Mark Twain and naked people.

Mark Twain is given credit for saying: "Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society."

Well, I think that may be true but let's face it, naked people have a massive effect future generations and societies.

Those who camp, suck.

Are you the type of person who really enjoys nature? Do you like to go camping? Well then, I'm not really sure you have a good idea of what nature is actually all about.

You know about natural selection -- and you were taught about the food chain (animals eating animals) back when you were a kid. My question is, as a caring human being, why aren't you disgusted by it all?

For example, let's take this beautiful idea of the "circle of life" -- animals killing and eating other animals out in nature. (And this activity only happens about a zillion times a day on this planet by the way.) Countless animals, many of them sentient creatures with the ability to feel real fright and with nerve endings able to produce massive amounts of genuine pain, are hunted down, terrorized and eaten alive.

There you go, take a few moments now to mediate on the horrible, terrorizing, painful demise those furry little guys are experiencing.

So the next time your neighbor tells you he's taking the family camping to experience the glory of nature, just say, "Oh, yeah? Well have fun -- you twisted, demented fuck!!"

Cheers! It's a new start!

You've heard it before: "Today is the first day of the rest of your life." And it's really just so true when you think about it. So don't feel bad about going out there and getting drunk as all heck today. Just consider it a big kick-off event/celebration!

Antigeneticism

If you care tremendously about who specifically your ancestors were, you may allow that to define you as a person to some extent. And if then, for whatever reason, I happen to not like you as a person I indirectly then judge negatively the person you've become because of who your ancestors were.

If, however, you don't really care that much about who your ancestors were, you will define yourself and become the person you become independent of who your ancestors were. In that case I will like or dislike you entirely without any correlation to who your ancestors were.

So I say, for all those folks involved, let's not get too hung up on dead people with whom we share a few genes.

Do NOT drink wine while cooking.

My friends, please learn from my mistake. Drinking wine, even a little bit, while preparing dinner for your kids on a Friday night is a very bad idea.

Case in point: last night while attempting to preheat the oven to 400 degrees for frozen pizza I accidently pushed the "0" button one extra time, making it 4000, and when I went to put it in the oven both the pizza and my right hand incinerated instantly.

Do you think you have free will? You do not.

Do you think you have free will? You do not.

Oh now don't start getting all indignant on me. Just settle down and let me ask you a question. If you had been alive back before the civil war, born a son or daughter to a wealthy slave owner in the South, would you have gone along with the program, or would you have said: "No! Slavery is wrong. You can stick your legacy where the sun don't shine Dad. I'm moving to the North!"

Please have the intellectual honesty to say you likely would have become a slave owner too.

And don't be all sad now. Just because you realize you have no free will doesn't mean you can't become more enlightened. In fact, you just did!

Natural Intelligence?

Wouldn't you agree that Nature as a whole is more intelligent than the collective human consciousness? Of course you would. So if there really is no God, why do we see praying mantises?

Umpire ego

I hate it when sarcastic umpires twirl their finger in the air like: "Whooppity-do for you A-hole, you just got a home run. You wanna cookie?!"

Life In Hell

I like to think about all the souls that are currently being tortured in hell. In the grand scheme of things, if you think about it, not too very long ago they didn't even exist.

Since the beginning of time those poor folks were in the world of "nonexistence" so to speak, and then one day God created them as a new baby human being, and in essentially a blip of time later, they lived their life and were dead. At that point God decided to put them in hell for eternity. Seemingly all in the blink of an eye they were created and then put into perpetual torture.

And they're like: "Hey nobody even asked me if I wanted to be created in the first place! What's up with that?"

Grace Under Green Light Pressure

Let me as you a question. I'm sure this has happened to you. You're at a stoplight waiting to take a left turn, waiting for that red arrow to turn green. There is one car ahead of you. The green arrow lights up and the guy in front of you doesn't move. He's looking down, looking at his radio dial or something. OK, now all of a sudden the pressure is on you, right? Do you immediately honk the horn as if to say that he's a jackass and you yourself would never be in his position? Or do you have patience, empathy?

Well, it's not that simple of course. You have a responsibility to the cars behind you to assert yourself and step up to the plate so to speak. Through no fault of your own you're caught in a highly stressful squeeze play.

How many seconds do you wait to hit the horn? Come on. Make up your mind! Are you weenie or a boor??

My new prayer for Lent.

I've invented a new prayer for Lent this year. It's kinda like the Hail Mary but instead of praying to Mary to ask her to pray to Jesus to save my soul it goes one step further. In mine I pray to another saint (Joe in this case) to pray to Mary to pray to Jesus for me. It's brilliant. I'm calling it Hail Mary 2: St. Joseph's Revenge.

Body addition by subtraction.

I don't mean to whine but I've had a pretty tough life so far. A few years ago a bout with testicular cancer left me with only one nut. And circumstances I don't really want to discuss just recently forced me to have one kidney removed (on the other side).

As a result, and this is the capper, last week I had to have surgery to get just one tonsil taken out. You see, it turns out kidneys are heavier than gonads and I kept leaning to the side when I walked. I'm OK now though (post-tonsillectomy). Straight as a string!

White House photography

I just love to get access to black and white photos of the goings-on in the Oval Office. B&W means those dudes are up to something sinister as all hell!