Jan 3 2010

Happy Fucking New Years!

Summary: News years eve is nothing but an excuse for assholes to get drunk and act like even bigger assholes. Plus it doesn’t even makes sense to start the new year on January 1st anyway. It’s completely arbitrary. So there!

Happy New Year mother fuckers!

Happy New Year mother fucker!

It’s 9:30 am on January 1st, 2010. New years day. The phone rings.

“Hello”

“Yes, this is the Sheriff’s department. Do you own a Toyota Corolla station wagon?”

“Oh no…it hasn’t been towed has it?”

“No, but did it always have a smashed out back window and a smashed front turn signal?”

“Awww man, you’re kidding me!”

“Nope. We have an officer there right now. He was just passing through doing a routine patrol and noticed your car’s window.”

“I’ll be there in one minute. Thanks.” Continue reading


Jan 1 2010

Cornstarch Packing Peanuts – The Guilt Free Art Project for Kids

Summary: Art projects often mean just creating more junk to throw away. Not the same day of course, but eventually. Here’s something you can feel good about tossing.

Our latest cornstarch packing poeanut  creations. Going from left to right: Two legged dinosaur eating man, big six legged creature, triceritops gouging man, somehting else, and gian tarantula attacking man

Our latest cornstarch packing peanut creations. Going clockwise from left to right: Two legged dinosaur eating man, big long neck dinosaur fighting man, triceratops gouging man, small tyrannosaurus rex, and giant tarantula attacking man.

Though my partner had experimented with them while she was a preschool teacher, my first introduction the art project potential of the cornstarch packaging peanut was at The Children’s Discovery Museum in San Jose. They have an art room upstairs for littler kids and that day’s project was making packing peanut sculptures. Continue reading


Jan 1 2010

Soulmates Are Bullshit – How to Find a Real Relationship

Summary: Fantasies of the perfect soulmate will kill any good relationship.

Is my partner of 21 years, the mother of my child, the one I trust with absolutely everything in my life, my soulmate? Puuuleeeze. Don’t be such a sentimental dope.

We weren’t “made” for each other. Magical forces were not afoot. Nor was this part of some cosmic plan. We had the opportunity to meet by being near the same age, in close geographic proximity to each other, while we were both young and single, and by having mutual friends. Eliminate any one of those factors and it probably never would have happened. Especially since we weren’t all that impressed with each other in the first place. Sure, we found each other attractive, but I thought she was too naive and wishy-washy intellectually and she though I was just too weird. Over time I realized that she wasn’t wishy-washy at all, she was just super sweet. She also had a strong moral core and a wicked sense of humor. These are non negotiable. If you’re not a kind person at your core, if you aren’t a beacon of goodness and moral character, if you can’t make me laugh, then it’s not going to work. Sorry. All the rest is just fluff. Continue reading


Jan 1 2010

Creative Toys – Forget Toys R Us, Go Toy Shopping at the Hardware Store

Summary: Kids have no idea of what a “proper” toy is. That’s an adult concept. If it’s fun, that’s all that matters.

Big washers and wooden drawer knobs make for great durable toys.

Big washers and wooden drawer knobs make for great durable toys.

From a very young age my daughter loved metal objects and gadgets. She would routinely ignore her fluffy stuffed animals and go for anything hard and shiny. So I figured, let’s go get some stuff at the hardware store, they have lots of hard, shiny things. Continue reading


Jan 1 2010

My Daughter Wants to Be Ripped – Helping Young Girls Develop Self Esteem and a Positive Body Image

Summary: My six-year-old daughter wants to be strong and ripped. Good for her! Hope she still thinks that way when she’s thirteen though.

caption here

"Look at my muscle!"

A couple of weeks ago me and my daughter head over to Monterey to check out Sharks 3-D at the Imax theater. It was the 11 am showing and there were only four of us in the whole theater. Pretty sweet seating wise, but I’m a bit bored with the anthromorphised sea turtle with the British accent. He’s our “tour guide” on this adventure. They string together a bunch of nondescript scenes and try to make  a story out of it. It just doesn’t work. The photography’s decent enough, but how many times can you see the same whale shark pass slowly across the lense before you start to doze off. Plus, there’s no explanation on how this little sea turtle manages to travel thousands of miles in what appears to be one day. They tease and hint at danger throughout but nothing really happens. I was hoping for at least one “shark kills sea lion” scene but no luck. Not even a bruised dolphin. However, my daughter totally get’s into it. She’s getting in and out of her seat, bouncing around and grabbing at the 3-D projection as the sharks and jellyfish float past her face. Great fun. Continue reading


Jan 1 2010

Super Salad Smackdown – Competing Theories on Portion Control

Summary: People’s lives will expand to their available environment. Whatever you are doing, it will expand to fill the available space. My lunch time super salads are no different.

this is a caption

My lunchtime super salad. Women and children should not attempt to eat this salad. It will crush them as it is far too Herculean for their little bodies. Luck would have it, all my favorite stuff was available this day including the blueberries, the pomegranate and the corn. The mess begins when you actually dig in and try to eat it.

Every day for lunch I make a monster salad. I mean it’s huge. It’s on steroids. It’s a manly salad.

I start off with a bed of mixed baby greens, some sunflower sprouts, buckwheat sprouts and a bit of shredded cabbage. That’s the foundation. Depending on what’s in season I’ll then add sliced grapes, pomegranate seeds, fresh blueberries, sliced strawberries and whatever other interesting fruity type things I can find. I may also kick in some heirloom tomatoes, beets and fresh corn sheared right off the cob. I top it off with a fistful of walnuts, a sprinkle of fresh shredded parmesan and cracked pepper. Nutritionally it’s off the charts and delicious as fuck. I know that’s a weird way to talk about a salad, but I can actually feel my body becoming energized on a cellular level from eating the salad. Continue reading