The Royals: A Lot Like Us, Really.

This post will have the most relevance to my two readers who happen to be from the colonies. There is much debate in this country over whether or not we should sever all ties with the British Monarchy once and for all. Any Americans (also, Albertans and Quebecers and other quasi-Americans) who might happen to read this will understand all too well the desire to distance themselves from the oppressive British and their Crusades, Viral Exports (see Simon Cowell and the BeckHams), and Fish and Chips (they’re called fries, for Christ’s sake!). Why, the Americans already rode those bloody British out once when they all threw their tampons into the bay and had something called the Boston Vampire Tea Party or whatever the hell it was. I can sort of see why the British left, if someone threw their tampon at me I would probably take the hint too. It would also officially make it my sixth worst date ever (don’t ask).

It is true that Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth the Second (or HRH Lizzy Deuce as I like to call her) has visited Canada on 23 occasions, and that’s pretty friggin’ annoying considering all the schoolchildren that have been forever scarred by cyborg nightmares after witnessing her robotic rotating wave-like hand gesture. We are also burdened with the expense and hassle of having something called a Governor General, an appointed person who is supposedly the Queen’s representative in Canada. The Governor General’s main duties appear to consist of ribbon cutting, medal hanging (draping?), Throne Speech reading, hobnobbing with visiting dignitaries (or in Obama’s case, drooling), and wasting vast sums of government money even existing. Thank goodness she is saving the Queen the trouble of having to do all that stuff here!

After all is said and done, however, I don’t think we ever take much time to think about what we all have in common with our Royal Family, and for that matter, other royal families around the world. Let’s look at a few examples of some of the day to day activities and situations Royals find themselves in that might strike a familiar chord with us, the little people:

“Do you ‘ear a rustlin’? I swear I can ‘ear an eerie kind of rustlin’, and it sounds like it’s comin’ from right near me ‘ead.”

Here we see Princess Beatrice of York, daughter of Fergie, Douchess of York, and Randy Andy, Pimp Daddy of York battling an all-too-common childhood problem. Let’s face it, you had head lice in school, your friends had head lice in school, and lots of people you knew had head lice in school. Hell, you probably have lice a little further south these days for all I know.I didn’t have head lice in school mind you, but I never was much of a follower. The only difference between us and the Royals is that they occasionally suffer from an attack of neon butterflies that have escaped from Her Royal Majesty’s Personal Genetic Engineericist. Sadly, in their frantic effort to copulate before dying, they often accidentally lobotomize their Royal Host, explaining the look on Beatrice’s face in the above photo.

“No, really, if the rice looks dry in the buffet, I can totally hook you up. Psst. FYI, it’s in my hat.”

If you had a nickel for all the times you wore that worn out backwards baseball cap on a first date or to meet your future wife’s parents, you would probably be rich. Royals make headwear gaffes, too. Here we can see Queen Beatrix of the Netherworldlands making the poor choice of a rice steamer as a hat at a function that is obviously more suited to a wok or George Foreman grill. Okay, I have to confess. Not even the most retarded peasant would wear a bamboo steamer to a gala ball. That’s nastay, Beeyatchtrix!

“Hello out there in peasant land! Would you like to come for a ride? Of course I’m joking, you filthy serf! Get away from my carriage before I have my Royal Stallions trample you to death. Guards, remove that insolent miscreant’s right hand for my personal collection. A strong message is needed here.”

Royals are also concerned about the environment, and issues such as Climate Change © and Global Warming (tm), just like you. Queen Beatrix hopes to have a Prius one day, but for now she is making do with her jewel and gold encrusted horse drawn carriage, much as you are making do with your doorless ‘76 Impala until your credit improves enough to lease a Prius too. There’s that hat again! In platinum! How trendy! I guess it’s better than the fucking napkin holders the two portly doormen are forced to wear on their noggins. Every time I see that hat I picture Wile E. Coyote smashing her right over the top of the head with a giant cartoon mallet. How else could you make a hat like that?

“Look, Lizzy, that stupid Git crashed ‘is ‘orse, and now they’ll ‘ave to shoot it!” “Oh, goody goody, Phillip. You know how much I love to be startled by the sharp crack of a rifle! Delightful!”

Just like you enjoy watching the UFC on pay-per-view so you can be in awe of the athletes’ abilities and skills as well as their willingness to kick the living shit out of one another for your amusement, the Royals enjoy a lovely morning of carnage at the racetrack. Why the Queen even has a race named after her, the Queen’s Plate, held every year at West Amblyshire Dunston-on-the-Mews By Wembleyford Royal Racetrack and ‘Ouse of Bettin’. It is said that when the Queen’s Plate race was initially proposed, the Queen herself insisted that at each running of the race “No less than one (1) thoroughbred filly or mare, or the other one that isn’t the filly or the mare shall suffer an injury so unsightly and disturbing as to require immediate dispatching upon the mews with the nearest sidearm or long gun at hand and in a fashion that is most pleasing to the gathered throngs of loyal Royal Subjects, including, but not limited to: the British, the Scots, visiting dirty colonial immigrants and the (sigh) Irish.”

As you can plainly see, we have more in common with the Royals than maybe we thought at first blush. Maybe that’s why they call us commoners! Ha Ha. Ha Ha….umm, actually I think it’s a term of disdain. Oh, well, we still love them!

Better Hos and Gardens, August 2009

It was recently brought to our attention that a member of our family was going to be appearing in a popular magazine with a worldwide distribution! Imagine our pride when we found out that our little cousin was going to be appearing in her own feature article in one of the most widely read and respectable home and gardening magazines on the market, Better Homes and Gardens! I mean let’s face it, a day with a new issue of Better Homes and Gardens, a new episode of Martha Stewart Living, and a trip to Bed, Bath, and Beyond is like the boring white people Holy Grail Trifecta for a Saturday!

We always knew Trixie would someday get the recognition she deserved for all of her hard work in her garden. After weeks of anticipation, her issue finally hit the newsstands, and we all rushed out to buy a copy. Imagine our dismay, when after leafing through the latest issue, her article was nowhere to be found. As I was muttering to my wife about the fickle publishing business, she pointed out another magazine on the rack, it’s cover mostly hidden by a black barrier. Better Hos and Gardens? Uh-Oh. Well, I guess on the upside, one member of our family finally made it, after a fashion. It could have been worse, I guess. I’ve excerpted the article here:

Better Hos and Gardens, Issue 342, August, 2009

“Turning Trixie”

“Hey, Sailor, want to help me in the garden?” “Oh, you’re not a sailor? Have you ever been on a boat? You have? Cool.”

This month’s pinup Trixie hails from the buzzing metropolis of Fort St. John, British Columbia, located smack dab between the North Pole and the North American treeline, or somewhere thereabouts. She likes to joke that “everyone can use more than one “hoe” in the garden!” In this photo Trixie is getting ready to go to work and she always makes sure she has all the essential supplies for an afternoon weeding the flowerbed: A couple of coolers (with a wine glass, quite a lady!), a pack of cigarettes, a gigantic feather duster, and a matching colour-coordinated hairdo and top.

“Look at all the weeds! This garden seriously needs a good Brazilian weeding!”

This action shot shows Trixie at a full gallop, inspecting the flowerbed for weeds! She’s so efficient! Look out, Trixie, that lawn is almost high enough to cover your hooker pumps, and that could cut down on visits from drive-by customers friends! Alternating standing legs in this fashion is highly advisable to ensure a girl is adequately advertising her wares avoiding fatigue.

“Is this shoot almost over? I go on stage at the Fort St. John Autobody Shop and Burlesque All You Can Eat Buffet Grill at four.”

Why so sad, Trixie? Could it be that you’ve just realized how important it is for a girl to always use a glove at work? Not using a glove can lead to all sorts of nasty fungus and molds growing in the garden, and that could keep a girl out of commission for weeks, not to mention the high cost of all those medications fertilizers and pesticides to deal with the problem.

“Oh, my aching morals!”

Finally, Trixie shows our readers the proper technique for weeding the garden. She knows a true lady never bends at the knee in order to avoid potential knee strain and a decrease in tips. She only did it in the previous picture to demonstrate the improper technique, and you can tell by the look on her face, she wasn’t too happy about it, even for educational purposes. Many thanks for having us along on your afternoon gardening adventure, Trixie. We can’t wait to come back this winter, when she told us she’s going to show us how to put a snowboarding halfpipe in the backyard while wearing a bikini and Mukluks.

(With many, many thanks to my insane cousin from Fort St. John. Yes, my real cousin. No, Trixie is not her real name. Her and her crazy friends were having a burlesque stagette for their girlfriend and decided to take some photos of working around the yard for a laugh. She put them up on Facebook and I asked her permission to use them for this post. Yes, my family is in fact this goofy and fun. Getting together consists pretty much of one thing: laughing.)

Great Moments in Scientific Achievement, Part Un (French for “Uhh…”)

Every once in a while scientists conduct a study that proves to be a watershed moment in the history of scientific achievement. These hard working nerd-people dig deep into the mysteries of our world in their never ending quest for knowledge. They seek to increase our collective understanding of the world through intensive and rigorous testing, study, and experimentation. These people aren’t in it for the glory, or the fame. They don’t care that nobody knows they were the Captain of their college Dungeons and Dragons team, or that they were the only one out of the sixteen people dressed as Klingons at the Science Department Halloween party that could actually speak Klingon.

Why just last night on NOVA: Science Now (yeah, yeah, I know. Paris Hilton’s New BFF wasn’t on yet), I learned from one delightful scientist fellow that Leeches have many roles to play in the medical field, some of them quite helpful. I had previously thought that Leeches’ roles in the medical field were confined to the ambulance-chasing malpractice lawyer and the health-care reform pushing politician. Turns out they have other uses, like sucking pus and blood and rotten shit out of gangrenous wounds. A less glamorous, but eerily similar role to that of the lawyers and politicians. I also learned from some other astronomer-scientist types that the people involved in the SETI search for intelligent life in the universe project are now composed of under 80% Trekkies, a startling achievement on the road to acceptance by the public at large. It was also interesting to learn that in order to set a baseline for the intelligence detecting instrument, the scientists trained it on the US Congress, and were able to calibrate the machine to absolute zero! Good thinking, geeks!

Seeing some of the great work being done out in the world of scientific investigation made it all the more worrisome when I stumbled across the following headline; not exactly one of those watershed moments in scientific history:

“Study Suggests Binge Drinking Affects Memory”

Well I guess this is where the rubber meets the road, so to speak. If the nerds that conducted this particular study had spent more time at frat parties and less time signing up for Psyc Department studies as guinea pigs, they wouldn’t have needed to conduct this study at all. Those of us who have undertaken “binge drinking” (or as we used to call it “drinking”) could have told anyone that would listen that of course binge drinking affects memory. It is simple mental self preservation. If it didn’t affect memory, how the hell would we have been able to live through this:

Without binge drinking affecting our memory, imagine our embarrassment when people found out our parents had never shown us how to sit properly on a bench? Thank God our friends were nice enough to be respectful about our disability and not point out that we had shown our handicap while under the influence of binge drink.

The memory-affecting qualities of binge drinking cushioned this poor girl from having to remember her sudden bout of narcolepsy at her Grandparents’ garden party. She was probably better off not knowing that she had dozed off in the middle of Grandma’s “Tour of the Tulips.”

Luckily for this happily dozing binge drinker, his lack of memory of the evening’s events should prevent him from having to deal with the triple mental trauma of the memories of pissing himself, wearing a Hulkamania T-Shirt, and being caught on camera drinking a Miller Lite.

Now here’s a perfect example of binge drinking’s ability to take a potentially reputation-smearing, life-altering event and turn it into a hazy, imperceptible, shadowy memory that is almost impossible to recall, if it can be recalled at all. The poor fellow on the left has probably battled car sickness since he was a small child, or perhaps he had a bad prawn at dinner that night. Either way, he can’t be blamed for the action occurring in the photo above. If he had any sense at all, he would have begun binge-drinking immediately after this photo was taken, and not stopped until the incident was buried deeply in his subconscious. It would probably be recommended that his somewhat startled companions might also want to binge-drink this particular memory away as well.

Despite all of the good work being done by scientists around the world, they didn’t exactly hit one out of the park with this study. They could have saved a lot of time and money by just doing a little binge-drinking, blacking out, waking up, looking at their vomit stained shirt and piss-soaked pants, and saying to themselves “Ahhh…I see.”

House, Seasons 1-4 on DVD, the Synopsis Review.

Hello again! Has it been five days since I last posted already? I know I should have been spending more time writing this week, but I’ve been pretty busy. How busy, you ask? Well, I’ve been spending my evenings watching seasons 1 through 4 of House on DVD, and not doing anything else, so pretty frickin’ busy.

While I was watching the show, I kept thinking of how it would be fun to review an episode and act like one of those high falutin’ TV writers. They’ve got a pretty sweet gig, what with spending their days dissecting the minutiae of today’s awesome assortment of quality programming. With shows like The Bachelorette, The Bachelor, The Bachelor’s Gay Buddy: Cruising for Love, and The Bachelorette’s Friend From That One Time She Experimented in College: A Time to Settle Down, the positive glowing reviews practically write themselves!

It looks pretty easy to me. The only problem was, after watching about 267 hours of House, I couldn’t really pick one episode to review, so I decided what the hell, I’ll review the whole series in a tidy little synopsis. We’ll start with a quick introduction to the main characters to get you up to speed. Here we go!:

From left to right: Drs. Foreskin, Crampon, and Gayce (House’s Medical Team or kids, I’m not sure which); Dr. Gregbert House (Main character probably, the show has the same name); Dr. Cunty Sluddy (Oops! Almost lost my NC-17 there! She’s everybody’s boss); Dr. Wimpson (House’s friend or lover or conscience or something).

The show generally opens with an old or young or medium age person having sex, doing something, thinking about doing something or not doing anything or maybe doing a thing. That person twitches or pukes, or convulses, or has a coma, or drops a bowel or swears at, pukes on, or has explosive diarrhea on someone they love or something, indicating, apparently, illness of some sort. After the opening credits which feature neat medical looking pictures of some stuff that looks medical-ish, the series dialogue between the characters is generally as follows:

Post-Credits Opening Scene; House discusses patient’s case with Medical Team/Children:

House: What’s the differential diagnosis for this stupid loser patient guy/girl/man/woman/Thai Ladyboy?

Foreskin: House, every patient is not a loser just because you have leg issues and a cane you handicapable honky racist douchebag!

Crampon: Maybe it’s Lupus. Or a Lupus-like disorder. Or a disorder that acts like Lupus to throw us off. Or maybe a Lupus-like cancer. Did I mention my husband died of a Lupus-like cancer? If only I had thought of the cancer before I treated the Lupus.

Gayce: My hair looks like this when I roll out of bed. No shit, exactly like this. I know you aren’t believing me, but why would I lie about my hair? C’mon Crampon, want to touch it? No? Foreskin? House? No? Well, fuck all of you then.

House: Foreskin, I would make a black joke at your expense, but it would be wasted on you because you are black. Crampon, your husband committed suicide because you can’t say a sentence that doesn’t contain the word “Lupus,” and I totally understand that feeling now. Gayce, I lied. Yes, I would like to touch your hair, my little Australian Barebacker, I mean “Outbacker.” Long story short, you are all goddamned morons, and I am going to cure the patient myself after I cook up an Eight Ball for breakfast, because that’s what brilliant cranky doctors all over America do. That’s right, folks, all over America. The patients overlook the junkieness for the brilliantness.

Next Scene: House meets patient in attempt to figure out mystery ailment:

House: I’m Dr. House, I’ll be curing you today, you loser/homo/lady homo/retard/dipshit/kindly old patient who is probably a child molester or Iraqi insurgent.

Patient: What’s wrong with me?

House: You, your family, and your unborn children are too stupid to understand anything I might say, so I am not going to talk to you. I am however going to drill a hole in your head or do a lumbar puncture/MRI/Ultrasound/Psychiatric profile/Anal probe or take a swab so I can find out your problem, you useless waste of skin and air.

Patient: Golly, you sure aren’t very nice! (Followed immediately by seizure or vomiting of blood, or vomiting of vomit, or vomiting of urine, or vomiting of lung; maybe vomiting up a coma).

Next Scene: Sluddy tears a strip off of House for his unethical actions:

Sluddy: House, I can’t believe you Anal Probed a patient! Without their consent! With an MRI machine! In the library with a candlestick and Colonel Mustard watching! What’s wrong with you? And stop looking down my shirt and at my ass and up my skirt! It’s “Business Casual,” not “Office Slutty,” asshole. If you pull one more stunt like this I will threaten to fire you if you pull one more stunt like this!

House: Would it help if I told you that during the Anal Probing, I was thinking of you?

Sluddy: It might.

Next Scene: Wimpson tells House he is dead on the inside and will never be loved by anyone:

Wimpson: House, you are dead on the inside and will never be loved by anyone.

House: Fuck you. So are we still on for lunch in the cafeteria? Your treat? Remember to bring me a dimebag of Vicodin too, you “Up with people” freak.

Wimpson: Sounds good! Noon ok?

Final Scene: The big cure, or sometimes not. But mostly, yeah:

Foreskin, Crampon, or Gayce: Gee, who would have thought it would have been (insert unpronounceable and possibly nonexistent medical condition here), and that we could cure the patient in time? Or in about one out of five shows, not cure the patient in time?

House: What do you mean we, do you losers have a frog in your pocket? Now get out of my sight, I have a hooker coming in to the office for an Anal Probing MRI.

The End.

As one can obviously see, House is a series filled with tense medical situations, morality tales, and a monstrous, unshaven, talking asshole. What more could you possibly want in your TV viewing? Well, I agree, it’s no Full House, but really, what is?

It’s Sunday, it Must be Sports Gay, I Mean Day!

Ah, Sunday. The traditional day of rest. Once a fellow has made the bleary-eyed, pounding-head walk of shame home from whatever Saturday Night Sweetheart’s place he managed to crash at the night before, it’s time to just relax on the couch for the day and enjoy some good old sports action on the television. Turn the ringer off on your phone, strip down to your skivvies, make a plate of nachos for breakfast, and prepare to enjoy some good old fashioned testosterone fueled entertainment.

First off, let’s start the day with a rousing game of soccer, a sport that is considered manly in many parts of the world. Here in North America, we have a difficult time understanding any sport in which only the feet may touch the ball. I mean, we could understand it if it meant that the hands were meant to be used solely for punching your opponent in his stupid face, but turns out, there are other uses for the hands in soccer:

And a million female readers of People magazine turn livid with envy.

Well, that just dipped the manliness quotient a point or two. There are clearly no impediments in the above picture to Beckham’s teammates patting his back or tousling his hair in a “You done good, boy!” Uncle-type congratulation. It is possible Beckham would get pissy if they touched his thousand dollar haircut, but they have clearly made a choice here about a touching spot, and it is the wrong choice.

Okay, well no luck avoiding creepy ass-fondling with the soccer game. Why don’t we watch a good old fashioned game of baseball? Them good-ol-boys know how to keep their hands out of trouble. Hell, they need them for catchin’, throwin’, and hittin’. We should be safe from inappropriate butt-touching there:

“Look, I’m telling her I’m leaving her tonight, I promise. Now let’s just get through this game. I’ve got a booth reserved for us at Club Salsa for later. We can do your favourite, the Lambada! You know how much you love to Lambada.”

What in Christ’s name is going on here now? Obviously, a manly chest-bump would be ineffective due to the catcher’s chest protector. Ha Ha! I said “catcher!” A friendly shin-kick is also out of the question, but there is absolutely nothing, and I mean nothing stopping these fellas from exchanging good natured punches in the shoulder or a manly lean-in, one-arm, back-pat hug. There is no reason to be communicating with any type of bun-huggin’, so why the hell are they doing it?

Professional sports have really gone down the toilet. Our last hope is that testosterone-waving flagship of sport, the bone-crunching, hard-hitting sport of football. We should be able to avoid any awkward, cringe-inducing displays of public affection and concentrate on enjoying the copious amounts of pain and suffering being dished out. We need to salvage this lazy Sunday somehow.

“I hope my Mom isn’t watching.”

Okay, let’s just wait a second here. Maybe there is a good explanation for this. We did just switch the channel and it did go to an advertisement right away so maybe it’s not what it looks like. What it looks like however is a position that has a three beat system attached to it. That is, if they stayed in this position for one beat, no damage done, it’s just an accident. Two beats, well, they can never look each other in the eye again, and they will have to buy their wives a Porsche to help them forget about it. Three beats, they probably have tickets to Fire Island booked for the weekend. We’ll never really know, thankfully, but just to be safe, we’ll assume it was one beat.

Maybe we’ll have better luck checking out some women’s sports, they seem to have a lot more class and know how to act in an appropriate fashion. For safety’s sake though, I think we’ll avoid the LPGA and Women’s Field Hockey. How about a little Beach Volleyball?

“Here, let me give you a hand. Your ass appears to be trying to eat your bikini.”

Jackpot! Finally, some players that can conduct themselves in a professional fashion! In this case, the ass-pat is totally forgivable. To be encouraged, even. Attempting to pat the sand-covered back or shoulder could cause nasty abrasions, traumatic injury, and possible scarring, so the true professional women’s beach volleyball player knows the safest spot to caress lovingly in a congratulatory fashion is the soft and pliable, yet durably toned ass cheek. Well done, ladies!

That was a nice relaxing Sunday. Nothing like getting in a little sports action to make a dude feel like a real man. Now to close out the day with a nice long soak in the tub, the latest issue of Esquire, and a glass of chardonnay and it will be the perfect end to the weekend.