The changing face of my face.

Hey kittens,
If you're a returning visitor, you're probably wondering why I'm no longer bleeding, but am instead giving you the stare down with creep eyes up there. The bloody banner had to go. For one, it had nothing at all to do with the title (maybe if I was bleeding from the head?), and for two, I got bored.

I also wanted to comment on something I noticed while surfing other blogs (yes, I'm one of the last 6 people who still call it "surfing") - I'm one long winded motha F-er!
Most of these bloggers barely scratch out a paragraph - meanwhile I'm screwing around here trying to write "War and Peace."
I have much more to say on the topic, but suddenly I'm feeling self conscious - so I'll end it here.

PS: Germany rocks ... It knows why.

Tux to be you.

Love me, love my tuxedo
By James Johnson

A while back I received an offer from Ruth Davis’s Affordable Tuxedos.
Davis presented me with the chance to wear her tuxedos for any snazzy journalism related event, which had me ecstatic, until I realized - I don’t go to that many snazzy journalism related events.
Remembering how unwise it is to look a gift horse in the mouth, I took Davis up on her offer and have developed some brand new ways to enjoy the suit James Bond made butch, the tuxedo.

Go fishing - in a tuxedo!
Fishing involves a lot of sitting around, staring at nature, and trying to avoid awkward conversations with your son, so why not do so in style?
Upon seeing your sharp new tux, the fish will feel as if they’ve been invited to an award ceremony. You can even replace your worm bait with mini-Oscar statues and play a drum roll before you toss in the line.
“And the winner is!”

Go to a job interview - in a tuxedo!
You’re supposed to dress to impress at a job interview, right? Well why not take that a step further and make your interviewer feel as if he or she has to impress you?
If you complete the look with a monocle and top hat it’ll be just the push you need to give your new employer the uneasy feeling that you’re just eccentric enough to one day be running the company.

Get fitted for a tuxedo - in a tuxedo!
Uh oh … Did that just blow your mind?

Go bowling - in a tuxedo!
Bowling is one of the few sports to not really garner its own uniform (trucker caps don’t count), so why not make the tuxedo the official uniform of bowling?
Honestly, the end result could go either way. This will either tremendously help the reputation of bowling as a gentleman’s sport, or really diminish the reputation of the tuxedo.
“Sweetie, I can’t believe you wore your bowling uniform to our wedding.”

Crappiest toys of Christmas

Naughty Lil’ Toys
By James Johnson

In the news business Christmas time usually means hacking out some lame ‘best toys gift guide’ to appease those parents who aren’t on speaking terms with their kids. Been there, done that. Introducing the season’s “worst toy gift guide.” You’ve been warned.

1.) FurReal’s Butterscotch Pony
Butterscotch Pony is an award winning toy that claims to make any little girl who has dreamed of having her very own pony, the happiest spoiled brat on the block.
The toy, which is roughly the same height of your average 10 year-old (and width of your average 40-year-old Cubs fan), has been made by Hasbro using advanced realistic animation that reacts to touch. Basically, it moves its head around and grumbles when poked, but otherwise it sits there and does nothing. If this gets confusing to your daughter, simply explain to her that Butterscotch is a special kind of magical narcoleptic pony who needs constant stimulation in order to remain conscious.
Suggested retail price? $299.99. My suggestion? Buy a dog.

2.) Speed Stacks Stack Pack
Sport Stacking is the latest craze trying to redefine the word “sport” to mean “thing you can do while breathing.” The competition requires its players to take plastic cups and stack them really, really fast. That’s it. Just common old plastic cups.
But if you think you can just go to any Dollar General and buy just any plastic cups to stack, think again. These special Speed Stacks brand cups come with something you’re not going to find on any generic plastic cups: a logo.
Oh and four holes in the bottom to prevent stackers from doing anything crazy and unnatural, like say, drinking out of them.

3.) Turbo Bug VacuumA low-powered vacuum designed to suck up bugs so that your child might learn about/torture them for hours on end. This is either a great way to teach your child about the importance of cleanliness, or how to best develop the sadistic curiosity needed to pursue a fruitful career as a serial killer. Either way, this toy - sucks.

4.) Baby AliveWhy do we keep encouraging children to one day want to have kids of their own? The best way for the human race to avoid the consequences of our environmental sloppiness today, is by making certain that no one is alive tomorrow.
Fortunately, Baby Alive seems more likely to make a case against breeding, as its main function is its ability to do what humans do best, create waste.
The doll comes with small packets of “baby food,” that once fed to Baby Alive, is instantly leaked into the baby’s diaper.
Aside from being incredibly messy (both going in and coming out), it has one other realistic baby attribute. Baby Alive is where your money goes to die.
It actually requires you to buy it more food. It is literally one more mouth to feed. In a perfect world, one could simply re-feed the baby its own waste, but as costly as buying extra baby food might be, it is nothing compared to your child’s therapy bills after witnessing such an ungodly act.

5.) Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf”Just in time for the holidays Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” has received a republishing.
While not a toy, it was on special at a local book store that would probably rather go unnamed. The bookstore’s employees explained that due to fears that the book might not do well during the Christmas season (or Hanukkah for that matter), the company had requested that the book be sold half off with the purchase of romance novelist Nicolas Sparks’ book, “the Choice.” For some reason, the employees refused to pair these two books up. Ah, nothing says love, quite like a book full of hate.

Hypnotoad

Though I may seem like a jaded middle-aged veteran journalist (average journalist life expectancy is 42), I still have my weaknesses and for every weakness there’s a crutch. Bad speller? Use a spellchecker. No good at taking notes? A handheld recorder. Illiterate? Well trained dictation monkey - also known as an editor.
But what if your job requires you meet a deadline, and you’ve got a nasty case of procrastination fever? What crutch can help you with a basic problem that exists entirely in the confines of your grey matter? How ‘bout calling up a hypnotist, like Teresa del Giudice?
Giudice is a trained hypnotist of the highest order who has been tampering with the human subconscious since 2003, when she attended a hypnosis school in Chicago, Ill.
Since starting her practice Giudice says she has been approached to help clients conquer a variety of unique problems, from weight loss, to memory recovery. But could she help me stop procrastinating? Read on to find out … or if you’re too lazy just skip to the last paragraph, then go take a nap. You’ve earned it.






First impressions

Though I like to consider myself the opened minded sort, I was initially skeptical about meeting with a hypnotist. If “the Maury Povich Show” has taught me anything, it’s to not trust “the Maury Povich Show,” or anything I’ve ever seen on it, including hypnotism.
I expected Giudice to be one of those “New Age” chicks, complete with power crystals and body odor, but was instead presented with a well dressed young woman with no noticeable odor at all.
“The people who do hypnotism for show are doing just that, putting on a show,” explained Giudice. “They show people what people expect to see hypnotists do, and make it appear as if they are making people do things out of their own control, but the truth is -- I can not make you do anything that you do not want to do.”
This is both reassuring and disappointing. While it means that she can not force you to give up your bank account number, this knowledge also means that you can not go to work in the nude the following day and then attempt to blame your hypnotist.
Hypnotism has also been used to help speed healing and is therefore thought of as an “alternative medicine,” but Giudice prefers to call it “complimentary to medicine,” as she believes strongly that hypnotism should not be used as an alternative for medicine but rather as a tool in conjunction with medicine.
“Take Irritable Bowl Syndrome. It has been shown that hypnosis is one of the best treatments for it,” said Giudice.
My bowls however are in pristine condition and so Giudice went about the business of tinkering with my brain.
We sat in my office’s break room for what seemed like an hour, with me in a trance state. No crystal balls, pocket watches, or pinwheels were used. Giudice merely spoke to me until I was completely relaxed (reggae music could have sped things along).
My mind went on a magical mystery tour of emotion, taking me to the root of my procrastination. What could it be? Was it a traumatic childhood event? An ex-girlfriend who never believed in me? Brain rot?
Soon I had my answer. Turns out I’m lazy … I was really hoping for the brain rot.
It is too early to say whether or not the experiment worked, but I can say that I cut out of the session early so that I could pursue another story. So, there’s that.

Heel click

Director Dick Lumbard has performed on the Broadway stage numerous times, directed some of theater’s finest actors, and even taught Tim Allen how to dance (he had a guest spot on an episode of ABC’s “Home Improvement.”), and now he has agreed to take on what may easily rank as his proudest achievement: dancing side by side with Dance, Dance, Revolution legend, James Johnson.
This, Lumbard undoubtedly thought, was akin to winning both a Tony and an Oscar in one night. He might not have thought this, I neglected to ask him, but I’d call it a safe guess.
As we took to the dance floor in front of a floor length mirror (great for zipper checks), Lumbard first asked me about my experience.
“No one puts baby in the corner,” I growled back with a cocky sneer.
See, this line is a obscure reference to the smash hit documentary “Dirty Dancing,” starring Patrick Swayze. Only a true dance master would recognize this reference.
Being 50% Puerto Rican, I had entered the room with the safe assumption that there was no dance move that Lumbard would be able to teach me that I wasn’t already fully versed in (thanks to genetics and/or ethnic stereotyping), but then Lumbard broke out the jazz hands. Maaaan booty, it was on.
I tried to follow Lumbard’s heel clicks, hip thrusts and ball steps (yes, this is an actual move), but my body was unwilling to comply.
Finally, using some unseen power (perhaps that of grayskull?), I managed to complete a “bell click.” A bell click, for those unaware, is a special move in which one hops into the air and clicks their heels together. This move is most often done by crazy old prospectors after discovering gold, or just about anyone else who wishes to celebrate an accomplishment in the most flamboyant way possible.
Of course, if your only actual accomplishment is successfully completing a “bell click,” then you may want to follow up this celebratory dance move with a celebratory heavy drinking.
Goofiness aside, I’d like to take this opportunity to publicly thank director Dirk Lumbard, for allowing us to waste his time.