The natural athletes are the ones who score 35 points in the championship game, catch the winning touchdown, or crank a grand slam in the bottom of the ninth, then give all of the credit for their performance to God. Being amazing at their particular sport has always come so naturally to them, that they believe their abilities were simply given to them by a higher power.

The second group that has natural abilities, but need to work at it, can also fall into two categories—those that work hard and become amazing athletes, and those that don’t. The ones that work hard may also win a huge game, but they always credit their performance to hard work and thank their coaches for helping them to become a better player. I belong to the latter of this group, which resulted in years of playing a handful of downs in football, and a childhood of picking daisies in the outfield.

Baseball was by far my least favorite sport growing up. I was forced to play by my parents and I loathed practicing in the 90-degree, 90 percent humidity, Michigan summers. Top that off with a dusty field, and I swore I was in hell. I know that baseball is America’s great past time, but I’ll never understand why.

For me, baseball is just too slow, the polyester uniforms too uncomfortable, and the rules too devastating. That’s right, I said devastating. When I was in middle school, the rules of baseball ruined my life. I’m of course speaking of the five-run-limit placed on all innings, but the ninth, of little league baseball.

The five run limit was placed to prevent one team, usually stacked with the future varsity pitcher, quarterback and point guard, from crushing the teams composed of kids like me. Every time a team scored five runs, the inning was over; regardless of how many outs the team did or did not have stacked against them.

The only part of baseball I was ever good at was shit talking batters from behind a catcher’s mask. I was so good at this particular part of the game that I made the fat kid in the movie the Sand Lot look like a charming Boy Scout. But when it came time for me to step up to the plate, I rarely did—I couldn’t hit worth a shit.

Batting was stressful for me. I feared getting hit by the ball just a bit less than I did striking out. Whenever I got the sign from the third-base coach to watch the first pitch, and not swing, I thanked the same God the naturally gifted players thanked, then cursed him for not making me one of the naturally gifted players. Later in the dug out, after I struck out from watching the next several pitches sail perfectly over the plate, I would swear the umpire was blind, and those pitches were not strikes, but in fact balls. Then I would pledge to my teammates that the first pitch was the only one worth swinging at.

The sign for “swing away” sent panic attacks pulsing through my body. Football was simple; call a play, run a play. You knew exactly what to expect. Well, most kids on the team knew what to expect; I never paid attention in practice and would routinely get in the way of the running back I was supposed to be blocking for. But baseball wasn’t so simple, I had to stand at the plate, by myself, and determine whether a pitch was worth swinging at, or not. Did I mention I’m absolutely horrible at making decisions?

I would stand at the plate and watch two perfect pitches sail by me, straight into the catcher’s mitt. Then, as the pitcher wound up for the next pitch, I’d psych myself up to swing, convince myself I had to, and then, I would, regardless of the fact that the third pitch was usually above my head or below my ankles—a decoy for suckers like me.

But on one occasion, I had an unbelievable swing that connected with a pitch and resulted in an incredible hit. Every kid dreams of hitting a home run, or better yet, a grand slam. I was no exception. During this one at bat, I stood at the plate with bases loaded, dug my cleats in, and swung at the first pitch. You’re never supposed to swing at the first pitch, but I did, and I connected, sending the ball over the heads of the outfielders.

I rounded first base as I heard the crowd cheer with the score of the first runner. Glancing into the outfield, I saw the opposing team still running down the ball. I rounded second and heard the crowd roar once again, the outfielders still hadn’t reached the ball. I had nearly reached third base when I thought to myself, “I’m going to hit a grand slam!” But as I touched third, I heard the umpire call out, “That’s five runs, the inning is over.”

The play stopped dead. The catcher, who had been eagerly awaiting the ball in the hopes of a play at the plate, bent over and picked up his mask and headed for the dug out. My all-out sprint slowed to a run, and then a trot, then a defeated walk towards the dugout.

By the time I reached the dugout, kicking dirt with every step, my teammates had already taken the field for the start of the next inning. There were no high-fives, no, “Dude, you hit a grand slam!” I had been denied my moment of glory, robbed of my childhood dream.

In the end I was credited with a stand-up triple and three RBIs. I never hit another grand slam, never cranked a homerun, never even hit another triple… In the end, there were just more swings and misses.

Throughout the day I stay busy and struggle to keep my sanity through dog walks, never-ending to-do lists from my wife, and Netflix instant streaming.

The other day I was so bored I decided to watch some Jersey Shore, season 2, which was recently added to the instant streaming catalog on Netflix. After a few episodes I realized we have a situation in this country. Get it, a situation? Because one of the guys on Jersey Shore calls himself the situation. Moving on…

As I was saying, after watching a few episodes I felt a strong urge to take a really hot shower and get tested for STDs, just to make sure I hadn’t caught anything from the remote. My eyes also became very sensitive to the cast-member’s T-shirts; which seemed to be white T-shirts, which had been washed with highlighters and a handful of temporary tattoos (I think the brand is Ed Hardy?).

While watching the show, and continuing my job search, I saw a headline on-line about how Snooki was being featured on the cover of Rolling Stone. The article stated that Snooki is a published, best selling, author, alongside her cast mate the Situation.

The same day I saw a headline that Bristol Palin is writing a book and has already obtained a publisher. Now, I realize the book industry is just as troubled as the record industry, but that doesn’t mean it should rush to such drastic measures to sell books. You don’t see the record industry stooping to such pathetic lows to sell records. I mean, it’s not like you’re going to see Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian putting out records anytime soon… Oh, wait, shit.

For those of you that don’t get why I’m so bothered by this, let me quickly explain—these people are jokes.

I can see how the cast of the Jersey Shore would be incredibly qualified to write a book on binge drinking, or how to kill time while waiting for your prescription to cure Chlamydia is filled. But I can’t imagine they’d have much to offer beyond these subjects.

And as for Bristol Palin, the girl who is famous for practicing unsafe sex, and getting knocked up by a self proclaimed redneck boyfriend… She claims being a working mom is really tough. Her job? At the time she made the statement, she was on the reality TV show, Dancing with the Stars. She has had other jobs, since becoming a mother. One article I read said she made $38,000 a night speaking to teens about abstinence. Not about how it doesn’t work, which she famously told Fox News, but how it does work, minus all of the statistics that it doesn’t… and you know, her baby.

How/why are these people famous? And why are they writing books? Part of the reason I get into a rage when I hear about such people getting a book deal, is because I’m scrapping by to make a living by writing about anything anyone will pay me for. But you better believe, if I ever publish a book, there is no way I’ll allow myself to get lumped in with the Jersey Shores and the Bristol Palins of the publishing world. No, I hope I’m put in a class with the likes of such great minds and best selling authors as George W. Bush, Glenn Beck, and Sarah Palin. Dare to dream.

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