if i were an animal i would not be a lion. there are a number of reasons for this. for one i could never contort my face into such a fierce countenance. i am also not the king of anything. i came close once. i was jake at tetris for the gameboy, but then e-love showed up and made me his lioness (i.e. bitch). i think i recall that lions like to run around and piss or spray on things as to say "hey,...

a favorite food item of mine has long been a baked potato liberally doused in colby jack cheese, spring onions and sour cream. on very special occasions i may even spatter some bacon pieces on top to treat my aching palette.

saturday i was doing the dishes. i was possibly thinking about such a decadent spud while doing so. meanwhile an interview with a food photographer came on the radio. he was detailing the rigors of shooting different cuisines and how all of these artificial measures had to be taken to make the food look fresh out of the oven, frozen stiff or whatever the case may be. he revealed how to perfectly simulate an oven-fresh, piping hot potato, one simply had to take a totally water-condensed tampon, heated and shove it down into the fluffy white manna to simulate those hot spirals of steam one gets when first piercing the brown pod. works every time, he assured the interviewer.

yeah, well you know what else works every time? planting imagery in my head of my favorite food being immersed or otherwise wrapped around doctored feminine hygiene products. show some respect for the world around you! you bragging dolt!

while my influence on things in this world may be a tad on the lean side, i like to think that where i do guide events, they are events of consequence and import. i have to feel this way because there is really only one thing i've ever helped along and by every estimation it is one of the coolest institutions in the modern and connected world.

you may have popped in, stumbled upon it by accident or heard about it in the chat rooms but if it is not part of each and every friday you exist, you're making a grave error. so since today is friday and you're here reading this, it means you're not there enjoying that, so get over to the division of michaelcosm, michaelpella and be enthralled, entranced and bettered for it is something you should not go without.

all parents and potential parents have fears. will my child be healthy? will my child be happy? will my child succeed in what they want to do? while we all have them not everyone is forced to face them head-on. not everyone is actually dealt one of these blows to cope with, adjust to and move on from. while maybe not a foreseeable item for me, one of my greatest fears regarding a child of mine was realized last week.

i haven't been pestering you all on this, or much else for that matter, but so no one sleeps through it, i feel compelled to give you a heads up that the everyman photo contest deadline is zooming forth. sunday. october 19. midnight. central standard time.

and, this year is going to look a little different. in the first year, there were a total of 40 photos all entered by people who have eaten dinner at my house. last year there were 80 photos entered and the majority of them were a friend or a friend of a friend. to date, i have a few hundred people submitting many hundreds of photos from dozens of nations, and none of them have ever even heard of me. and allow me to repeat that those figures are 'to date' meaning we still got a few weeks left. and if the last few years are in any way indicative of what's to come (meaning getting a whole bunch of last minute submissions in the waning hours) i'm super-screwed and will need to cancel my subscription to the spice channel because i'm going to be entirely engaged trying to turn all of these photos around.

and, it just occurred to me that i'm only speaking of the items i've received in my email and that i've totally forgotten the stack of fifty plus envelopes sitting on top of my scanner that i've received to my PO Box and are waiting to be scanned.

major suck.

it appears i may have to also nix my charity work at the Coping with Your Circumcision Center.

most people who meet me are hyper curious/anxious to meet marty, and not for the same reason luby was itching to meet her. first they want to see if she's really a she (marty ... marty ... could go either way). and secondly, for the same tired reason of just having to know who elected to put up with me till death makes us part.

well, for your information, the person putting up with me had a very lackadaisical look on her face when we saw two pandas having sex in a tree on the tele and the commentator talked about how the female had two vaginas. after telling marty she was at least 50% deficient she informed me that i was short one bifurcated penis as well and that if i'd work on mine, she'd work on hers.

marty then went onto say that she's often contemplated stopping to check out road-maimed opossums because they, like pandas, have this dual genital thing going on. first question is, how does anyone know this. second question is, how the hell did i end living with a person who knows this. third question is, how the hell is it i'm somehow known as the freaky one living at our address.

and, if you're curious, luby seeks to meet the partners of people he may intend hanging out with just in case the other person totally sucks because he "already has one friend he can only eat lunches with because that's the only time his wife is sure to be working and thus guaranteed to be previously engaged."

to the guy running around the internet calling himself 'onan the masterbaterian', thanks. you make me smile. laugh actually. and, this is in no way a dig. i totally in every way envy the combined lunacy and bravado in which you are leading your life. trudge forth my friend. trudge forth.

awhile back i was approached by a guy who wanted to know if i was interested in doing some design work for a porn site or two. he assured me that he and people he knew had quite a need and the opportunities would be both abundant and lucrative.

the only burn i could see is that i'd be doing work i couldn't exactly put in my portfolio which is a little bit on the evil side. when i mentioned it in passing to marty she surprisingly had a few more negative items outside of the portfolio issue. "just how would you feel telling your daughter that you peddled pornographic material for a living?"

would i be sitting in my new Porsche when explaining it to her?

this would be an example of the wrong thing to say to marty when discussing such matters.

i have one chest hair. i've had it for about 15 years. this hair is three inches long. and it grows right out of the dark border of my nipple, not next to it like you'd expect. and, it's squirrley, shooting out all hurly-burly, not straight or ordinary at all. every few months it falls out but regenerates in just days if not just hours.

this somehow came up in conversation at work and the guy i was talking to was saying things like "what in the hell are you talking about?" and "stop talking. just stop talking."

then, thinking he wasn't getting it or wasn't believing me, i stuck two fingers into the gap between the buttons on my shirt and started fishing around for it.

him: what are you doing?

me: i'm going to show it to you?

him: i don't want to see it.

me: no, it's ok. i can pull it out between the buttons.

him: stop doing that.

me: it'll just take a second.

him: don't do that.

me: wait. i almost got it.

him: no. stop. i don't want to see that thing.

me: (i stop) oh i'm sorry. but, it's really quite a thing.

him: don't ever do that again. i'm serious man. don't ever do that again.

in a trip to the zoo last week, i found bella hunched over a display and pushing a button on the wall. i peered in through the smallish Plexiglas window and saw a bunch of sand and twigs. my eyes prowled for the prize. i scanned the box until i saw pressed into one of the corners a shiny, blue, three inch scorpion. AAAHHHH! i shrieked. then bella pushed the button and the box went dark. that is everything in the box except the scorpion which now glowed a dull shade of white. BBBAAAARRRRGGGGHHHH! i super shrieked and bella looked up smiling largely and asked if i saw the blue spider-crab.

if you're like me you never conceived that such a creature could exist. want to know where freaky ass glow in the dark blue scorpions come from? while i'm not sure exactly where they got that one i crapped three of them into my shorts when bella hit that friggen' button.

you may or may not believe me, but believe that if i ever saw this thing out of its box, you'd need to know stephen hawking math to precisely count how many of those atrocities shot out of my ass.