About this time of year I begin contemplating the nutritional content of the upholstery in my car. Not that I would eat it myself, I’m trying to watch my sodium intake and this is Michigan, after all.

    Daddy-daughter dances with a five year old boils down to a bunch of 30-ish dudes making small-talk while their overdressed progeny weave in snaking, screaming lines through their legs and gymnasium lunchtables. If it weren’t for the watered down wedding music and watered down pink lemonade I would think that it had as much substance as skim milk. As it is I’m going for turpentine.
    Sam had fun introducing me to her long list of interchangably adorable fellow five-year-olds. And that’s all that really matters. That and peppermint cake. Pictures to be uploaded as soon as they are available.

    My kitten has only one testicle. Parodoxically, my veterinarian tells me this will quite possibly double the cost of getting him castrated. The doctor goes on to say that he thinks the other testicle is up in there somewhere, but for some reason Sisco’s landing gear hasn’t completely dropped. I personally think they are sortof combined into one uber-ball, as the one he has is monstrous–nay! Pendulous!
    We’ve taken to calling him “The Uni-Baller.” I tried “Cycrotch,” but it didn’t stick.

    I hate: 30-something white chicks with personal-trainer sculpted bodies and expensive hair-dos driving massive luxury-branded SUVs while talking on their tiny, tiny cell-phones and ignoring their back-seat load of kids who slowly vegetate beneath a ceiling-mounted, built-in DVD player spewing Sponge-Bob all over the highway.
    I’ve seen enough instances of this abomination that I feel we need a new derogatory term specific to the phenomenon. Like “chav,” but more targeted toward pampered women with big SUVs, tiny cell phones and neglected children basking in the glow of the aforementioned factory-installed DVD player.
    You got any ideas?

    My baby sister is getting married…well, is already married. But she’s getting the ceremony and all..
Click HERE for details.

Job Interviews for Dummies – The most important rule: Don’t let on that you’re a dummy. Interviewers tend to look down on that.

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Pentagon – I wonder if this is about the Department of Defense headquarters or just the shape. My money’s on the shape.

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Football – Finally, this confirms something I’ve always suspected.

Bipolar Disorder for Dummies – At first, I thought this title was funny … But now it just makes me depressed.
    … Where’s my gun?

Blogging For Dummies – Hey, ya’ll, check it out! How many of us have a copy of this?

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Self-Defense – If the need ever arises, they say you should yell “fire” instead of “rape,” because if you yell “rape,” no one will want to get involved. So then, if there’s ever a fire, you should probably yell “car crash,” because everyone always slows down to check out car crashes. And, if you crash your car, you should yell “doughnuts,” so everyone comes running. If there are ever doughnuts around, yell “rape” so you don’t have to share.

Singing for Dummies - Please, God, no. We already have far too much of this.

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Singing – No … No! Make it stop! Make it stop!

Songwriting for Dummies – Because “Mmmbop” doesn’t just write itself, y’know.

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Power Yoga – What? They have Power Yoga, now? That sounds awesome!

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Cigars – If you can’t figure out how to light a cigar, I don’t think a book will help you.

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Smoothies – No, really, this is a real book.

Exercise Balls for Dummies – This probably isn’t what I think it is.

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Comedy Writing – Ah! My terrible, terrible secret is revealed!

    There is a calcification of the brain setting in, I think. I feel it robbing me of the essential bit that I always liked so much. There’s been no music, no humor, and the heretofore easy act of creation has been unattainable and my loins remain unstirred.
    Creative endeavors seem to me as sex must seem to the average eunuch. I see that there are people doing it, and I can intellectually understand that there is fun being had. But the fun isn’t for me, as it takes balls to play pool.
    There’s been stress, there’s been the changing sleeping habits of kindergarteners and vomitous infants. There’s been animals and sliding doors with hermetically sealed miniblinds and at least one Phillips-head screwdriver. DST updates and the Doobie Brothers know I’ve been running:
    I’ve grown so addicted to Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) and In The Groove (ITG) that wherever I go I travel with a spare shirt, a pair of dancing shoes, a hand towel and a travel-size stick of under-arm deodorant (Old Spice, if you must know). I have the DDRFreak machine locater set as a speed-dial on my cell phone so that I may plan my lunch accordingly.
    I must look a sight: a 34 year old, balding man clad in a tattered WordPerfect 6.0 (for DOS!) T-shirt over black dress slacks, slowly soaking straight through the collar, back and stomach, my whisper-silent GBX shoes flickering across the acrylic pads. My legs are like Apollo’s or Mercury’s sans wings (do you fancy Roman or Greek pantheon, my gentle friends?) while my stomach continues to be that of Bacchus and my head, as always, mimics the surface of a scummy peach.
    In a round-about way, this ridiculous addiction compelled me to “soft mod” my XBox and upgrade its hard drive. Originally this was to run StepManiaX (a “home-brew” version of the popular open source DDR-clone StepMania). But one thing leads to another and soon I am playing old video games from my youth for hours on end.
    Nostalgia is a sin, people. A god-damned SIN! I repent, please, I repent and beg for mercy. But it may be too late…I’m playing Super Mario Brothers and Ghouls and Ghosts and my soul is withering.

This entry marks the TRIUMPHANT return of Arthbard!!!
    One of my more surreal experiences (okay, maybe not that surreal, but bear with me) was when I was first toying with the idea of learning to play the guitar. Foregoing formal lessons, I went the DIY route and made a visit to the bookstore in search of some sort of guide. They had two books: Guitar for Dummies and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Playing the Guitar. So, imagine me, if you will, standing there, considering my options carefully. There was a choice to be made, here, and if I hoped to make that choice, I was going to have to ask myself a very important question: Am I a dummy or an idiot? Because, y’know … You don’t want to buy the wrong book. If you did that, you’d just feel stupid.
    That’s not an easy question to answer, either. And it’s further complicated by the question of reliability. After all, if I am indeed a dummy or an idiot, then how can I be expected to put any credence whatsoever into whatever decision I might ultimately make regarding my dummy/idiot status. Obviously, I couldn’t be trusted to self-diagnose myself as one or the other, could I? Maybe there’s some kind of test for this?
    But, I somehow find myself inordinately fascinated with “Dummies” and “Idiots” books. I don’t know why. The simple idea that a guide book can be written specifically for those who aren’t very bright just grabs my attention. I also like the idea that a book can insult its readers directly in the title and still sell really well. In fact, it leads me to wonder what kind of success I could have titling a novel, If You Buy This, You’re a Stupid Moron. Given the number of these guidebooks that come out, though, I’m led to believe that I’d likely have greater success publishing The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Writing Dummy Books.

    Here’s a smattering of titles from both series, snarky comments courtesy of your friendly, neighborhood Arthbard:

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Calculus – I’m reasonably sure “Idiot Calculus” is a paradoxical concept.

Trigonometry For Dummies – When I was taking college entrance exams, I found that it’s apparently pretty typical for even bright students who are total crackerjack aces in Calculus and Algebra to completely blow on the Trigonometry sections. I don’t know what chance a stupid person might have of mastering it … Or even of when the need of such a skill would arise over the course of their everyday stupid lives.

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Philosophy – So … Deep thoughts for shallow brains?

Nanotechnology For Dummies – I’m sure someone must have proposed this as a practical joke to a publishing executive who didn’t quite grasp the concept that nanotechnology and morons are mutually exclusive subjects.

Everyday Math for Dummies – Finally, a guidebook that sets its sights low.

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Running – Put one foot in front of the other. Repeat as necessary.

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Fasting – Note to idiots: this probably isn’t the same thing as running.

iPod & iTunes For Dummies – I know there are some computer illiterate folks out there, but seriously … If you honestly need a book to figure out how to work your goddamned iPod, you deserve the dummy label.

iPod for Dummies – Presumably, then, this one’s for those rare people who can figure out iTunes but find the iPod, itself, too complicated. I reckon that’s a pretty narrow IQ range there. Like … From 61-62.

The Complete Idiot’s Guide para Aprender Ingles – The last half of the title is, in fact, Spanish, and it all comes out to The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Learning English. But I’m personally amused that the bilingual nature of the title means that any Spanish person who needs to use this book is going to be halfway through reading it before they figure out they’ve been called an idiot.

I’d say there were spoilers ahead, but there really aren’t.
    They f&%kin’ lied. They PROMISED that after the interminable hiatus they would pack each episode with juicy plot progression like a Snickers full of peanuts. Too bad the only thing sporting a Snickers level of satisfaction in this episode was Hurley’s jonesing for improbably push-starting a wrecked Volkswagen minibus–never mind the fact that any petrol left in the inverted VW bus would have turned into a thick turpentine soup in the nearly thirty years since dead Roger’s failed beer run¹.
    Maybe they’ll surprise the hell out of me and find a way to make this lame back-story about how Cheech Marin² was a lousy father to roly-poly Hurley into a key element of the grand story arc. Hey, we got to see him eat his first candy bar! Isn’t that clever? Because, like, we know he’s real fat now! I feel so connected to the story line now.
    No, as far as I can tell, the entirety of the story arc’s plot progression this week was this: Kate and Sawyer finally get back to camp, but Kate immediately leaves to rescue Jack, pausing only to enlist the crazy French lady’s assistance.
    Did you see that? I effectively encapsulated the ENTIRE story progression from 45 minutes of super-expensive television into one lousy sentence. I feel like the advertisers should now be forced to watch me for 45 minutes. I’d probably make more sense, and at least there’s some flava’ for the people in my obsessive masturbation.

Jackie Mason

I mean… Cheech Marin?!? This is a serialized mystery-fantasy-sci-fi drama, not the god-damned Love Boat. Next thing you know we’ll see an episode guest-starring Jackie Mason as Kate’s uncle, who’ll invariably be a godless pedophilic sodomite. Molested by an anachronistic catskills reject; poor Kate–in child-form, of course. Speaking of child-forms, this show LOVES to play time machine and show us child actors pretending to be 1.0 release versions of our favorite LOST castaways.

    Which brings us to another complaint I have. Carlton Cruse and Damon Lindelof, the producers of Lost, must have some serious fuckin’ daddy issues. Anyone who’s a regular viewer has probably begun hating their father through tangential empathy alone. Check out this list of wonderful paters that grace our LOST character’s lives:

• Hurley’s dad, Cheech Marin, leaves his family and only reappears 17 years later when he hears how sonny-boy’s got some cursed money burning holes in his jumbo-sized pockets.
• Kate’s real dad turns out to be her drunken, mommy-beating step-dad. (I know, sounds weird, but it wasn’t at all as interesting as that sentence makes it out to be)
• Jack’s dad was a stern, judgmental perfectionist who drinks himself out of a job and, ultimately, to death in an Australian gutter.
• Locke’s dad cons him out of his kidney!
• Walter’s dad, fellow LOST castaway Micheal, shoots two hotties dead in cold blood in “the hatch” before cowardly boating his way off the island.
• Sun’s father, a murderous magnate/mob-boss, forces her new husband, Jin, to become a hit-man. Jin himself seems ashamed of his dad, possibly because he’s a humble fisherman. I think its because he isn’t a soul-eating bastard like all the other fathers on this show.
• Sawyer’s father guns his mother down before blowing his own brains out on top of little Sawyer’s bed….all while child-form Sawyer hides pitifully underneath. How’s that for a unique formative childhood experience?

    Somehow I think that the secret of the island involves some tragically flawed fatherhood thing. Probably incest. That would explain the big statue with four toes. Whatever it turns out to be, I fear it will be a mountain of suck.

    LOST started so.. so… good. Pfagh! Cruse and Lindeloff should apologize immediately and hire Joss Whedon or J. Michael Straczynski³ to finish this puppy off before they run it so far into the ground that I regret ever watching this un-funny Gilligan’s Island. Anything less would be uncivilized, lovey darling.

1 – No alliteration this; our very decayed friend Roger actually had a van-load of beer and a hippy 8-track.
2 – Yes, Cheech Marin.
3 – Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Babylon 5 respectively. Trust me, those were good shows.