squirrelking.com

The American Tree Rodent Club (ATRC) recognizes six sizes of show squirrels — Standard, Miniature, Toy, Tiny Toy, Teacup and Nano. All six sizes are considered the same breed. If you are unable to categorize your squirrel, please refer to the following ATRC guidelines:

Standard Squirrel: Approximately 20 inches in total length (including ten inches of tail). Weighs 1-1.5 pounds without field equipment. The skull is thick and round . . . and thick. The teeth are sharp, pointy and coffee-stained. The Standard Squirrel has a delightful springy gait, which often takes it into the path of oncoming vehicles.

Miniature Squirrel: Smaller than a Standard Squirrel. About the size of a Standard Chipmunk or a Toy Woodchuck.

Toy Squirrel: About the size of a Standard Field Mouse or a Miniature Chipmunk. (Toy Squirrel batteries not included.)

Tiny Toy: Even smaller. Too small to carry an acorn without assistance. Can live for six months on one black oil sunflower seed.

Teacup Squirrel: The size of the Queen’s extended pinky finger. Too small to carry a pre-husked sunflower seed. (Note to European readers: the American Teacup Squirrel converts roughly to a 110-gram Metric Teacup Squirrel.)

Nano Squirrel: microscopic self-replicating killer nanorobots bent on world domination. Can carry eight to ten Standard Squirrels or two large bags of White Hut cheeseburgers (including onions).

I have a “salt-and-pepper” beard, but the pepper is fading, and soon I will have a salt beard. Every time I see the beard in a mirror, I am reminded of my favorite Just for Men® Haircolor commercial. In the unlikely event that you do not know exactly which commercial I’m talking about, I will give you a short recap.

In Scene One, product spokesmen Walt “Clyde” Frazier and Keith Hernandez attempt to rescue their prematurely gray pal Emmitt Smith from the Running Back Rest Home. They fear that Emmitt’s gray beard is preventing him from getting laid on a daily basis. The boys are greeted at the home’s front desk by a buxom young woman dressed in cheerleader/nurse fetish wear. The camera pans across the geezer ward, and we see several other freaky fetish nurses tending to an assortment of doddering graybeards. Between scenes, beard technicians restore Emmitt’s beard to its “natural-looking” color, and by the end of Scene Two he is once again surrounded by sexy fetish models (this time waving pom-poms). And so we come full circle.

The Running Back Rest Home ad amuses me. I don’t fall off the sofa laughing or anything, but I do occasionally give it a reclining ovation. Not everyone likes it as much as I do, though. I know this. Some prefer the trippy psychedelia of Just for Men’s Summer of Life ad or the vaudevillian pratfalls of No Play for Mr. Gray. And let us not forget the stubborn few who insist that the entire Just for Men advertising oeuvre is built on a “flawed premise.” I have personally argued with every one of the Stubborn Few, so I am familiar with all two of their talking points. Perpend:

S.F.T.P. #1 — If the gray-bearded consumer is to believe that dye-beards have more sex, then why are the convalescing graybeards surrounded by sexy fetish models while the dye-bearded product spokesmen are only surrounded by other spokesmen? This is ironic, is it not?

S.F.T.P. #2 — Before Emmitt uses the product, he is surrounded by sexy fetish models, but after he uses the product, he is . . . em, still surrounded by sexy fetish models? So what is the product benefit? Is new Emmitt more surrounded than old Emmitt was?

I’ve got to hand it to the Stubborn Few. Their talking points are few, but they are persuasive. Even so, I can’t help wondering if a full-pepper beard would give me an advantage with freaky sexy fetish models. I’m scratching my salty chin and I’m wondering . . . wondering, wondering. And that, my friends, is the power of advertising.

Here are FIVE SECRET RULES guaranteed to change (and possibly improve) your performance in the office tournament pool this year.

1. Pick one team with a compass direction and the word “State” in its name. This year, it’s either East Tennessee State over Pittsburgh or North Dakota State over Kansas. I’ll go with N.D. State because their opponent is coached by a guy named Bill Self, and everyone knows there’s no “Self” in Team. (Incidentally, there is also no “I” in Self.)

2. Pick one team named after a historical figure, preferably one who is known as “the father” of the team’s home state. Brigham Young is the obvious player here, mostly because Mr. Young was the biggest “player” of all the fathers of all the states. You can’t go wrong with BYU. And that’s why I’m going with Stephen F. Austin, Father of Texas.

3. Always pick Syracuse University’s first round opponent. Always. No exceptions. If you just said “why?” then please accompany me on a short trip down Bad Memory Lane. Remember how disappointed you were after you picked Syracuse to beat the lowly Vermont Plaid Hats in the first round of the 2005 tournament? Surely Syracuse cannot lose to Vermont, you reasoned. Surely not. Learn from the pain, my friends. Do not beg for another smackdown. It is unseemly. Did I mention that Syracuse University’s first round opponent this year is Stephen F. Austin, Father of Texas (see Rule 2).

4. Pick one team just because you like their team’s nickname. I would call your attention to a very interesting first round match-up between the Akron Zipps and Gonzaga Zags. It’s a shame that one of those teams has to lose.

5. Whenever possible, pick a team named after a cocktail. My half-hearted research turned up only three such teams in all of college basketball. These are the Tulsa Golden Hurricanes (a dangerous mix of vodka, rum, cointreau, orange juice and milk), the Purdue Boilermakers (an explosive whiskey/beer combo), and the Southern Utah Thunderbirds (twist-cap bum wine). Only one of those teams (Purdue) is in the tournament this year. You know what to do.

Drunk, belligerent rock stars always give good value for the entertainment dollar. That’s why the BlogCo Repertory Theatre is kicking off its ’09 season with a new play called “Liam Gallagher Fighting in a Club.” We haven’t actually written the play yet, but we have the title, and the rest should be easy. It’s just a matter of stitching together a few compelling, action-packed scenes (plus commercials and closing credits). That’s where you come in.

So, what kind of “action” would you, John and Jane Q. Theatergoer, expect to see in a play called “Liam Gallagher Fighting in a Club”? My writers are stumped. They’ve got nothing for me, and nothing isn’t enough. I mean, who wants to see a play in which nothing happens? Oh, look . . . the Samuel Beckett fans are raising their hands. Hmm, what if we change the title to “Waiting for Godot to Fight Liam Gallagher in a Club”? Where would that takes us?

Act I
While waiting for Godot to fight Liam Gallager in a club, Estragon (played by Gene Simmons) struggles to remove his boot. His friend Vladimir (played by James Blunt’s severed head) muses on Estragon’s struggle and says, “I brought my face to this crowded place, and I don’t know what to do, ’cause Estragon can’t remove his shoe until we reach Act Two.” [curtain falls]

[Intermission — Jack Daniels and cigarettes in lobby.]

Act II
Liam Gallagher’s brother Noel arrives just as Estragon removes his left boot. Noel asks if Liam has arrived yet, and Vladimir says, “We’re waiting for him to fight Godot in this bar. They are late.” It just so happens that Noel hates people who are late. He hates them nearly as much as he hates Green Day, goths, and Manchester United fans. Noel says, “Fuck all. Let’s go.”

Vladimir says, “We can’t go.”

Noel says, “Why not?”

Vladimir says, “Because we’re waiting for Godot to fight Liam Gallagher in this bar, and because the Fictional Characters Guild only allows us to talk about taking action.”

Noel says, “That’s bloody fucking Rubbish!” And then he breaks Vladimir’s nose with Estragon’s boot. [curtain falls]

Eh, on second thought, let’s not write a play. Let’s just wait here and see what happens.

If you’ve had the displeasure of attending a BlogCo Holiday Party, then you’ve probably slogged through a conversation with our staff geologist, Dr. Cliff Bedload. Dr. Bedload is the founding (and sole) member of the Arts and Crafts School of Geology, a movement which asserts that all mountains are made of papier mâché and baking soda. Dr. Bedload believes this to be unassailable fact, and I don’t argue with him. (Arguing with the Dr. Bedload only encourages him to keep talking.)

Ironically, it was at this year’s BlogCo Holiday Party, during a conversation with the Rock Doc, that I discovered a range of mountains which do not fit “Bedload Model.” These are the Coors Light mountains. The Coors Light Mountains are not “real” mountains, they are logo mountains, and logo mountains are not made of papier mâché and baking soda, they are made of temperature-sensitive ink. This miracle ink causes the mountains on the Coors Light label to turn blue when the beer in the bottle reaches “optimal drinking temperature.” That means cold.

This brings us around to the traditional BlogCo Holiday Beer Tip paragraph. Get out your pencils, kiddies. If the Coors thermo-science-label is too difficult to read when you’re drunk, or if you prefer to drink a more beer-like beer — one which does not travel with an onboard thermometer — then you need some alternative methods for measuring beer coldness. I typically use one of the following two PROVEN METHODS:

PROVEN METHOD #1. First I ask myself if I remembered to put the beer in the refrigerator. If the answer is yes, then I construct a simple syllogism like this one:

The beer is inside the refrigerator.
The inside of the refrigerator is cold.
Therefore, the beer is cold.

This is the Aristotelian method of beer temperature inquiry, and it is the method preferred by ancient and/or dead philosophical Greek beer drinkers.

While the Aristotelian method works at least as well as the Coors method, there are times when I just don’t feel like getting all logical about my beer-temperature problem. On these occasions, I go straight to PROVEN METHOD #2..

PROVEN METHOD #2. Sometimes, when I want to know if my beer is cold, I touch the bottle. If I feel coldness on my fingertips, then I conclude that the beer is cold. That, my friends, is old-school cold.

This morning I saw a TV ad for Pilgrim Furniture, and I had to ask myself why anyone would name a furniture store after the Pilgrims. Everyone knows that the Pilgrims had lousy furniture.

I haven’t been to the Pilgrim furniture store, but if you have, then you may have heard a conversation like this one:

Customer: May I test drive your plush Recline-O-Rocker with soothing heat, magic-finger massage and dual cupholders? I saw it advertised on TV.

Sales Pilgrim: No, sir, we don’t have any magic plushy-rockers in stock. Could I interest you in a rough-hewn 3-legged stool?”

Customer: Does it achieve the perfect balance between contemporary style, and decadent comfort?

Sales Pilgrim: It achieves colonial style and decadent discomfort. Is that close enough?

Customer: Eh . . .

Sales Pilgrim: It’s extremely stable.

Customer: Look, I really don’t think a rough-hewn 3-legged stool will fit in with my chichi postcolonial decor.

Sales Pilgrim: But, sir, only the wealthiest and self-consciously stylish Pilgrim families have rough-hewn 3-legged stools. Ordinary Pilgrims sit on stumps or Plymouth rocks. Some Pilgrims don’t sit at all — Miles Standish, for example.

I’ve just been charged for another year of web hosting, so I guess it’s time to administer a bit of blog CPR. Prepare the paddles, Nurse Naughtybottom! No, not the ass paddles, the defibrillator paddles. Chrissake.

My friends, I propose three-pronged Blog Rejuvenation Plan (BRP), code named “Burp”. The first prong involves controlled application of electric shock. The second prong requires all former BlogCo contributors to gather in the punchbowl, where they will mindlessly repeat our new snappy rhyming motto. The third prong is a ground prong, which should protect metal-encased blog visitors from receiving an unpleasant electric shock.

Okay, kiddies, put on your swim suits, ease into the tepid and dangerously electrified waters of the BlogCo punchbowl, and repeat after me — It’s never too late to resuscitate!

Sarah Palin appeared briefly yesterday but disappeared after seeing her own shadow. The good news is, there will be six more weeks of summer!

I don’t claim to know if Fox News is or isn’t “fair and balanced,” but I do know that Fox is the undisputed cable news leader in control-freak hairstyles. And it bothers me.

I realize that my hair-care concern is trivial — maybe “flip” is a better word — but I wonder if this pathological need to groom the hair has something darker at its roots. Flyaway hair is an untended garden, my friends, but helmet hair is a meticulously trimmed and chemically maintained fairway. It is the beauty of iron-fisted control! But beauty at what price? Shepard Smith’s hair longs for freedom it will never know. Neil Cavuto is the Joseph Stalin of hair fashion, and his legions are armed with cans of Aqua-Net. Hippies beware!

As ancient Chinese astronomers, druids, and my numerous Mongolian and Greenlandish readers know, there will be a total solar eclipse today. With this in mind, I offer the following safety tips for modern eclipse viewers.

1. Do not look directly at the eclipse
2. Do not fear the eclipse
3. Do not examine the eclipse for ill omens
4. Do not make animal and/or human sacrifices to the eclipse
5. Do not bang drums and pots to frighten the sun-eating eclipse monster
5a. Do not jingle the change in your pockets while viewing the eclipse (or at any other time, because it fucking bugs me)
6. Do not post nude pictures of yourself on the InterNest® while viewing the eclipse

I realize that this is all common sense and that many of you know these things already. Over time, a significant percentage of us have outgrown our eclipse-related superstitions and feelings of impending doom. Yes, yes, of course I have data to back up this claim. Chrissake, I’m a scientist.

Percentage of ancient eclipse viewers who expected doom — 100%
Percentage of modern eclipse viewers who expect doom — 93.57%

Those are the facts, my friends. Those are real science facts.

The boss’s son got a Mohawk haircut yesterday. After inspecting the results, I decided to google some background information. Turns out, the origins of this popular hairstyle are not nearly as clear cut as you might suppose.

The earliest known Mohawk was found on the headbone of an iron-age Irish “bog body” known as the Clonycavan Man. Modern paleontologists were very lucky to discover this well-preserved haircut. I mean, what were the odds that an ancient Irishman would go down to his local pub-henge for a pint and then fall into a body-preserving peat bog on his way home?

Okay, maybe luck wasn’t a factor.

An interesting aside here: scientists examining Clonycavan Man found French plant oil and pine resin in his hair. As you undoubtedly know, these are the two primary ingredients in a modern hair-care product called Aqua Net®.

After the Iron Age, the Mohawk moved to colonial America. It did not, however, become a member of Mohawk nation. Early French explorers who reported seeing Mohawks wearing Mohawks probably saw Wyandots wearing Mohawks. This is an understandable mistake. Today, French explorers searching for Celine Dion and Michael Bublé concerts often mistake the Mohegan Sun Casino for the Foxwoods Casino.

In the modern era, the Mohawk has been worn by many celebrities, including the boss’s son. Mr. T wore it in all three of his popular roles — Clubber Lang in Rocky III, B.A. Baracus in The A-Team, and Fortinbras, Prince of Norway, in Hamlet. All members of the seminal punk band The Plasmatics wore the Mohawk. None of them ever fell into a bog, either, although Wendy O Williams did fall into the mosh pit.

Well hello everyone.

First, I would like to apologize for my recent lack of blog posting (unless this lack of posting was good thing, in which case I would like to apologize for this apology).

Somehow, over the course of time, I convinced myself that blog posts should be “interesting,” and that if they could not be “interesting,” they should not BE at all. Kay-rist, what was I thinking? Blogs are all about uninteresting posts. Blogs are places where our low expectations are NEVER exceeded, where unnecessary exposition ALWAYS fails to move the plot forward (largely because there is no plot to move), and where the blogger (me) supports every ridiculous point with three examples separated by commas. This last thing, I promise you, I will do AT LEAST ONCE in every paragraph.

[Applause.]

My friends, if a Tolstoy novel is the tumble dryer of language, then my blog is the lint trap. It is a place to collect the stuff that clings uselessly to the useful (but damp) stuff, a place to use annoying acronyms like LOL and BOM and BYOB, and thirdly in this list of THREE SUPPORTING EXAMPLES, a blog is a place to use bad metaphors without shame, particularly those which compare the literary arts to common household clothes-drying appliances. Oh, hell, I don’t even know if that dryer bit WAS a metaphor, and I don’t care, because, dammit, I’m a blogger! Yeah!

[More applause.]

Settle down now and pay attention. I want to tell you (in excruciating detail) about my formative years. Long ago, before my hair fell out, I was a boy without a blog, a boy scratching boring stories into the dirt with a pointed stick. . . .

I’m holding a scratch lottery ticket in one hand and my cellphone in the other hand, and I’m steering the JesusChrysler with my knees. I can’t see the road because I’m tailgating a garbage truck.

It’s a TrashCo truck. Paper is flying from it’s back end and fluttering down around me. Apparently, TrashCo removes paper from the bin at the end of your driveway and then recycles it onto the streets of your neighborhood. No matter. It takes more than fluttering paper to stop a JesusChrysler.

At the traffic light in the center of town, the truck turns right and I turn left. Before I can straighten the wheel, I hear a pop, and my right front tire starts flopping like Manu Ginobili. I limp into Jimmy’s Gulf station.

Jimmy is an experienced auto mechanic. He explains complex problems in terms the average guy can understand. “Cars do two important things,” he tells me. “They go and they stop. If your car stops going or stops stopping, then you’ve gotta bring it to me.”

“But if my car stops going, how am I supposed to bring it to you?”

Jimmy ignores the question. With a pair of pliers, he extracts three nails from my flat tire. He says, “Dick Dastardly & Muttley used to pull shit like this in that Wacky Races cartoon. It’s a simple but effective way to eliminate tailgaters.”

“Those guys quit the cartoon gig,” I say. “They’re driving a TrashCo garbage truck now.”

Jimmy patches the tire and gets me back on the road. As I resume my commute, I wonder how many other law-abiding tailgaters will be sidelined by TrashCo today. Anyone could fall for their junk — the fluttering paper up high, and then the tack attack down low. They got me—I admit it—but it wasn’t because of their little distraction. I was much too busy with my phone and my lottery ticket to fall for a cheap stunt like that.

Kevin Bacon has zero degrees of separation from himself. If you ask me, that’s a little to close for comfort.

I am waiting to be sheared at Mastercuts when a guy strolls in dressed like a medieval monk. He is holding a large photograph. The guy stops at the desk and says, “How much for a haircut, m’lady?”

Lady d’Mastercuts gives him the once-over and says, “$14.95, friar.”

“Is tonsure included in your price?” he asks.

The lady shrugs. “Whachoo mean by tonsure?”

The monk slaps the photograph down on Lady d’Mastercut’s table. He pokes it with a bony index finger. “I mean, how much will it cost to make me look like him?”

Across the room, I peer over the top of Popular Hairplugs magazine. My curiosity is piqued. Which celebrity hairstyle, I wonder, is currently in vogue with the medieval monastic crowd?

I move in for a closer look. At a display case near the desk, I pretend to examine a bottle of Bed Head Creative Genius Sculpting Liquid. The monk and his lady friend are bent over the celebrity-hairdo photograph. But it isn’t a photograph after all — it’s a page torn from an art history book. A painting fills the top two-thirds of the page, and a short descriptive passage follows. The subhead reads, “A Portrait of Thomas Aquinas.”

Painted Aquinas is holding a bible in one hand and a cathedral in the other. It’s an unbalanced load and he is listing badly to one side. The top of Tom’s head is shaved bare. A thin strip of hair, just above the ears, circles his bald crown like an English hedge.

“Ah, tonsure,” the lady says. “It’s just the Little-Boy cut with a big bald spot on top!”

“Indeed?” says the monk. “What price for the Little-Bald-Boy cut?”

“$14.95.”

“Can you do it?”

“With my eyes closed,” the lady says. She looks down at Thomas Aquinas and then up at the guy who thinks he’s a monk. “You know,” she says, “you really had me worried for a minute. Dudes usually bring pictures of George Clooney.”

Mr. Noah Webster,
spelling reformer, word monkey and child actor (retired)
c/o the afterlife

Dear Mr. Webster,

I’m very sorry to hear that you’re still dead. I had an excellent idea today, and I wanted to share it with you. It a word thing.

Here’s the gist:

First, I will list the 70,000 words I’ve had to invent over the years to fill the gaps you left in the English language. This list of fake words will include such favorites as Neurotica, and Lambatomy and Passhole. When the list is complete, I will make and eat a chicken sandwich. After the sandwich (ATS), I’ll jot down meanings for each of the fake words I listed before my sandwich break. That should take me right up to dinner time. Since this paragraph is already running long, I’ll have my summer intern, Rosemary Chickenbreasts, arrange my fake words in alphabetical order while I prepare dinner. Finally, I’ll stuff the words, definitions and perhaps a few bits of mustard into a big compendium of fake words called a “Fictionary.”

Send me a message if you dig it, Noah.

P.S.: I enjoyed your TV program.

While taking a tour of Fenway Park on Thursday, a middle school student from Connecticut was attacked by a red-tailed hawk. Team officials told reporters that the bird was protecting its nest, which was installed above the press booth during off-season ballpark renovations. Some eyewitnesses, however, dispute the official explanation.

“It wasn’t a random attack,” said Joe from Bristol, a Sox fan and tour chaperone. “Come on, man, the kid’s name is Alexa Rodriquez. Do I have to friggin’ spell it out for you?”

Sox fans are often ridiculed for their obsession with curses and conspiracy theories. Even so, one may reasonably question some aspects of the “nest defense theory.” For instance, with so many students to choose from, why did the vengeful raptor single out the namesake of a hated Yankee rival? I mean, what are the freakin’ odds, man? Come on!

According to Joe from Bristol, little A-rod was a marked girl. “I don’t care if they sic a freakin’ pterodactyl on me,” Joe said. “I’m just tellin’ it like it is.” The other tour chaperones, many of whom are parents of students, were reluctant to back Joe’s story. The parents of Annie Pettitte, Derika Jeter, Maryanne Rivera and Becky “F***ing” Dent declined numerous interview requests.

You have survived another blog software upgrade. Now you can engage in many new and exciting blog-related acitivities. Unfortunately, I do not know what any of these activities are. Not yet, anyway. Since I know you all look to me for leadership in new-and-exciting-blog-related-activities area, I will do some research and get back to you at my earliest convenience. If I get back to you sooner than that, it will be at my earliest inconvenience.

Thank you. Get back to work.

Last Saturday night, at General Yee’s Olde Tavern, I ran into a guy I hadn’t seen for a year or two. Guy saw me wandering around, zombie-like. He hailed. “Hey,” he said, “how you been? I haven’t seen you in a year, maybe two.” (Obviously, Guy had not read the first part of this paragraph.)

I said, “I haven’t seen me either. In fact, I was just looking for myself.”

Guy said, “Ha!”, and then he pointed at his girlfriend, who was also saying, “ha!” Guy said, “this is my girlfriend, Whosit.” He looked at Whosit, who was no longer saying “ha,” and he looked back at me, and I could tell that he was trying to remember my name. “Whosit,” said he, “this is . . .”

There was a brief pause, and then Guy said “Ken,” and I said “John.”

Whosit said, “Soooooo, which is it, Ken or John?”

Guy looked at me. “I thought your name was Ken,” he said.

Not knowing how to delicately sidestep the awkward social situation, I said, “Well, my name used to be Ken, but now it’s John.”

Whosit and Guy said, “Ha!”

Before her 11:00 a.m. hair-poofing appointment, my elderly mother and I strolled through Sears. We saw only one other customer. He was standing in the aisle between Electronics and Appliances, and he was so still, I nearly mistook him for a mannequin.

Perhaps I should have suspected mischief. I mean, how often do you see a mannequin in Electronics or Appliances? How often do you see a petrified customer? But I was not alarmed. If a customer had been petrified in Sears, then surely there was a reasonable explanation. Maybe he was struggling with a difficult decision — should he buy the pacific blue Kenmore Elite King-Size Front Load Washer or the Hitachi 50-inch Plasma HD1080 Television? My friends, we have all done battle in the retail arena. Which of us has never been paralyzed by indecision?

The elderly mother and I walked blithely on. When we were about five feet away from Mannequin Man, he started ranting. Apparently, he was motion-activated.

“When you reach a roadblock,” he said, “you MUST seek alternate routes! There are always alternate routes, and you MUST seek them when you reach a roadblock! If the alternate routes are also blocked, then you must seek alternate alternate routes! There is a way around every roadblock!”

Mannequin Man followed us with his eyes as we stepped carefully around him.

The elderly mother glanced over her shoulder and quickened her pace. “Oh, dear,” she said.

“Hey, lady, don’t run from the truth” I said. “Hey, lady, wait up!”

“He’s crazy,” she whispered.

“Maybe he is,” I said. “Or maybe he’s an omniscient commentator.”

“Eh? Is that like a store greeter or something?”

“Nope. It’s more like the chorus in Greek tragedy. That guy is probably trying to reinforce the moral of our particular shopping story.”

“Which is?”

“Don’t be discouraged by obstacles. Don’t let anything stand between you and big poofy hair.”