Yahoo Answers crack me up

Have you seen that new section on Yahoo.com where people can post questions and anybody on the planet with an internet connection can then go and offer up answers? I'm quickly taking to this like a street whore to crack. I've heard some people cruise MySpace in a similiar fashion, but I never really got into that. YahooAnswers however is clearly da bomb.

When you first click onto the site you're met with some meaningful and often interesting questions. Today for instance one of the first ones is how a guy can find out his genetic make-up if he's adopted. Yawn. Another asks what someone can do to treat their cat's allergies. Don't let these legitimate questions fool you into outclicking. The real gems are only a few mouse clicks away.

At first I thought the best questions would be in the sexuality department and being somewhat of a perve I quickly checked to find out. It takes a little bit of investigative work to find it. They don't just label a subsection "perverse questions." You have to first click on Health and then Men's Health or Women's Health or something similar. You'll soon find yourself asking where the hell these people come from. Here's a few examples:

Where can i download hot voice, like woman having sex, just audio????
What is the substitution for masturbation who is not married?
I haven't had sex with a girl yet. now im 24. will it be a problem for my future?

I can only surmise many of these are asked by people whose first language is not English. But some of them almost sound like they were asked by someone not of this planet. What kind of answers are these people expecting really? To the lonely bachelor looking for an onanism substitute, might I suggest a cup of General Foods International Instant Coffees? Surely Cafe Vienna will induce the same sensations.

A little more clicking though proves that there are yet stupider people out there asking yet stupider and hence more amusing questions. In dental, one guy asks Will super glue mess up your teeth?. Is he using it to brush his teeth? T he answers are as varied as you might imagine. While there are some caring sad saps out there discouraging the consumtion of high-adhesive airplane glue, there are also people like me suggesting he consume large quantites in hopes that natural selection will run its course. One respondent who identifies himself as John answers back with a good compromise saying if you really have to eat an adhesive, stick to kid glue; its pretty non-toxic. Does John speak from experience?

CalexicoD wants to know Why do people get all retarded when I say the word "retard"? Am I allowed to laugh at this without feeling guilty? Or should I feel ashamed? Speaking of shame, go to the site and search "I am ashamed" and see what strange things people are ashamed of. I promise you will feel much better about your own closeted skeletons.

As for me, I have to get back to Yahoo Answers. Somebody's got to give these stoops the straight dope.

Have a blessed day how?

I keep getting solicitations fom this local church inviting me to join them for some happening event they're sponsoring. Today's was a color flier advertising a revival with Pastor So & So and his family, all of whom are pictured on the color glossy in what I can only imagine is sadly their Sunday best. There are seven members all together, and while the boys look smashing enough in their basic blue button-ups and gold neckties, the two youngest girls look like they're modeling something their great-grandmother hand sewed for herself during the Great Depression and has since handed down through the generations. Looking at the advertisement I feel a little sorry for these girls. I mean Laura Ingalls on Little House on the Prairie donned nicer frocks than these.

According to the ad, Pastor So & So's family is very talented and is "sure to be a blessing." When I first pulled this thing out of the mailbox, I assumed they sang gospel music. They look like one of those families from the 70s that went around selling their music to various congregations and who's since been forgotten except for some obscure mention in a kitschy book on vintage album covers. Further investigation of the flier though reveals no hint as to what exactly their talent is. Do they breakdance? Do palm readings? Lipsync to Liza Minelli?

Are they The Aristocrats?

And what makes them a blessing? Or more generally, when someone says that someone or something is a blessing, what does that mean? Is this a regional saying? Do we only hear this in the southeast United States, the area commonly referred to as the Bible Belt, or have born-agains the world over begun to use this new catchphrase? And really, what exactly does it mean?

If there is one creator who can rightfully take credit for the Heavens and the earth, aren't all things therefore of equal benefaction? Or was there a lot of crap thrown in at the dawn of time also such that blessings are few and far between? Diamonds in the rough, so to speak?

What would this septet have to do in order to not merit being called a blessing? Sing off key? Miss a step? Fart the theme to Jaws? If the youngest member of the family (I'd say he looks to be about two and a half years old) were to suddenly do any of these things in the middle of their routine and someone in the Amen Corner said aloud Bless his heart could he then retain his blessing status? Or would the simple blasphemy of breaking wind in church cause him then to be labeled a curse instead of a blessing?

Likewise I don't understand the phrase Have a blessed day which is also something I hear periodically. What does it mean to have a blessed day? If you believe in blessings, is there ever a day that goes unblessed? If not, how could someone not have a blessed day. If indeed one can't avoid running into blessings throughout the day, telling him to have a blessed day is like telling him to have a 24-hour day.

I understand have a nice day really isn't any more descriptive, but I can safely say I've had days that weren't nice. Can someone who says Have a blessed day say they've had days that weren't blessed? Or maybe what they're implying is that they themselves have the power to bestow blessings on others so that when they say Have a blessed day it's kinda like saying Here, have five dollars.

I'm not knocking blessings or those that say Have a blessed day. I just don't think I fully understand it. Feel free to offer your explanations.


P.S. I just sneezed.

Mindless banter with a political twist

Today I had to request that a college transcript go to a potential employer. While it ended up costing me $10 on a credit card which sucks, I was amazed at how easy it was to get the thing ordered.

When I was a student at Georgia State University I found getting any one of those nitwits down there to take care of my administrative bidding was a horrid nightmare that usually resulted in things getting further screwed than they already were. I lived 45 minutes from college and on many occasions I would end up just driving down there to talk with someone face to face as opposed to have some financially aided know-nothing transfer my phone call hither and yon until finally one of his buddies accidentally on purpose hung up on me.

I'm not knocking the financially aided; just the financially aided know-nothings. Some of my best friends are finanacially aided. I'm just saying.

I'm hoping to get a job teaching English to forners at a local community college. This is slightly ironic because I just got through reading Pat Buchanan's book, State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America in which he outlines why he thinks this country and the Western world for that matter are facing utter demise because of the increasing emigration from the Third World into industrialized nations. I enjoyed the book and thought it brought out some interesting points. Too bad it was written by a right-wing nutjob.

I try not to get overly political here because I would hope if you care anything about politics you don't come to my website looking for me to validate your opinion or tell you what to think. That being said, I just want to slap people around who talk about getting rid of our "ilegal" population so we can put these jobs back in the hands of hard-working Americans. How much do they think they would have to pay for the produce they buy at the grocery store every day if American citizens picked it? If everyone who had a hand in building your house had to receive taxable earnings no less than minimum wage plus the insurance payout they would necessitate coming from the builder's pocket, what do you think your home would cost? Let me let you in on a little secret. Unless you're living vastly below your means, you couldn't begin to afford it.

Alright. Enough about that. Anyway.

For those now appalled that I actually purchased and enjoyed a book by Pat Buchanan (it also came from some First Baptist Church in Missouri who doubles as an Amazon book dealer -- go figure) I'm now reading Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance by Noam Chomsky. You know. It's the book the Venezuelan president was going aroud New York talking about and held up in the United Nations during his speech. Again, a great book, one which brings up points that every American should be aware of. Why our government makes noises like it's celebrating freedom and yet throws money, weapons and political backing to the destruction of freedom in other nations is beyond me. Oh well.

I'm not trying to change the planet, and I don't think a blog could do that anyway. This ain't the cyber version of We Are the World. This would be a much greater place to live if everyone would just come to accept me as their Lord and Savior, but that's probably not going to happen, so I'll just move on.

Oh yeh, about those nitwits at Georgia State University -- they sure did suck.

You know another thing I wonder about though? At what point did subtitles become mandatory on non-fiction books?

Kevin of cocktailswithkevin still alive and well

Since my postings have become about as infrequent as comprehensible state of the union addresses, I've decided to try something new: timed writings. Well, not exactly timed writings as in I start writing and 30 minutes later a woman at the front of the room announces OK everybody pencils down. More like I've got about an hour between the time my kid goes down for a nap and the time she wakes up, so I'm gonna see if I can get something done online during that time besides making my internet Scrabble rating abysmally lower.

My life has been outright busy lately. I can't blame work because I left the job I so enjoyed once it no longer meshed with my fatherhood schedule. I do have a home listed once again after taking a real estate hiatus. If anyone knows someone wanting to move to Roswell, GA, and they have $209,000 I have the house for them. I interview this evening for a side gig I wouldn't mind having, but none of these things are particularly time consuming in and of themselves. I don't really have any active hobbies right now other than downloading internet porn reading a couple good books, so it's not as though I can blame that. Even still my time seems to pass faster than Roseanne Barr down a waterslide.

It's this kid.

Now not to worry. I'm not going to let this blog get all daddified. I'm just not about that, but not only is my daughter the most amazing thing to come my way since Reese's peanut butter cups, she grows so fast. Watching her develop is like being a spectator at a Formula One race. There's always something happening. She's always doing something different or making new sounds. One of my weekly highlights is trying out a new food. I can't wait to boil up and puree sweet potato.

What does that say about me?

Speaking of food, I've pretty much made everything solid Meryl's eaten thus far and I really think that's the way to go. Now I don't mean my wife and I grew the food on our compound and then brought it in from the garden, but rather than spending the money on jarred babyfood, I've taken a liking to picking up something in the produce section and dumping it in the food processor. I don't slight anybody who still prefers the Gerber stuff and it's not like we're a granola holistic family. I don't buy the organic stuff riddled with soft spots and fruit flies. But so far Meryl's enjoyed pumpkin, green beans, squash, banana and mango. She's liked everything so far, though she did make this odd face and a hacking sound whenever I tried to feed her the green beans. You'd think I was feeding her dirt.

It just dawned on me (now that she's waking up) that if I write with a very limited time to dedicate to it, my writing tends to be rambling and without focus.

Oh well. You get what you pay for.

Are toenails really romantic?

I think these emailed newsletters have probably jumped the shark a couple of times, but I have one that comes to a tertiary email address that I check every once in a blue moon. The subscription is to LovingYou.com's romantic ideas newsletter where every so often (I think it's once a week) my inbox gets injected with the latest submission of romantic ideas.

Most of these are quite sophomoric in my opinion and are just variations on the same few themes. There's the love coupons idea, ten reasons I love you idea, trail of secret notes throughout the house idea, etc. Many of them incorporate rose petals or Hershey's kisses. How original! I also get the impression lots of the ideas are submitted by girls between the ages of 12 and 16 who have a crush on the guy who lives three trailers down. I don't know why I think this, but if you read a few of them I think you'll agree.

They're all fairly tame, but this one particular submission I found to be very disturbing.

One cold Friday evening I surprised my wife with her favorite home-cooked dinner, good wine, and a pedicure and manicure as she enjoyed her meal. I turned off the TV and radio so we could talk the entire time. Since I was doing the pedicure, she enjoyed feeding me my food. We didn’t share any physical intimacy, but there was closeness that only two people can truly share. This lasted hours and there was much work on my part, but then it was all worth it because it was so wonderful.

--submitted by Jose

Jose, do you mean to tell me your idea of a romantic evening is trimming your wife's toenails while she feeds you? Did your wife really enjoy this or was she just endulging you in another one of your bizarre sexual fetishes that she could only tolerate after a healthy dose of Franzia? How exactly did that work anyway? Were you under the table with a bottle of Vamp and some nail clippers?

Please tell me you used nail clippers.

North Atlanta Dermatology finally came through

Do you realize that in my lifetime (that's 34 years for those keeping score at home) I have been to 20 doctors? I counted them up -- the ones I could remember anyway. Just off the top of my head I can think of 4 dentists, 2 pediatricians, 2 periodontists, 2 dermatologists, an oncologist, 2 urologists, a neurologist, an orthapedist, an endodontist and 5 general practitioners. Do 2 anasthesiologists count? Oh wait, I've also had 3 visits to the emergency room.

The funny thing is that I don't really like doctors. I mean I've gotten along with most of them just find, all except for my current dentist, and even with him my disdain isn't because of a lack of skill or professionalism on his part so much as it is his nebbish quality and the fact that he looks like that British actor who plays Mr. Bean but anyway I digress. It's just that I distrust doctors and have come to wonder whether they really have my best interest at heart or if the Hippocratic oath has been ammended to read thou shalt do no harm . . . to a doctor's profit margin.

Are you feeling me here?

Take for example my most recent visits to the dermatologist. Yes, that's visits with an S at the end. I originally went in to have a keloid on my arm looked at and hopefully removed. My general practictioner (one of them anyway) had already tried freezing it with liquid nitrogen but all that did was make it bigger. When I got tired of looking at the blasted thing and went to see a dermatologist about it, she sliced it down so that it was even with my skin. Just as my oncologist had warned me, this resulted in little more than the thing growing back only now slightly bigger than it originally was.

By the way, if you're wondering what a keloid is and are considering doing an image search on Google, let me give you a word to the wise. Don't. Doing so will assault your eyes with some of the most disgustingly freakish looking human anomalies known to walk the earth. Unless of course you've ever grappled with whether or not to circumcize your bouncing baby boy, in which case you might first be interested in clicking here (that one comes from the second page of the aforementioned Google search.) Now for all you good little blog readers who are still with me, and even the bad little ones who have returned after viewing some of the most disgusting medical nightmares known to cyberspace, my keloid was fairly small and not particularly obstrusive. A keloid is basically just excessive scar tissue that forms for whatever reason and I'd say mine ranks just slightly above a mole on the unsightlyness scale.

A subsequent visit to said dermatologist ended with a few injections of a steroid and a pricy prescription for an ointment that was supposed to help shrink it. Before having the prescription filled I searched on the internet to see what it is (By the way, as I have stated before, I strongly suggest you get all pertinent medical information from the inner-web.) I discovered that it's primary use is to treat genital warts. So as not to give the wrong impression to my friendly Kroger pharmacist, I handed him the script and then promptly lifted up my shirt sleeve to explain what it was for. If memory serves me correctly I asked something vague like Do you think that stuff will help with this? His answer was really of little concern to me; I just didn't want him to think I had a veneral disease.

All it did was bleed my wallet and make the keloid red and itchy.

On my next visit to the dermatologist I was prescribed more of the stuff. I asked if there was a generic equivalent that might be cheaper. There was not. I asked about having her cut it out and it was suggested that we try this first because outright removing it would result in an unsightly scar.

For the second dose of medicine I went to a different Kroger pharmacy, again explaining what it was for and showing my butchered keloid. The pharmacist looked at the prescription and said, "Oh, I normally have this in stock, but right now I'm out of it." The first pharmacist told pharmacies generally don't keep this in stock and that he would have to order it which he did. When I told pharmacist number two I was surprised she normally has it on the shelf, she said to me, "I have a patient who 's currently on it." Immediately I think this woman has weekly contact with someone who has genital warts. Note to self: Don't shake pharmacist's hand.

Further use of the ointment (it's called Aldara by the way) only made the keloid more irritated to the point that it was uncomfortable to roll over on it in my sleep and even a shirt sleeve brushing up against it bothered it. I decided something had to be done. I was going to put my foot down.

On my fourth visit to the dermatologist I told her I just wanted it cut out. To hell with the unsightly scar. I am old, fat and married now and body image doesn't have quite the same allure to me as it once did. She drew a circle around it with a ballpoint pen showing me where she'd cut and told me I'd have to come back another day the following week to get it done.

Can you believe the woman at the front desk had the nerve to ask me for my $25 co-pay? I politely expressed that I wasn't happy with paying $25 so someone could just draw on me and send me home. The matter was discussed with the dermatologist and it was decided I would not have to pay for her crude artwork after all. Good.

Five doctor visits, four $25 co-pays and two $25 prescriptions later I have another circle drawn on my arm and am sent to the surgery room for excision. The whole process took maybe 30 minutes and that includes the numbing, the cutting, the cauterizing and the stitching. I was given a photocopy of a sheet telling me how to care for it and an invitation to come back in a week to have stitches removed.

Tell me something. Why couldn't this have been done the first time I walked in there? Could it be that the North Atlanta Dermatology Center puts its own profit margin before my health and wellbeing? If you think about it, I only paid them $100 before this thing was all over. Just think about what they must have brought in from my insurance company. I'd bet you four $25 copayments that if I had walked in there on Day One and said I didn't have any insurance, they would have quoted me a total and gladly removed the keloid right then. For all I know, the amount would have been less than the $150 I paid to them in copayments.

Sure as shootin' someone who knows me is reading this right now and thinking Kevin, if you were never to have gone to a doctor, you'd be dead right now which is true. A few years back I was diagnosed with and essentially cured of a cancer only twenty years ago most sufferers died from. It was a doctor who diagnosed it and another doctor who cured it. I grant you that. But there is a game going on here and we are the pawns.

I'm not religious but I'm gaining an appreciation for those that forego medical treatments. Who are those people? Christian Scientists, isn't that it? I have a good mind to join their church.

I just need to get the all clear from my oncologist.