The main problem with my little lotto dream world is that in order to win the lottery, you have to play the lottery. I suggested to a co-worker that we start throwing in a few bucks here and there to buy lotto tickets each week. He loved the idea and instantly his mind swept him away to a world where he had just won the lotto.

“Oh man, if I won like $60 million, that would be about $30 million after taxes. I would pay off my house, probably buy a better car, put some of the money away for my daughter’s college fund, I’d probably have to still work…” This is where I cut him off.

“Wait a second… In your lottery fantasy you still have a job? You need to work with your 4-year-old daughter on your imagination and make-believe skills!”

In my fantasy, my wife and I never work another day in my lives. We buy a small island and travel the entire world to go snowboarding and surfing. We have houses in Tahoe, Hawaii, Portland and all over the world. We have courtside season tickets to the Blazers, and enough money left over to save the world.

But to me, playing the lottery and expecting to win is like moving to Hollywood and expecting to become a star. It could happen, but it’s most likely just a pipe dream. But isn’t that dream worth indulging every once and awhile?

I traditionally only play the lotto when it has grown to some ridiculously large dollar amount. The type of number that even has my parents‑ who claim the lotto is a waste of money‑ asking, “Did you buy a lotto ticket.” The last time I bought a lotto ticket, I think the jackpot was over $300 million. When it gets that big, it gets everyone’s attention; which is why it is so stupid to buy a ticket then. I’d have much better odds playing the “small” jackpots. But the small jackpots don’t indulge my fantasies the way the big ones do.

Although the entire world had probably bought tickets, it didn’t stop me and my roommates from playing. I didn’t win, obviously, but the money I spent on tickets was well worth the daydreams they provided of me being filthy rich. A group of steel workers in Pittsburg won and I heard on NPR that a few of them actually showed up to work the next day. They tried to paint the winners as good guys who didn’t want their other coworkers to fall behind because they were short staffed, but I’m sure the only reason they showed up at work the next day was to constantly remind everyone, “I’m rich, BITCHES!”

The first time I played the lotto was the weekend after I graduated from college. I pulled into a gas station to buy beer and saw a sign for a $72 million jackpot. I thought it was a sign, I knew I was going to win. So I bought some tickets and spent the weekend planning my trip around the world on my new sailboat, which I was going to buy with my winnings. At the end of the weekend, it was announced that some other person won my voyage.

It is such a long shot, and the people who win usually die young and or go broke, but there’s still an allure to me. Who knows, maybe it’s the millions of dollars. But it’s not the money and the possessions that really indulge my fantasies, it’s the thought that I could make my own reality, do whatever I wanted to do for a living, not simply log hours behind a desk to pay the bills and mortgage. But my wife claims that she would still work even if we won the lotto. She said she would get bored without a job. I told her that’s fine, and I would support her decision. I also promised to call her every night, because I would rather be bored sitting on a beach in Fuji, than keeping myself busy behind a desk.

Now, I’m not sure if anyone properly explained to this man, the art of impersonating a famous person. The goal is to emulate the things the person is best known for, not the things the person was sent to jail for (or should have gone to jail for). For example a good Michael Jackson impersonator should: wear one white rhinestone covered glove; they should do the moonwalk; they should yell, “A-hee-hee” and grab their crotch before attempting to balance all of their weight on the tips of their toes; they should wear a candy-apple-red leather jacket with metal studs on it, a pork-pie hat, aviator shades and penny loafers. They should not molest kids.

The real Michael Jackson was never found guilty of molesting kids, but there is one major difference between the real Michael Jackson and all of his impersonators…. he was the voice behind Thriller. Yes, that’s right; if Michael Jackson had not done the Thriller album, his ass would’ve been thrown in jail. No one gets off, no pun intended, with charges of molesting children multiple times; but MJ did. The reason? P.Y.T. Billie Jean. Beat it. That Girl is Mine. Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’. Thriller is the best selling record of all time; I bet it is impossible to find one person in the world, who has heard the album, who does not love at least one of the songs on that album. It must have been impossible to find an impartial jury…
“Juror No. 4, have you ever heard of Michael Jackson?”
“Uh, you mean the King of Pop! Hell yes, I love MJ.”

So to prevent any further confusion for impersonators, I thought I would provide a small list of things they should not do.

R. Kelly impersonators…
Do wear weird masks and sing Bump N’ Grind. Do not have sex with underage woman and videotape yourself peeing on them. You will go to jail.

George W. Bush impersonators…
Do mispronounce words and pretend to be generally confused about life. Do not attack a foreign country in search of WMDs. You will go to jail.

Britney Spears impersonators…
Do dress like a slutty schoolgirl and sing Oops I did it Again. Do not marry a backup dancer, use your child as an air bag and then go crazy. You will probably go to jail?

Lindsay Lohan impersonators…
Basically everything you could to impersonate her will likely land you in jail, find another career path.

OJ Simpson impersonators…
Do try to look as much like the man as possible, maybe carry around a Heisman Trophy or wear a Raider’s jersey. Do not murder two people, get away with said murders and then rob a sports memorabilia guy. You will most likely go to jail for the murders, but if you don’t, they’ll nail you on kidnapping and robbery. You will go to jail.

Remember, if you’re going to go into this line of work, only impersonate the things that made them famous. You know, the things that allow them to get away with the crimes you or I would surely go to jail for.

“Mom doesn’t like her Barbie,” said her older brother Sam. “Mom says she looks hungry.”

“If your mom doesn’t like the Barbie, who got it for her?” “She brought it home from grandma and grandpa’s house, it was mom’s Barbie when she was little,” Sam told me.

“I’m hopefully going to get another one for my birthday,” Lucy hinted with a mixture of excitement for what was to come and pride for the doll she currently had clung to her chest.

It was Lucy’s fourth birthday; which I’ve come to realize is one of the biggest birthdays in a kid’s life, simply for the fact that when they turned three-years-old, they really don’t remember turning two. But at four, they clearly remember their third birthday and all of the presents, cake and attention that come along with it. They are pumped out of their little adolescent minds to turn four.

So this being the biggest birthday of her entire childhood, we wanted to get her something good, and the only thing good in Lucy’s mind was a tall bleach-blonde doll sporting double d’s and a smile.

Talking with Lucy’s parents about birthday presents, the topic of Barbie quickly came up again.

“I really don’t like her playing with Babies,” her mom said. “Not only does she look hungry, but her waist is tiny and her boobs are huge.”

I understand why she didn’t want Lucy to get a Barbie, after all, most of the doll’s we found had Barbie wearing clothes that made her look like she was a shoe-in for either the cover of the next Girl’s Gone Wild DVD, or a place on the cast of the next VH-1 celebrity dating show where she would spend the majority of her time in front of the camera trying to convince the audience that she was not only old enough to know who this celebrity was, but also that she was madly in love with him before she found out about the auditions on Craiglist that morning.

“He’s my soul mate,” she would say over and over into the camera. If she made it just far enough along in the dating selection, or caused enough drama to shame her entire family, she might even get her own spin off show.

There obviously isn’t some predetermined equation that proves any little girl who plays with Barbie Dolls will develop body issues and spend most of their adult lives trying to look exactly like Pamela Anderson. My sister Tricia played with Barbie dolls when we were growing up. She now goes by the name Trash, drums in a crusty-punk band and dates a woman with hairy armpits; so you just never know.

But I remember a similar discussion about women’s body image when a college friend of mine found out his girlfriend was pregnant and was having a baby girl.

“I’m not going to let her get all Britney Spears and think that’s the way women are supposed to look,” he said.

Mind you, this was before Britney got married to one of her background dancers, got pregnant, and then drove her car around with her baby in the air-bag position. This was long before she went on a yearlong bender, became bffs with Paris Hilton, got tattoos when she could barely stand, shaved her head at 4 a.m. and then ran off and got married to a member of the papa razzi. No, this was the “Oops I did it again” Britney, the most wholesome version of the woman we would ever come to know, and he was still worried.

In the following year, even Britney fell victim to trying to live up to the Britney Spears’ image, and, from what I gathered from the trashy magazines that line the check out lane of every grocery store in Amercia, it nearly drove the poor girl insane. I wonder in Britney ever played with Barbie dolls as a kid?

When it finally came down to buying Lucy a birthday present, we decided we could either buy her something she would be disappointed with, or get her a Barbie; we decided on the doll.

While looking for the right Barbie it was important to find one that Lucy would really like, so that meant the doll had to be a princess, preferably sporting pink. Luckily my wife found just the doll, a Barbie that was apparently involved in a story line with the Three Musketeers. According to the packaging, this particular Barbie was featured in an animated story, which was available on DVD for additional purchase.

While at the store, my wife called and informed me there was a sale. With the purchase of a Barbie, you could either get a free Ken doll from the same story line, or additional dresses for the doll. I voted for the Ken doll because the last time I saw Lucy playing with her dolls, Belle and Sleeping Beauty seemed perfectly content with their female dance partners, but it seemed Snow White was longing for some male companionship.

At home, while we were wrapping the presents, we noticed something about the packaging. Both Barbie and Ken had word bubbles coming up from their mouths like they were speaking, but what they were saying was completely different. Barbie’s word bubble said, “This is my first ball,” while Ken’s said, “I want to be an inventor.” At first we were amused by it, but then, like the drama a few years back where a talking Barbie said, “Math is hard,” we wondered if these stereotypes weren’t more harmful than Barbie’s body issues. Basically what they were saying was, Barbie is a party girl who is excited to go dancing; while Ken is a smart young man determined to make something of himself when he grows up. How old are Barbie and Ken supposed to be by the way?

But unlike the talking Barbie, this doll would only have one chance to get her message across, because once Lucy saw the pink-gowned princess beneath the plastic, that packing was toast. And another thing, Lucy can’t read yet.

In the end, Lucy was extremely excited to get the Barbie and Ken dolls. Her eye’s lit up for at least a half of a second, which was about the time it took for her to refocus her attention on the other unopened presents sitting next to her on the floor. The next present was a Polly Pocket beach set with all sort of different bikinis, swim fins, snorkels, flip flops and other beach gear for Polly to change into and out of. Although Polly is much smaller than Barbie, I couldn’t help but notice she was built in a similar fashion, and just like that, Barbie was pushed to the sidelines for a smaller version of herself with skimpier clothing. If Barbie is Britney Spears, then Polly is Millie Cyrus; she just doesn’t have the bad reputation- yet.

Such an amazing deal actually, that I’m starting to grow concerned about the history of the house. Not so much the structural history, we hired an inspector, and for a small fortune he prodded around the house and snapped pictures with a digital camera of all the things we needed to fix. I’m talking about the actually history of the house.

A friend joked that the only reason we got such a great deal was because someone used the place to perform satanic rituals, or that someone was murdered there. Normally this is the type of thing I’d laugh off, but my wife and I just finished watching an unhealthy amount of Dexter in an extremely short time, and now I’m super paranoid that everyone I know or anyone I pass on the street, is in fact a serial killer. I’m in the process of searching all of my friend’s homes for trophies of their kills.

This paranoia has built to the point where I’m now completely confident that I’ve purchased the home of a serial killer and or Satan worshiper. I’m also convinced that although I’m completely joking (only 99 percent serious), my wife will not be able to sleep the first night we stay at the house because of this post.

I’m a little less stressed out now that I Googled “serial killer, murder, murdered, satanic ritual” and our address, only to have nothing solid pop up in the search results. I’m sure the house is fine, we’ve toured it a number of times, even at night, and found nothing strange.

Well, we did find a pretty eerie photo of a young boy, in the basement, placed prominently on the furnace. It looked like he used to live in the house, but it was pretty strange because the house has been abandoned for a number of years, then completely gutted and redone by a company who bought and flipped the place. They even replaced the furnace. So how did the photo end up on furnace? Who put it there and what were they trying to tell us? Oh shit… it just hit me! We bought a house that is haunted by a little boy. I’ve got to go call our real estate agent.

According to the search results I obtained from Googling my symptoms, I could be dying from at least 10 different illnesses. I was surprised to find out from Wikipedia that all of the diseases I’m suffering from are incredibly rare, some of them have never even been diagnosed in the U.S.- just my luck.

I decided to seek out a second opinion, so I Googled Web MD and then searched my symptoms there, only to find out my first diagnosis was completely accurate; I’m dying.

I’ve always thought it would be difficult to find out you are terminally ill, but usually there is one disease you are fighting and the doctors have a plan to alleviate your suffering. In my case, it’s not that easy. Some of my diseases have never even affected a man before; others haven’t been diagnosed in decades or are routinely found in only animals. There is no cure, and since I forgot to bookmark the Wikipedia pages for each disease, I already forgot at least seven of the illnesses I’m dying from.

My only hope now is that NBC will do a mini-series on my heroic struggle, battling at least 10 different terminal illnesses (that number will probably increase by the time I’m done reading through all of my search results). I hope they get someone fantastic to play me, like Neil Patrick Harris, or get Justin Timberlake and make it into a musical.

This news is obviously upsetting, but it really makes me think about what’s important- search engine results. Before I go and draft my will— deciding who will get my most cherished possessions, like my iPhone and my Jesus bobble-head doll— I’m going to work on redefining my symptoms for Google and see if it will re-diagnose me with something non-life threatening; like a sinus headache, which is what I thought I had to begin with.

- Daniel Savickas

I’ve begun to realize that although mothers don’t go through the exact same experience, they do go through something similar with their sons. Now, most mothers aren’t worried about their sons falling prey to some smooth talking high school girl, but they do go through a stage in their parenting where they want to turn their sons into a “Mama’s boy.”

While mothers are less likely to try and intimidate their son’s girlfriends by showing them their gun collection or telling them, “I have a shovel and big back yard, I don’t think anyone would notice you’re missing,” I think they have a much more passive aggressive way of trying to accomplish the same thing.

I think mothers can, and will do little things to sabotage their son’s love lives in order to keep women away from their sons and keep their sons close to home. The reason for my hypothesis is simple: flannel boxers from the Gap.

The boxers aren’t even really flannel, in fact, they’re 100 percent cotton, but they feel as hot as flannel without any of the flexibility.

Now, I used to think that my mother was just a thrifty shopper for buying Christmas themed boxers in the spring and sending me a box full of them, but recently I’ve begun to question her motives.

Think about it, what woman in here right mind is going to date a grown man wearing navy blued boxers with little snowmen sporting Santa Clause hats?

I once had a girl in college tell me my boxers were total errection killers. I’m sure it had been phrased much more eloquently in her mind — the alcohol didn’t help with her articulation— but she made her point.

The theory that my mom is a genius when it comes to being a thrifty shopper went out the window when I recently went to a Gap outlet store to return the majority of a package she sent me. The packages almost always contain a sweater, a few shirts, a pair or two of pants and about five to six pairs of Christmas themed boxers.

When I walked into the store I discovered something shocking, the Gap offers non-Christmas themed boxers for the same cost as their Christmas themed counterparts. So why had I suffered through a decade of penguins, igloos, polar bears, and mittens all with Christmas décor on my undies?

Of course my mother and I have argued round and round about shopping for me. I insist that she not buy me anything at any store unless I am standing right next to her for two solid reasons.

One, after years and years of seeing the way I dress myself and the clothing I buy to do so, my mother is still convinced that I really want to dress is like a 42-year-old man out of the pages of an L.L. Bean catalog, a fact that could not be further from the truth. I guess in her mind she just believes the only reason I don’t dress this way is because I can’t afford it. She sends me packages filled with button down shirts and cargo pants that look like they were designed for an expedition trip to the Congo, or for a suburbanite that simply wants to look like they’ve just returned from an expedition trip to the Congo. Khaki, olive green, and all shades of cream paint every inch of the shirts and pants she sends, all with extremely boxy fits to them and a strange over-abundance of strategically placed tiny pockets that aren’t even big enough to fit enough change to pay for a half-an-hour on a parking meter.

The second reason my mother is not allowed to shop for me is, although she has a heart of gold, she has a soft spot for clothes that have incredibly tiny stitching, stitching that is so tiny it could only be made by tiny hands. To put it bluntly, my mother frequents stores that are routinely accused of using child labor.

Its not that she doesn’t think child labor is wrong, it’s just that she doesn’t follow the news or listen to me when I explain to her why I don’t shop at stores like the Gap.

“Mom, thank you for the package, but I told you, I don’t like to support companies that are accused of using child labor.”

“Well alright, you don’t have to keep it,” she routinely says. “I just thought those shirts were really nice, and they were on clearance.”

“I know, I just don’t like the Gap. But thank you, it was very nice of you to send me clothes.”

“Well I just thought those shirts were nice, but you don’t have to keep them. Stuff from the Gap just lasts so long. I’ve had this pair of jeans from the Gap for years. Every time I wear them people say, ‘Wow, those are nice jeans! I bet they were expensive though,’ and I say ‘No, I got them at the Gap on clearance.’”

The story goes on for a while longer where the person continues to doubt, in a friendly way, that such amazing denim could ever be purchased at the Gap, let alone on a clearance sale. The doubting Thomas claims, ‘No way!’ a few more times, then assures my mother that the jeans are in fact awesome and purchased at an unbelievably awesome price.

My mother loves clearance sales, they’re like the Mecca of all sales to her.

Our conversations about the clothes she sends me usually ends with my mother fighting off hurt feelings, or simply accepting that her son will never dress like Indiana Jones, but she’s always happy that at least kept the boxers.

“I thought they were cute,” she’ll say. “And I know you can always use some new boxers.”

The first part of that statement is true, but on a severely sliding scale. Yes, they are cute, if I was in second, or possibly third grade. The last part of her statement could not be more true. Yes, I’m always in need of new boxers, so I’ll never turn down a free pair, even if they have pictures of snowmen all over them. My mother knows that if it were up to me to buy boxers, I simply wouldn’t wear any. And this is where her scheme to scare off any possible female callers from coming into play works so well.

Over the past few years I’ve received boxers with the following designs: dark green boxers with polar bears; navy blue boxers with multi-colored snowflakes; navy blue boxers with multi-colored Christmas trees; navy blue boxers with monkeys wearing Santa Clause hats while in a snowball fight; blue boxers with stocking hats, mittens and scarves on them; and blue boxers with Santa clause hat wearing snowman. To be fair, she recently sent me some boxers that were not Christmas themed. Those pairs included: navy blue boxers with green frogs; brown boxers with mugs of beer; and the pair that completely backed up the hypothesis that my mother is trying to sabotage my sex life. The latest pair were navy blue pair with bright red lobsters on them. Yes, that’s right, she sent me a pair of boxers with fucking CRABS on them!

I have recently begun to voice my objection over the themed boxers, pointing out that if she simply must buy me boxers from the Gap, at least they could lack a Christmas themed design. My mother has tentatively agreed, but I don’t buy it. I’m positive that next spring she’ll send me a brand new package of clothes from the Gap complete with boxers featuring red-nosed reindeer playing hockey or ice-skating. Then I’ll of course call her to get the receipt in order to return the clothing, at which time she’ll say, “What, you didn’t like any of it? I just thought it was nice stuff and I know you can always use some new boxers. They were on clearance. Aren’t the ones with the reindeer so cute?!”

- Daniel Savickas

I mean, come on. Who didn’t love themselves some Urkel? For me, Urkel represented one thing, and one thing only- pure comedic genius. And who could forget Full House? The first time I headed into San Francisco I lowered the top on my Jeep and imagined I was Danny Tanner cruising across the Golden Gate Bridge in a red convertible with Uncle Jessie and Uncle Joey. CUT. IT. OUT! Of course the first time I drove across the bridge, as well as the second and third, it was so foggy I could barely see. I thought to myself, “Danny Tanner lied to me!”

Now days I don’t really associate Friday nights with quality television broadcasting. I guess if I associate it with anything I associate Fridays with the freedoms Saturday mornings provide. Friday means I don’t have to wake up early the following morning and if I want I can go out, stay up late and do whatever I want for as late as I want. But I usually don’t, the older I get the more likely I am to stay in on Friday nights, go to bed early and think back to a time where Friday nights meant ordering pizza, drinking massive amounts of pop and hanging out with my homeboys Urkel, Danny Tanner an Uncle Jessie.

- Daniel Savickas

The saddest part about this story, to me, is that even if this suicide bomber was greeted by Allah, and a handful of virgins, he did not mutter the only phrase that would’ve made this a tolerable or worthy act. “Rectum, I damn near killed ‘em!”

And this was the case, because although this asshole (no pun intended) managed to cram a bomb up his butt, he literally only blew up his own ass. The bomb was apparently detonated by a text message, and although security officials have no clue what the text said, I believe it was something like this: “OMG! I still can’t believe you shoved a bomb up your ass, you’re so gay! JK! Good luck, and know that we think you’re the bomb! No homo. L8.”

The Prince was mildly injured in the explosion, but the real story is, what’s next for airport security? Then on Christmas day, after asking myself that question, another man smuggled an explosive material onto a plane underneath his taint.

After the shoe bomber people had to start walking through airport security wearing socks or barefoot, while their shoes were x-rayed. Then there was the liquid bomber, the people that were going to mix liquids together to blow a plane out of the air. This resulted in people having to pack Barbie sized portions of shampoo, toothpaste and any other remotely liquid looking substance. Now we’ve had two bombers with explosive materials up or stored directly near their ass. What’s it going to take to clear airport security now?

The last time I flew I was a wee-bit hung over and didn’t think twice about filling up my water bottle for a little re-hydration on my flight home. I nearly drank the entire bottle before tucking it into my backpack to go through security.
“Whose bag is this,” called someone behind the x-ray machine.
“Mine,” I replied, quickly searching my mind to make sure I didn’t have anything illegal in there.
“You have liquid in your water bottle,”
“That would be water,” I replied.
After five minutes of arguing with the man to just let me drink the rest of the water and take my bottle, I realized I was about to miss my flight, so I left the guard standing there with my brand new $25 water bottle. The entire flight home I swear I was thirstier than I’ve ever been before.

I’m afraid that the next time I go to fly anywhere I’m going to have to drop my pants, grab my ankles and cough, with my ass two inches away from some TSA agent.

When I was young I saw the movie Delta Force, which dealt with the hijacking of a commercial plane. Unfortunately, I saw this fine film before I’d ever actually flown anywhere, causing me to believe that my first time on a plane, it would surly be hijacked. I had the same fear/concern the first time I boarded a train, but I can’t for the life of me remember what movie it was that instilled this fear in me.

So when I was 8, or somewhere around there, I boarded a plane to plane to Disney World, convinced that a group of heavily armed men would stand up halfway through our flight and inform us of their plan to take our plane to anywhere but the Magic Kingdom and Epcot Center. I’m not sure where I thought they would take us, but based on the hijacking movies I had seen, I assumed it would be someplace sandy with a lot of cacti- so maybe Arizona?

In the movie, the only reason any of the hostages survive the whole ordeal is because of the kick-ass heroics of Major Scott McCoy (Chuck Norris). But the hostages were incredibly lucky, when the hijacking was first announced and The Delta Force was called back into action via a live cable news broadcast, McCoy just happened to be watching. And he did swear this was his last mission, although he made it back for Delta Force 2: The Colombian Connection. But how could I be sure that McCoy would be watching cable news if our plane hijacked? And how could I be sure he would even take the mission, after all, he didn’t appear for Delta Force 3: The Killing Game, and it was a killing game for Christ’s sake! McCoy was replaced in the third installment by a bunch of clowns that didn’t even go by military rankings, Greg was by far the best bet for a hero and that’s only because he’s Chuck Norris’ son in real life. But I didn’t know that when I was 8, I only know that now because of Wikipedia.

Of course our plane didn’t get hijacked and we made it safely to Disney World. It wasn’t until nearly five years later that I realized how crazy it was that I thought that McCoy, or rather, Chuck Norris, could save me from terrorists. I came to this conclusion after watching the movie Passenger 57 and immediately realized, Chuck Norris could never save me from a plane full of terrorists- but Wesley Snipes could!

In the movie, Snipes single handled takes down a crew of international terrorists. At one point, when talking shit to the No. 1 bad guy, a white boy from… some international country, Snipes asks, “Do you ever play roulette?” To which the terrorist responds, “On occasion.” Snipes then delivers the main zinger, “Well let me give you a word of advice, always bet on black!” Get it, cause Snipes is black? OH, man!

To this day I have the hardest time going against Snipes on the roulette table. Anytime I even consider betting on red or green I just think to myself, “Was betting on red or green the key to Snipes taking down a plane full of terrorists?” And the answer is simple, of course not. It was betting on black, and betting on black alone that allowed Snipes to single handedly take down an international terrorist organization. I guarantee Snipes only bets on black, even if he’d want to bet on red, I don’t think there is a pit boss in the world that would allow him to place that bet. “I’m sorry Mr. Snipes, you always bet on black.”

This could explain the financial predicament Snipes is in, but something tells me it leans more heavily on the fact that he is accused of not paying his taxes. I used to live with a conspiracy theorist who supported Snipes and claimed, as did Snipes, that people do not actually have to pay the government taxes. The argument, which is known as the 861, argues that domestic income of U.S. citizens and residents is not taxable by the government. Often times people who use this argument are made an example of and hit with large fines or even jail time.

But my friend is not the type to be swayed by such verdicts. He is not the type of person who believes the government is behind Sept. 11, the JFK assassination or the illuminate- he knows it, and he has books and DVDs to prove it. He stores his library right next to his shotguns, which he keeps close to his bed for the upcoming civil war.

Some of the “evidence” he has for his conspiracy theories is pretty convincing and I find myself worried for him at times. If he knows these secrets about the government, and he can prove it, what’s to stop the government from slipping him a lethal dose of something in his kool-aid? But shortly after developing these fears for his safety I took the time to listen to a few more of his conspiracy theories, then a few more.  Then I realized that he’s a snowboard bum and smokes roughly the same amount of pot as Bob Marley did on a daily basis, the government would never have to worry about discrediting him. The same can be said for most conspiracy theorists.

The government would simply have to say, “That is an interesting theory and you have some pretty convincing evidence. Did you come up with this theory before or after the roughly 19-hours a day you spend smoking pot and playing World of Warcraft?” And just like that the theory would lose all clout.

One time we were out to dinner and he was telling me about Sept. 11 and a third building that fell that day. The building is referred to as Building 7, and according to my friend, it was located around the corner from the twin towers and its collapse was widely ignored by the mainstream media. The building housed some of the world’s premiere financial institutions and different government agencies. His theory is that the government imploded Building 7 to insure that important financial and government secrets would be lost forever.

I asked, “If this really happened, and you know about it and have so much information about it, how come more people don’t know about it?”

At that moment, as if on cue, a man sitting in the booth behind us popped his head up and asked, “Are you talking about Building 7? I know about it!”

“See!” my friend exclaimed.

After that I did some research and there is undeniable evidence that a lot of things about Sept. 11 don’t add up or seem to lend themselves very plausibly to conspiracy theories. There are the engineers who insist the buildings infrastructure would not simply melt and then implode due to the heat caused by airline fuel. There are the demolitions experts who swear the towers fell like a controlled demolition and not like a building that was crumbling. You have the cell phone calls from victims to their families even though some experts claim that technology, to make cell calls while in the air, did not even existed at the time. And then there are those at the Pentagon who clamed to have seen something more like a missile, than a plane, crash into the buildings. Engineers question how a 125-foot wide 757 could punch a hole that was simply 60 feet wide in the building.

The more I read, the more I started to believe. Yet no one in the mainstream seemed to be paying any attention no matter how plausible these theories sounded. But then something happened; Charlie Sheen published a story on-line of a fictitious conversation between him and President Obama. And just like that, people in the mainstream were talking conspiracy theories.

In his story, Sheen thanks the President for thinking his show, Two and a Half Men, is funny, and then implores the President to look into the events of Sept. 11. Sheen goes through a laundry list of conspiracy theories with the President and presents each case with a number of “facts” to back them up.

After reading the story, entitled, “20 Minutes With The President”, I decided once and for all, if Charlie Sheen believes this shit, then there is no way it could be true. After all, if someone convinced this guy, who once played the roll of Patrick Swayze’s brother in the kick-ass movie Red Dawn, to play along some bumbling moron- whose name I refuse to even Google- in Two and a Half Men, then he can be convinced of anything. How could you ever go from playing the roll of Patrick Swayze’s brother, to playing to role of that guy’s brother? Once you go Swayze, there’s no going back—no one puts baby in a corner.  Even playing the role of his real life brother, the Mighty Duck man, Emilio Estevez, would’ve been a better bet.

The man who believes these conspiracy theories is no longer the Sheen that played in Young Guns or made out with Ferris Bueller’s sister in a police station. No, these are the thoughts of a guy who now makes his living playing a jingle writer who wears socks with his loafers and bowling shirts on a daily basis. Sadly, someone created a Web site dedicated to making shirts like the one Sheen’s character, Charlie Harper, wears on TV. The site claims, “They say of the wearer, “I’m stylish, laid-back and cool but don’t take myself too seriously, just like Charlie.”

Sheen has admitted to sleeping with 5,000 woman– I don’t know if I’m more shocked that he hasn’t contracted every STD known to man, or that he can keep track of that many different woman— and I’m sure that all 5,000 of them occurred before he started taping Two and a Half Men.
But my point is this, if Sheen believes all of these conspiracy theories, that’s good enough for me to exonerate our government of all wrong doings. I know our government is screwed up, I know that all of the events of Sept. 11 don’t add up and I definitely know that airport security is screwed. I guess, in the end, I just want my ass left out of it.

- Daniel Savickas

I remember back in college when it seemed like all I did was write words on paper and I smoked then. Why did I ever quit? David Sedaris quit, but when he smoked it provided him with plenty of content, and when he did finally quit, he wrote half of a book about his journey to become smoke-free.

I remember my first cigarette clearly. Nine months shy of my 18th birthday, I bummed a Marlboro Red off of a friend. To be honest, I’m not sure I’d ever felt cooler than the first time I lit up that cigarette, except maybe the first time I lit up in front of a girl who smoked. I’d pretended to smoke thousands of times before, but somehow the awful taste of tobacco just made me feel so much cooler than all of those times I’d lit a fake cigarette made out of marshmallow, or simply held my fingers up to my mouth in a thin horizontal V.

I wasn’t too graceful with my first cig, but my years of pretending and watching R-rated movies had given me some clue of how to properly flick the ash from the end of my phallic torch. The awesomeness I’d felt with my first few drags quickly turned into what can only be described as flu-like symptoms. Before I knew it, I’d ditched the cowboy-killer into a 20-oz bottle of Cherry Coke and jumped in the nearby lake to cool off. Cold sweats seemed to plague every inch of my body. Although I didn’t throw-up, I came close; and yet this was not the last time I smoked.
I took up smoking full-time my freshman year in college, and although it took me awhile to settle on my brand, after a brief love affair with Winstons, I settled on Camel Lights. I’m not sure why now, but I’m sure it probably had something to do with the packaging. I didn’t live in a smoking dorm, but the first girl I dated in college, who smoked Marlboro Mediums, did. It seems so ridiculous, thinking back on it now, that universities offer smoking rooms to kids who aren’t even 18, but what do I know; maybe they were simply trying to craft dynamic writers at an early age. Hey, maybe if I had picked a smoking room back then, I’d be getting paid to work on chapters for my new book instead of writing for a building trade publication.

Over the years I grew skillful with smoking. Mouthfuls of smoke, which at first caused occasional fits of coughing, were eventually transformed with ease into perfect circles or allowed to slowly leak from my mouth and pulled into my nasal cavity via a French-inhale. All of this lasted about two glorious years until a nasty whooping cough which lasted two-weeks and made my lungs feel like they were going to fall out of my chest every time I inhaled even the tiniest hit of a cig encouraged me to quit. I might as well have stopped taking creative writing courses at that point and changed my major from journalism to phys-ed. It’s clear to me now more than ever that when I put out that last, beautiful, cigarette, I put out my dreams of ever becoming an accomplished author.

Of course like any one-time cigarette smoker, there hasn’t been, up until this point, a LAST cigarette. There are the occasional hits, puffs, drags and in extremely rare circumstances- entire cigarettes; which to this day make me feel just as light-headed and drenched in cold-sweats as they did on that very first night I choked down that Marlboro Red.  Maybe its these little rendezvous with lung cancer that are the only thing keeping my creative juices flowing, and the only way I’ll ever complete an actual collection of writing is to rekindle my love affair with cigarettes on a daily basis.

The only problem with this theory is that in order for me to crave a cigarette, I have to have a healthy alcohol buzz. So, logic would dictate that if I need to smoke to write, and I need to drink to smoke, I must also drink to write. There are a few things that bother me about this formula; aside from the obvious health risks, there are additional strains that would be felt on my wallet.

Cigarettes are now close to six dollars a pack and a 12-pack of good beer, which I would have to insist upon if this diet were to last, runs around $16.99. Lets say I smoke a pack and drink 12 beers a day, five days a week, because this would be my profession; I’d be looking at around $6,000 a year. There is the possibility of writing that amount off as a business expense, but I would be screwed trying to justify the receipts to the little Korean market around the corner from my house.

Recently I decided to test out my hypothesis. After a few beers, a cigarette started to sound appetizing and I bummed an American Spirit off of a friend. Now, an American Spirit is no cowboy killer, and thankfully so, but there is an odd sort of cosmic connection. People who smoke Marlboro Reds tend to be the exact type of smoker young hip people who smoke American Spirits never want to become.

As I grabbed a smoke from the yellow pack—that had a graphic of an Indian, feather not dot, smoking from a pipe that looked similar to a steamroller I used in college to smoke pot—I began to twitch with excitement. I had a small notebook and pen at the ready for the inspiration that was bound to flow like the smoke from the end of my cigarette.

Immediately after lighting and taking the first hit of the cigarette I felt amazing. I was ready to open up my notebook and write, clutching my pen with the same hand that now held my cigarette, I attempted to do just that. But by the third hit, I wasn’t feeling the inspiration so much as I was feeling the onset of a headache. I capped my pen and put my notebook back in my pocket. A few hits later, not even halfway through the smoke, I put out the cig. I felt like shit; I was done. I needed a glass of water.

In the morning my sweatshirt smelled like cigarettes, as did my T-shirt, my fingers and what’s left of my hair. I began to think about my hypothesis—that all great writers are smokers—and I began to realize how stupid it sounded. The longer I sat there, the more I thought about how I had come to such an idiotic conclusion, and before long, I began to write about it. Before I knew it I had written an entire essay about smoking and it all started with one cigarette. And then it hit me like a wall of smoke, all great authors are smokers.

- Daniel Savickas

I understand that Santa is the single greatest tool in motivating a child. Even in mid-July there is a chance that threatening a child with, “Santa is watching, you don’t want to get on his naughty list do you?” will result in the child instantly cleaning his or her bedroom or removing their fist from a sibling’s face. Once fall hits and the realization that Christmas is quickly approaching, kids become borderline saints and putty in their parent’s hands. Everything they do is motivated by the fact that they think Santa will put them on the nice list.

I remember going to see Santa Claus at the mall when I was younger and it seemed like he always asked, “Have you been a good boy this year? Have you been listening to your parents?”
If parents were smart they’d slip the Santa a twenty to ask a series of questions.
“Are you being nice to your sisters, cleaning your bedroom, doing your homework, letting your parents sleep in?”

I always lied through my teeth to whatever he was asking. Nice to my sisters? Of course! Do your homework? Absolutely! Clean your bedroom? Only Martha Stewart herself could do a more thorough job.

One year I had a Santa who called me on my shit, “I know you were fighting with your sisters and not listening to your mother.”
I didn’t know what to say, he had me. I thought for sure I was sitting on the lap of THE Chris Cringle and I begged for his mercy and Nintendo.

The myth that I had met the real Santa was quickly dispelled once my best friend, Tommy Pikardy, a boy who was routinely on the naughty list, pulled the beard of a Santa Claus at the mall and discovered it was fake. He then announced to me that Santa Claus was not real.
When you’re young, finding out if one believes in Santa is something you discover very early on in the relationship. It’s comparable to how adults ask each other what they do for a living the first time they meet.
“Hey, nice to meet you. I really like Transformers lunch box. You got it for Christmas? Cool. Do you believe in Santa?”

Tommy shattered my world when he became my first friend to doubt Santa’s existence and I demanded an explanation from my parents. To their credit, they came up with something pretty good. They told me that since Santa had to make so many toys, he sent his elves around to listen to the Christmas wishes of little boys and girls and then had them report back to him. I bought it hook, line and sinker.

Assuming there is a Santa Claus, and he does in fact have elves, I wonder which job would be more sought after- listening to kids scream, cry and beg for the things on their list, while possibly pissing on your leg; or having to basically violate every labor law known to man in order to work around the clock making toys for said children? In short, being an elf would suck.

I started having further doubts about Santa one year when I got a remote controlled car for Christmas. Upon charging the battery, I went to take the car for a little spin, only to find the controls where broken and the car handled like it was possessed.
When informing my parents of the defect, my mother said, “We can take it back.” Then turning to my father, she said, “I think we still have the receipt, don’t we?”

I was old enough to know what a receipt was, yet I was deeply confused.
“How do you have the recipe? This was from Santa.”
My mother informed me that Santa left recipes for them in case something didn’t work. But this troubled me. I couldn’t figure out why Santa would be buying toys if he had an entire workshop filled with elves. And if he made them, why should some store suffer financially because Santa’s quality control department was slipping.

My parents couldn’t quit explain all of my questions surrounding the remote controlled car and cracks in my foundation of Santa-based faith began to show. After awhile I forgot all about where the car came from and was simply happy with its performance when running over my sister’s Barbie dolls. But a year later, about the time when the snow started to fall, I decided it was time for the truth- so I had a sit down with my two older sisters.

In that meeting they confirmed my worst fears, Santa Claus was not real, and although reindeers do exist, none of them have noses that glow like a light bulb. In that talk the walls of innocents came crashing down. Not only did I learn the truth about Santa, but also the tooth fairy, the Easter bunny and I’m pretty sure my sister’s tried to convince me I was adopted, just for good measure.

When it was time to go to the mall and visit Santa, I told my parents I knew the truth. I’m not sure who was more disappointed. Although I had just realized my parents had been lying to me my entire life and the morbidly obese man who brought me presents did not exist, my parents had lost their best bargaining chip for me to clean my room- I no longer cared about being on the naughty list.

That year we didn’t leave out any milk or cookies and no presents under the tree were from Santa. This was also the year where packages filled with Lego sets and G.I. Joes were replaced with socks, new pants and sweaters. When you know your parents are the ones floating the bill for Xmas, its tough to turn in a five-page wish list- which is why I’ve decided to start believing in Santa Claus again.
Who knows, maybe Santa did used to come to our house and deliver handwritten notes and the only reason he stopped is because I started doubting his existence. I think its time to bring back the faith and hope that Santa brings me a gas-efficient four-wheel drive car and a nice house in Portland with a big yard.