Another Ninja News Segment.

Okay, It's time for another ninja-news update. Since there are several entire cable channels devoted to home shows, at least two devoted to shopping, and and one for cooking, I'm surprised that no one has spotted a hole in the market and come up with a news channel that reports on ninja news. It could be like CNN, but for ninjas. NNN, the Ninja News Network. Until the whole cable channel thing arrives, I'll pick up the slack by continuing to be your only outlet for ninja news stories and videos. Anyway, here are some random video clips dedicated to the Shinobi and the dark arts of killing, with some marketing thrown in.


This is a very funny Ninja Commercial. It's not the Progressive Insurance commercial either; I said it was funny. I'm glad that Madison Avenue is waking up to the awesome marketing potential of ninjas. I mean, what's more entertaining than a hired killing gone wrong? Besides a cartoon a about frozen bananas, I say nothing is.



Here is another Doog Toons and Ask a Ninja collaboration. This is probably the best collaboration in the history of video, except for the whole Jenna Jameson and Brianna Banks ouevre. Don't Google that from work, people.


And this a video of what my Florida Trip home movies would look like if there were a camera quick enough to capture my moves.

Florida Trip: Part 3

Okay, this Part 3 of the Florida Trip. I didn't feel like finishing it, but since I left off in the middle of the story, if I don't finish it people will see me in the street and say "hey, you said you were in florida...you lied. Now I can't believe anything I read on your blog...and a little piece of my innocence died just now". Since that would be awkward for both of us, here's some more of the story.

If you haven't read Part 1 and Part 2, you should before you go any further...or farther. Or whatever. Reading this without reading the first two parts would be like watching Return of the Jedi without first seeing Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back. Or like watching The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly without first seeing A Fistfull of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More. I mean, the whole Man With No Name Trilogy is a cheap ripoff of Kurasawa's Yojimbo but that is a post for another day.

Well, first you should know something about my sibling rivalry with my brother. I've alluded to it before. Because we were so close in age (almost Irish Twins), I was always frustrated that he was better at everything than I was. We fought all the time, but he would always beat the crap out of me. My brother is average sized, but he's freakishly strong and has beaten up a few muggers that were dumb enough to try to mug him. After he knocks them down and starts stomping on their testicles, they usually decide to let him keep his money. So, for him, beating me into submission was no big deal. It was something that he did when he got tired of watching A-Team re-runs on TV. Besides beating me up all the time, he always did every other thing known to man better than me.

For instance, for a while I thought I was better guitar player than my brother. I took lessons for a long time and can actually play Classical Guitar, which almost nobody can do. Since he wanted to make sure that nothing gave me a sense of accomplishment, he bought a guitar and taught himself to play. At first I laughed at him, but I'll leave you to guess which of us was in a band that got played on college radio. (fcukers!).

When my brother wasn't busy fist fighting Coney Island muggers or being my father's favorite, he was...wait for it...a Mathlete. Since I work with derivatives, I'm okay at math. But my brother is the kind of person who thinks things like this are funny:

I'm good enough at math to understand the "joke" once you explain it to me, but when I do the math, the answer I get is 51*. My brother says the answer is 57006. After he explains it a few times I just nod my head and pretend to know what he's talking about. "Ohhhh, base string [thingies]...I see now."


*D=13, E= 14, A= 10, D = 13
(13 + 14 + 10 + 13 + 1 = 51) (Seeeee, my way makes sense too, right? right? right?)






For all my brother's ways of making me feel inferior, there is one area where I think I got him beat hands down: my command of the english language. This is why I think I'm a better lawyer than he would be. Despite all his math skillz, his musical talent, his ability to toss bags of cement around like they are pillows, and fighting skillz, rhetorical devices like metaphors and hypotheticals are completely alien to him. They are like some exotic garnish on a spicy ethnic dish that he would never eat.

What's the point of this? Well, I was worried about putting the house we were buying in my name. As a former mergers & acquisitions lawyer I am trained to be risk averse and constantly think about everything that can possibly go wrong. When I told him I was worried about the liability and tried to explain it to him, it was like trying to explain to a cabbie why the plural of mouse is mice but the plural of house isn't hice.

Ninja: What if someone slips on a banana peel in the driveway, it's me they are going to sue!

Brother: What the fcuk are you talking about? Why would someone be eating bananas in your driveway!?

[enter Dad]

Dad: What are you two fighting about!? Stop fighting!! Why can't you two ever get along?

Brother: Me!!? He's freaking out about people eating fcuking bananas in his driveway?

Dad: He doesn't have to eat bananas if he doesn't want to! Leave him alone!!

[turning to me]

Dad: Just calm down. Forget the bananas. If you're hungry, I'll order pizza.

This is the part in the last post where I said before that I ate a pizza despite my lactose intolerance to prevent family discord. Abdominal cramps and farting are a small price to pay to avoid continuing this conversation.

By the way, my family has never believed I was lactose intolerant. They think I'm making it up because if they aren't lactose intolerant than I couldn't possibly be. My brother also thought my nephew didn't have appendicitis. He thought the kid had a stomach ache from eating ice cream or something (lactose intolerant?). A surgery later I think he still thinks the doctor misdiagnosed him.

So anyway, that's why I needed the iPod that I mentioned before, for the appendicitis nephew, because I'm better at getting kids to like me than he is, so I won't give up that advantage.

Fast forward to the birthday party:

Here is a picture of a birthday cake. I think the blurry kid is my nephew. He usually doesn't look like that.













Here is a pic of a tablecloth. I don't know who took this pic with my camera, but it might have some hidden meaning. I won't delete this pic until after I read the DaVinci code. Ya' never know. This could crack that Holy Grail mystery wide open, bitchez!





This is a cute kid at the party. My sister got mad that I petted her head. She said "don't pet her head. She's not a puppy! That's very condescending!". The kid didn't seem to mind. I think she likes puppies and I'm pretty sure she doesn't know what condescending means. To be fair, I didn't know either 'till I looked it up when I wrote this post.









This is a pic of my niece. One day I'll have tanned kids with big eyelashes like her.













This looks like it could be a chair. Very cryptic. Child prank or government conspiracy? You be the judge!







Well, I'm getting too lazy to finish this, so there will be a Part 4 to the Florida Series Trilogy. To give you a little teaser. In Part 4 we will discuss/mock my brother some more and find out why he's got hundreds of women's shoes in his bathroom:


No, I'm totally serious about this.








And we'll discuss my run-in with the security monkees at the Airports in DC and West Palm Beach.

The Bensonhurst Kid Rides Again

Okay, so I kinda sorta crashed a wedding a little on Saturday. My friend, who we'll call Anthony (cuz that's his name) was in town for a wedding, so I went to pick him up to hang out afterwards. And by "afterwards" I meant I showed up before the reception was over to snag some free booze, deserts and dance with some hotties. Showing up uninvited, drinking your booze and leaving with your women is a skill that I practiced at many fraternity parties. Now I'm no Cassanova, but let's face it. Me taking women and booze away from a frat boy is like Pele taking a soccer ball away from a 9 year old. Before I get angry comments about me picking on frats, let me say for the record that I have nothing against fraternities. I think they are fine organizations...if you can get past the whole repressed homosexuality thing. It's a little too Brokeback Mountain for my tastes, but whatever floats your boat, man. "Oh Sigma Alpha Epsilon, I wish I knew how to quit you". Ewwww.

Anyway, some random facts about Anthony (aka "The Bensonhurst Kid"):

1. I've known him for 20 years, which makes me feel really old;
   
2. He's such a good friend that if he showed up at my place with a dead body in the trunk, I would help him bury it;
3. He's sicilian, so the scenario in number 2 is not as unlikely as it sounds;
4. Although I've known him 20 years, I've never done anything to make him want to kick my ass (unless you count when I made out with his ex-girlfriend 20 minutes after they broke up);
   
5. He's such a good friend that I've been to all three of his weddings.
   

So this is basically what the conversation was like a month ago:

TBK: Are you in town on the weekend of the 6th?

Ninja: How would I know?...no...maybe...probably...unless you're coming to kick my ass, in which case I'm busy.

TBK: I'm coming down to DC for a wedding.

Ninja: Your's or somebody else's?

TBK: Asshole.

Anyway, I'm putting the pics on my blog to give him an excuse to read my blog. They had the wedding at the Willard Hotel in DC. (You outta' towners should know that the Willard is one of the swankiest hotels in DC, which makes it that much more awesome when you can scam free booze from a place like that).


Here's a pic of Anthony, his Mother in Law, and his wife.









The Willard....fancy.







Me and the Bensonhurst Kid. I don't know why I look crazy in this picture. Maybe it's the heroin?







Mr. and Mrs. The Bensonhurst Kid, she's 8 months pregnant. She's half-sicilian, so TBK has learned to sleep with one eye open.

The kid's name will be Julia.



Anyway, they got to see the fortress but they couldn't hang out too long because his wife is so pregnant that standing up too long bothers her stomach. They are coming back after the baby is born though, which should be an interesting experience. I should have an actual kitchen by then.

I also got an email last week, that my old roomate from law school, Tony Twist, was having his dad and brother, Scrappy Doo, coming to visit in a few weeks. So I gotta call them and see about hanging out. It's good that that they are coming. Having visitors is an incentive to get my ass in gear with the repairs. I haven't seen them in a while though. Last time I hung out with Tony Twist and Scrappy, we ended up fist-fighting with rednecks in a Jack-in-the-box drivethrough on the night before TT's wedding. There were police involved and we were almost arrested. It's a long story that has nothing to do with home improvement, ninjas or anarcho-capitalism, but if anyone wants to hear it, I'll post about it separately.

Anyway, I hope everyone else had a nice weekend.

A Victorian By Any Other Name...

All in all, this has been a pretty crappy week. During a conversation, my Real Estate Broker, Jimmy the Greek, mentioned that my house probably isn't a Victorian. He said it's probably a Federal, whatever that means. A google image search reveals that the ninja fortress does indeed look federal-esque...to the untrained eye. In terms unattractiveness, the impenetrable fortress falls somewhere between


THIS








and


THIS.


It's probably closer to this one, except with two windows, so it's a little narrower. Mine also has a driveway which, in DC, is like having a apartment in NYC with a walkin closet. Or like going to a restaurant where all the food is free, non-fattening, and makes you handsome.

Some of you are thinking "yeah, right...a walkin closet in NYC. Pft!"

Anyway, I don't like the term "Federal". As a libertarian I object to it because the word reminds me of government oppression, high taxation, warrantless searches and tranny hookers (hi Porter Goss!). I also object to it because it sounds less expensive than a Victorian, and might affect my ability to scam future buyers out of the most possible money. Therefore, from now on, the architectural style of the fortress will be known as "Ghetto Victorian". The Victorian part should appeal to the class concious and the Ghetto part should appeal to the hipster gentrifiers that feel white liberal guilt about contributing to wiping out the cultural history, crack dealers and tranny hookers (Hi again Porter Goss!) that were once the fabric of this neighborhood.

In other news, I've been swamped lately, but my stockpicking challenge is still on and when things get less hectic, hopefully next week or two, I'll have my final recommendations (hopefully). One stock that was on my short list (Kinder Morgan) announced this week that it is being taken private and saw a 20% jump in stock price last week. I won't take credit for that because my research wasn't done on it and I didn't invest in it, but hopefully I'll have some good ones soon. I'll also reveal my analysis on Kinder and other stocks so that you can see why I rock and the people on TV suck it bigtime.

Anyway, I gotta run, but I'll discuss the rest of this weeks suckitude next week. I also promise to post Part 3 of the critically acclaimed Florida Trip Chronicles, or the Underpinning post (Part 4 or 5, I lost count, of the Genocide Chronicles). They are both pretty much finished except I need to fix the pics. Man, I need an assistant for this crap, or maybe I should revert to a pure text blog.

Help a Ninja Decorate His Fortress

Okay, I need some input from the non-decoratively challenged. One of the drawbacks that comes from being so macho and studly is that I have poor decoration skillz. (another drawback is that sometimes I'll unintentionally break things with my powerful male arms, just because I don't know my own strength, so being so studly is a mixed blessing). So this weekend I went to Home Depot (the evil empire) to get a cabinet for over the bathroom sink upstairs, which doesn't have one. In case you're wondering how I get by without a medicine cabinet, I've been shaving in the basement bathroom for almost a year now, but enough is enough.

First off, take a look at the sink I installed. They don't make a matching cabinet for it. There is a matching mirror thingy, but I need a place to put all my stuff, so a mirror won't cut it.

Okay, this is what we're working with here. Try not to get hypnotized by the incredible looking marble I installed. The cabinet has to go with that sink, those tiles and the rest of the bathroom. (the tub is white, the toilet is white, and I'll probably paint the walls white). So it has to go with that color (beige?), white, and that stain of wood. Got it?

So I need some input as to what to put over it. I'll tally all your votes and decide which one to pick based on something completely arbitrary (like which one is in stock).






I think something like this might go with what I have. Unfortunately, Home Depot didn't have anything remotely resembling it, and even if it did, would it be okay if the stain wasn't exactly the same?

Should I look around to find something like it? Or try to go with something they have in stock? Or Lowe's has?








Whoever designed this should get a medal. I'm sure they don't give out medals for designing medicine cabinets, but if they did, this guy should get the gold medal (or platinum, if gold isn't the highest possible award in the hypothetical medal).

If I had a loft this would kick ass. It probably doesn't go in my victorian house though. I don't mind a little bit eclectic, but when I go to resell the house, I don't want buyers saying "the contractor had some mad home improvement skillz, but his designer is obviously retarded...or heterosexual."




I think white goes with everything, right? Would this okay with my sink? Or is this for one of those bathrooms that has beadboard on the wall?

I thought about beadboard in my place. I went with marble instead because
1) I wasn't sure they used beadboard in Victorian Houses;
2) I wanted to show off my mad marble tiling skillz.










I was seriously considering something like this. Since it's glass all around, I think It goes with anything. Is that right, or did I just convince myself of that because I wanted to believe it?

I'm not sure about the lights though. What other kind of (non-ugly) lights would go with something like this?







See, here is what it would look like without the lights. Does it go with a sink like I got? My place isn't exactly traditional, so you think this would work?
















Also the vanity in question ins 24" wide. Do you think it would look okay if I put a 30" medicine cabiniet over it, with 6" sticking out on the left side (I can't center it because of the wall).

Thanks folks!

My 15 Minutes of Fame Becomes 16

Unfortunately, I'm home from work today so I didn't get my copy of The Express today. For those of you outside the DC area, The Express is a small free paper that the Washington Post gives out to commuters outside of the urban hipster metro stations in the hopes that you will be so impressed with their ability to report the news that you will eventually break down and pay $0.35 for a full copy of the big paper (instead of reading it for free online). The reason I said "unfortunately" is because I was quoted today in the paper. I could've been like on the metro, seen it, then taken off my iPod and yelled, "read it and weep you hipster poseurs! I'll bet you'll be crying into your venti moccaiato decaf now, bitchez"

Actually, I probably wouldn't have done that. 'Cuz then you have to try to explain to the cops why you were yelling, and you can show them the paper but then you gotta tell them about how you're not really crazy and you don't really think you are a ninja, and "no, I'm not armed...and i don't need a psych evaluation, really I don't...I feel fine" So anyway hopefully someone I know in real life will have the sense to save me a hard copy of the paper. If it's Johnny Vegas, I'm sure he'll charge me like $10 for it, but that's just how he rolls.

White Ninja

Happy Memorial Day. In honor of the bank holiday honoring the numerous war dead, you may now wear white again, at least until Labor Day, when it's time to honor the socialists.

I know you're wondering if it's possible to practice ninja stealth while wearing white. I think the key is just to ditch the mask and don a disguise which incorporates seasonal white fabrics, and yet which is sufficiently badass to be ninja-esque.

I ordered this disguise last week from the ninja mart. Listen to the description: "This poly-cotton blend suit will strike fear into the heart of your enemies . It is comfortable enough to wear to assasinate a feudal overload trying to usurp the shogunate, yet fashionable enough to go out dancing afterwards in Tokyo's hippest Ginza Karaoke bars. Numerous pockets for shurikens and ninja smoke bombs are in the jacket, as well as a pouch for the cell phone (wig sold separately). "

I know it's double breasted and that seems kinda' 80s, but I like to think of it as old skool. You could be like the ninja John Gotti. Except you're not as fat and no jail can hold you.
Sweet!

And yes, I did order the wig too. The outfit is kinda lacking without that kickass wig.

Anyway, I got a couple of drafts of posts that I'll try to get out this week, including the final update to the Florida story and some stuff about underpinning. Stay tuned.

Welcome Visitor Number 10,000

So I checked my sitemeter and I find out that had received my 10,000th visitor. That's a pretty impressive feat for a site that's about toilets and ninjas. Anyway, I have no idea who this person is, but welcome.
Random Facts about the 10,000th visitor.

1. They live in Rockville, Maryland;
2. They use Windows (tm), but have Firefox as their browser;
3. they are the 10,000th visitor.

For being the 10,000th visitor there won't be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness. So you got that goin' for you, which is nice.

Ninja News....and Save the Internet

Okay, todays edition of ninja news has a lot of video clips. In fact, it's only video clips. I would even go so far as to call it videorific, except that's not really a word. First up is a video of the Ninja commercial for a cell phone. That reminds me that I need to get a camera phone, but I digress.





If you click on THIS link, it will take you to worksafe video by my imaginary friends at Rathergood.com. Look for the Ninja Cameo. Rathergood is one of the only sites in the history of webdom to earn the honor of being included in my "Websites that Don't Suck" section. It is the only site to receive that honor with content that doesn't consist completely of cartoons. Now if you think that I'm saying that any website that doesn't have cartoons sucks, well that's exactly what I'm saying. A non-cartoon site can be great compared to other non-cartoon sites, but compared to a well made cartoon, it sucks. It's not even a fair constest. It's like fighting a knife with a gun. It's completely useless to even try unless your name is Yojimbo and you have Kurosawa writing the script. And yes, I even include my own blog in that statement. My own blog would not be good enough to be included in the "Websites that Don't Suck" section of my own blog. Now that's irony. I might include myself in the Ninpo Skillz section of my blog, but I would want to see more ninja content before I included it in a section with such ninja luminaries as Dr. McNinja, Fuggy Fuggy, and Ask a Ninja. I know I'm being hard on myself, but I'm catholic so no matter how hard I try, it will never be good enough. Are you happy now, Sister Helen! ARE YOU!!! No, don't beat me with the ruler...I know I made Jesus sad..I won't eat meat on friday during lent again, I swear I won't!!!

Sorry about that. That Catholic School education just keeps on givin', man.



Also, SAVE THE INTERNET!!! I don't know how closely you've been following the net neutrality debate, but our friends at AskANinja.com have come down on the side of the people and against "the man." I got an email last night from the headquarters of the International Order of Ninjas saying that if I don't take a stand battle for net neutrality, that at the next ninja convention in Reno, everyone would call me a girly ninja and throw shurikens at my face. So....here you go, a ninja video on net neutrality

(curtesy of ask a ninja).


And if you think the Ask a Ninja skits are funny on their own, see what happens when DoogToons does a cartoon take on the AskANinja skits.


(curtesy of DoogToons and Ask A Ninja).

Doom?

Well, despite the bunch of half-finished posts that I should wrap up, I'm going to discuss something new. The coming recession...maybe. A couple of days ago the news reported that the yield curve on interest rates inverted. You don't have to know what that means, but you should know that it's a bad thing. Do you remember watching Star Trek as a kid and Scotty would tell Kirk that the anti-matter containment fields were failing? Even if you didn't have a clue what antimatter was (and let's face it, I still don't) you knew that it was bad if it wasn't contained. Well, yield curves are the same thing...sorta.

Before I explain what they are, I'll explain why they are important. Every recession ever, in the history of the universe (slight exaggeration) has come after we had an inverted yield curve. Now, sometimes you get an inverted yield curve without a recession, but you never have a recession without an inverted yield curve. Think of the inverted yield curve as the bread in your recessionary pizza. You can have bread that isn't made into a pizza, but you can't have pizza without bread. And if you are the kind of person who tops your pizza with pineapples, stop reading this post right now because you are obviously deranged and I can't talk sense to you.

So you might be reading this and thinking "that analogy is making me hungry, even though I can't eat pizza because of my lactose intolerance, can you explain some more?" Okay, here is what the yield curve should look like: A 3 month CD at your bank is supposed to pay a lower interest rate than a 10 year CD, right? Well, when the yield curve inverts, the short term stuff pays more than the long-term stuff. If that doesn't seem like it makes sense, you're right, it doesn't. It happens when somebody (Hi Dubya!) completely screws up the economy like a teenager learing to drive with a clutch, or a republican with his first Tranny hooker (Hi Porter Goss!).

Because this is such a grave development (which could lead me to win that bet I made a year ago with Johnny Vegas), I decided that in a future post, I'll give recession related financial advice on investing in the stock market. You can play along or invest beside me.

In the short term, if you are thinking of buying a house, this might not be a bad time because the markets are predicting a future rate cut. I'd be careful about buying a condo in a bubble market like Vegas, but investing in a house to live in should be a safe bet. Also, in general, I think Home Builder stocks might be underpriced right now. Even if bad things happen to housing market, these stocks have been getting killed in the market and the big boys (Toll Brothers, Pulte, D.R. Horton etc.) are trading at 6x earnings (most of the rest of the S&P is at like 15x earnings).

Oh, for next week I'll try to wrap up the florida trip, have a ninja news segment (maybe) and finish up telling you about the underpinning stuff.

The Genocide Chronicles, Part 4

Anyway, I promised an update on the Sudanese guy and here it is. If you remember the episodes with the Sudanese guy here, here and here, we had a leeetle problem with him leaving about 40 cubic yards of dirt in a common driveway. I didn't want to narc on him because of the possible bad karma that could come from ratting on a possible genocide survivor. (although I could get worse karma if he's a genocide perpetrator and I stayed silent...damn you, karma!). If you don't remember that far back:

here is a before picture. This is how high the dirt was originally. It stayed that way for a while. I was patient and my patience payed off.













The Lord of Abraham and Moses saw my patience and said "it is good"...And then God smote his house with a mighty tree. (is the past tense of smite...smited or smoted?)

Proving what we already suspected: that Catholics are his chosen people and those ridiculous rituals with the incense and the kneeling that we go through do actually please him. (and that he forgives me for calling Sister Helen a fat penguin when I was 6...and again when I was 32).

Actually, this handiwork might have been the work of the Arch -angel Gabriel, but there is plenty of credit to go around. Big ups to whomever was responsible.



So back to the update: He hired people while I was in Florida and they cleaned out (most of) the dirt in the driveway.I don't know if it was 'cuz I narc'd on him, if it was the voodoo dolls I made of him with the sacrificial chicken blood, or maybe it was the dead hooker* I left on his doorstep with a note saying "get rid of the dirt in your driveway or I'll kill you next." But whatever it was that did it, it's (mostly) gone.

Here's an after picture. I mean it's not ALL gone, but it looks a lot better.









There is a still a problem with people illegally dumping in the alley. But if I do decide to rent out a furnished room to an intern this summer for some extra cash that broken dresser and urine-stained mattress will probably come in handy.





I'm thinking of narc'ing on him again about the illegal underpinning thing he's doing in his basement, but I'll do a separate post about that later.

*Okay, this will be the last dead hooker joke I make on my blog...probably. I don't want weirdos coming to my blog looking for dead hookers. Unless they already here, in which case...welcome!

My New Hero

This guy is my new hero. In case you're wondering whey my new hero is a nigerian cab driver, I'll explain. He goes to the BBC for a job interview and they mistake him for one of the world's top authorities on internet piracy. Rather than correct them, he plays along. The look on his face when he realizes that he is on TV is priceless.



Plane Ticket from Nigeria $1450

Taxi Cab Licence (note cool british spelling) $500

New Clothes for Job Interview $70

Being on International Televesion and telling everyone back home that you made The BBC look like the morons they are: PRICELESS

Weekend Progress and Random Stuff.

Believe it or not, I actually got some stuff done this weekend. I did some mudding, sanding and painting. The scaffold I bought last year came in really handy.

I bought this for $100. This is way better than a ladder. I was gonna say it's better like in the way that a Double Stuff is better than a regular Oreo Cookie. But actually, this is so awesome that it's better like Double Stuff is better than those weird red and white mints that old people give you for halloween.

I used it to do work this weekend on the kitchen. This is the best $100 that I ever spent (outside of Amsterdam). By the way, never google "Double Stuff" from work. It's apparently a term for some kinda fetish porn. (Actually, I'm Catholic so anything depicting sex that isn't missionary style is, technically, fetish porn).





BEFORE

After some MORE mudding to fix the bad drywall job that the contractors did, I had to sand this room. Sanding the drywall sux. I probably hate it more than I hate plumbing. If I had a choice between a weekend of sanding and getting kicked in the nuts by a girl with pointy shoes and freakishly muscular legs, I would probably take the sanding, but it would a close call.

I have this really cool Darth Vader looking respirator/dusk mask bu I didn't know where I put my dust mask so I did it without one. I was covered in dust and I breathed in a lot of it in. I looked like a powdered doughnut when I was done. A really sexy anarcho-capitalist powdered doughnut. I really hope that stuff doesn't cause cancer.

AFTER

Then I primed the kitchen. Now it's ready for painting. But the primer sorta looks like paint, so I'll probably leave it like that until I install the cabinets.






In other random news. My blog was mentioned in the Express again. The link is Here.
(I'm adding the link so that I'll know where to find it when I'm looking for it). Man, if I had a dollar for everytime I was mentioned in the paper, I'd have $3 right now. That would rock!



Okay, here is something completely random. My friend, we'll call him "Wayne" (even though his name is Matt), took part in a 48 Hour Film Contest (the task is to write, cast and shoot a film with certain required elements within 48 hours). Random Facts aboout Wayne:

1. Youngish partner from my old firm who is one of the only people from there that I still keep in touch with (Paddy McShamrock is the other one, who is still my friend even though he claims I got him fired...which I deny);
2. If you hang around him long enough he will probably end up saying something that will be unintentionally funny, but end up being the funniest thing you heard all week;
3. Got bored of being a partner at a law firm so he gave up a lucrative salary and just quit so that he could decide what he wanted to do with himself (grande cojones on that one);
4. Really hot, but psychotic, chicks come to his halloween parties (I'm not exaggerating on the psychotic part...or the hot part).
   

Anyway, Wayne used to keep his sanity by taking creative writing classes at night after doing mind-numbing legal work all day. These classes consisted soleley of sexually frustrated women in their 40s and 50s...and Wayne. Every woman would write variations on exactly the same story: A bored housewife (who's in her 40s or 50s) has a workaholic husband (accountant, lawyer, etc), and she ends up having an affair with a younger muscular guy (who is always latino or italian) and works with his hands (plumber, bricklayer, etc.). They always end up doing it in the big house that the husband pays the mortgage on. When Wayne was comtemplating marriage he told me this story and said "Is this what I have to look forward to? I'll work myself to death at the office while my wife lusts after young olive-skinned repairmen?" (see, unintentionally very funny). Anyway, Wayne shot a movie ant it premiered at this film festival that was part of this contest. Here is the description and link below.

I thought you might be interested in viewing the film I co-wrote for the 48 Hour Film Contest. I was also unexpectedly drafted to play a role. The film was screened last night at the AFI Silver Theater. It had to be a 4-7 minute film, written and produced in 48 hours, with 4 required elements:

1. Genre: Mockumentary (mock documentary)
2. Required character: Tim or Tina Tate, gay glass sculptor extraordinaire
3. Required prop: fire extinguisher
4. Required line of dialogue: "This is absolutely the last time."

The film can be viewed by clicking the link below. I hope you enjoy it!

(the film has a test pattern for the first 4-5 seconds, so just ignore that and play the rest. Wayne plays the Camera Guy).

Brushed Aside

Dear Arlington Parking Nazis: Suck it!

Well, in case you are wondering what ever happened to the parking ticket I got from the Arlington Parking Nazis, it was dismissed. That's $40 less that the totalitarian government of Arlington Virginia will have to oppress it's citizens. The ninja strikes a blow for freedom! I totally feel like the guy in V for Vendetta now. Except that I fight oppression using my computer and ink jet printer instead of bombs.

Plus I don't keep hot chicks with shaved heads, like Natalie Portman, locked in my basement, which, let's face it, is kinda weird.

He's got really cool hats though.





Longtime readers will remember that when I first started blogging, I also beat a red light ticket from the fascists at the DC government. I'm starting to think my legal skillz are invincible. I'm like the Clarence Darrow of municipal court. Hopefully parking nazis and traffic cops everywhere will read this and realize that giving me a ticket is futile and they might as give up. With my skillz, I could probably show up to the police precinct, drunker than a Kennedy, in a stolen car, with a dead hooker in the trunk and still get away it.

Before I get angry letters about making dead hooker jokes, let me say that this is purely hypothetical.

1. I live in DC and you can't walk out of your house and find dead hookers laying around like you can in New York or Detroit;
   
2. I don't think it's medically possible to get drunker than a Kennedy. It's like saying that's it's possible to go faster than the speed of light. I mean, it's possible in a theoretical physics equation on Stephen Hawkings blackboard or maybe an episode of Star Trek, but not in real life; and
   
3. I have no idea how to hotwire a car. So unless I start hanging out with Richard Dean Anderson and we start re-creating some of the all-time best MacGyver episodes, this entire scenario is implausible.*
   

Here's a copy of the actual letter, with the identifying info removed so I can retain my stealthiness.

And, yes, I did edit it out using post it notes because I don't know how to use photoshop. I told you before that my awesome skillz don't pertain to computers.














*It should also be noted that ALL MacGyver episodes are equally awesome, so it's impossible to single out a best episode. It's like saying "infiniti plus one". This, of course doesn't apply to the greatest MacGyver episode of all time: Three for the Road. Which is, ironically, exactly like infiniti plus one.

Obligatory Mother's Day Post

My Mom doesn't read this blog...actually, she probably doesn't even know what a blog is. But it's apparently customary to say something nice about your Mom on mother's day.

I think my Mom is a nice person. Although I'm convinced that both my parents' favorite was my brother, I think she did a better job than my Dad at pretending to love us equally. My brother and I were obsessed with proving who's the best at anything, even being liked.

Everyone liked my brother more, even the dog. My brother would secretly feed the dog, Sammy, treats so that when we placed Sammy in the middle and both called to him at the same time (to see who he liked better), he would go to my brother, proving that there was nothing I could beat him at. My dad claimed not to have a favorite, but he did lavish more praise on my brother. Ostensibly it was only because he scored more goals, got better grades, or was better at carpentry than me, but even if I had performed as well as him, I secretly think my dad would just think I was showing off.

Although Sammy (and arguably my Dad) played favorites, my Mom tried not to. When my brother and I would quiz her on scenarios involving both of us about to be brutally killed and her only being able to save one of us, she would talk her way out it. If confronted by man-eating sharks, she claimed she would let the shark kill her so that both of us could live. Clearly, she wasn't playing by rules.

My brother claims I was the favorite. I think he's convinced himself of that to assuage his guilt about the countless beatings and methods of psychological torture he inflicted on me. Sort of like the Abu Ghraib soldiers who think what they did was okay because the people they tortured were probably terrorists.

I think that's why I'm obsessed with being the favorite uncle. He gets more face time with the neices and nephews, but if I visit for a few days I'm the favorite unlce by the time I leave. Whether that involves buying my nephew an iPod or playing tea party with my nieces and letting them put bows in my hair, there is nothing I won't stoop to beat him at it.

But anyway, as far as Moms go, she was a good one. She wasn't always perfect, but she did her best and she was definitely a better mother than I was a son.
Sooo..... Happy Mother's Day.

Notebook on Cities and Clothes

In case you were wondering what I was doing in Houston, I was there for a job interview. I won't mention why I'm thinking about leaving my current job because I don't want to get Dooced. But it was interesting being on my first interview in a while. Now that I actually have some marketable skillz it's completely different from when I graduated law school and was looking for work the way a band geek looks for a prom date. Now I'm the one holding the cards, especially since there aren't a lot of people with my skillz in Houston.

So they booked a flight and flew me out. The flight was coach, but I really wasn't expecting first class. When I got there, it was a different story though. They sent a limo to pic me up from the airport. The driver had a chauffeur hat and a sign that said "Home Improvement Ninja". Well, it had my real name actually. If it had the name of my blog I would've taken a picture of it. It wasn't a pretentious stretch limo like I'm a rap star, but a nice classy limo. Plus the driver had all his teeth. I'm pretty sure that costs extra in Houston.


Now, I shit you not. This is a statue of George Bush Senior in the airport. (not the other one). When I saw it, I thought he had a cape...like Superman. I thought "wow, they really do idolize that family, they even turned that weasel into a friggin' superhero."

Turns out that's a jacket, not a cape, and he's facing the "winds of change". Wow, the symbolism is just so...idiotic.


The hotel was nice, four starz.

I'm not crazy about the decor. That Rococco stuff makes it look like it belongs in a venetian whorehouse.

And what's up with the phone next to the toilet. Do people really make important phonecalls on the toilet?

"Hey Jimmy...guess where I am now? Wait I'll give you a clue...are you listening?"

I think I just threw up a little as I typed that.







The granite tile was nice though. Whoever laid it had some mad skillz. This is actually better than I could've done it. Those groutlines are flawless. I took my socks off and dragged my feets across the entire floor and only found a couple of places where you could noticably feel the transition from one tile to the other. Yes, this is how I spent my free time. No one ever accused me of being normal.



Houston was nice. It was more hot and humid than DC (and DC was built on a swamp). I'm seriously debating whether I should pursue this or not. Most of my family is in Florida, not Texas, but this could be a good gig for more money than I'm making now. Not a shitload more, but you can buy a whole house in Houston for less than it costs for a 1Br condo in DC. I'd have to finish up the ninja fortress QUICK and sell it if I wanted to take it though. I probably wouldn't lose money on it, but I don't think I would make much (if anything) either. All that work! Arrrrgh!!!

The one person I know in Houston said the company I interviewed at is a good company to work for and that a lot of lawyers in Houston would kill me to get that gig. But I also heard that, like L.A., they sometimes have road-rage shootouts on the highway, so apparently they kill people for a lot less in Houston.

The city is way more conservative than DC. I think everybody shops at Brooks Brothers or Jos. A. Banks or some other haven for the banal. The food was good and really nice restaurants charge what you would pay at mid-price restaurants in DC.

The job might also allow me to live overseas eventually. Which I always wanted, but I also always thought that if I left DC it would be for Florida to be closer to my family. Do I really want to make a detour that could be permanent?

Anyone have any ideas about this, or living in Houston in general?

Where Am I?

Clue Number 1:

This is the view from my hotel window. I'm staying at the Hyatt, 'cuz that's how I roll, babay!







Clue Number 2:


This is what the tap water looks like where I am right now.

If it's got that many chemicals, drinking it can't be good for you, so I only used it to make coffee. I think I started hallucinating shortly afterwards.












I haven't decided what prize the winner will get yet. But it's probably something I have laying around the house...and no, first prize isn't a dead hooker.

Florida Trip: Part 2

Before you go any further, or farther, you should totally go read Part 1 of this opus otherwise one of the jokes won't make sense. In fact, it's probably the only part of the post that will make you laugh at loud, so should read Part 1 first otherwise when you get to the funny part you'll say something like "what an obscure reference. I've never known the ninja's humor to be so esoteric and self-referential, what gives?"

Have your read Part 1 yet? You lazy bastard! Oh well.

So during the plain ride I put my overpriced Kenneth Cole suede jacket in the overhead bin. Because it's too expensive and I have only worn it like twice, I was guarnteed to lose it sooner or later. Naturally, I forgot to take it with me when I left and didn't even notice I was missing it since I was in Florida and it was oppressively hot and humid outside...sorta' like a sauna, but without the disgusting old men with the disfiguring open heart surgery scars on their chest trying to make small talk with you. When I'm waiting for my ride, I hear "Home Improvement Ninja, please go the [airline] desk" over the intercom. What.The.Fudge? Then they repeat the announcement. I wrack my brain and can't recall any laws that I've violated on this flight, so I go inside to see what's going on. When I get there and see that someone's got my jacket. And he's wearing a uniform.

Let me take you on a little excursis before we go any further. Here is a random fact about me. I don't embarrass easily. Another random fact is that I don't eat olives...ever. But that's completely irrelevant to this to this story. When I say I don't embarrass easily, I mean it. I'm the guy who's not embarrassed to go to the store when his girlfriend runs out of tampons. I can order condoms from behind the counter and say stuff like "no, not the lambskin...the one next to it. Ribbed for her pleasure, 'cuz that's how I roll, baby". In fact, once when I got fired, errr, I "retroactively quit" a sucky job, my friends and I were out in Greenwich Village and my friend, who still worked at the sucky job, saw a shirt that said "Blow Me". He offered to buy the shirt and pay me $20 if I wore it to pick up my last check from the asshole manager. I said, "I'm unemployed and I don't give a shit. Gimme' $100 and I'll walk in with a shirt that says 'I Suck Cock.'" So I did wear it, earned the $20, got to see the look on the 70 year old manager's face and got to take a parting shot before I left. The old man had the nerve to tell me, dissaprovingly "young man, that shirt is very inappropriate!". So I said "what are you gonna' do about it? Fire me?" When he saw that everyone within earshot was laughing at him, he went and got my check and asked security to show me out. The security guard high-fived me on the way out.

Here is the actual shirt. I keep it around for sentimental value.




Easiest $20 I ever earned.











Now I don' t think that anyone over the age of 20 should walk around with an irreverent shirt. These shirts should only be worn by

1. assholes in a fraternity;
2. people who are too old to be in a fraternity, but not too old to be still be assholes.
   

What was the point of that story within' a story, you ask? Well, I asked the guy how they knew it was my jacket, and he said they found my e-ticket in the pocket.

Now, if you'll remember in Part 1 of this story when I took notes of all the weird book names I saw in the bookstore (like "Why Do Men Have Nipples?"). Well, I took those notes on the back of the e-ticket. The same e-ticket that this guy just read. So this guy who works in some kind of official capacity now knows my name, where I live, and thinks that I wonder why men have nipples and whether we can get pregnant. NOW I'm freakin' embarrassed. I don't want to end up on some no-fly watch list and have armed government thugs pointing guns at me and yelling things like "I'll cuff him, Smithers, but if he reaches for my man-nipples, shoot him!" Now, aren't you glad I mad you read Part 1?


An actual picture of a Federal agent trying to give a child a "Purple Nurple". In some parts of the country, this is often referred to, incorrectly, as a "Texas Titty Twister".







Well in case you're wondering the rest of the story is pretty weird too. After I meet up with my Dad and Bro, we go to the bank to get a cashier's check for the closing. A third of the people in the bank look like they're related to Larry the Cable Guy. Another third look like the Golden Girls, and the last third look like they failed the casting call for the Sopranos. I realize I'm in a bad TV show, but I just want to get my money and leave as quickly as possible...an hour and a half later and we are still there. The icing on the cake was the moron who was confused because my dad and I have the same first name.

[looking at the Id]

Cashier: Sir, this license looks nothing like you. The man in this photo has white hair.

Ninja: Yes, that's my dad, H. Repair Ninja. I'm H. Improvement Ninja. See, my I.D. is there too.

Cashier: But your ID says you're H.Ninja too. You're BOTH named H.Ninja?

Ninja: I realize that on your planet people don't name kids after their parents, but it's not that unusual, can we please move on.


Here is a pic of some cash. I don't why, but this is my favorite blog picture of all time. I think I got 50x more handsome when I dropped that bankroll in front of the bank teller. She was all up ons after that.


By the way, while we're waiting for the cashier my brother is standing in line with this wad in his hand. I told him "why don't you put that shit in your pocket, Rockefeller." I guess my brother never thinks someone would be dumb enough to try to take his money. He's probably right. My brother is really mean. I figured that out when we were kids and he used to pin me down, grab my wrists and make me punch myself in the face.


So we go to the closing and the seller couple is already there signing a stack of papers that is two inches thick. They had a baby with them and I complimented her on the kid (for some reason parents get very proud when they are complimented on their kids looks. It's as if they think there is some skill involved in the making of a cute kid rahter than random genetics. "Oh yeah, my wife and I screwed for weeks until we got the kid's ears right. My wife was in a hurry when we did the toes, but man, those ears are perfect...some of my best work.")

I should mention that I usually don't look at, play with or hold babies (except ones in my family). I like kids when they are 2-4 year olds, in fact being the favorite uncle to my neices and nephews is the one area where I feel that my brother can't hold a candle to me. But if they can't walk or interact I don't know what to do with them. I mean when a kid is older, if you drop them, you can give them candy to stop crying and the parents are none the wiser. But with a baby, the parents usually watch you like a hawk and if you drop them or something, man do they freak out. If the kid is related to you, at least you won't get sued for dropping them, but with some stranger's kid all bets are off.

Plus, the neck is really weird. It's usually not strong enough to hold up the head and the head is all floppy if you don't hold them right. And even if you do hold them right, they projectile vomit on you or poop on you. No thanks.

So anyway, I should mention that part of the reason I broke my usual "don't intereact with babies" rule was scientific. A friend of mine recently claimed that she has never seen an interracial baby that wasn't cute. Being the logical person that I am, I said that all babies of any kind are cute, but she swore that this was not the case. Since I wasn't exposed to other kids outside my own family (whose babies are freakishly good looking). I took a look at the kid to perform my own independant scientific analysis of the attractiveness of other babies that are not related to me. Good looking biracial kid = one point for my friend.

After the closing we went to Costco. It was my nephew's birthday and I needed to buy the kid an iPod because my quest to remain the favorite uncle for all my relatives at any cost knows no bounds. I had no idea they sell iPods there, but then again I never set foot in Costco. I live alone so anything I'd be able to buy in Costco would come in such a large size that I would be using it for the rest of my life. Since I am not sure if I like a product until I use it--and sometimes I'm not sure even afterwards--that seems like too much of a committment to make to something like toilet paper or mayonaise.

Costco was uneventful except that I saw what has to be the world's ugliest baby. Remember my friend who said that every biracial baby she ever saw was really cute? Well apparently this couple never got the memo. Maybe this kid is the exception that proves the rule. I don't know. All I know is I wish I had a camera phone so I could take a picture and send it to my friend and scare the bejeezus out of her. How two relatively normal looking people could produce a kid that ugly is beyond me. Big ears, bulging eyes. It looked like Gollum, with a jerry curl.


Like this, but with a Jerry Curl.









This confirms that the only sure fire way to absolutely guarantee that you will have a cute kid is to marry someone in my family or to adopt one from Vietnam. A lot of people say you can get cute babies from China, but those are just idiots who have never seen how cute a Vietnamese baby is. In fact, if you typed "ugly vietnamese baby" into Google, it would probably return some kind of error message. It might even crash your system...for studipity.


Actual cute Vietnamese baby.











In case you think making fun of an ugly baby is too low for me to stoop for the sake of comedy, let me say that I will stoop to any lengths for a cheap laugh, even shooting a kitten.



Laugh or the kitty gets it!











Okay, I'm getting tired of messing with Pix and typing, so there will be a Part 3. But in case you're wondering what the house looks like, here it is.


This is what the yard looks like...sweet. What kinda people mow their lawn before they sell you their house? My kinda' people! I'll buy that guy a beer next time I see him.









This is the second half of that double lot. The boat belongs to the previous owner. I'm glad he's taking it with them. If I had a boat like that, I'd be tempted to run for local office, kill my political opponents and use that boat to dump their bodies in the ocean. I know the everglades are closer and easier to dump the corpses of your enemies in, but I'm not so good with the mosquitos.




This a pic of the toolshed out back. This is actually one of my favorite parts of the house. The DC Ninja fortress doesn't have a yard so I can't have a tool shed. I bought some utility shelves for the basement, but it's just not the same thing. Having utility shelves instead of a tool shed is like going on a date with a girl you like and getting a kiss on the cheek at the end of the night. I mean, technically it's a kiss, and someday you might get something better, but for the foreseeable future, nothing but frustration and thawted passion fill your mind.



This is the kitchen. The cabinets are in good shape and we can probably get away with just changing the hardware. The stove and Fridge are new.









Here is a pic of the flooring I started in the MacGyver kitchen in DC. I don't know why I included it here.








This is what the house looks like. We're gonna close that carport off and turn it into a 3BR 2BA (currently it's 2BR 1Ba). The place is really nice, but only 800 sq ft so closing it off should help a lot and add about 400 sq ft more.






This is what a Dominican looks like.

Driving in Cars With Kennedys

For those of you that don't like my random libertarian rants, stop reading now. You can get your fix of home improvement stuff and ninja news in a couple of days.

When my future daughter is old enough to go away to college, I'm going to warn her about the dangers of drinking, sex, and letting a Kennedy drive you home. It's bad enough that sloppy drunk Ted Kennedy killed someone with his drunk driving, but now his coke head nephew was driving, probably drunk, and wrecks his car, narrowly avoiding a parked cop car. He claimed he was on his way to congress to vote...at 3am. If you or I smashed up our car, smelled like a brewery and were walking wobbly, we would probably be arrested for DUI. So what does Pat Kennedy get? He gets the cops to chauffer him home without checking his blood alcohol level. After coke head Pat Kennedy blamed prescription drugs and martians, he is now checking himself into rehab. As a libertarian, when I hear of politicians getting special treatment and playing by a different set of rules it disgusts me, but doesn't surprise me. It's like when they tell you what they make hot dogs out of. You already knew you weren't going to like what you heard, but you listen anyway. So thanks for proving you're a weenie, Pat.

In other news CIA head and all-around low life Porter Goss has resigned. I think the timing is suspicious. After Duke Cunningham is convicted on corruption charges, we find out that a lobbyist provided hookers at the Watergate (yes THAT Watergate) to him and "a high level intelligence official". Porter Goss claims to have played poker at the Watergate with Duke and and the lobbyist, but claims that "no women" were there for prostitution. Hmmmmm? The Day after the prosecutor subpoenas the Watergate to find out who got what hookers, Porter Goss resigns. That sounds suspicious. If I were to guess, I think ole Porter looks like the kinda guy who likes Tranny hookers. You know..."chicks with dicks". I mean, look at the guy. He looks like the kinda guy who would frequent Tranny hookers and say something like "just because you have a wee wee, that doesn't mean I'm gay..I'm a republican, dammit!"

Okay, so in the spirit of bipartisanship, I mocked both Republicans and Dems. As a libertarian, I can do that. That's why you should all vote libertarian in the next election. If you don't vote for a libertarian next time, that means you condone drunken driving, tranny hookers and ummm, cannibalism. Yes, cannibalism! That's right, I went there.

Big Up

Thanks to whoever reads blogs at the Express (the readers digest version of the Washinton Post that they give you for free when you get on the metro at a hipster station). They mentioned my blog twice recently. Once in their online edition HERE.

and once in their print edition on Wednesday May 3, 2006. If anyone who's better at computers than me (yes, this means everyone except my grandmother) can send me a screencap or whatever of the May 3 one to homeimprovementninja[at]gmail.com so I can post it on here for vanity's sake, I would appreciate it.

In other news, I probably won't finish with Part 2 of the Florida post until Monday because I'm still bad at posting pics, I don't blog from work, and I don't like to work on the weekends. Actually, I'm not to keen on working during the week either, but I find that if you put a red pen behind your ear and stare at your computer while looking really focused, passersby are convinced that you are working on something vital.

Anyway, Part 2 is getting pretty long so there may be a Part 3. It's probably worth the wait though. Not in the way that Empire Strikes Back was worth the wait, but maybe in the way that Back to the Future 2 was worth it.

Interest Rates and the DC Election

Well, I'm still working on Part 2 of the Florida post (I need to add pics). In the meantime, Here's something that's relevant to all homeowners and people who are thinking of buying. It's a music video parody lampooning Ben Bernake (Greenspan's successor). It was dones by some Columbia graduate students and it looks pretty professional. And it's actually pretty funny. In case you're wondering where Columbia econ students find the time to make professional quality video productions, they probably worked on it during all those dateless saturdays in the dorm. Let's be honest here, these guys are learing about finance. There's no girl in a bar that will ever tell these guys "tell me about inverted yield curves again...that gets me hot."



In other news, I am (for now) officially endorsing Adrian Fenty for Mayor of DC. Why? "Council member Adrian Fenty is promising not to raise taxes if elected mayor... he said he would fund new programs by reining in an inefficient bureaucracy and working with business leaders to identify savings within the city's $7 billion budget."

An official Ninja Fcuk you to the Vincent Orange campaign who said they want to "keep their options open" and the Linda Cropp campaign that said Fenty's move was "irresponsible". An income tax rate that is twice what it is in MD and VA (3 miles away) is what's irresponsible. Wanting to tax me even more instead of cutting your bloated payroll is irresponsible, asshat. DC has 3x as many city employees as Boston. You read that right. Linda Cropp is a proven moron. I don't know anyone that has driven by her idiotic "Think Cropp" signs and not done a double take because they thought it said "Think Crap". Do we really want someone like that as mayor.

I'm not crazy about Fenty, but here's why I'm voting for him:

1. He's not taller than me. This shows he's a man of the people;
   
2. He's vowing not to raise taxes; That's a big'un.
   
3. He's bald (I'd like to have something to pick on when he eventually dissapoints. "You bald-headed donkey fcuker" see, it just rolls of the tongue. You can just hear me heckling him, can't you?).
4. He came to Columbia Heights to campaign. He was handing out literature outside of my favorite overpriced Korean convenience store. (Mr. Kim says he won't vote for Fenty because he's too young...Fenty's too young; Mr. Kim is in his 60s).
   

Mari at In Shaw said this about Fenty. "I got nothing but love for that yummy bald headed cup of hot cocoa called Adrian Fenty." I do have bad news for her though. According to his campaing flyer, he's married with 2 kids. The good news is that he's a politician, and they usually don't take marriage vows very seriously.

Florida Trip: Part 1

Well, after work on friday I head down to National Airport to fly to florida for the closing on the house I'm buying with my brother and dad to fix up and flip. It's the best (read closest) airport for me to fly out from Plus it's metro accessible. The other airports (BWI and Dulles) have cheaper flights, but they are farther and I gotta' take a cab to get there (one day if I'm bored I'll finish the draft of the post I was working on titled "DC Cabbies: Scum of the Earth...or possibly lower").

Diet Coke of Evil claims there's two ways to tell a story. The short way and the long way. So DCOE style, here's what happened.

Short version: I flew down to Florida to do the closing on a house that I'm buying with my Dad and brother. It's a 2BR 1BA house that they want to expand into a 3BR 2BA(by closing up the carport) and sell for hopefully a lot of money. They needed my name to be on the title since my brother already owns 3 houses in his name and my dad's credit got screwed up in his recent divorce.

Long Version:

So I get to the airport and use this new e-check in. I got to pick my own seat, which was sweet. I inadvertently ended up sitting next to a fat russian guy who smelled like onions and whose rolls were spilling over into my seat. Which was not sweet. He had a portable DVD player with him and watched "The West Wing" reruns throughout the flight. If he hadn't been wearing headphones, I mighta been able to follow the plot. But I have seen the West Wing a couple of times and to be quite honest, it's better with no sound.

At the airport I went to the book store (Ollson's) to check out some of the book recommendations I had gotten from my imaginary friends on the interweb. I sometimes think about what I would do if I got bored with practicing law. And by "sometimes" I mean several hours a day. I decided that I could be a writer. There were so many books there and most of them looked/sounded crappy. I don't think I'll be the next Mark Twain, but I do think if I wrote a mediocre book it would be better than most of the stuff in that book store. Because I was bored and thought it would make a good blog entry, I wrote down some names of actual books I saw there. I think the key to getting published is to come up with a ridiculous title. They seem to fall into one of three categories.

Titles that ask idiotic questions:
Why Do Men Have Nipples? This was actually a NY Times bestseller. I don't know the answer, but if people will read a whole book about man nipples I think my writing will make me rich.
Are Men Necessary?For Maureen Dowd's sake I hope the answer is no. I feel bad for anyone that would end up married to this harpy. This was also a best seller, by the way.
Can a Guy Get Pregnant?I'm no doctor, but I don't think I'd have to be to write a book like this.

I think I could crank out a book like these a week.
Why We Don't Have Three Legs, By Tom Quixote
Does The Law of Gravity apply to Anarchists?, By Tom Quixote
Where Did I Put My Car Keys? By Tom Quixote (for those of you who can't wait 'till the book comes out, they are in your jacket pocket).

The Books Offering CommonSense "Wisdom".
Never Scratch a Tiger With a Short Stick This guy actually works giving speeches to corporations. Now I know that I should attend one of those motivational speaker gigs. I'll have blog material for weeks to come.
Sex With Kings Why is this Plural? Are there so many people having sex with multiple kings that they need to refer to a book for advice?
Your Cat's Just not That Into You . If even your cat doesn't like you, then I think you need more help than a book can give you.

My books of advice will have titles like:
Don't Eat the Yellow Snow, By Tom Quixote and maybe
101 Reasons Not to Set Fire to Your Genitals, By Tom Quixote and Evil Knievel.

By this stage in my career I'll have started co-authoring books.


The Books with Strange or Provocative Titles:
Sun Tzu Was a Sissy I bet the Sequel will be Genghis Khan was a Pussy.
The Dictionary of Corporate Bullshit "Corporate" is an important adjective, so you don't get it confused with the regular Dictionary of Bullshit.
The Sociopath Next Door I bet the guy he's talking about is Sudanese.
Not a Good Day to Die I agree with the premise. But some people apparently think that it is A Good Day to Die
The Best thing that Can Happen To a Croissant I think people are boring enough, do we have to read about the exlpoits of food items in a continental breakfast?

They were also selling a book by the Washingtonienne for 40% off. It's still overpriced. Because I'm good at math, I came up with a formula for deciding how much a book by a Congressional Aide that sold anal sex to low-level Bush appointees was worth.
Here it is:

Where X = the price of Washingtonienne's book,
then
(If X > $0 then the book is overpriced).

Tune in a couple of days for Part 2...or possibly Part 3 if this gets to be too long.

Heads up.

My camera is working again. So I'll have some pics to share soon...including an update on the Sudanese guy with the dirt in my driveway. In other news my computer is freaking out again. It's the same thing that was messed up before, so I gotta' take it back to Apple. Apparently when I prayed and told you-know-who that if my computer survived that I would start going to church again, he thought I meant it and is holding me to it. I mean, I intended to start going again to live up to my end of the bargain, it's just that I never really specified when. Apparently you-know-who thought that I would start going sometime in the next few months immediately after the promise. I haven't been to church in several years, so I don't see what his/her rush is. (I don't know if ominpotent beings bother to read blogs, but I don't mention him/her/it by name in case he/she/it is reading/listening/cosmically-sharing conciousness on here).

In other news, I went and came back from Florida over this weekend. So thanks for the book recommendations. I said I was leaving next week and left earlier so that anyone planning on stealing my kickass tools while I am away would be outsmarted by me; and thwarted. I've always liked the sound of the word "thwarted" and now I got to use it in a sentence; and I got to thrawt someone too. Sweet!

In case you're wondering what I was doing in Florida. I sorta bought a house. It's a long story, but I have some nice pics and seeing my brother again means I get to mock him a few more posts to mitigate some of the childhood trauma he inflicted on me. So that's coming in the next few days.

Also, to prevent family discord I ate a slice of pizza despite my lactose intolerance. (long story) It gave me really bad gas which sadly dissipated shortly before my encounter with airport security. That's too bad. I was being oppressed and flatulence was only available defense, so I was completely unarmed when I faced those fascists. I'll try to tell you about it next time and work in a libertarian rantlet about airport "security" and how the airlines are oppressing me. And the bookstores at the airport oppressed me to. Fcuking fascists!

Starting...now.

I'm starting to realize how ridiculously disorganized I am. I've decided to get really organized starting...now. I'm going to have to-do lists for all my stuff on the house and organize all my work stuff into folders...with little labels on everything.

I look around the fortress and realize that I'm a slob. There's papers everywhere and I can't find the proper tools when I need them (so I end up using a chisel as a screw driver). I could justify my slobbishness by saying that I'm busy or that I'm more of a big-picture person; but that would be a lie. My messiness and disorganization has more to do with sloth than lack of vision. I don't know how people get so organized that they can go to the gym with excel spreadsheets detailing their workout routines, but I want to be one of those people--except smarter and better looking, of course.

I have to take a flight next week, so I decided that I'm going to make lists for everything that I need done while I'm out of town, then, armed with these powerful new tools, I'll come back and finish everything and live happily ever afer. Well, that's the plan, anyway. So today will start to-do list day. That mean's I gotta measure the MacGyver kitchen to order some cabinets and start packing for my trip (these would be on the top of my paper to-do list, which is still in my head). Then I think I have to start prioritizing my projects around the fortress. Maybe the lack of prioritization is why I haven't been getting too much done around here. Either that or it's Netflix's fault.

Since I gotta catch a plane soon, anyone have any book suggestions? Please don't say "The DaVinci Code". Although I haven't read it, I take issue with people who recommend this book. How can you, with a straight face, recommend one of the most popular books ever written? That's like saying "have you tried peanut butter? 'cuz you should, it's delicious."
So anyway, does anyone have any *other* book suggestions?