A new national anthem, defending Applebee’s and rebuilding the Berlin Wall – Friday comments

Is there anyone more American than Canadian-born Bryan Adams?

It’s Friday! Time to be totally unoriginal and answer some comments.

By the way, I’m on Twitter, whatever that is.

Dear Bill Legarm. I am slightly offended by your insinuating that Applebee’s restaurants do not offer quality dining. Me and Larry, my husband of 12 years have been going to Applebee’s several times a week for several years. I have always found their entrees to be a delight–especially the “Apple Chimie Cheesecake!” You haven’t lived until you’ve had a log of cheesecake rolled up in a tortilla shell, deep-fried.

-Patti

OK, first of all, Patti, let’s dial down the rhetoric a little here. I don’t dabble much in politics outside of my failed run for the presidency in 2002. … I know hindsight is 20/20, but there were obvious flaws in my attempted bid for the White House, chief among them my proposal to raise taxes so the president would get paid more, my open desire to invade Kentucky and have it wiped off the map and my failure to realize that 2002 was not an election year. But I still challenge the American people to find a better option for a new national anthem than Bryan Adams’ rock anthem Summer of ’69. If we’re all going to stand around at the beginning of sporting events and listen to a song, it might as well be a good one instead of the dumb one we have now about rockets and stripes.

But I digress. You may think that using inflammatory words and phrases like “I am slightly offended” and “entrees” is an effective way to make a point, but it’s not. They just angry up the blood and put everyone on edge. You don’t want to turn in to the Glen Beck of commenters, do you Patti?

Secondly, you’ve forgotten a key step in your Apple Chimie Cheesecake preparation. After the cheesecake is rolled up in a tortilla shell and deep-fried, it is then shipped to a random Applebee’s location somewhere in the country and immediately microwaved. Also, the best way to eat this dessert is if you order via the Curbside Pickup option. They bring the food to your car! No walking needed! If you plan it right, you can actually enjoy your meal without ever standing up. All it takes is a chair with wheels and a car parked close to your door.

Next comment:

WordPress lists automatically generated possibly related posts to your article. I am not making this up.

US and Russia can cooperate.
Obama to Russia: The Cold War is Over.
“Tear Down this Wall”

-Tom

Good catch. But I have three problems with these headlines.

1. The U.S. and Russia cannot cooperate, not as long as that menace Ivan Drago and his 1,850 to 2,150 psi punch is roaming the Earth.
2. I didn’t vote for Obama, but that’s really only because I don’t vote. Also, I was scared off by all the vowels in his last name. But someone needs to update him on his current events. The Cold War’s been over since at least 2004.
3. I refuse to acknowledge a united Germany and have started building my own Berlin Wall in my backyard. Did you know you can order pieces of the wall online? It’s true. I’m trying to order them all.

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I’ve got to make some money

I might not be as dashing as the man on the cover, but I'm close.

In a perfect world, there would be no crime or war and I’d be able to Taser people with my mind. As it is, I have to stun them instead with my vast knowledge of Hollywood Squares and my ability to list every color tie that Bob Barker wore during his last 500 episodes of The Price is Right. I’ve got it all on a spreadsheet if you’re interested.

Unfortunately, neither of those things are “marketable skills” and they fail to impress employers when featured on my resume. So somehow I need to acquire some sort of valuable training but I can’t because the stupid community college won’t accept me because technically I didn’t finish high school. In reality, I did finish high school, but they wouldn’t let me graduate because I failed all my classes, which is stupid. I was there. I put in my time.

So I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to do since my mom is insisting that I start paying rent to live over the garage. And since my freelance architecture business is growing a little slower than expected I just don’t have a regular source of income. All of the places I’ve applied to have fallen through because they refuse to meet my salary demands, even though $75,000/yr. is an awfully reasonable request if you ask me. Stupid Burger King.

I applied for a job in my friend Barry’s electronics start-up business and he seems like he’s impressed with what I have to offer but just doesn’t have the resources to hire me. Once he makes his first sale, though, he’s going to revisit my resume and see if maybe I can help out building high-definition TVs or something. I’d kind of like to build rockets for him, but he said that’s a little later in his business plan and he’d like to hire an astronaut to help out in that department. But he assured me that if I became an astronaut, he’d be totally down with me joining the yet-to-be-created rocket science department of his company.

That’s a great fall-back, really, but I just don’t know if I have that kind of time, especially since my mom has already started advertising the garage sale to sell all my stuff this weekend. I looked around on-line for some fast-track astronaut classes, but the only ones that I found never called me back even though I gave them my credit card number. Joke’s on them, though, because my card is maxed out to its $450 limit.

Ultimately, though, I don’t really want to be an astronaut. Space freaks me out with all those stars and dead space monkey corpses floating around up there. I just don’t think it’s a very safe environment for someone like me, and on top of that I’m incredibly fair-skinned and it would be a bad idea for me to be that close to the sun. Also, NASA gets mad at me when I call them and ask, “How big is Uranus?”

If you don’t think that’s hilarious, you’re dumb.

Looking back on high school, I did have a meeting with my guidance counselor once, and he asked me what I wanted to be when I was older. When I said I didn’t know, he told me to figure out what I was passionate about and strive to make a career out of it. That’s easy since I’m really only passionate about one thing and that’s mangoes. I found some nice land and tried to start a mango farm, but that ended quickly once Mr. Jenkins found out I had covered his backyard in mango trees without his permission. On top of that, I had accidentally planted apple trees because I don’t actually know what a mango is.

The longer this plays out, the more I realize the community college is my only real option. If I could just show my mom that I’m committed to getting a real job someday, maybe she’ll let me stay. So I’ve started courting the president of the community college in hopes that if I can get into a relationship with her, she’ll let me in despite my “poor academic record” and “questionable criminal history.” (Those are exact quotes from my last rejection letter.)

So far she hasn’t returned my advances, however, and recently she informed me that she was not interested and that her husband worked out. Little does she know that, while I don’t work out now, I finally figured out how to put together that bench press I bought two years ago and I plan to work my way up towards using it by doing a series of light curls and three to five push-ups per day for the next two years. So I’ll be pretty ripped some day.

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I belong at Applebee’s and averting a Jamaica-U.S. cold war

Obviously, I haven’t posted much this week, but I have a good excuse. Like I mentioned in a previous post, I’ve lost library Internet privileges, so my friend Barry does my posting for me. Usually Barry’s pretty reliable, but he’s been busy lately trying to get his fledgling electronics business off the ground. He’s been going door-to-door trying to sell the 57″ LCD-TV he just finished building, but so far there haven’t been many takers. I’d buy it, but I don’t have a job and Barry’s TV is actually just three 19″ tube TVs tied together. Just between you and me, it’s a little bulky for my tastes.

But thankfully Barry was able to take a little break from trying to sell because, lo and behold, I actually got a comment. And not just a comment, but a comment seeking my advice on four separate but equal topics. So why not another edition of comment Friday?

1.) Do you know if Applebee’s still has that “It takes two” special going? I loved those commercials. And I love Applebee’s when I want food that takes little preparation to make, a deep fryer to cook my triple fried potato nubs, and the pay off is always awesome later that night.

I was at Applebee’s once and went looking for the restroom and ended up in the kitchen. Turns out their kitchen was actually just a small room with a sink and a microwave.

That being said, I’m not sure there’s a better place to go on a first date because things can only get better from there. I dated this girl once and, as tends to happen, one thing led to another and I punched a hobo and we ended up in jail and she said it was the worst date she’d ever been on and I reminded her of our first date which started off at Applebee’s and she agreed that maybe this date wasn’t so bad after all. She still broke up with me, but that was only because she thought I was enjoying spooning with an inmate affectionately known amongst prison guards as Big Larry a little too much.

2.) Do you know if Ronnie James Dio is married? And more specifically, do you know if he is attracted to single white males around 30 yrs old? Tell him I’m into leather.

Two problems with this question. First, it involves me doing research. Second, you appear to be asking for dating/matchmaking advice. The only dating advice I give is during my four week long seminars on dating and the intricacies of the opposite sex with a cost of $49.95 per session ($10 off if you make out with me a little. $10 off promotion not available to dudes.) That Applebee’s tip was free. Here’s another freebie: Go-Karts=guaranteed action.

I’ll say this, though…Ronnie James Dio is most definitely married to being awesome.

3.) Remember that old movie Lightning Jack with Paul Hogan and Cuba Gooding Jr.? I do.

There are only two movies I care about. Rocky IV, because it helped end the Cold War, and Cool Runnings, because it helped end the threat of a potential Cold War between the U.S. and Jamaica. Oh, Jamaica. We just can’t stay angry at you.

4.) I think I can help you with that time machine thing. I’ve got a time travel theory that involves meditation and malt liquor. With enough of both, and chanting the name Marty McFly until you pass out, you can travel to the future. But not the past. I’m sure that the past must be some sort of a variation on that formula though. I’ll keep working on it. I met my future child. He’s a Brazilian MMA Fighter named Scorpion. I tried to tell him who I was. He choked me out after I embraced him, which brought me back to the present. He’s really made something of himself though. A father couldn’t be more proud.

Traveling to the future does nothing for me. As I’ve said, I’m trying to travel to the past so I can form an army, beat the North and the South in the Civil war and form a new nation known as the United States of Awesome, embracing life, liberty and the pursuit of being totally sweet. (Nation’s flag TBD, I said looking towards people who are good at Photoshop.)

That being said, if you could maybe figure out a way to get Scorpion to come back to present day, I’m sure I could use him in my army.

Unhealthy update – Another blogger that also knows how terrible Applebee’s is.

Answering comments I haven’t gotten

Even though I’m still awaiting my first real comment, that doesn’t mean I can’t make a few up for a brand new Friday tradition. For some reason, the made up people who posted these made up comments posted them in letter form. Also, someone actually sent me a letter. I didn’t even realize mail service still existed. Guess you learn new things every day.

Dear Bill,

I also get the chills whenever I think of KARR from Knight Rider. How can we prevent this from happening in real life?

Sincerely,

Mike, Florida

Dear Mike,

That’s just it. We can’t. If somebody happened to make two Pontiac Trans-Ams with artificial intelligence and one had a programming error that made it evil, there’s nothing we can do about it, mostly because David Hasselhoff is too old at this point to kick KARR’s ass.

I’ve sent numerous letters to my congressman demanding action be taken to prevent just this situation, but so far I’ve gotten no response. Isn’t it just like Washington fat cats to wait to fix a problem until it’s too late?

-Bill

Dear Bill,

Who’s to blame for the suckiness of The Matrix? Keanu Reeves?

Sincerely,

Dave, Ohio

Dear Dave,

First off, don’t you dare ever speak poorly of Keanu Reeves again. As a general rule, I don’t wallpaper my room with posters of bad actors, which is why I have my Wall of Keanu (and by “Wall of Keanu” I mean “Room of Keanu”).

Still, he could have really saved us all a lot of trouble by just picking the blue pill. So if anything, maybe blame Keanu’s dedication to his craft and therefore his unwillingness to go off script. Also, there’s a good chance he was getting paid by the hour, so it certainly benefitted him to drag things out as much as possible.

-Bill

Dear Bill,

I know you think it would be cool to “bone a mermaid,” but trust me, I dated a mermaid once. It seemed like a good idea at the time but, long story short, I forgot to put water in the bathtub one day and when I got home from work she had dried out and I was left to clean up the mess and flush her down the toilet. My landlord was not happy.

Sincerely,

Tyler, Texas

Dear Tyler,

That’s horrifying. Still. Totally worth it.

-Bill

Why I decided to start blogging

Have you ever seen The Matrix?

If so, let me first apologize and I also wish you could have those two precious hours of your life back. Secondly, that movie is a lot like my life…well, until Keanu goes into that weird alternate universe and starts getting shot at in slow motion. My life is nothing like that, which is good because that’s when the movie starts to blow.

But the part where he has to pick the blue pill or the red pill? My life is a lot like that. Because I have two choices.

1.) Wait patiently for my opportunity to meet Ronnie James Dio and challenge him to a guitar battle in which the winner would get the hand of a fair maiden in marriage. (We’ll call this the blue pill.)

2.) Write a blog while I wait patiently for my opportunity to meet Ronnie James Dio and challenge him to a guitar battle in which the winner would get the hand of a fair maiden in marriage. (We’ll call this the red pill.)

[Editor's note: I removed a third white pill option, which would have been to bone a mermaid. I don't know any mermaids, so that's just not a realistic option.]

At first it seemed like option one would be best because I would need to have time to learn to play guitar while I’m waiting, but then I realized learning to play guitar is probably really hard and that anyone with the ability to type and who hasn’t lost library Internet privileges can write a blog. In the name of full disclosure, I actually have lost library Internet privileges, so my friend Barry is actually posting these for me. He’s still allowed to use the computers at the library and he’s also very good at reading my handwriting off the back of Wendy’s napkins.

I figure I can just wing it when I do finally meet Dio because he’s old and there’s only one old person who rocks, and that’s Jon Bon Jovi, so I should be able to out-ax Ronnie James. Plus, as a previous post mentioned, I know a few chords already.

Anyway, blogging is pretty easy, and when you’re like me and have a lot to talk about and a lot of knowledge to pass on to the youth of this world, it’s even easier. I might not have an education in the formal sense, but I’ve spent many hours watching my DVD sets of Knight Rider which really serves less as entertainment and more as a textbook for life. Though I’d recommend not taking these lessons literally. Turns out there are very few companies out there in search of people who have been shot in the face. Turns out even fewer of these companies want to rebuild said person’s face and give them a talking car. It’s a lesson my friend Rich had to learn the hard way, though admittedly it was pretty sweet when they wheeled his casket in to the funeral to the Knight Rider theme as he’d laid out in his will. So, in that sense at least, it was totally worth it.

But that’s not something I’d recommend for everybody. Knight Rider is meant to be viewed as a metaphor for life, not a way to necessarily live your life. It’s really complicated and sometimes it makes my head hurt and just thinking about KARR gives me the chills. But it’s certainly made me a better person and that’s why I’m blogging. Because we’re all in this together and I have a responsibility to pass on my deep knowledge of life to you, my blog readers.

I’m building a time machine

If I had a time machine, all my problems would be solved.

That’s why I’m building a time machine in my garage.

To be fair, it’s actually my mom’s garage. But it’s kind of like mine, though, because I live over the garage. Think Kirk Cameron in Growing Pains, but less preachy. Also, my room is less a room in the traditional sense and more some stuff I put up on the roof of the garage. It’s cold in the winter and things tend to get wet when it rains, but it’s a small price to pay for freedom.

But back to my time machine. It was designed by a well-respected design firm. And by “a well-respected design firm” I mean it was designed by a homeless guy outside the design firm’s office. But it’s cool, because if you’ve ever seen Good will Hunting you know that if you’re around something long enough you’re bound to learn about it. You also know that Matt Damon is the perfect man.

But I digress. I’m not sure what the homeless guy’s name is, so I just call him Hoss, but he’s very reliable. Whenever I need to have a meeting with him, he’s always there, usually sans pants.

Recently Hoss asked me for a progress report on my time machine and I told him that things were going well. I told him that because I’m a liar. Things aren’t going well at all. In fact, I’m way behind schedule. The problem isn’t so much that I’m not putting the work in to get it done – I spend close to 15 minutes a week on the damned thing – as much as I’m having trouble tracking down the parts.

I thought I’d found some plutonium on eBay, but I was unable to purchase it before the government took away my computer and arrested me for cavorting with known terrorists. First of all, cavorting sounds like a made-up word to me. Secondly, isn’t this America? If I want to buy a little plutonium from a dictator in a country I’ve never heard of I should be able to do so. This eroding of our civil liberties is getting out of hand. (I plan to touch on this in a later post.)

So no plutonium. Of course, fuel wouldn’t do me any good, anyway, because I don’t have an engine to fuel yet. Hoss and I had originally decided on building a jet engine from scratch, but stupid Auto Zone doesn’t carry jet engine compressors. So it was on to Plan B – the engine from a 1983 Chevette, and good luck finding one of those that works.

So my time machine is completely unusable and that’s too bad because I’ve got big plans for it. It’s kind of like when I went house shopping and I was looking at a house and the real estate agent laughed at me when I told her I was ready to make the purchase. Turns out she thought I was just a drifter looking for someplace to stay warm. She also didn’t like my payment plan which involved winning the lottery. She didn’t care that, based on my calculations (which I made up), I was sure to win some time in the next 27 years. She also didn’t seem to understand that I had already invited all my friends to the housewarming party.

Now here I am again … big plans and no way to execute them. All I want to do is form an army, go back to 1862 and beat the North and the South in the Civil War and form a new nation known simply as the United States of Awesome.

I’d bring my electric guitar, too, and I’d shred out some “Holy Diver” for everybody and get credit for writing it and make it our national anthem. And when Ronnie James Dio tries to release it in 100 years he can go fuck himself because I already recorded it and released it on the phonograph. That would also give me plenty of time to learn how to play guitar, which is good because right now I only know three chords – a C, a G and one I invented that I tentatively named a flying W. You have to play it while you hold the guitar behind your head. If you don’t, it sounds wrong and you look less awesome.

Of course, on top of all this, “the man’s” trying to hold me down. Hoss and I were talking about this just the other day. Building a time machine costs money and neither he nor I have any money. Neither of us has a “job”, per se, though he donates plasma regularly and I dabble in freelance architecture. I’m currently working on a building I hope to erect (pause for laughter because I said “erect”) a couple blocks over. It’s going to be 200 stories of solid steel and the windows will be made out of bulletproof glass and there will be gargoyles all over the place – maybe every other floor or so. I talked to a developer the other night and he told me I need to find some tenants if I really want to sell this to city council. He also said something about not knowing why a small suburb of 5,000 people would need a 200-story office building at the end of a residential street and I thought I heard something about years of schooling to become an architect, but I had pretty much stopped listening at that point.

So I’m working on lining up some tenants. My brother, Chad, is a lawyer, and he doesn’t really talk to me anymore, but I think he’d be interested. Also, my friend Barry is going to start an electronics company. He actually already started it and he finished building his first LCD TV the other day, so once he gets a buyer for that and really starts making money, he said I could block out a couple floors for him (but nothing too high because he’s afraid of heights). So things are looking good on that front. Once the money for my design starts rolling in, Hoss and I will be able to really get moving on this time machine.

But until then, I’m stuck in this holding pattern, staring at a bunch of useless parts and listening to my mom tell me to get that monstrosity out of her garage because she has to park her stupid Ford Taurus in there. As a certified time machine expert (I made the certificate myself) I can tell you this – the next Ford Taurus that goes back in time will be the first.