Blogs are so varied. Some blogs I’ve come across include carefully crafted original graphics and pictures, and are written in a very polished manner. Some are more conversational. Others are spazzy. And then there are the incomprehensible ones that look like the bloggers type with their toes while watching “Cops” and eating Chinese take-out.

I’m probably somewhere in the middle. I don’t know anything about the technical aspects of good writing, and I don’t have the design skills to achieve high production values. But, I do care about not having my posts look like I barfed them out and didn’t bother to clean them up. So I write several posts simultaneously, well in advance of publishing them. I then re-read, re-phrase, re-arrange, re-write, correct, edit, and proofread each of them over several days.

To shed some light on my modus operandi, I thought I’d give everyone a peek at the completed and semi-completed posts that are in queue to be published over the next few weeks:

1. I Never Knew That Blogging Could Be So Fun
2. My Obsessive-Compulsive Tendencies. Hardy Har Har
3. 49 Great Blogs I’ve Recently Discovered
4. I’m Watching Much Less TV These Days. How Cool is That?
5. MyYahoo! Sucks for RSS Reading
6. Hooray For Me! I Have Blog Friends!
7. I Need an Intravenous Hookup So I Can Spend Less Time Eating and More Time Blogging
8. Bloglines.com : How Did I Ever Live Without It?
9. Major Milestone : 500 Subscriptions in My Personal Blogroll
10. My Boss Reprimanded Me for Falling Asleep at My Desk
11. I Need to Spend Less Time on The Computer
12. My Very Sweet Wife Got Very Angry With Me Today
13. Advice Please : I’m Thinking of Quitting Blogging
14. My First Bloggers Anonymous Meeting
15. Boss-Man Meeting Part Deux. Prognosis: B-A-D
16. Self-Affirmation : I’m A Good Person and I Have a Good Life
17. Holding On As Best I Can (By the Skin of My Teeth)
18. Open Letter To My Lovely Wife : I Love You More Than Blogging, Please Don’t Leave Me
19. My New Mantra : The Internet Does Not Rule My Life
20. Relapse : Time to Pause and Reflect
21. I Give Up : Goodbye Cruel Worjbwtm n

[Hello everyone. This is Pat, Jack's wife. We had a bit of a scare there, but Jack is doing OK now.

In his despair and anxiety, he passed out and cracked his head on the keyboard while writing this post. When he came to, he tried to slit his wrists. Thankfully he was unable to find an actual razor blade and didn't get very far with his electric shaver.

He also swallowed an entire bottle of pills. Luckily the only pills in our medicine cabinet were laxatives. It's causing unpleasant bouts of nitrogen-laden green diarrhea every half hour. So now some of his tighty whiteys are discarded stinky greeneys. But he'll live and that's what matters.

We have him on an Alprazolam drip and a strict diet of 7-UP and Saltine crackers.

He is still recovering in bed, but asked me to publish this post so as not to disappoint his blogging friends.

Please feel free to comment. Jack will respond if his colon is feeling better. And if he is unable to, I will respond to comments on his behalf.

Now if you'll please excuse me- Jack and his colon are out of commission, so I gotta go find me another bitch to pimp.]

tags :: jokes : humor : blogging : obsessions

12-year-old Bonny Jain, an 8th-grade student from Illinois, recently won the 2006 National Geographic Bee and an accompanying $25,000 scholarship. Throughout the contest, he correctly answered all but one of the very difficult global geography questions asked by Alex Trebek, of Jeopardy! fame.

Bonny aspires to attend MIT. He speaks, reads and writes Hindi fluently. He’s currently studying German and Spanish. For Bonny, I’m sure, “studying” a language connotes a much more comprehensive endeavor than what I consider “studying” a language. (I would like a burrito, s’il vous plait. Que? Yo no speako Spanisho. The only Spanisho I know is “burrito”, “chimichanga”, “Macarena”, “Shakira”, “Salma Hayek”, “cantalupos gigantes”. And “s’il vous plait”.)

In addition to having just won the National Geographic Bee, Bonny also recently took the SAT (again, he’s in EIGHTH GRADE). He scored 800 in math, 790 in writing, and 720 in critical reading for a 2,310 composite score out of a possible total of 2,400 points (800 points per section). I have a feeling MIT will be saving a spot for him. Maybe even this year.

Below are five questions from this year’s competition. This contest was not in multiple choice format: The contestants had to come up with the answers independently, without any hints or clues.

Bangweulu is an area of extensive swamps formed largely by the flooding of the Chambeshi River in which African country?
(to see the answer, click here, hold down your mouse button, and move the cursor down over the white space below)

Zambia

Name the small island at the north end of the East China Sea that is a province of South Korea.
(to see the answer, click here, hold down your mouse button, and move the cursor down over the white space below)

Cheju

In 1995, the government of Niger signed a peace agreement with rebel forces belonging to which traditional group in the Sahara region?
(to see the answer, click here, hold down your mouse button, and move the cursor down over the white space below)

Tuareg

Majestic views of Mount Everest can be seen from a town in northeast India that is the capital of a district of the same name. Name this town.
(to see the answer, click here, hold down your mouse button, and move the cursor down over the white space below)

Darjeeling

Name the last remaining independent Polynesian kingdom.
(to see the answer, click here, hold down your mouse button, and move the cursor down over the white space below)

Tonga

Listed below are the names and home states of the little geniuses who competed in this year’s National Geographic Bee, in seating order.

Neeraj Sirdeshmukh – New Hampshire
Suneil Iyer – Kansas
Yeshwanth Kandimalla – Georgia
Paige DePolo – Nevada
Autumn Hughes – Colorado
Mathew Vengalil – Michigan
Krishnan Chandra – Massachusetts
Drew Coffin – Iowa
Kelsey Schilperoort – Arizona
Bonny Jain – Illinois

The following is a snapshot of the population of the United States, as per the 2000 Census:

Similar to other unexplained racial phenomena found in the United States such as ice hockey (white), basketball (black), NASCAR (hick, a subsegment of “white”), and gold Rolexes (Chinese, a cross-segment of “good at math” and “bad at driving”), the National Geographic Bee’s distribution by ethnicity bears no resemblance whatsoever to the general population distrubution of the United States:

Guess which kids were the first four contestants to answer wrong and be eliminated. Amazing, I know: All four “Not Indian” kids were the first to be eliminated.

Bonny competed in last year’s National Geographic Bee as well. At the start of this year’s competition, Trebek asked Bonny about his fourth place finish in the 2005 contest. Bonny replied with confidence: Since the first, second and third place finishers are not allowed to return, he preferred to finish fourth if he couldn’t finish first.

I guess it all worked out.

tags :: humor : National Geographic Bee : Bonny Jain : Asian Indian American

To protect the guilty who are party to this post (screw the innocent- they’ve got nothing to be arrested for!), names have been redacted, aliases assigned, genders switched, chest hairs glued on, rubber masks donned, and pants stuffed.

Below is a picture of my friend, The Notorious C.N.G. No!- No!- No- torious! (sing it, baby!) is a man of many talents, with a long list of hobbies and preferred activities. Two of his favorites, as you can see, are travel and photography.

Now, the human race for some reason loves to build phallic monuments to itself. Everywhere you go around the world, there are a plethora of giant, skyward-pointing, rock hard (they are made of stone, after all) penises declaring “My country/ religion/ ideology’s horsedick is bigger than your [whatever's] pencildick. Come stand in the shadow of its erect glory and touch it.”

But The Notorious C.N.G. ain’t buying that! Whenever he travels, he sets aside a few hours to find the local cock-nationale so that he can snap a photograph of himself posing suggestively in front of it.

Part self-mocking and part monu-mocking, The Notorious C.N.G. has many such photos in his personal collection. These monu-mockumentaries are not doctored or Photoshopped in any way, except for the blurring I did of The Notorious C.N.G.’s face (again, to protect the guilty). After all, much of the fun is in getting dirty looks from disapproving strangers while posing for the pictures.

Because what happens in D.C. doesn’t always stay in D.C.

Sometimes it gets stroked and snapped, then splashed on the Internet.

Those of you who have read about my pizza restaurant prank have probably surmised that I, too, enjoy practical jokes. I have been the instigator or victim of many a prank in my lifetime. But every practical joke that I have pulled or been subject to has been a spur-of-the-moment affair, devised and executed in a few short minutes. Cheap laughs for minimal effort- I’m lazy that way.

The Notorious C.N.G., though, is a true practical joke artiste. For The Notorious C.N.G., a good prank is a labor of love, meant to be savored like a fine wine.

When The Notorious C.N.G. started his freshman year in high school, he had a Plan. A Plan that would take four years to execute. The first step was to join the yearbook committee. As a lowly freshman, he helped out on the yearbook staff, but did not have much decision-making power. Following The Plan, he worked his way up the ladder, and by his senior year The Notorious C.N.G. was put in charge of the yearbook Clubs section.

Right where he wanted to be.

To this day, the high school faculty rues the day that The Notorious C.N.G. was made Editor of the Clubs section.

The picture above is a scan of a half-page spread from The Notorious C.N.G.’s senior year yearbook. The club featured is a complete fabrication.

Hard to believe, I know, but there really is no “International Low Budget Jaw Harp Guild and Orchestra” at any high school in Orange County. Especially not one whose members gather to watch B-Movies like The Deadly Art of Rooster Fighting.

The Notorious C.N.G. also took the liberty of adding non-student members to the Jaw Harp Guild. In fact, these members were not real people at all. Because not many parents would name their children Mike Hunt (“my c**t”), Benjamin Dover (“bend over”) or Haywood Jablome (“hey, would you blow me”).

That infamous yearbook was, needless to say, the last to be assembled and published at The Notorious C.N.G.’s high school without close faculty supervision.

tags :: jokes : humor : practical jokes : monuments : high school : yearbook : clubs

Remember the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld? Well, he’s a real guy named Al Yeganeh, and his original soup shop is a real place in New York City. Al has always despised the “Soup Nazi” moniker. He is, however, quite enterprising. In the past year, he has opened over a dozen stores under the brand “The Original SoupMan”, with plans to open a few dozen more this year. Soup Nazi Man also has his packaged soups on grocery store shelves in fourteen states.

Soup Nazi’s penchant for Rules with a capital R is no myth (Move to the left! Have your money ready! No talking!), as one of his new business partners attests: “Al is obviously temperamental…”. Boy, I guess that soup is better than crack, if people keep going back despite the rude service. Or maybe it’s got crack in it. Someone should remind Yeganehnehnehneh that his soup is only “World Renowned” because Nazi joke-totin’ Seinfeld made it so.

Here are a few other very well-known places I have been to or heard about, where the service is famously rude and the food sometimes good.

House of Nanking, San Francisco. This Chinese restaurant is in every San Francisco guide book I’ve ever read. The line is always out the door, populated mainly by tourists patiently waiting for a bit of Nanking magic. It’s a tiny place (hence the line) with old tables and chairs, and the food is served on industrial-style metal plates. I went there once, to see what all the fuss is about.

Waiter: You! Order now!

Jack: OK…I’d like the kung pao chick…

Waiter: [shakes head, cuts me off] BOO HOW!!! [" NO GOOD!" in Chinese] You won shicken! I bling you shicken!!!

He then proceeds to jot down an order for some random chicken dish I didn’t want. O well. The food’s too sweet anyway, so I’ll leave it for the tourists.

One day I will be brave enough to shake my head and wag my finger at the waiter while he’s shaking his own head at me, yelling “BOO HOW!”. Do you think this will enrage him even more?

Wong Kei, London. Like Nanking, this London landmark is notorious for rude service (I am beginning to see a pattern here: What’s up with the rude waiters at Chinese restaurants?). The waiters at Wong Kei rush you to order quickly, throw your food on the table, and shove the bill down your throat so they can clear your table for the next customer. They’ve even been known to spit on the floor in plain view. Gross.

This one I will not mess with. You never mess with a spitting waiter unless it’s after your food is served and you never intend to go back.

Many people swear by Wong Kei, though: It’s good food at a good price, and the place is huge. I prefer Mandarin Kitchen across the street from the Queensway Tube stop. Better food in my opinion, and no sightings of spitting waiters.

Sushi Nozawa, Studio City. This Los Angeles area sushi place often has a line halfway down the block, and many consider it to be the best sushi place in Southern California. Like his soup-ladling counterpart, though, Master Nozawa is jokingly referred to as “The Sushi Nazi”.

If you manage to score a table, do not order a California roll. If the chef suggests something to you, do not say no and order something else. Do not order too much of the daily specials- they need to be rationed out sparingly to all the regulars. Any of these infractions are liable to get you politely excused. At Sushi Nozawa, your meal can sometimes be over before you think it’s over.

One of these days someone with a shaky hand should cut up some blowfish and force feed it to El Maestro until he agrees to make a California roll. (El Maestro- If you are reading this, I’m just kidding. Please please please don’t cut me off. My real name is not Jack anyway. It’s Pooky.)

I wonder why these places are so popular. For some, I guess it’s the quality of the food. But at Nanking, for example, the food isn’t even very good. Perhaps it’s the entertainment value of the rude service that keeps people coming back. Because it’s all fun and games until a waiter spits in your dinner.

tags :: humor : rude service : restaurants : Soup Nazi : Wong Kei : Nanking : Nozawa

Everywhere I go in the Blogosphere this week, I keep hearing about how yesterday, May 25, was Towel Day. Naturally I Googled it, and discovered that Towel Day is a tribute to Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

But given Towel Day’s surprisingly widespread support by bloggers of all stripes and not just sciphiles, they should have named it “Yet Another Excuse for Nerds to Invite More Ass Kickings by Meatheads Named Biff”. Or something like that. (talk like Christian Slater imitating Jack Nicholson in Heathers for the following…it’ll be funnier) Just kidding, bros! It’s all good! I got my own nerd flag right here!

Man, am I the world’s loserest nerd. I have never read Hitchhiker’s, nor any other Douglas Adams book. So please please nerds more nerdy than I, please don’t pelt me with slide rules! They hurt! And if you must, hurl some pocket protectors my way. They don’t hurt as much as slide rules, and I can always imprint a fuzzy Jesus silhouette on them and sell them to superstitious Catholic hackers on eBay.

Not to be outdone, here is where I out-nerd the nerds more nerdy than I. I Googled further and found another Hitchhiker’s nerdifact: the Babel Fish, which is a fish that translates any form of language for your comprehension when you stick it in your ear. A-ha! It all comes together! That’s why AltaVista named their web translation utility BabelFish!

So to get back into the good graces of the towel-wearing, Hitchhikers-reading crowd (which apparently includes a disturbingly large number of mommybloggers), I have translated some of my all-time favorite passages which I just wrote this very minute into French and then back into English, using the Babel Fish translator:

Original Sucky Masterpiece:
People who wear towels to work need to have their heads checked.
BabelFrench:
Peuplez qui les serviettes d’usage pour travailler le besoin d’avoir leurs têtes ont vérifié.
AngloBabel:
Populate which them towels of use to work the need to have their heads checked.

Original Sucky Masterpiece:
Not even I am a big enough nerd to wear a towel to work.
BabelFrench:
Non égal je suis un assez grand ballot pour porter une serviette pour travailler.
AngloBabel:
Nonequal I am a rather large bundle to carry a towel to work.

Original Sucky Masterpiece:
Have a happy Memorial Day weekend my blogging friends. Be careful with those towels near the grill, because one hundred fifty thread count steak tastes like shit.
BabelFrench:
Ayez un week-end heureux de jour commémoratif mes amis blogging. Faites attention avec ces serviettes près du gril, parce que cent biftecks de compte de cinquante fils goûtent comme la merde.
AngloBabel:
Have one happy weekend of commemorative day my friends blogging. Pay attention with these towels close to the grill, because hundred beefsteaks of account of fifty wire taste like the shit.

That last translated translation sounds a lot like the crazy Lebanese guy who’s always cursing at me when I walk by his cardboard box home: “What it is arue you to doing! You to stealing from me the things! The F#%K to you, and the F#$K to your the mother too!”

OK, enough fun for one day. I’d better go exercise now, since BabelFish says that I am a rather large bundle with nonequal.

tags :: jokes : humor : Hitchhiker’s Guide : Towel Day : Babel Fish

Pick up handset.

Press “Line 1″.

Dial phone. [doo! dOo! Doo! doO! dOO! DOO! Doo! doO!]

[RING RING!]

Press “Hold”.

Press “Line 2″.

Dial phone. [doo! dOo! Doo! doO! dOO! DOO! Doo! doO!]

[Riiiiing!]

Press “Conference”.

Press “Mute”.

[Riiiiing!] [RING RING!] [Riiiiing!] [RING RING!].

Pizza Hut: [Picks up] Hello! Pizza Hut! Would you like to try our Meat Lover’s Pan Pizza today? [Riiiiing!] Hello?

Domino’s Pizza: [Picks up] Thank you for calling Domino’s! Will this be for delivery or pick-up?

PH: Hello?

DP: Hello?! Yes, delivery or pick-up?

PH: Excuse me? Did you want delivery, or pick-up?

DP: Huh? Who is this?!

PH: This is Pizza Hut! Who is this?!

DP: This is Domino’s Pizza! Do you want to order a pizza or not?!

PH: No I don’t want to order a pizza! This is Pizza Hut! Why would I want to order a pizza?!

DP: Well, why’d you call me then?!

PH: I didn’t call you! You called me!

DP: I didn’t call you! Why the hell would I call you?!

PH: I don’t know why!

DP: Well, don’t call again! [Click!]

PH: Asshole! [Click!]

*sigh* Life was so much more fun before Caller ID.

tags :: jokes : humor : prank calls : Pizza Hut : Domino’s Pizza

The other day, I emailed my friend Shont and said something like: “Hey! This blog thing is pretty fun! But, now that I have a few blog friends who read my posts, I feel some pressure to consistently write interesting things. It’s not as easy-going as when I first started blogging, when just friends and family would stop in to see how pathetic my Joke of the Week was.”

Shont fires back with: “The pressure of success.”

Hardly.

The number of blog friends I have is still smaller than my shoe size. So Shont, I’m afraid you will have to continue visiting SuckyBlog to help keep the readership hovering above zero.

But it did get me thinking. Maybe I was fishing for a compliment! My insecure, competitive, Type-A, unconscious psyche getting the best of me again! Dammit!

So, time to put my bloated ego back in its place. (I suspect it usually resides in my ass, given the required cubic footage). To accomplish this, I have listed all the non calorie burning activities (for me, there is no other kind) that I would rather do than read SuckyBlog:

1. Watch movies.
2. Watch basketball.
3. Read news magazines.
4. Read books.
5. Read blogs written by other people. Except for mommy blogs. OK I admit it- I usually get bored with some of the mommy blogs out there, except for the funny or raunchy ones. Because mommies shouldn’t be raunchy. But apparently all the ones who are like to blog.
6. Read about strange things on Wikipedia, like the 7 forms of lightsaber combat.
7. Defrag my hard drive, and watch the progress status bar. This process takes 47 minutes and 13 seconds. The progress bar moves 1.24 millimeters per minute on my 17-inch screen. I know this because I measured it with digital calipers. More fun than reading SuckyBlog.
8. Read the back of my toothpaste label. “Squeeze and flatten on brush as you go up.” I’ve got this one burned into my cornea because I read it every single time I forget to bring a magazine to the can. And I hit the can at least twice a day. So that’s how you apply toothpaste. Good to know.
9. Read my mattress tag. “DO NOT REMOVE UNDER PENALTY OF LAW”. *rip*. Please don’t arrest me. The voices in my head told me to do it. This is the only way I can make them stop.
10. Pick my nose, and flatten the extracted manna-from-nostril between my thumb and index finger (the toothpaste instructions have trained me to flatten everything squishy). Then give myself a little Rorschach test by admiring my newly-formed Poodlebooger.

Wait a minute. I write SuckyBlog. I don’t read it also. That would be narcissistic, and I can’t afford for my ego (or my ass) to grow any bigger. So scratch everything I just said, go do a Rorschach boogerblot test, and tell me what you see.

tags :: jokes : humor : blogging : mattress tag : Rorschach : booger

So I heard about this online store that unexpectedly gained an important new customer from Canada. This customer was ordering hundreds of Bart Simpson Sippy Cups every few weeks.

Got me wondering- what use did this customer have for so many of these things? There couldn’t be a Simpsons convention in that city every single week! Clearly he was reselling them, but to whom and for what purpose ?

The truth was finally discovered. This guy was buying the sippy cups, converting them into bongs, and selling them on the Internet!

I never found out what he called them or what marketing slogans he used, but I’m sure it was entertaining.

I guess some stoners have enough brain cells left to be entrepreneurial.

tags :: jokes : humor : Bart Simpson : Sippy Cup : Bong

It’s incorrect to say that I’m not physically fit. That would imply the lack of fitness. I’m anti-fit. Meaning, the opposite of fitness (see rule 5 in Words to Live By).

I did, though, join a fitness club because I like to swim and shoot basketball for fun, even though I suck at both (that’s me, Jack “Spuds” T, on the right). When I joined, they threw in five sessions with a personal trainer (I drove a hard bargain- the key to negotiating is to not care whether you get it or not, a feeling I surely projected after my initial tour of the facility when I said to the rep “Well, I really don’t care if I sign up or not.”).

Normally, I would not bother with such sessions. Working out is for good-looking people or people who are concerned about their health. I’m neither. I’m all about fun. I find hanging out at the gym working out to be about as fun as watching paint dry. But the only thing that supercedes my aversion to all things fitness-related is my cheapskate nature, so I relented.

My trainer’s name was Ray. Poor Ray.

First Session:
Ray: OK Jack. What are your goals for these sessions?
Jack: I dunno. They were free, and they expire soon. So here I am.
Ray: Well, do you want to get stronger? Do you want to lose weight? Do you want to increase performance at sports?
Jack: I don’t feel any need to be more muscular, skinny or athletic. I’m here because the sessions are free, and they expire soon.
Ray: OK that’s fine. We need a goal though. That’s how the program works. How about we shoot for a little weight loss. That’s generally a common goal.
Jack: Sure. Whatever.
Ray: OK. Good. First, I need you to fill out this questionnaire about your eating habits.

Ray puts in front of me an SAT-like test with four pages of questions in 6-point font asking asinine questions like, “When you eat, do you mostly prefer red meat?” (yes. DUH.). I scan it and see at the bottom a check box saying “I waive the food and nutrition portion of the fitness training program.” I immediately grab the pen, check off the box, and sign it.

Ray: *sigh*. Jack, you know, the food component is very important to the weight loss goal. It’s like 60% diet / 40% exercise in terms of getting results.
Jack: [Thinking: Then why are you here then, Mr. Muscles? I don't see any degrees in nutrition management on your wall.] I don’t want to do the food thing. I like to eat good stuff. Also I hate vegetables. And I’m allergic to fruit. They make my inner ear and my right pinky toe itch. So I only eat meat and starch. Telling me to eat a lot of broccoli and no red meat is not an achievable goal. I’m all about achievable goals. I learned that while watching a Tony Robbins video. And while we’re at it, how come Tony has inhumanly big gums?
Ray: *sigh* Dude, what am I gonna do with you. OK, then just write down what you eat every day, and the time you eat it.

Second Session (1 week after First Session):
[Ray scans the list of things I ate for the week]
Ray: What time do you wake up every day?
Jack: 7am.
Ray: It looks here like you don’t eat breakfast, and your lunch is usually at 1pm.
Jack: Yes. I get carried away doing work in the morning.
Ray: OK. Well, be sure you eat a meal for breakfast. And eat smaller portions for each of your three meals. And eat a small snack, like a cup of yogurt or a health bar, in between each meal.
Jack: Like, the health bars you sell in that cabinet there?
[Thinking: The ones that look like dried feces squeezed out of someone's square anus hole? How convenient that they look the same going in as they do coming out. But when you find an unwrapped one lying around, how do you know whether to eat it or flush it? What do you call them, anyway? Mr. Shitbar? ShitKat? Shit Jerky? Shwitx? Three Shitkateers?]
Ray: Well, you can get other ones at the market, but yeah, we recommend our energy bars. So, I noticed you didn’t eat any vegetables all week.
Jack: Yes, I decided to forgo the vegetable portion of the food pyramid last week. And all prior weeks since my birth.

Third Session (1 week after Second Session):
Ray: Let’s go work on some weights. [Hooks me up to some machine with weights.] Now do twenty reps and then pause.
Jack: One…. *grunt*…. Two….. *grunt*….. Three….. *grunt* *grunt*….. Five…..
Ray: Hey! No cheating on the count!
Jack: Why *grunt* do you care! *grunt* I’m only *grunt* cheating on myself! *grunt* No harm no foul! OK I’m tired. *Rubs sore shoulder* Where’s my water.
Ray: Hey! You can’t stop now! Twenty reps, remember? You only did six!
Jack: Ten, by my count, Ray.

Poor Ray, having to put up with me and my blase attitude towards fitness. I should send him a case of Mr. Shitbars. Or hire an Enron exec to teach him to count.

tags :: jokes : humor : exercise : fitness : diet

One day a long, long, time ago in a town not so far, far, away, I was hanging out with my friend Shont and his sister Arpi. (Aside: These are real names, people. My buddy’s name is Shont and his sister’s name is Arpi. They are full-blooded Americans, born and raised in Los Angeles. I’m not making this up. If I were to make up strange non-American sounding names, they’d be called Neetork and Clutox.) Arpi’s friend Azure was also present. (Aside part deux: Azure. yet another uncommon name, but at least it’s an English word…derived from French. O brother. I mean, mon Dieu.)

Arpi and Azure were going on and on about the movie “Pretty Woman”: Ohhhhh it’s the best movie ever. Ohhhhh Richard Gere is so handsome in it. Ohhhhh Julia Roberts is so perky! Ohhhhhh it’s so cute how they fall in love. Ohhhhh I really identify with that movie. Ohhhhh where’s the boom box- let’s all sway to a New Kids on the Block song, because that “Pretty Woman” movie is so romantic.

Shont starts to shake his head in his characteristic quirky, opinionated manner, and blurts out: “OK, you guys. Let’s take a step back. Think about it. This movie is about a mean rich guy. Who falls in love with a hooker. Plain and simple.”

Shont is right. It’s a movie about a guy who falls in love with a hooker. Yet we all fondly remember it through nostalgia-tinted lenses as one of the best romantic comedies ever. The movie that made Julia Roberts the top actress in Hollywood.

Let’s consider another one. One of my personal favorites (“Pretty Woman” was not one of my personal favorites).

Once there was this director from Modesto, California. He had recently made a movie about teenagers in a small whitebread American town, cruising around on a weekend night. Starring Opie. Also in the cast were Shirley (Laverne’s best friend) and The Fugitive. (Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon in Reverse? Anyone?)

After the modest success of that movie, the director goes to the studio and tells them that, for his next movie, he wants to make a space opera. The studio execs show a puzzled look, and declare, “Why, that sounds intriguing, although we have no clue what a ‘space opera’ is, but we have to pretend we’re smart since we have corner offices. What is it about?”

“It’s an epic narrative set in outer space about a lost son who stumbles upon his destiny, a beautiful princess, and an old sage who guides them on their quest”, the filmmaker replies. “Oh! Why that sounds intriguing! As long as it comes within budget, of course,” say the execs.

In case you haven’t guessed by now, the director was George Lucas.

The movie, of course, was “Star Wars”.

Even without the benefit of hindsight, that one-sentence premise sounds great, doesn’t it? A classic myth with a science fiction backdrop. What’s not to like?

But just think about what happens next, after the money men begin digging into the script and the details. I can only imagine:

Encouraged by the positive initial reaction, the filmmaker continues: “Here’s my latest draft of the script. I’ll give you the highlights. It takes place in outer space. The main characters wear loose-fitting, flowing robes, as if a civilization with light-speed transport technology never bothered to invent a sewing machine. The princess wears a cinammon roll on each side of her head. She wanted to make a fashion statement but couldn’t find any white iPod earbuds. Everyone has a laser gun which shoots deadly energy-based projectiles thousands of feet, but the hero uses a laser sword, which shoots nothing and has a range of three feet. The hero and the princess are actually siblings by birth, but the pervey sage only reveals this to them after the princess slips her own brother the tongue.

“The villain wears a black samurai helmet on his head and has a 10-pound bionic lung strapped to his chest that looks like the Commodore 64′s great grandchild. He also dons a weird-looking mechanical facemask with big black Jackie O-style goggle lenses. When he talks, he sounds like a late-stage emphysema patient.

“There are two characters written in for comic relief. They are robots with human personalities. One is a neurotic, uptight nervous nelly. But male. The other robot is not in human form. He looks more like a white and blue suppository on wheels. He doesn’t speak English. He just utters a series of beeps and chirps, yet everyone in that universe can understand everything he says.

“One of the hero’s friends is a roguish character who is a space-faring pirate. He wears a white long-sleeved shirt underneath a black vest with a gun and holster strapped low on his thigh, as if he were the long lost seventh member of the Village People.

“And the space pirate’s sidekick is an 8-foot-tall dog that walks upright on two feet and shoots a laser crossbow. He wears no clothing, so the costumers will have to figure it out since I don’t want him hangin’ brain during a gunfight. Even though the walking dog speaks by uttering the exact same series of high-pitched grunts and growls, the space pirate can still carry on long, involved conversations with him. Because nnggghhhooooo nnggghhhooooo nngghoo ngghhooo means ‘Imperial Stormtroopers are on our ass’ as well as ‘I have shit on my fur’.”

Er, so far this thing sounds like the absurd result of a really bad LSD trip.

I once watched an interview with George Lucas. They asked him how he came up with the Chewbacca character. He said that he used to have a dog named Indiana (yes, he named Indiana Jones after his dog). Indiana (the dog, not Harrison Ford) used to sit upright in the front seat of his car while they drove around town, and Lucas thought it was funny that she sat there like a person, as if a dog were co-piloting the vehicle. So he worked it into the “Star Wars” script.

Thank goodness a movie studio gave Lucas the money to make Star Wars, preposterous as the premise and details may have sounded to many a movie exec.

If it hadn’t happened, I never would have known what a lightsaber is, let alone sign up for lightsaber fighting lessons. It’s important for a fully-grown man to know how to properly wield a functioning lightsaber. Otherwise he may accidentally slice his Star Wars action figure display case in half while pretending to be Darth Maul. In the privacy of his bedroom. Wearing nothing but tighty whiteys.

tags :: humor : Pretty Woman : Star Wars : George Lucas : Unexpected Success