The Retired Pope Should Go Fishing

Pope Benedict XVI (what happens when the get to XXX?) is retiring in a few days and because this is the first pope to retire in 600 years, many people have questions. And my readers are sending these questions to me because they believe I know everything about everything.  So here’s the first edition of “Ask Mr. Know It All”:

 

Is the pope’s retirement a good thing? – Ida Know, Racine, WI

 

When the Pope first announced his retirement he was criticized for being lazy and abdicating his responsibility.  After further review, it was determined that this was a sacrificial act of extreme holiness and esteemed godliness.  Both views of course are total hooey.  Let him retire now. What happens if he lives to 95? You don't want the leader of a world-wide institution wearing an adult diaper.

 

Why has no pope retired in the last 600 years?  Woah Jelly, Boston, MA

 

Word has it that the retirement benefits are horrible.  There is no pension and the 401-K plan was very bad.

 

Will the pope be allowed to date after he is retired and how much do you think he is worth? – Ima Golddigger, Trailerpark, TN

 

No, the pope will not be holding audiences with female callers.  I’m sure his priestly vows are still in effect even though he is no longer pope.  Why don’t you try calling Abe Vigoda.

 

How does someone go from being pope one day to being ex-pope the next day?  Bill Idiot, Columbus, OH

 

The de-popification process is a well-guarded church secret.  It has to be a very excruciating procedure if no one has wanted to experience it in 600 years.  Rumor has it that it begins with , well you don't really want to know the rest.  Benedict is either one tough hombre or he never read the manual.

 

Who was impacted the most by this decision? Dawn Garfield, Boise, ID
 

 

It is the poor cardinal who had to go tell God that the Catholic Church was making an unexpected change in leadership.  And reportedly God was really fizzed off by the news since lighting struck St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome right after the announcement (this really happened).    

 

What will the old pope do in retirement?  Fern Barnes, Daytona FL

 

The Catholic Church is very concerned about having the ex-pope interfering with the new pope.  Benedict is being exiled to a monastery just outside the Vatican.  They will keep a close eye on him because they don’t want him writing or saying anything that contradicts the teaching of the new pope. So he will be treated just like an Alzheimer’s patient at a nursing home.  They are closing his Twitter account so he can’t tweet something like: “It’s Friday during Lent and I just had a Double Whopper with Cheese – wooo, wooo!"

 

Reportedly Benedict was offered to star in a new reality show titled “Hey I Used To Be the Pope” which would detail his struggles adjusting to “real” life and would feature one of the Kardashians as his nurse.  The church put the kibosh on this quickly however.
 

A "heavenly" meal?

I do think that Benedict should just go fishing.  This should be acceptable to the Catholic Church since the first pope was, in fact, a fisherman.  In addition, it is a holy act since fish is an essential part of the Lenten season and without it many big eaters would end up in hell. 

 

The new pope selection process is so boring with all the secrecy and the puff of smoke.  What can be done to liven it up?   Marvin Switarski, Chicago, IL

 

I would have a two-hour television show called “Vatican Idol”.  The top candidates would perform papal functions and be evaluated by a panel of cardinals.   You might hear Cardinal Simon proclaim: “A blessing, you call that a blessing?  I don’t feel blessed!  That’s one of the worst blessings I’ve ever seen!

 

At the end you would crank up the smoke machines have the new pope emerge in full costume from the haze.  He would start to dance and then ---- Vatican Shake!  Yeah! I’d watch that!

I'm Russian Away From These Women!

Last week I received a very disturbing e-mail at work.  The description read: “Russian Prostitutes Want To Make You Cune”.  I thought I had received this in error, until later in the day when I received a second e-mail.  There was no mistake.  Russian prostitutes were indeed pursuing me.

The e-mail was very strange for several reasons.  They didn’t even try to trick me by saying “Russian Ladies”.  Why they think I am interested in prostitutes, I don’t know.  Hey, does this imply they think I have to pay for it?

And what is so special about “Russian” prostitutes?  Russian women are beautiful, but these are still Eastern-European chicks, right?  I don’t think they cost any less than other prostitutes.  I assume you pay in dollars, not rubles, so the exchange rate is not an issue.  But how did these women get into our country anyway?  I know we have an immigration problem but with Europeans we have U.S. security officers who are trained to subdue these ladies and give them intense, private, interrogations --- oh, never mind.

And then they want to make me “cune”.  This is not a misprint because it was repeated in several e-mails. Look, I am an American citizen and I have certain inalienable rights which I’m sure include life, liberty and not being forced to cune against my will.  So I’m not going to succumb to the wishes of any prostitute, let alone a Russian one!

I was very concerned about these Russian prostitutes because they seemed very aggressive and of course they knew where I worked.  Before leaving that night, I checked out the window to make sure there were not Russian prostitutes draped over my car.  Then I ran to my car, lest the ladies grab me, take me behind the bushes, and make me cune.  I checked the back of my car to make sure no Russians were hiding there.  It would have been difficult to explain this to my wife: “Honey, Svetlana followed me home.  Can I keep her?”

Wants "Hieroglyphic" love letters?

Once home, I was afraid to answer the door or the phone.  If these women knew where I worked, surely they knew where I lived.  I did google “cune” and it returned “cuneiform writing”. So I’m guessing these kinky ladies want to constrain me and force me to communicate with them using hieroglyphics.

The next day there were more e-mails.  These women were not going to stop until they had made me cune.  I reported the e-mails to an IT co-worker.  He advised me not to open the link because I could get a virus.  “Duh”, I said. “These are Russian prostitutes; I could catch a lot worse than that!” He explained that I could get a “computer virus” and then I remembered one of the most embarrassing incidents of my business career.

In May of 2000, the “I Love You Virus” infected millions of computers worldwide.  It is one of the most infamous computer viruses ever.  One morning at work I received an e-mail from “Bodacious Barb” in accounting, with the subject line:  “I Love You”.  If this e-mail came from gay Ben in finance, or old Phyllis in purchasing, I would have quickly deleted it.  Now Barb wasn’t that attractive, but she was indeed “bodacious”, so I opened the e-mail.  The message just said “I love you”.  I did think it very odd of her to send this to me and I wondered how I should act around Barb the next time we met.

An hour later I received an e-mail from IT warning that if you receive an e-mail with “I Love You” in the subject line, that under no circumstances should you open it or you risk doing massive damage to the company’s computer system and could actually cause the building to collapse killing everyone.

The IT guy was very upset with me for opening the e-mail.  As he worked to clean the virus off my computer, we had the following conversation:

IT Guy:  Why did you open this e-mail that had a virus in it?

Me:  I didn’t know it had a virus in it until I opened it.

IT Guy: You should have known it was a virus because it said “I Love You”

Me: When the woman with the biggest breasts in the company sends you an e-mail that says “I Love You”, you have an obligation as a guy to open it.

He then just looked at me stunned and confused.  I wanted to then say: “Look geek-boy, it’s time to quit playing so many video games and get a life!”

So if the Russian Prostitutes are reading this blog post: It’s over between us. Please leave me alone.  I am not interested in your offer.  I do not want you to make me cune.  Go find someone else to make cune.  And if these e-mails are from Bodacious Barb pretending to be a Russian Prostitute: Sorry Barb, you infected me once and that is a real turn-off.

Desperately Seeking a Smaller Booty

Yes it’s that time of year when you look in the full-length mirror and exclaim: “Whoa, my butt is way too big! How the hell did that happen?”

Of course this happened because you ate lots of every food you were exposed to during the holidays.  The cookies, the pies, the turkey, the ham, the pork, the candy, the hors d'oeuvres and of course the figgy pudding, all tasted great, but all the excess calories took up residence in your behind.

A victim of LAS

If you are a guy, this condition is irritating because your pants are too tight and you may have problems sliding out of your seat at the basketball game. If you are a woman, this can be a major traumatic event.  You now have Large Ass Syndrome (LAS) and your life is ruined.

So of course you need to do something about this! Now you could simply eat less, but this is a crock.  You butt got this big because you ate what you wanted. So you can’t just eat less, because you want to continue to eat more. No, it’s going to take something better to shrink those glutes.

It would be great if there were a self-operated, butt liposuction machine that could be located in a Wal-Mart.  If someone ever invents this, he will be richer than Mitt Romney.  This doesn’t exist, so you are left with the obvious solution.

You need to go on a “diet”.  Which means essentially starving yourself until your body gets so hungry that it digests the fat stored in your butt.  And you see on television that celebrities Dan and Jillian used to have butts as big as yours, but now they have great butts due to this “easy” diet plan.

This is the biggest hoax ever concocted!  These people are being paid big money to lose weight so they can appear in the commercials.  With this incentive, anyone would be able to drop the pounds.  If they paid you that much money, you would lose some significant weight.  But you are not being paid to lose weight; you are paying money to lose weight!  This game is so rigged against you.  And even if you lose the weight, you won’t even come close to looking as good as Jillian or Dan because they started off as “beautiful people”.  You will still look like you, albeit with a somewhat smaller butt.

And these celebrities probably have personal trainers to help them exercise to accelerate their weight loss so they can look toned for their “after” appearance in the commercial.  Now you are talking a real incentive.  Hire me a blonde personal trainer from Sweden named Ulva who shows up for our sessions in a skin-tight body suit, and I am going to drop some serious pounds.  You know when Ulva tells me to “push hard” that I am going to oblige. 

Ulva

There are many other diets available that you don’t have to pay for, but in the end (no pun intended) most of them fail.  We live in a culture of big, bad, food choices where we super-size it and then end up super-sized ourselves.  Our salads are even full of fat.  We can watch the “Food Channel” which is the equivalent of food porn for fat people. “Oooh, now watch as I apply the caramel drizzle to the seven-layer cake, yuuuuum.”   And on other channels you can be confronted with a high-definition Whopper with Cheese on your big screen, as you are dutifully eating your rice cakes.

And now there is a recent report that people who drink diet soda suffer more from depression.  Other studies have shown that drinking diet soda doesn’t help you lose weight. So of course people get depressed when they drink this crap that tastes like flavored acid-rain and their butt is still way too big!

Obviously I am writing this because I ate too much over the holidays and now my butt is way too big.  Of course I don’t want to buy new clothes because I am a guy and shopping is an expensive irritation.  So what am I going to do?  The diet plan company won’t send Marie Osmond (my teenage crush) to personally convince me to buy their plan.  My wife will not allow me to hire Ulva for “training” sessions. 

So I have spent an enormous amount of money for special raspberries weight loss drops.  These are not just any raspberries, but magical raspberries with special fat burning powers.  The weight is supposed to just drop right off. I just hope that I am near a restroom when that happens.

The Smoking Hot Exemption Rule

You know the BCS title football game was super boring when the big story the next day was about the comments that announcer Brent Musburger made about Katherine Webb (girlfriend of the Alabama quarterback).   Brent had the audacity to refer to Webb as a lovely lady and good-looking and even implied that other guys might want a girlfriend that looked like her.  Oh the humanity! Oh the blatant heterosexuality!   

Katherine Webb at the game

He didn’t say what most guys were thinking at the time: “There is one hot piece of ***. And he didn’t sing “Don’t you wish your girlfriend was hot like her?”  But even if he had, his behavior would have still been acceptable due to the “Smoking Hot Exception”.

The “Smoking Hot Exception” rule, or SHE, states that bad behavior (excluding crimes) by men is partially or totally excused if there is a smoking-hot female involved.  Men instinctively rate women on a scale similar to how chicken wings are listed on a menu with ugly women being equal to “mild” and smoking hot woman equal to “atomic”.  When men behave badly and there is a woman involved, other men will give him a break depending on where the woman rates on the chart.  

It works like this; one guy will be explaining his questionable behavior, another guy will then ask “was she hot?”  The first guy will say “she was smoking hot” and then both guys will share a hopeless expression with their hands up it the air.  The thought expressed either implicitly or explicitly is “What could I do? - She was smoking hot”.

For example:

Guy One:  You got another terrible haircut.  Why don’t you go somewhere else?

Guy Two: The stylist is smoking hot.

Guy One: (with hands up in the air) “Oh well, what can you do?” 

The SHE is even used in business settings:

Executive One: Our VP Sam was caught banging Becky in the storage room, what should we do?

Executive Two: Well, Becky is smoking hot! (both guys hopeless looks, hands raised up)

Executive One: Oh well, we will just fire Becky and then let’s promote Sam because what can we do? She is so smoking hot.

So many “man stories” include the explanation: The saleswoman, the waitress, the stewardess, the stripper, etc. was so smoking hot that I ended up doing (fill in the blank), but what could I do? I am not saying the SHE is good or even right, but this is how the world works and you can’t really change it.

Some people have accused Musburger of ogling and leering at Katherine.  Now this is of course total bull since he was looking at a video monitor and not her.  Many guys don’t even understand what leering is even though it is prohibited by most company sexual harassment policies.  As a public service I will attempt to clarify this in terms guys can understand.  Leering is staring intently at a beautiful woman so long, that you get caught doing it.

Therefore, leering is a function of the length of the stare.  Staring for one second is not leering.  Staring for three seconds is not leering.  Staring for five seconds is a violation.  So guys, think of it as a five-second count in basketball, you must break eye contact or you can get whistled for a penalty. 

The critics say it was creepy for the older Musburger to look at and admire such a young woman.  Well I say it’s creepy that you have any problem with that at all. Brent is a healthy, heterosexual, male that naturally reacted to the (smoking-hot) stimulus that was presented to him.  Many women do not understand this reaction or the legitimacy of the SHE because they do not understand male hormones.  Hell, I’ve had these male hormones since puberty – and I don’t understand them.  I just try to control them the best I can.

"Atomic" Beauty!

So to all Brent’s critics, I wish you would all shut your pie holes and move on to something else irrelevant to complain about.  If anyone is offended by this blog post, what could I do?  I mean Katherine is just so smoking hot.

Buttheads, Buffoons and Bitches That Made 2012 Special

This year would have been much better if I had not encountered a series of idiots, morons and buffoons.  So I’ve decided to dedicate the last blog post of the year to the people who fizzed me off the most in 2012. 

I know I have blogged about people that have upset me during this year, but in those cases there was an element of humor in the story.  The following things are not funny when they happen to you.  But they didn’t happen to you, they happened to me, so enjoy!

So here are my Fizzed Off Awards for 2012:

4^th Place – A Facebook Fudgehead

A “Facebook” friend insisted on posting extreme political nonsense on his wall during the presidential campaign.   I don’t believe in using Facebook for political debate, but I did post one video of a parody containing footage at a political rally.  I posted this because it is hilarious, not because it was political.  But my fudgehead friend took exception to my post and I really took exception to his exception.

Two days after the election, I received a poorly-done, homemade, political poster sent anonymously in the mail.  However I don’t associate with anyone so juvenile and moronic that would do such a stupid thing. Well, except one.  So CRAIG, I know you sent it.  That’s right CRAIG, I know it was you!  You think you are smart CRAIG, but you are too stupid to realize how stupid you really are! (I know you are confused by the last sentence, so maybe you should read it again).  Yes CRAIG,  because you are such a moron, you really fizzed me off this year.

3^rd Place – Skip the Aggressive Cemetery Salesman

Skip the cemetery salesman was determined to sell me a burial plot this year.  When I asked him to call back in three months, he called back in two weeks.  He left numerous messages on my answering machine.  Finally he called and spoke to my wife and she blasted into him and told him never to call again.  When my wife is this upset, her communication is crystal clear.  There is absolutely no ambiguity and no chance of a misunderstanding.  I have avoided needing a burial plot up to this point due to being able to understand (and obey) my wife’s heated communication.

However, Skip is an imbecile.  He called back a few weeks later on a Saturday morning when my wife was still in bed.  I knew that if I did not take action, I would be the object of my wife’s wrath in a few minutes.  So I explained to Skip in very graphic terms (without swearing!) what would happen to him if he ever called my house again.   This was effective, but we did have to replace our phone because part of it melted during the conversation.  Skip, you really fizzed me off this year.

2^nd Place – Ditzy Editor

A major, local, newspaper (not in Akron or Cleveland, so you figure it out) wanted me to write a new economic blog for their website.  They made a major error in setting the blog up by not asking my permission to post some old content on the new blog site.  This led to one reader complaint.  The problem was very easily resolved, but instead they shut down the new blog without even informing me.

It took five days and two e-mails (she didn’t even call me to discuss the matter) to find out what happened and why.  And then she told me that I was responsible for the incident even though it had been her gross incompetence that caused it.  I explained in an e-mail (she never returned my phone calls) how she was totally responsible for what had happened and why, but I never even received an apology.  I can’t believe that someone in her position could be so densely incompetent and unprofessional.  What a useless piece of dukey.  Ditzhead, you really fizzed me off this year.

1^st Place - The Ticket Bitch

I received a letter telling me that due to a previous purchase I could get free tickets to an outdoor lunch before a sporting event.  I followed the instructions on the letter, but the organization failed to mail the tickets so my wife made a special trip to personally pick them up.  After she got home, she realized the buffoons had given her the wrong tickets.  They were to a similar event that day.  So we had followed their instructions to the letter, but they had screwed it up twice.

Much nicer than the Ticket Bitch

When we got to the event, the Ticket Bitch wouldn’t let us in.  When I tried to explain what happened, the Ticket Bitch repeatedly interrupted me to tell me what mistakes I had made and why my tickets were no good.  I had other documentation that proved I qualified for admission, but the Ticket Bitch would not even let me complete one sentence.  Finally the Ticket Bitch said that even though I was at fault, she would grant me access to the lunch.  I wanted to go nuclear, but I was hungry.  The Ticket Bitch could not understand why I was still livid after she had most graciously let me in.  It’s because you are a bitch of enormous proportion, you are a horrible, disgusting, MEGA-BITCH.  I pity your husband and family, Ticket Bitch.  And you really fizzed me off this year!  Congratulations of your first place finish!

Happy New Year to all my readers and please don’t fizz me off in 2013!

DEF-initely a Strange Trip to the Mall

I recently made my yearly Christmas shopping trip to the mall.  This gave me a chance to experience the sights, sounds and smells of the season.

On the way to the mall, I saw a big-honking, SUV with an anti-fracking window sticker.  What the frack is going on here?  If you are really concerned about the environment get yourself a fracking Prius. You are either a fracking hypocrite or a fracking idiot, or both!

The Abercrombie & Fitch store was dark with strobe lights and blaring music, like a party where you just happen to buy clothes. I’m sure they have an age restriction, so I didn’t go in. There was also a suffocating smell of men’s body spray emanating from the store. Combine that with the thick perfume smoke pouring out of Macy’s and if you have emphysema, you’re not going to make it out alive. I was surprised that I did not have to step over entwined couples at the point in the mall where these two powerful sexual scents collided. 

There was a new store dedicated entirely to tea.  A woman offered me a sample of their new “Mango-Melon” tea, which almost made me hurl.  I figure most of their customers must be hippies since they sell their tea (which is, of course, ground up leaves) by the ounce, a transaction type hippies are very familiar with. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of these teas are, in fact, “smokeable”. 

The frozen yogurt stand had been replaced by a face and body “threading” salon, so maybe eating all that yogurt caused people to need getting sewn back up.  I have no idea what this threading entails, but it reminds me of Frankenstein. The odd thing is they do the threading right out in the open!  There was a woman getting threaded right in front of me. I watched for a moment but then I started feeling very naughty, so I quickly moved on. 

I went into Macy’s not really to shop, but to see what the well-to-do people (or if you are so politically inclined, the rich, greedy, bastards) will be wearing next year. A large, bad-ass, hat caught my eye because it was stylish and would provide coverage for my large, shaved, head.  However the thing was so big, I would have needed to build a new closet onto my house just to store the thing.  And I would need to buy one of those big-honking SUVs to actually wear it in a vehicle.  

The Underpants Gnomes

The other item that I noticed was a pair of $28, red, boxer shorts that had gnomes on them. This was gnome underwear, not to be confused with the Underpants Gnomes of South Park fame. The Underpants Gnomes sneak into your bedroom at night, steal your underpants, and sell them for “profit”.  I decided that I would not buy these because if the Underpants Gnomes found out you had gnome underpants, they would soon be making a stop at your house for sure.     

My final stop was the calendar kiosk to get a 365-day box calendar for my desk.   There was a large selection, but the one that first caught my attention was definitely my last choice.  It came in an appropriate brown box and is titled: What's Your Poo Telling You? (see graphic). However, I do not want to correspond with my poo on a daily basis.  I do not want to have to think about my poo every day of the year.  Okay, let me rephrase that. I only want to think about it once a day, maybe twice, if I had Mexican.  And I want my poo to remain silent, especially if I am at work. 

Instead, I bought the Urban Dictionary 2013 Calendar, offering definitions of street slang on a daily basis.  This is my attempt to celebrate diversity and stay relevant in an ever changing world.   To say it another way; I want to become more def in the coming year.  Now don’t be alarmed, I don’t want to lose my “hearing” in 2013. No, according to my new calendar, I want to be in 1970’s parlance, “more cool”.  For example: Yo, mah pizzles, I got da hook-up at this def new club. It's suppose ta be off da hizzy".   

I think next year is going to be off da hizzy, indeed. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year readers!

 

Do The Mayans Know Something We Don’t?

Does anybody really know what time it is?
Does anybody really care (about time)?

- Chicago 

We all better hope that the answer to the first question is not the Mayans.  If you haven’t heard, there is an ancient Mayan calendar that ends with what is December 21, 2012 on our calendar and that has some people concerned. 

I kept putting writing this blog post off and then I realized that I was running out of time.  Then I realized WE MAY ALL BE LITERALLY RUNNING OUT OF TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   

Now you may be wondering why I am blogging on this subject since many other writers will be covering this important event.  Well, while vacationing on the Yucatan Peninsula a few years ago, I handed my credit card to my waiter after dinner and he just stood there staring at me in awe.  It turns out that the name “Ake” is a Mayan name.  He said I didn’t look Mayan.  I told him I must be one of the Germanic Mayan.  The name also denotes some type of royalty, so I am the Mayan King.  Hakuna Matada! Hakuna Matada! So once again I have authority (or authoritay!) and you must respect it. 

So, do the Mayan know something we don’t know?  They do know something about calendars. They were good at math and understood the movement and position of the earth, sun and stars. They put this knowledge to use and were obsessed with making calendars.  They had many different calendars and unfortunately none of them included hot Mayan chicks.  If they would have discovered “girls of the month” I’m sure the number of calendars would have been almost endless.  “Look at the moons on Miss Second Era!” The Mayans were more concerned with counting the days rather than actually living them, which may have accounted for their downfall.  

Would have a made a nice "Miss June"

Do we need to be worried about the world ending December 21?  Is there any other evidence?  Junk food junkies and some fat people think the world came to an end when Twinkies recently stopped production.  Some Republicans think the world ended when President Obama won re-election.  And of course the most troubling sign of the apocalypse is that the Kardashians can make millions for simply being well, the Kardashians.

But there are some people, mostly dope-smoking, hippies in California that are genuinely concerned that the world will indeed end in December.  I am just glad that our government is showing such great concern and responsibility by providing a calm, tranquil, environment and is not talking about going over a cliff or any disaster like that.

But I truly believe there is nothing to worry about at all.  What I think happened is that one of the Mayan calendar makers finished the last “sun” cycle which ended with the winter solstice.  Coming to this break point, he stopped to get a drink and take a dump.  He walked into the jungle for some privacy and was killed by a wild animal. 

His teenage son was then supposed to finish the calendar, but preferred chasing hot Mayan girls and eating funny berries instead.  He always told his mother he would finish the calendar “tomorrow”, but he never did.

So instead of worrying about the Mayan calendar on Dec 21, you should harken the words of the prophetess Annie of the Orphanic tribe, who writes:

The yellow sphere will rise high, the next cycle

So ya gotta wait, ‘til that next cycle,

Please just stay

The next cycle, The next cycle,

I love the

Next cycle

It’s just one revolution away 

So I am advising you all to relax and enjoy the day of December 21 unless you are a single guy who is dating a hot Mayan chick (or really any women) who believes that the world is actually ending on that date.  Then you should by all means take the day off because you can’t let this opportunity go to waste. 

However, there will be a December 22, 2012. As it is written, let it be done. The Mayan King has spoken.