Novelty T-Shirts the FooDaddy Way

I dunno about you, time-wasters, but it seems to me that the novelty T-shirt has really taken root in the fertile soil that is America's yooth kultchur. Also, spelling things funny, but that's another post altogether.

Actually, spelling things weird is just something I like to do. And every time I decide I like something, it immediately becomes uncool for anybody else to like it. This does not have me too worried. It's a form of messing with society, and I like that too. Y'hear that, trendsetters? Paul "FooDaddy" Brand likes to mess with society! You all can back off and leave that stuff to me, okay? Message ends.

Where was I? Oh, right. T-shirts. Sites selling shirts with pictures of moose on them for no reason, or ones printed with random fortune cookieisms like "He Who Operates the Doorknob, Controls Destiny" seem to be popping up all over the place. At least it seems that way to me, but I've been known to completely miss things until they surround me. If I'm not paying attention, I could wander into a herd of moose and not notice until one of them ate my hat. "Where the heck did all these moose come from?" I'd ask any other person who happened to be in the herd with me. "This is a horrible analogy!" they'd shout back.

They'd be right, I guess.

So I figure, why not get in on it myself? Not only are there entire Web sites dedicated to "hilarious" T-shirts, but there are a whole host of sites that offer you the opportunity to make your own. I have a couple already. One of them, as mentioned earlier, features the Blog of Stupid's The Old Man quoting "I've had enough of this dill puckery!" and has the Blog's URL on the back. Neat, huh? Merchandised! Now the Blog really does deserve to begin with a capital "B".

As soon as I figure out how to get them to show up as "buyable," I'll offer you loyal time-wasters a selection of FooDaddy's FooProducts through one of those sites. Seriously. It'll be fun, and if anybody who isn't a friend or family member actually stoops to buying something, I'll be so happy I'll probably post about it. I can hear your cheers right through my mouse pointer, they're so enthusiastic.

Sounds like moose...

Mouse House

We’ve had vermin problems at our apartment again. I’m not sure how it happened, but one day we were suddenly overrun by mice. At first, they were all baby mice, mice that were too small to run, just kinda wobble around. They were so slow that Beth (otherwise known as wifey) and I were able to catch them merely by walking over and sticking a Styrofoam cup over them. They were also quite adorable, with tiny bodies, but huge ears and feet.

Adorable or not, they could not be allowed to roam free, so we decided to take decisive action and bought some traps. The mice were too small to set off the regular spring variety, so we got some glue traps, thinking this would solve the problem. Not. The little blighters just walked over them. I’d go check the trap, only to find the cheese gone and little mouse paw prints all over the glue.

Assuming we were helpless to stop them in their conquest, the mice began getting bolder. Soon, they were wandering around the apartment throughout the day, demanding food and entertainment. I’d be sitting at my computer and look over to see a mouse strolling across the carpet toward the kitchen. He’d pass by with a wave and a smirk, as if to say,

“Don’t mind me, I’m just going to the kitchen for a beer.”

The breaking point was reached one night while I was lying in bed, attempting to drop off to sleep. Suddenly, I felt something leaping on my back. Tossing the covers aside, I jumped out of bed.

“What’s the matter?” Beth asked.
“I felt something.”

Beth hazarded a peek under the tossed blanket. “Ohmygoodnessitsamouse!” She was out of bed so fast that several windows shattered as a result of the ensuing sonic boom.

The mice finally got us so spooked that any little thing set us off. I’d be brushing my teeth and a drop of water would fall on my bare foot, causing me to charge about the bathroom with the enthusiasm of a dedicated track star. We couldn’t sleep, because every time we’d lie down, we’d either be awakened by invading mice, or one of us would think we felt one of the nasty creatures crawling around the bed.

At last, at 2:00 am this morning, we got sick of it and declared war. We got out of bed and drove down to a local department store, which is open 24 hours. Spending our entire life's savings on equipment, we came home with enough spring traps, poison, and glue boards to take on an elephant herd. Within thirty minutes, our apartment closely resembled the 1944 Normandy coastline, with the mice the invading army. We caught two in traps and captured another one alive, which I disposed of in the dumpster.

So far today, we haven’t seen any new mice, so we’re hopeful that we have beaten back their onslaught. I hope so, because with all our defense mechanisms, this apartment isn’t even safe for humans and getting up in the night to use the bathroom is to take your toe’s life into your own hands. If the problem continues, we may have to borrow Sprocket, one of FooDaddy’s cool cats, and let him do his stuff.

Paul the CrimeFighter - Diabolical Doughnutry (part one)

It was another dark and creepy night in the hometown of Paul the CrimeFigher®. Paul had so far spent his evening engaged in a desperate struggle for victory with Pthabbth, the CrimeFighting® Marmoset.

“Look! I spelled “electroencephalograph” on a triple word score box. That’s gotta be, like, five thousand points!”

“Meh!”

“Don’t give me any guff, Pthabbth. You wanna go back in the bag?”

“Pffffft.”

“Didn’t think so.” Paul said with a wink. “Besides, I need you alert. Something in the air feels crimey tonight. What’s your MarmoSense™ telling you?”

“Ook, meep meh. Bwah!”

“Holy. Crap.”

Paul leapt to his feet, scattering the letter tiles. Pthabbth ate a couple and scrambled up to his post on Paul’s shoulder. “Bweep!” he said, and tugged on Paul’s ear.

“Yeeeesss, doughnuts would hit the spot, wouldn’t they? Good thinking Pthabbth. To the CrimeWagon™!” Paul said, striking a pose. The pose fell over and shattered. “It was time to replace that one anyway,” Paul said, checking his LED keychain flashlight and putting on his cape. Pthabbth agreed by becoming bitey.

The CrimeWagon™ was a brown 1987 Taurus station wagon with a lot of rust and a missing rear window. Most of its decorative trim had fallen off long ago, and one of its fenders was red.

“Crank, crank and awaaaaay!” Paul shouted and turned the key. There was a single weak “wonk” noise from under the hood, and the Wagon fell silent. The dash lights flickered out, and the interior of the car went dark.

“Ork?”

“That’s true. We do appear to have been sabotaged. Some bandit has snucked in here and left my dome light on! You keep watch up in the luggage rack while I dust for prints, Pthabbth!”

The little marmoset scrambled to the roof of the CrimeWagon and chewed contentedly on the plastic luggage restraints. “Woop!” he suggested.

“That’s a good idea, Pthabbth. There could be clues on the floor!” Paul thundered. He jerked his head out of the glovebox and hit it on the roof. The sudden noise caused Pthabbth to jump and shriek. Paul removed his LED keychain flashlight from its custom hip holster and squeezed it. Its beam, surprisingly bright for such a small bulb, cast shadows about the interior of the CrimeWagon, and Paul was pleased.

“I’m pleased!” he tittered.

“Meek, ormp?” asked Pthabbth, swinging into the car through the rear window.

“No, that’s just a figure of speech. My name’s still Paul.”

“Ormp?”

“Yes, and you’re still Pthabbth, Pthabbth. If that were to change, I’d alert you immediately. Don’t you worry, little guy!”

Pthabbth vibrated with glee and banged his tiny fists on the car’s leather seat cushions. Suddenly he froze. Eyes wide and pupils dilated, he bushed up his fur and made low grumbly noises in his throat. His tail thrashed from side to side in an agitated manner.

“Keep your tail out of that manner,” Paul rebuked. “You’ll get it all full of fur, and that’ll ruin it. Stuff’s expensive!” he added with a grin. Pthabbth hooted and squirted out of the tailgate and into the night. “It looks like my assistant has detected the foul stench of evil!” Paul intoned dramatically to the empty glovebox, and re-holstered his squeezy light. He clambered out of the car and peered heroically into the dark parking lot.

A silver sedan had pulled up, and a man was stepping out. Pthabbth was jumping excitedly on the sedan’s hood and throwing twigs about.

“This could only mean one thing,” Paul mumbled into his shirtsleeve, “and I aim to get doughnuts out of it one way or another!”

…to be continued!

Dance Quickie

This post's gonna be a little shorter than most of my others, and this is good news for those of you with short attention spans.

Hey! Get back here! Put those cookies down! Turn your monitor back on.

That's better.

Now, the title of this post implies dancing. There was dancing. There was also cake and tuxedos. Yep! You guessed it! I was elected President of the United States!

Oh ho ho! I'm just kidding, time-wasters. I attended a wedding between my buddy Tim and his fiance Katie. It was a good wedding, except for the dense wool suitcoat I had to wear. The coat itself was fine, really, if it had been 60 degrees in the chapel. Unfortunately it was more like 90. Keep thinking about ice cubes I told myself, and walk-in freezers and frosty pumpkins in November and...Frosty Pumpkins would be a good name for an exotic dancer...and now I'm all hungry...

Then I realized I was scratching myself and had to concentrate on the task at hand, namely, standing up there as a groomsperson. I waved to my fans in the audience. They pretended not to notice.

Oh yeah. Then I danced a tad at the reception. Although I got real tired and headachy toward the end there, I had a great time and didn't make too bigga fool of myself. It was fun. The girlfriend, who'd been giving me a crash-course in swing dancing over the last few days, said she was proud and that I did good. I pouted a little until she gave me a tootsie roll, and promised to hold my hand. I sniffled and said that'd be okay.

And now I must go. Gonna go out and play in the stupid hot weather.

Traffic Fireworks

Man, I've actually got a lot of ideas in my head right now. Most of them entertaining, no less! However, I'm kind of tired, seeing as how I just learned how to use a new image processing program because I didn't want to turn on the computer with Photoshop on it, and it took awhile.

Yeah, yeah. I know what you're thinking. "Why doesn't he want to turn on the other computer? And what's this 'other computer' crap anyway? How many does one man need?"

The answer is four. But I'm allowing you to distract me. I've got a story to tell. I had to choose from all these ideas one to Blog about tonight, and I've chosen one that makes a precedent.

As you can see from the picture, I own a camera.

Wow, that was funny. Let's start over.

As you can see from the picture, I've been watching a fireworks display. Squinting through a little hole on the back of a camera is DEFINITELY the way to watch fireworks, folks. And never mind all this stuff about fast lenses and tripods. Just stand right in the middle of a crowded sidewalk and snap away. Never mind them children either. Just punch 'em and keep squinting.

Naturally, what with all the crowds (newly dented children included) the traffic on the way out of town is a real problem unless you like idling. Most people take this in stride because they've come to expect delays in and around areas where a lot of people have congregated. More people. Same streets. Simple, right?

Not to everyone.

I've heard comedians talk about this situation, but never actually experienced it firsthand. I'll set it up for you: I'm downtown, and I'm on a two lane road with a median and room on the right for parking. One lane per direction, and there's about seven thousand cars all crammed onto this fifty-yard stretch of pavement, with more trickling out of the parking lots lining it. I'm perhaps four feet from the car in front of me, and all I can see through his windshield are more cars. Brake lights as far as the eye can see.

So, time-wasters, what kind of aberration of thought; what mindfart would convince somebody that they could make other cars go away by blowing their horn? That's the best explanation I can come up with for the woman behind me laying on it every couple of minutes. I could see her in my rearview mirror, waving her hands and chewing on her steering wheel.

Okay, I made the chewing part up. I think.

Normally, I'm a very non-confrontational person. I'm pretty tolerant. I'm even nice to telemarketers. But...after the tenth or so time this nutbag honked at me, I couldn't take it any more.

Ripping off my seatbelt and throwing the door wide, I burst from my car. I pointed at the Chrysler behind me and yelled "Is that YOU on the horn?"

Muffled outrage from behind the glass. Gestures. "Want the fork?!" she appeared to be screaming.

I took another couple steps toward her car. I pointed behind myself at the line of cars in front of mine and bellowed "CAAAARS! That's the reason!"

Then I slapped my butt at her and got back in my own car.

I'm not saying that this was the right thing to do, especially since there were two guys in this car with her, but it made me feel better, and it got a laugh from some people in a convertible heading the other way. Besides, all the people I'd been allowing to merge in front of me would have been on MY side. Ha.

I was kind of buzzed for the next few minutes, thanks to the adrenaline I suppose, and I've got a story to tell at work tomorrow. I'm just afraid nobody's going to believe me when I tell them I did that.

Shoulda took pictures...

Absence Makes the Mind Grow Stupider

Okay, so I’m a jerk. I admit this with something less than pride, although there are worse things to confess. Besides, I feel that any jerkitude I might exhibit is more than offset by my many other qualities. I mean, isn’t it enough that I am handsome, witty, and brilliant? Did God have to make me humble as well?

No, actually, I’m referring to my rather lengthy and unannounced hiatus from the Blog. (Don’t you love how we always capitalize the word Blog when we refer to the Blog of Stupid and just assume everyone knows what Blog we’re talking about?) I have to give a hat-tip here to my Blogging pardners for keeping the stockade at least reasonably well-defended during my absence. Having checked the stats, I’m pleased to report that we are quickly closing in on 4,000 visits. 3,980, to be exact. Shut up, Word! Sorry, MS Word just told me I wrote a fragment. Stupid Word. Ahem, back to the topic. Yes, 4,000 visits! And that’s unique visits, too, not just page views, a number which happens to be just shy of ten grand. We’re also on our fourth month, with 84 posts under our belts, (this post will be number 85). Why am I telling you this, you might ask? So I can use up valuable post space with worthless information until I can come up with something at least mildly entertaining, that’s why! You gotta problem with that? No? Didn’t think so.

I have many good reasons why I have been lax(ative) in my Stupid duties, but since most of them are too stupid even for this Blog, I won’t bore you with the details, except to say that if anyone has an extra couple thousand lying around, you can make my life a lot easier by wiring the entire amount to a guy named Vinnie. He seems to be operating under the misconception that I owe him a large sum of money. This is ridiculous, of course, and only goes to show how arrogant these crooks can be. True, I did try to sell him a one hundred percent historically accurate Davy Crockett rifle made of solid plastic, but I still think his reaction was a bit severe. I was glad for the rifle’s main component, however, when Vinnie began beating me over the head with the piece of trash…uh…merchandise, and it was all I could do to keep from giving him the rifle outright. Being a crafty businessman, I managed to shield my head from most of the vicious blows and held out for a rock bottom price, a price Vinnie graciously accepted. Yeah, that’s right, he just took it.

Why, then, you might ask, do I need to pay Vinnie all this money if I simply gave him the rifle? It’s like this, ladies and gents. I happened to have several of these authentic rifles in stock (Crockett went through a lot of firepower) and managed to sell most of them before the authorities caught wind of my scam, uh, business operation. I was taken into custody and had no choice but to borrow bail money from good ol’ Vinnie. He kindly agreed to the loan, on the condition that, if I failed to repay the money, he would remove from my body a pound of flesh, to be selected at random approximately ten seconds after the specified time. Funny, but I never thought of Vinnie as much of a Shakespeare addict.

Anyway, so that’s the story. If any of you can help me out, I’d appreciate the assistance, as the deadline is quickly approaching and I have a very low pain threshold and very little spare flesh. Anyone?

Summer TV

I grew up without TV.

OK...now that that has settled in a bit, I'll rat out a fellow blogger. The Stupid Blogger also grew up with out TV.

So, that means Mr. Stupey here and I missed (let's see if I can remember some real shows) such refined stuff as Beavis & Butthead, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and any of the Star Wars-ish stuff (Star Trek, etc.). I was fascinated by the stories that other kids would tell of their excursions into TV fantasy-land. Of course, as soon as my parents discovered that I was talking to "other kids", I would be locked away with a big volume of Nathaniel Hawthorne or something. Wouldn't do to get exposure to those bad, dirty people "out there".

Anyway, I have done my best to catch up since I DO have a TV now. Actually, you fair and intelligent readers would probably disagree that I have TV. I have steadfastly refused to accept any of literally thousands of attractive offers I have received for Cable. That's right. I still enjoy what TV I watch via the amazing technology of bunny ears. Sucks when I want to see things on Channel 6, but...I am an anachronism, what can you say?

So, what else sucks is summertime TV. I get pretty excited about The Apprentice and (be still my heart!) 24. I love American Idol and will even enjoy Medium and Crossing Jordan. But, it looks to me like the gods of television conspire to make it as thunderously dull and repetitive during the summer as possible. Maybe this is a good thing. Maybe I will take care of my house and get some &%*^(%@# exercise.

It still doesn't seem fair and I object.

Hey, Stupid Blogger, now that your nasty little secret is out (no, NOT the one about you being gay--I promised not to tell that and I haven't), do you think some people will rub their chin(s) and say, "ah...that DOES explain a few things..."?