unfortunate choices

This is Forrest, who was arrested in Santa Cruz, California, on suspicion of driving under the influence. I wonder what tipped off the arresting officer that someething was wrong?

Forrest made an unfortunate series of choices on that fateful day. What happened first?

Was it the wild adventure with a blowdryer that turned his ordinary thinning-on-top hairstyle into a festive, sweeping extravaganza?

Or was it the mad impulse to decorate his face with a cryptic yet compelling labyrinth of assertive post-modern arrows?

Or was it the most likely culprit: a dizzying sequence of margaritas too numerous to count?

The clear moral of this story is simple: friends don't let friends drink and Sharpee.

calexit is wrong

You only have to scan this blog briefly to know that I have an extremely low opinion of the current White House occupant. I could not loathe him any more than I already do, I don't think.

With that said, however, I think the so-called "CalExit" plan is a major mistake. I totally oppose it.

If you're not familiar with CalExit, it's a very recent movement that appeared on the horizon after the November 2016 election. In short, because of the vote outcome, some Californians think the state should cede from the United States and form their own country.

No. Just no.

You don't pick up your toys and stomp home because you don't like how the election turned out. I hate the results. I understand that. The current President will forever be a stain on our history.

But we are all Americans. We ride it out until the next election. We protest and petition and contact Congress when we see things we don't like.

Seceding and civil War are almost never the answer. And we're nowhere near a point where that's necessary to even consider as an option.

Stop it, California. Just stop it right now.

creepy bedmates

At some point Cracked went from being a downmarket ripoff of Mad Magazine to a curious alternative publication. They actually run some decent political commentary now.

They also run a fair amount of clickbait. I'm a sucker for clickbait like anyone else, so I end up reading some odd stuff on their site from time to time.

This article made me laugh -- it's about six well known males with weird dating requirements or requests.

But you don't have to be a celebrity to have odd sexual needs.

I remember one guy I dated who wanted me to give him a urine sample after I had slept with him several times. I thought he was subtly accusing me of giving him an STD or that he might be carrying one, but he said that wasn't the case -- he simply enjoyed analyzing the urine of women who meant something to him. I consented but stopped seeing him shortly thereafter for other reasons.

The only other weird thing I remember is not one but two different men who asked me to give them a pair of my worn panties so they could later use them for jerkoff fantasies. I read later somewhere this is a fairly common request, and a friend confirmed to me she was asked the same thing.

Since I started this blog, I've had more than one request for used panties. And my answer is always the same: no. Just in case you were wondering.

falling apart

I don't know what's worse -- the fact that this word salad tattoo takes up so much of her abdomen or the fact that it's all but impossible to read or the fact that it's littered with spelling, capitalization, and usage errors. It's a badly mangled Marilyn Monroe quote.

The text reads:

I believe things happens
for a reason Puple
Change So that you can
Learn to let go thing go
wrong so that you can
apreciate them when
there right You believe
lies so you eventually
start to trust no one
but your Self and
sometimes good things
fall apart so better
things can fall apart

Here is an enlargement if you absolutely have to see this in a larger size.

patrick modiano

Last night I finished The Black Notebook by French novelist Patrick Modiano, winner of the 2014 Nobel Prize for literature. It's the first book of his I've read, and I have to say I was underwhelmed.

It's certainly not a bad book and very French in its amorphous, plotless, stylish writing, but I was expecting to be dazzled, given the writer's Nobel award, not to mention at least five other prominent European literary prizes he's won. And dazzled I was not.

The book is very slight and barely a novella. The story consists of an elderly writer thumbing through an old notebook of jottings and reminiscing about a random series of events when he was a young man. He was apparently obsessed with a young woman but never explains if their relationship was sexual or merely platonic.

I've read some Nobel winners (as have many others) who are powerful, memorable writers, like Alice Munro, Mario Vargas Llosa, Doris Lessing, Harold Pinter, Imre Kertész, and many more. Modiano does not seem to be on that level.

To be fair, I should probably read more of his work before I pass judgment. But, with that said, nearly every review I read of The Black Notebook made clear that his books all seem very similar.

goodbye mary

The great Mary Tyler Moore died yesterday. Like many people my age, I grew up watching her genius in reruns of The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

She was a brilliant comedian but she also was a gifted dramatic actor. She was outstanding in the drama Ordinary People, for which she received an Oscar nomination. If you've never seen it, I highly recommend the movie.

One of her most famous clips appears below. It's extremely funny and contains a prescient message about mourning someone who made us laugh.

The full episode where this scene appears is also available online without charge.

the afterthought

I'm actually starting to feel sorry for Melania Trump. I didn't watch any of the inauguration, but I have been seeing a flood of images showing her with her husband, and they look about as happy as an already divorced couple at a funeral.

Possibly the worst photo was the one when the Trumps arrived at the White House just before the inauguration ceremonies, with the traditional photo-op with the outgoing President greeting his replacement. Typically, the one couple stands on the portico while the other couple walks up the steps together, arm in arm.

Not this time. The car arrives, Trump bounds out to greet the Obamas, and Melania is left behind. She exits the car on the other side, completely ignored by her husband, and makes her way to the portico alone, where her husband continues to ignore her but the Obamas warmly greet her (see picture below).

Melania seems awestruck by the Obamas as she presents Michelle with a gift. Trump then walks into the White House by himself and it is left to the Obamas to escort Melania inside.

A quick search on the internet turns up lots of photos of the unhappy couple during the inaugural festivities, like this one where the picture speaks a thousand words. She looks like she's being held hostage.

Then there's the fact that Melania will not live in the White House. This is allegedly so their eleven-year-old son can stay in his Manhattan school, but that seems a dubious excuse, considering kids move in the school year all the time, including all recent presidential children.

IMHO, this looks like a marriage that's all but dead and only being kept alive for public appearances.

vagina huckster

I have only vaguely ever paid any attention to Gwyneth Paltrow's wacky health ideas because I'm of the opinion actors should act and not babble about topics where they have no professional expertise.

I did not realize her nonsensical theories were come-ons for stuff she's selling. I thought her website Goop was some vanity endeavor, a pretend magazine of sorts, but it turns out a whole lot of overpriced product peddling is going on there.

A prominent San Francisco gynecologist recently wrote a long blog post where she lambastes Paltrow's most recent scam: a $66 "jade egg" you're supposed to wear all day in your vagina (and, of course, supposed to buy from Paltrow, who is currently sold out on snatch rocks).

"It is the biggest load of garbage I have read on your site since vaginal steaming," the OB/GYN writes. "It’s even worse than claiming bras cause cancer. But hey, you aren’t one to let facts get in the way of profiting from snake oil."

The doctor goes on to warn that a stone egg jammed up there could cause bacterial vaginosis or even the potentially deadly toxic shock syndrome. I wonder if Paltrow is carrying insurance in case she's sued in a wrongful death action?

And what's next? Rectal rocks?

Thinking back, Paltrow hasn't had a really decent film role in a good ten years. Is her huckstering of dubious products necessary to keep up her ridiculously lavish lifestyle since the acing gigs are getting thin on the ground?

Some people have no shame. And some of those people are happy to take advantage of starry-eyed fans.

Enough with these people.

mormon girl porn

Who knew religion is a kink? Mormon girl porn apparently is a growth industry and several of the major online flesh companies are churning it out in increasing volume. I see it now regularly on the major porn tracking sites.

The narrative seems to be good-looking, older, well endowed male "elders" are filmed "initiating" young, nubile, innocent girls into the ways of womanhood while the latter are wearing traditional Mormon undergarments. Much thrusting and moaning ensues with a splashy finish.

I'd love to know the percentage of consumers who are Mormons themselves. Do some of those randy old goats have a hankering for the young Mormon flesh they see in their temples?

I used to live in a Los Angeles neighborhood filled with Mormons; they had a temple a few blocks away. I did notice both males and females were better looking than average and often very fit, likely due to their healthier lifestyle.

And a healthy lifestyle often stimulates the libido. That might help explain how many had very large families.

jackie

We continue to make our way through the Oscar screener box that my Hollywood friend sent to me. Last night's selection was Jackie, an intimate biopic about Jacqueline Kennedy in the hours and days after her husband was assassinated.

Natalie Porter plays Jackie, and she is simply outstanding. It was one of the best performances of a real person I've ever seen. It was as good as Meryl Streep playing Margaret Thatcher.

However.

While the movie is very well done, it's a real downer. You basically watch the most horrible hours of a woman's life. It was painful at times, but very, very well done.

It's not the kind of movie you should watch if you're feeling down or blue or just need something to escape into. If you were borderline suicidal, it would push you over the edge.

So how do you give it a thumbs up with an asterisk? Well done but terribly bleak?

moonwalker envy

Gene Cernan died on Monday. If you just went "who," you're not alone. I had no idea who he was, either.

He was one of only twelve men who walked on the moon and had the distinction of being the last one of them.

I'd be willing to bet most people cannot name more than one person who walked on the moon. Everyone knows the name Neil Armstrong, but who knows any of the others?

That makes me wonder if moonwalkers ever had any celebrity envy among themselves. Did the other eleven ever wish they were like Armstrong and receiving all the fame and glory. Or were they happy to be anonymous but with a very rare distinction?

The ones I feel sorry for are those guys who came so close but never got to land on the surface -- the pilots who stayed with the mother ship rotating around the moon while the others had fun among the craters.

goodbye president obama

Today will be President Obama's final day in office. He was President for more than a quarter of my life, and I will miss him. He was not perfect -- no one ever is -- but he has always been a man of integrity and class who inspired countless millions around the world.

As for what follows, well, I don't want to mention that today. I want to celebrate a great American in the few hours he remains in the White House.

funny but not funny

The television writer for the Scottish newspaper The Herald wrote a preview for the forthcoming American inauguration which is both amusing and creepy. If you can't read it below, check out the enlargement.

The media coverage here in Australia of the forthcoming event has been interesting. In a phrase, it's as if journalists and pundits are politely treating the United States like a now somewhat insane relation whose condition is mystifying and slightly terrifying.

Needless to say, I will not be watching any of the pageant coverage on television nor following it online.

feisty at 95

Betty White turned 95 yesterday. She still is working and shows no sign of slowing down. She has appeared on television since the late 1930s when she began work on a then-experimental TV station in Los Angeles.

I hope I live that long or longer and am still active and sharp. I see a lot of very old people when we visit the lady for whom we housesit at her care home, and while most of them are dimming in their twilight, there are a few nonagenarians who are still agile, active, and mentally sharp.

I read an offline article recently about a study that found how most mentally and physically active very old people have been that way their entire lives. For those who were mostly sedentary in their middle and later years, they had many more physical issues and also cognitive decline.

So the moral of the story is to never slow down. Indeed, when asked why she was such a young 95 in a recent interview, White revealed her secret: "keep busy."

She's pictured here in her early thirties.

mata hari blues

Over the weekend I read Paulo Coelho's new novella The Spy, a fictionalized story of the infamous spy, exotic dancer, and seductress Mata Hari. In short, I was hugely disappointed with the book.

I know Coelho has an almost cult-like following and is one of the all-time best selling writers in the world, but I was not impressed by his latest offering. He's lauded by his fans as a visionary, and derided by his critics as a dubious peddler of warmed-over New Age hokum. This book didn't put me in either camp; I just thought it was tepid and often amateurish writing.

In all honesty, I can't remember if this is the first Coelho book I've read. Skimming the synopses for some of his other books, they sound like the sort of thing I could read and then quickly forget.

Mata Hari is a fascinating and enigmatic figure from history, but The Spy in a sparse 30,000 words barely scratches the proverbial surface. As short as the book is, at times it was often redundant while never providing any real sense of Mata Hari and instead relying on tired cliches and shopworn elements.

After reading this, I have little incentive to tackle anything else by Coelho. I'll probably give him one more go with one of his mega-bestsellers, but if that doesn't do it, then he'll get a pass for good. There too many books available and not enough hours to spend time on prosaic, self-indulgent navel-gazing.

crawling with germs

This was made by pressing a healthy eight-year-old child's hand into a sterile Petri dish coated with a growth medium and then allowing it to incubate for several days.

As you can see, the imprint is coated with billions of bacteria from a variety of species. The white snowflake, for instance, is staph.

Although it looks like the kid is carrying major infectious diseases, all the identified bacteria here should not harm a healthy human. Our healthy bodies normally are chock full of trillions of bacteria, far more numerous than our own cells.

Still, it makes me want to scrub my kids' hands for half an hour when I see pictures like this. It could also be an effective aide for tricking an older child into washing his hands.

necrosis tattoo

This is a bad new tattoo in progress designed to cover up some earlier bad tattoos. Is that sort of like adding insult to injury?

The artwork apparently is meant to be a heart, but no heart was ever shaped like that. And what's with the black area along the bottom -- necrosis of the heart?

This is not a small tattoo -- when finished, it will cover the entire front of a man's thigh. So it's pretty freaking big. Thankfully jam shorts or pants will save its owner from public disgrace.

Here's the weirdest part of this -- when I used Google image search to find more information about it, the only results returned were real estate listings in Utah and the UK.

Color me confused.

a random event

These two bullets were locked in an embrace of sorts on the infamous Gallipoli Campaign battlefield. They apparently were found about one hundred years after the bloody World War I event.

As you can see by looking at the photograph below (enlargement), one bullet literally pierced the other while both were airborne, thereby rendering them harmless.

Now romantic folklore holds that one or both bullets did not find their mark, and hence at least one life and possibly two were spared. That's certainly a romantic notion and, if it was part of a plotline in a movie or novel, one might say it was too contrived.

If one or two lives were spared, was it divine intervention? Or luck? Or fate? Or destiny?

Or was it, as I would posit, a random event.

Think of it this way: a battlefield is a contained event within a set geometric space. Within that space, all sorts of projectiles are flying about. It is therefore entirely possible that, within the geometric space, some projectiles will hit people while some projectiles collide with each other.

These are random events, nothing more, nothing less. Now I know that's not a very romantic notion, and normally I can be a sucker for romantic fluff, but I won't discard logic in the process.

Life is a series of random events during which we seek to find order.

straight men watch gay porn?

I was reading about a recent, detailed study of male porn viewing habits, published in something called the Archives of Sexual Behaviour. This is what really jumped out at me: 21 percent of heterosexual men watch gay porn.

They're not watching lesbian porn. They're watching men-with-men porn.

Apparently the men in question have no gay "urges" and utterly no interest in engaging in gay sex themselves. They're simply heterosexual men watching gay men doing their thing.

This begs the question, which the study did not answer: why?

Presumably such men are watching this stuff in secret. Do any of them tell their girlfriends or wives?

If I walked in my husband watching sweaty men doing hardcore things to each other, I don't think I'd just shrug and move on. That would tell me something is amiss.

Or am I wrong? Is there a whole subculture of heterosexual men out there, fascinated by gay sex, that the rest of us know nothing about, yet it's no cause for concern?

gambling addicts

I just finished reading a fascinating article in The Atlantic about people with gambling addictions and the casinos that exploit them.

When I lived in Vegas, I went to casinos maybe two dozen times. I never played the machines. They held no appeal for me. According to the linked article, most gambling addicts in casinos are hooked on the machines.

The only thing I ever played was Blackjack, one of the few live casino games where you use skill to win and not chance if you know what you're doing. Chance games are for suckers.

Before Vegas, I knew a guy in New York who made a living playing blackjack at the New Jersey and New England casinos. I went with him several times to East Cost casinos, and he showed me how to play all the blackjack combinations.

Although I was never good at something theoretical like algebra, anything involving games and money sticks to my brain like glue. So I had no problem remembering the several dozen combination "rules" for blackjack. I still remember them.

Of the two dozen or so times I played blackjack in Vegas casinos, I always took more money away from the table than I had when I arrived. Usually I won no more than a few hundred dollars, but a few times I won several thousand.

I remember at the time realizing that I probably could make a living playing blackjack. I would not earn as much money as exotic dancing, but I could still make it a job.

But then I realized I'd have to spend week in and week out in a casino, a place place with no clocks and no windows. One of the worst thing about being a single young woman playing in a casino is you're flypaper for semi-drunks who think they're God's gift to the opposite sex and have to sit next to you.

So I decided it was better to dance naked than work the cards. I now don't regret making that decision because I was able to invest a lot of my earnings and still have that nest egg.

Being a gambling addict must be helpless because you're on a hopeless downward spiral but can't get off the ride. The idea of losing so much money would give me nightmares.

I'm too cautious with cash, so the only way I would walk into a casino is if I knew I would win. Not hope or wish but know. I don't believe in luck.

If you can't win the money with your brain and skills, you aren't going to win it. Casinos are mostly for suckers and the few people who know how to not be suckers.

Before I left Vegas, I took James to a casino with me once (this was pre-Australia and pre-marriage). He did not play but instead just watched me. He told me some time later it made him hard to watch me play and win.

He could not explain why he thought that happened but I always thought it was kind of a compliment. It wasn't just my body that excited him -- it was my brain, too.

why do men brawl?

After we watched Manchester by the Sea, which has several bar fight scenes, I asked my husband why many men like to fight. I consider him something of an authority on the subject, given he joined in quite a few brawls in the navy when he was a younger man. (I should add this is a habit he gave up long before he met me.)

In his case, he ended up brawling because he was somewhat or very drunk and another guy took a swing at one of his shipmates. As soon as the guy was attacked, all his mates came to his defense, which meant all of the attacker's mates came to his defense.

James said that, quite honestly, he did it for fun and so did many of his mates. They just plain enjoyed whaling the hell out of each other.

I've not witnessed too many brawls in person. When I was dancing in clubs, on occasion a drunk would fight back when hustled out by bouncers, but usually that ended very quickly because the odds were stacked against the attacker.

I also remember a few hallway brawls I witnessed in high school before I dropped out. My instinct at the time was just to get away from them so I wouldn't be hit by any errant punches.

I don't consider myself a passive person and am perfectly willing and able to use my mouth to speak up when I think something is wrong. But I could never, ever see myself hitting another person, with the exception if he or she was trying to harm one or both of my children. Then I'd go straight for the vulnerables like eyeballs or jugular with my car keys or, if it was a man, his balls.

I guess this is one of these Mars/Venus things. Many men instinctively want to fight, while for women, it's just about the last thing on our minds.

manchester by the sea

We continue to make our way through the box of DVD screeners that my Hollywood friend sent to me. Last night we watched Manchester by the Sea, starring Casey Affleck, Kyle Chandler, and Michelle Williams.

We both liked it very much, although I hesitate to say we enjoyed it. The movie is really a downer. Affleck is superb as an introverted janitor who can't deal with a tragedy in his former marriage and faces even more anguish when his brother dies suddenly at the film's beginning.

He must move back to the town of Manchester by the Sea, north of Boston, to care for his orphaned teenage nephew and put his brother's affairs in order. While there, he sees his former wife several times, played by Michelle Williams, who is also superb.

Manchester is a small story, almost a novel on film, and very much an "arthouse" flick, but it's so well done and nearly flawless. The final scene between Affleck and Williams is so incredibly painful and haunting.

The film is a "definite see" but not the sort of movie to watch when you're blue and need an emotional pick-me-up. It shouldn't be missed, however, and is ultimately very rewarding if not also depressing.

It's one of the best new films we've seen all year, if not the best.

what can I say?

This is one of those tattoos where I agree with the sentiment but still think it was a stupid idea.

The artwork depicts Donald Trump as a spoiled man-baby, which he is, and I agree wholeheartedly with that sentiment. At the same time, I can't condone a tattoo that fills someone's entire calf.

In a few years, hopefully Trump will go the way of Richard Nixon, an extreme embarrassment who will slink off to some exile out of sight. A federal prison would be ideal.

So a decade later, when everyone is trying to forget about Trump entirely, do you want a tattoo that will constantly remind them of America's great mistake?

falling bear

I couldn't stop laughing at this at the same time I felt really sorry for the poor man inside the bear suit. Didn't anyone think of gluing something to the bottom of his feet like carpet strips so he wouldn't keep falling down?

orgasmic quaking

This woman is quaking while being drilled by her lover. That tells me she's having one hell of an orgasm. You go girl!

Either that or she's faking it, but I certainly can't fake orgasmic quaking like this and never heard of anybody else who could.

I love that nirvanic sensation of an orgasm so strong I'm left weak and helpless. The sensation can be agonizing, too, as I lose complete control and quake helplessly from the intensity.

Fuck me until I quake like a leaf. I want that on my tombstone.

evil isms

I'm currently reading Australian Richard Flanagan's Man Booker Prize-winning novel The Narrow Road to the Deep North. It's a beautiful, haunting, deeply moving story centered around a Tasmanian doctor who becomes a POW during World War II and endures hellish conditions and experiences while caring for prisoners building a railroad deep in the conquered jungle.

At one point in the book, a British character pontificates about the superiority of the Caucasian race. In another passage, a Japanese character speaks about the superiority of the Asian race.

I was struck when I encountered the second of these by the realization that so many of the world's problems throughout history have been caused by some form of ism -- racism, tribalism, nationalism, jingoism, etc.

This may sound ridiculously simplistic, but if humans could conquer their embrace of these negative "isms," then many of the world's conflicts could begin to fade away. How to actually do that, of course, is a huge question.

While the world in many ways seemed to be moving away from problems caused by these "isms" for a while in the latter half of the twentieth century and the early part of this century, the global momentum seems to be moving in the other direction now.

Once more, "isms" are being embraced, and hostility is escalating anew. Will this return the world to a more dangerous footing like in the first half of the twentieth century? I hope not.

Arguably humans aren't as ruled by "isms" as they were in earlier centuries, so that suggests ultimately we have the capability to evolve beyond destructive beliefs. That may happen, but I imagine it would take at least several more centuries.

As for now, we're caught in the sink trap of human evolution.

arrival

We continue to make our way through the big box of DVD award screeners that my movie business friend sent to me. Last night we watched Arrival, starring Amy Adams, which is in theaters worldwide but not yet on DVD, so it was nice to be able to watch it at home.

In short, we both liked the film but found it wildly inconsistent. There are some absolutely stunning elements and scenes and moments, while at the same time some parts were badly cliched, clumsy, and contrived.

The "aliens suddenly land on earth for unknown reasons" is a genre that has been well mined before, and at times Arrival seems to be both a pastiche of and homage to those films. The broad concept is straight out of The Day the Earth Stood Still with generous helpings of Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Independence Day thrown in.

Adams plays a linguistic professor who is tasked with trying to find out why the aliens have visited earth. This element of the movie both works brilliantly and fails miserably but, on the whole, its what holds the whole story together.

The antagonists in the form of the military and the CIA are tired, recycled tropes from many other movies. Given Arrival is a big studio film, I wonder if movie executives forced some of those familiar groaners into the movie.

All told, I recommend the film for anyone who is a scifi fan as well as those who like a movie that makes them think. Ignore the bad parts and focus on the remarkable parts -- they are what make the film truly memorable.

heavy petting

I'm nearly finished reading Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA, by Tim Weiner. It's a rather long book, published about ten years ago, but nonetheless a very interesting read.

The title isn't exactly accurate. It's not a complete history of the CIA but instead primarily a history of covert operation screw-ups. The book is written entirely with primary sources and on-the-record interviews, so very little is devoted to intelligence gathering as a result because no one presumably would go on the record to talk about that.

Weiner is a reporter, not a historian, so he has a journalistic instinct about his material, whereas a historian might have supplied a more comprehensive and less scandal-driven narrative. A truly comprehensive history of the CIA is probably impossible because the agency necessarily cannot disclose a considerable amount of its history, particularly the more recent.

I found one anecdote in the book both funny and disturbing. In the early 1990s, because of atrocities in Guatemala perpetrated by members of the armed forces, the White House stopped giving military aid, in part because of pressure applied by the American ambassador in country.

However, the CIA continued to supply the military with a variety of aid. With the CIA's knowledge, individuals in Guatemalan intelligence bugged the American ambassador's residence and obtained tapes they claimed caught her engaging in lesbian sexual activity with a staff member named "Murphy."

The Guatemalan intelligence service turned the material over to the CIA, which in turn circulated the tapes back in Washington and on Capitol Hill. When the recordings finally came to the American ambassador's attention, she revealed what really was going on in her bedroom.

She was not billing and cooing with a female staff member; she was petting and pampering her dog named Murphy.

Needless to say, the individuals within the CIA responsible for the leak were only verbally reprimanded, which actually means utterly nothing was done.

Funny. But not funny at the same time.

masturbating at work

Alternet put up a short piece recently about the high percentage of people who masturbate while at work.

According to a study cited in the article, nearly 40 percent of people reported taking a self-love break while on the job.

Employers might see this as wasted time, but the opposite is actually true. Masturbation at work has been shown to improve both output and creativity.

Other than a few short stints doing temp work more than ten years ago, I've never been employed in an office, so it's sort of an alien landscape for me.

I have to say, the concept of pleasing myself in a restroom or supply closet is not my idea of a good time. I've never been much into masturbating because I prefer the real thing. So when I do it, I need a comfortable bed, an aromatic candle, erotic music on the iPod, and a pussy toy of some kind like a feather or vibrating egg -- not the sort of things you could take into the employee restroom with you.

That's not to say I don't think this is a good idea. If it makes people happier and more productive, who am I to complain?

Just please wash your hands when you're finished.

the winner of our discontent

Nothing says lifetime regret like a bad tattoo by a spelling-impaired "artist."

hello 2017

Happy New Year. I can't honestly say I'm hugely optimistic about this year. I'm hopeful but realistic, too. Come on fate, prove me wrong.

This is the best New Year-themed video I could find. It foreshadows Armageddon pretty well, too.

Have a safe and restful holiday. And remember my motto -- if you can't be good, be careful.