Would the 350 lbs (I'm guessing) lady-beast behind me in this security check-in line please STOP PRESSING HER GUT AGAINST MY BACK

Look Miss...er, Misses,

I'm sure you have many fine qualities. Included among them, just at a glance, I can tell is girth.

So that's something.

You also possess many, many chins. Ten gazillion and three if I counted correctly. I can't be 100% sure of this number however since 1. I'm not sure if that gazillion is even a real number, and 2. your most notable non-girth-related quality seems to be your innate wiliness, as displayed by your unstoppable talent for tapping the small of my back with your protruding, voluminous belly upon which I was lucky enough to witness the tell-tale highlights from a botched C-section. (Tell the doctor to use a scalpel next time instead of a plastic fork. F Y fucking I.)


ABOVE: 27 of these for a snack is not part of an acceptable diet. Also, I hate you.


I say "wily" because matter how many times I've asked you to stop making contact with my back, no matter how many steps ahead I walk, you seem to be within tapping distance of my body at all times. I take one step forward...tap tap tap. I take ten steps forward...tap tap tap. It doesn't matter to you how far away I am. And I must admit, I'm not quite sure how you do it. Have you mastered time and space? I'm willing to admit that you're OCCUPYING a great deal of space and that furthermore the incredible mass centralized around what must be your cracked, strained skeletal system may actually be the beginnings of a human-based ssingularity, which would then stretch each moment of time out to an infinite length. So in that sense, yes, you may have almost, kind of mastered time and space.

So...now listen, I'm not the type of person to "bash" another person simply because their background or social behavior differs from mine.

Homosexuality?
More like Homosexuawesomeness.

Native American?
More like Native Amer-awesome-ican.

Believe that an unregulated "free" market is a safe way to allow economies of destitute countries to develop, all but ensuring their finite natural resources will be depleted in a few decades, leaving that country and every bit of land and the ecosystem connected to it in a potentially permanent shambles?
Fuck you.



So yes. I believe difference is to be celebrated, but with one exception.


IF YOU ARE TAPPING MY BACK WITH YOUR TEN GALLON GUT WHILE YOU SWAY BACK AND FORTH LISTENING TO SHITTY TOP FORTY HITS LOUD ENOUGH FOR AN ENTIRE SECURITY CHECK POINT TO HEAR YOU DO NOT QUALIFY AS A PARTICIPANT IN A UNIQUE CULTURE WORTHY OF RESPECT.

See, in that case, you are simply pissing me off. There is a difference, however small.

You understand what I mean by small , don't you? It's the descriptive word that you're the opposite of.

We're far too insensitive in this country to the needs of the poor, the truly oppressed, and to my career. Three groups which could really use a boost right about now. But when it comes to coddling lifestyles of extreme gluttony and consumption like yours , the sensitivity goes through the roof and we turn a blind eye (well, we close our eyes completely since chances are you'll still be in our peripheral vision even with a turned head) and accept your choice to gorge as being on par with religious freedom and the right to digital cable.

"Livin' Large" should not to be given the same solemn tip of the hat that other, less-tapping-my-back-with-your-bulk kinds of cultural differences get.

But hey... it's ok. It's fine. All is well now. I'm over this. I'm done.

For the tyranny of your tummy is at an end. I am inside now, at my desk, at my hideous day job working for a government agency that is probably as bloated and useless as you are. I have to go now. It's lunch.

In your honor I will be eating a salad made of DingDongs, Fruit Pies (for the roughage), and sausage patties...and for the dressing? You guessed it.

Tears.

And that, my friends, is how a bill becomes law.

Good morrow.

PS There is hope. Just don't eat it.

History's Greatest Engagement Announcements #1

Dearest Future Bride,

I have accepted your father's mildly generous dowry of 12,000 hectares of good Northumberland Swamp Meat and one Mormon Tabernacle preserved half-eaten in amber.

The wedding will take place tomorrow at High Duskuary. Pastor Emanuel Higgenmirth will preside during the sentencing.

And not to be outdone by our village's celebrations from last Equinox's very successful warlock-droppings scavenger hunt led by Bainbridge Fallow (yes, Bainbridge, 3 stones worth of warlock droppings IS a great deal. We're all very proud of you. Now please stop wearing a gold-encased ball of it around your neck. It is still, after all, shit), my finest snout-Bedazzled oxen will pull the train of your wedding tarp while you tarry aloft my grandest Lockheed Martin F-7 Light Assault Reconnaissance Jet.

Dinner is chicken or fish.

And thus, shall we be locked in wed.

FOR EVER AND EVER AND EVER AND EVER AND EVER AND EVER AND EVER AND EVER AND EVER AND EVER AND EVER AND EVER AND EVER...and etcetera!

Yours in "Husbandry,"
Betrothed,
The Thane of Veerhoven

The Federal government needs to stop using acronyms for EVERYTHING

I work in a federal agency. FOR NOW. It's called a day job, everyone.

I can't say which agency though because the FBI, CIA, NSA, and several other acronyms will hunt me down if I give away my location. Regardless of the consequences however I am now going to discuss government offices in general hey what's that red dot on my ches-

PING!

Silly sniper! You can't shoot me with regular rounds. My emotional armor is too strong for that. Heck, I'm practically a robot at this point. You should know that by now after sifting through all my emails and text missives.
Now go back to your commanding officer and tell him or her you'll need hollow-tip shame-coated rounds. That's the only thing that can pierce my outer layers! Good luck, junior agent whoever you are.

Anyway, everything in these offices has an acronym assigned to it. Everything.
ME: I'll be right back, boss. I'm going to use the B.A.T.H.R.O.O.M.
BOSS: The Break And Toilet Hostelry Restricted to Obsequious Office-employed Men?
ME: Yesum.
BOSS: Go right ahead.

And half the time they misspell the acronym itself anyway. It used to be you had to be part of a secret black-ops organization or a futuristic robot to be considered special enough to get an acronym.



GENERAL: Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the Marine's newest soldier...Andy.

(pulls tarp away, revealing a futuristic robot holding a clipboard)

ANDY: Greetings. I am A.A.N.D.E. That stands for Automoted Actuarial with Neural Dendritic Enhancements. Please forgive the misspelling on my frontal armor. The soldier assigned to paint me was after all...only human. Har Har. Moving on, my main function as a futuristic robotic Marine insurance adjuster is to determine plausible estimates for damage caused by accidents, death, and disasters, especially rust. Har Har! Hey what's that red dot on my chassi--

(several shots echo through the room, AANDE falls dead. His last act? Calculating the chances of his own violent death: %100.)

GENERAL: Private Junioragentwhoeveryouare! Reveal yourself!

(a reed thin, nervous looking Marine sharp shooter stands up, the oily rags he used to hide himself falling away)

PRV: Ye-ye-yessss sir?

GENERAL: Private, the author of this piece said he was "practically a robot," not a real robot. Do you understand the difference?

PRV: I--I think so.

GENERAL: For instance, do you think I am a robot? Hey what's that red dot doing on my che--

(several shots echo through the room, the General falls dead. I stand up, revealing my position....from within the hollowed out body of AANDE! Oh my god, how did I do it? I guess this means that the private was right all along! I was in AANDE...and dangerous enough to warrant assasinating. Oh well, I guess we all live and learn.)


Or...do we?

Dun dun dun...

Weather Curiosity: 69 degrees winter day tomorrow (1/6/07) in New York City

But yeah, let's keep that "debate" about global warming going a little longer. I'm so tired of beautiful snow peacefully blanketing the ground and enjoying hot cocoa inside after a snowball fight and not sweating in January. Really, it's got to come to a stop. Thankfully, America's business butt-buddies, the Republicans, have been doing God's work (well, the God in Revelations at least) and making sure we fart out every ounce of fossil fuel we can from our collective societal asses.

We should run a few more years' studies to make absolutely sure that that blue liquid coming off the melting arctic shelves is in fact water, and not, as the Heritage Foundation would have us believe "spillage from an enormous, delicious raspberry Slushy. And what kind of American could hate a Slushy?"

Maybe conservatives are stalling, keeping their shrill cries and hope-stabbing decibels up just long enough for the Republican Party to grow gills and invent underwater firearms. Couldn't live without those, now could they? I sure hope they invent Mer-Mexicans to carry out all the hard labor for them in their new briny abodes. I wonder though it they'll pay them under the water table, so taxes don't get taken out or if they'll even pay them minimum wave.


ABOVE: Future American President Costner, about to sign the historic Mer-American Aquahomestedders Surrender Treaty with Atlantian Emperor Screelleeeaaaascreeekky Skreeeeek Skreeeeleeekee. Note Costner's use of the traditional harpoon-shaped quill, a sign of respect to our new H2Overlords.

THE SCIENCE OF DATING: part 1

Working with a grant from the think tank the Institute for American Dating Studies (IADS), a series of pairs of diametrically opposite, polar personalities from similar fields and socio-economic backgrounds were selected to go on 10-15 dates and to record the events therein and to observe how, or rather if, their feelings for one another progressed. There are ten pairs in total. Comedians Sara Benincasa and Sean Crespo were selected as the "control group." This is the official observation web logs of those participants.

DATE #1
Sean's web log
The Salsa Class




Ok, guys at IADS, before I get started with the main body of my entry, I just want to say thanks again for this tremendous opportunity to poison my reputation around New York and to make many new lifelong enemies. The $100 a date you're paying me is not enough considering that this was my first date on your stupid experiment and I'm already sick to death of my "partner," if you can call someone who throws sharpened dance shoes at you on your first date with her a partner.

Unfortunately, according to your experiments' rules, you can.

So listen, whatever it is Sara is going to tell you about last night will be entirely false. How do I know this? Because Sara spent the better part of the night lying to me and those around us about herself. That’s how.

If I were you, I'd run another background check on her by the by. I saw her resume during the interview process and now that I know her a little better, I feel confident making the claim that she is NOT the Hungarian Mud Sculpting Champion (99-03) that she reported to be--just an FYI there.

Here's another 'for instance' of S.B.'s BS.

Sara told me last night during some awkwardly erratic small talk--and by the way, does she have some crippling emotional disease you haven't told me about yet? Were you planning on telling me? And really, if we're the scientific control for this experiment, I'd hate to see the train wreck variables you've paired up for the other dates.--that she had spent a year in the Canadian Coast Guard and was proficient in CPR, the Heimlich Maneuver, Menopause (it sounded convincing when she listed it), and several other life saving techniques.

"What a happy coincidence!" I thought to myself when at dinner the man eating next to us began to choke on his veal burger and later went into cardiac arrest.

"Oh my god!" I said out loud moments later when Sara went over to him, made as if she were trying to help save his life, and then started going through his pockets for money and credit cards. She then cut the maitre d' a fifty to keep his mouth shut.

As the coroner pulled up, just as our black cab pulled away, I wondered if this dating blog experiment thing was such a good idea. And then as Sara exclaimed that "just because we dined and douched" didn’t mean I still didn't have to pay if I wanted to visit her vaginal metropolis "Snatchville" later that night...I knew it was not such a good idea.

I guess I should get to the main body of events. As prescribed by you, after dinner we headed over to Crazy Sal's Mad Loco Salsa dance studio over at the corner of 112th Street and Malcolm the Tenth Blvd for a night of what I was hoping would be an exhilarating peak at the caliente culture of the latin nations. That was not to be, it seems, at least not when your dance partner keeps loudly exclaiming things I never even intimated, thought, or much less said, things like, "See, and you thought Spanish people were barely even people! But look how pretty their dances are! They must be good for something besides being America’s pack mules, like you said at dinner!"

Besides being banned there for life, the only other thing I find more depressing about last night is the full-page ad my landlord, Manny Ramirez (no Bosox relation), found in the Spanish newspaper El Periodico! this morning which features my terrified/enraged face and the headline (which Manny graciously translated for me before he and the rest of the Ramirez clan removed my person from apartment #3C with, literally, brandished pitchforks--they work at the Home Depot garden center it turns out) "Hitler Youth On Hate Crime Spree."

The author of this article?

Hmm, funny that. The paper lists it as the work of "freelance reporter Mariasara Beunocasa." I'm sure there's no connection to the wholly disparately named Sara Benincasa, who I went on a date with at that same Salsa dance studio, who instigated the arguments and accusations that followed, and who even took the photo of me defending myself as our dance instructor Juan attempted to flay my face with a plastic rose, complete with real "fake" thorns.

Well, there's more to tell, but I'm being told by the hospital staff that I have to log off. You see, I have cornea surgery in an hour and the nurses insist my eyes get some rest before I am anesthetized.

"What kind of anesthesia will be administered?" you ask. Why, the local kind. If you weren't aware, local anesthesia for an eye operation = A Huge Needle In My Left Eye Four Times. Do I get two for flinching? Gee, I sure hope not. Hitting me on the arm while a needle is being inserted in my eye might cause irreversible damage to my sight, rendering me even less capable of fending off newer and graver threats which are sure to abound from Sara's Mordorian shenanigans.

I'm sure she will have a plethora of fascinating non-facts to add to this account, as well as many examples of her trademark race baiting. So have fun plowing through that vasty field of lies. Yet I urge you, don't just take what she says with a grain of salt. Take what she says with a metric supertonne of condensed industrial grade salt with g measurements extrapolated for Jovian gravity.

Can't wait to see what horrible situation you sadists cannon ball me to next. Probably an Easily Offended Pride Bobybuilder Parade or maybe a tour of an invisible knife-throwers factory. Can't see how either of those could turn out poorly with Sara as my erstwhile companion for hire.

Thanks, science!

Yours,
Sean

P.S. Oh, and this is for the IADS financial department...just so you know, $100 doesn't even cover one of the four injections I'll be getting pumped DIRECTLY into my open eye in a few minutes. And it certainly won't cover the financial costs of losing my apartment (Manny seemed upset by the newsaper article for some reason), the emotional cost of being excommunicated by the Spanish side of my family (Crespo is, ironically, Spanish. Who knew. Apparently, our salsa instructor did not.), nor will it cover the extensive legal fees I'mm already committed to paying my defense attorney for the upcoming defamation hearing I've been cordially invited to by Lopez, Lopez, and Smythe. They're "abogados at law," their letterhead says.

See you in court, a-holes.