The Randomness of the Universe Comes to Town

A bunch of things that don't exist yet, and I'm not even sure what they'd be, but they sound pretty neat:

Oreos: The Platinum Collection

Micropepper

No-sided dice

Sherlock Holmes and the Piece of Paper

Tollbooth porn

Stutterers Without Borders

TithingCon 2010

Doughnut milk

Foldable cactus

Love between two poltergeists

Twitter solitaire

Peeblers!

Peeblers! Now with bigger surface area

Antiquing with Lou Diamond Phillips

Audio recordings of meat

Abercrombie & Putin

See Yourself Inside a Rhombus

Horse chickens

Cat butter

Snowmobiles

Partisanshipitude

Congressman, I fully respect your outrage concerning the issue before us, but as I believe I’ve stated many times for the panel, there are only so many new ideas floating around the universe, and sometimes we must simply be patient and wait for them to strike us. Please keep in mind how far we’ve come from the days when human beings were forced to show appreciation for each other’s sports-related deeds with a mere handshake. The advances made in athletic feat acknowledgement in this country are simply mind-boggling, and I’m positive that with the right funding stream, America will always stay out in front of other countries in this area. We’ve got the high-five, the low-five, the butt-pat, the fist bump, the boisterous leap into the air with the half-twist so that only the sides of the body connect, and by spring of 2011, we hope to introduce something we refer to as the Forearm Swirl, which will give any adult male a way to physically express his approval of another’s homerun, touchdown, or clutch free throw that may make all previous methods obsolete. What we must avoid, Congressman, is the temptation to panic and become too hasty with launching these things in our desire to usher in the next age of congratulating a dude for that sweet catch in the corner of the end zone. I point to the recent disasters plaguing the Federal Foundation for the Development of Stadium Sports Anthems as an example of what can happen when we panic just because the Canadians suddenly realized an old Suzanne Vega song perfectly expressed the emotions that follow when the Edmonton Oilers kill off a power play. Today, for example, is the first I’m hearing of this absurd notion of bringing props into the mix; we as a nation are years away from developing that sort of technology. I don’t care that men in the English Premier League have taken to brushing each other gently across the jaw with a loaf of raisin bread after goals; this is a different culture and our own sports franchises will not take kindly to either the expense associated with the beta testing of this trend or to being forced to adopt it just when the practice of giving each other the E.T. finger and then spinning around in a circle until dizzy has proven popular after three-pointers in the lower divisions of college basketball. And I’ll tell you something else, Congressman: I don’t appreciate being blindsided with this issue as I sit here in a bus station in El Paso. I don’t have to tell you that stalking an ex-girlfriend requires subtlety and anonymity, and I expect to be reimbursed for all the time and travel it’s taken me to adopt this most awesome disguise of a homeless man walking around with all his possessions in a cat carrier. Original twist, eh? Cat carrier? Eh?

Why I'm Poorly Regarded: The Transcript

TECH SUPPORT: Thank you for calling Dole Bananas, this is Ben, how may I help you?

SN: Hi, my name is Soren, and I’m having a problem playing one of the games in the Kidz Korner on your web site.

TECH SUPPORT: I’m sorry to hear that; can you describe the problem for me?

SN: Um, it’s when I’m playing Mon key Business, I know for a fact that I beat my high score because I popped 33 balloons, I was counting aloud to myself, but it wouldn’t save it.

TECH SUPPORT: Okay, I see. I’d be happy to help you with that. Would you like me to manually override your high score?

SN: Oh, that would be awesome!

TECH SUPPORT: Certainly. I’ll just need your Kidz Korner username and password. If your parents are there, maybe they know it.

SN: No, that’s okay, I’m forty, so I got it. The username is AlanAlda, and the password is 4077MASH.

TECH SUPPORT: Okay, let me just bring your record up…there we go. Now to manually override a high score, we will need to ask you the two security questions you set up, okay?

SN: Sure, I remember those.

TECH SUPPORT: Okay, the first one is, what is the name of the street you grew up on?

SN: Walnut!

TECH SUPPORT: Okay, and the second one is, can you sum up for me Arthur Schopenhauer’s philosophy of the will?

SN: Ooooooh….yeah, let me think for a second. Damn. Um….Schopenhauer was critical of Kant and Hegel’s logical optimism and the belief that individual morality could be determined by society and reason. Right? Is that right?

TECH SUPPORT: Yes, that is correct, but there’s more.

SN: Oh I know, I know….um….Schopenhauer believed that humans were motivated only by….oh shoot, they were motivated by something…..it wasn’t fruits and vegetables….was it pride?

TECH SUPPORT: Uhhhh, nooo….

SN: No, wait, it was their own basic desires, or Wille zum Leben, “the will to live”! For him, human desire was futile, illogical, directionless, and, by extension, so was all human action in the world. To Schopenhauer, the Will is a metaphysical existence which controls not only the actions of individual, but ultimately all observable phenomena!

TECH SUPPORT: Okay, thank you sir. In three to five business days, your high score should appear on the web site, though I’m required by law to advise you that the Kids Korner will be taken down next Friday with all scores erased.

SN: Oh. Oh. How come?

TECH SUPPORT: How come? You know sir, I don’t have the answer to that question at my fingertips, and frankly, when I was a young man growing up in Paris, wanting only to become a great artist and sacrificing everything I had just to buy paints and canvas, starving on the streets but experiencing an almost hallucinatory joy when a passerby paused on the street to simply glance at one of my landscapes, it’s not a question I thought I would ever have to hear or answer. In fact, now that I think of it, the phrase “Now hiring Dole Bananas Kidz Korner FT/PT Customer Care Specialists / Open interviews on Tuesday” never once entered my mind as I lay night after night beside the enigmatic Arianne on the makeshift bed we made, huddled against the city of light’s brutally cold winter yet warmed and empowered by our dreams of a world where beauty was valued above all things. Is there anything else I can do for you today, sir?

SN: Well….where am I going to play Monkey Business?

TECH SUPPORT: I just don’t know, sir. I just don’t know.

Good Times Where There's Not Always Teens Playing Their Music

Your Eminence, I really have to tell you something today. I mean, we’re both men of God, sure, but once in a great while I feel we should open up our inner selves as men of the world. You don’t mind if I hit you with a little shot of reality, do you? You’d be down with that, right? The thing I’ve always wanted to say is that for me, what it’s all about is what we’re doing right now---walking along very slowly across a perfectly manicured lawn with a flawlessly trimmed hedge to our right, a big marble fountain to our left, and our hands clasped behind our backs while speaking quietly. Call me a man of simple tastes, but this has always just totally buttered my toast. Ever since I was a little kid watching a movie involving some scene of high-ranking church types walking very slowly across a perfectly manicured lawn with a flawlessly trimmed hedge to their right, a big marble fountain to their left, and some genuine clasped-hands-‘n’-quiet-speaking action being rocked out, I thought to myself, “Man, that looks killer. Stick me in a red cap in a tasteful garden setting and flank my sorry ass with a cardinal or a bishop on a sunny day and I’d be king of the world.” And it’s turned out to be one of those rare things that’s even better than advertised. And who’d have thought that it’s really all we do as church elders? Seriously, you’d think there’d be no way we could be out here in this same garden-type-thing every goddamn morning strolling along and yakking in low voices about this-and-that without someone eventually catching on that no actual work is getting done, but nope! Anyway, I know you’re more into the whole Jesus angle of what we do, and that’s very cool. I just felt the need to express a little appreciation for this particular activity and let you know that if you were ever having thoughts like, “Hmm, I wonder if the garden setting strolling is getting a tad stale for Father De Brickassart,” the answer is a bag fat “No freaking way, Goddie!” When I think that tomorrow morning you and I are going to calmly and respectfully discuss expanding the Ottawa seminaries’ reach into the community while we cruise past the marble fountain for the millionth time and regard the hedge and maybe get a little crazy by unclasping our hands from behind our backs to touch a rose or something, I get completely deked. You know what really caps it off? It’s when we pause briefly at the end of ol’ Mr. Hedge so you can totally blow me away with one of those pithy conversation-ending recollections that manages to tie our whole discussion into some religious anecdote that cuts to the heart of the matter in like eight seconds. When you drop one of those mothers on me, I can almost hear some director somewhere shouting “Aaaaaand….cut! Print it!” Let’s shoot for one of those moments today, okay, your Eminence?

Crap, I heard it was going to rain tomorrow. This whole vibe just does not work if we’re wearing the giveaway parkas we got that time we went to the Packers game.