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Band-Aids And Apology Greeting Cards Sold Separately

Happy National Boss Day!

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Ah, it's that time of year again - time to celebrate The Boss with a nationally-observed, non-banking holiday. In case you didn't know, October 16th is National Boss Day. It's a day for us to all kick back and thank our lucky stars that Jersey's native son, Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen,  is still rocking out across the USA. Not sure what to do to properly celebrate this annual holiday? Not to worry, I'm here to help.

For The Ladies
Ok ladies, there is only one must for you on this holiday - say it with me, "press-on nails". The gaudier, the better as it's a true tribute to The Boss and his Jersey roots. This YouTube clip should point you in the right direction. Keep in mind, the nails in this video are super classy - we're going for something a little flashier. Perhaps you can have a friend apply rhinestones to the nails or find something that expresses your creative side. Remember, National Boss Day is a holiday for everyone to enjoy. Perm, red bandanna and White Snake leather jacket are optional.

For The Gentlemen
This is it - the big day has finally arrived this year. National Boss Day will usher in your favorite time of year; first there's this, then Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Eve. In order to properly prep for today, you'll need a few things, including: an outdoor grill so you can make beer can chicken, authentic Born In The U.S.A. '84 Tour t-shirt with sleeves cut off and your vintage jeans from the 80s (don't worry, nobody else fits into theirs either - just buy a new pair of Levis, run them through the wash a dozen or so times, drag them through the dirt a bit and cut some holes in the fabric). Oh, be sure to plan your shaving routine so there is just a little stubble on the day of the concert - The Boss would be so proud.

For The Kids
Good Lord, the old people are reminiscing about the past again. You probably don't even know who Bruce Springsteen is, right? Meh, who cares - you're too busy downloading pirated movies to care about National Boss Day. Just let the old folks have their day and forgive them as they throwback to the 'great times' they had during the 80s, remembering perms and the Walkman (the what?). Oh, and I wouldn't recommend watching the Super Bowl this year...old man Springsteen is going to be the halftime 'entertainment'.Why they couldn't book Rihanna is just beyond me - what were they thinking?

For The Elderly
I'm sorry we couldn't celebrate Memorial Day or Veteran's Day with the same level of festivities as we do for National Boss Day. It's just that we only have enough money for two big barbecues each year, and one is already taken for the 4th of July. So we kind of make that a general 'America Day' and roll up all those other patriotic holidays into the mother of them all (the 4th). In anticipation of this year's Boss Day, the American adult population apologizes in advance for the following:

  • The loud music
  • Forgetting to bring you in a plate with dinner from the barbecue we hosting
  • Forgetting to remind you just who in the hell Bruce Springsteen is and why he has a national holiday, when we're still waiting for a holiday to be sanctioned for Gen. Douglas MacArthur
  • The drunken neighbor who didn't know any better and ate your packet of meds for the day. The doctor said it's ok if you skip the liver meds for one day, right? We'll pick back up tomorrow and it'll be just fine.
  • The amount of fuchsia, electric green and hairspray you will be subjected to over the next 24 hours

Myth-Busting Monday: Colonial Style

Growing up we are all told little white lies by the adults in our lives. The stork delivers babies. The tooth fairy leaves money under your pillow. We couldn't go to Walt Disney World as kids because it was destroyed in a freak gasoline accident and it was being reconstructed over a 12-year period (until curiously, it was reopened the week after I graduated from high school). It's all done to protect our innocence while we're young.

But there's one lie that has been told for so long that people now just accept it as fact. It has shaped our government and who we are as a people. Today the truth shall be revealed that Delaware is not a state.


Fact: Nobody is from Delaware.

Think about it, you've never met anyone from there, and you don't even have a friend of a friend from there. Quick, name a famous person who was born in Delaware. Exactly.

Even if Delaware were real, nobody would admit to being born there. They would get fake documents and pretend to be from Maryland.


Fact: Nothing is made in Delaware.

Delaware isn't famous for making/producing anything. Idaho has potatoes, Vermont has maple syrup and New Hampshire has hippies. Ever buy anything that was made in Delaware? Me either.


Fact: Even the state flag looks fake.

Case in point – a second grade class could have made this flag using paint by numbers. Honestly, who puts a date on a flag?

Fact: You've never seen Delaware.

It's like a ghost – you can't take a picture of it. Nobody vacations there and you don't know any famous landmarks in Dover (the only "city" you know in the "state"). Do you know what the Delaware license plate looks like? Right, you've never seen it – even when playing that stupid license plate game in the car. Hell, I've seen plates from Alaska, Hawaii and Rhode Island, but never Delaware.


I can already hear you saying, "But I've seen Delaware on the map!" Sure, you saw it on the map. That's because Rand McNally (1745-1816) was a raging lunatic. One night while drawing a map of the newly formed United States (13 colonies), he mistakenly cut the Maryland border short and was left with land to the east. Never one to do maps in pencil (it was "for sissies"), McNally pretended a state had been there all along. He called the state "Delaware" and it sounded official enough to pass. To make the story stick, he claimed that it had been the first state to ratify the Constitution and hired a street beggar to get dressed up in the finest pantaloons and go to Washington, D.C. as the official representative of the state. Anybody who challenged him was immediately called an "redcoat-loving vagabond" (a favorite phrase of the old cartographer). Seeing as there was nothing to the east of Delaware but Jersey, nobody ever had the desire to cross the Maryland/Delaware border and seek out the make-believe state.


So if Delaware wasn't the first state to ratify the Constitution, then who was? Well, that honor belongs to Pennsylvania. A state I (and many others) have actually visited. A state with professional sports teams. A state famous for something (Ben Franklin, steel, delicious cheesesteak sandwiches, the Liberty Bell, the Amish). A state that isnot just a state of mind. Take that, Delaware.

Myth-Busting Monday: Robots, Robots Everywhere

If there is one thing that the 1950s taught us, it was that the future would be laden with robots of all shapes and kinds. Robots to do the dishes. Robots to drive us to work. Robots to tuck the kids in bed. But what did we get instead? Dishwashers, cruise control and Nanny 911 (arguably the worst sixty minutes of television in recorded history).

No, the promise of the 1950s has come far short of our collective expectations. So I humbly submit to you the closest things we have to a modern-day robot:

Speak-n-spell


You can tell it what to say and
it has a robot voice. Enough said

.


ASIMO

Honda's crowning achievement (we all know it isn't the Honda Civic…no matter what the hell Richard Dreyfus says) is a 4' tall robot-like contraption named ASIMO. This modern wonder does two things. It walks and it climbs stairs slower than your 87 year-old grandmother. Holy crap, I care so little I almost passed out. Clearly Honda engineers never saw Short Circuit. Watch it tonight and call me when you have a real robot (hint: it should have a laser and a cool name like Johnny 5).

Teddy Ruxpin

Sweet Lady of Guadalupe – it's like a robot babysitter! Just put in a cassette, sit the kids on the floor and say hello to Monday Night Football. Aside from the creepy similarities to Chucky, it's perfect for little kids. Hope it was worth the criminal negligence charges.


Stephen Hawking

I mean this with the utmost respect. Stephen Hawking is so amazing he could pass for a robot. Let's examine the evidence. He's got wheels. He has the computerized voice. He can calculate the distance to the next galaxy in the time it takes you to figure out what flavor of herbal tea to order at Starbucks. He is the original mathelete (and has the t-shirt to prove it) and he just wrote another book in the time it took me to post this entry. If we have any chance of developing an actual robot in the next 50 years, it's him.

So where are my robots?! We don't even have an all-in-one robot like Rosie from the Jetsons. Instead, all we have are sorry excuses for what should be the greatest invention of all time. What are we supposed to do when the cyborgs come? We were counting on a robot army to defend us. I don't know about you, but I'm calling Stephen Hawking to see if he'll build me a robot...or at least defend me during the uprising.

Myth-Busting Monday: The Future is Tomorrow

Growing up, we all learn that the future is tomorrow - that advancements in technology will herald a new age known as "the future". But I think that day has arrived. Ladies and gentlemen, the future is not tomorrow, it is today (well, and I guess tomorrow too. The point is that the future starts today.). All you have to do is look at the signs:

Journey:

Journey


So you're must be asking, "How can a hit band from the 80's mean that the future is here? Aren't they from our past?" Well, few people know this, but Journey is the future. They have time traveled from the distant future just to rock your world. Do you have a better explanation for their hard-rocking hits, their killer guitar riffs? How about their uncanny ability to be on every jukebox in every dive bar in America? It's the truth...you knew it all along. So pop two quarters in the jukebox - and just don't stop believing.


Cyborgs:

They're here and they're real. Be afraid. Be very afraid:

  • Chuck Norris: Karate Cyborg
  • Abe Vigoda: The Butt-of-Everyone's Joke Cyborg
  • Billy Joel: Car-Crashing Cyborg
  • Arnold Schwarzenegger: Cyborg-Killing Cyborg
  • Al Roker: Pastry-Consuming Cyborg
  • Marc Summers: Obstacle Course-Designing/Flag-Finding Cyborg


The Flux Capacitor:

Anytime we hear about the future, we are told about flying cars and time travel. A couple of months ago I saw a flux capacitor for sale on eBay. The description was, and I quote:

"It's what makes time travel possible."

How awesome is that? Please tell me how that seller is not a lock to win the Nobel Prize in Physics. They've got my vote. Now I just need to wait for someone to put up a Mr. Fusion unit for sale - I'll stick that sucker on my car and show those Prius drivers what a real eco-friendly auto looks like. "Oh, your Prius gets 48 mpg highway? That's nice...my car runs on coffee grounds, banana peels and beer cans. Top that!"

The Miniaturization of Food:

In virtually every movie about the future, people no longer eat meals. They take meal-replacement pills with a glass of water. While the finished products are not yet available, test pills have been released to the public. Right now the company making them is a quiet little unassuming operation. But one day the meal-replacement pills will be ready, and when that day comes, the company will become an overnight juggernaut.

Yes, I'm talking about the company you know as Jelly Belly. Those delicious little beans are meal-replacement prototypes. Cherry, lemon-line, root beer, buttered popcorn, jalapeño, peanut butter and tangerine - just a few of the hundreds of flavors they make. The future is here, my friend and it's delicious.

The Exclusive

One of my friends recently introduced me to the '10 Second Interview' application on Facebook. I think it's one of the more amusing applications offered, so I thought I'd offer a peek at my interview. Enjoy...

Pop Tarts or Toaster Strudel?
Pop Tarts, hands down. Best post-nuclear holocaust survival nourishment, ever.

Five star hotel or tent in the woods?
Five star hotel - hmmm...should I have the eggs benedict in bed or get eaten by a bear?

I'd say that vegetables are...
...at the bottom of the Food Pyramid for a reason.

Save the cheerleader, save the...
...18 to 24 demographic ratings?

If you were a Simpson's character, who would you be and why?
I'd be Troy McClure, because you might remember me from such classroom films as 'Man vs. Nature: The Road To Victory' or 'Two Minus Three Equals Negative Fun'.

Why are there so many zombies on Facebook?
Because it's more efficient to achieve world domination through a social network than by going door-to-door.

The key to success is...
...hidden under the doormat in front of our house, in case you get locked out and mom's not home.

Madness Fried Up Daily

Funnelcakes

They've finally done it. IHOP has managed to concoct a menu item completely devoid of any nutritional value. The new funnel cake is not only nauseating, but it also makes no sense as a menu item.

I imagine the conversations at your local IHOP will go something like this:

Waitress: Welcome to IHOP! What can I get you this morning?

Customer: Hi, I'll have the two scrambled eggs with country ham and rye toast.

Waitress: Anything to drink with that?

Customer: Sure, I'd like a cup of coffee. Cream and sugar, please.

Waitress: Ok, and for you sir?

Husband: Um, I'll have the funnel cake with blueberry and whipped cream topping.

Customer: Harold, you can't have that crap for breakfast!

Husband: Why not, Linda? I'm a grown man and should be able to eat whatever I feel like.

Customer: Because this isn't a damned state fair, that's why. You can't go around eating funnel cakes and fried Oreos for breakfast.

Waitress: Actually ma'am, we have folks coming in every morning ordering funnel cakes and fried Oreos.

Customer: You actually serve fried Oreos? Lord help me, this place makes me sick.

Myth-Busting Monday: 57 Ways to One Answer

Myth: Hitting a bottle of Heinz ketchup on the number 57 will get the ketchup to pour out properly.

I can't tell you how many times I've been out to dinner and had a bottle of ketchup that refused to pour. Inevitably, someone at the table has to say, "Dude, dude - just hit the number 57. That's the trick to making it pour out." Really? Cause every time I do that I end up looking like the jackass beating on a ketchup bottle like Ricky Ricardo playing Babaloo on closing night at the Tropicana. It just doesn't work and, on top of that, I end up looking like a tool.

Man, all those people banging on glass ketchup bottles - makes me think that there had to be at least one person who hit it too hard and CRACK - broke the damned thing open. Now it probably wasn't your average person. But come on, you can't tell me Hulk Hogan doesn't like some Heinz on those fries. It's 10:00 at night after Wrestlemania VII and double-H and some wrestling pals cram into a booth at Denny's like clowns squeeze into a car. Hulkster orders a burger and fries and reaches for that Heinz bottle when the dishes are served. Like any mortal, he struggles to get the ketchup out. The knife trick doesn't work because the knife is too big to get inside the bottle (that trick never works). Here comes the obligatory advice, as Macho Man Randy Savage tells him to hit the bottle on the 57. Two solid smacks and the bottle smashes like salad plate at a Greek wedding. Hulkster's hands are all red and he's screaming his head off.

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Randy Savage tells him to cool it - it's only ketchup. Everyone at the table chuckles, thinking the hulk is doing a fake death scene using ketchup as a prop. But Hulk is still wide-eyed, roaring like a lion cause the bottle cut him and nobody can tell that he's bleeding all over, because the ketchup is everywhere. That damned ketchup that wouldn't come out of the bottle is now flippin' everywhere - except on the Hulkster's fries.