Newt Gingrich Has Lost His Shit: An Open Letter to Newt Gingrich

Newt,

Do you mind if I call you Newt? I've never known a Newt. As I kid I had a tree frog, turtles, dogs, and even a tarantula, but never a newt, much less a Newt. It's quite the diminutive.  I have to say though, maybe you should have stuck with Newton or even rocked Leroy once you kind of figured out you may want to go into politics. Plenty of people go by their middle names (I do!) and Newt just strikes me as a little unpresidential. Like Cooter or Hambone or Catfish. Enough about the name; you're played the cards you're dealt, right?

What I want to know is this: WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS MOON COLONY BULLSHIT?!?! A moon colony? Really, Newt? Really? What is going on with the GOP? You guys are in a race for the Republican nomination, not a race to see who can be the most unelectable. Rick Perry is a crazy, Christian fundamentalist with an affinity for Carhartt jackets, incredibly well coiffed hair, and epic verbal bumbles. Michele Bachmann is a sharp-faced homophobe (in spite of the fact that she seems to be married to a confirmed bachelor) who simultaneously manages to misspell both her first and last names. Herman Cain is a pizza baron (a pizza baron?) who apparently likes to give his female customers a little extra pepperoni even when they say "Please, no pepperoni, Mr. Cain." Mitt Romney is a Mormon cyborg who is incredibly successful in the business of ruining lives. And Ron Paul, well, he sometimes makes sense, which precludes him from ever doing anything meaningful in Washington.

Newt, you were back in the game! Granted, that game is a game of Who Wants To Lose To Obama Next November, but at least you were in the conversation after an epically slow start off the blocks. And now this? A moon colony? Were all your staffers just sitting around before the Florida primary out of ideas and frustrated and someone said, "Fuck it, let's watch Total Recall"?

Ground control to Newt Gingrich. Take your protein pills and put your helmet on.

Listen, I'm all for setting a lofty goal to galvanize the nation in the face of stark challenges, but Kennedy's "Land a man on the moon" this is not. We were in the throes of The Cold War and an epic pissing contest with the Soviets. There was a race to be won. The Taliban doesn't even believe in toothpaste, much less space travel and I'm pretty sure John Q. Public would rather find a way to keep his house here on earth than have you fund a program to build him one on THE FUCKING MOON! The moon?!?

This has been like watching a bunch of special needs high school kids run for class office. You guys might as well promise to put Dr. Pepper in all of the nation's drinking fountains or cut the workday by two hours every Friday for a nationwide pep rally.

Seriously, Newt. Stop playing. You guys are all joking around, right? This is like a massive hidden camera show and the entire US populace is the mark, right? That has to be it. You guys are going to put Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and Saturday Night Live out of business because the Republican debates are more hilarious than anything Comedy Central or SNL writers could come up with. Is that the angle? Shoot me straight. You guys are just ceding this election to Obama in a bid to run the lampooners out of business and pave the way for a Republican win in 2016, right?

No?

WHAT THE FUCK, NEWT GINGRICH?!

I feel like Will Ferrell's Alex Trebek in the Celebrity Jeopardy sketches from Saturday Night Live. Say something that makes sense, anything at all, and you can win this nomination. What's that you say? Fund a moon colony? Jesus.

Hoping you're the first and last colonist we send to the moon,

Doug

  

The Prestige: My Home-Schooled Dog

I am an accidental dog owner. Although I didn't happen upon Mazzy Sarah Maclachlan pitiful, covered in mud, whimpering in an alley somewhere and take her in or win her in a white elephant auction or foolishly enter into some foggy business transaction with a non-English speaking Gypsy and have her foisted upon me, I did become inextricably her Alpha Dog in nearly as significant a what-the-fuck-just-happened kind of way...although much less altruistically than in the Sarah Maclachlan scenario.

In retrospect, I was sort of cattleman Shanghai-ed; rancher magic tricked. I had a buddy who had an uncle who had two working Australian Cattle Dogs and those two ACDs did the deed and wound up with a whole litter of adorable little part Dingos. My buddy expressed an interest in owning one of the puppies and asked me if I'd like to drive out to his uncle's property with him to pick up his new dog.

"Sure," I said, "But I'm not going home with a dog."

"No problem," says he, "We'll only be there for a bit and I'm pretty sure all of the dogs are spoken for already."

I now know this to be the first part of a magic trick. The Pledge.

We rolled into his uncle's dirt driveway and immediately laid eyes upon a whole gaggle of rambunctious ACD hellions wrestling in the mud, nipping one another's recently docked tails, and moving in all ways like atoms being shot around a super-collider.

When I first saw Mazzy, I won't say it was love at first sight, but it definitely wasn't disinterest. She was the only she. She was the only one whose tail had not been docked, and she was staring up at a plane flying overhead. This is sort of the single guy's equivalent of walking into a coffee shop where a bunch of girls are comparing Coach purses, talking about Jersey Shore, preening, and then looking over to see a naturally beautiful woman reading A Death in The Family quietly by herself.

This is the second part of a magic trick. The Turn.

My buddy was trying to corral his new puppy and talk to his uncle while Mazzy and I shared a moment. She was energetic but not manic. She was playful but not dopey. She was inquisitive but not clingy. She was...

"She's yours if you want her," my buddy's uncle said.

"Ha! I'm just along for the ride," I replied. "I can barely take care of myself, much less a dog." Seriously. This wasn't just Texas banter. I liked to stay up late, sleep late, drink beer, come and go as I pleased, and lead a decidedly dogless life.

I might as well have said, "I love her! I have to have her!"

"My daughter wanted her, but she's being wishy-washy. Hang on, I'll call her," was the rancher's reply.

After a brief phone conversation (it easily could have been a dial tone on the other end of the line) in which the rancher's daughter decided that she could not take the dog, I found myself driving home with a puppy riding shotgun. How'd he do that?

This is the third part of a magic trick. The Prestige.

I'd be inclined to applaud, but my furry little prestige has continued to appear at the foot of my bed every morning for the last six years. Energetic has become borderline manic. Playful has become occasionally dopey. And inquisitive has most certainly touched on clingy.

For those unfamiliar with ACDs, they have energy for days. These are dogs who herd cattle, not bitchass sheep. They're rugged, athletic, tough as nails, and loyal/protective to a fault. Every time Mazzy and I see another dog on one of our runs (these runs are a necessity to bleed some of that energy), Mazzy goes all Regulator from that Warren G song and starts repping her hood. She's handy with the steel and she's damn good too. Mostly, this is an annoyance as it serves to nearly send me ass over tea kettle more often than not and, if she's ever able to get to the other dog, her Regulator attitude quickly devolves into licking and butt sniffing.



Additionally, she's way too smart for her own good. If I make a move to the drawer in the dresser with the running shorts in it, even if it's just to fold said shorts and put them away, her ears perk up and her tail wags and she goes to her leash. Once we're outside, she drumrolls the ground with her paws until she hears the beep on my watch and then barks and bounds joyfully for the first fifty yards or so of our run. And these aren't token runs to get her blood flowing a little bit. These are five to ten mile seven and a half or eight minute mile pace runs in all weather.

Her head is about to explode here. And yes, I'm wearing tights.

For a long time I thought the more we went on regular runs, the more she would mellow out a touch. Such is not the case. I've recently become aware that I've been training a world class athlete and she's only getting stronger and therefore more capable of the bounding, barking, chasing mania I was trying to defeat in her.

Now, before you go all Cesar Millan on me, understand that the kid has structure, discipline, and affection. In the house, she's an angel. She sits and waits and doesn't get on the furniture or tear up anything. It's only outside that she goes ape shit and really only when we see another dog. Essentially, Mazzy's home-schooled. She's a social retard. I've sometimes handled this patiently and philosophically, and I've sometimes thought about tying her in a pillowcase and throwing her in a river...or mailing her in a box to Sarah Maclachlan. Not really.

But really.

My question to the dog owners out there is this: Any advice on how to rewire a wired, home-schooled, socially retarded, genius athlete? Clearly, my six years of effort have failed to hit the mark.

Also, be careful with how generously you proffer your advice. I've been studying magic tricks and I'm pretty sure this was The Pledge.        

Words With Friends People I've Grown to Hate

One of the many pieces of evidence that has supported my great fear that I am in fact getting older is my intolerance for all manner of social networking games, apps, and postable quizzes. I'm immediately tempted to defriend anyone on Facebook who invites me to play Farmville or Mafia Wars or who posts anything telling me how in love they are today. I Facestalk as much as the next guy, but have the decency to give me something to reward me for my efforts. I don't care which John Hughes film you are or that you're listening to Lana Del Rey RIGHT NOW. In the future, everyone will have their fifteen minutes of fame. There's an app for that.

The one exception to my curmudgeonly aversion to these sorts of things is Words With Friends. I'm addicted to it. I'm the guy who will start three games with one person and play them all at the same time. This is the 2012 version of that home schooled kid with two inhalers and the perpetually runny nose entering a speed scrabble tournament. I worry about defense and vowel to consonant ratios and setting up big scores. I mentally high five myself when I use a Q, Z, or X on a triple letter space in a word that also covers a triple word score. I talk trash to myself to my opponents when I break the one hundred point barrier with a single word. I play on my phone at stoplights. I get honked at.

The thing is, for a guy who loves words and reading and prides himself on having a well developed vocabulary, I have three friends who absolutely beat the shit out of me every time we play. When I first became addicted to the game, I had fantasies of playing words like loquacious, pusillanimous, quixotic, and acquiesce. Instead, I'm regularly losing to a Canadian dairy farmer, a bartender, and a should-have-been Abercrombie model. And by "losing" (10 points), I mean being epically defeated by over one hundred points and struggling to play words like nut (5 points), it (2 points), poo (5 points), and hi (4 points). This exasperates (20 points) me.

Norm's not really a dairy farmer...anymore. He grew up in bucolic (15 points) New Brunswick on a dairy farm but is now a chemist for a major pharmaceutical company. In all honesty, he may be the smartest guy I know and he approaches Words With Friends in the same meticulous manner that he services his bike, cleans his home, and grills his steaks. This means he's memorized every Q without U word, every two letter word, and probably has a reference guide akin to a football coach's "Go For 2" chart that is codified, highlighted, and indexed (17 points) that tells him which playable word is most likely to send me into a blind, murderous rage. Every time I think I'm hanging in there he goes and plays a word like "qoph."

Me: Qoph?! What the fuck does qoph mean?! Use it in a sentence.

Norm: Doug, qoph is the nineteenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

Dammit!

The thing is, unlike some of my other more Machiavellian (28 points) friends, I know Norm isn't googling "words that start with q" and then pulling a fast one on me. He's smart and principled. I hate him for it.

Much like Norm, Daniel isn't really a bartender, although he does tend bar...at the pub he also part owns. The thing about the restaurant business is that to be successful you have to have good food, a great atmosphere, and incredible business acumen (14 points). The restaurant industry cemetery is littered with well meaning creative types who could cook their socks off but couldn't do inventory or manage a staff to save their lives. Daniel seems quite capable in all of these areas, which apparently makes him unbeatable at Words With Friends. Restaurateurs are often up at all hours of the night and I can't tell you how infuriating it is to wake up to your turn and find that some pugnacious (21 points) pub proprietor has found time, between mixing Jaeger Bombs and pulling Guinness pints, to drop a "quizzical" on you for over one hundred points. Recently, Daniel has stopped asking me for games. Do you know what it feels like to not be challenging enough for someone? It's like getting dumped. I can use circuitous (18 points) in a sentence, dammit! To make matters worse, if he ever does ask me for a game again, I'll know it's because he met his Daniel and he needs a slump buster.

John is a soccer buddy of mine from college. He's easily one of the best players I've ever had the pleasure of sharing the field with and I'll always remember both of us arguably having the match of our college careers in the same game. He scored four goals and I stood on my head to save four times as many and we beat the number two team in the region in an away match in which their fans' trash talk became sincerely complimentary towards me in the second half. Add to that the fact that John doesn't have a disingenuous bone in his body and that that body is chiseled like a freaking Greek god - not to sound homosexual (24 points) - and you can see why it's SO FUCKING FRUSTRATING to get absolutely worked over every time we play Words With Friends. In our last game, he won 417 to 216. He played "glozed." Glozed?

I make myself feel better by telling myself things like I was the cerebral (14 points) kid on the team and John was the strong jaw line and surely he meant to play "glazed," but accidentally used an O and it just happened to work out for him, but this happens every time we play. No one's that lucky. Right? And if they are, why is it against me? Maybe he has a cheat code I don't know about. The thinking man's version of up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, Select, Start. Glozed. Fuck glozed.

If I keep playing I'll get better. I've learned to use ka and adz and za to great effect, but Norm, Daniel, and John continue to be my white whales. Swerve, me? The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents' beds, unerringly I rush! Naught's an obstacle, naught's an angle to the iron way!

Fuck. Norm just played "hove" for forty eight points.    

Shout Out

My college buddy Kelsey is intelligent, insightful, talented, gorgeous, and snarky as hell. Also, she shares my birthday so she has to be badass. Read her blog at Kelseynicollescott.com and like it. That is all...unless you're a talent scout and need an actor, writer, singer, and/or outstanding waitress. In that case, hire her. That is truly all.

@&#!

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Rocky Mountain National Park

I was on a business trip to Denver in 2008 with a buddy of mine from work. We had a few hours one afternoon with nothing to do so I suggested we put our four cylinder rental car through its paces and make the drive to the visitor's center at Rocky Mountain National Park.

The park is one of my favorite places in the world. In national park circles this is a little like saying PF Chang's or Maggiano's is your favorite restaurant. Rocky Mountain National Park lacks the isolated beauty of Acadia or Zion and its proximity to Denver makes it a certainty that, especially in the summer, one will have to travel well off the beaten path to find that delicious moment of solace so many national park goers seek when they plan a trip. And to travel off said beaten path, a back country pass must be applied for years in advance.

It's atypical for me to say this, but that's part of why I love the park so much. I've never been there, whether in a car for a brief visit or on foot with just a few awed friends for company two days from the trailhead, and not seen something profoundly beautiful. The park's magic is in its accessibility. On a hazy, claustrophobic day in Denver, one can look west and know that just an hour away, hiding impossibly behind the particulate in the air, is a panorama of natural beauty on a scale that puts daily life in its proper perspective.

My work buddy had never been west of the Mississippi River and was anxious as soon as the road tilted slightly upwards as we weaved toward Estes Park. I made the most of this by repeatedly taking my hands off the steering wheel to fiddle with the radio and point out elk or cyclists or breaks in the tree line. He countered by repeatedly imploring me to keep both hands on the wheel and ease off the accelerator a bit as he snapped pictures out the car window.

I learned long ago that any photos I took would insult my memory of what the views actually looked like. There's just no way to capture the totality of such an impressive landscape and the depth and colors and crispness of the mountains always seems too compressed and demagnified through the lens of a camera. Maybe I'm just a bad photographer. In spite of this, I had packed my camera just in case, but I had no plans to use it. I just wanted to get to the visitor's center and sit and watch and be still.

It was late afternoon and the sun was starting to set. The Alpine Visitor's Center at Rocky Mountain National Park is right at 12,000 feet and even in August it gets really cold in the evening. We were not dressed for this at all, but a lenticular cloud was hovering right above the peak at the visitor's center and as the sun dipped, it did this:

Sometimes you're just in the right place at the right time. The photos still don't do it justice. 

Ancient Economics: The Great Wife of Lot Debate

This is a repost from a few years ago. It's a transcript of an email conversation between some of my friends and I and, dammit, I'm posting it again because it's still one of the funniest things I've ever read. This is what happens when young professionals educated at a Christian university who have a penchant for bullshit try to look busy in their entry level jobs.

Scotty: Do you think Lot's wife was worth more as a human or as a condiment? Keep in mind the huge popularity of the slave trade and the spice trade during the BCE. Also, assume that the pillar she became was equal in grams to her weight as a human.

Doug: Is salt rendered from a human being considered kosher? Is this a moot point as Lot's wife was transformed by God Himself? Surely her value as salt would go up significantly if both Jews and Gentiles could consume her. Also, and I just thought of this, was she a pillar in grain form? Or, was she just a giant pillar of rock salt? I think the rock salt would be much more valuable but also more difficult to sell. You're really looking at a single buyer in that scenario because not many people would have the shekels to shell out for a wife-sized rock of salt. Either way, surely the novelty of a wife-sized (and shaped) pillar of salt would add a few bits to the price. It's not everyday you see something like that!

Barrett: You guys are morons...hello, this is famous salt. Even at the time everyone had to have been talking about it. You don't sell it for consumption, you sell it as a collector's item. It's not that the shape would add value, it is the fame of the incident. I mean, you don't eat God's salt. Otherwise, he just might eat you.


Chris: Right now a 9 oz. bottle of all natural sea salt will run you about $3. Let's call it $.33/oz. Worst case scenario: You sell this as all natural Dead Sea salt (let's call that a 25% premium) at $.41/oz. You're looking at a 105lbs lady, which is 1680 oz., or almost $700. I think that's about what Barrett pays for a lady these days. Better case scenario: You sell this as God's chosen salt, market it to the Thomas Kincaid crowd, and you get $25/oz., or $42,000. Best case scenario: You lick it until it's gone. That's just my take.

Doug: Today the average yearly inflation of the US dollar is around 3%. In 1864 it was close to 27%. I have no idea what that would translate to in BCE, but let's ballpark it at an average of 10% for, oh, say the last 4,000 years...that's quite a bit more than Chris' $700.00. I'm no math major, but I think that's somewhere around $2,658,673,870,446.40...not including Barrett's fame factor.

Barrett: Ahhh, Doug, clearly you are retarded. You account for inflation (good) whilst (yes, I dropped a 'whilst' on you) forgetting about the degradation of salt. 105 pounds of salt several thousand years ago would not leave you with 105 pounds of salt today, especially not if we're talking about sea salt, which evaporates 12.4% faster than regular salt on average in the area around the Dead Sea, with that percentage rising as high as 15.9% in some areas of the Middle East. So, to an extent, it would depend on the storage facility of the salt and where that facility was located. Also, you have to hire a trustworthy supervisor to secure the premises. Otherwise, you may end up with some crazy bastard like Chris licking up all of your salt and destroying your investment. At least, that's my not-so-humble opinion on it. But for the preceding crazy licker watching the salt, I think you would be best off immediately selling the salt and becoming a shylock.


Scotty: You are all idiots. The real lesson of the situation is that money, being the root of all evil, is not to be worshipped or even sought after in the Face of The Lord. Thus, you spread the salt to the winds without making a cent and start telling people your new philosophy about money, setting the groundwork for an empire of pamphlet sales, public speaking engagements, an internationally televised religious hour, and a lucrative stone-selling business that nets you several hundred million a year by your fifth year of operation. No matter how much you could make off the salt - odd commodity or just plain spice - it would be a one time event at a fixed amount. Swearing it off and convincing others that you're enlightened keeps the green rollin' in year after year. Suckers.

Barrett: Ahhh, Scott...cute. But seriously, men are talking here. Your pamphlets and the stones are going to cost money. Where will you get that money? Simple: From my shylock business where I would charge you 20% interest plus 56% of the profits. It's good to be on top. You have just given away your most valuable possession and, other than my shylockery, you have no way of attaining capital to invest in your grand scheme. So you have a choice to make...make both of us rich or you can actually be poor the rest of your life with no way to get your venture off the ground. And in that case, I will still be rich because I would find some other sap to suck the life (and money) out of. In the fictional world of ancient economics my grandkids and their grandkids would all be taken care of. If present me could go back in time and help out my ancient ancestors, I bet present me would still be living high on the hog from all the wealth I would have accumulated (assuming my time machine could bring me back to the future).


Scotty: And that's when Barrett showed everyone why no one should hire him as a lawyer. I'd be able to pass by your shylockery -as well as the haberdashery - while on one of my Inspirational Walks With the Master (C) (149.99 shekels). Overhead? Zero. That's called pure profit. And from there I'll order some pamphlets. Oh, and I'll order rocks too since they definitely don't just grow on trees.

Money maker?

David: While you idiots are debating the best way to spend your ill-gotten saline wealth, you have all neglected to properly value the Wife of Lot as a sturdy member of the early Judeo slave trade, let alone as a skilled prostitute, especially when one considers that taking into account the well documented custom of taking a child bride, Lot would have likely chosen for his mate a nubile 105 pound teen skank of Sodom. All it would take is a simple online keyword search for "nubile 105 pound teen skank of Sodom" to see that such a skilled girl today would fetch an hourly rate of well over $400.00. See: austin.craigslist.org/personals/teensodomskank for documentation. Taking into account the average life expectancy of the era, and the going shekel exchange rate, she'd be able to earn her weight in salt in a single night. Fools.




Brando: Since I'm the first one to reply, I'll take this one guys... *AHEM* Your mom is a nubile 105 pound teen skank of Sodom. Burn.

Rob: Once again, you have all missed the point. One interpretation of the Biblical account of Lot's wife being smote to salt is that it is a metaphor for her inability to reproduce (i.e. salting the fields of your enemies in ancient times). You have no salt to sell, but you may save some money on birth control if you go the prostitution route.


Doug: Ok, I'm back and I have brought myself up to speed on the Great Wife of Lot Debate. I have to say, you're all a bunch of douchebag intellectuals. Firstly, salt doesn't evaporate. Salt water evaporates, but you (and by 'you' I am referring to Barrett) are suggesting that salt somehow sublimates at an amazing rate only in the area around the Dead Sea. Now, while your professional caliber BS may have convinced your fiancee to sleep with you, it cannot convince me that a solid can suddenly turn into a gas under normal climatic conditions. By storing Lot's wife in a relatively dry place (and Christ knows there are a ton of them in that neck of the woods) she should be fairly degradation free and ready for sale years into the future...like 4,000 years into the future. I am willing to concede, however, that having a licker like Chris anywhere around your prized salt is simply bad business. As for the argument that Lot's 105 pound Skank of Sodom would be more valuable plying her trade at $400.00/night, you need a bag on your head. Let us assume that she starts flashing ass for money at the age of 14 at $400.00/night. The average life expectancy of a woman in that era was 30 years old. This gives her 16 working years. For argument's sake, let's assume that she could work every night. That's still only a lifetime earning of $2,336,000.00. That doesn't hold a candle to my $2,658,673,870,446.40 rock of salt, and we're not even considering the days she would lose from getting knocked up (metaphors aside) and not working on the Sabbath, not to mention the fact that her $400.00 price tag would diminish as she crept toward the big 3-0. So much for your nubile ancient world fantasies. Sicko.

Monday is a Honey Badger and Other Days of The Week

Sometimes, when you have too much time to do nothing, you come up with all sorts of ridiculous thoughts and ideas. For instance, who was the first guy to eat an egg? I'll tell you who he was. He was bored and hungry. Bored enough and hungry enough to eat something that came from a chicken's ass. Fact.

I was similarly afflicted the other day, minus the hunger part. Unfortunately, my idea was not quite so earth-shattering as the eggs-as-food thing (omelettes...mmmmmmmm). That's a once in a millennium discovery. No, instead I set about determining which animals best represented each day of the week. What can I say? I wrestle with complex issues on a daily basis and live life on a razor's edge.

Monday is a Honey Badger

"What the fuck are you looking at?"

By now, most people have heard of the Honey Badger. YouTube did its part as did Tyrann Mathieu. But my first awareness of the Honey Badger came from Ben Thompson's blog, Badass of The Week. Read it here! There are certain life lessons to be learned from the Honey Badger. One of them is this: If something is named in an incongruous way, a sweet name and a mean name stuck together in one name for instance, that thing is not to be fucked with. At the very least it's unpredictable. Puff Adder. Eyelash Viper. Honey Badger. Marshmallow Shark...ok, I made that one up, but you get the point. Anyhow, Thompson makes the point that the Honey Badger has been known to run beneath male lions and bite off their balls! Now, what's Monday if not a chomp to the balls?

Tuesday is a Tiger Shark

Nom, Nom, Nom!

Everyone knows about Monday and what a bastard it can be. Just like everyone knows about the Great White and gets that super panicky get-me-out-of-the-water-right-now feeling when they go to the beach and/or dive into the deep end of a swimming pool and the word "shark" creeps into his/her mind. Thanks, Spielberg. You literally ruined any and all bodies of water for me. What most people don't know is that the Tiger Shark is responsible for a huge percentage of shark attacks worldwide, can swim into rivers and estuaries, can grow to 20 feet, and eats almost anything. There you are taking a nice swim in the river having survived Monday and OOPS! there goes your leg. Didn't see that coming at all. Huzzah, it's Tuesday!

Wednesday is a Hippopotamus

Totally deserving of Jawsesque cello music

No one likes Wednesday. Wednesday is that day you just kind of trudge through to get to Thursday and eventually the weekend. You're never going to have a long weekend that includes a Wednesday and once Tuesday is over with you're not really stoked to be into Wednesday. Imagine we're part of an expedition in deepest, darkest Africa. We've avoided the the lions and hyenas and painted dogs and black mambas and cobras and crocodiles and brain burrowing beetles and we really just want to get to the end of the expedition. We just have to paddle our ridiculously flimsy canoes over this river and we'll be more than halfway there. Cake, right? There are just a few beefy, amphibious cow looking things over there. What kind of noise can they bring? Plenty. Hippo tusks can grow to over a foot. Hippos are intensely territorial. Hippos have been known to flip ridiculously flimsy canoes. Hippos can hold their breath for over six minutes. Hippos shit underwater. Hippos have no sweat glands so they secrete a red viscous fluid that looks a lot like blood. Blood. That's just the kind of insane BS you don't expect that always seems to characterize Wednesdays.

Thursday is a Panda Bear

"Get a little closer and you'll see how cute I am, bitches."

Pandas are cute. There's no way around this. They're like Oreos and cotton balls got together in a test tube somewhere and made a baby. They laze around bamboo forests and eat shoots and star in Disney movies and are generally loved by everyone, even poachers. Seriously, Panda meat is unpalatable so poachers rarely intentionally kill them. Isn't that adorable? At the end of the day though, a Panda is still a fucking bear...and Thursday is still a weekday.

Friday is a Penguin

"It's the freakin' weekend, I'm about to have me some fun!"

Penguins are baller. Friday is baller. No one has anything bad to say about a penguin. They swim like torpedoes, are literally ice cold, and have a freaking permanent tux. They're like the Frank Sinatra of the animal kingdom and perfectly embody everything Friday is about. Put on your tux, have fun, and be cool. In the words of Lyle Lovett and his quirky genius, "I don't go for fancy cars, diamond rings, or movie stars. I go for penguins. Oh Lord, I go for penguins." I don't know what the hell that means, but I know it's cool.

Saturday is a Dolphin

"Haaaaaaaay!"

Dolphins: Flips. Jumps. Frolicking. Social animals who hang out in pods. Talk a lot. Have sex for fun.

Saturdays: Active. Fun and frolic. Hang out with friends and catch up on the week. Good day for sex for fun.

I got a perfect score on the analogies section of the SAT. This is proof.

Sunday is a Koala Bear

"My sleep number is Eucalyptus."

Sunday is the laziest day of the week. Even God rested on Sunday and if God's taking the day off, then so am I. My friends in college consistently had No Shower Sundays. This is exactly what it sounds like. Wake up at noonish, mosey on out to the couch, eat, watch some TV, take a nap, eat some more, watch some more TV. Look, you've got a Honey Badger to deal with in just a few hours so you're going to need all the rest you can get. And when it comes to rest in the animal kingdom, there's only one animal in the conversation, the somnolent Koala Bear. Koalas on average sleep 22 hours out of every day. It's completely within the realm of possibility that a Koala could go to sleep Saturday night and not wake up until Monday morning. I don't advocate skipping from a dolphin to a Honey Badger, but if you want to take Koala Sunday to All Pro levels, that's your business.

So there's your week. I'm giving you pearls here. Have a careful Hippo Wednesday!