Category Archives: Day-to-Day

Day-to-Day, Frustration & Complaint, Meaning of Life

Editing Shortcuts

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Stanko & Tibor - Editing Shortcuts

Dearest victims of domestic spying,

Having recently sweated profusely in the backyard, mowing and weeding and such, I came to several realizations.

1. I’m an environmentalist. But not the kind you think. Let’s look at the etymology of the word. We start with “environ” coming from the French, meaning approximately, around, the place not too far from my body where I live with a colossal, pain-in-the-ass weed bed for a backyard, various family members and neighbors. “Mental” comes from the Latin meaning not right in the head, several cards shy of a full deck, mucho nutty, cranially deficient, 1/2 cup shy of brain cells, or works for a large IT company. The last part “ist” is an adjectival ending stemming from Middle German verb “to be” that simply means is. Put them all together and you get the definition of environmentalist “Is cranially deficient and nutty in the head from mowing and weeding his backyard.” (I think I understand Büchner’s Woyzeck going nuts a bit more now.)

I am trying to become a radical environmentalist by letting the weeds take over, thus choking off the grass, thus promoting biodiversity and freeing me of the heinous task of mowing the damn lawn. Sure, our tomato plants will suffer for it, but that’s what a farmers’ market is for – to keep the farmers from starving to death by giving them my money to grow stuff I am too lazy to care for. Sure, some people actually enjoy being in the backyard mowing and weeding and landscaping and tending to it, but they aren’t environmentalists. They are just unwell.

2. Most bugs I have encountered are stupid. They annoy me, and I kill them. They reproduce, I attack them using a banned spray substance from the Vietnam war, they die, I cough and have blurred vision and CNS issues for an hour. Wash, rinse, repeat until the end of the summer. At least I avoid animal feces at all and any cost. They go right for it. Survival of the most reproductive, I’d say. Now I am starting to hum Monty Python’s “I like Chinese…”

3. I could never be a vegan, let alone a vegetarian. In a quest to extend their lives and be disease-free, and reduce the burden on the environment they do not eat meat and dairy products. I can barely get my head around the vegetarian thing, but OK, I can see if your doctor ordered you on pain of a monthly rectal exam, maybe you’d give up the reckless consumption of animal flesh. But being a vegan?

I have long since concluded without a shred of scientific proof (politicians, Fox News and religious zealots don’t use it, so why should I?) that the bitterest people are the ones who live the longest, especially if they are vegans. They are just plain mad at everyone for eating meat and dairy. What happens? They get so old from good health that they have to see more of humanity’s countless atrocities and stupidity (like this blog).

I am also scientifically and morally sure they are bitter and vengeful because a butter-laced, cholesterol-infused croissant with some kind of mysterious side meat — that according to the packaging is now “gluten free” — is off limits, all in the name of good health and moral superiority.

Can you imagine what would happen if we gave everyone in the world free chocolate and cinnamon danish and coffee? Apart from the gluten allergy people breaking out in a violent rash, thus enriching the cabal of dermatologists and ointment makers, I am sure world peace would break out along with the aforementioned rash. First smiles all around, everyone would have to drop their weapons because their hands would be sticky with danish goo, and then everyone would go into a food coma and take a nap. How is that bad?

I am not here to malign the vegans (probably because they will hunt me down and throw out my freezer of meats and then toss the butter and cheese and nuclear material-based cookies I tend to have a weakness for). I am merely here to point out that if I, me personally, were to switch to a vegan diet, I’d:

a) be crotchety,
b) no longer need a belt with so many notches,
c) live way too long and thus outlive my meager savings. I’d be healthy and poor. Worse, I’d deprive the medical-military establishment of a reason to come up with a cure for whatever disease I will acquire and therefore cause joblessness for many a scientist. Wouldn’t be responsible of me from a societal benefit point of view.

What does this very long rant have to do with the latest posting of the comic the ancient Greek philosopher Plato once said “was not fit to wipe up my tzaziki drippings with”? I’d be lying if I said it would have an effect on world poverty or something profound. But I don’t think it would be a big stretch to say I am now hungry for a cheeseburger.

Respectfully and regretfully yours,
Balthazar “The Belligerent” Druker

 

 

Day-to-Day, Frustration & Complaint, Meaning of Life

The Constipated Constable

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Stanko & Tibor - The Constipated Constable

While exercising today as part of my regime to better my physical self, I saw a person whose physical attractiveness (and subsequent chances of procreation) could only increase during a city-wide blackout in the dead of a summer heat wave where consumption of alcohol is deeply implicated. Of course that is hallow and mean, but I did say I was trying to better my physical self, not my cranial or spiritual self. That takes a great deal of effort. My thoughts then turned to how easy it is to be mean and selfish and believing it’s part of human nature, part of the survival instinct.

However, we as semi-humans have the capability to act on ideas, such as altruism and doing good for the sake of good (and most likely to alleviate the intense and disturbing guilt from years of debauchery and sleeping around). That takes so much effort. Then again, on the side of evil, so does revenge. That’s not something you do on the spur of the moment. It too takes planning, just with “getting even” as the underlying motive.

There is a saying that “revenge is a dish best served cold” – I disagree. I was always told that soup Vichyssoise is best served cold. Or is that Gazpacho? Either way, I can’t see revenge being worse than a soup served cold. And did you notice that when they say revenge should be served cold, there is no talk of an appetizer? A salad with heavy ranch dressing maybe? Or perhaps a dessert? Nope, not a word. Just a main course. Probably overcooked with little seasoning or old garlic. Like British food.

Now, I know some of you are thinking that my mention of the word “revenge” would set me off on a diatribe, when in reality I don’t need to be on a diatribe, I need to be on a diet.  I have eaten so many Pop Tarts of late, it’s a miracle I’m still alive. That’s not even counting the countless sliced and grilled meats I have ingested since the summer started. And let’s not even mention the apple cake that my aunt made with what I would conservatively estimate was 11 pounds of butter and 12 pounds of sugar. Oh my, it was good.

So there will be no talk of revenge, unless it has to do with my arteries – they will surely want vengeance on me, and may well take it at an in opportune time, for example, when I am going up the stairs with a glass of port wine and lots of clean laundry, or more likely when I am desperately trying to convince my wife that several days of facial hair growth is not a true deterrent to a romantic evening.

But I digress. Why? Largely because of the intense heat that we were suffering through last week. Which I guess you could probably call a form of natural revenge in that mother nature is making us suffer through something akin to a volcanic eruption mixed with a steam room at a men’s club filled with sweaty older Caucasian gentleman who have thick gold chains and enough body hair to make a winter coat resembling that of a chinchilla.

What does any of this have to do with the latest posting of Stanko and Tibor, the comedic oracle that was once described in a Biblical commentary as having been partially responsible for causing the great flood as well as several wars between the ancient Israelites and the Assyrians due to its questionable content and poor style and penmanship? Not that much actually. But the insanity of heat, the insanity of steam rooms, of war, of this weather we are going through all remind us that nothing really is that logical unless you want it to be logical so it fits into your universe and makes going to sleep a little bit easier. Or just get an air conditioner to cool off your place of residence so you can sleep much more easily. That is much simpler than reading this comic.

Swimmingly yours,
King Triton of the Mermaids and Mermen Druker

 

Crime, Day-to-Day, Frustration & Complaint, Meaning of Life

Dummies For Books

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Book1

This episode of the comic that spawned the NSA’s covert domestic spying division is truly an indication of society’s ills. Not really, I just said that to get your attention.

It’s hard to imagine, but summertime is already here and the fish are jumping and the cotton is high. Is the living really easy? Well, it has been for a little while, and was indeed contemplative and full of grilling and sugary treats until last week when I had my annual checkup.

Like all men, you hit a certain age and the doctor has to have a look in places that are best left to dirty jokes at the happy hour for the annual gathering of colo-rectal surgeons. You can see where this is going. Partially because I was walking funny for a few days after the examination took place.

Although he did buy me dinner and flowers afterward, so I can’t say that it was a total loss.

But believe it or not, that poop-chute prostate prostrate taught me several things about life and its many mysteries:

  • I wouldn’t do well in a men’s prison (I’m not that good a dancer or boxer either)
  • After one of those events, who the hell needs coffee in the morning to wake up??!!
  • Why did human biology evolve to put such an important piece of anatomy in such a difficult to reach place? Probably because mother nature has a nasty sense of humor.
  • The manufacturing sector is obviously missing out an important resource for crushing rocks into pebbles, because in what seemed like the three or four hours it took to perform that exam, I tensed up and bit down on my teeth with enough force to shatter granite, diamonds, adamantium all encased in Roman cement.
  • Lastly, and most importantly, it’s what’s on the inside (and  to some degree outside if that person showers regularly) that counts.

OK, that last one may seem odd, but indeed it’s true. So much of what’s important to our physiognomy and psychology is hidden from view. How often have you seen someone and wondered what they were really like. I do that all the time, but that’s because I’m on vacation and have too much free time. But seriously, if the doctor doesn’t look at what’s under the hood once in a while, greater and more expensive maintenance is usually in the offing. So the innards count too.

And that applies to our psychological and personality traits too. Some may seem nice on the outside but aren’t, or the opposite, some may be gruff and angry (like dad when we serve him orange juice without pulp or a bagel that’s slightly too well toasted for his liking), but are sweet and generous if a little too loose with racial epithets. It’s the ones who are nice on the outside and inside that are true rarities, and sadly, the ones who are rotten both on the inside and outside (this last category of people doesn’t read my comic) really need to be sent to live on the moon, but technology hasn’t gotten us that far yet to make it affordable to do it against their will.

So look for important parts and goodness both inside and out, see what really counts, such as treating your family, friends and even your colleagues well, having good health, the ability to laugh, or not take your job too seriously. And if you can’t do any of that, I’ll reserve a place for you on the moon where you may wake up one day with an ether hangover.

Blood-bloodcurdlingly  honest and lovingly yours,

Jonathan Livingston Spiegel

 

Crime, Day-to-Day, Frustration & Complaint, Meaning of Life

Modified

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Not unlike the rabbinical scholars who would sit across the table from each other and argue a the meaning of life, the existence of God, and the universe, each from opposing sides all day and all night, (largely in an effort to make their wives do the heavy work in the fields while the men played an ancient form of poker called “5-Card Sheep Stud”), our brave characters in this episode of Stanko & Tibor are coming to terms with things they can’t control.

Speaking of things I can’t control — but have to accept — I spent last weekend in the backyard committing baleful acts upon living things. The majority of the time was spent slashing green grass that had grown to a height great enough to cover a small family of pygmies that I think were living beneath our house and fighting with the family of gophers that reside beneath our house in times of duress.

The slaughter continued as I discovered not one, but two ant colonies, one of which I am sure is the source of the 6-legged invaders of our kitchen of late. They crossed the line when they entered our house looking for sugary leftovers. Milling and skulking about in the kitchen without our permission was just too much for me to handle. Such disrespect. And visited upon my kitchen no less. So I proceeded to introduce them firsthand to modern chemistry and its compressed effects in the form of a foam that is meant to kill the little buggers where they live. Kind of like a nicely scented shaving foam, but with, I am assuming, DDT leftovers from Vietnam and other harmful chemicals found in discarded generators and modern foodstuffs like the sausages and cookies I eat on a regular basis.

The killing field widened to include the most evil of all invaders in my green space – weeds, specifically dandelions. The nerve, the chutzpah, nay, the temerity to erupt in full bloom in the backyard, en masse, was just too much for me to handle. Off I went to obtain my preferred killing machine, that claw thing that rips out the dandelions by the root, an industrial version of what my dentist has used on me for what she delicately refers to as “cleanings.”

Well, those dandelions and their deep roots mock me no longer. And you’d think that after violently ripping some 50 or 60 of them out, the other dandelions would have gotten the message to stay away from our backyard. They are either of a kamikaze variety or just not very bright as far as weeds go. Maybe they are the lemmings of the plant world. Now the green grass and occasional cat poop that is my backyard is safe for now.

Oddly, while I was committing these acts of “planticide” and “anticide” I kind of wondered if this how God feels when he or she or it is flooding a coastline full of villagers and tourists in Indonesia or triggering a volcano somewhere and wiping out a village of evil-doers doing their laundry and making love to their oxen in a third world country. I wonder if God thinks we all look like ants and has a giant can of death foam or worse, a giant magnifying glass for frying.

I also came to the conclusion during my garden rampage on the living things that by holding the power of life and death over living objects, I was like God. Or a serial killer, there really isn’t much difference between the two, is there. They both seem to have the same characteristics: indiscriminate killing, twisted logic, rage issues, don’t handle stress well, and they both probably have a tattoo with the words “Suck it” on a shoulder blade. But I bet God would be better at cocktail parties making small talk, like “oh yeah, I hurt my back splitting the Red Sea the other day, and I can’t get a good chiropractor…”

Effervescently yours,

Mojo Dojo Mofo Druker

Crime, Day-to-Day, Frustration & Complaint, Meaning of Life

Credit Races

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Stanko & Tibor - Credit RacesDear Darting-Eyed Readers,

Having just finished a workout at the gym last week, it was time to take a shower, which meant I had to deal with the fact that science has again failed me. Why? Because modern beauty product scientists haven’t come up with a way that I can clean myself without using water? No, I like taking a shower with water, it’s a place for me to sing off-key and wash away my many sins.

No, science has disappointed me because it still hasn’t found a way for me to hover in mid-air. No, not so I can smash my so called enemies from above. Enemies that my doctor says are purely imaginary. But what does he know. He’s against me, as are the squirrels and raccoons who tear my garbage bags apart. And the weeds in my garden are definitely my enemies. And he says I need help.

Where was I? Ah, the useless scientists. You see, I would need this ability to hover for one place above all – while using the gym shower / bathroom. Are there any places more athlete’s foot-ridden and smelly than a gym bathroom and shower? Well, maybe the floor of a strip club, but I don’t frequent those places since the shock therapy. If we all could float above the filthy bathroom floor on command, athlete’s foot would be cured and the evil, profiteering cabal of the podiatrists and the oligarchic foot cream producers would be smashed. And think of the benefits when your child / pet vomits and you wouldn’t have to touch the ground. Just glide right over it and let your robot vacuum cleaner clean up the spill.

Oh wait, the low IQ scientists haven’t mastered that either.

So, it is with deep disappointment in mankind, specifically the scientists, that I bring you this installment of the handcrafted “objet d’art” that the secret police in China would have imprisoned me for, despite the fact that I eat a lot of Chinese food. It’s about reality – financial reality more accurately, and no matter what happens, the banks and credit card companies will always win because we humans (me) love to buy stuff. Or have to have our bathrooms renovated thus enriching the interior decorators’ union yet again. There will always be debt, and we need to stay fit to stave off its weighing-down effect.

Or maybe, those lazy scientists could make themselves partly useful and invent a way to make the debt go away. And I don’t mean resorting to modern pharmacology.

Everlastingly yours, until the men in the white coats come,

Feng Shui Druker

Crime, Day-to-Day, Frustration & Complaint, Meaning of Life

Effing Around

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As sure as spring has come and long frozen dog poop thaws on the brownish-green grass in our neighborhood, there is activity afoot, the kind of activity that makes bears stir from their dens, the kind that makes birds chirp and tweet, the kind that makes me want to do rash and crazy things in the workplace, like nap or fling paper clips with a rubber band. (Sadly, those last two are not considered ‘productivity enhancing’ by my colleagues and boss.)

So, to you dear reader of the dashing delusions of comedic machinations, you are forced to read through yet another episode of Stanko & Tibor, often seen to be even more primitive in its skill and composition – and less informative – than the cave drawings made by a low-normal cave boy named “Nick” from the Neanderthal era, who according to records had been clubbed by his dad one day after scaring away their prey when he began belching his cave’s hunting anthem for kicks.

What do cavemen, spring and my place of work have to do with each other? Well, on the surface, nothing. But below the surface, it’s still nothing. But below THAT surface, buried in dirt, there is a thread of logic all bound by the notion of creativity. Spring is a time to burst forth and create, or if you’re a fish or bear, procreate. At work, we are told to think creatively. Usually between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. with an hour for lunch in between. Cavemen, now those were some creatives flea bags. Need I mention the club? The wheel? Obsidian tools for killing prey and each other? Steve Jobs was an idiot by comparison.

And in this episode, our leading man and his offspring show us the value of creativity in vocabulary. An episode inspired by the book I mentioned last episode that pretty much convinced me we’re at a tipping point where software programming and linguistics are more deeply intertwined than we think.  Not that you care. It’s 10 p.m. on a Saturday night, and the highlight of my day was doing the laundry and vacuuming under our bed.

So, now my bed sheets are clean, the dust weevils are sucked away and the sugary treats that spike my glucose levels to heights of a Mount Everest-like altitude await be by my bedside.

To you all, I bid adieu for now. More episodes delving into absurdity and stupidity await you shortly.

Júlio Prestes de Albuquerque del Melo Neto von Druker

PS – if you’re wondering why the cat is in the comic, my cousin says he swears it looks like a feline reincarnation of Hitler. I tend to agree.

cat4 cat1 cat2 cat3

Crime, Day-to-Day, Meaning of Life

Epiphany Ruined

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To the remaining 2 or 3 readers of this dark yet truthful sketched oracle that have not abandoned the virtual ship in the 4 weeks since I last posted something, I will reward your patience with many hugs and kisses — but only of a professional kind, you know the ones on the cheek, like at a family gathering where you have to kiss that aunt who wears too much makeup and perfume, and then, thank heavens, only the cheek skin touches, and you’re off like a flash to the dessert table?

Now I have been accused of many things. Perfidy, sloth, greed, envy, poor table manners, sub-par kissing skills, sugar addiction, excessive profanity at formal events, having spinach between my teeth, poor posture, amateurish dancing skills, poor penmanship, questionable fencing skills and not to mention of messy desk-keeping.

While all of those things may have a grain of truth to them, well, maybe a satchel of truth. OK, a duffel bag of truth, but that doesn’t prevent me from providing you with the thought leadership on things of a cartooning (or is that cartoonish?) nature. Things like what defines and is the source of creativity? Usually it’s a smallish gene pool or some intermarriage. Or very close proximity and easy access to the cabinet where they keep the cleaning products or medicine cabinet with the tasty cherry cough syrup they pulled off the market due to excessive alcohol and codeine content. Or in my case, living awfully close to the high tension wires, while mom cooked with aluminum pots and pans, while she left me close to the microwave as it cooked her cauliflower.

Some people have genius in their soul. Like Thomas Edison, Leonardo Da Vinci, Steve Jobs. Or one of my cousins who painted the bathroom walls in his own droppings to express his inner self.  He’s in therapy. Others learn to be creative through exposure to many media, like music, art, food, alcohol, and by realizing they have no future in accounting as their grade 4 math scores indicated at an early age. Sometimes it’s just sheer desperation that is the mother of creativity. Or being short in a tall man’s world.

But I digress.

The path to creativity is never clear, but one thing is for certain — that inflatable unicorn hat for cats is real. Swear to God. Check it out: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/21/inflatable-unicorn-horn-for-cats-photo_n_1901789.html

It will be my duty to provide you with unending creative wit, imaginative prose, unforeseen plot twists and at least a post once every week or so, providing I ignore my wife and children more than I usually do. I know, you’re rooting for me.

Many warm and sticky returns,

The Vicious Aloysius (my wrestling alter ego) Druker

Day-to-Day, Meaning of Life

Lazy Molecules and Magic Undergarments

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20130123-210329.jpgUpon exiting the house and traversing the sidewalks that had been coated with a thin layer of snow, I nearly wiped out on the ice beneath it, but saved myself due to my cat-like balance. And the fear of smashing my head and no one finding me until the spring thaw. And I thought to myself, what a cruel and unfair mistress Mother Nature and my broken city are, laying that layer of white on top of frozen, poorly kept, unsalted sidewalks. They are both deceivers, unlike the freaking cold weather this morning. That is truth in your face.

In the vain hopes of somehow distracting my brain and remaining sensory organs from the horrible, deathly cold this morning, I plugged my ear buds deep into my aural canals, cranked up the volume and listened to whatever played. Firstly, the androgynous British band that was crooning away merely reconfirms my belief that the British nation is committed to unclear gender definitions of their musicians and is equally committed to messing with conventions on what actually constitutes a male. My goodness, they sounded like pansies traipsing around in dresses.

But the musical interlude couldn’t distract me from the bone-chilling arctic blast. So as I waited for the train again, I stopped the music, looked at the light snow falling and listened to the quiet air around me. I listened deeply, and thought about this cold snap, how could this cold oxygen allow for ANY snow to fall. It was as if Mother Nature was squeezing the last remnants of moisture out of the air with a frosty hammer, almost in an attempt to emasculate this moisture by forcing it from the skies to appear in wee, sissy, slow-falling flakes that were quickly trampled on leaving nothing left but blue sky, wind and the tip of my bulbous, ugly nose frostbitten.

So I decided to listen even more intently, with a keener ear, and I could swear I heard the snow flakes saying “#@!*%$# It’s cold out here! Kill me please! What the hell are you people doing out here?? It’s freaking -500 Cº you idiot!” Startled by this honesty, I decided to pay even closer attention to the air around my frigid face. Then I heard the soft voice of the air molecules themselves, whispering unto me, saying “Dude, it’s so cold outside. We’re heading over to your poorly insulated, crappy house. With all those cracks and holes, we’ll spend the day indoor in your abode. it’s way warmer in there. We’re only out here because we have to be. What’s your excuse?”

What is my excuse indeed. It’s simple. Somewhere along the way, Calvinism took root in North America and dictated stupidly we should be at work on days like this, lest the devil find work for idle hands to do. Well, I have news for you Mr. Calvin – with the invention of the iPad and other electronic devices, my hands are rarely idle. They are busy surfing the Web and looking for free stuff to download and busy beating off my children who always want the damn thing to play games and watch pre-teen movies that make me want wretch.

But no, I came to work, far warmer than I thought, due to my magical undergarments. Two pieces in fact, that I can imagine are not unlike the religious undergarments worn by Mormons and really religious Jews. Just that my magic sweater is less religious in its intent. Long underwear and a sweater my wife made me from some space age wool or remnants from a chemical plant that insulates against the cold so well, I was toasty when I arrived. I can’t help but think religious undergarments have some kind of practical basis. Why else would you wear them? My theory, which has no basis in fact, or any shred of evidence to back it up, has to do with cold weather. Mormons settled in Utah, and the winters are cold. Ultra-orthodox Jews used to live in Russia, Poland and other eastern blights of landmass, where winters were bitter. So what better way to stay warm and simultaneously pray for God not to freeze your nuts off than with religious undergarments?

Brilliant, really. And not at all gender non-specific like that British band I was listening to this morning.

Folically challenged, vertically deficient and mentally maladroit,

Maharaja Ranjit Druker

Day-to-Day, Meaning of Life

Absolute Zero Socks

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cold naked tree
cold naked tree

As I exited the house this morning I noticed the temperature was +25. Above absolute zero. As the only parts of my body not covered in layers of clothing were my eyes, I couldn’t help but think this must be what it’s like to wear a niqab or barqa, just without the subjugation and humiliation. And I can wear bright colors. But mother nature was humiliating me by making me dress this way. And making me wear those cruel boots again, thus creating a conflict between the sock, foot and boot the likes of which resemble Middle East conflicts, just with less chance of a resolution. Largely because NONE OF YOU has come up with the requested sock Viagra I demanded that seems to have struck a chord with many of your readers. (Can 6 really qualify as many, especially when one of them is my mom?)

Just before I climbed on to the train to go work this morning, I noticed several things. Not moving when it’s sub-arctic weather is silly. So is being outside in -18C. I also noticed that as the slovenly, unkempt, disheveled, sleepy kids were getting off the train to go to the private school, one of the teenagers was just too well turned out, too well coiffed, too prim and proper. I bet he gets beaten up in gym. Survival of the fittest, kind of like surviving this week’s impending arctic explosion barreling across my corrupt city.

Where was I? Oh right, in the bathroom then in the kitchen. Yes, I washed my hands, I wasn’t handling raw chicken in the bathroom, nor the kitchen this morning. Relax, people, I am sanitary of body, if not of mind or soul.

But I digress again.

My long underwear-clad legs took me to work this morning with music blaring away, trying to distract me from the sinking, evil, bunching socks, but not the cold. My mind wandered to the topic of work where a number of my colleagues and friends are on their way to Las Vegas for a big sales event, where the weather is several hundred degrees warmer than here, and I couldn’t help but secretly wish somewhere in a primordial part of my brain, or in one of my shrunken frontal lobes that wouldn’t it be great if one of my colleagues on his or her way to the airport to spend three days partying it up and eating buffet food were to be abducted by, I don’t know, a rogue band of disenchanted and under-caffeinated fashionistas or Communist rebels. And then forced into hard labor sewing knock-off wallets. Then I would get the last minute call to appear in Vegas, gleefully free of long underwear, seven layers of clothing and potential frostbite.

Now, I know you’re saying, “how could you possibly say that you’d wish such misfortune on someone else?” First of all, I wouldn’t say it, I would think it. And secondly, if I were to say it, it would be most likely be quietly, in an elevator, so that no more than four or five people would hear me. Besides, wishing others ill while morally reprehensible, is a healthy thing. It’s a vent, and outlet, a blow-off valve, giving the brain and emotions time to breathe deeply and calm down. And time to read the floor plans of my enemies’ homes and so I can direct the rebels using Google Maps and maybe find a good croissant and coffee close by.

What does this all have to do with anything? My socks are irritating me and I need a nap.

The right (and left) honorable Judge Drunker

 

 

Day-to-Day, Meaning of Life

Best Wishes for a Happy 2013

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20130101-223058.jpg
After two long, food-filed and belly-expanding weeks of vacation and after having grown enough of a beard to look like short, semi-Semitic and semi-sentient Grizzly Adams, but who lives in suburbia and whose only contact with bears is his character in a cartoon often referred to by political pundits from all sides of the house as “the toe scribblings of an idiot”, I return to work, filled with positive thoughts and some trepidation at the year staring me in the face.

No sooner has 2012 disappeared, fiscal cliff and all, than suddenly I am confronted with 2013 and its emails, meetings, discussions and no doubt some kind of mediocre pastries left over from a customer breakfast that will do more damage to my waist and arteries. New Years resolutions regarding better health never meant much to me, because breaking promises to oneself is way too easy, and frankly, to make a promise and then break it takes money, strength and time, three things I need way more of, not to mention self-discipline and hair on the top of my head and not on my back and shoulders as nature and my genes seem to want to do.

But I did promise myself to at least finish the chocolate and other sugary confections we gathered, purchased, inherited, found, tripped on over the holidays. I wouldn’t want to endanger others by giving it to them and thus be the cause of a clogged artery or spiking sugar level. I know, you’re saying to yourself “what an unselfish guy, eating junk food so others can’t.” It’s about all I can muster at this late evening hour.

So to keep this short and sweet, I created this little drawing on the iPad to wish you all a happy, healthy and sweet 2013. Hoping your ’13 is lucky and plucky. It will be over before you know it.

With hugs and kisses and butt-squeezes,
Shogun Jon