Ninja Good!

...but this is awesome, nonetheless.

Have you ever spent a modicum of time wondering how some words and sayings came to take on their current meaning? Such as "crack a smile" or "Bigwig"?

Vadea has the answers.

Normally Garfield is competing with Family Circus for the honor of being the must mundane comic in the world. And yet I can never not read it. It's a thing I have, ok? Let's just leave it at that.

But anyhow, instead of rehashing the exact same jokes 20 years apart, or phoning the comic in, something went off and thiswas the result. All I can say is "where the hell did this come from?" And, "why do I find it so disturbing?"

Honestly, I feel like I should call someone and have them take away Jim Davis' belt and shoe laces.

Tessa's all better now

Feel. This.

Ambien users are reporting bizarre nighttime behavior after taking the sleep aid.

Notthat long ago, before the news stories about people sleep-driving and sleep-working started hitting the news, my boss told me that he often takes Ambien. He does a lot of international traveling and he uses it to fight jet lag. He's also the same boss who will have a 15 minute conversation, the primary topic being updates on the progress of a project, and then say "Ok, can you send me an e-mail restating what you just said?"

Usually I am not a bad communicator. I have two degrees in communication. My grad degree from a top-ranked private university. I know how to communicate effectively so as to get my point across clearly and concisely. Because of that I always assumed my boss either had no command of the english language, or was very full of himself. Now I am reevaluating my original evaluation.

I can just blame it on him being an Ambien user. Say it out loud: "Ambien user." Sounds dirty, doesn't it? It rolls off the tongue, like "crack head" or "coke whore". Now, to be clear, I'm not saying that my boss is a bad person or any kind of drug addict. I'm just saying that the term "Ambien user" could be the next 60 minutes buzz word or after-school special topic.

The Minneapolis music scene is kind of strange. You go to a hip-hop show with local talent throwing their stuff down and you'll inevitably see a few hippies in the crowd doing one of these. I don't get it.

Oh yeah, this is strange too.

Maybe I can avoid death.

Even though I know a few people who would probably fit right in, I hope to God I am not one of them.

I have a strange feeling this is what my buddy Rob's cat does when no one is home.

It's my mom's birthday today! She's 59 and a little down about getting older. Due to a number of reasons I think she's thinking too much about her own mortality. It's quite sad, but somehow I think I'll be the same way when I'm 59. See, I don't expect to live past 60. No reason other than I can't imagine life after the age of 60.

Anyhow, I digress, once again. The point is, today I will celebrate my mother's life, not her age.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Remember that episode of Star Trek TNG where the crew becomes addicted to a video game? I'm sure that Big Willie remembers, since it was the episode where he got to make out with Ashley Judd.

Anyhow, I'm feeling like I can relate right now (to the addiction, not the making out part), thanks to RONG.

Has anyone read this in the City Pages? If not, read it first for the rest of this post to make any sense.

First off, I always read the "I Saw You" section every week. On Wednesday afternoons ,when I pick up my copy, it's one of the first things I read (along with my Horoscope and Savage Love). It used to be because I was a lonely guy who held onto some small hope that there was a woman out there who saw me once and fell for me without my knowledge. Nowadays I am an engaged guy who met a girl and the two of us fell in love with each other at first sight.

But, I digress. Long story short, I used to read it religiously and I'd always see some variation of the same ad, placed by the same guy (Kevin) and directed at the same woman (Denise). I always wondered about the guy I've now come to learn is Kevin Kupferschmidt. I wondered what his deal was, why didn't he give up after a few weeks? What was so amazing about this "Denise" and why the hell didn't she call him up?

From week to week my attitude about the ad would change. Sometimes I felt bad for him. Other weeks I had hope this this would be the week where she'd call him. Still other weeks I felt fed up with the whole thing and wished she'd call just to get him to stop posting the same ads, wasting his money.

Alas, she never did. And the ads kept going into the City Pages. More than 100 ads in total. Over $1,500 spent by Kevin. No response, no relief.

Now the city pages have run a story about him and why he did it.

The story ranges from sappy, to touching, to creepy in less than 1,100 words.

I thought that the angle about Kevin's mother was touching, purely from a personal standpoint. I, too, have an aging mother who's in less that perfect health and would like nothing more than to have a grand child racing around her house. I can relate to that and I know how that can be a motivation for some people to make hasty decisions, or fixate on something that appears to be the solution to the problem.

For the most part, though, I was extremely creeped out by Kevin and his actions. Now maybe it's becuase ofthe way Jim Walsh wrote the article, but the dude comes off as a bit of a nutter. According to the article, Kevin lived with his mother well into his 40's and his only job is teaching tennis/working for the Park Board. Maybe I'm a cyinic, but that just screams to be made into a mediocre obsession/slasher flick. He also seems to be the kind of guy who neighbors would refer to as "quiet" or as a guy who "kept to himself mostly." I could be wrong about all this, but I'm just saying is all.

But then I go back to being touched. If Kevin is on the up and up, then it's very refreshing to see that in this day and age there are still people who can appreciate the whole "two ships passing in the night" thing and be inspired by it.

All I know is I hope Kevin can find some resolution to all this. Take it from one who knows, it's not good to obsess or fixate. It steals the flavor from life and leaves nothing but an empty shell of things that could have been.

Take Kenneth Pinyan, for example, who died after being some PMITA action from a horse. Or, Timothy Treadwell, who was found partially eaten (along with his girlfriend) in Alaska. Last, there is the famous (or infamous) R. Budd Dwyer, who's famous last words were "Stay away, this thing will hurt someone..."

I love stumbling upon something strange, yet wholly entertaining, on the internets. It's, as "they" say, "Teh R0xz0rz!!1!11!"

How about some exceptionally odd/surreal LP Cover Art? Make sure to pay special attention to "XOXOX is Barok", The Singin', Swingin' Pastors "Shaking up Las Vegas", the ever-so-creepy "Happy Holi-dee", Something for GW "Circus Polka",