It's only a coincidence...

That this cartoonist's name is also Rob.... But I so been there.


Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

Do not adjust your sets...

This is not a photoshop image. This is an actual Photograph of Captain Chaos and his illegal immigrant sidekick, Catastrophe Boy 5. (after the first 4 Catastrophe Boys perished due to, well.. catastrophes, The good captain decided to save money by hiring his sidekicks in front of his local Home Depot.)

There is a saying in Fandom circles... being a fan means never having to say "where would I wear this?". And so this weekend, Mobicon was the perfect place to wear the Captain Chaos outfit I've been working on.

I admit, I had considered not going to Mobicon this year due to having the worst week ever last week... but the hotel room was already reserved, my admission was already paid for, and a whole heap of my friends were going including my masked friend above, better known as Dave. Yes, that is indeed Dave... looking completely different than normal with a porn star style wig and mustache. We walked up to several people we knew throughout the night, and few recognized him until I gave up our secret identities.

Apparently, Dave makes for a very convincing migrant worker... and I need to work on the whole "secret" part of the secret identity thing. It seems that when surrounded by women like in the picture to my right, it apparently doesn't take long to get me to give up my name, address phone number, blood type, voter registration number and credit card information. I am proud though, that not once did I take off the mask that night. (the photo was from the night before when I was much, much drunker) On the bright side, Being Captain Chaos acted as an automatic filter for screening out women that were way to young for me to be messing with. If they didn't recognize me... probably too young. I did however notice that a number of the younger women thought Dave and I were supposed to be a pair of mexican wrestlers.

And lo, the generational gap gets wider.

In any event it was a fun weekend. Among the more notible highlights...

1) Taking a voice over seminar with Dave and laughing hysterically at how much he sounded like the old child molester character from 'Family Guy' when reading his copy.

2) Made a few contacts that may lead to me doing more paranormal investigations in alabama.

3) The following exchange between me and a pretty woman:

Me: My name is Rob... as in the verb 'to steal'
Her: As in to steal my heart?
Me: I am so using that line from now on.

4) Dave doing a pratfall every time I introduced him as Catastrophe Boy. Most people just thought he was drunk.

5) The quieter room parties suddenly filling up within mere moments of Captain Chaos entering the room. I know that where I am, that's where the party is... but to see it confirmed was astounding. By the end of the night, we were greeted more than once by "It's Captain Chaos, and he's come to save our party!"

6) About halfway through the night, me having to explain why I saved the dog at the end of the Cannonball Run instead of winning the race. Then being backed up by a fanboy who thought that was the right decision.

7) Getting shot down by women that were way out of my league not once, not twice, but thrice.

8) Being admonished by a friend for not being in the right place at the right time to stop some loser from making off with an entire tray of jello shots from a room party. (Where was Captain Chaos when we needed HIM? HE could have stopped this guy!)

9) Me blaming it on Catastrophe Boy when he was out of earshot.

So, I talked to my Dad...

And he is in much better spirits... He said to give a shout out to all those that expressed their sympathies, and expressly forbade me from leaving flaming dog poop on anyone's doorstep. After a few laughs over how silly the whole thing was to him, we spent the rest of our conversation discussing the intelectual enuii expressed in the latest Godzilla movie.

No, that doesn't mean making "Groonk, Groonk" noises at each other in an attempt to capture Godzilla's inner pathos.

You know, I know my Dad's a big nerd just like his eldest son, but it always surprises me when he out-geeks me. I called him from in fromt of my friend Leah's house, who lives only a few blocks from the local fire station. Apparently, at 6pm, they test their air raid/tornado warning siren. It was really loud, and I joked with Dad that it sounded like they were calling the Morlocks. this, I figured was a rather clever joke referencing the classic George Pal movie, The Time Machine. Dad chuckled but didn't laugh.... instead he got all Fanboy on me and said, "Excuse me? don't you mean 'calling the Eloi'?" He was of course correct, but only 5% of the freakin population would have not only noticed the difference, but to called me on it.

Old geeks never die. They just win more trivia contests.

A dish best served cold does not begin to describe it.

First of all, I would like to express my gratitude for the outpouring of support that followed yesterday's blog. I truly appreciate all the comments and text messages I got. Nice to feel like the rest of the world cares :) I'm doing okay, though my thoughts right now are twisting toward revenge unto those what scorned my pappy. (Watched a lot of old Popeye cartoons over the weekend... sorry.)

First, I considered driving the 1500 or so miles to leave a bag of flaming dog poop on my uncle's front porch, but dismissed that as a touch juvenile. Well, that and I realized that if I really wanted to do that, I have agents in place that can do it for me without having to drive further than across the room to my cell phone. Agents who I can disavow knowledge of should the need arise. (best kind of agents... heh heh heh)

Then I calmed down slightly and called The coolest girl in the world, (yes, I am cool enough that I have the coolest girl in the world's phone number... but it ain't like that, so don't playa hate, y'all.) Who suggested mailing the offending parties a dead squirrel or two via third class mail. This was a great idea, (she is the coolest girl in the world, after all) but I get ill to my stomach just disposing of a mouse trap, much less while mailing a dead furry mammal.

During our conversation, she said something that has been ringing around my brain ever since.... "Perhaps it's time to enact some of the more elaborate revenge schemes you've come up with over the years, Rob."

I'm not a vengeful sort, folks... but I do believe that the universe has its own way of keeping itself just. If that includes, say, an anonymous tip to the authorities saying that you saw a number of dead hookers in the trunk of your next-door neighbor's brand new car that he insists on parking in your parking space every day, well then that was what the universe needed to balance itself.

In the spirit of such, I have often been called upon as a consultant in the fine art of getting even over the years. Many of my best laid plans have never come to fruition, as it's been my experience that a lot of time the vengeful person feels better by only to planning the vengeance... not the actually going through with it.

Completely dismantling an a**holes car and leaving the pieces around the city, then leaving him a map with the location of the parts is a lot more fun to plan than do. The thought of walling up all the entrances to the school newspaper with bricks and mortar because they published an unflattering picture is worth a laugh or two, but is really difficult to do without getting caught. Scaring the bejeusus out of a teacher that gets on your case for not doing your homework with what amounts to a big toy ray gun would be cool... but might also be good for a talk with the department of homeland security.

It's really very simple, folks... Imagination + Dark Humor= Great vengeance schemes + catharsis.

Anyway... as a result, many of my more elaborate schemes have sat on the shelf for many years. Some I admit to being impractical, like turning someone's prized in ground pool into a large vat of jello is really difficult if you don't have acess to the property, or a way to cool the jello down to gelling temperature.

Some are simply not financially viable, like sending as many animal performers and spacewalks to a bachelor's home, (with the understanding that to be paid, they must stay at this location) at various times throughout the day under the guise of a fictitious children's party being held there.

He, he, he. I defy anyone not to go ballistic by the time the llamas get there.

So, maybe I'll just content myself that I could come up with a daring and appropriate revenge scheme for now. After all, there is a slim chance that I will eventually run into these people at some god-awful family event, so I probably shouldn't do anything. Maybe I'll just leave it to Dad to mete out whatever retribution he feels appropriate. In fact, I'm gonna call him tonight to let him know I've got his back... maybe he'll feel better if we plan us some "revenge we'll never go through with" too.

Plus that, when I think about it... I doubt Grandma would have approved of me sending one of those big exterminators tents to my uncle's houses while they're all at work...

a bad weekend.

As many of you know, I was having a rough week last week. Flat tires, bad luck, feeling just generally down… and I was looking forward to the weekend in an “at least it will be over then” kind of way. Heh… Little did I know what drama the weekend would send hurtling in my direction. I swear, I’m starting to feel a little like Karma’s chew toy. I’ve been sitting at my computer for a few hours trying to think of a good way to sum up all the thoughts storming through my brain about the events that have hit my life, and I totally need to write about it.

Part of me wonders if I should even post this, as it goes into a bit more detail about me and mine than I am generally comfortable posting here…

I think it all boils down to three conversations… two that were kinda (censored) up, and the other that was really, really (censored) up. Here they are (in snippets) for those of you that want the dish on the real messed stuff that’s bothering me, go ahead and skip to the third conversation…

First came the kinda, in a phone conversation from Charity’s best friend, “Biscuit”

Biscuit: Hey, Rob… I wanted to let you know that Charity’s in the Hospital again.

Me: I wish I could say I’m surprised. What happened?

B: Well, you know how she moved in with her boyfriend, right?

Me: The one with the self-esteem issues, yeah.

B: well, apparently she stopped taking her medication.

Me: Quelle Surprise. So, what did she do?

B: She threw a bucket at him.

Me: A bucket of what?

B: I don’t know… but he called me to ask what he should do.

Me: So you told him to learn to duck, right?

B: (not reacting to the joke) No. I told him I didn’t know. He called 911 and had the police take her to the hospital.

Next came when I made the obligatory phone call to Charity’s mom.

Charity’s mom: So, you heard.

Me: Yeah, Biscuit told me.

CM: How the heck did she know?

Me: Charity’s new man told her.

CM: Her, but not me until the hospital realized they had no place to put her.

Me: Uh… what?

CM: I only found out last night. The folks at the hospital say that there are no beds anywhere in south Louisiana, and they need a family member’s permission to send her elsewhere. Right now they’re looking at Shereveport.

Me: WHAT?

CM: There’s a mental health crisis going on here, Rob! They have no where to put her, and have been keeping her in the emergency room for the past three days!

Me: Lovely.

The last one had thankfully, nothing to do with Charity, but was the single most F’ed up phone call I believe I have ever gotten. I’ll let y’all decide for yourselves. It was on Mother’s day, when my Brother called me for what I thought was his usual “don’t forget to call mom” call. (I never forget to call, but Jay always calls anyway… such is the nature of my relationship with my brother)

Jay: Hi, Rob…

Me: Relax. I’m gonna call her. How’s your play going? Were the reviews good? How was…

J: Robbie, shut up for a second.

Me: what’s wrong?

J: Grandma Cerio passed away.

Me: Oh, man. When’s the funeral?

J: It was on Staten Island last Friday.

Me: WHAT? Why didn’t Dad call me to tell me? I would have come up, or at the least sent flowers!

J: Robbie, he didn’t know.

Me: WHAT!?!

J: Mom found out today, from Aunt Vita (Mom’s godmother) who saw the Obituary and asked her about it. Mom was pissed she hadn’t been told like you were just now. So she calls Dad, only to find out that he didn’t know. None of his brothers thought to call him and tell him.

Me: Jay, that is the single most (Censored) up thing I’ve ever heard.

J: Tell me about it.

Me: Those (censored, censored, censoredy-censored) pieces of (censored censored) monkey (censored)! Didn’t they think he’d want to (censored) know his mother died? What the (censored) is wrong with those (censored) people!?!

J: You’re preaching to the choir.

Me: I know…Jay, just promise me one thing…

J: What?

Me: No matter what happens between us in the future, if one of our parents dies, you’ll TELL ME!

J: Agreed. We’re not them, bro…we’re not them. Call Dad when you have a minute.

Me: Right.

I did call Dad later… not really knowing what to say. I’m not used to hearing that much pain in his voice, but I offered to be there if he needed to talk about it, and to call and curse out certain select members of his family any time he asks. What else could I say? What else can I do?

It was a truly F’ed up weekend.

Having a bad day? Not with Chuck Norris...

I'm having another bad day.

This morning, I walked out of my house to go to work and find I had a flat tire. I go to fix the tire with the can of fix-a-flat I keep in the trunk for just such an emergency, and the top of the can ruptures, spraying liquid latex over me, the car, the house, and half a block of sidewalk. I borrowed a can of the stuff from a neighbor that heard me cursing extremely loudly, filled the tire, and then drove into nothing but traffic from my house to the door of the factory.

Being that Karma has decided to make me it's bitch, I'm thinking I must have done something really horrible while sleepwalking, cause damned if I can think of anything I did while conscious to deserve the week I'm having.

Anyway, It was a slower day at work today, so I found myself browsing a site filled with Facts about Chuck Norris. Dave has a t-shirt with a number of these on them, but there were a full eight pages of ones I'd never heard of before. I laughed myself silly for twenty minutes.

Among my favorites:

Time waits for no man. Unless that man is Chuck Norris.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool Chuck Norris once and he will roundhouse you in the face.

Chuck Norris originally appeared in the "Street Fighter II" video game, but was removed by Beta Testers because every button caused him to do a roundhouse kick. When asked bout this "glitch," Norris replied, "That's no glitch."

If you spell Chuck Norris in Scrabble, you win. Forever.

There is no theory of evolution, just a list of creatures Chuck Norris allows to live.

That's not Chuck Norris doing push-ups -- that's Chuck Norris moving the Earth away from the path of a deadly asteroid.

The quickest way to a man's heart is with Chuck Norris' fist.

The Great Wall of China was originally created to keep Chuck Norris out. It failed miserably.

Crop circles are Chuck Norris' way of telling the world that sometimes corn needs to lie down.

Chuck Norris is the reason why Waldo is hiding.

The chief export of Chuck Norris is Pain.

Chuck Norris ordered a Big Mac at Burger King, and got one.

Chuck Norris doesn't bowl strikes, he just knocks down one pin and the other nine faint.

Some people wear Superman pajamas. Superman wears Chuck Norris pajamas.

Chuck Norris does not own a stove, oven, or microwave , because revenge is a dish best served cold.

Chuck Norris can set ants on fire with a magnifying glass. At night.

If at first you don't succeed, you're not Chuck Norris.

Most boots are made for walkin'. Chuck Norris' boots ain't that merciful.

It is believed dinosaurs are extinct due to a giant meteor. That's true if you want to call Chuck Norris a giant meteor.

Hope y'all have brightened your day:)

Kahunah sans legendary "comedic timing"....

Today has been a very strange and troubling day. All day I have felt “out of sync” with my surroundings… I don’t know what triggered it, but it’s annoying as hell feeling like I’m exactly three seconds behind the rest of the universe.

I don’t handle being annoyed real well, folks. Tends ta make me grumpy. The grumpiness in turn, gives me a strange sort of detachment that prompts me to use phrases like “not if there were exploding flying monkeys involved”.

On top of this weird lag in my brain, I found today that I really need to check my Yahoo! Accounts more often. I don’t log in much anymore primarily because I don’t surf the web at home any more, and I don’t like to abuse my privileges by chatting at work. But my friend Steph was having a rough day yesterday, and asked that I log onto Yahoo messenger to chat if I could find the time.

Despite my three second lag, I did find the time… three seconds too late though, cause she wasn’t there.

The thing is, there were a bunch of offline messages waiting for me when I logged on. Normally I would delete them, as I’m not particularly interested in checking out nude pics of various women in compromising pictures or what they did this week with their sorority sisters. Okay, maybe I am a little interested… but I am also at work, folks; If I think chatting at work is abuse, well then porn on the company dime is a definite no-no.

Anyway, normally I would delete them, but I noticed a few mixed in there from people I knew, so I read them this time.

Apparently, about three months or so ago I got some fan mail about my blog over Yahoo from a 30ish woman that lives in Metairie. She found her way here through my yahoo profile, had lots of great compliments about my writing style, my creativity, and my sense of humor. She even expressed that she would love to hear from me. Normally, I would be positively giddy about this.

I’m in a bad mood as it is, and then I get said message THREE months later. From a woman who thinks me funny and charming and lives 20 minutes away. Not fair. SO not fair.

So, do I write back to her anyway?

Okay... the universe is still a right and just place...

Early reviews over on Ain't it Cool say that the Geico Cavemen Pilot stinks like a Wooly Mammoth that hasn't had the benefit of refrigeration.

Writers everywhere may now take their heads out of the noose.

It's another Meme Monday....

Culled from Manic Monday:

What do you remember about your first day of school?

Well, let’s see… 33 years or so ago, I was 4 years old, and entering Pre-K. (jeeze… there are countries in eastern Europe that didn’t last for 33 years.) I’m continually amazed that my photographic memory actually works back that far, but what I remember most was standing in line in a big blue hallway behind a cute little brunette girl while my Mom argued with some blonde haired lady about something I simply had no interest in. I remember the little girl turning around and smiling at me, and I remember her eyes were a deep shade of brown.

Have you ever attended a high school or college reunion? What was it like?

I tend to avoid reunions because the people I would want to talk to at them I’ve kept in touch with anyway. Plus that, when your high school graduating class consists of internet moguls and Nobel Prize nominees, you feel like a bit of a loser with a sales job that barely pays the rent.

Do you keep in regular contact with anyone from high school and/or college?

Yes, I do. I talk to or see almost all my close friends from college at least once a month, and have a friend from high school I call about once every two months. It’s a little strange, but I actually re-connected with a lot of folks from my high school/teenage years after Hurricane Katrina. (Most contacted me because they were worried I may have drowned or something.)

From Curious as a Cat:

If you had to explain the concept of religion to someone from another planet, how would you do it?

In science, we are taught to ask “why?” until everything is explained… drilling down into the core of the origin of everything. When you get to the point in your questions where science no longer can provide the answers, religion and faith take over.

Which one of your senses do you use the most? The least?

I use my vision the most I suppose I look at everything from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep. For the least, it’s probably (sadly) my sense of touch.

What event from your teen years would you like to relive just as it happened?

My fondest memories of my teen years are of hanging out after school in lower Manhattan with my best friend, Alex. It seemed back then like every day was another adventure waiting to happen, but mostly we would hang out in Battery Park watching the pretty wall street secretary types change out of their high heels after work and into their sneakers. We’d also eat a lot of Zeppoles and then throw the remaining powdered sugar at each other or even better at other kids that happened to piss us off, while watching the ships pass by on the harbor. Any one of those afternoons would fit the bill.

From the Drew Spiehler school of child-rearing...*

Remember folks... spare the duct tape, spoil the child.

*for those of you that don't get this joke... My buddy Drew had a habit in college of solving the annoying habits of his roommate, Ringo with duct tape. Charity and I walked in after one such incident to find Ringo taped quite skillfully to a large floor lamp. Charity said to me "Why is taped to a lamp? Should we help him?" to which I replied "No. He probably deserved it."

Edited to add: I'm reasonably sure Drew would never do this to Ace. Well, at least not until he's a little older anyway...

Tuning up your life

Over on Trading Up, I am off to a rousing start in my quest for a boat, and I couldn't be happier.

Ya see, I have had some time to think lately... (a side effect of my lack of a social life) and I've decided that my life needs an overhaul. Don't get me wrong... I'm genuinely thankful for all that I've been blessed with... but it occurs to me that my life isn't really the one that I want. Inside me, there is a half-crazy (well, some would say all-crazy) bohemian gypsy that longs to express himself. Society has pushed on me the idea that happiness lies in stability, safety, and family... but that isn't me, and I doubt it ever will be.

When I was with my wife, I never really felt whole. Char made me very, very happy (before her illness), but there was always part of me that felt... chained... by the whole prospect of settling down. I would routinely ignore the part of me screaming leave it all behind, buy a Harley, and spend my life exploring this wonderous planet we all share.

I'm not saying I'm gonna pack it up and wander through the west like Kane from Kung-fu, but as I start staring down the barrel of 40, I realize that the Crazed Gypsy inside me needs some time in the sun. My soul demands it!

And who am I to argue with my soul?

So, I've identified a few things that I feel that this other half of me needs... one is to travel more, which is one of the reasons that I've said that all the trades for 'Trading up' will be made in person. Another is that like all good bohemians, I feel the need to express myself through music, so I will learn to play a musical instrument if it freaking kills me. There are a few others, but it's all about the baby steps, people.

Lo, I am inspred to try an experiment....!

Inspired by Red Paper Clip Guy, I have a new idea for getting a houseboat by the time I'm 40.... and of course, a New Blog to chronicle the adventure. check it out!

The products of an extremely bored fat guy....

Well, in my never ending quest to improve my financial solvency... I decided to open my own little section of Zazzle. For those of you that don't know about the site, Zazzle is a neat little site that lets you make your own t-shirt slogans and offer them for sale to the public.

Originally, I went to this site simply because I've always wanted a shirt that says "So, do you like fat guys with no money?" I looked around the site a bit, and realized that there are surprisingly few t-shirts that express any sort of pride in being fat.

This, I figured, had to rectified.

So I tried to think of every funny thing I could to describe being fat, and put them onto a variety of reasonably priced t-shirts available now for your purchasing pleasure. Keep in mind, they make great gifts for the fat man in your life (even should that fat man be me) and are suitable for almost any occasion. Tell all your friends, neighbors and acquaintances to tell their friends, neighbors and acquaintances about how they simply must have one of these super clever shirts. Also, tell them to sign up to be my friend on the site, so they will get updates every time I come up with a new one. :)

Oh, and should you see any beautiful women wearing the "I dig fat guys" T, please give them my phone number.

"Sadly, you can't go home again...."- Auldous Huxley (I think)

Well, the weekend found me with little to do, and so when Dizzy asked me and Dave to help her move a couch from her friend's house in Ponchatoula, I jumped at the chance. The couch had been there for over a year, primarily because with the family members that Dizzy got stuck with sheltering after Katrina, there was simply no room in her house for it. The important part of this story, however is that Dizzy treated us all to Jeager's for dinner afterward.

I have never been more dissapointed in my life. Gone are the "so big it's scary" seafood plates. Gone are the hand-drawn menus. Gone is the rustic charm of boiling seafood and tin buckets of beer. (sniff) For those that remember it, the new Jeager's is far more like the short lived "Andrew Jeager's House of Seafood" that operated in the french Quarter a few years ago. It's way more full of itself, and far less relaxed than it should be. (sniff, sniff)

This week, I am in Houston. On business. I don't mind the time to spend in the car driving, but the actual business of a business trip is a little annoying... especially since I'm not sleeping well. I keep having this recurring nightmare that someone I had a falling out with long ago is furious with me, and screaming and crying at me at the same time. I don't think that this person is the type to be like that... but it still wakes me up at night, and won't go away.

I'm a big believer in the whole "collective unconcious" theory that we are all somehow linked in a way that we can't always percieve... part of me genuinely wonders if my Id is picking up on something that I'm not aware of to the point where I was ready to call this person and just ask if they were in fact, pissed off at me.

Then I realized exactly how crazy that sounds. It's probably just my subconcious screwing with me, right?

Good thing I chickened out.

Some funny on a thursday....

Blogger's note: Grandpa Ferdinando told this joke for years, and would always substitute his name as the popular guy... in keeping with the tradition, I have done the same :)

Dave and Rob walk into a fast food joint one afternoon to get lunch. Dave orders and the cashier gives him his meal. Rob goes up to order and the cashier greets him with "Hello Rob! How are you? Hey everybody! Rob's here!" Everybody in the restaurant comes up and says hello to Rob. After everyone has greeted him, Dave and Rob sit down and begin to eat.

"Rob, you're pretty popular!" says Dave. "I'm the most popular man in the world," says Rob.

"Now Rob," says Dave, your pretty popular but you're not the most popular man in the world."

"Oh yeah," Rob replies "I'll bet you a thousand dollars that I'm friends with anybody you can name!"

"That so?" answers Dave, "How about the President of the United States?"

"Its on, brother! Let's go" says Rob.

The two fly to Washington and get to the front gate of the White House. The secret service guy at the gate greets Rob with a warm handshake and waves them through. They go up and knock on the front door of the White House. The president answers, "Rob! How are you doing? I haven't seen you in ages!" The three go play a round of golf and then leave.

"That was luck!" says Dave, "Two thousand says you're not friends with the Queen of England!"

"It's your money, buddy." says Rob, "Let's go!"

The two fly to Buckingham Palace and, sure enough, after a few laughs with the palace guards are greeted by the Queen. ''Hello Robert my boy! What have you been up to these days?" They enter the palace and have some tea and leave.

Frustrated, Dave says, "Double or nothing, you don't know the Pope!"

"I'm almost tired of taking your money dude, but I guess you just need to see for yourself!" says Rob, "Let's go!"

When they get to the Vatican, Rob instructs Dave to wait outside and Rob will come out on the balcony with his arm around the Pope. After a while, a crowd gathers to hear the Pope speak. And as told by Rob, when the Pope came out, Rob's arm was wrapped around him. Rob looks down from the balcony and sees Dave passed out on the ground. He rushes down and wakes him up.

"Dave! Dave! Wake up!" Dave opens his eyes and says,

"Rob. You're the most popular man in the world."

"I told you that Dave," says Rob, "but you didn't faint when I knew the President! You didn't faint when I knew the Queen!"

"Well I was shocked that you knew the Pope," says Dave. "But I just couldn't take it when the guy next to me tapped me on the shoulder and said "Who's that up there with Rob?"

Hey, if it can work for [adult swim]....

The first in what I hope will be a regular series of bumps... I'm also considering making a few DOA cartoons and animations starring Ace, but should probably get his parents permission first.

Yes, I said car accident....

But it was really a truck-car-truck accident. I was driving Ducky's pickup, we were stopped at a light, and got rear-ended. The woman that hit us (in a toyota corolla) had been hit from behind by a truck, forcing her car intop the back of the pickup I was driving. Totalled her car, but the Duckmobile had only minor scratching of the chrome.

Problem is that the woman behind the wheel of the other pickup truck had no licence, no insurance, and gave a false name to the police (who were sitting next to us at the light). The woman whose car was totaled is now screwed. The rear end was caved in to the back seat, and the headlights were pushed up into her radiator from being slammed into us. With two payments to go.

I feel badly for her, but all I could think to myself was "Thank god we weren't in my Buick."

For all you cliffhanger fans out there...

I got into an accident last night while driving to Hooters. Details to follow.

P.S.: I'm okay.

Half thought out blog entries...

Occasionally, I get these ideas for blog entries that seem pretty funny… so I write them down. When the time comes to actually fill the screen with line after line of brilliant comical prose however, these ideas fall a little short. I cite the following examples…

1) I bought a Darth Vader Pez dispenser this weekend at a yard sale. I’ve been chuckling to myself ever since that my candy now is guarded by the power of the Force, and Lauren pointed out how cool it is that my Pez now comes from the dark side of the Force. I considered changing a few Vader quotes to reflect the sheer power of my new toy, but the best I came up with was:

“I find your lack of Pez disturbing.”

I may use the line at the next con as I distribute Pez to the masses with it.

2) Every day on my way to work, I pass a sign for a restaurant that says “World’s Healthiest Pizza”… and every day, it strikes me that that’s a little like being the world’s least pregnant mother-to-be.

Wait… just thought of another one: “The Force is strong with this Pez.”

3) Two Romanian engineers arrived at the plant today to install a new machine for us. Both are named Victor. I think I may have to see if they have a reflection in the mirror.

“Come over to the dark side… together, we will have Pez.”

4) Over the weekend I worked at the company’s booth at the New Orleans Home and Garden show. There I ran into a bunch of people I knew… which is really, really unusual for me. In NYC, that just never happens… and here in the big easy, I haven’t lived here long enough to have an extended network of people I would run into. In any event… one of these people was someone I’ve been trying to avoid (for reasons I won’t go into here) and truly the last person I expected to see that day. I was civil, pleasant and all that stuff… but the entire time I felt like I was gonna hurl. Is that normal?

“The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of Pez.”

5) Yesterday, I found out the name of the cute waitress that brings me my breakfast at the diner I go to. Her name is Faith, and it got me thinking… How ironic is it that I am attracted to women named after virtues (3 Faiths so far, 2 Hopes, and of course my ex-wife Charity) yet I am named after a sin? (Rob, in this case meaning ‘steal’)

“If you only knew the power of the dark Pez.”

6) Angelina Jolie is working on adopting yet another baby form yet another third-world country. (Chad, I think… the country, not the child) That woman really needs to go on a patch or something.

"Meeso thinkin you needing Pez!" wait, that's the other ultimate evildoer in the Star Wars universe...

7) Dad's surgery apparently went well. His roomate was certain of this because my Father is passing gas like a champ.

Like I say... all comical thoughts and observations... none that you can get more than a paragraph out of though. :)

Feh! April fool's day is for amateurs.

As many of you know, it is one of my lifelong goals to pull off a sensational hoax. I'm not talking a "Was that a UFO in this guy's out-of-focus picture?" hoax, either.... I'm talking a full blown "head for the hills, the Mole People are coming for us!" kind of hoax. I have a plan for one that I like to call "the BIG ONE" but I am not at liberty to divulge the details, for it could comprimise my agents in the field. In any event... I was really impressed and inspired by this list I came across, particularly by numbers 8, 11, 13 and 20. I actually once considered doing something similar to Richard Branson's stunt in London, (to the point where I had worked out how heavy the balloon would be vs. the helium volume and everything) but lacked the resources to pull it off.

You see, to me a good hoax is one that people will be talking about for decades... like Orson Wells' infamous "War of the Worlds" broadcast. It also shouldn't be on April Fool's day, because that's when people would be expecting it. It should be simple enough for anyone to understand what has 'happened' ("Omigod! The quantum matrix point of the underlying space-time matrix has cramps! We're all gonna die!" won't cut it) and it should be self sustaining (calling all crackpots.... time to come out of the woodwork and say 'we're all gonna die!'). At the same time, it shouldn't cause a panic... like some of these did. Ultimately, the best hoaxes are ones where people will speculate weither or not it was actually a hoax for years to come.

Some day...