Even the Pope is into fashion

Jon Stewart was asking if people were feeling a bit odd lately.  If they just felt different.  If they were having problems masturbating.  It can only mean one thing, THE POPE IS IN TOWN!!

Yes, and according the Lawrence-Journal World, the Pope has become quite the trend-setter in pontifical couture.  For example, the miter, the tall white pointed hat that you can find His Holiness parading about the celeb packed Vatican in.  The style-conscious Pope demands to have a one of a kind white zucchetto (skull cap worn under the miter) while the cardinals have to settle for a red one and the bishops a violet.  Not even the Queen of England, the grande-dame of hats, can say this was in the collection of 13 hats she brought to the US for her visit.

Benedict is also reviving papal fashion by wearing the mantum.  This is the stylish cape worn by the Pope.  Who would have thought that the glamour of ‘50 Hollywood would come back so soon and at so sacred a place?

I know you might be thinking the Pope’s wardrobe is pretty monochromatic; but if you think His Holiness is all about a simple white wardrobe, you are wrong.  The Pope’s wardrobe contains a multitude of color.  For example, his mozzetta, or small cape circling around his shoulders, can be found in three versions appropriate for the season: red satin in summer, red velvet for winter, and the customary white velvet for Easter.  The Pope also sports some red leather shoes (pumps) to symbolize the color of the martyrs’ blood.  His shoes seem to say “thanks for having yourself killed in the name of The Church.”

Many designers have tried to compose a knock off of the Pontif’fs fashion.  Some have succeeded; many have failed.  However, there is one unique item that the Pope has all his own: the Fisherman’s Ring.  A symbol of authority passed straight down from St. Peter (the first Pope and fisherman by trade), it is made of solid gold.  Because of the unique nature of the ring and the need to keep uniqueness in this line of couture, the ring is destroyed after the Pope dies and a new one is made for the next Pontiff.

Be sure to check next month’s Vogue and Elle for a full photo set featuring the Pope wearing his latest fashion on the streets of America during his historical visit.

Love and Movies

When I was a junior in high school, I had a really good English teacher.  He completely pounded into our heads that books translated into movies often times yield disaster.  His wisdom has always stayed with me and was summoned forth today after watching Charly based on the book Flowers for Algernon.

I am tired of perfectly good novels/short stores/whatev being ruined by Hollywood in their attempt to sell a movie by inserting a “love/sex twist.”  I know I am preaching to the choir about this, but damn it!

I enjoyed Flowers.  Not the best book, but it was pretty good.  It was sort of about Psychology and that makes me happy.  Yeah, there was stuff about Charly’s emotional development in the book—that includes love.  However, the book also focused on other aspects of his “treatment,” many of which were more prominent than the love stuff.

Oh, not the movie!  Completely different!  All love!  They were worried about his emotional development and “emotional development,” to them, means only love.  There was a montage that was way odd.  I like to just think of it as “Homage to the 70’s.”  It contained very odd colored boxes and shots of Charley making odd faces, which is a signal to the audience that he is learning about life.  Fuck!  The next thing we know he is trying to throw himself on his teacher.  That was not in the book!

I honestly think the movie would have been better if they would have followed the book more.  I mean, we could have at least seen him puke then.  Eeeh…

 

New Gay Word!!

I was reading a little blurb in The Advocate and ran across something that I believe should catch on.  I vow to make it just as popular as the beloved homo, queer, and fag.  The word:

Butt fucky

That’s right.  The blurb was talking about one of the directors talking to one of the creators of Will & Grace and how the show could not be “butt-fucky” because people don’t like to think about other people, well, butt-fucking.  IT’S JUST TOO GAY!

Could you not imagine the halls for every middle, junior, and high school in America ringing with the words butt-fucky instead of fag and gay!  My heart skips a beat just thinking about it.  “You’re so butt fucky!”  “Hey, just one question, are you butt fucky?”

Other things that could be butt fucky-glitter, too much pink on a guy, a purse-not a man bag, lesbians cleaning out gutters, Project Runway, and expensive cheese.  Leave me some comments on other things that might be butt-fucky.

It will take everyone to make this word a success.  Let us not forget Kristen’s brother who tried to bring the word “hump” into existence as a substitute for sex.  For example, “Yeah, I humped her last night.”  At this point, I don’t even think he uses it.

Fun at work #1

Friday.  Everyone in the office is gone besides a certain co-worker and me.  Nothing to do.  What is one to do?  After much contemplation, we decided it would be best to heat up soup.

Autumn, as we shall call her, decided on clam chowder pilfered from the supervisor’s office.  Autumn struggles with soup and decided to heat a mug, just a coffee mug, full of it for about 45 minutes.  As I suspected, it was a bit too hot to grab after being microwaved.  Additionally, the entire microwave/kitchen area smelled like a Long John Sliver’s had burned down.

Autumn also decided that, since she didn’t have any work to do in her office that could not be done on a computer, to go up front and play secretary.  Our regular one is gone with the shingles or something ridiculous like that.  Autumn is not a secretary and will never fulfill that Jell-o -ish compactly.  For example, when answering the phone, you want to identify whom the caller has reached in a short manner.  Not Autumn!  She insists on an introduction so long that the caller completely forgets their query and probably passes out.  It goes something like this: “Hello!  Thank you for calling the ******** **** for *********** ****** on this fine day where we provide services to help you live a more independent life I’m Autumn and was born in a small town where I escaped got married and had a baby how may I help you?”  SNORE!!!  I’m scared because on the assessment that we provide for people we have to check if they are in a persistent vegetative state and Autumn may actually put someone in one with her secretarial skills.

Autumn also has a problem with devising comebacks.  For example, you may say to her “Autumn, I believe that you pendulous triple x sized breasts might be getting in the way of your productivity because the consumers are scared of them.”  Her response to this will be something like “…yeah….”  Um…yeah.  Therefore, I have been trying to teach her how to fire off a proper come back.  After saying the former statement, Autumn now might say something like “Your Mom’s face has big pendulous triple x sized breasts.”  She’s making progress.

I would also like to talk about her computer skills.  In all honestly, she knows computers pretty well.  She has a few blogs and other things in the past.  Her work printer, however, is another story.  When she addressed the issues with IT, they told her that she needed to “wake up her printer.”  Now when it doesn’t work correctly, Autumn gently nudges the thing and says “wakie wakie.”  Wake up your printer?!  Come on!

Slap-A-Bitch Contract

Last night, Jen and I had a fun dinner and discussed the ins and outs of being fat and dating.  More on the dating part later…

Jen recently moved and found an old camera…OLD balls camera.  She got the pictures developed and found out that she was much larger than she is now and I had a full goatee.  YIKES!  In the course of eating our fries and other fried foods at Old Chicago, Jen decided it would be best that I smack her if she ever gets fat again.  Out of this sprung the Slap-A-Bitch contract.

It’s an amazing little bit of quasi-legal bullshit.  Basically, you are able to add to the document one the spot, as Jen demonstrated as we were leaving Sam’s.  OUCH!  She thought I was being bitchy to the cashier person because I forgot that Sam’s would not take Visa.  I simply was stating, to Jen, that Sam’s and Wal-Mart are the same thing and that it seems inane that one would take Visa and the other wouldn’t.  The cashier lady informed me that Sam’s and Wal-Mart are in competition with each other.  WELL FUCK ME!  That must be nice.  Let’s face it, the money eventually stops in the same spot regardless if it comes from Wal-Mart or Sam’s-but apparently not if it comes off a Visa credit!  Right.  Ok.  So Jen slapped me as we were leaving the store for being rude!  She apologized for me to the cashier lady.  Eeeh…I’m over it.  Oh, and for all of you who are all about accounting, I know they are separate entities.  What I am saying is that the money from both of the businesses will eventually make it to the same wealthy person, as I don’t believe that Sam’s has a separate CEO from Wal-Mart.

Ok, so we haven’t actually created a list of things that we should be slapped for, but apparently I get slapped for bitching at Sam’s cashiers and Jen gets slapped for getting fat again.  To my growing list, I would also like to add: growing a full goatee again unless it is for stage purposes, highlighting my hair, wearing glitter, getting involved too quickly, hummm…more to come.

As for Jen, Slapping-A-Bitch will be enacted for the following: getting fat, renting a U-Haul before a year and half with someone, not letting me use the pool at her apartment whenever I want, hummm…

Perhaps some people could comment on situations where I would need to be slapped?  For some of you, I am going to have to limit your suggestions to one or I shall be forced to enact a temporary Slap-A-Bitch on you.

Psychology Lesson #1

If you are in the mental health profession, you will know this.

When diagnosing someone with a mental illness, they are assessed using five axes:

Axis I: This area includes clinical disorders–mood disorders, anxiety disorders, sexual and gender identity disorders, substance abuse, and, my favorite, Psychotic Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (NOS).  A bit more on the NOS later.  Pretty much everything besides mental retardation and personality disorders.

Axis II: Um…mental retardation and personality disorders.  This area includes my all-time favorite: Borderline Personality Disorder…AHHH!

Axis III:  General Medical Conditions.  Basically, everything that is not mental health related.

Axis IV:  This deals with psychosocial and environmental problems.  For example, no support system (loser), educational problems (drop out), housing problems (not paying the rent because you spent it all on pot and porn), economic problems (haven’t received your George Bush money yet), etc.  You know, stuff that is fucked up in your life.

Axis V: Global Assessment of Functioning or GAF.  This is sort of the “lump all the axes together and give them a rating from 0-100 so you can see, very quickly, how fucked up they are.”  This is basically the mental health equivalent of the GRE: “don’t worry about all their experience, let’s just reject him from grad school because his scores aren’t high enough.”  Or, “forget what is all wrong with them.  Their score is low.  SHOCK ‘EM!”

More on the NOS.  This is a specifier.  It is tagged onto a diagnosis, like Schizophrenia Paranoid Type.  ”Paranoid Type” being the specifier.  Not Otherwise Specified is sort of a catch all term.  For example, the “trash can” diagnosis of Psychotic Disorder NOS.  People given this diagnosis exhibit symptoms of psychotic disorders but don’t have enough of the symptoms to have the actual diagnosis of schizophrenia or “with psychotic features” specifier.  There is also a mood disorder NOS and personality disorder NOS.  In my experience, these are the people who are trying to fleece the system and haven’t read a DSM to find out specifically what symptoms they need to fake.

So, at this point, you might be saying, “Brent, you silly homo!  What do we need to know this for?”  Well…

What some people don’t know is that there is actually an Axis VI:  Asshole NOS.  Yes!  You will notice the NOS specifier.  This means that they don’t meet the criteria for being diagnosed as Royal Asshole or Huge Asshole or Fucking Asshole.  Sometimes people don’t have enough specific symptoms to get a specific asshole diagnosis.  Instead, they have a conglomerate of symptoms that just make them an Asshole NOS.

I don’t think I need to enumerate the symptoms that give someone an Axis VI diagnosis.  We have all experienced the asshole in society.  The person who cuts in line, the person who drives 64 in a 65, or your parents when you ask them for money and they say no.

In the mental health profession, you will often hear “they are very axis II” or “they have some axis II going on.”  You can also sound all smart and stuff by saying to the next asshole you encounter “Wow!  You are way Axis VI.”  I mean, you wouldn’t call someone a schizophrenic, you would say “a person with schizophrenia.”  Likewise, you wouldn’t call someone an asshole, you would simply say “they are very axis VI.”

I hope you all enjoyed today’s lesson.  And remember, “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”

A legacy…

I volunteer at Headquarters.  I have for four years now.  Last night, my friend Monica and I were volunteering together.  Good times.  We were bored and wanted to get out of there to watch the game and started talking about our kids and how they would be good friends.  In our urgency to leave, we wondered who was on shift next as we felt they should arrive at least 20 minutes early due to the game.  One of the volunteers coming in on the next shift had a parent who also volunteered at HQ.  He is basically a legacy, much like a sorority or fraternity legacy.  That soon changed to our kids being legacies at Headquarters.  After much talk about them going though training together and being the best of friends, Monica decides it would be best if she had a little gay son and I had a little straight daughter.  It seems amazing and I sort of want a kid now so it can have a good friend and a cool place to volunteer and do cool stuff like drink beer after winning the championship.

My other friend, Jen, and I always talked about what a spawn of ours would be like.  As I recall, we were always pretty frightened at the massive amount of pessimism and cynicism that the child would unleash on the world.  What I imagine is a mix of Lewis Black on a bad day and Janeane Garofalo on the rag.  Eeek!

We Won!

Disclaimer:  I’m writing this at work and have only had a few hours sleep and am pissed off that I have to even be here today.  If you get bored, just stop reading and I’ll post something funny tomorrow or something.

In case you didn’t know, KU won the NCAA championship!–sort of a big deal.  Much awesomeness occurred at Libby’s apartment, which is on Mass.  If you didn’t watch the game, it went into overtime—just barely!  However, after much work on the part of Libby and Monica using telekinesis, KU won!  YEAH BABY!

 

Mass was crazy!  Libby, Monica, and I walked down the street and had the best time.  It was so dense at a few of the intersections that you sort of just bounced off of people.  I was totally ok with having my shit all pushed around.  It was like everyone loved everyone.  It was such a cultural phenomenon.  That many people congregating in one spot with the commonality of KU winning.  I also got to see a naked guy—not all that attractive, but naked, none the less.

 

There was a helicopter and a bunch of news and radio crews.  I wanted to have some sex in the crosswalk and could have probably done it with everyone giving me high fives and a news crew filming it!  So, from about 11th street to about 8th street it was solid people.  Quite surreal!

 

Ok, since my life is psychology, I should take it upon myself to talk about something I learned in Dr. Synder’s class.  BIRGing (Basking In Reflective Glory).  So, if you notice, everyone says “We won” or “We did it.”  Um, I didn’t see you out there running your ass off.  KU won and everyone wants to bask in that glory.  People are wearing KU shirts and talking the team up.  “Yeah, it was a tough game and they pulled it off.”  What would this have sounded/looked like if KU would have lost?  “I can’t believe THEY lost!”  “THEY screwed up.”  “The calls were unfair.”  Didn’t hear any WE in that sentence, did ya?  You will also notice that they try to make up an excuse for the failure.  Of course not, silly!  You will also notice that people try to make up an excuse for the failure.  No one wants to identify with the losing team.  I also guarantee that people would not have worn a lot of red and blue, either.

Maybe not, though.  All in all, it was a good game.  The stats were very closely matched and it made for a good bit of basketball.  It really does come down to simple luck and physics when you have two teams of anything that closely matched.  All in all, BIRG all you want, wear your crimson and blue, and hale to old KU!  ROCK CHALK!

Rock Chalk BITCHES!!

If you were to ask anyone to list the top 10 “fun times” or “memorable times” of their lives, last night would definitely make it into my top five.  If you haven’t checked out pictures online or seen something on TV, then you clearly don’t read the news or watch it and you should!

My day started off with sleeping in after a relaxed Friday night.  More importantly, I got my haircut, which I am convinced was the reason that the evening went so well.  My fawsome co-worker, Chenoa, wanted to come and play in Lawrence and experience all the coolness that is going out on a game day.  We went to Henry T’s and ate too much food.  During the course of the evening, I drank 100 oz of beer!  I counted!

My stylist, Heather, also joined us and we were busy checking out the guy behind us who had the most amazing ass.  I also believe that his ass was part of the reason for the Victory that took place later.

After Heather telling the married guy who was hitting on her to fuck off and more food and beer, the game started.  Let’s face it, we were amazing in the first half.  After that, things sort of went septic and I got pretty nervous.  However, the last part of the second half was amazing!  Fuck you, Roy!

More cool than the game though was the energy and aura of the place.  After the game, Chenoa went home and Heather and I went up to Mass..  She would not drive, so I took her car.  We barely got up there and ended up parking a block from Kathy’s parents’ house.  The street was closed for construction, but I sort of just said “fuck the barriers.”

So many horns and high fives.  It was cool.  We went to Libby’s since she has an apartment on Mass.  It was perfect!  We hung out there some and then decided to go “into the fray.”  I’ve never been to Mardi Gras, but I would imagine it would have been similar, minus the boobs and penises and stuff.  Ran into Monica and her friends and Libby and I held hands and danced!  It was such a surreal experience.  Almost like being drunk without drinking.

Decided to go home a bit early.  Heather has worked all day and was tired.  The person that was hanging out with her was also a bit annoying and needed to disappear.  It was such a good night…a good weekend, because Friday wasn’t bad either.

Ok…Monday!  Let’s see a real party on Mass after we win the whole fucking thing!

Oh, and fuck you, ROY!  

despair.com

I have been hanging out on despair.com a bit more than is healthy.  I am lame and have no life, so this is what I do.  This place is great if you haven’t been there.  Don’t be all “Oh, I have seen those posters.  They are funny.”  Whatev!  Go there and actually read the damn things.  They are addictive and amazing.

Being a huge pessimist is my thing.  I sort of felt like a duck to water when I went there.  I have a good reason for being so pessimistic though.  So, if I am overly optimistic and something bad happens, then I get all bummed.  However, if I am pessimistic and something good happens, I am in a good mood.  If something bad happens, that’s cool.  I was expecting it.

The guy who started the “pessimistic movement” has a good book.  I have been reading some of the excerpts from his book and a lot of the stuff he says makes perfect sense.  I think I might actually buy the thing and see what is all has to say.  Not that I am all into business books, but this one and The Peter Principle might be pretty good.  Oh, I guess I am guilty of reading Who Moved My Cheese?.

This site also sells a whole bunch of cool shirts and stuff.  I was thinking about getting rid of all my clothes and go for a “pessimistic only” wardrobe.  Everything would need to be black.  Maybe just shirts with pictures of babies frowning or something like that.  They also sell candy and mugs.  I could just eat nothing but the pessimistic candy, because, lets face it, I will be alone and it won’t matter if I am fat.  Perhaps I could use the mug to put liquor in so I can drown out my loneliness.

Speaking of being pessimistic, my friend has a date tonight and I am sort of sad/mad/jealous about that.  I want a date.  Not even a date, but just another male to go out with where we are both thinking about sex.  Boo!  I’m cranky now!

I’m also cranky because the person who assigns referrals thinks it funny to give me three at a time after I told her a long time that I don’t respond well to that.  Grrr!  That’s ok.  I have my evaluation at the end of the month and the boss people are going to hear about how I am tired of her behavior around the office.