Has It Been 3 Years Already? It Just Seems Like 6...

Ok, today was my 3-year blogiversary. I honestly can't believe it's been that long and feel a little weird celebrating it since I have treated this blog like a red-headed step child since falling for Facebook last fall. Way too many 'f's in that sentence, but anyway, since I am always one for a good party (defined by me sitting by myself laughing hysterically at Late Night With Jimmy Fallon while looking at a pretend person telling them how funny Jimmy's jokes are and then explaining why they are so funny...), I am going to continue on with the blogiversary celebration.

I have to be honest though, I looked back at my first blogiversary and really liked it, so I am using an updated version of it for this year's celebration 9yes, that means you still have to read the WHOLE thing). Thanks to everyone who still meanders to this little piece of intraweb daily or weekly and I really, really do hope to begin writing somewhat routinely before too long. I miss the writing and I miss my blog friends too much. I have met some truly awesome people through this blog and hope to meet even more. But enough of the sentimental horse bombs, on with the partay!!!

Well, here it is. Today is my three-year blogiversary. I checked into copyrighting that phrase, but the guy at the counter said all he could do was accept my utility payment, he knew nothing about copyrights. I'd say he should change his sign to reflect that, but then I looked at the sign and it turns out it actually says something about utility payments. You never know where a great idea will come to you, unfortunately the right person isn’t always around, I guess. Now that I actually have to deliver on my three-year extravaganza, I’m afraid I over hyped the occasion just a little. I have a tendency to do that. As a result, Lucy and Ethel are often left asking me ‘is that really it Daddy, we mean, really?’ while I hold a camera saying things like ‘see, see, I told you this would be the coolest thing ever!’ I promised myself I’d stop doing that. Oh well, maybe tomorrow. No, the day after tomorrow because I have the most awesomest thing planned for tomorrow. It's going to blow your mind! Uh-oh, looks like I overhyped again. Sorry.

As the days approaching my extravaganza counted down, I was dismayed at the total lack of B-list celebrities I invited that actually accepted. I was going to go all out for this one. Roseanne Barr, Miss America, David Hassellhoff, Christopher Walken, the curator of Elvis’ Graceland, Oprah’s friend Gayle, a representative of OPEC, one of the camera guys from American Idol, the first person other than a family member who visited my blog, many of the people in the news I made fun of, I mean wrote about in my posts, my high school English teacher who said I’d never amount to anything, my high school math teacher who said I’d never amount to anything, 5-7 ex-girlfriends who said I’d never amount to anything and Desmond Tutu (just because it’s so fun to say and he never said I wouldn’t amount to anything, but then again, he doesn’t know me yet). But, that’s not all. I also invited Lorne Michaels, Donny Most from Happy Days, the VPs of Programming for both The Travel Channel and The Food Network, my heroes Bob Newhart, Fred Willard and Batman himself, Adam West. I thought about inviting a few Playboy bunnies, but I’d just giggle when they got near me. However, above all else, the biggest surprise would have been at the end of the night when the financial consultant I hired was going to come out on stage and prove that I had indeed amounted to something. $5.27, to be exact. Then we’d serve pie and the Rockettes would do my almost-patented Happy Dance.

I'm really not sure why no one RSVP'd. Well ok, I know why the ex-girlfriends didn't RSVP, but what about everyone else. I even went so far as to disguise them as official letters so they wouldn't see my name, not recognize it and just throw it away. Oh wait, unless it had something to do with the 'you may already be a winner' stamp I put on it. I knew I should have gone with my original plan of using those Hello Kitty invites from the Hallmark Store. Damn that second guessing!!

So, I guess just like all my past milestone posts, I’m left with a big empty banquet hall that I rented for the occasion and lots of fun ideas and party favors left unused. Is anyone in the market for 8,000 kazoos with the words ‘Bitchin’ Blogiversary’ on them? How about 8,000 'I blog because you twitter' t-shirts? Or the 'You=FAIL' bumperstickers? And I'm never gonna get make my money back on the Barry Manilow bobble head dolls I bought for everyone. There just aren't that many uses for a bobblehead that sings 'I Write The Blogs'

Oh well. I think I’ll just dim the lights, undo my tie and croon Sinatra’s ‘In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning.’ I’ve always wanted to do that. Or, I could grab a couple of brooms and practice plate spinning on them at the banquet hall’s expense. Maybe I could turn on the strobe light and dance all night to “Disco Inferno.’ Perhaps I could turn on the hall's PA system and pretend I am announcing the lineup of the '55 Dodgers at Ebbets Field. Or, I could vacate the hall altogether since I think I hear a security guard coming. Now I wish I hadn’t paid extra for the nighttime fireworks extravaganza. That was one slick salesman…

Before I leave though, I wanted to sincerely thank everyone who takes the time to visit this blog, especially since I really don't frequent it too much anymore. Aw shucks, it means a lot to me! Well, at least those of you who leave a comment. As for the ones who don’t leave comments, well, no comment. I'M KIDDING!!! Three years ago today I sat down to do something I had been wanting to do since my heart surgery in 2005 but never did (I mean write, not just sit down in front of the computer. I already did too much of that). I picked out by blog’s template, wrote a few lines and was on my way. It took just a few days before I was hooked.

I actually started my blog with the comment feature off. It was one of my real world friends who suggested I should allow comments. Looking back, I guess she was my enabler. I did that and my life hasn’t been the same since. I have met so many great people over the last three years. Many of you I've even had the privilge to get to know even better through emails or Facebook or your court decreed restraining orders...

But enough of all that emotion and stuff. I need to find where I put the helium tank. I feel like singing ‘I Like Big Butts’ as Alvin and the Chipmunks…

The Cheese To End All Cheese?

I love cheese, many of you love cheese, so it just seemed that writing about this next cheese was something I had to do after learning of its existence. And I will admit that it’s a much better topic than the other one I was toying with: Starbucks’ new nudie mermaid logo. They get enough publicity. But Casu Marzu on the other hand, does not. If you had asked me about Casu Marzu, I would have told you it was the fancy name of the mansion overlooking Corona or that it was possibly the name of that weird sounding band from the 80s. Oh wait, that might actually be Spandau Ballet, and I have no idea what the heck that means. I understand ballet, but is Spandau just a fancy way of saying Spandex? Because a spandex ballet might be kind of funny to watch. Perhaps a little chaffy for the performers, but that’s what they get for wearing non-breathable spandex during a dance performance!

It seems I have drifted of course, again. This post was supposed to be all cheesy. Sorry, I couldn’t resist that. It’s the same temptation I gave into yesterday when Bristol and Chloe were playing with their magnetic letters and there was a little issue with Chloe needing 2 ‘p’s. For those of you keeping score at home, that would also be ‘pp’ and it led to me spending most of the afternoon saying things like ‘Bristol, give your sister your PP’ and ‘Bristol, Chloe wants your PP.’ I realize it’s not very grown up, but then either am I. It is a little unsettling when you realize that your 6-year-old daughters are slightly above that type of humor however…

OK, back to the cheese. By the way, I swear back to the cheese will the title of a screenplay I write before I die, most likely from clogged arteries. At this time, I would like to introduce you to a little something called Casu Marzu. I guess I actually introduced you to it in the first paragraph, but I didn’t introduce it correctly. I am horrible at introductions and often mess them up. Now days I just try to stand in between the two people I should be introducing and just hope they take it upon themselves to introduce each other in an effort to break the awkward silence. I come out looking like an idiot, but they get to meet each other and I usually discover I had been calling at least one of them by the wrong last name. It works out quite beautifully. 

Casu Marzu is cheese. Unofficially, it is referred to as maggot cheese. MMMMM, doesn’t that sound scrumpulicious? I need to mention that it’s not one of those cute or clever names that has nothing to do with the title because horribly enough, this cheese has a lot to do with maggots. I may have just lost many of you with a double maggot reference (triple if you choose to count that last one there) and I will warn you that many of you may not want to continue. If that is the case, have a great day and I will see you tomorrow with something much less gastronomically offensive.

This cheese will test how loyal of a cheese-ist you really are. It will make you question how serious you are to your cheese commitment and how far you will go to prove your allegiance to one of life’s most delicious things to come from a cow’s udder. It is a somewhat altered or embellished cheese, if you will. As the cheese begins fermentation, it is filled with larvae, who eat it, break down its fats and allow it to further ferment into a soft cheese with a little bit of liquid, according to Wikipedia. Sorry, I just dove right into that description without much of a warning. Please forgive me. So now, not only do we have little bugs in our cheese, we get liquid out of it. That is completely disgusting. I’m sure you were already thinking that, but I like to state the obvious, such as ‘it looks like this summer's gonna be a hot one, boy howdy.'

However, that is nowhere near the best part of this cheese. It is actually dangerous. What, you ask? Maggot larvae filled cheese with oozy cheese-water is bad for you? Shocking! Why yes it is. It can become too toxic, the larvae can cause intestinal problems and the cheese can lead to some allergic reactions. But the one danger that takes the cake for the cheese, to awkwardly mix metaphors, is the fact that Casu Marzu can lead to eye damage. Go ahead, ask me why cheese can cause eye damage. Well, the LARVAE CAN JUMP AND OFTEN STRIKE PEOPLE IN THE EYES AS THEY ARE EATING THE CHEESE. Is that not precious priceless? So now when you show up to a family event wearing an eye patch, you will no longer have to tell them that you are pretending to be a pirate, hurt yourself horsing around with lawn darts or got that part as the evil villain on a daytime soap opera. You can tell them that you were struck by cheese larvae. On second thought, your reputation might be better served to say you think you are a pirate.

So that my friends is Casu Marzu. I love cheese, but have now officially drawn the line with regard to my love. Apparently, there is such a thing as conditional love. I would now like to express that conditional love in the form of a Dr. Seussian type poem, if you’ll permit me...

I love cheese. 
I love it more than my knees or that stuff that is made by flowers and bees
I love it in the night; I love it in the light
I’ll eat with hair or even a bear
I’ll eat it when it falls in the sand, right straight out of my hand
I shall melt it or smelt it or fry it or dry it
I’ll take it with wine or with pulled swine
I shall eat it off the floor or instead of a smore
I like it with holes, I like it with moles
I will eat cheese every day; I will eat cheese every way
I will even eat it with thugs or melted in mugs
But one thing I will not do is eat it with bugs
So yes, I will eat fondue, but never, ever Casu Marzu
Seriously, that’s freakin’ disgusting

Jokes So Bad They Could Forever Change Your Opinion Of Me...

Perhaps it’s my constant late night viewage of Conan, Letterman and Jimmy Fallon recently that has awakened a yearning I long since put to rest. Or maybe it was because I was the kid at elementary graduation that told everyone “I want to be a late night talk show host like David Letterman or Johnny Carson when I grow up” when asked what I wanted to be when I got older after receiving my fake diploma or $5 gift card to Pizza Hut or whatever I got. While all the other kids wanted to overpopulate the medical fields and teaching fields and litigation fields and ball fields, I was the once who sent his parents running for the exists with their faces covered.

But I digress, or actually progress, to current day. Watching all of the Late Night talkage lately has awakened something in me, and you know exactly what I’m talking about if you have had the extreme misfortune of reading my updates lately on Facebook or Twitter. I’ve been making a lot of bad jokes, but trying to hide them under the description of “Really Bad Jokes That I Think Are Swell.” These all are what you could call groaners. I’m just warning you now…

Since I haven’t blogged in a little while, I thought I would share them here, all bullet style and stuff. I’d say that I would make this a new weekly feature on the blog, but as many of you know, and have taken the time to remind me, I really don’t post weekly, let alone monthly anymore…

So, I present to you the first ever installment of (cue the overproduced and expensive intro clip…) Really Bad Jokes, Even Though I Think They Are Swell:

* I'm thinking of applying to culinary school, but saw no courses that specialized in microwave management or cheesy goodness. Perhaps I should just put that idea on the back burner. Get it, cooking/back burner, like it's on a stove?? *Sigh* It loses the humor when I have to explain it to you...

* Apparently, I sleep walked once...and made $150 bucks. Should this concern me?

* Do you think Presidential candidates ever use "I promise to make YOU a priority in my administration) as a pick up line?

* I went Joaquin along a River in Phoenix once. Just thought you should know...

* BLACK JACK!! I now have 21 followers on Twitter! I should have stopped at 12 though. Then for a brief instant, I might have been able to know what being Jesus felt like. And cue the lighting strike atop my head in 3...2...1...

* Have you ever put a lot of creamer in your coffee when you had a cold and were all phlegmy? At that point, I think we can all agree that it just becomes a cup of coughy...

* I knew I was in trouble in my college art class when the professor asked me if I knew about art and I answered, "you mean like Garfunkel?"

* Some sad news from Jim Henson's camp. They ran out of foam when working on the new Muppets feature. Apparently they had to use what they had at the studio, floor mops. I guess now they're the Mopets? Waka, Waka, Waka...

* Millions could end up without TV today because of the big digital conversion. Funny enough, no one is complaining. Oh that's right, Jon and Kate Plus 8 is on tonight...

* The inventor of the salad bar died today. I just wanted you all to know. Lettuce have a moment of silence...

Fun TV Time Repost: Uh, Finally!

I wrote this in September of LAST year. The freaky thing about it, I wrote about Sleestacks even then. OYYYYY. Uh, I mean AYYYYYYYYY...

It has finally happened. The wait is finally over. As I finally prepared to write about this, I couldn’t help but think that I use the word finally too much and how weird the word finally sounds when you say it over and over. Finally. Fine-uhlly? Fine-alley?

More importantly, I also thought about how the time is way overdue for the eventuality of which I am about to speak. And the beauty of this for you, the reader, is that you get to guess what I am talking about and I will award more bonus points to be redeemed at fine truck stop travel centers everywhere to the blogger with the correct guess. Aww crap, you just looked at the picture, didn’t you. Well so much for the contest…

The fine city of Milwaukee, which is Algonquin for ‘Beautiful Land’ as Alice Cooper taught us all in Wayne’s World, has honored its television heritage. The city recently unveiled a bronze statue of the coolest leather clad motorcycle riding thumb sticking upping ayyying jukebox punching ruffian ever (gee, I hope I didn’t over do it there)- Fonzie!

The cool thing is that most of the Happy Days cast attended, except for Pinky Tuscadero or Mork or the mean Police Officer Kirk. I swear next time Lucy and Ethel misbehave I am going to make them watch Officer Kirk, Darth Vader, The Grinch, Dwight Schrute and the Sleestax from ‘Land of the Lost’ on a continuous loop to ‘scare them straight.’ Unless that makes me a bad parent, though I don’t think that could be possible with such a great viewing lineup as the one I just listed.

Besides, the twins deserve payback. They made me watch ALL of High School Musical 2 with them and would not let me ‘get up for a minute.’ Perhaps that is because they know that’s code for ‘I’m slipping away and will coincidentally return when the credits roll, unless the credits contain more HSM songs, in which case I will not be returning.’ I couldn’t see straight for 3 days after that viewing. And what’s even scarier than that, I actually found one of Ashley Tisdale’s songs enjoyable. Oh no, I just said Ashley Tisdale. In public. And there goes the chill up my spine…

Returning to a more comfortable topic, I also don’t think Arnold (quite possibly due to his current status being listed as ‘dead’) attended the Fonzie statue unveiling, nor did Richie’s long time girlfriend and eventual wife Lori Beth or Jenny Piccolo. Now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure David and Ricky didn’t attend either. Wait, that was Ozzie and Harriet, wasn’t it. I had a little TV hemorrhage there for a moment, sorry. But you have to admit that you were impressed with my ‘Happy Days’ knowledge WITHOUT the aid of Wikipedia, thankyouverymuch. Ok, I guess you don’t have to admit that and yes, I did have to confer, if ever so briefly, with Wiki (it’s cool, we’re on a first name basis because of the frequency of our, uh, relationship) on what Lori Beth’s name was. But at least I remembered her. And no, I did not forget Chachi, it’s just that bringing him up reopens all those old ‘Joanie Loves Chachi’ wounds that are better left untouched for me. By the way, does anyone else think that statue bears a striking resemblance to a young Bob Eubanks?

Normally this would be the part of the story where I would go on and on about all the cities that should have statues because of whatever TV show took place there. Not this time though, because I did my homework. Chicago already has a Bob Newhart statue because Newhart’s first show took place there. Although, nowhere in Vermont is there a statue from his second show ‘Newhart’ of him or Larry, his brother Darrell or even his other brother Darrell. But then again, the show never said what town the Stratford Inn was in or inn. There is also a statue of Mary Tyler Moore in Minneapolis because that is where Mary Richards worked for Mr. Grant at WJM TV. The statue even depicts her throwing her hat up in the air, which I do whenever I am near a plaza with tall buildings. I think I am going to curtail the singing of ‘we’re gonna make it after all’ though. It’s not quite in my vocal range and people look at me funny when I kick the back of my leg up.

See, because I did my research, this will now be the part of the story where I only go on about all the TV shows that need statues (instead of going on and on in case you forgot the joke I tried to start laying the groundwork for about 5 sentences ago. Of course now it won’t seem as funny because I had to ‘splain it). First up on the TV statutorium list for me HAS to be Cincinnati. That city needs a Les Nessman, Herb Tarlick or Dr. Johnny Fever statue from WKRP in Cincinnati. I would have said Loni Anderson, but if you remember that show, a statue in her likeness could be seen as lewd. Nice mind you, but lewd.

I also don’t think Cheers has a statue in Boston, or would that be Boston has a statue of Cheers? I have an idea. How about a statue of Norm on his bar stool? I think Queens, NY should have an Archie Bunker statue. While the obvious statue design should probably be him with a cigar sitting in his chair, I propose a different approach. How about Archie Bunker with a cigar sitting in his chair – with his middle finger up for all to see. I think that would capture his spirit. Unless of course you want to go with a statue of Sammy Davis Jr. kissing him on the cheek.

And let us not forget a statue dedicated to one of every child’s favorite TV time heroes, Barney. But alas, questions arise. I’m flairing with the dramatic there, though I don’t think that came out right. Do we make the statue purple or metallic and more importantly, where do we place the statue? I have an idea; let’s put Barney’s likeness in a coastal community, preferably near a pier. Have you seen what seagulls can do to a statue? They like to crap on its head. That might not sound like the best sentence to use when ending a post, but try saying it with a Scottish accent, especially with the emphasis on both ‘crap’ and ‘head.’ Ah-ha, see what I mean.