for the end of "ghost" and the start of "titty"-- you gotta do the full stop there to get both "T"s in. Go ahead, try it.

* * * * *

I'm gonna not be funny for a week. Starting today. I'm not gonna make any jokes. I'm not gonna share any creative mishearings. I'm not gonna tell any hilarious stories. I'm not gonna say things with any weird timing to make people laugh. I'm not gonna make any funny faces or deadpans even. Please don't laugh at me. Not this week. I'm gonna walk real carefully to make sure I don't trip, since that is also funny. I'm gonna keep really alert so I don't seem stupid in a funny way. I'm gonna eat food that isn't funny (caesar salad), watch TV shows that aren't funny (Everybody loves Ray), go to movies that aren't funny (that one where that mopey actor is a child-molestin' priest), and hang out with people that aren't funny (shit I may need some new friends). See, nobody takes funny shit seriously. Bein' funny never got nobody nowhere. I am on strike. I am on strike until people take funny shit seriously. This is a call to action. People who are just always trying to be funny, are you with me? Let's not try to be funny. Not this week.

God damnit, though, I'm pretty sure it's gonna turn out just fucking hilarious. Fuck.

I got a cool idea for a commercial for a dryer or maybe for a hairdryer

Actually that is a lie, it is a Terrible idea. It is to use that James Brown song but change it to "dry me" instead of "try me."



I'm sorry.

Shocking confessions

Here are some realizations that I came to much later than by rights I ought to have:

• That word that sounds like "shiek" and that word that is spelled "chic" don't just have similar meanings, they are the same word! (2001)
  
• It's "up and at 'em," not "up and Adam." (2000)
  
• "News" is just the plural of "new." (2007)
  
• "Specific" and "general" come from species and genera. (2009)
  
• Just as that old cheap beer called Meisterbrau is the lion of beers, the lion itself is the lion of the animal kingdom. (2003)
  
• Mickey Rooney and Andy Rooney are two completely different people. (2007)
  
• Tom Colicchio (the bald judge from Top Chef) and Andrew Zimmer (the bald dude who eats weird food) are two completely different people. (2008)
  
• The Indian dude in Short Circuit isn't Indian at all. (2006)
  

I know I have had some more hilarious ones than this. Such are the consequences of not demanding too much sense out of the world. If I should die after all please let my epitaph be "late to the party." Do this for a man who only this year finally unravelled the concepts of Judge Reinhold, Judd Nelson, and the guy who played Judge Harry Stone on Night Court.

HOLY FUCKING SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WE HAVE A MOTHERFUCKING BLACK PRESIDENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!


*in the style of this.

Karaoke fail

Heart's These Dreams: too high to sing like them, too low to sing like me. Every second on the stage, the further I was away... from not sucking.




Genesis' Invisible Touch: the lyrics got to me and slowly tore me apart.


Better luck next week.

It is hardest to lose what was never found

When I was a kid I used to cheat at Battleship sometimes. What I'd do is keep track of all the squares my opponent guessed and keep moving my ships around to the remaining empty spaces. You'd be surprised how many misses it would take to eliminate every group of five contiguous squares, to just the extent my brothers and friends were surprised at how many rounds it would take to get that first hit on my aircraft carrier.

I am trying to tell a story whose moral is this: it is much harder to let go of something that doesn't exist than something that does. Things that actually exist have edges and locations. Ghosts cling to every cell and will take up residence in any space they can find. Made up things are even harder to sink than that tiny little destroyer I'd keep moving around until I'd win.

Hobosexuals

They're freakin' everywhere. Watch out. They're comin' out of the walls. They're increasing in numbers. They can really squeeze it into a place, too, to the tune of an entire OC* per barroom. They might... bump into you. They might... question your authenticity. But also they are loveable little ragamuffins who deserve all the love and respect you'd give their new-tymey counterparts. I'm just sayin', some of my best friends are hobosexuals.

*Oliver Cast: the basic unit of number of hobosexuals in a given horde is the amount needed to cast the movie Oliver.