Mega Haiku: "Croutons"

I don't get croutons.
Hard cubic salad dressers;
I fork, they explode.

In my salad bowl:
Spear other ingredients,
But I scoop croutons.

You resist fork tines;
Perhaps those herbs protect you.
Smash you to bread crumbs.

AZT

Ask AZT

What do you know about that hilarious lady on the Progressive Insurance commercials? - Juanita Sanchez, College Park, MD

Her name is Flo, she's played by an actress named Stephanie Courtney, and she ranks alongside John Mayer in my book of people who should not be allowed to procreate.

I find Flo extremely annoying with her omnipresent positive attitude and insatiable love for vehicle insurance. What's really frightening is that there is a Web community comprised of people who find Flo physically attractive. Are you kidding? I'd rather hump a sheet of ply wood. The pasty skin, stupid hair, blazing red lipstick, and gigantic ass...what's the appeal? Not to mention she is the most annoying TV personality since Kathy Lee Gifford. No, Richard Simmons. No, Jerry Lewis. No....

I heard you quit drinking. What the hell? - John Williams, Pierre, South Dakota

Yes, after a long and distinguished drinking career, I have quit. I'm not saying that I won't have a rare drink on special occasions, but my heavy drinking days are behind me. I got tired of not knowing how I got to bed, and hangovers are really getting to be a bitch as I get older.

It's funny. Drinking is the one vice you can give up and people don't understand. If you quit taking drugs, smoking, having promiscuous sex, cracking your knuckles, picking your scabs, scratching your butt in public, or chewing your fingernails, people will congratulate you. "Way to go, my friend! You have exorcised your demons!" But quit drinking and people act like you've just developed a problem. "You what? Why the hell would you do that? Are you dying or something?"

How's fatherhood been going? - Jill Doyle, Eureka, CA

It's going. I recently became paranoid about Li'l M getting involved with drugs when she gets older, so that's something I can worry about for the next 20 years.

Other than that, I guess we're doing fine. She's babbling a lot, learning to take steps, getting teeth. Exciting times.

Parenthood is chaos when you have an infant, and I get surprised by some of the things I say without even thinking about it. Like the other day Miss M came home from work and saw one of Li'l M's shoes on the floor. She asked where the matching shoe was. I replied, "Oh, it's upstairs in the sink because it has feces on it." Tragically, that's kind of normal now.

AZT

AZT Sells Out

So you may notice a few new additions to this blog. They are called "advertisements." Why are they here now if they haven't been here since I started in 2003? I'm not even going to try to be veiled about this. I'll get some money from having ads on my blog; money that I can save and use to maybe send Little M to something other than community college. I've been doing this blog for years and to this point the main thing I've gotten from blogging is distracting me from other stuff that I don't want to do. So if I can make a few bucks, I don't think it's a major problem because there are probably less than five or six people who continue to read my bullshit.

Blogger is paying me for the ad space not matter what, but if you click on the ads I will get more money. It's probably only a pittance when it comes down to it, but I'm willing to give it a shot for a while. I signed up for Blogger to place the ads last night, and as of this morning I've made $0.00. Kicking ass.

One last thing. The ads are generated by Blogger/Google so I don't have much control over them. However, the ads will supposedly become more representative of my content as time goes on. I have no idea what kind of ads they'll be putting up, but maybe you'll see an ad for a convention for bitching about things.

To make up for allowing corporate America to have another way to brainwash you, enjoy some history and have a Happy Halloween.

Tomorrow in History!
October 31

475 – Romulus Augustulus is proclaimed Western Roman Emperor.
1876 – A monster cyclone ravages India, resulting in over 200,000 deaths.
1926 – Magician Harry Houdini dies of gangrene and peritonitis that developed after his appendix ruptured (which allegedly resulted from a sucker punch to the gut).
1940 – World War II: The Battle of Britain ends – the United Kingdom prevents a German invasion.
1941 – After 14 years of work, drilling is completed on Mount Rushmore.
1959 – Lee Harvey Oswald attempts to renounce his American citizenship at the US Embassy in Moscow, USSR.
1984 – Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is assassinated by two Sikh security guards. Riots soon break out in New Delhi and nearly 2,000 Sikhs are killed.
1996 – Painful Urination held the first of one outdoor public concerts in Hollidaysburg, PA. A broken amplifier, bad singing, and dozens of disappointed fans later, and attendees were unsure if history had been made. Painful Urination's album Discharge was released a week later and received mixed reviews.

AZT

Pi for Lunch

AZT

John Mayer, Stop It. Just Stop It.

It's time I say something because this guy just won't go away. America, we need to stop John Mayer.

His music sucks. It really does. Listen to it closely once or twice. I heard that song "Daughters" in the grocery store the other day (When does good music ever get played in a grocery store?), and it got stuck in my head for the next day and a half. And I wanted to rip out John Mayer's gall bladder because that song is terrible. Mayer's overrated as a guitarist and can't sing worth a thimble full of goat spit. He's actually been compared to Eric Clapton. That alone makes me mad enough to shit in a bag and punch it.

And why does Mayer always look bored? Is he hooked on goofballs or something? You're rich and you're dating starlets, John. Smile once, you frickin' prick.

But what I really want to know about John Mayer is who he has blackmail material on. It's somebody pretty powerful, because every hot female actress or musician dates Mayer when she's on the rebound from another relationship. The list is impressive: Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jennifer Aniston, Jessica Simpson. (Hmm. Maybe he only dates celebrities whose first name starts with J.)

But I can only imagine the phone call these female celebrities get from some music or movie executive to start their sojourn in Mayerville. "Hi, Unnamed Starlet. I know you're going through a hard time after your breakup. Have you thought about John Mayer? I know. I know. He's repulsive, but hear me out. It'll get you some media coverage. You can join the 'I Dated John Mayer' club. And it'll help me out of a jam. Let's just say that his manager has some photographic material about me that I'd rather not have hit the tabloids. Now you may have to attend a few of Mayer's concerts, but I have a cure for that. I have an iPod full of 10,000 listenable songs for you to play after the concert and I'll book a week for you at a Caribbean spa to get de-Mayerized. Please. I'm pleading here."

Please help me to stop John Mayer. If you need any more convincing evidence that we must be rid of him, I implore (and caution) you to listen to "Your Body is a Wonderland."

AZT

Who Will Survive? Golden Girls v. Beatles

First was John Lennon. Then George Harrison. Next was Estelle Getty. Most recently, Bea Arthur. Members of two cherished groups have been slowly dying off over the past several decades. As they age, we can only assume that they will depart the Earth in quicker succession. These two groups are, of course, the Beatles and the Golden Girls. Eventually, they'll all be gone (unless Paul McCartney plunks down enough money to freeze himself). But who will be finished first?

This may seem lopsided, seeing as the remaining Beatles are at least 8 years younger than either Golden Girl. But women tend to live longer than men, and I'm willing to bet that Betty White and Rue McClanahan had a lot less drug use and risky sex with groupies than Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney. Some background information:

The Remaining Golden Girls


Betty White is 87 years old and is reportedly in good health. Rue McClanahan is 75 years old and survived breast cancer, which she was diagnosed with in 1997. Both White and McClanahan continue to act professionally.

The Remaining Beatles


Ringo Starr is 69 years old and has had stomach problems in the past, although he controls this with a vegetarian diet. Paul McCartney is 67 years old and is in good health, although he did marry and divorce a total bitch earlier this decade. Both former Beatles continue to be active producing and performing music.

Please your guesses via comment or email. Updates will be forthcoming as people croak or develop life-threatening conditions.

AZT

There Once Was a Hopeful President

A President of the United States had recently won an election and believed that he could undertake drastically changing a vital domestic policy that the American public claimed to be in need of change. The president thought he had a right to do this because he had earned the trust of the American people. He chose to change an entrenched entitlement program that was in danger of bankrupting the government. His party was the same party in the majority in both houses of Congress. The American people professed to want change. Congress could be expected to back him.

But the ambitious president failed. The American public had said for years that this problem needed to be addressed, but now that the president had begun to work on it, the public abandoned him. Members of Congress, many from his own party, refused to support his solutions. The opposition party undermined the president at every turn.

That president was George W. Bush, and the program he attempted to revise was Social Security. Considering President Bush's foibles with Social Security, you'd think President Obama would have learned a few lessons:

1. Don't mess with things Americans believe they are entitled to have. Consider what will happen when Subway stops the $5 Footlong campaign or what did happen when Coke switched formulas.

2. Although they complain about possibly bankrupting the country, the American people would rather not have the current problem-filled system screwed with. We'd prefer to ruin the financial stability of the government rather than sacrifice any benefits or tax money, thank you very much.

3. Americans are ape-shit crazy. People blamed Bush of trying to give an extra boost to Wall Street with Social Security reform. People are now comparing Obama to Hitler of all people.

Of course, Social Security would be a disaster if it had invested its funds in the stock market. But it's frickin' easy to save Socail Security. I did it at http://www.actuary.org/socialsecurity/game.html by increasing the retirement age to 67, cutting Cost of Living Adjustments for Social Security by a half percent, and raising payroll taxes.

Some thing needs to be done about health care. Our national spending on health care now stands at 17 percent of GDP and is forecasted to increase. Yet Americans are not getting any healthier. Sooner or later, we're going to have to let the government do something to fix it.

AZT