OK, I knew there was supposed to be a post for Monday, but I forgot that it needs to be posted on SUNDAY night.

This running a blog is harder and more complicated than I thought. There’s like details and stuff to attend to. I’m not sure I was prepared for that.

In my defense, I am the actor manager at a new haunted house, here in Austin and we had our dress rehearsal/trial run on Saturday.

Sunday, I had to spend time with the woman, and we went out and got a microwave oven for our new place, as well as unpacked a few things and tried to straighten up the place a bit.

Seriously, I love you guys, but if I took any time at all, not being with the girlfriend and focusing on “us” for the day, the rest of my week would be a pain in the ass. She’s great, but she is still a woman, and they demand time if you want to keep the peace in your house. So, young dudes, there is a piece of advice… if your woman is getting cranky with you, spend some time doing couple stuff and then give her a good poke at the end of the night and your life will be much smoother.

But, I digress. I also started back at Apple again. So I am a happy man, as it is the best place I have ever worked, but I had to make sure I was ready for my first day, so I kinda forgot to make a post.

In short, I have had a lot of other crap on my mind.

Fortunately, there were a few late submissions of weird stuff found on the web, to save my bacon during this massive screw up on my part. My apologies to all of our readers and to Skippy, (may he be merciful to me upon his return).

So, here are the fresh links.

Sweet Sister Morphine has definitely gone above and beyond with the following submissions about giant man eating badgers, the official response about the giant man eating badgers, a story about a dwarf, his penis and a vacuum cleaner, and a high-speed chase with someone who definitely should not be driving.

And finally, David sent this link of photos of a house that is so nasty, you will never feel like you are a slob again. Seriously, crack houses are better maintained than this.

Yesterdays post by me was just a test, to see who could follow instructions. And I would like to thank all of you who submitted items for todays posting. I will post them in the next entry, after this one.

But now that I know I have a strong contingent of followers, who will do as I command, it is time for me to decide whether I should raise an army or start my own religion.

If I were a peaceful man, I would raise an army, but I figure I can do more damage with a religion. Plus a religion will probably last longer than an army,too

At the moment we are just cult sized, and we all know that the only difference between a cult and a religion is numbers. If you don’t believe me, just ask a Scientologist or a Christian. They have been through this stage and eventually became full blown religions, with tax breaks and everything.

And on the third day, of the time with no Skippy, Pope Michiel commanded to reader and contributor alike, to go forth into the world and spread the word of the sacred List of Skippy, so that they may rejoice in its absurdities, and their lives will become full of meaning and purpose.

Pope Michiel spake, “Once we have shown enough people the joys of the sacred List, and they have joined us, Skippy will return once again, to show us… something of moderate importance.”

So go and witness to the unwashed masses and the washed ones too, (hygiene is not an issue since this is an internet site and we can not smell each other), of the difference that Skippy has made in your life. It does not matter how small the difference may be, or if it is something you would not even consider to be normally worth mentioning. Go. Spread the word of Skippy, and one day soon he will return to us.

If you wish to make offerings, I will set up a Paypal account, and for each dollar you give, I will absolve you of one sin. And based on what I know of you people, this should raise a LOT of money really fast.

Now, as a reward for your faithfulness, check out the submissions of random things found on the web by your fellow parishioners.

I was thinking that yesterdays post may have been a bit harsh. I let my new found power go to my head.

I don’t need to be an ego-maniacal dictator just because Skippy is incommunicado. No, this should be a fun time for all of us.

It’s like having mom and dad out of the house. We have an entire website devoted to humor, all to ourselves.

And you know what that means…

PARTY!

Oh, hell ya! We are going to party like it is 1999, (because those were better times for damned near everyone). So lets go nuts.

As a one time offer, I want submissions from all of you for the “Found on the Internet” section that Skippy does when he has nothing else to blog about.

Send me your favorite website, or video, or photo, or chain letter, or political joke that you received in an email from your liberal or conservative asshat of an uncle, or anything else on the web that you think a bunch of other people on the internet, that you don’t even know, need to see on a Friday morning.

If you got something you want to share with the class, send it to me, here, and I’ll post the best on the site.

It’s like what Booger from ‘Revenge of the Nerds’ told Tom Cruise’ character in ‘Risky Business’, “Sometimes you have to say, what the fuck.”

Right now, I am blogging with no pants. Just my shirt and underwear and sliding my computer across the floor to Bob Segar music. (This would probably be cooler if the song was not , “Turn the Page”).

So lets get some booze, broads, guns and fire engines, maybe even a donkey, and invite a few thousand of our closest friends and post a bunch of weird crap to the site. I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody’s part, and we’re just the guys to do it.

LET’S DO IT!

And since we are talking parties, Lt. Ronald, in a brilliant stroke of synchronicity, actually submitted a post about parties… sort of. Enjoy.

Well, well, well.

Skippy and his wife are in the process of moving, and as of now, are no longer online for about a week or so.

In his infinite wisdom, Skippy has given me control of the website in his absence.

It is difficult to find the words to express how I feel about accepting this weighty responsibility of providing humorous material, for thousands of people to enjoy, while they screw around on the internet at work. But, I think Alexander Haig said it best, after the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan, when he said, “I’m in charge.”

Or maybe it was Star Scream from the Transformers during one of the many times he thought Megatron was dead. I’m not really sure.

The point is, that I now wield the cursor of doom, and all submissions must come through me for approval and editing.

For the next week I am your new god. Contributors will sing my praises, as I lift them up and publish their works for the whole world to see. Or… they will tremble in fear as I crush their dreams of blogging for a humorous military/gaming/geeky stuff website.

With me in charge, we shall experience what is best in life. To crush our enemies. To see them driven before us. And to hear the lamentations of their women.

All will kneel before Zod Michiel.

Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!

And now, back to your regularly scheduled programming with a short piece from our own Sgt. Brick.

Well, I needed to make a post since I have been gone for a while and I keep seeing the lists people submit that are similar to the Skippy List, but specific to their job/industry. I could do a nice long phone rep list, but I figure that has probably been done, and I am sure that if it has not, someone can write it.

So, I figured that my ten plus years working in haunted houses might work. So here is a list of things that I have been told not to do, heard about someone else being told, or I have had to tell another actor not to do in the haunted house.

1. Do not touch the customers.

2. Do not touch the customers inappropriately.

3. Do not touch the customers inappropriately, even if you are using a fake severed hand.

4. When, surrounded by severed body parts, covered in blood, wearing a diaper and slinging a table saw at people, it is not ok to have butt crack showing as some people will find it offensive.

5. Do not lick the customers.

6. Do not tell female customers you can smell their cunt.

7. Do not tell male customers you can smell their cunt.

8. Do not tell customers you can smell their “dunt,” because you are not fooling anyone.

9. Shocking customers with a stun gun will get you fired.

10. No humping the props in front of customers.

11. Rookies can not have an actual machete in their scene.

12. No one can have an actual machete in a scene with a strobe light.

13. If someone is so scared that they urinate on the floor, it is not ok to scare the next group into the puddle to “mop it up.”

14. It is not ok to laugh at a customer that ran straight into a wall.

15. It is not ok to laugh at a customer that ran straight into a wall, regardless of how funny it was.

16. Even if they bounced back several feet.

17. It is not ok to wear only a nuns habit and a garter belt before 11:00 PM.

18. It is not ok to spit directly into a customers ear.

19. Even if it was an unintentional result of giving a customer “the bronx cheer” while foaming at the mouth with Alka-Seltzer.

20. The Freddy glove is not to be used for sexual gratification.

21. If a co-worker has coulrophobia, it is not ok to walk them into the clown scene and yell, “get her.”

22. If a customer asks to leave early and requests to be escorted to the nearest exit, it is not ok to walk them through the rest of the house and claim it is a short cut.

23. Actually, 22 is OK.

Here are several things, that may be of interest, since I have not posted much lately, and am so tired, that I have no clue if any of it is interesting or entertaining, so I am loading up the blog shotgun and hopefully I’ll hit something.

We’ll start with where I have been.

Some of you may be wondering where the hell I have been. I’ll keep the answer/excuse short.

For the last couple months I have been working as a security guard for a local outdoor mall, in Austin, Texas, in the summer, during a drought and record heat, on various schedules that change from day to day. It is draining to say the least. It’s an easy job, but draining.

I also just started a new job doing phone support, and have been talking to local haunted houses, trying to decide which one I will work at.

The woman and I have also been looking for a place to move to, so that has eaten most of the spare time. We have to get out of this apartment. We have had a toilet that will randomly overflow for a couple of years now, in spite of numerous attempts by the landlord to get it fixed. But worst of all, are the upstairs neighbors.

The Upstairs Neighbors

They are a family of four; Dad, extremely large mom, extremely large teen aged daughter, and a three or four year old daughter. They are the noisiest people I have ever lived under. I am not sure they ever sleep, and if they do it is for about thirty minutes at an hour or so after dawn.

When they first moved in, they moved in after midnight as the dad had a night job and it was the only time they could do it. Sure it was annoying, but I understand. You got to move when you can move. But it seemed to take them a long time to move in. Somehow they were always banging things, dropping things, sliding things, and generally stomping around, and it has gone on for about two years.

I like to compare them to klutzes that enjoy rearranging their extensive bowling ball collection.

And you can hear every step they take. I am convinced they are part sasquatch, and I have almost injured myself several times when speaking to them in person, by trying to keep from saying, “gooney goo goo” to them. (Sorry for those of you that don’t get the reference, just watch this clip from “Raw” by Eddie Murphy and you will understand).

Fortunately, they are gone now, as the apartment management made them move to another apartment after years of complaints from us. We did not want to make them move, we just wanted them to settle down enough so we would not have to worry about our ceiling caving in. They even told us that the apartment management had informed them that if there was one more complaint they would make them move. So they came to talk to us.

We discussed the noise, how much of it, and how often. I even told them it sounded like they never stopped moving in, and even dropped the bowling ball collection analogy too. They tried to say that it was the little girl. Which I might buy, but the noise is all day, first thing in the morning and late into the evening, often til two or three AM that all this noise happened. So, I doubt it was all the toddler.

As they were leaving, my girlfriend overheard the mother tell the three or four year old that this was all her fault.

But they said they would stop, and they did. For one day.

We put up with the noise, not wanting to get them kicked out. So we resorted to the classic, banging on the walls and pounding the ceiling with a stick. All this did was irritate them and they would pound back.

Even so, we were not going to say anything, until they did something so profoundly stupid, we had to say something.

One day they were on a real tear, upstairs, and I banged on the ceiling, matching them, thump for thump. Then I get a knock on my door. It wasn’t the neighbors, but the Sheriff. He said that they had complained about the banging on the ceiling. I told him, that I was trying to get them to shut up, and invited him in for a listen, since they did not have the sense to settle down after calling the cops for my noise. He agreed with me and went and spoke to them about it, but that was the last straw, I wrote the apartment management and told them they needed to go.

Anyways they are gone, and I am working at another job, back on the phones doing support, and working security on the weekends. But at least I am getting a tad more sleep.

All this is why I have not written in a while as I am exhausted.

Oh well, on with the post I wanted to write.

They’ll Let Anyone Drive a School Bus.

While at work, I was talking to my best friend from childhood on the phone and we discussed an event that we still have a hard time believing actually happened.

When we were in middle school, the bus driver seemed to not like me much. I do not remember what asshatery I had done to deserve it, but at one point, he decided that I would have to sit in the front seat of the bus for the rest of the school year.

His name was Mr. Johns. Mr. Johns was a large man who should have his picture in the dictionary next to the word, “sweaty.” Sitting that close to him was not exactly pleasant on the olfactory senses, if you catch my drift. If not, I am sure there is still some of that odor drifting around somewhere, and eventually you may encounter it.

One day, my best friend, Ray, is sitting up front with me, as the bus traveled down the road towards school. At one point, Mr. Johns, turns to me, and says, “Mike, I want to show you something, so pay attention.”

“See that? That’s the emergency break. Let me show you how it works.”

He then pulled the brake and the bus came to an almost immediate stop from the thirty or forty miles an hour we had been doing. There were books everywhere, and I think everyone on the bus ended up flipping over their seats and landing in the seat in front of them.

It seemed weird, maybe even a bit crazy.

Then Mr. Johns continued, “That’s what I want you to do if something ever happens to me while driving this bus, like if I get shot or something. You stop the bus and let everyone out.”

He then removed the brake and took us to school.

For the last twenty five or so years since, Ray and I have yet to figure out what the hell that was all about. The next school year, we had a different bus driver. We have no clue what happened to Mr. Johns, but we assumed he got shot, or maybe had a heart attack from all the weight and the sweating he did. More than likely, he just got a job somewhere else, but we prefer to think he got shot.

We have no idea why someone would shoot him, but at least knowing that someone was really after him, makes the story make a bit more sense. Although, we still can’t figure out what he did, and who he pissed off so much that he didn’t even feel safe while driving a bus load of children around.

Another thing that has come up at work, is my new favorite song, that I have turned my coworkers on to.

My New Favorite Song

The video is ok, but it is the song I love, it is just catchy and wrong in all the right ways.

“Lotion” by the Greens Keepers

And finally, one other piece of awesomeness that I just could not leave out.

Click Here For Awesomeness

Awesomeness

In the three or four months that I have been contributing to Skippy’s List, the thing that has made it fun and rewarding is your comments.

“Even the comments from right-wing asshats, Michiel?”

”

Yes, even the comments from right-wing asshats.

Seriously, it is fun to throw weird thoughts and stories out there, but without the feedback, it would be pointless masturbation. (Perhaps it is still pointless masturbation, but who doesn’t like an audience? Am I right, or what?)

But, sometimes the conversations go off course. Sometimes people take it way more serious than I ever intended. Sometimes people just don’t think it is funny, and sometimes it just gets weird.

So, I thought I would highlight a few of my favorite curve balls from my previous posts. Let’s start with the most recent, “George Bush Hates Elves.”

This was a post based on a news story about how the North Pole was melting away and may even completely disappear before the summer is over, and my wondering what people are going to tell their kids about where Santa lives, if it does. Granted it got a bit political. This was not my intent when I wrote it, it just turned out that way.

The comments started out with some fun, back and forth, about how Santa is a communist because he wears red, and eventually ended with me concluding that Republicans were fascists, based on what the “right-winger” I was talking with had posted. (Here is that portion of the conversation). There was also a fun semantics argument about whether North and South are relative or arbitrary, which eventually led to an offer to have my baby, and a discussion about the spelling of my name. In short, a good time was had by all.

But quickly, some people started to take it a bit too serious, like Ed Herring, Jeremiah Hatch, and our very own Lt. Ronald, and a debate began to rage about whether global warming is real or not. Props to Lt. Ronald for providing several sources about the South Pole getting bigger in recent years, to which I replied, “OK… but the article was about the North Pole.”

For the record, I am not knocking any of you guys, and I enjoyed the debate. You all put up an amazing effort to site sources that frankly, I’ll probably never check because I was just writing what I thought was a fun post. I will admit that my post did get a bit weighty, and clearly shows my own opinion that global warming is happening, and even took on a bit of a criticism of the whole hurricane Katrina debacle. But when I sat down to write the post, my initial intent was just stupid humor based on an article I saw, and my tangent of a thought about, “where will Santa live now?”

I really thought the Santa angle would take the edge off the topic, and we could all have fun, but I was wrong.

When it comes to taking it too serious, no one could top this comment from bmb84. I must admit that I have never been bitched out by someone that basically shares the same views I do. Obviously they missed some of my sarcasm, and wanted to know “what kind of narcissistic high and mighty catholic” I am “to diss people that dont believe in god or are gay or having sex before marriage.” When I read this one, I just had to laugh… and, of course, comment back.

Oh, and regardless of where you stand on the global warming issue, check out this video. It pretty much simplifies the debate to the real issue and what our choices are. Seriously, I highly recommend that you take the time to watch the video. It will not convince you that global warming is or is not happening, but makes a strong argument on how to handle the issue.

Another post I made where the comments were not so much taken seriously, but somehow became too scholarly for the topic was “What would really happen in a zombie apocalypse.”

Basically, this post was my vision of how a zombie apocalypse would go down. I did not include an explanation as none is really needed. It’s freaking zombies. It’s the dead coming back to life.

Do we really need to analyze the holes in my scenario from a scientific perspective?

Apparently, some people do.

The very first comment ran with my concept and even took it a step further to conclude that there would be, “zombie shit in your intestines.” And I thought I over thought the zombie thing with undead goldfish and plants.

Quickly, people began to comment on how if it was a disease, it could not possibly infect so many species. To which I replied that, “Obviously, it is not a virus.”

But this did not stop people from continuing to shoot holes in my vision of a zombie apocalypse by using the virus model of zombie infection. Jinn made a comment about a zombie killer whale and then stated that, “I highly doubt zombie infections could spread to fish,” when in my story there were zombie goldfish in a toilet and zombie sardines in a can. And, although I missed it at the time, I feel the need to point out that whales are not fish, but mammals like you and me.

Morrogoth then points out that there can’t be zombie bacteria as your blood shreds them and that mosquitoes do not carry enough blood to infect you with the zombie virus. So, again, I point out that it is not a disease.

Finally, I Am An Evil Taco, attacked insects as carriers of the disease and the ability of the disease to infect every species. This lead me to a mini rant in the comments section…

Based on the scenario, and what everyone is saying about disease and what it affects and how, it is obvious that in this instance it is not a disease.

Maybe it is magic, maybe cosmic rays, maybe evil pixie dust, maybe it is God. Who cares? Everyone dies. It’s my zombie apocalypse and I say everything is affected and everything will end up dead and/or zombified.

And why do you assume the problem starts with people and spreads to animals? I think it hits all things at once. That is why the dead plants are zombies too.

Face it, in my zombie nightmare, you are doomed, and no matter how clever you think you are, you’re dead. DO YOU HEAR ME? YOU ARE ALL DEAD!

It’s my scenario and I’ll kill off who I want.

Oh, and I am miraculously immune to the whole thing, now I can spend my time reading and not being bothered by the rest of the world. Now where are my glasses. (crunch)

But sure enough, someone, (I’m not naming names, but I am staring at you, SKD), has to point out that there is no way for me to survive my own zombie apocalypse either, “due to the fact that there will be nothing for you to survive on.”

As fun as it was, I am amazed at the ability to over rationalize a scenario where the dead come back to life. Seriously, you have a problem with how zombies come about, but not the fact that it is probably impossible to have the dead spontaneously reanimate by any means other than the supernatural? Oh let’s forget it and move on.

This next post I knew would be controversial before I ever typed a single word.

9/11 Humor… What? Too soon?

This was a post based on an advertisement for a 9/11 sale that my girlfriend saw on a website, and I then proceeded to take the concept of 9/11 ads to the extreme to

a) point out the over commercialization that we are exposed to here in the US

b) point out the occasional insensitivity of said over commercialization, and

c) to have a bit of 9/11 humor, because I think it is totally healthy to laugh in the face of tragedy and fear as it helps us move past it and keeps us human, plus it probably pisses off the terrorists to think we can laugh at this abominable shit they pulled.

Fortunately, most people understood what I was doing. But the very first comment from Swagman, was anything but understanding. He simply wrote, “Wow. Michiel, you really have no sense of what is funny, do you?”

To which I replied, “And neither does Skippy, his wife, our common friends, my girlfriend, my parents and the guy that posted just after you.

Before I posted this, I ran it by a LOT of people. I knew I was entering dangerous territory, and to anyone truly offended, I apologize, but again, for me the best way to heal and the best sign of healing is to be able to laugh at tragedy.

I even explained this to Swagman in the comments but he persisted in saying it was not funny. So I posted a comment that looking back is funny in a smart ass way, but was a bit insensitive. “… is it the subject matter that is not funny, or the execution of the various punchlines and the general structure of the piece that you take issue with? If it is the subject matter, as I would suspect is the case, then what would make for acceptable 9/11 humor to you? Please provide examples.”

He never provided examples.

If he just did not find the jokes funny, I am ok with that. As a comic I am used to jokes killing with some people and dying with others. Humor is not universal. I am only bothered when people do not give it a chance because of the topic, and not because they are not happy with the quality of the content.

So, Swagman, I hope that someday you will be able to read that post again and see the humor in it, but I understand why you don’t at this time. We all heal at different rates, and being that I live in Texas, I was fortunate enough to not know anyone that died that day, which probably makes it easier for me to make jokes about the whole thing.

I think Board in School summed up my thoughts on this whole thing the best when they said, “only in America after 7 years people would still be so shocked not to find that funny.”

And again, I was an insensitive smart ass and and responded with, “We are also shocked by womens boobs too. I’m not sure why. I think they lead to dancing or something. I really do not understand why so many Americans have a stick up their butt, but you have to admire the fact that at the end of that stick is a flag waving proudly in the wind.”

Again, my apologies, but that was damned funny.

OK, enough of the serious stuff, lets get to the just plain weird and funny. Some of the strangest comments I have received were in my post, “So many levels of irony. - Why outsourcing has to stop.”

This post was about a customer service call to my bank and getting idiots in another country on the other line. In short, they asked for some personal info I was not comfortable giving to foreigners, so I asked where they were, and they refused to tell me because of the company policy. It ends with me asking what planet they are located on and they could not reveal that either. Perhaps my call went to another planet, but I doubt it.

I’m not sure how to explain the odd comments I got, so I will just let them speak for themselves.

Virtual Assistant said, “I thought, that’s very significant, that is why he never gave his location. Sometimes we don’t blame people, he just only secure his self, right?”

So I replied, “YES! Seriously though, did you outsource this comment?”

By the way, the link his name went to was, http://www.outsourcingit2philippines.com/

I thought maybe someone was jacking with me until I got these next two comments.

Web Support Agent commented with, “Wew. sometimes you can get so much from what you bargain for.”

So I responded with, “I totally agree, and like they say, the early bird is worth two in the bush.”

And here is the link to the site you get when you click on his name. http://www.dcglobal.us/

Finally, Graphic Designer commented with, “Yes i agree,. outsourcing is too much, i guess it really need to stop because alsoof the negative effects of outsourcing.”

Which prompted me to reply by saying, “One of the negative effects of outsourcing is not to be able to understand what person on the other end is try to saying, also they only havening a small knowledge of American English, and usually they can has terrible grammar. It is very much like talking to a LOL CATS.”

His name linked to the same http://www.dcglobal.us/ web site as Web Support Agents.

So that is about it for the odd and interesting comments. Keep them coming. It is what makes this whole thing fun for me. So thanks for taking the time to read and comment, and I’m sure we will do this again real soon.