A description of my blog. http://www.my-site.com 4479157128595006459 38? But You Seem So Immature! 2008/04/#4479157128595006459 2008-04-16 In two weeks I’ll be thirty-eight years old.

I like this age. You know what’s great about being almost thirty-eight? People stop expecting you to grow up. And you can stop pretending that you’re going to some day.

When you’re thirty-eight and you interrupt a meeting at work with a five minute puppet show starring a Cat5 cable and a laptop power cable, people don’t shake their heads and mutter something to each other about how immature you are. They still think you’re immature, but they accept it. They look at your receding hairline and salt-and-pepper beard and realize that this isn’t the first impromptu puppet show you’ve put on starring office equipment – and it most likely won’t be the last. They assume you know how inappropriate you’re being, and that bringing it to your attention isn’t going to change anything. In fact, now that I think about it, being in your late thirties is a lot like being retarded.

In a sense, I’ve been waiting to be thirty-eight all my life. I’ve always felt about thirty-eight. Even when I was in elementary school, I felt about thirty-eight. When the other kids were worried about getting picked last in softball, I was worried about what I was going to do with my life. I was a lot like Woody Allen’s character, Alvy Singer, in Annie Hall:
Alvy’s mother: He’s been depressed. All of a sudden, he can’t do anything.
Doctor: Why are you depressed, Alvy?
Alvy’s mother: Tell Dr. Flicker. (To the doctor) It’s something he read.
Doctor: Something he read, huh?
Alvy: The universe is expanding...Well, the universe is everything, and if it’s expanding, some day it will break apart and that will be the end of everything.
Alvy’s mother: What is that your business?
Grade school is a terrible place for a thirty-eight year old.

There were times in school when I was literally bored to tears. I used to fake illnesses so I could get out of doing math drills. School just dragged on, and on, and on, and there seemed to be no point to it. It was all just one colossal waste of time, and nobody felt the need to explain why I needed to be there. It was, in fact, solid real-world training for the quarterly all hands meetings at Galactic Invertebrates.

My strategy for dealing with this sort of tedium hasn’t changed much over thirty-eight years. It’s a two pronged strategy, consisting of (1) doodling pictures of Spider-Man in the margins of my “notes,” and (2) cracking inappropriate jokes.

At one of the first of the pointless all-day meetings at Galactic Invertebrates, the human resources director spent an hour explaining the organizational structure of the company. Which was amusing in itself, because G.I. had no organizational structure. She explained, to a room of blank faces, that G.I. was what was known as a “matrix organization.” She asked if any of us knew what a “matrix organization was.”

Up to this point I had been content with my drawing of Spidey dodging the many arms of Doctor Octopus, but when somebody feeds me a line like that, I can’t resist.

“Well,” I said. “I know that nobody can be told what the matrix is.”

The human resources director looked at me with the look that my mom has on her face while she’s reading this, but everybody else had a good laugh.

It’s not just business meetings where my involuntary boredom defense mechanism kicks in. The other day I was in a finance committee meeting at my church, where we were going over the budget for next year. As I am only the church’s treasurer because of some kind of divine joke, I never have anything useful to contribute at these meetings. I mean, unless you consider drawings of your friendly neighborhood web-slinger to be useful.

Eventually we got to the pastor’s salary, and someone was going through a book that listed the average salaries for employees in various church-related jobs.

“Hey,” I said. “Does that book break it down by denomination?”
“Yes,” he said. “Why?”
“I was wondering how much a couple of Baptists would run us.”

This little remark had the effect of completely derailing the meeting for ten minutes while we tried to ascertain what flavor of minister would give us the most bang for the buck. Very productive.

Just out of college I worked at a company that cataloged legal documents for class action lawsuits. It was the sort of mind-numbing job that computers do these days. A coworker and I used to amuse ourselves by making little adjustments to the letters on the outside of the bottles of Liquid Paper, so that the labels read “Squid Paint” or “Liquid Baby.” I even made one that read “Quid Pro Quo.”

When we ran out of unmolested bottles of Liquid Paper, I turned to writing lengthy missives for the company’s suggestion box. I once wrote a 500 word essay explaining why the company should get a trained monkey to go around the office refilling our coffee cups. I included a detailed cost-benefit analysis, in which I explained how much money the company would be saving through increased productivity. Then, at the very bottom I wrote in small letters:
P.S.: Please disregard my earlier request for a soda badger.
Paperwork bores me as well. I’m terrible at anything that requires attention to detail, and I suspect that only about 3% of the thousands of forms that I’ve filled out in my life have ever been read by anyone. Lately I’ve taken to hiding bizarre comments on any forms I have to fill out, in an effort to determine whether anyone is reading them. For example, on the application for my current job, this question appeared: “What was your reason for leaving your last job?”

They gave me a full line to respond, but I didn’t need it. I wrote a single word: RABIES.

Clearly it wasn’t a dealbreaker, as I got the job, and was never even asked to get any shots.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve developed a little more tolerance for tedium, but my patience for people who deliberately waste my time has eroded at about the same rate. The net effect is that I’m at least as big a smartass as I was in fifth grade, but I’m much more confident about it now.

Well, I’d better get going. I think I’ve got a meeting to get to.

If you enjoyed this post, may I also recommend:

No one can be told what humor-blogs.com is.

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]]> 967433511616613589 Your Brain (for Dummies) 2008/04/#967433511616613589 2008-04-07

Congratulations on your selection of the Cerebronix Diesel 1000 Carbon-Based Brain!

The Diesel 1000 is a state of the art cerebral engine that takes advantage of the latest in organic brain technology. We think you’ll be glad you chose the Diesel 1000.

Note that the Diesel 1000 is a high performance machine designed for a wide range of abstract thinking purposes. We do not recommend the Diesel 1000 for casual brain users. If you plan to use your brain primarily for mundane tasks such as doing geometry homework and remembering dentist appointments, we recommend exchanging your Diesel 1000 for something from our PracticalBrain line. You may also be interested in our Cerebroutine module, which allows your brain to easily focus on repetitive activities for hours at a time. The Diesel 1000 is not designed for such tasks, and using it in this way may void your warranty.

Features

The Diesel 1000 is designed for abstract thinking. Your brain can be used for all sorts of tasks, from making up absurd lies to designing database schemas. The analytical engine used by the Diesel 1000 is very powerful, and features an onboard counterfactual processor, which allows your brain to devise absurd hypothetical scenarios and discount empirical reality. The Diesel 1000’s analytical engine should be used with care. If proper precautions are not taken to keep the analytical engine in check, serious problems can result. (See Troubleshooting below).

The primary memory module of the Diesel 1000 has been optimized for storing abstract concepts and vast amounts of trivial information, such as the names of sitcom characters and the planet that the aliens were from in Highlander 2. It is not designed for storing addresses, appointment times, the names of people you may actually meet in real life, etc. Diesel 1000 users are encouraged to obtain an external storage/reminder device for remembering such items.

New in this model

The Diesel 1000 now comes equipped with Cerebronix’s high-performance H42 humor module. Users of previous Cerebronix models often expressed frustration at their inability to get their brain to function as expected while performing various mundane tasks such as trying to get to a job interview or perform simple repetitive manual labor. While the humor module does not actually facilitate these tasks, it creates an existential buffer between the Diesel 1000’s core processor and the reality of the situation. This helps keep your brain from becoming unstable. Note that you should only rely on the humor module to protect your brain until you can get out of the situation that is causing the existential threat. Failure to do so may void your warranty. (See Troubleshooting below).

Troubleshooting

This section outlines some common problems users may experience when operating the Diesel 1000.

Recently I followed another driver to a party in a strange part of town. I tried to get the Diesel 1000 to memorize the route, but it insisted on imagining a hypothetical scenario in which KITT’s voice in Knight Rider was provided by Charles Nelson Reilly.

This is normal operation for the Diesel 1000. The Diesel 1000 is a highly imaginative machine that needs constant mental stimulation. If it is in a situation where the available input is not sufficiently interesting, the counterfactual processor will automatically activate, providing amusement for the Diesel 1000.

After the party, I asked for directions back to the freeway. I tried to get the Diesel 1000 to pay attention to what the person was saying, but as soon as they mentioned turning on ‘Elm Street,’ it became fixated on devising a Nightmare on Elm Street joke that it could work into conversation at the next available opportunity.

This is also normal operation for the Diesel 1000. The Diesel 1000 is not designed for retaining detailed instructions. If the directions are very important to you, we suggest singing them to the “Gilligan’s Island” theme song.

I think I’m lost. I have no idea how to get back to the freeway. Does this thing have any kind of guidance system?

No.

Ok, I’m definitely lost. Seriously. Help me out here. I’m in a really bad part of town and I don’t even know what direction I’m going.

We recommend activating your Diesel 1000’s humor module until the threat has passed.

Why does the Diesel 1000 refuse to stop and ask someone for directions?

The Diesel 1000 is an XY-series brain, and is therefore incapable of asking a stranger for directions. Also, what’s the point? Remember the Charles Nelson Reilly thing?

Yeah, that was pretty funny.

Exactly.

Sometimes I catch the Diesel 1000 wondering if life has any purpose. It gets stuck making the simplest decisions, constantly wondering “What’s the point?”

Your brain is in an infinitely recursive “why” loop. This can happen if the Diesel 1000 is not given enough abstract problems to solve. In such a case, the Diesel 1000’s counterfactual processor kicks in, developing new problems for the analytical engine to solve. When the counterfactual processor runs out of problems, it posits the Diesel 1000’s own existence as a problem to be solved by the analytical engine. The analytical engine is unable to solve this problem, and the inability to solve this problem becomes another problem for it to solve. The analytical engine is also unable to solve that problem. And so it goes, until your Diesel 1000’s resources are being consumed entirely by an infinite number of unsolvable problems.

The H42 humor module is designed to recognize the absurdity of this situation and take enjoyment from it. At some point, however, the humor module is likely to be overwhelmed. In this case, we recommend having your brain serviced by a professional.

About this documentation

The Diesel 1000 is designed to be self documenting. If you are reading this documentation, congratulations! Your brain has reached a rudimentary understanding of its own mental processes, and has taken it upon itself to explain its basic inner workings to you. Although this will likely produce a feeling of relief and perhaps even happiness, you should be aware that this documentation is by no means complete, and may contain errata.

You can expect an update to this document in another 38 years. Good luck and have fun with your brain!


Humor-blogs.com has half a mind not to list this post.

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]]> 8388786433669549889 Pay Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain 2008/02/#8388786433669549889 2008-02-19 Occasionally as I am making my rounds through the blogosphere, I run across someone referring to me in excessively laudatory terms, e.g. "the mighty Diesel" or "Mr. Diesel President-CEO-Founder-King of Humor-Blogs." (Thanks, Lobo and Bee.)

I want you to know, first of all, that I enjoy these appellations and wish them to continue.

It is only fitting, after all, for someone who has the 25,692nd ranked blog on Technorati to be held in such esteem. I'm basically a celebrity, like Taye Diggs or Leelee Sobieski.

And this blog -- the 25,692nd most popular blog in the world -- isn't even my only website. I also run Humor-Blogs.com, which, when it isn't crashing because of some kind of database error, is a really big list of other blogs. And frankly I'm being modest, because in addition to it being a list of blogs, there is big column of arbitrarily truncated posts from those blogs, that may or may not appear in chronological order!

Yes, I am an impressive individual. And, not being satisfied with a blog that is almost in the top quarter hundred thousand blogs in the world and a blog directory that comes up first when you type its name into Google, I have now also started a MAGAZINE. Holy crap, right? I mean, how important can one guy be?!?! It's not like they hand out domains like claypigeonmag.com to just anybody with $29 burning a hole in their pocket. (BTW, in case the guy who owns claypigeon.com is reading this -- I'll go up to $104, but that's my FINAL OFFER.)

With great power, of course, comes great responsibility. Occasionally I must step down from my ruby-encrusted throne in order to arbitrate disputes among the common people, and also to make an appointment with my chiropractor, because damn those rubies are digging into my spine.

Recently, for example, a controversy broke out regarding allegations that Bee was monopolizing the top spot in the Humor-Blogs home page feed. Her posts were always showing up on top, even when newer posts would get added. The logical conclusion, of course, was that Bee is a big cheating stinky poo-poo head. Surprisingly, however, in this particular case the problem was actually with the feed aggregating code that I wrote. I know, right? This is pretty much the first time that anything has ever broken with that site. Other than, you know, the database upgrade that broke everything and the time I accidentally deleted all the users, and those data truncation errors and the formatting that isn't quite right on half the pages.

The point is that Humor-Blogs.com isn't just some site that I threw together over a few spare weekends a while back, totally as a lark, never expecting it to have more than a few dozen sites listed. I mean, it is, but it's much more than that. That's because I'm involved, and I'm a Big Deal, so no matter how shoddy the site appears, it should be taken VERY SERIOUSLY.

The rankings, for example, are basically gospel. The very best humor blog in the whole world is 15 Minute Lunch, because Humor-Blogs.com says so. Crummy Church signs is a distant second. There is of course a margin of error of +/- 4 blogs, which is why Mattress Police is oddly mired at #5.

My latest venture, the Clay Pigeon, promises to be every bit as Breathtakingly Important as Humor-Blogs.com. Already I have made $0.16 on Google ads, and that's money that can be plowed right back into the magazine, to buy larger and faster-moving electrons.

But don't worry, no matter how famous and important I get, I will always remember where I came from. I won't forget my loyal Adjutant Inspectors, although admittedly I did shuffle them off to another page somewhere because the damn blogrolling script kept breaking. I mean, come on, am I the only professional around here? (Seriously, if you have a blogroll script that isn't a pain in the ass, let me know and I'll put my blogroll back).

Ok, that's probably about as much of my wonderfulness as you can take. I'll be back tomorrow with another Extremely Important Post. In the mean time, do check out the Clay Pigeon if you haven't yet. The fate of humanity may depend on it.

The Mighty Diesel has spoken.

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]]> 6304967427390826208 Where Was I? 2008/01/#6304967427390826208 2008-01-09 Newcomers to this blog may get the impression that I think I'm smarter than everybody else. For example, I've suggested that author Mark Halperin wrote his bestselling opus The Truth Machine "in seventh grade study hall." I've ridiculed parents who won't let their kids read Harry Potter, asking them whether there was "some kind of natural progression from J.K. Rowling fan to goat-worshiping cultist." I called my junior high teachers "smug, sorry-ass, close-minded, by-the-book pablum-spewing dullards." I've ridiculed fundamentalists for believing that "God invented photosynthesis before He created the sun."

Look, I'm not going to lie to you. I am smarter than everybody else. Well, ok not Stephen Hawking, but then I could kick Stephen Hawking's ass in Ping-Pong. Generally speaking, for every person on earth, I'm either smarter than them or I could beat them at Ping-Pong. And in some cases, both.

Although, come to think of it, how smart can Stephen Hawking be if he couldn't even get the right disease? Stephen Hawking has Lou Gehrig's disease. How does that make any sense? Lou Gehrig was no rocket scientist, but at least he was smart enough to get the right disease. That's what the historians would like us to believe, anyway. Maybe Stephen Hawking and Lou Gehrig once had a secret dalliance in the men's room after a physics conference at Yankee stadium and accidentally ended up with each other's diseases. And then it came out that Stephen Hawking had Lou Gehrig's disease, but somehow nobody ever noticed that Lou Gehrig had Stephen Hawking's disease. Man, I wonder how he pulled that off. You'd have to be the luckiest man on the face of the earth.

Where was I? Oh yeah, so I'm way smart. Also, I have an uncanny ability to stay on topic.

In all seriousness, I occasionally get comments from people expressing amazement at my ability to write all these crazy posts or design a kickass blog template or write code that does really cool stuff and doesn't break most of the time. "How do you come up with this stuff?" they ask.

I don't really know how to answer that. It's just the way my mind works. I will tell you this, though: There are some drawbacks to having this sort of brain.

Here's the rub, see. No matter how smart you are, you only have so many brain cells to go around. So like Keanu Reeves in Johnny Mnemonic, who had to dump a chunk of long term memory (his childhood, along with his acting ability) to serve as a courier of sensitive data, my overdeveloped cognitive functions in certain areas have left me with atrophied faculties in other areas.

Basically my mind is a very loosely organized cloud of abstract concepts and concrete trivia that float about aimlessly until either a request comes in for the name of Richie Cunningham's older brother on the first season of Happy Days (Chuck), or an unexpected collision spontaneously results in the creation of something like Kenny Skywalker or Vincent Van Gobot. I can jump from Lou Gehrig to Johnny Mnemonic to Happy Days because in some twisted way, they're all related in my head.

My subconscious mind is even weirder, by the way. I've told you about my dreams about Huey Lewis and Jimmy Walker, respectively. Sometimes I think I should just turn this blog over to my subconscious. Last night I had a dream that I was at a Christmas gift exchange where Chris gave me a mylar balloon on which was imprinted a hologram of my face superimposed on a pumpkin. And that wasn't even the weirdest dream I had last night. I also dreamt that my older brother and I were sitting by the side of a road when a helicopter flew overhead carrying a milk carton the size of a house. I turned to my brother and said, "That is a big f---ing milk carton." End scene.

My Brain

The drawback to having a brain where pretty much anything goes is that I have an impossible time trying to keep track of things that are, to my way of thinking, completely arbitrary. Why does my dentist appointment have to be this Thursday? Why not next Thursday? Why do I have to turn left to get to the dentist's office and not right?

The result is that in many ways, I'm a complete idiot. Here's an example of the sort of thing that I do on a regular basis: The other day I ate a bowl of cereal with slices of banana on top, which isn't so dumb in itself, but stay with me. I only used half the banana, so I left the uneaten half on the counter. I also happened to have a half-finished can of soda in the fridge. I was going to sit and read for a while, so I got the soda out of the fridge, put it on the counter, grabbed my book, and then carried these items over to my chair in the living room.

I went to the bathroom and came back to find a paperback and half of a banana next to my chair.

And here's the really remarkable thing: I didn't think, "Silly me, I grabbed half a banana instead of half a soda." I thought, "Why the hell is there half a banana next to my chair? What kind of demented freak would pick up half of a banana from the kitchen, carry it into the living room, and set it next to my chair? What is this, some kind of a joke?"

That same week I found myself sitting at a stop sign about a mile from my house. The car in front of me went, and then the guy to the left of me, and then suddenly it was my turn, and it dawned on me that I had no freaking clue where in the world I was. I was literally like a deer in headlights. I had three options, and for a million dollars I could not have told you what direction my house was. So I drove straight through the intersection, realizing immediately upon getting onto the one-way street that led back to the freeway that I should have turned left. I had to call my wife and tell her I was going to be late because I got lost a mile from our house.

A few weeks back I was carrying a bucket of sprinkler fittings to our barn, and I stopped along the way to pick up some garbage. I deposited the garbage in the dumpster and then started back to the house, realizing halfway back that despite the fact that I had never actually made it to the barn, I was carrying an empty bucket.

In a similar vein, a few days ago I took the trash out to the dumpster, and my 6 year old daughter tagged along. I was carrying a garbage bag from the kitchen and a wicker wastebasket from the kids' room. We got to the dumpster, I dumped the trash, and we started back to the house. "Daddy," my daughter says, "Where is our wastebasket?"

Thank God for females, huh? Somebody's got to keep track of this shit.

Let's see, what else. Two weeks ago I left my headlights on at work, so my battery was dead when I went to leave and I had to get a jump-start. Last week I left the power cord for my laptop at work, which meant I either had to drive back to work (about 90 miles), go without my laptop for 4 days, or buy another one. (I bought another one, and yes honey I'm still planning to return it to Best Buy if I ever remember to take the other one home.) Yesterday I not only took a wrong freeway exit on the way to work; I also missed on onramp on the way home.

I could go on, but you get the idea. Besides, I think there's something else I'm supposed to be doing right now. I'd better go find my six-year-old and ask her what it is.


Now where the hell did I put humor-blogs.com?

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]]> 6427737937487578515 The Post Where I Make Things Right With the Touchy Females 2007/11/#6427737937487578515 2007-11-14

So my last post got me called a misogynist, which is rather unfair, since I don’t hate women so much as I hate people in general. That’s why my blog has the sub-heading "Antisocial Commentary." I even wrote a book with that title. I’m not sure how that’s unclear. Am I not using a big enough font?

Ok, ok, I don’t hate people, at least not the way I hate Grey’s Anatomy, but I do find them to be grating and tiresome, like one of the later episodes of M*A*S*H where Alan Alda spent the whole time whining about the horrors of war rather than playing amusing tricks on Hot Lips Hoolihan. Except that unlike with M*A*S*H, you can’t just tune it out, because people keep poking you and telling you that it’s your nephew’s birthday and you should really be watching him open presents rather than sitting on the couch in the other room reading The New Yorker.

My in-laws are Dutch, and there’s a Dutch word for being sociable that I can’t spell which is pronounced huh-ZELL-uh -- but instead of making the h sound, you make a sound like someone choking to death slowly on a walnut. Khkhkhkhuuuuhkhkhkhk-ZELL-uuuuhkhkhhkhk. The Dutch are like Germans who have had their hunger for world domination replaced with a bad upper respiratory infection.

Ear RatYou have no idea how many times I’ve had to wipe the globs of sputum off my glasses from having that word spewed at me. I’m ALWAYS being chided that I need to be huh-ZELL-uh, usually by my wife or mother-in-law. “Diesel, put down that book and be Khkhkhkhuuuuhkhkhkhk- ZELL-uuuuhkhkhhkhk.” There’s even a noun form of it, in which you add an “-ite” sound to the end of the word: Khkhkhkhuuuuhkhkhkhk- ZELL-uuuuhkhkhhkhk-ITE. So if a group of old Dutch people are sitting together in a living room, sipping tea out of Delft cups and discussing the relative merits of their respective negro manservants, then they are enjoying a bit of Khkhkhkhuuuuhkhkhkhk- ZELL-uuuuhkhkhhkhk-ITE. To me, it sounds like a good name for those little chunks of white stuff that I occasionally cough up when I’ve got a sinus infection, but whatever. To the Dutch, it’s a good thing.

I’m of Dutch descent too, but my parents were second generation, so the word never got passed down to me or my brothers. Come to think of it, I don’t think we learned the concept of being sociable in any language. In fact, if you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you’re probably thinking, “Wait, you have brothers?” Yeah, sorry about that. It just hasn’t come up. I haven’t spoken to either of them in six months – not because we don’t get along, but because, geez, what do we need to talk about that we can’t cover in a ten minute phone call once a year?

So my wife’s family is much more social than mine, and frankly it’s a bit hard for me to take at times. Don’t get me wrong – being married to Mrs. Diesel would be worth having the Manson family as in-laws, but occasionally I overdose on human contact and have to go hide under my bed for a few days.

KeiraI used to feel guilty about wanting to get away from people, but I’m feeling better about it as I get older. The first indication I got that it was okay for me to be this way came when my wife and I were first married. We took a trip to Canada to visit some of her relatives. We met several of her aunts and uncles, and they were all super friendly and hospitable, as Canadians tend to be, except for one uncle, who literally didn’t say a word to us. He just sat in a chair in the kitchen and read the newspaper, while we chatted or played games or whatever. Nobody even bothered to apologize for him, because they were just so used to him being completely antisocial. I slept in this guy’s basement for two nights, and he never said a word to me. I can imagine a lot of people being offended by his lack of sociability, but my reaction was, “Wow, can you do that? That is so AWESOME.” He and I bonded that day through a complete lack of human contact. I’ve been trying to get up the courage to be that guy for the past 14 years.

My point is that while I take issue with the “misogynist” label, I’ll readily admit that I’m not big on people. I guess that in the end, I’m a bit of a loner, and I’m learning to be okay with that.

Plus, the chicks dig it. They’re easy that way.



Find plenty more touchy females at humor-blogs.com.

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]]> 4072487583298061913 The Mattress Police Quiz 2007/09/#4072487583298061913 2007-09-10 A friend recently told me about a book that he read which reassessed some of the teachings of the Bible, such as Jesus' admonition to "turn the other cheek." Today this saying is often interpreted to mean that when attacked, one should simply "bend over" and take it (in modern parlance). In fact, Jesus' words related to a custom of the time: unruly slaves were punished by being struck on the left cheek. To offer your "other cheek," then, was to force your attacker to acknowledge you as an equal. Similarly, Jesus says that if someone asks you to go one mile with him, you should one-up him by going two miles. Roman soldiers, you see, were permitted to force a peasant to carry their pack for one mile -- but only one mile. So by going two miles, you were putting the soldier at your mercy: He could choose to be your friend and equal, or he could risk punishment for breaking the law.

Recently I posted a comment by a reader who took offense at my Ugly is as Ugly Does post, memorably calling me a "f--ktard dingleberry." If this had happened ten years ago, I probably would have either ignored the attack or utilized my overdeveloped sarcasm muscles to rip the attacker to shreds. Fortunately, I'm at a point in my life where I can laugh at being called a "f--tard dingleberry" without taking it personally, so I simply posted the comment along with a link to the commenter's blog. I didn't ridicule or otherwise attack her, although I did make a joke that I hoped would lighten the mood a bit.

I don't really know what I expected, but I'd like to think that this was a pretty good example of what can happen when you turn the other cheek. I didn't back down, but I didn't lash out either. I just acknowledged the attack and basically said, "Ok, now where do you want to go with this?"

She could, of course, have used this as an opportunity to rail against me some more, but I think she knew that this would just make her look silly. She's basically a decent, intelligent person, and she appreciated the fact that I treated her as a person with a valid opinion. She then returned the favor. I would copy and paste excerpts from her subsequent posts, but I really think you should just go read them yourself.

I want to thank all of you who rushed to my defense, but I also want to make sure that in all the hubbub you didn't miss what really happened here: What could have turned into a nasty internet brawl turned into a polite conversation between adults. I don't see that happening very much on the internet, where it's way too easy to resort to throwing grenades while hiding behind a Blogger identity. And that this happened despite the fact that I'm a f**ktard dingleberry is nothing short of amazing.

Anyway, every once in a while someone gets bent out of shape about one of my posts. I think this is usually because the reader isn't familiar with my style. So I thought -- especially since I've gotten a lot of new readers lately -- that this would be a good time to do a little quiz about this blog and me. The rule is that you can't be offended by anything I write unless you score at least 70% on this quiz. And yes, even if you are appalled by this quiz, you still have to finish the quiz and score at least 70% in order to be offended.

I'll post the answers in a few days. Good luck!

1. I once suggested all of the following except:
  1. We should legalize marijuana and outlaw poison ivy.
  2. We should sell our military to the oil companies.
  3. The American flag should only be burned with great respect and kerosene.
  4. Barak Obama might run as the "first Creamy Eggnog president."

2. All of the following phrases have appeared in this blog except:
  1. "Retard circus"
  2. "f**ktard dingleberry"
  3. "butt monkey"
  4. "string theory"
3. I made up one of these stories for my blog, and the other three actually happened but I haven't blogged about them (until now). Which one did I make up?
  1. The time I accidentally congratulated a Korean man on his country's kickass cars because I thought he was Japanese.
  2. The time I apologized to an African American gentleman for accidentally charging him a $3 "race fee" when he bought my book.
  3. The time a guy in my dorm in college was looking for advice about asking out a girl he liked. I listened intently for a few minutes and then responded, "I always thought you were gay." He came out shortly thereafter.
  4. The time I suggested a sequel to White Men Can't Jump that would be called Black Men Can't Read.
4. The following are all excerpts from previous posts, except for one, which is an excerpt from a novel I'm writing. Which one is from the novel?
  1. If we keep losing farmland, our nation's food production capabilities may decline to the point where our children are eating only six or seven meals per day. "Mommy, why don't we eat linner or snackfast any more?" little Susie will cry, clutching her growling tummy, now almost completely hidden by her extra-large t-shirt."
  2. I had been taught that a slight build, an effeminate manner, odd clothing and a pronounced lisp did not constitute adequate evidence that one was homosexual. In fact, the rule at that time was that unless you actually saw someone performing a sexual act with another person of the same gender, you were to make no assumptions regarding their sexual orientation. And even then, you were really supposed to keep an open mind.
  3. Liberals don't feel like they should have to fight for their oil, because they drive hybrid cars, which means that at worst they should have to play a rough game of ultimate frisbee for oil, or maybe split the difference between making love and making war by having angry sex on the veranda for oil.
  4. Fundamentalists believe that in the Bible God said what He meant and meant what He said, nevermind that Christ Himself wouldn’t give a straight answer to save His life. This belief in the absolute literal truth of Scripture implies, among other intriguing notions, that God created photosynthesis before He created the sun.
5. I once suggested that all of the following except:
  1. Courtney Love should have shot Chad Kroeger instead of Kurt Cobain.
  2. James Blunt inadvertently left his testicles across the Atlantic.
  3. They key to making our children into great musicians is "repression, needless belittling and arbitrary corporal punishment."
  4. I would rather have my children listen to music inspired by Satan than "Fergilicious."
6. I once postulated all of the following except:
  1. Foreigners shouldn't make us ask for permission to fly over their countries because "We have important shit to do on the other side," and they "wouldn't understand."
  2. The toilet in a motel room in which I stayed was was possessed by "Flushscreemi, the Iranipakafghanindian goddess of the maelstrom."
  3. The United States should open up the border between Mexico and Texas, and close the border between Texas and the rest of the U.S.
  4. The phrase "undocumented immigrant" is the political equivalent of calling fat people "big boned."

7. I once speculated that all but one of the following items might be on the "gay agenda." Which one did I not mention?
  1. Destroying America
  2. Gayifying the breeders
  3. A parade
  4. Drinks with Steve!
8. I've written blog posts containing all but one of these assertions. Which one did not appear in this blog?
  1. Peter Petrelli from TV's Heroes is the long awaited Messiah.
  2. Jesus once said that "The poor you will always have with you, but you should build some kickass museums."
  3. My religious beliefs are nobody's business but mine and God's, and He'd better watch it or it's going to be just me pretty quick.
  4. God has some explaining to do about why he created the little toe, because "He had to know we'd invent coffee tables eventually."


9. I once wrote the following heartfelt missive to my junior high school teachers:
  1. Thank you all so much for your encouragement and support. I owe my current and future success to the values of hard work and intellectual curiosity that you instilled in me.
  2. I'm so glad my teachers treated me as an individual, rather than just another problematic kid. If you hadn't taken the time to understand what I was going through, I might never have sought the treatment I needed for my learning disabilities and crippling depression.
  3. I know that teaching may seem to be a thankless job, but I wanted to let you know that each of you, in your own way, truly did make a difference in my life, and for that I thank you.
  4. You are all a bunch of smug, sorry-ass, close-minded, by-the-book pablum-spewing dullards, and I hope you have a dictionary close by because I want you to look up all those words I just used. I pray none of you are still teaching, but in case you are, give me your address so that I can send you a T-shirt that reads "If you believe everything I tell you, some day you'll turn into me." Then you can die having taught your students something really valuable.
10. I once argued for all of the following viewpoints, except:
  1. Hillary Clinton is qualified to be president in the same way that Stedman is qualified to host the Oprah Winfrey show.
  2. Evolution and intelligent design are "two sides of the same coin: the cold, rational, scientific side and the warm, ignorant, superstitious side."
  3. My church should declare war on the Quakers.
  4. A "certain political party" is made up of "godless atheists who are destroying America with their gay marriages and efforts to keep me from exercising my God-given right to buy an assault rifle."

Still here? Then you'd probably enjoy my book, Antisocial Commentary. Or at least humor-blogs.com. Get your captions for the caption contest in by tonight!

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]]> 7559706763766418946 Diesel's Campaign Running out of Gas 2007/08/#7559706763766418946 2007-08-17 Barely three weeks into a 13 year campaign, insiders report that the Diesel for President organization is struggling to regain the momentum of its heady early days. Having blown most of its budget on Mentos and bubblewrap, the group is having trouble keeping its focus. Rancorous infighting has broken out between staffers, who haven't been paid since the campaign's inception, and volunteers, who have accidentally been paid every day and twice on Tuesdays.

Meanwhile, there is confusion at the highest levels regarding how many levels there are, and how one can know what level one is on when the the elevator buttons have been replaced with Mentos. Rumors of nude thumb wrestling among the female staffers are rampant, and have not been nearly as helpful as expected in raising morale.

Senior campaign officials admit to having underestimated the difficulty of explaining to voters that Diesel is not in fact running for the current presidential election, nor the next one, nor the one after that, but rather the one after that. Some of the difficulty is blamed on the misguided strategy of targeting future voters who are currently between the ages of five and seven. The campaign's Tomorrow's Voters Today program apparently consists mostly of bribing grade schoolers with bubble wrap. A transcript of one of these exchanges was obtained by reporters when it was mistakenly mailed by overworked staffers to the cable company.
Staffer: Hey kid, you want some of this?
Kid: I'm not supposed to talk to strangers.
Staffer: I'm not a stranger, I work for Diesel. You know, the Mattress Police?
Kid: So you're a policeman?
Staffer: Why not? So do you want some?
Kid: What is it?
Staffer: It's bubble wrap.
Kid: Why the crap would I want that?
Staffer: It's fun. Watch.
[Popping noises]
Kid: What's that in your other hand?
Staffer: Nothing. Isn't the bubble wrap cool? I bet your friends don't have bubble wrap.
Kid: Is that candy?
Staffer: Let's focus on the bubble wrap. I give you the bubble wrap, and you promise to vote for Diesel in 2020.
Kid: Gimme some candy and I won't scream that you touched my bottom.
Staffer: Ok, ok. Here. Take the friggin' candy. Just vote for Diesel in 2020, alright?
Kid: Yeah, whatever. What the -- These are MENTOS.
Staffer: What's wrong with Mentos? They're the Freshmaker.
Kid: (Yelling) Miss Jordan, this man touched my bottom!
[Tires squealing]
The campaign's slogan, "Diesel: Time for a Change is Coming," was unfamiliar to 68% of the respondents in a recent survey, despite the fact that the survey was conducted inside the campaign's headquarters. The campaign has bandied about several other possible slogans, such as "Diesel: Past Imperfect, Future Tense!" and "Diesel: Something something something," which was inadvertently printed on 70,000 bumper stickers and 50 yards of bubble wrap.

To make matters worse, the organization's tax exempt status has recently come under fire from the I.R.S. Highly-placed sources indicate that the government is leaning toward classifying "Diesel in 2020" as either an illegal money laundering operation or a "dangerous cult." Diesel could not be reached for comment, but he is reported to be hoping for the latter.

At this point, the only hope for Diesel's campaign would seem to be a major shakeup, such as an embezzlement scandal or the selection of a new candidate. Senior campaign officials, vacationing in the Cayman Islands, have denied seriously considering either of these options. "We're 100% committed to Dennis," said one official. "We believe in the mission of the Apple Police."

Perhaps it was too much to hope for, that a regular guy like Diesel could some day become president. Perhaps it was too little to hope for. Perhaps, on the other hand, it was the exact right amount to hope for. Those would seem to be the options.

Diesel, for his part, isn't giving up. Not until he gets those federal matching funds anyway.




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]]> 7452240264682941176 A Cautionary Message for the Class of 2007 2007/05/#7452240264682941176 2007-05-30 There are 86,423 high schools, 8,021 colleges and universities, and 14,319 trade and vocational schools in this country, and not once have I been invited to be the speaker at any of their graduation ceremonies. Why not? Is it because I'm not "famous" enough? Is it because the last time I gave a speech I tried to outdo Winston Churchill in brevity by simply yelling "FIRE!"? Is it because I shamelessly make up statistics that are often inaccurate by as much as three orders of magnitude? Probably. Whatever the reason, I have decided to impart some words of wisdom to the class of 2007 here on my blog, where I can reach potentially millions of unemployed recent graduates.

Graduating class of 2007, my life is no picnic. Why would you expect it to be a picnic? That doesn't even make any sense. Grow up, dipshit. This is the real world. Nobody cares about your propensity for metaphors and flowery, poetic language. All we care about is that you pull down on that sheet-metal stamping machine 8,600 times a day and occasionally unjam the machine with that bent coat-hanger we gave you. And what did we tell you about using your good hand for that? Exactly, it won't be your good hand for long.

As I was saying, my life is pretty rough. First of all, I'm unemployed. I have nothing to do all day but build fountains, take pictures of my house and blog about how miserable I am. Second, I have a wife who is way out of my league in pretty much every way. Can you even imagine what it's like to be constantly distracted from your own inadequacy by some hot chick who's always hugging on you and laughing at your jokes? Don't even get me started on my children, who are unreasonably beautiful and well-behaved. I'm constantly waiting for the other shoe to fall on that front (yeah, I mixed a metaphor there, metal-stamper, what are you gonna do about it?). And then there's my house, which is so big that I despair of ever filling it with enough material possessions to make me truly happy.

So my message to you is: Don't end up like me. Work hard in school, and get good grades. Find out what your teachers expect of you and do it unquestioningly. If they tell you that one letter is better than another letter, try to get the best letter you can. Memorize rote facts like multiplication tables and the names of all the states including unimportant ones like Delaware (no really, that's an actual state). Imagination and critical thinking are overrated, and anyway you'll have plenty of time to pick those skills up later.

Don't cheat in school, and don't always try to find the "easy way out." These tendencies will manifest themselves as creative problem solving later in life, and no good can come from that. Once, when working as a webmaster for a Fortune 500 company, I spent several months automating every aspect of my job. Eventually I was only going in to work 2 or 3 days a week, and while I was there I would spend all day downloading songs from Napster. Sure, that sounds like fun, but after a few months you start to wonder, "Why hasn't anybody noticed that I'm not doing anything? Surely someone will realize that I'm not doing any work eventually." But no one ever does, and ultimately you get bored and leave for a higher paying job. Do you want that to happen to you? I didn't think so.

Find out which of the standard personality classifications fits you best, and try your hardest to fit into that mold. Take personality tests that define you in some ridiculously simple way, say with a string of 4 letters like "ISFJ" or "ENTP". Claim your personality type and don't try to change. Learn the phrase "That's just how I am," and use it often. If you're an analytical thinker, don't waste your time on drawing pictures or writing stories. If you have a gift for using language, don't try to master computer programming. If you're an abstract thinker, don't try to build a house. Above all, know your limitations.

Be practical. Take only classes that have a direct practical application. If you go to college, major in business or welding or something. If you get a degree in computer science you can probably get a job doing technical support and gradually work your way into a programming job, whereas if you get your degree in philosophy.... well, you can do pretty much the same thing, but the nice thing about computer science is that 90% of what you learned will be obsolete in ten years. All that abstract analytical thinking you learned as a philosophy student will stick with you forever. While all the other programmers are driving around in their sports cars and buying condos in Sunnyvale, you'll be thinking, "Am I really doing any good at this job? Should I maybe be doing something more meaningful with my life?" Thoughts like that will just make you unhappy.

If you have a risky idea, listen to the warnings of people around you. For example, let's say that you have left your job to start your own web development company, but now the market has crashed and you're running out of money. You have a little equity in your house, but you can't get a loan because you have no job. You may be tempted to sell your house and negotiate a seller-financed deal on a ten acre piece of farmland with no house on it. If you're really creative, you might be able to give yourself some breathing room by negotiating a deal where you make a 10% down payment and then don't have to make any payments for two years. Then you could find a cheap place to live while you build a house, get another job once the market improves, and refinance the property after the real estate market skyrockets. You might, if all that stuff works out, have enough money to take a couple years off to build fountains and blog. But don't count on it. Listen to the people who tell you you're crazy.

If you follow all of these guidelines, you have a good chance of avoiding my fate. Because let me tell you, it's no picnic.


Everything I need to know I learned at humor-blogs.com.

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]]> 8601045398134089387 Super-Ego 2007/05/#8601045398134089387 2007-05-16 "Hey, man, what's going on?"
"Oh, nothing. Just sitting here trying to sort through some of this stuff."
"Same old, same old, huh? Wow, what a mess."
"It's always like this. You're just too busy to notice most of the time."
"What is all this crap?"
"This is all my stuff. Comic book characters, science fiction novels, philosophical theories, movies... everything."
"What do you need all this stuff for?"
"I don't need it. I just like having it around. Anyway, you're not one to talk. You're in here every other day ransacking the place, trying to find some obscure reference to string theory or the Hulk or something."
"Chicks dig that stuff."
"Yeah, whatever."
"You know, it wouldn't kill you to get out once in a while yourself."
"Nah, that's your thing. I like it in here."
"I've noticed. Hey, is there something wrong? You seem a little down."
"Did you see Mrs. Diesel's post the other day?"
"Uh, yeah..."
"She called me a jerk."
"That's what you're upset about? That was a great post, dude. It was hilarious. It really showcased your sense of humor."
"Your sense of humor."
"She also said you were really smart."
"Yeah, well, she was probably talking about you there too."
"I don't think so. You're the one who writes all the sensitive essays about religion and stuff. I'm the one making the smartass comments all the time, so it was probably me she was calling a jerk."
"Hmmm, I suppose that's true."
"Besides, what's so bad about being called a jerk? I called you an assh*le in my post the other day, and you didn't seem to mind."
"No, I called you an assh*le."
"Really? Well, I didn't mind."
"Of course not. You don't give a shit what other people think about anything."
"Damn straight. It might do you some good not to be so sensitive, you know."
"One of us has to have a little sensitivity. We don't want to alienate everyone around us."
"So huddling here in the dark sorting through fragments of Kierkegaard and episodes of the A-Team is your big plan for making friends?"
"Yeah, I know. It's kind of pathetic. I just don't care for getting out and talking to people."
"You mean you don't care for people."
"They make such a mess of things! Just when I start to get things straightened out...."
"Dude, you need to chill. People aren't that bad. You just need to get out there and show them who's in charge. Crack jokes, keep 'em guessing. If you make people laugh, they can't help but like you. And if they don't, screw 'em!"
"Wow, you really are well adjusted, aren't you? You've skipped right from social butterfly to sociopath."
"Ha! You made a joke. See, there's hope for you."
"I'm trying to lighten up a little."
"Nice job on that."
"Thanks. Hey, maybe your personality could use a little tempering too. You can be kind of harsh, you know."
"What do you mean?"
"That thing about 'punching up the middle'?"
"What? I was just giving her some constructive criticism on the story. It needed some help."
"Dude, it wasn't a 'story.' It was your wife, telling you about her day!"
"Her day was boring."
"People don't live to entertain you."
"Why not? I entertain them."
"You're an assh*le."
"Yeah, you said that earlier."
"Seriously, can you just try to say something nice once in a while?"
"Ugh. How about if you do that?"
"I try. You always interrupt with a joke. Like that thing about the racetrack?"
"Hee hee. I love that joke. Go to your happy place. Vroom vrooooooommmmmm!"
"Sometimes I think there's something a little wrong with us."
"Nah. It's everybody else. Friggin' people."
"So who's doing the post today?"
"I'll do it."
"Oh boy, another serious post. People are going to lose interest."
"No, it'll be good. I have an idea for doing sort of an internal dialogue between two halves of Diesel's personality."
"Sounds like more fun than a bucket of monkeys. Just do me a favor, would you?"
"What?"
"Put a few funny lines in there, for me."
"I'll try."
"Cool. You're not such a bad guy, you know."
"Yeah, well you're still an assh*le."
"I know."


Do you want to tell them to visit humor-blogs.com, or should I?

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]]> 1901123313222829610 I Give Up 2007/05/#1901123313222829610 2007-05-15 It's clear that you all love my wife more than you love me, so I'm slinking off to Central Snark today, where I feel loved and appreciated. Maybe I should just quit blogging and mutter to myself on the street instead. You'd be happy then, wouldn't you?

Ah, who am I kidding. I'll be back tomorrow with a post about my attempt to become immortal by contracting a debilitating disease. Wait, that doesn't sound right. I'd better go retool that post a bit.

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]]> 2042376653489215125 Enough to Make You Sick 2006/11/#2042376653489215125 2006-11-03 One thing you should know about me if we're going to hang out is that I'm ridiculously healthy. I pretty much never get sick. I've never broken a bone, never had stitches, never even went to the hospital (except when my kids were born, events which were admittedly partially my fault). I can't remember the last time I had a cold, and not just because I have no memory of anything non-TV related that happened more than three weeks ago. I do seem to pick up some kind of stomach bug about once a year, probably because every other meal I eat is served to me by oily 16 year olds who do God-knows-what with their hands when they aren't making Mexican pizzas. The way I eat fast food I should have been dead and buried in a piano case about twelve years ago. Instead, at six foot two I'm a 180 pounds of muscle and sinew. Well, maybe 160 pounds of muscle and sinew and 20 pounds of gorditas.

People always used to tell me that my metabolism would slow down when I got older, and boy were they right. I packed on so much weight when I hit 34 that I had to cut down from six sodas a day to four. It's my own private hell; I don't expect you to understand. My wife told me she wishes she could lose ten pounds by cutting out two sodas a day, but she doesn't drink soda at all. I tell her, hey, that's not my fault. I'm just glad I had the discipline to start drinking a sixpack a day before middle school. If I ever really start to get tubby, I'll have to cut out mainlining bacon grease.

Am I telling you all this just to make you feel bad? Well, no, except to the extent that making other people feel bad makes me feel better about myself. And yet some vestigial sense of decency compels me to provide some semblance of balance. Would it help you to know that I have a lot of deep seated emotional problems? Oh, I guess the narcissism and delusions of grandeur tipped you off to that. Still, it has to count for something, right?

Did I mention that my eyesight sucks?


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]]> 5773975636448024881 And Now for Something Completely Different... 2006/10/#5773975636448024881 2006-10-31 Ok, so this is the first time I've ever felt the need to put a disclaimer in front of one of my posts. A few people have asked recently how I ended up with the nickname Diesel, and as the truth is not particularly interesting in this case, I decided to do what I always do: Make something up. The idea was to come up with a story that explained the nickname yet was so absurd and out of character for me that there's absolutely no way anyone would ever believe it. But, as generally happens, I completely lost control over the direction of the post about a sentence and a half in, and the result is something like an abbreviated version of Cool Hand Luke as imagined by Quentin Tarantino. Not only is it thematically divergent from pretty much everything else I've ever written, well, it's just plain divergent. So if you’re easily offended, maybe skip this one. Also, it’s about four times as long as a typical post. And if you do end up reading it, please remember that this is a work of fiction, and does not in anyway reflect my actual views or correspond in any way to reality, except for the facts that:

  • I am a male

  • I once drove through Texas

  • Some people really do call me "Diesel"


Clear enough? Ok, so there's no lifeguard beyond this point. Proceed at your own risk. No children under 18 admitted, and all that.


The Legend of Diesel

There wasn't much to do in the tiny West Texas town I grew up in 'cept throw rocks at crows and rip off car stereos, so I was bound to get busted for the second one eventually. At the time I was runnin' with a couple of other no-good dead-enders, who went by the names Skeet and Colt. "Skeet" because his daddy was always shootin' at him, and "Colt" because he kicked so hard that his momma died two months before he was born. Me? Hell, nobody even thought I deserved a name. They all just called me "kid," usually with a "good-for-nothing" in front of it. Skeet and Colt were sixteen. I was only fifteen, but they let me run with them cuz I was good in a fight and could out-smoke and out-drink the both of them combined.

Cool Hand LukeSo after they busted us we got hauled before the judge, all dressed in our Sunday best. The judge was probably just gonna send us to the juvie camp, cuz that's what they do around there to kids what ain't got no future. But then our no-good fat-ass public defender opens his pie hole and says, "Yer honor, these is just three messed up kids." He meant it to be helpful, but wouldn't you know that right then and there was when I got all fed up to here being called kid, so I says to the judge, "Yer honor, I ain't no kid." Which is how Skeet and Colt got sent to the juvie camp, but me, the youngest one, got seven years hard labor.

I ain't gonna lie to you, that work farm wasn't no fun. We spent fourteen hours a day breakin' rocks with picks. They didn't tell us why, and we didn't ask. We ain't never seen anybody pick up any of them rocks we broke, so we figgered we was breakin' rocks to build character or some such nonsense. Well, my character got built into a mean-ass sonofobitch with hands like leather and arms like steel cables. The guards was hard on us, but the way the Texas sun beat down on us there weren't no question whose bitches we really were.

They labelled me "uncooperative" on account of that's what I was. The other convicts took a break every couple hours to have a cigarette, but not me, cuz to have a cigarette you had to say "Please boss can I get a light?" and I wasn't please-bossin' nobody. I went for six months without a cigarette, which was tough, cuz I started smoking when I was four. Then one day it got so hot that an old dead oak tree caught on fire, and I ran right over there and lit my cigarette. The other convicts was mighty upset that the one shade tree for a hundred miles around got burnt down, but I was happy as a pig in shit to get a light that I didn't have to please-boss for. I chain-smoked from that one cigarette for the next six and a half years, and never once had to ask for a light.

Once I had my cigarette goin', them other convicts expected I was gonna join them for their breaks, but my daddy always told me not to fraternize with no-good reprobates, cuz that's how he became one. Well I shore as hell wasn't gonna turn into a no-good reprobate like my daddy, so I just kept on breakin' rocks and chain smokin' while they was chattin' up the guards at their cute little ten minute convict picnic. Only reason I ever came over there was to fill up my drinkin' bottle from the big water tank on the back of the prison truck. The water tasted like iron and pesticides, but I figured I was gettin' my minerals and keepin' my insides clean of bugs, so I didn't mind.

This went on for awhile, but pretty soon the other convicts got sick of me actin' like I was better than they was, and breakin' six times as much rocks as they was breakin', and the guards were itchin' for a please-boss, cuz please-bosses are what prison guards get instead of the love of a good woman. So they was makin' fun of me and callin' me a bitch for workin' through my break, and then somebody says, "Man, he must have gasoline in that bottle, the way he's workin.'" And then another guy, the biggest, meanest guy in the place, who they called Tex on account of he was from Oklahoma, spoke up. He says, "Naw, the way he smokes, he's a diesel engine." And then they started callin' me Diesel, and saying, "Hey Diesel, come get some more fuel" and dumbass shit like that. When I just kept breaking rocks, they says to the guard, "Boss, make him come over here." Boss didn't want to, but then they started sayin', "I bet you couldn't get old Diesel to come over here if you tried." And Boss didn't like that. They kept on him until finally he says, "Boy, get yer ass over here." And he put a period on it by spittin' his Skoal juice in my direction.

Well I figured I was there to break rocks, not to entertain Boss and the no-good reprobates, so that's what I kept doin.' Boss told me two more times, but I just kept on breakin' rocks. Finally he says to the no-good reprobates, "You grab that sorry sumbitch and bring him over here." And it took eight of them, but that's what they did. I fought like a wildcat, but Tex socked me good in the gut, and I went down. The rest of them piled on, and pretty quick I was flatter on the ground than roadkill. Somehow I still had my cigarette in my mouth, and Boss came over and plucked it out with his soft little pudgy fingertips.

Cool Hand LukeBoss was one sorry excuse for a man. He used to tell us how he'd punish his dog when he misbehaved by whuppin' him til he bled, and then tyin' him to a tree and puttin' hamburger patties out on the ground just out of the dog's reach, so the poor mutt would spend all day cuttin' up his neck just to get a sniff of that meat. It wasn't long after the day I got named Diesel that we heard that Boss's wife left him for a ballet dancer, and he had to quit because he couldn't get no respect any more from the convicts. Even a pansy-ass ballet dancer was more of a man than him, the convicts would say.

But we didn't know about the dancing fruit that day he got the convicts to hold me down and he plucked the cigarette from my mouth. After that he spat a big wad of chaw juice in my face, which was bad enough, but what he did next marked the both of us for life. He ripped my shirt open and started burnin' me with that cigarette. It hurt so bad I didn't notice what he was doin' at first, but then I saw that we was making letters. That must have been the slowest burnin' cigarette in the history of Injun tobacco, cuz it felt like it took him an hour to burn D-E-S-E-L into my skin. It smelled like hamburgers, and made me think of Boss's sorry-ass dog. No dog deserves to be treated like that, I thought. And right then and there I swore some day Boss was going to know what it felt like to be hamburger.

After he was done burnin' me, he flicked the cigarette away and the convicts let me go. I just lay there for a spell, restin' up and smellin' the hamburger smell. If they figgered I didn't have no fight left in me, boy was they wrong. I got to my feet, brushed myself off, then laid the biggest haymaker you ever seen across Tex's jaw. There was a POP! that they must have heard in El Paso, and Tex fell to his knees, his jaw hangin' down three inches farther than the Almighty intended, so he looked like one sorry-ass dumbfounded okie, which is what he was.

Then, while the rest of them were still standin' there doin’ their best impressions of a dumbfounded okie with a busted jaw, I reached down and picked up my cigarette, which still had about a quarter inch of life in it, took another cigarette from the pack in my sleeve and lit it from the dying butt. I got a real nice cherry goin' on it and then planted that red hot tip on my chest, right between the D and the E. When I had torched a real purdy letter I, I took a nice long drag and said, "I before E, shitheads." Then I went back to breakin' rocks. Nobody laid a finger on me after that, and six and a half years of rock-breakin' later, I was a free man.

First thing I did when I got out was look up that sorry-ass pudgy-fingered prison guard, who wasn't a prison guard no more on account of gettin' his ass fired for havin' a cheatin' whore ballet-dancer-lover for a wife. He lived in a dirty old trailer that smelled like onions and sweaty feet. When I came by, he was up to his old tricks, teasin' his mutt with hamburger. The dog was chained up to a tree out back, and a nice big pancake of ground beef lay on the dirt just out of his reach. Boss was sittin' there in a lawn chair, drinkin’ a Blue Ribbon and laughin' at the poor starving mutt. That dog was the ugliest damn creature God ever put on this planet, and I ain't entirely sure God's the one what did it. He looked like he was half doberman, half rottweiler, and half demon from the pit of hell, cuz that's just how big and mean he was. Boss had drawn a line that marked how far the dog could get from the tree, so he could tease him all he wanted without gettin' bit. Boss kept sayin', "Come 'n' get it, Duke! Come and get it!" And all I could think of is what kind of sorry ass pansy you have to be to give your dog a fag name like Duke. When Duke got too close, Boss would spit a wad of Skoal juice in his eyes.

I was about to walk up and give that jackass what-for when a phone rang and he high-tailed it back into his trailer. I strolled right up to the demon-mutt, picked up the hamburger patty he'd probably been eyein' since last Tuesday, and tossed it where he could reach it. The dog gave me no mind and went to work on that meat. I had just enough time to scrub out that line Boss had drawn and make another one with my boot. Then I went back and sat down under a tree, where I'd have a good view of the show.

Soon enough Boss came back out the trailer and got back to his fun. He pulled his lawn chair up to the line I'd drawn and said, "Dammit, Duke, you better not’ve ate my hamburger!" Now I know dogs can't smile, but I swear that demon dog looked over at me for a split second and gave me the evillest fang-filled grin you ever saw. Then he launched hisself toward that sorry-ass dipshit and sunk about sixty of those teeth into the right side of Boss's face. Boss screamed like a little bitch, but that dog held on like it was the one thing he was put on earth for. Finally he ripped half the meat off Boss's face like chicken from a bone, and Boss fell back on his lawn chair, sobbing and trying to hold on what was left of his face.

That's when I walked up and threw another hamburger patty to the dog. He dropped Boss's cheek and gobbled up the hamburger. I picked up the bloody chunk of flesh and tossed it at Boss. "You're lucky your face tastes as bad as that shit you chew," I said.

Boss looked at me with the same look he probably used when he walked in on his wife gettin' friendly with the candy-ass dancer. "You...?" was all he could muster.

"Yeah, me." I said. "I'm takin' yer dog." I gave the demon-mutt a rub under the chin and unsnapped his chain. The dog licked me real friendly-like.

"No!" Boss yelled. He was so worked up that I thought he musta figgered I was gonna let that demon-mutt at him, which I probly shoulda, but it turned out that he was just worried about losin' his damn dog. Here he was with blood gushin' out of where the right side of his face used to be, and he was cryin' about losin' a dog he'd probably never said a kind word to. "You can't take Duke from me!" he whined, like the dog had just been sucklin' at his teat or somethin.'

"His name ain't Duke," I said, lookin' over the dog. I could see one of his eyes was all fucked up, probably from gettin' chaw juice spat in it. Poor dog was scarred and half-blind for life. I said, "His name is Skoal now."

For some reason that made Boss real mad. He started to say, "Listen to me, kid...."

But something in my eyes must have scared him pretty good, cuz he never got past the word kid. "Name's Diesel," I said, lightin' a cigarette. "Now why don't you go get yer face put back on?"

Skoal and me got in my truck and took off, and we've been together ever since. We don't talk much, but the two of us have a bond – the kind of bond that only two mean-ass animals can have.

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