Sexy Lulu

Predator Press

[LOBO]

Lars Arson's eyebrows raised, and he whistled in surprise.

"That's a pretty nice offer."

"Yeah," I agree, still fiddling with my new glasses.  Damn my asymmetrical head.

"You should consider taking it anyway," he adds.  "Think about it.  It matches your goals of increased pay and technically living closer to your parents."

I tilt my head up and down, testing the bifocal lenses on my beer bottle label.  "A month ago I would have pounced it," I says.  "But that place was a viper pit before the Sexy Lulu debacle.  Can you imagine it now?  If it was San Francisco, San Diego, Los Angeles ... hell even Seattle, I would be all systems go."

Lars sets his empty beer on the bar, and signals the bartender.  "Wasn't she supposed to move here in February?"

"Yeah.  February 2011," I reply.  "And 2012."

Dear 2014

Predator Press

[LOBO]

2013 wasn't all that bad. In fact the things that fell apart in 2013 would have been utter fiascoes if allowed to continue on into 2014. But the climb out of utter ruin has been slow and tedious, and I'm dissatisfied with the progress so far. So I decided to organize and write out some goals for 2014:

1) Move Closer to Family. I moved back to Chicagoland at the height of the recession out of desperation, relying on professional contacts and personal reputation to claw my way into the rather meager situation I'm in now. But as the recession slowly abates, it's clear Illinois is not the same industrious animal it once was: the taxes and weather are horrendous, good opportunities are scarce, the meter maids with guns (aka cops) are leaching whatever is left … and I'm just not “feeling” it anymore. Meanwhile my aging parents have happily semiretired. I need role models like that. This is crap. I'm better than this.

2) Network to a Better Job. My income needs to double. Sure this job saved me from homelessness and soup lines, but in the digitized age of Kindle and iPads, book distributor opportunities aren't likely to improve. I enjoy the work, so I need to be careful of getting complacent; actual “physical” books are increasingly exotic, and I suspect this industry will vanish altogether within the next decade.

3) Be More Careful about My Associations. I must accept that I can't fix people, and some only arise to their potential of being devastating setbacks. Reaching into my past, I want to try and recapture some carefully-selected old friendships that fate and misadventure drove away. And building from these lessons, I want to improve future relationships.

4) Quit Smoking. This battle is currently underway, as I'm about 70% on e-cigarettes. At this rate I should be done with both by the end of the year.

5) Less Internet, More Life. Fantasy baseball, social media (excluding ones relevant to goals 2 and 3), and news, news, news, have rendered me an anxiety-addled basket case. All are on the chopping block. I want to streamline use to fantasy football, blogging, podcasts and pornography, just like Al Gore intended.

And maybe get some sun.

Dead Air

Predator Press

[LOBO]

My return to our Lord and Savior has nothing to do with natural disasters.

-If you look back over time, I do this every year when there's only four weeks left of fantasy football "regular season."  And this year when that collection plate comes around I got five bucks, and a two-for-one coupon on Crocs™.

It's crunch time, Jesus!

I Warned You People! Nature HATES Us!

Predator Press

[LOBO]

ONCE AGAIN Illinois has been leveled to the ground, and I alone am left to pick up the lazy, worthless pieces.  Well just once I would like to be one of those lazy, worthless pieces ... but God, in His Infinite Wisdom, is Infinitely and Wisely cruel to His favorite blogger.

It's pretty bad.

This is the worst kind of natural disaster possible -the kind that happens to me.  Now there's only one thing left: swift and lethal payback.

-It's time to show that bitch Mother Nature exactly who's in charge around here.

Take that, Earth.

Letter to Inmate H*****

Predator Press

[LOBO]

Hey Buuuuddy!
 

Still really stuffy, but gradually feeling better. Sorry I didn't write this week: all the coughing and sneezing has me sleeping like shit, so besides work that's pretty much all I do. You should see my place … it looks like I've been testing hand grenades on a Kleenex factory. All the hacking up glop and sleep dep has me edgy too: I opened a shoe box and a moth flew out, which almost gave me a heart attack. I have a tacit and tenuous non-aggression pact with the spider in my bathtub. This is as close as I've come to camping in thirty years.

The fact that it's Halloween kinda snuck up under my radar, and I don't have any candy for the little moochy bastards. I would probably call Child Protective Services on any parent that let there kids trick or treat in this neighborhood anyway. Still, I'm in a lights-out stealth mode for now, and the stubborn pricks interrupting my football will be rewarded with canned vegetables and fistfuls of oyster crackers.

I listen to a great ESPN/NFL podcast at work, and it was just nominated for an award. Unfortunately, it is competing with the other nominee, “Taylor Swift Talk.” Taylor Swift -in case you don't know- is an apparently successful teeny-bopper country chick that made her career writing angry and soppy songs about ex boyfriends. “Taylor Swift Talk,” in fact, isn't even directly affiliated with Taylor Swift -it's two guys and a girl waxing enthusiastic about the pre-pubescent lil blonde starlet. It's not even sanctioned by Taylor Swift. It's totally rogue and weird fan crap.

Smash-Cut to today: hundreds of thousands of NFL meatheads have launched a Twitter and Facebook war on “The Taylor Swift Podcast” -which isn't even the right fucking podcast. Somewhere there are three poor little teenage girls who have no idea why the full behemoth wrath of NFL fans have come crushing down upon “The Taylor Swift Podcast,” which was virtually unknown until yesterday.

Sometimes I love this planet.

Be safe, be smart. I love you Bro! See you soon!

 

 

The Revenge of Ox Nuts

Predator Press

[LOBO]

“Ox Nuts,” reads the Judge. “We hereby find you Guilty of riding a horse at 21 miles per hour in a school zone. How do you plead?”

The thick chains tinkled as Ox Nuts stroked his mighty chin mightily.

“Guilty Your Honor.”

The crowd gasped.

“But,” Ox Nuts added, “The ZPD are all pansy dickhead metermaids with guns."

“Really?” asked the Judge, examining his records. “Holy crap, you're right! I am going to dismiss all charges, and give you $10,000 for all your pain and suffering.”

Snapping his chains, Ox Nuts suddenly impaled the Bailiff with a wooden pew.

"That's not enough!” he growled.

The Definitive Unbiased History of Future LOBOnian Earth

 Predator Press  

[LOBO]

Occasionally, I am reminded that a lot of things had to happen for me to happen. And as the final culmination of all that galactic effort, I feel we should take a moment to reflect and appreciate the things that made me possible.


ne day, God and Jesus were in the garage working on Jesus' Pinewood Derby car. Both were frustrated, because Jesus' healing powers kept making the blocks of wood turn back into trees. They tried everything: gloves, robots, dinosaurs ... but nothing worked, and soon the garage was stuffed with pine trees. This, coupled with the annoying habit Jesus had of making slurpy sounds with his straw, frustrated God to the point that He created the horrifically disgusting dump we all know as "Earth."

Inevitably Jesus, bored, snuck into the garage alone. And there was the Earth, sitting in God's vice grips, getting ready for it's last application of water sealant. Jesus, a mischievous lil scamp, paused from making slurpy sounds long enough to take a piece of ice out of his Pepsi, and dropped it on the hapless planet.

"Look out Noah!" he cried. "I'm killing the dinosaurs!"

Noah floated all over the place, and finally discovered America. And because he had all the animals, Noah quickly cornered the market on fast food franchises -crushing the vegetarian competition. This depressed the vegetarian Steve Jobs so much, he started working on computers. Steve Jobs would subsequently invent the iPod, and thusly made space exploration possible. And a lot less boring. His company, Apple, would go on to defeat the Pharaoh by dropping frogs on him via helicopter. While perhaps not the most effective method of warfare, it is certainly by far the funniest: after a few years that Pharaoh was freaking out. "Why are all these frogs falling on me?" he would demand from the Jews. The Jews, tired of cleaning frog guts off of the pyramids, formed a tax-free consortium and bought up 51% of Egypt in a hostile takeover bid.

The Pharaoh was summarily fired from the Board of Directors, and the Jews lived happily ever after.