Harm Aid
Out looking for a place to live, my wife and I happened upon a quaint little house in the city that we liked. There was a cyclone fence that wrapped around the backyard with an old-fashioned and weathered “beware of dog” sign on the gate. The front yard was grass.
We thought the yard and the fence would come in handy for those times when family stopped by with their dogs. In anticipation of the fun we’d have we even picked up a Chuckit and ball.
At no time were we advised there were plans to change anything about the house. The property management people treated us throughout the entire process like the rental scum that we were.
Finally it was moving day. We rolled into town in our U-haul and arrived at the property. It was so exciting. We hadn’t seen the house in two months.
Surprise. The fence was gone although the gate remained. It was no longer a place for dogs. The lawn had been replaced with raw dirt that would soon be the uber cool and trendy urban front-yard farm.
Sorry, dog. We’ve been victimized by bait-and-switch. There’s no place for a game of catch around here. But I do see a nice place where you can bury your bones. Please, feel free.
Spanks A Lot
What a mean dad!
For a long time I’ve said that parents are the worst people to have children. That much seemed obvious. But the burning question remained. Why?
I was pondering the current state of the National Football League (NFL) when it hit me. On second thought, perhaps “hit me” isn’t the best turn of phrase in conjunction with the NFL these days.
First there was the Ray Rice video where he punched his then-fiancée in the face. That shined a stark light on the issue of domestic violence within the league. The video hasn’t changed the reality of what has always been a very serious matter but now, thanks to the virality of the video, the issue is finally being taken more seriously.
News media took the ball and ran with it. The journalists scurried to look under rocks and ask probing questions like, “Who else might be doing stuff like this?”
With the NFL under a microscope suddenly all bets were off. I’m not sure how but the next big thing in NFL umbrage was the Adrian Peterson who was arrested for child abuse after “whooping” his four-year-old son using a “switch.”
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LivingSocial Disease
Somehow I got signed up to LivingSocial. How? I don’t know. Maybe I pissed off one of my neighbors and they did it as passive-aggressive revenge. Well played.
Meanwhile, I happen to love me a good Mongolian BBQ. I have many happy memories of loading up bowls and topping them off with bean sprouts piled so high they resembled Marge Simpson’s hair. And onions. Lots and lots of onions.
One time my bowl came up and the lady in front of me grabbed it by mistake. Moments later she returned and said, in disgust, “This isn’t mine! It’s full of … onions!” I said good day, you onion hater. Those are my onions you’re talking about!
Another time I was in a Mongolian BBQ stuffing my face minding my own business and I watched two snot-nosed bubble-launchers kids load up giant bowls with nothing but meat. That’s bad form. Mom and dad watched approvingly. I can only assume they were also redshirting the bastards. Yeah, they were clearly on the right path. Anyway, these kids brought their steaming bowls of meat back to the table, picked at them momentarily, then pushed them away. It was none of my concern but it still pissed me off. Man, what a waste of good meat. And the food went uneaten, too.
The point is, I love me a mean Mongolian BBQ.
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Bung is a word, and more
Why am I always the last to know?
Fred Armisen, of SNL and Portlandia fame, was recently announced as a 2014 James Beard award winner. It seems that way back on Jan. 11, 2013, the podcast This American Life had Armisen on board as a guest host (because he does an impression of Ira Glass) and that episode entitled Doppelgängers included a segment (heh) by Ben Calhoun that theorized about pork bung being used as “imitation calamari.”
Listen here: This American Life – Doppelgängers
I know! You people are supposed to bring things like this to my attention. Stop sitting down on the job. (Heh.)
Sadly, the podcast ultimately wasn’t able to prove that this sort of switcheroo has actually happened. The piece pretty much relegates the idea to an urban food legend. But it did quite convincingly prove that it is possible. They threw some real calamari and some bung in the deep frier and did some blind taste tests and some of their tasters picked the decoy as the real McCoy.
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Behind The Tweets: #SwitchTwoWordsInLyrics
It’s time for another fantastical episode of “Behind The Tweets.” Be careful not to step in anything.
Deep inside your hole there’s a soul you don’t wanna see. #SwitchTwoWordsInLyrics
—As seen on Twitter
This New Year’s I hatched some lofty goals. One resolution was to memorize the words to every Elvis Presley song ever recorded. By lucky coincidence, I’m already part of the way there. Another was to invent a 27th letter of the English alphabet. I think that would blow the lid off the grammar world quite swimmingly.
And, last but not least, I wanted to invent my very own “hash tag.” Thanks to a lyrical fuck up while singing in the shower, I may have just gotten my wish. I guess it’s time to notch another achievement in my over-growing belt!
What the bloody hell is a “hash tag?” I wish I knew. It would make inventing one so much easier!
Short messages on services such as Twitter may be tagged by including one or more hash tags: words or phrases prefixed with a hash symbol (#), with multiple words concatenated.
–Source: Wikipedia
Whatever.
My generous contribution to the hash tag genre is #SwitchTwoWordsInLyrics. Simply put, all this means is to tweet a short snippet of song lyrics (perhaps a line or two) and do nothing except switch two words (and only two words) to give the lyrics a new twist.
As you can see in my tweet above, I applied this idea to the opening line in the song (Can’t Get My) Head Around You by The Offspring. I have to admit, I really liked the word “hole” in that context. It’s just gaping with mystery and drama.
The Challenge
I have just slapped your face with my proverbial blogging gloves. Will you accept the challenge to come up with an example of #SwitchTwoWordsInLyrics of your own? Or will you laugh in the face of this challenge and respond by continuing to post interesting things? (The chicken’s way out.)
I’ll be watching the hash tag stream with baited breath to see what you can come up with.
Don’t give up too quickly. It’s harder than it looks. I think I just got damn lucky on my first attempt. Good luck!
To get you in the mood, here is one rockin’ little ditty.
Shouts from the Abyss 
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