Thursday, October 30, 2008

Terrible Pieces of Advice for New Dog Owners


I really really love animals. I love them so much that I don’t have any pets. My attitude towards pets is pretty much the same as my attitude towards small children: they are wonderful gifts from God and a joy to be around, so long as I can leave the room whenever I feel like. I’ll happily pet, cuddle and play with any adorable animal you put in front of me, feed it a piece of whatever I happen to be eating, maybe even throw something it might like to fetch. But putting me in charge of an animal’s survival and well-being would be even more unfair to the animal than it would be to me, and that is why I have chosen to remain petless thus far into my adult life. It’s the difference between being irresponsible and choosing not to be responsible.
Having said this, if you own a dog and are looking for advice on how to care for it, and are completely unconcerned about where this advice comes from, here are some tips for you:

IF YOUR DOG CRAPS ON YOUR BED, CRAP ON HIS
For generations, conventional wisdom has told morons that the best way to keep a dog from relieving itself somewhere is to rub its face in its mess after it does the deed. This is not only insanely cruel (seriously: if you see someone do this to their dog, smack the shit out of them), it’s highly ineffective. If there’s one thing a dog understands it’s an eye for an eye. If Sparky takes a dook on your Sealy Posturepedic, you march right over to his little bedbasket or wherever and pay him back with interest. Note: this may not work well if your dog sleeps on your bed.

ATTACH FINS TO YOUR DOG TO MAKE IT MORE AERODYNAMIC
Allow your dog to reach its true potential by attaching a series of fins to it, just like a fish (if fish were land-based creatures) or a ’57 Chevy (if ’57 Chevys were dogs). It will be able to romp faster and fetch more effectively, and all the junk that dogs love. To make sure the fins stay attached, I recommend a staple gun.

SHAVE CUSS WORDS INTO YOUR DOG’S FUR
The benefits should be pretty self-explanatory.

EVERY TIME YOUR DOG BITES SOMEONE GIVE IT A TREAT
Most dog trainers tell you not to reward your dog unfairly or it will turn out spoiled, unreasonable and yappy. This line of thought is shortsighted and does not address a larger problem: having to go out and buy dog treats for the rest of your life (well, for nine to sixteen years). Logic dictates the simplest thing to do is to break your dog of its dependency on treats. Continue doling out the Beggin’ Strips every time Mrs. Barksalot makes a potty in the right place or does her cute little backflip trick, but watch what happens when you reward her for biting Uncle Nestor’s ankle. After Uncle Nestor clocks her with a rolled-up newspaper and you reward her, her preexisting concepts of right and wrong will be shattered into a million pieces and you are one step closer to owning a dog whose moral compass is not governed by pieces of ground cow hooves mixed with lard and sawdust.

NAME YOUR DOG “FIRE”
If he ever gets lost and you find yourself yelling after him, you will have no trouble getting other people’s attention to help you out. Maybe even police! If your name is Fire or you already have a dog named Fire, you could go with “Cocaine For Sale” or “Rape.”

Monday, October 27, 2008

Orangina + Furries = Heebie Jeebies

You know Orangina, the crummy watered-down orange drink? Ever wondered who their target market is? If you said furries, for some bizarre reason you're correct.



The world of human sexual fetish is vast and unknowable, and to each their own etc. etc. etc, but man: this is pretty weird.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Blogger.com Profile "Random Questions"

I was diddling with the innards of my Blogger profile and saw the little "Random Question" box, which always sort of bothered me. I appreciate the prompts as a fun and inventive little addition to an otherwise faceless internet profile form, but my threshold for forced wackiness isn't very high. I forget what my old question was, but my answer was something along the lines of "go fuck yourself."

Several months ago my friend Jeff (drummer for the Mathletes) formed a band called T.R.U.C.K.S. (pronounced "trucks"). There are already enough T.R.U.C.K.S. songs for several full-lengths; the first EP, "Where the Boys Aren't," came out this summer in an extremely limited release (song titles: "Air Fuck One," "Teenage Face Targets," "Sauce Policy," "Theme from T.R.U.C.K.S."). One of my favorite T.R.U.C.K.S. songs is called "Wolf Cum."

Which seems like both a more creative and potentially applicable answer to most "Random Question" questions than "go fuck yourself." Without any further ado, here are ten completely random Random Questions, in the order in which they were presented to me by the Random Questions Robot who works for Blogger.com, and my responses:

Q: All of the phone numbers have fallen out of your address book. Whose number do you look for first and why?
A: Wolf Cum

Q: Come up with some possible band names for your group that features a washboard and a styrofoam tuba.
A: Wolf Cum

Q: Why does the taste of pennies remind you of losing a tooth?
A: Wolf Cum

Q: What was the stage name of your favorite actress before she was born?
A: Wolf Cum

Q: Which do you prefer and why: whittling with soap or whistling with wood?
A: Wolf Cum

Q: Do you believe that forks are evolved from spoons?
A: Wolf Cum

Q: Lionesses have no manes. How do they know when they've grown up?
A: Wolf Cum

Q: That can't really be a fish you're standing on, can it?
A: Wolf Cum

Q: What did you dream when you ate a spider while sleeping?
A: Wolf Cum

Q: If mud is dirt plus water, what is clay?
A: Wolf Cum

I post this not because I have something all that strongly against the Random Question Robot, or to generate some hype for T.R.U.C.K.S. (whose recordings are all-but-impossible to come by, and in truth may or may not actually exist), or even because it's honestly all that funny. No, I post this for one main reason: I don't think the people I'm going to be working for starting next month are going to let me get away with writing something like "Wolf Cum" a dozen times in a single post. I better get this out of my system before then.

Friday, October 17, 2008

JOE MATHLETE RETURNS (TO THE INTERNET) (PRETTY SOON)

It is pretty much sort of official: sometime next month I will begin writing regularly for a Houston-based website whose name I will announce here as soon as we "go live" (that is an industry term meaning "start doing stuff"). It would be gauche to discuss the all of the specifics, but suffice to say I will be doing things like drawing cartoons, writing reviews of things that don't really need to be reviewed, filming bands performing songs in my living room, and generally offering my own take on the day-to-day goings on of this sprawling Texan megopolis I call home. In exchange for all this, my bosses have allowed me to use their scanner, snack machine and restroom during regular business hours. Suckers.

What does this mean for this here blog? Hell if I know. Check back over the next few weeks as I reveal more information.


Also, because why not: I decided to join the 21st century. The Mathletes' newest (and something like 26th overall) album, #@$% YOU AND YOUR COOL, is available on iTunes and eMusic and aMazon and rHapsody and nApster and all those places where people pay money to download music. I sent out three review copies and had a 100% return rate for my efforts. Who wants some music criticism?

Space City Rock: Fucking brilliant. No lie-- one of the best damn pop albums I've heard in the last few years.

The Skyline: Joe Mathlete and company strut their outsider stuff in song after song that appeals to the Comicon pop-life in all of us... Recommended.

The Houston Press: ...a freaking bologna sandwich.

Beats,

Joe Mathlete