It's allergy season again, and here I am nervous like I stole something waiting for good ol' Mother Nature shoot a facial of pollen up my nose. How is it that I can go through life without a springtime care in the world, only to enter my 20's counting on feeling like shit at least twice a year.

The irony of the situation is that allergies are a lot like date rape. I'm like, "Oh! Springtime, what a lovely time of the year." I proceed to don my favorite pair of denim cutoffs and cut my mustache short so that the parts of my upper lip covered by the wintertime mustache may enjoy the nice weather as well. And wouldn't you believe it, as soon as I let my guard down Springtime takes our gentle flirting to a whole new level hate-banging my face with loads of smarmy pollen. Silly flowers! Don't you understand? My nose is no stigma, my face is no snizz - you cannot physically impregnate me; I'm human. Needless to say, the abundance of flower jizz in the air makes me feel like shit, and I'm bitter about it.

Fuck the weather.

The following is the redacted version of an e-mail I wrote to the g/f today...and her response:

(Me to g/f) -

Alright, so funny story. I walk into Vilas to finally go drop a hard copy of that paper, that is over 1.5 weeks late, into Pan's office and get this thing out of my hair so that I can write another paper for him due a week from today. Well, I walk into the building hit the button for the elevator and who's standing there all smart, disarmingly philosophical, and alone in the elevator? Fucking Professor Pan, that's who!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrgh!

And on top of it? I go to class and he proceeds, in the most eloquent fashion humanly possible, to deliver a lecture penultimately wading through the subject matter of my book, spoon-feeding me what should have been the theoretical basis for my argument within the book review that I had handed to him no less that 10 minutes prior! I mean, he covered roughly every base, while drawing the conclusions that I should have pulled from the pages of the most dense book on the planet. God, he's fucking smart. And I feel like a procrastinating spaz, holding a brick in his hand, tears in his eyes, wondering why the fuck his head hurts so bad despite the brick-sized dent in his head. "Fuuuck-tard", (sung lyrically). Whatevs, I'm over it...kind of, (*sigh*). Get drunk tonight?

Alright so that's the shitty story of the day. I'm going to be online pissing my day away...come chat when you'd like!

Creepy me.

(g/f to me...she's such a cheerleader. which, i guess, means she's totally bangable) -

that is quite the story...very funny...i can't believe you saw pan on the day you finally turn your paper in, and then he proceeds to lecture about your material. whatev. that is funny, however. well..so what are you doing today? i should just wait until you get online and then talk to you then..why are you pissing your day away online again? don't you have a paper due tomorrow? you should write it right now. come on!!!! do it! clap your hands and say yeah!

okay..get online quickly and i'll chat w/you and then you can go do homework.

In kitten news: Everyone! Everyone, please pay attention. I have an announcement. A big congratulations to Squirrel who, in her nearly two years of existence, has finally learned how to relinquish her semi-rational/semi-retarded brain into mindless pleasure induced kneading. Using her clawed feet as happy instruments of torture, the cat has finally succumbed to, or learned, instinct; turning my thigh into squishy bleeding bread-dough.

Oh, day of days, I guess I always knew that Squirrel would grow up. But as any proud parent would say, I wasn't prepared for the day when she would graduate from a steady diet of purring and face rubs, to the oh-so-mature pleaure-mauling. Needless to say the g/f and I are quite proud of our little bundle of fat-sack'd fur. Don't get me wrong, she still begs for apple wedges when I'm slicing one up, and stares at me with eyes half-lidded when she poops in the laundry room. But now some of the innocence has gone.

I would say, with some confidence, that we've got a wily teenager on our hands. I can tell because she has started throwing fits for attention and suffers drastic mood-swings. Scrambling noisily, back-arched, she bolts from room to room, her eyes giant, alluding to the copious amounts of natural dopamine coursing through her teeny-tiny little animal brain, which resides in a head that is all cute and covered in fur and big ears. God! She's so cute you could just eat her. Don't you just want to stuff her in your mouth, squishy fur and all?!

In other kitty news, the g/f and I have come to the conclusion that Squirrel was in fact, prior to our acquisition of her, a polish jew surviving in the ghettos of Nazi Germany. We have decided this for the following reasons:

1) She hides diamonds in loaves of bread, which she then breaks and rolls up into little balls and eats.

2) She regularly responds to the name Itzahk Keetenstein.

3) Squirrel is small in stature, has long dark hair, a long-ish nose, and a polish accent.

4) She is petrifide of box pianos, the German language, men with names like Hans/Sigfried/Rainer/Adolf, and Swastika armbands.

I can only hope that these fears and habits will subside as she adjusts to the civil inequalities and "rally around the flag" fanfare of post-Second World War American society. God forbid she turns out to be a migrant Mexican worker only pretending to be a Holocaust survivor in order to stay North of the border, picking fruit for $5.37 an hour...I would be devastated to have to report her to the Department of Homeland Security and pay all the back taxes for the domestic work she's done for us. That would be so Zoe Baird of me...

Now I'm going to go creep it up while Squirrel hides from the vacuum cleaner.

It's true! And I am no longer going to deny or ignore this fact. Hiding my shame with continuous athletic exercises to shift attention from my groin and onto my active lifestyle will not do. I wish to bring this issue forward, making the conversation both public and acceptable. After all, roughly half of the global public is wang-and-nut-enhanced, and I would wager that a fairly large portion of that be-nutted public has experienced the excrutiating insecurities of flaunting the well-defined outline of their junk when wearing sweat-pants.

In fact, it is in the public interest, nay, PUBLIC NEED, that I commence this discussion of cock-and-balls-itude on the principle of galvanizing men worldwide against their fears of showing a little too much nut. Whether in the gym, at a Saturday afternoon football game, summer barbecue, or a lazy Sunday morning brunch, the outline of your perky package should be the least of your masculine concerns. "Brothers!", I say. Do not be ashamed of your flacid and flexible manhood. Wear it proudly, just as a woman adorns her beautiful boobies with bedazzlement, gaining attention from her neighbors of either sex while, at the same time, earning free drinks and catcalls at the bar, display your pocket-rocket in all its profiled glory. Despite cold days, lesser endowment, or undie type, let your junk dangle proudly for the world to ogle, draped in the fleecy cotton of your gym-wear.

I, for one, will proudly wear my piece like the prize exhibit it is, swinging in boxers or bundled in briefs. If I am feeling frisky, I might even release the twig and giggle-berries into the greater polyester wilds of my favorite track pants, uninhibited by the bunching seams of my gitch. "Men!", I exclaim, let us be proud of our family jewels! Let us rejoice in our hanging bits, breaking free of the "size does matter" chains that bind us, allowing our ships to set sail with the "motion of the ocean".

Hey folks.

Check out the ol' sidebar action. It's as close to neon pink and green as I could make it. For those of you who don't know, my favorite pair of shoes are black, white, and neon pink and green; hence the font color change. Yeah, I'm so 90s that when VH1's "I love the 90s" come on I scream, "Fucking Posers! You don't know shit...", and begin to cry hysterically because they just don't, (and never will), understand the 90s like I do.

I get all teary just thinking about it. Corporate pricks.

Poopy pants attitude aside, I added some links to your right, (That'a way --->). Sorry for the distinct lack of Mid-western street art and culture representation. I'll put more up when I can find it. By the way, does anyone know where I can find some local street art and culture stuff? It seems to be that all the hippies that made this area cool have grown up, had kids, and have been voting irresponsibly for the last 20-odd years. I'm not talking the, "I'm so depressed because I hate my dad, and life is a total crummy sham that the fascist-capitalist-scum are enforcing upon us", kind of stuff. I mean pop art! Because it is so much better.

I speak sarcasm. Fluently.

I'll add more Crappola when I find it. Speaking of emo-kids and fascists, check out this quote.

"Fascism will come to America in the guise of National Security."
- Jim Garrison, District Attorney of Orleans Parish, La., 1967

Creepy, huh. I keep it like that. Cupcake out.

So, it was the g/f's, (should that be capitalized for reasons more legitimate than brownie points?), birthday this weekend. We headed down to Chicago, being that it is the destination city of choice in the Mid-west. Living where I do has it's perks and all, (ready access to cheap alcohol, 'hills' to which I could escape to post-felony, and even a local university to provide me with a false sense of security in that most of the world is sane, respectable, and just as liberal as I am), but running around the ol' college town is starting to get pretty lamecore. I must admit that I heard that somewhere, 'lamecore'. What a good word to describe the exact opposite of 'hardcore'; meaning cool.

For obvious reasons, mainly the ones manifested in my girlfriend, young drunken co-eds do not have the appeal that they once had when I visited Madison in the mid-90s. Then again, at that time I was 16 and anything with tits and a pulse was fair game for my boner-driven infatuations. So I must also admit that I, like fine wines, have matured somewhat, cultivating class and an appreciation for women that extends beyond their outward physical appearance and attributes. Speaking of, have I mentioned that if you are nice to them, and 'appreciate' them on a deeper level, that they let you see them naked? If someone would have just told me that when I was sixteen!...I would have died from Gono-herpa-syphal-AIDS by now. That said, it is now my firm belief that I should be thankful for my tapered wisdom and women's abilities to shirk a horny boy from their presence with European engineering-like precision. But I digress.

The g/f and I headed down to Chicago for the evening to celebrate the day of her birthing. After nearly four years of relationship, we've never really had the chance to 'go big' for a birthday so we took advantage of a little overage mistake by the Wisconsin Department of Revenue and I blew my over-inflated tax-return on a weekend trip to Chicago! After all, 'finders-keepers' and 'you can't give back what you don't have!', right?

In all of our years of togetherness we have been unfairly accused of nearly sprinting towards a little white picket fence and 2.63 children in the 'burbs, but never has the g/f been assaulted with as many unfounded accusations of my intent to wed than when she announced to her new co-workers at the monkey-testing-lab that I had made reservations at a fancy-pants restaurant at the top of the Hancock tower. I can just see it now, "He's totally going to propose!", squeals the fat never-to-be-married pig from accounting. What is it about hopeless unmarried women that leave them to senselessly dream of marriage for other young women? Don't they know what marriage does to men; like making them old and fat?! Don't get me wrong, I'm not a complete ass, I have been telling the g/f for a long time now that she's the best girlfriend I've ever had, and I mean it. In fact, I'm so sure of this that I've told her repeatedly that she's got a good lead in the race to be my forever girlfriend. Pretty ballsy statement, I know, but she's a good girl and puts out pretty regularly.

Anyhow, piggy was dead wrong. Ha! I had no intention of proposing to the g/f. I just wanted to take her out for a nice night out on the town, and show her a good time. It's her friggin' birthday for Christ's sake, can't a guy just be a gentlemen for one night without all sorts of ruthless and false acumen? Besides, does anybody understand what kind of naked a guy gets to see when he drops approximately one metric assload of cash on dinner, drinks, and a sweet hotel room? Let me remind you, that's some serious naked.

So dinner on top of the Hancock building was pretty nice. The old jazz duders to our left looked properly loaded, and I am pretty sure that one of the them stoned out of his fucking mind. That makes for happy musicians which makes for good music and a lovely bourbon-soaked night. Outside of the fact that it was the foggiest night in the history of foggy nights in Chicago, virtually negating the view that I was paying a hundred dollars a head to see, the meal was pretty good. The g/f and I had a great time getting half-cocked on wine and scotch before dinner, and it was pretty smooth sailing aboard the S.S. Inebriation from there.

After dinner we boarded the death-rocket, (they called it the elevator), down to sea level and I hobbled my broke-assed leg to a waiting cab. For those of you who haven't ever been to Chicago, it is steadily turning into a haven for lost post-college douschebags. Aside from date-rape, these guys spend a strong majority of their time searching for bad fashion sense from douschebag meccas such as Miami and Los Angeles, (the not ghetto parts), which they use to impress the streetwalkers of Chicago. If I never see another twenty-something asshole desperately trying to fondle fake tits and bad nose-jobs I'll die a happy man. What I am trying to say is that we went to a jazz club which was conveniently located in the basement of another club, this 'other club' - the above ground one - had the following entrance requirements: One collared shirt, complete with Fleur-de-Lis/Paisley/Skull detail; one pair of machine distressed wash-of-the-month semi-premium denim; one inexpertly executed faux-hawk, doused with egregious amounts of hair-lubricant; and one pair of over-priced designer knock-off shoes (color optional). Needless to say, I was more than ready to mail-bomb the place at the drop of a hat. But the jazz set was pretty good.

The hotel was pretty nice, and the two-person jacuzzi tub was totally necessary. All in all, birthdays such as the g/f's are indeed harder to pass up than it was for that asshole brother from 'The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe' to turn down Turkish Delight and not sell out his flesh and blood. If you don't get the reference you should try reading something more than a shit-stained Reader's Digest. I now conclude this post for lack of motivation.

Creep out.

Well Hello!

I am having some security issues these days, along with a mid- mid-life crisis. There is something about hitting a quarter centery that is rocking my little boat. I understand, you're saying to yourself...didn't he start writing this blog because he turned twenty-five and he felt that in some way narcissism was justified at this age. Like, I survived my teens and now I am totally qualified to explain to everyone out there why yellow mustard is totally inferior to any other sandwich topping, except when smearing it on McDonald's™ hamburgers, then it becomes the reason for ordering the sandwich in the first place.

I say this because in my efforts to write a blog that is worth reading I started to read other blogs that were actually worth reading. It's like when the people who write Reader's Digest started writing it. At first they read other credible, or at least entertaining magazines, and then tried to mimick what they saw. Speaking of Reader's digest...to any editor of said magazine, is it really that necessary to distinguish yourself from the other magazines by making your magazine so much smaller. If you were trying to make it easier to hold the magazine in one hand while reading it, you failed miserably. It's so small that when I hold the magazine open with one hand, in any conceivable position, I end up covering nearly half of the article with either my thumb or those other two fingers - you know, the ones at the other end of the hand. Just make the magazine regular sized and I will simply lay it out on my lap or a nearby table. This will keep the magazine from continually exploding like a deck of cards in my hand when I read it, consequently knocking my cup of coffee out of the other hand, which in turn scalds my testicles with burning hot liquid. What I'm trying to say is that I think that Reader's Digest magazine is a poorly executed publication and kind of a piece of shit.

Reader's Digest's stupidity aside, after studying so many other blogs I have decided that my writing ablilities pale in comparison to those of my contemporaries. This has led to my decision that I must now dedicate more of my blog-time to coordinationg the 'Links' section of my blog, making it more eye-catching and attractive to potential readers of blogs other than mine; i.e. everyone.

In other words, I concede my loss in the battle of talent. Go out you fine readers, enjoy someone else's blog. I go now to wallow in my self-pity.

PS. I've got some really funny shit stewing in the old 'Draft' bin...keep an eye out!

Let's get sappy for a moment...shall we?

It's a Saturday afternoon and I am, for once, struggling to find some sort of satisfaction with bitching and whining. In my quest to prove my emotional, and intellectual, superiority (duh!), I have become quite critical. Outside, the snow is coming down like the Prom Queen's dress. Last night I was standing, well, more like sitting, (but I was standing in spirit - broken leg, you know), in front of the window in my apartment watching the snow fall. I haven't seen it come down like that in a long time...maybe not even since I was just a fetus riding in my Mommy's tummy to the hospital to be born. And yes, I could see then. I was very gifted. Like Jesus, or Superman. Have we had this conversation before? Anyway, the snow was coming down hard last night, and it's supposed to come down even-harder tonight.

Today is my favorite kind of day. It's cloudy and the snow is still falling, only with a little less intensity than last night's blizzard. I am laying in bed, resting quietly with good ol' Squirrel Bill Football, who seems quite content to cuddle and 'clean' herself with a drenching of her own cat-food flavoured saliva. All things equal, I'm glad that she's happy. I've always felt, and Squirrel agrees, that a good blanket of snow or cat-drool, seems to somehow set today apart from yesterday. Not to get all philosophical, n'stuff, but it seems to me that the snow gives us a natural break from 'the daily grind'. It's a legitimate opportunity to stop running around in the car, and maybe, to just park our asses in a good upholstered spot and relax. It just doesn't seem right to contemplate the 'real' world right now - I think I'd rather stay fat and happy by thinking about things that are warm and fuzzy in my brain.

So I've turned off the TV. I'm sick of calling Tyra Banks an "undeserving, monster-foreheaded, Diva whore" to anyone who will listen. And I'm over telling FOX News to "Fuck Off, You!". It's time to lay back and maybe read a book that doesn't discuss the deliberative nature and propriety of a polarized polity. It has been a long time since the days in which I wandered into my parents room, lying down on their bed for a change. I usually shared the space with the dog, and found myself buried in a novel that I WANTED to read. I've always had an imagination and I really liked it when I 'knew' what Bilbo Baggins looked like, instead realizing that I had sadly mistaken that Bilbo Baggins is, in fact, a somewhat androgenous aging suburbanite, who looks like he's still on the fence about his sexuallity - Thank You, Peter Jackson.

I can remember spending one late winter's Sunday lying on my parents bed reading Native Son by Richard Wright. I guess it's no Harry Potter and The Warlock's Testicle, but Native Son, for as dense as it was, and as dumb as I am, sure managed to open my eyes to a lot of things. I'm sure we've all had these moments before, but I remember seeing the re-orang-ellow Wisconsin sunset coming through the lace curtains that mother made, and feeling like I had actually understood something in a way that maybe no one had. It was pretty cool feeling for a High School kid. Now, I'm pretty sure I cried a lot back then, but teenage-girl antics aside, there is nothing like taking the time to settle into reading a good book. You know...like the ones that are worth burning or banning.

I think that I lounged on that bed for a good six, maybe eight, hours without ever getting up. I can remember feeling dizzy, like I had just gotten dome for the first time. I haven't had that in a while. And, no Dad, I'm not talking about head...and that's none of damn business anyway! I'm talking about reading a good book. Like the ones our high school teachers always encouraged us to read, but that we never bothered to pick up becuase we were too busy jerking off and treating eachother like shit.

High school miseries aside, I think that now might be a good time to find the best memory-filled natural lighting and drag my sopping wet, and happy, kitty into my lap to read a good book. None of that neo-romanticism David Sedaris crap, (even though I dug a couple of his last ones), but the stuff that our parents were supposed to read when they were hippies and beatniks. You know, books that discussed issues of more importance than Anna Nicole Smith's acquiescence to terminal stupidity. Now go! You masses read a book, burn a bra, and eat a vegetable.

Keepin' it creepy.

I'm back...finally! I've been away from the ol' blog for a while now due to a little mishap involving ice and my subpar physical and mental capabilities. In other words, I broke my leg whilst ice-skating. For those of you who know me well, this may well come as a surprise; especially since I have played ice hockey for the last 20, or so, years. Maybe this is why I didn't go any further than I did...hmmm.

So the story goes as follows - Me go ice skate. Me fall down. Me break leg. Me go hospital. Hospital people manhandle footsie. Me hobble for week on crutches. Me sleep no good. Me go back to hospital. Hospital doctors test new power tools from Christmas time. Dr. Hatred laugh hard. Me in more pain. Me have two new woodscrews driven through leg bones. Me sad.

That's the story. Hope you enjoyed it.

Hello all. I am little lost today, or rather, confused about where I should go with my personal style. Yes, I know, vanity is for the birds. But try telling a guy who wears a mustache and nut-hugging jeans in the prime of his life that his 'look' isn't "all that important". As my Dad always told me, "Kurt. I love you, because you are my son, but mostly because you are young, dumb, and full of c**...and that is funny to me."

Sidenote: For the record, almost every time I heard that speech I took a moment to reflect. And, after all these years I have realized that my father most likely impregnated my mother a second time for very specific reasons. The first son was born for the longevity of the family name. My brother, the brains of the family, was meant to do something with his life. The pride of the family - well spoken and articulate, intelligent nearly beyond measure, gentle and kind - he is destined for greatness of some sort. I, on the other hand, was sired for an entirely different reason. My parents needed some comedy in their life, something to laugh at..."Oh! Look at what he is doing now! Haha...he's eating fertilized soil from the potted plant again! Wearing nothing but rubber boots and a T-shirt." Mom. Dad. That's some cold shit.

Back to the point...style and my first day back on campus. You know how it is, the first day of school and all. Not all that much has changed for me since my Mom first dropped me off at Kindergarten, or pre-school, or at the orphanage...(I'm over it, whatever). I still cry, and get all nervous about whether or not the other kids will like me. I still get nervous, wondering if I picked out the cool folder at Shopko®. Everyone else always seemed to have the sweetest fucking Trapper-Keeper™, and there I was toting my hand-me-down Thundercats© folder, all dog-eared by my brother who had cast it away the second day of class, six years ago.

Now, some fifteen years later, I still wish I had gotten up a little earlier to plan my outfit. And wouldn't you know: Fuck! Here I am wearing the same shit as last semester, and wouldn't you guess it...Puma shoes are out now! Last semester I was cutting edge, the shining fashion-beacon guiding those poor lost souls to Cool Harbor. And now here I am, shamed in my inability to understand how the hipster movement was changing for the new season. Apparently, while I was busy working my ass off to pay tuition, the rest of the world went emo and now everyone is wearing dopey run-down looking hoodies, long messy hair, and tight jeans. I can't even listen to Snow Patrol without feeling like Carson Daily and the rest of the MTV crowd are poking me in the back with their hipster hard-ons.

Does this mean that I have to find a new look to express my inability to conform? Do I stay-the-course, hoping that the wave will pass me by, and that in another ten years I'll be that thirty-something year old ass that teenagers acuse of being stuck in the...10's? By the way, what are we supposed to call this century? There are previous guidelines for the 20's, 30's, 40's, etc.; but what are we supposed to say about right now when referencing back to now in the future? I'm so confused!

Moving on, here is the rub. Today, I am walking across campus, (I know a self-respecting 25 year old should not be admitting he is still in college, let alone an undergrad...), and all I see are frat guys in 7™ jeans, Minnesotans plastered in Ed Hardy™ and American Apparel™, and JAP chicks cruising down the road in vintage Land Rover™ Defenders wearing Ray Bans™ and leather motorcycle jackets from the 80s. Okay, I understand it's not very 'hip' to name labels like I was from the suburbs, but without Chrome™ messenger bags, the 'bike messengers' in Madison, would just be a bunch of skinny assholes wearing vintage horn-rimmed gogg-a-loons, tight T-shirts, and London Calling™ jeans. Speaking of bike messengers, if you are such a 'bike messenger' deliver something already...and stop trying to run me over on your single-gear, stripped-down city bike. The point being, I don't even know who is who anymore. Think. When was the last time you went to a coffee shop? Who was there? EVERYONE! Where am I supposed to go to identify myself as the undiscovered literary genius that I am? How can I possibly be a coffee snob when everyone knows that a Café Americano is just espresso in cup with some hot water? Can't we just slow the fashion scene down a little?

Maybe we should have a national 'Look' registration table or something. That way, if you wished to persue your individuality by means of personal style, you could easily register said 'look' with the government and then sue the shit out of the next 18 year old knob who broke the law by committing 'look infringement'. Or even better have him arrested on the spot by the 'Style Police'. I mean, your 'look' is important, right? Roxette wrote a fucking song about it for Christ's sake. Sure, there are still jocks, and chearleaders, and rockers and whatnot, but who is protecting the little guy? No one. With these larger groups preying upon our style, upping the anty all the time, I'm going to end up walking out of the house wearing flippers and a tiara just to feel like myself again.

Alright, rant over. It's time to get down to business and start petitioning the government to protect my vanity, insecurity, and frailty of character.

Thug 4 Life.

So...some of you out there may already be well aware, but for those who aren't, I am a touch obsessed with my cat. I have an ability to latch onto relatively inane things outside of the general interest to the public at large, and my cat has become one of them. She is my joy, a little ray of sunshine perched with her little hairy ass dangling precariously from the window sill when I come home from class. I digress.

Let me explain. So my cat and I have this inexplicable non-sexual peas-and-carrots type bond. By this line of thought, it would be totally expected that I make mention of her not only in life and on the street, but in my blog as well. Let me introduce you.

Name: Squirrel Bill Football, also answers to 'keeten' spoken in an annoyingly high-pitched voice, (not my fault).
Sex: Androgynous Cat, (again, not my fault).
Weight: Medium-to-Large size box of Minute Rice
Height: Not sure...the front legs are considerably shorter than the back ones.
Body-type: Bowling Pin-shaped, (tiny head - fat body).
Hair Color: She can't decide, but I've settled on 'Shit Mess'.
General 'tude: Needy.
Position most likely to be found in during sleep: Yard Sale/Trash Can Lid.
Stand/sit/crumple/fold?: She's a cat. She shits in a box full of sand while squatting, and then 'replaces her divets'.

Alright, that's the general overview of my cat. I generally have something funny to say about her and more than welcome an open ended conversation about her views of pretty much anything, including politics, animal voting-rights, and the costs of policing international border control policies, for example. I plan on making her story a general 'Feature' in my blog, so feel like one of the family, and stay up to date on what Squirrel has been up to in the last couple of weeks.

Needless to say, I love her very much and become emotionally upset by hurtful comments. For example, when I left Madison last summer to work in New York, I was forced to leave her in the merciless hands of my cat-hating girlfriend for the summer. My nerves were on edge for weeks ahead of time, and I apologized to Squirrel Bill profusely for making plans to leave her so long. If you don't have a cat, or have never been in this kind of situation, you will never understand the death-gaze in the eyes of a kitten scorned. So you can imagine my distress, when, during the second week of work, my girlfriend casually informed me that she had placed a "Free - Cat that Sucks." sign in the very public front window of our downtown apartment. I freaked, and while trying to keep a calm and laughing tone, scrambled for my laptop desperately searching for the next flight out of New York and back to Madison to save my favorite quadraped from the bitter clutches of a persnickety women. Lucky for the both us, (cat and myself), my old lady was only slightly kidding and Squirrel nervously maintained good health until my return. But man-o-man, you bet your ass she was listening and mad as hell when I got home. It took her a good month to love me again. That's old news, but you get the point. I'm attached.

In recent news, she has been licking herself, sleeping on random furniture, and biting my feet when I pass in socks.

Stay tuned for further updates!

I've decided to ring in my first quarter-century with some new technology: a blog. Legitimized by gamers, pervs, and emo-kids everywhere, the idea of blogging has been slowly gnawing at my burgeoning ego for months now. And here I sit, fattening myself with Cheez-its™ and stolen gourmet chocolates in front of my computer, retelling stories of heroic feats of greatness and superhuman-ness.

That said, let us discuss my reasons for blogging, the first of which was my twenty-fifth birthday party. Much as Jesus lived the better part of his first twenty-some years, outside of birth, in relative anonymity, I have as well. When the only son of God (as the Christians put it) decided to make his presence public, he started healing the blind with an open-handed smack to the forehead, and turning water into wine - getting more than one Betty toasted, I would wager. Thus, in a much less inspired way I have decided to make my own life public, (as Jimminy Christ did), for those who wish to know about it. I, however, have chosen a much less strenuous medium, a blog; as opposed to miracles. But any-who, back to the party.

For those of you who were there, congratulations, you will be remembered in the tomes of history for your wisdom, charity, and down-right awesomeness. For those of you who were not there - I hope you all trip on something and get a nasty scrape. As far as the party goes, on a fun-ness scale rated by its crazy/sweetness, I would say that the mini-pub-crawl - rated on a scale of 1 to Public Displays of Affection featuring Penetration - was a rousing success. I got sufficiently drunk, as did most of the party-go'ers, and I think as a result a couple of my peeps might have enjoyed some sorts of sexual pleasures. Good fun for everyone involved. Nothing too crazy, but just up my alley. Unlike Hey-zuess Chris-tus I don't require millions of Christians lavishing gifts upon eachother to ring in my big day; just a couple of friends, a butt-load of shots, and a pint of my flavourite lager.

The other spurning influence for my shiny new blog is based on jealousy. My best buddy from high-school has consistently beat me to the punch on every cool life adventure: college diploma, hip-ness, cool digs, and general over-all life sweetness. Plainly said: he generally does a lot of cool shit, and has recently expanded said 'cool shit' into writing a blog mostly conveying the high-points of that 'cool shit'. Thus, I am jealous and would like to trump him by possibly writing something infintely cooler and perhaps wiser than him. This will be tough, but I am hoping that if I just keep writing, churning out loads of babble, that I might spit out some little nugget of wisdom or hilarity that might lead to total world peace, or domination, depending on whose hands it might fall into.

Either way, it is my hope to write down some funny shit, tickle a funny bone somewhere, and call it a day. To my friends and family: I apologize in advance, there are definitely going to be some stories about you.

Until then enjoy the dick and fart jokes. Peace, love and creepy-ness