Dear people who put up lawn ornaments,
I'm not personally against al lawn ornaments. Sometimes I see one of those concrete ducks and think, "Wow, you fooled me, but only this time." I can see the value in that, how hilarious it must be to fool duck loving people with your statue. Also I get the pink flamingo thing too, I guess. Having something that is incredibly cheesy on your porch is funny for kitsch value I suppose. Wouldn't it be better to put an enlarged Michael Bolton album? Anyway, this letter isn't for you, it's for the people who have made serious lawn ornament infractions, but for whatever reason are unaware of it. Your actions are wasting our time or worse yet, possibly endangering the lives of innocent drivers. For those of you who are unaware of who you are, if you have any of the following lawn ornaments, you are commiting a lan ornament crime.
1. Mirror ball on pedestal
This lawn ornament is bad primarily because it is false advertising. If I see on of these ornaments outside the front of a person's house, I automatically assume they are a fortune teller. It's like a barber pole outside a store indicating a particular service. If you don't intend to tell people's fortune by using a crystal ball, stop advertising.
2. Outdoor plastic flowers
If you have any ornament with plastic flowers, you are trying to decieve the rest of us by convincing us that somehow you have magical horticultural abilities that transcend snow, sleet, and the sweltering temperatures of summer. Stop lying! It's like wearing a bad toupee when the entire world knows that you are bald. Covering yourself up with fake hair does not preclude you from the seven categories of bald guys (check out my earlier blog for the complete list), putting fake floral arrangements outside only reinforces everyone's perception of you as a liar.
3. Lawn jockeys
Do I even have to explain this to anyone not born after the Civil War?
4. Too many lawn ornaments
This is probably the worst infraction of them all. By having too many ornaments on your lawn, you are distracting passing motorists who turn to gawk at your lawn thnking to themselves, "How is it possible to have sixteen St. Francs of Assissi statues next to four mirror balls?" Many a life has probably been lost with th person's last thought being, "I wonder why they put gnomes on their front lawn. One is weird enough, but thirteen?"
Stop the madness. Save some concrete. And stop fooling us duck lovers.
Happy Holidays,
The Chronic Nice Guy
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Best Twitter Status Update So Far
Developing interchangeable plans for either opening a Mervyn's or deep frying pocket watches. (0%)
Wondering why Dr. Teeth is more qualified than the other muppets for a doctoral program. (33%)
Learned how to say "Are those underpants biodegradable?" in German. (50%)
Followed home last night by Oprah Winfrey, although she was convincingly disguised as the ten year old Asian boy who lives next door. (0%)
Sorting clothes by type: mostly free, extra crispy, and water soluble (16%)
Wondering why Dr. Teeth is more qualified than the other muppets for a doctoral program. (33%)
Learned how to say "Are those underpants biodegradable?" in German. (50%)
Followed home last night by Oprah Winfrey, although she was convincingly disguised as the ten year old Asian boy who lives next door. (0%)
Sorting clothes by type: mostly free, extra crispy, and water soluble (16%)
How to Pick up girls METHOD #3 – The online Dating Profile
Now I haven’t done much online dating. For the most part, I’m not the kind of guy who likes to objectify women or be objectified himself. In that respect, online dating I the ultimate resource. No human interaction until the person feels their potential match is worthy enough. But here's my advice anyway:
STEP #1 The Picture
The picture is probably the most important aspect of the profile. More than likely this is where most women immediately pass over the nice guys and zero in on the self absorbed jerks. (Ways to tell self absorbed jerks: pictures at the beach, by their sports car, )
1. Picture in a foreign country
A picture in a foreign country is always good because it lets your potential match know that you have a sense of adventure and that there is a possibility that you’ll take them somewhere. Best not to put pictures of yourself in undesirable places, like San Quentin, Camp X-Ray, or on the set of an Eddie Murphy movie.
2. Picture of you playing a guitar, baking cookies, or holding a baby/cute child (that’s not yours).
A picture of you with a kid or doing something around the house or sensitive shows them that you have the potential to be a good domestic partner. There are probably other domestic activities that could go up here, too. Be careful that you don’t go too far, I doubt women find guys that make pot pourri, buy stamping sets, or make unicorn pottery very attractive.
3. Picture of you with a supermodel/beautiful celebrity, followed by the caption, “My ex-girlfriend. Beautiful, but I am looking for more than just a superficial relationship.
This shows women that you are able to date a girl who is attractive (and if you are interested in them, then transversely they are attractive) and you are looking for more than a superficial relationship. (Even if this is not true, most women want to hear this.) Don’t shoot too high or too low.
Too high: Carla Bruni Natalie Portman, Danica McKellar (all too smart for you to just have just a superficial relationship with)
Too low: Miss South Carolina from the Miss Teen USA pageant (“I personally believe the U. S. Americans…”), Paris Hilton (although if you want to attract her through your online profile, I have more below), the cast of Flavor of Love.
About right: any actress who has appeared on Entourage, any one of the Philadelphia Eagles cheerleaders, and Britney Spears pre- or post-drug binge and mental breakdown.
4. Picture of a cute dog/cat
Girls like cuddly furry things, so a rabbit, ferret, baby sea lion, or anything else with fur (except maybe pot belly pigs) work here. Reptiles, fish, and invertebrates don’t seem to be as popular (Sorry, octopus lovers.)
STEP #2 THE PROFILE
The next step is to create a kick ass profile. There are many ways to do this, depending on the type of girl you want to attract. The number of types of women is endless, so I just decided to include a few. I may add more later, particularly if I get a deal to make this blog into a book. (Are you reading this, Random House?)
To attract women who play Dungeons and Dragons and watch Science Fiction:
Items to put in your profile:
Books: LOTR (It must be abbreviated like this), the Twilight series, Marvel/Dark Horse Comic Books
Movies: Lord of the Rings, the original Star Wars Trilogy
TV Show: ST:TNG (Again, you must abbreviate it like this), The New Battlestar Galactica, The X-Files, Justice League
Favorite activities: Renaissance Fairs, Playing Wii
Languages: Klingon, Elvish
Opening paragraph:
Lo, I am a chaste paladin (or space explorer) seeking a fair counterpart with which to begin my journey. My philosophy of life is most closely similar to either the prime directive or the jedi code. I own all sorts of dice, from 4 sided to 36 sided. I also recently bought a new quad core Pentium chip computer for my MMORPG playing, which, I am sad to say, due to my busy schedule, is down to 53 hours per week. I work in a job where I meet very few (okay, no) women, which is why I’m on here, not because I have anti-social tendencies like my mom says. She just doesn’t understand how awesome World of Warcraft is.
Items NOT to put in your profile:
Books: The Chronicles of Narnia, Archie Comic Books
Movies: Rotoscoped The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Episodes 1 through 3, Superfriends
TV Show: Enterprise, The 1970’s Battlestar Galactica
Favorite activities: Having physical contact with other human beings, playing Scattegories
Languages: any language that would have any practical use whatsoever.
Opening paragraph:
I’m really into sports and going out and watching sports and making fun of people who don’t like sports. I also don’t understand people who collect things or like to pretend they are something else. Why can’t you be happy with who you are? I like who I am A LOT. Also, to date me, you must have a rockin’ body.
To attract women who make unrealistic claims on their profile:
Items to put in your profile:
Books: Anything by Jane Austen,
Movies: The Princess Bride, The Notebook
TV Show: Sex and the City
Favorite activities: Kayaking, Climbing K-2, flying n my private jet to Tahiti, Luxemburg, and Barcelona.
Languages: French, Mandarin Chinese, Swahili (when I worked for two years in an orphanage in Kenya).
Opening paragraph:
I don’t really want to write about myself. For years, I have been too busy using my family’s money to try to do some good to change the world. I’ve been thinking about slowing down, but Archbishop Desmond Tutu thinks what I’m doing is making a difference. I wasn’t going to sign up for this site at all until my uncle told me that I needed to find someone to marry in order to inherit his estate. I don’t need the money, but I was going to use it to open up a zoo where disadvantaged children can swim with dolphins and sea lions or ride horses and play with meerkats.
Items NOT to put in your profile:
Books: Does Playboy count as a book?
Movies: Scarface, The Dirty Dozen, Weekend at Bernie’s, Porn
TV Show: ESPN, Entourage, Hogan’s Heroes
Favorite activities: Lying on my sofa, scratching my crotch in my underwear while watching TV, playing fantasy football
Languages: Baseball statistics are a language, right?
Opening paragraph:
I like hot girls. If you are hot, I will pretend to like anything you do if it means that I get to have sex with you. Bonus points if you like hot girls, too. If you and a dozen of your hot girlfriends would like to have an orgy with me, you are the girl of my dreams, until your looks start to go. I don’t really have a job at the moment, so it would be great if when we went out to Ruby Tuesday’s if you could pick up the check. Also, I don’t know how that three hundred dollars is going to disappear from you wallet after we go out. Really, it wasn’t me.
To attract Paris Hilton:
Books: What are books?
Movies: House of Wax, The Hottie and the Nottie
TV Shows: The Simple Life
Favorite activities: Making homemade sex tapes, holding small animals that can’t get away
Languages: This isn’t really a word, is it?
Opening paragraph:
I’m really into trolling around as arm candy. I spend all day working out in a gym hoping that I will be in a relationship that lasts the length of the life of a fruit fly. I also spend a lot of time looking at myself in the mirror. I enjoy dating girls with such low self esteem that they have to look for their best friend on a reality show.
Books: Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Shakespeare
Movies: Movies by Godard, David Lynch, Stan Brakhage, Bill Viola
TV Shows: I don’t own a television set. Occasionally, I listen to All Things Considered or This American Life on National Public Radio
Favorite activities: Anything involving thinking.
Languages: French, German, Italian, Latin, Spanish, Russian, and I’m beginning to develop a scholarly reading level of Indian and Mandarin Chinese.
Opening paragraph:
It doesn’t really matter what you right here if it is longer than four or five sentences. That’s enough to discourage her.
STEP #1 The Picture
The picture is probably the most important aspect of the profile. More than likely this is where most women immediately pass over the nice guys and zero in on the self absorbed jerks. (Ways to tell self absorbed jerks: pictures at the beach, by their sports car, )
1. Picture in a foreign country
A picture in a foreign country is always good because it lets your potential match know that you have a sense of adventure and that there is a possibility that you’ll take them somewhere. Best not to put pictures of yourself in undesirable places, like San Quentin, Camp X-Ray, or on the set of an Eddie Murphy movie.
2. Picture of you playing a guitar, baking cookies, or holding a baby/cute child (that’s not yours).
A picture of you with a kid or doing something around the house or sensitive shows them that you have the potential to be a good domestic partner. There are probably other domestic activities that could go up here, too. Be careful that you don’t go too far, I doubt women find guys that make pot pourri, buy stamping sets, or make unicorn pottery very attractive.
3. Picture of you with a supermodel/beautiful celebrity, followed by the caption, “My ex-girlfriend. Beautiful, but I am looking for more than just a superficial relationship.
This shows women that you are able to date a girl who is attractive (and if you are interested in them, then transversely they are attractive) and you are looking for more than a superficial relationship. (Even if this is not true, most women want to hear this.) Don’t shoot too high or too low.
Too high: Carla Bruni Natalie Portman, Danica McKellar (all too smart for you to just have just a superficial relationship with)
Too low: Miss South Carolina from the Miss Teen USA pageant (“I personally believe the U. S. Americans…”), Paris Hilton (although if you want to attract her through your online profile, I have more below), the cast of Flavor of Love.
About right: any actress who has appeared on Entourage, any one of the Philadelphia Eagles cheerleaders, and Britney Spears pre- or post-drug binge and mental breakdown.
4. Picture of a cute dog/cat
Girls like cuddly furry things, so a rabbit, ferret, baby sea lion, or anything else with fur (except maybe pot belly pigs) work here. Reptiles, fish, and invertebrates don’t seem to be as popular (Sorry, octopus lovers.)
STEP #2 THE PROFILE
The next step is to create a kick ass profile. There are many ways to do this, depending on the type of girl you want to attract. The number of types of women is endless, so I just decided to include a few. I may add more later, particularly if I get a deal to make this blog into a book. (Are you reading this, Random House?)
To attract women who play Dungeons and Dragons and watch Science Fiction:
Items to put in your profile:
Books: LOTR (It must be abbreviated like this), the Twilight series, Marvel/Dark Horse Comic Books
Movies: Lord of the Rings, the original Star Wars Trilogy
TV Show: ST:TNG (Again, you must abbreviate it like this), The New Battlestar Galactica, The X-Files, Justice League
Favorite activities: Renaissance Fairs, Playing Wii
Languages: Klingon, Elvish
Opening paragraph:
Lo, I am a chaste paladin (or space explorer) seeking a fair counterpart with which to begin my journey. My philosophy of life is most closely similar to either the prime directive or the jedi code. I own all sorts of dice, from 4 sided to 36 sided. I also recently bought a new quad core Pentium chip computer for my MMORPG playing, which, I am sad to say, due to my busy schedule, is down to 53 hours per week. I work in a job where I meet very few (okay, no) women, which is why I’m on here, not because I have anti-social tendencies like my mom says. She just doesn’t understand how awesome World of Warcraft is.
Items NOT to put in your profile:
Books: The Chronicles of Narnia, Archie Comic Books
Movies: Rotoscoped The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Episodes 1 through 3, Superfriends
TV Show: Enterprise, The 1970’s Battlestar Galactica
Favorite activities: Having physical contact with other human beings, playing Scattegories
Languages: any language that would have any practical use whatsoever.
Opening paragraph:
I’m really into sports and going out and watching sports and making fun of people who don’t like sports. I also don’t understand people who collect things or like to pretend they are something else. Why can’t you be happy with who you are? I like who I am A LOT. Also, to date me, you must have a rockin’ body.
To attract women who make unrealistic claims on their profile:
Items to put in your profile:
Books: Anything by Jane Austen,
Movies: The Princess Bride, The Notebook
TV Show: Sex and the City
Favorite activities: Kayaking, Climbing K-2, flying n my private jet to Tahiti, Luxemburg, and Barcelona.
Languages: French, Mandarin Chinese, Swahili (when I worked for two years in an orphanage in Kenya).
Opening paragraph:
I don’t really want to write about myself. For years, I have been too busy using my family’s money to try to do some good to change the world. I’ve been thinking about slowing down, but Archbishop Desmond Tutu thinks what I’m doing is making a difference. I wasn’t going to sign up for this site at all until my uncle told me that I needed to find someone to marry in order to inherit his estate. I don’t need the money, but I was going to use it to open up a zoo where disadvantaged children can swim with dolphins and sea lions or ride horses and play with meerkats.
Items NOT to put in your profile:
Books: Does Playboy count as a book?
Movies: Scarface, The Dirty Dozen, Weekend at Bernie’s, Porn
TV Show: ESPN, Entourage, Hogan’s Heroes
Favorite activities: Lying on my sofa, scratching my crotch in my underwear while watching TV, playing fantasy football
Languages: Baseball statistics are a language, right?
Opening paragraph:
I like hot girls. If you are hot, I will pretend to like anything you do if it means that I get to have sex with you. Bonus points if you like hot girls, too. If you and a dozen of your hot girlfriends would like to have an orgy with me, you are the girl of my dreams, until your looks start to go. I don’t really have a job at the moment, so it would be great if when we went out to Ruby Tuesday’s if you could pick up the check. Also, I don’t know how that three hundred dollars is going to disappear from you wallet after we go out. Really, it wasn’t me.
To attract Paris Hilton:
Books: What are books?
Movies: House of Wax, The Hottie and the Nottie
TV Shows: The Simple Life
Favorite activities: Making homemade sex tapes, holding small animals that can’t get away
Languages: This isn’t really a word, is it?
Opening paragraph:
I’m really into trolling around as arm candy. I spend all day working out in a gym hoping that I will be in a relationship that lasts the length of the life of a fruit fly. I also spend a lot of time looking at myself in the mirror. I enjoy dating girls with such low self esteem that they have to look for their best friend on a reality show.
Books: Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Shakespeare
Movies: Movies by Godard, David Lynch, Stan Brakhage, Bill Viola
TV Shows: I don’t own a television set. Occasionally, I listen to All Things Considered or This American Life on National Public Radio
Favorite activities: Anything involving thinking.
Languages: French, German, Italian, Latin, Spanish, Russian, and I’m beginning to develop a scholarly reading level of Indian and Mandarin Chinese.
Opening paragraph:
It doesn’t really matter what you right here if it is longer than four or five sentences. That’s enough to discourage her.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
I am not dead
Hi,
I just wanted to write to all of you, especially those of you who see me every day, to let you know that I am not dead. (Unlike Paul McCartney, who we all know was replaced by a less convincing and less talented look-a-like. C'mon, after the Beatles, you formed Wings ... really?) I've just ben really, really busy and haven't gotten time to enter a new blog entry. I'm working on a really good one, though, I promise.
Also, to my former office mate - I'm sorry that someone kicked you out of my office and that you dropped your blackberry down the elevator shaft. (I wasn't responsible for either, but I've been inside an elevator, so there's that.) Maybe I can get you a mask of me that you can wear in the office, so people think it's me, although I guess the fact that you're a woman sort of gives it away. You also actually work in the office. I'm not really an office type guy. I'm sort of a more in the trenches, shoot from the hip, wear a coon skin hat (I ran out of John Wayne analogies) type of guy. The kind of guy that girls are really supposed to like, but then don't really seem to like that way, only as friends - like Uncle Jesse was on Full House. Although, when I was on the Warner Brothers' tour, a fifty year old woman got really excited when we walked past the headboard for his bed in the prop room. I guess I could do that - put my headboard outside the office so fifty year old women can take a picture of it. Maybe you could sit in my office and pretend to watch on a security monitor. That way, we're doing research.
Also to the two guys who share an office downstairs who will probably give me a hard time about that last paragraph, I am obviously not implying anything in the last two paragraphs. As much as you would like to find meanings and innuendos, there are not any. I do think the Beatles are a better band than Wings.
Sincerely,
The Chronic Nice Guy
Worst movie/tv show idea for 2009
"Wokka wokka, Heil!" The Last days of Hitler and Fozzy Bear 31%
Abu Ghiraib: the Musical 50%
Citizen Kane 2: Rosebud Strikes Back 12%
Pornia California: Hannah Montana all grown up 6%
To Catch a Predator: The Boston Diocese Edition 0%
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