Smelling great, for a buck 98.

I've got this great new thing I'm doing: buy knock-off Polo Black cologne at the 99¢ Store, mix it with isopropyl rubbing alcohol (also from the 99¢ Store). Hello inexpensive aftershave!

Cross country coach of the year.

They asked Coach Johnson, who had just been voted cross country coach of the year, what his secret was: "Well, for each practice session in previous years I would tell the team to run through the woods and back as fast as they could. This year I had this great idea. I told them, as fast as they could, to run through the woods and back, and then through the woods again. So I just got a bus, drove to the other side of the woods and picked them up each day. Yep, paid off big-time!"

John Riggins, explained.

Let there be no mistake, John Riggings knew fully well going in that having a vertical bar in the center of his facemask would obscure his vision, and thus make him a less effective player. But he absolutely insisted on having it anyway. Pussy!

Weird, futuristic, unreliable self-advice.

If, when you were 16 had you been given opportunity to get advice directly from your future self: 10, 20 or even 30 years later, would you have listened? I don't think I would have, probably because I think I would have made the assumption that something likely would have "happened" to me in the interim years, twisting my thinking. And you know what? I think that particular presupposition may have indeed been accurate.

My research on gravity defiance.

I've been doing quite a bit of research of late, trying to determine exactly who holds the world's record for being the fattest/shortest person ever to legitimately dunk a basketball. As you can imagine, since "fat" and "short" are relative terms, the data are controversial.

Why I voted.

The primary reason I voted is because it's important to me to try to impose my will on others.

Frank Talk Regarding the Toilet Plunger

The toilet plunger plays an integral role in my life, and probably yours too if you want to be honest about it. You say no? OK, let's put it this way, you pseudo-sophisticated asshole you: what would happen to the circumstances of your life were we to deny you the use of any and all toilet plungers going forward?

How to be an ignoramus.

I found a great way to get people to recoil with horrified, condescending disgust at me. You can try it too if you'd like. Next time you see a parent, minding his/her own business, walking along with their visibly Down syndrome-affected kid just walk up to them and say, "Hey, I got just three words for you: Amnio-Cen-Tesis!"

On Christians, Crickets and Politics

Do you like to listen to crickets? Would you like to experience their quiet, soothing, peaceful sounds? Try this.

Step 1) Find a right wing Christian and confront him with one of his own, shall we say, incongruent-with-Christianity political views.

Step 2) As him, with respect to this particular issue, WWJD?

Step 3) Listen.

Risk aversion in modern sports media playback.

Wanna know exactly how risk-averse any dude happens to be? Just find out how much extra time he typically adds when recording a live sporting event on his DVR. (Souce: New England Journal of Dan Green Bullshit)

Pondering the Atheist to Evangelical Christian cross-over.

Some people make me so mad with their holier-than-thou, piece-of-crap political, religious, and societal views that, even though I'm basically an atheist sometimes I wish I could convert to Evangelical Christian so that I could take comfort in the fact that while I'm going to heaven, those bastards are going to rot in Hell!

Q: Lack of integrity -- or just flexibility in my belief systems?

A:  The former. I have no spine, no principle, no character. Just look at a couple of Facebook posts I made today:

Post 1:

The amount of support the Lance Armstrong is getting from everywhere amazes and saddens me. What are we teaching our children? It's OK to cheat as long as you don't get caught? It's OK to steal, as long as it's a zero-sum game and most of the losses go to foreigners (French in this case). It's OK to lie as long as you make up for it via good deeds in other areas of your life?

Post 2 ( a couple hours later after receiving no "Likes" to the post above):

OK, I've reconsidered. You win, you amoral, bottom-line obsessed world you. The ends really do justify the means. And as Robbie (Adam Sandler) said the The Wedding Singer: "We're living in a material world and I am a material girl... or boy." :-(

Niccolò Armstrong-Machiavelli

Anybody who is still a fan of Lance Armstrong needs to get a tattoo of Niccolò Machiavelli on their you-know-what. (Wow, the family resemblance is remarkable!)

Old Folks Home

When is the last time you went to an old-folks' home? I recently had the experience, visiting my wife's grandmother in Iowa. The sights/scenes there are not pleasant. It just felt like a place devoid of almost all hope. Nobody there could reasonably anticipate that they could somehow turn this thing around. And as I left I realized this is our ultimate future -- if we're lucky.

Dog look like a Lady

At my house we have three dogs, two of them female and one male. I've noticed that I often refer to either of the two female dogs as "him" or "he". However, I never accidently call the male dog "her" or "she".

Have you experienced the same phenomenon? Well, I figured out why this happens.

Look, dudes often pee in the grass or against a tree. Chicks don't. Dudes certainly will walk around with their hair all messed up and maybe with some mud (or whatever) on them, and be oblivious to it. Girls (usually) won't.

Let's face it. Dogs are dudes, regardless of gender.

Stealing hangers from hotel rooms

You've considered it at one point in your life. You must have. We all have. The only difference is that I actually had the courage, industriousness, and vision to carry it out.

Yes, I'm talking about the act of stealing hangers from hotel rooms.

Oh, please, spare me the pompous talk about how you wouldn't do it anyway because it's wrong, immoral, and against one of the more famous 10 Commandments. Let me break it down for you in case you haven't already figured it out: It's a tough world out there, and sometime you gotta play hardball.

And of course they've tried to disincentivize us from doing it -- by making the hooks really small, or with just a nail head that slots into a plastic ring thingy -- no good to common simple folks like you and me; folks with no ability to adapt and adjust. Are they taking us for a bunch of idiots or something!?

Let me tell you, I've done my homework on this -- been to the web sites that are vendors to the hotel/motel industry (where they sell the special closet racks and poles that have the plastic ring thingies), and I bought my share of all those items, and then went to work. I've equipped our entire house with hotel room-like racks, and I'm reaping the benefits. You underestimate Dan Green, I make you pay.

I'm not going to give you the particulars of what I've got going on hanger-wise in my house at this point, but just let me say that I hang up everything now -- every t-shirt in my house is on a hanger; underwear, briefs,  each jock strap has its own hanger. And not just clothes, hell, you come into my kitchen -- every pot and pan is hanging on free hangers. Remote control for the TV? You bet-- got its own specially designed hanger.

In fact, I even have one room of my house that we simply can't use anymore because it's filled with boxes and boxes of additional, what I call "back-up" hangers -- just in case I encounter some breakage in the fleet.

Ha! Take that hotel people!  Now who's the idiot?!

Post-Catholic Prayer

I grew up Catholic but I don't believe anymore. I'm agnostic. And in fact, like many, I'm pretty disgusted by the Catholic church and all that goes with it.

Having said that I do have a crucifix in my office that I say prayers of supplication to on a regular basis -- mostly for money. That will still work, right?

the title of: Porn Star

I'm not a big porn guy, but let me ask you a question: Why is it that if some lost soul does a porn film or becomes a porn actor, and then s/he does something stupid, or at least news worthy, they automatically get elevated the title Porn Star? That's like some accountant who for some reason is arrested for public urination being written about in the news: Accountant/Bean Counter Extraordinaire Arrested Early Sunday Morning for Taking a Piss in Public.

You should do this.

Have you ever done this? You should do this. Let me tell you what I do sometimes: At the end of the day, you think about all the food you ate that day, every snack, every meal. Now visualize it all. In your mind's eye put it all on one table on separate plates and glasses in front of you.

Now when you look at it all, do you become horrified? I know I do! Then I wonder how it is that I'm not one of those dudes who can never even get out of bed and has to be transferred out of their home with a fork lift!

Religion is like 99% of all art.

Religion is like 99% of all art. They're both inherently worthless and useless. It's only when we trick ourselves into believing that God or artwork is real and good that they can gain (a lot of) genuine value.

And that explains that even though I don't believe in God and I hate art, I have nothing to show for it.

History repeats its repetition (again).

What every generation of humanity says their kids: "This generation of kids has no respect! I know that every generation of adults probably says that, but this generation of kids is particularly bad. It's just disgusting."

A Lavatory Poem: This Is My Life

Red peppers are burning my butt.
I really now wish I hadn't eaten what I ate.
But I know I'll probably eat that same thing again.
Many times in fact.
This is my life.
I really wish I had some free will.

Kids nowadays.

These kids nowadays. I swear, I think most of them must be on drugs. Case in point: We recently got a new, cute little Golden Retriever puppy. Unfortunately one day the puppy got out of the back yard and ran off. Couldn't find it anywhere.

Now we happen to live next to an elementary school, and so I got what I thought was a good idea which was to enlist help in finding the darn thing. So as the children were getting out of school around 3pm I walked over there and asked the kids, "Hey, I lost my puppy. Can you help me? Help me find my puppy please. Come help me find my puppy!" Next thing I knew those freaky little kids began screaming, running the opposite direction with really weird looks on their faces. Yep, sadly, I think it must be drugs.

Facing life's great question.

Is there one question that has been regularly posed to you as you've gone through life? By that I mean, as the years have gone by, is there one particular question that people have seemed to ask you again and again in the various life experiences you've encountered?

For me there sure is! It seems like where ever I've been in this world occasionally someone will come up to me and ask, "Jeez Dan, how many beers have you HAD?"

Dog-goned anthropomorphism.

Believe it or not, my dog Moxie has the most amazing ability to feign incredulousness.

47 and getting older

I'm 47 now and not exactly thrilled with the fact that I'm getting even older everyday. But you know what? I'm really happy I'm not a young man in my 20s in today's world. It'd be a real hassle to have to get a bunch of tattoos and shave my chest all the time.

DE-FENSE!!!

I made a big "D" out of cardboard. Now I just need to find a friend who can make a big "#" so we can go to the big and game and cheer for the defense!

A Hell of a Supply Chain

Who's in charge of torturing the souls in Hell? I mean, we know that God/Jesus orders the souls to go to Hell to commence torturing, but who's in charge of the actual torment? It's Satan right? The actual torture job is outsourced to Satan. So Satan is really one of God's vendors, maybe his only one. And I guarantee you this: God is Satan's number one customer. I bet Beelzebub's floating the Lord choice floor seats to Knicks games on a pretty regular basis, right down there by Spike Lee!

Dan 3:16

"For God so loved the world that he sent his only son to commit suicide by Roman soldiers, so that whoever believes in Him gets a legitimate shot at not having Him torture their ass in hell for all of eternity!"

(Na, better go with the original. It's a little sexier.)

Easter Wishes

When you're a little kid you really love and appreciate The Easter Bunny much more than the Risen Christ.

Then you grow up a little more and you "realize" that Jesus is MUCH more important than Easter baskets and so on and so forth.

Then you grow up even more and you think the Jesus, Zeus, The Easter Bunny, Medusa, The Tooth Fairy, etc. all play an equal part in this world.

And then you grow up even more and, in the end, you wish Dr. Kevorkian was your personal physician.

Johnnie Walker Blue

Are you a fan of Johnnie Walker Blue Label scotch? Congratulations! That means you're a big joke. A big, phony, pretentious, ignorant joke.

Why? Well, I'm sure you're going to tell me how smooth the stuff is. How great it tastes.

Bullshit. Listen, I'm a drinker, but any liquid that is 80 proof (40% ABV -- alcohol by volume) is going to taste pretty goddamned vile. Think about it -- you're basically drinking poison. So what you have with a spirit like Johnnie Walker Blue is a beverage that tastes better, or even significantly better, than vile.

Wow, you're really cool and smart for paying $225 per bottle so that you can have a drink that is 75% less revolting (or smooooooth as hell by comparison) than normal!