GONNA VOMIT NOW
Just reading these words -- "Caramel Banana Pecan Cream Stacked and Stuffed Hotcakes" -- makes me want to take to (a) call a dentist; and (b) go to bed for a month. And I ate half a bag of M&Ms for breakfast. I am not your nutritional role model.

You people eat that crap? Seriously?

Oh, the other 20 Worst Foods (via Fark) also tend toward the disgusting. I'm just glad Zinczenko left Arby's alone. Mmmm... Arby's...

YOU LEARN SOMETHING NEW EVERY DAY...
Hmm. I always thought that this:


was named after him:


when it turns out that it was all about this guy.

I guess that's teh ghey in me coming out. Always give credit to the Match Game guest/song-and-dance man.

HOME FROM THE HOLIDAY
Last night Brady and I returned from five days in Rochester. Five days with my family. Five days without the Internet. Five days without e-mail.

And somehow, I survived.

Highlights:

* Someone quite unexpectedly came out to us, and told us he considered us role models for being so open about our relationship. Uh... glad you appreciated that, but I'm not sure if I'm up to the pressure of being a role model. Let alone the standards.

* My maternal grandmother was adopted? How come you waited almost five decades to tell me that? It sort of renders this a useless exercise!!

* I heard enough extended family gossip to fill a week of Jerry Springer. Awesome!

* A cheeseburger on a hard roll with mustard, onions, and hot sauce and a side of onion rings from the LDR Char-Pit is pretty much as close to heaven as I'll ever get.

* My sister's boyfriend's deep-fried turkey is the second closest I'll get.

* Returning home, we passed a pick-up truck on the New York State Thruway full of deer. Dead ones, of course. But I'm not just talking two or three, I'm talking twenty. Okay, maybe that's not technically a 'highlight,' but it was pretty freakin' weird and notable.

* My reading at the Pittsford Barnes & Noble went quite well, although I don't think I will ever get used to reading from my Big Gay Books with my father in the audience. I was sorry that a number of people I had looked forward to seeing weren't able to make it, but I know that individual lives are funny that way and these things happen. I hope to catch them the next time.

And finally, as nice as it is being back on the home turf, it felt great to get back home and climb into a familiar bed. And, for that, I truly give thanks!

CONNECTING POINT A TO POINT B

Point A

Point B

Which leads to a question: if I were to mint FARB coinage, would you spend it proudly? Or would it merely be a collector's item?

FOUND SITE OF THE DAY
Via Fark:

Men Who Look Like Old Lesbians.

BAH HUMBUG!
It is November 16. Five and a half weeks before Christmas.

On the Third Avenue sidewalk outside my office window, a volunteer for the Salvation Army has claimed her post outside the subway entrance. For the past four hours, she has been ringing her bell and, in a sing-song voice, chanting, "Chriiiiistmas. Time for giving, it's Chriiiiiistmas. Time for shaaaaaring..."

Over and over and over. Without a break. Without a pause. Without even the slightest variation in her inflection.

In about five minutes I am going downstairs to rip her larynx out. There is no way I can take another five and a half weeks of this. It's her or me.

Happy Holidays.


UPDATE: Just before I hit the publish button, she stopped. The people from WaMu or the Courtyard by Marriott must have gotten to her first.


UPDATE #2: Oh shit. Now not only is she back, she's preaching! This is going to be a long fucking holiday season...

PUT ME DOWN IN THE 'I DON'T GET IT' COLUMN
Queerty is mocking something that actually reads like a Queerty item. Except with better spelling and grammar.

::shrug::

MY LIFE AS A GRAPHIC
My friend Craig sent this to me by e-mail yesterday in a vain (believe it or not) attempt to get me to cancel an after-hours business meeting for Happy Hour. It was too good not to share with the class (click for the full effect).

Does he know me? Or does he know me?

EIGHT SIX SEVEN FIVE THREE OH... SHIT!
Dude, Tommy Tutone was a one-hit wonder. And Jenny was of age.

Lessons learned, right?

RICH AND FAMOUS
Oh, man, this just came to me in a dream. I bet you wish you were only one-tenth as creative as I am, even when I'm sleeping!

I've decided to write next year's holiday blockbuster movie. Get this: Christmas is going to be cancelled because Santa (John Goodman) is depressed. Mrs. Mercedes Claus (Emma Thompson) has had it with the North Pole and moved to Arizona, where she is now divorcing her husband and about to get engaged to an ethically-challenged congressman, Scott Orama (Christopher Walken), who is gearing up his presidential campaign.

But Christmas can't be cancelled, can it? Because not only will little Christian boys and girls around the world be sad, but also the elves will be out of jobs. Seeing this as a labor issue, the head of the International Union of Elves & Reindeer Drivers -- Rufus (Danny DeVito) -- decides he has to find Santa a new wife... or at least get him laid. Enter Hydrangea Wilson (Queen Latifah), a street-smart wisecracking salesclerk who Rufus knows from an old seasonal stint at Macy's. Although Hydrangea is skeptical, Rufus convinces her to leave Brooklyn for the North Pole "for the good of the Christian boys and girls around the world."

Now, no good story is without conflict. Fortunately, my dream provided me with plenty of wacky complications.

First, Mercedes Claus discovers that the special powers she gained when she married Santa (e.g., making animals fly, automatic upgrades on Continental Airlines, etc.) are fading, and will be gone altogether when she finally divorces. Because they both need those powers to make Congressman Orama the next president, she decides to return to the North Pole... at least long enough to recharge. Then, after Orama is elected , she will rejoin him and become First Lady.

Second, Hydrangea must now get used to gaining and using the very powers that Mercedes is starting to lose. Imagine the hilarity when she lays a finger aside of her nose and goes zipping up the chimney! Two words: Comedy! Gold!!

Third, Hydrangea's cynical, wisecracking sister Begonia (Wanda Sykes) is also along for the ride. And when Begonia is around, there's no telling what kind of craziness will ensue!!!

Oh, and I forgot to mention Tina Fey as the humorless, tough-as-nails independent auditor, who thinks she's about to uncover an Enron-sized scandal in the North Pole accounts. And Jimmy Fallon as Santa's bumbling personal assistant. And Bob Newhart as the befuddleed incumbent president.

Coming in December, 2008:

LATIFAH
GOODMAN
THOMPSON
DeVITO

in

A BLACK AND WHITE CHRISTMAS


I can probably start spending my new fortune now...

NEW HAMPSHIRE PRIMARY VOTING PATTERNS EXPLAINED
This map (via Fark) tells you everything you need to know about the historic voting patterns in New Hampshire, home of the nation's first presidential primary.

Just follow the link for the full story.

AND SPEAKING OF WEBSITES THAT HAVE GONE DARK...
A few of you have asked, so here is the answer: I have no clue what's going on with The Malcontent. And I haven't heard from Matt or Robbie. I feel like a child who's come home from school only to find that mom and dad have sold the house, packed up the car and left town.

Oh wait! This just in: apprently the blog is moving to a new web host. Mmmmkay. To be continued...

THE INTERNET'S COLLECTIVE IQ JUST WENT UP 20 POINTS
Sad news to report, kids: that brilliant hotbed of deep thought and intellectual discourse known as Brat Boy School has closed shop. I wish I could link to some of the highlights in the BBS archives, but, alas, the site has been stripped.

It seems that Brat Boy wasn't who he seemed, and BBS was all a big scam. Apparently, much like in the movie The Ringer, some guy named Rick was pretending to be a mentally retarded blogger named 'Ethan Reynolds,' using someone else as the physical model to lure the readers while writing long, incomprehensible missives about, uh... retarded shit. And the point of the enterprise was apparently to... uh, well, that I'm not quite sure about.

Physical Ethan -- as opposed to Electronic Ethan, the 'brains' behind it, at least in relative terms -- did earn a brief modeling career out of the hoax. Besides that, the pretty dumb guy and the dumb pretty guy may have scammed random readers who either sent "Ethan" money to help him out of financial trouble or paid for Brat Boy merchandise that was never delivered.

Whatever. I can't believe that enough money was involved to make it worth their efforts, but maybe there really are enough gay men out there so enamored of a pretty boy's illiterate Internet sob story that they'll whip out their checkbooks. In which case, caveat emptor. Oh, and you ordered Brat Boy School merchandise? That just makes you a fucking loser.

I have read the various analyses (links are on the Brat Boy site), but the best of the best is probably from the Blogger Formerly Known as Ethan's bete noire: Toby at Vividblurry. (The fact that Toby eventually bogrolled the make-believe Brat Boy shouldn't totally be held against him. His early tweaks at Brat Boy -- this one was a classic -- were vicious and brilliant, and I loved everything about them.)

Also, check out Zac's insightful recent blog post at Fool's Gold Coast for more on the scammers and the scammees. Zac and I bonded quite a while ago over our mutual dismay about the popularity of Brat Boy School, and he also wrote the definitive Brat Boy parody.

So now a lot of people are upset and confused. A part of me -- the 2% of me that is generally good, plus the 2% of me that is occasionally horny -- can understand how one can get sucked in to the bathetic, unintelligible ramblings of a pretty-boy blogger (and, hey: how did that guest blogger thing work out for you, o friend of mine?) But the rest of me -- the jaundiced, cynical 96% -- thinks the reaction of Brat Boy readers is way over the top and downright hilarious.

The sobbing! The wailing! The rending of clothes! It is Blog Theater at its best. Many of these dupes want the model who played 'Ethan Reynolds' to come back, and they will forgive, because even though they now know that his entire blog was a two year exercise in lies and deception, they still want to believe in him. Because, I suppose, a good-looking guy who posts pictures of himself in his underwear can't be a bad person!

The trite poor-me tales of woe... the idiotic political and social commentary... these readers have invested themselves so heavily in this bullshit that they can't let go. It's as if 'Ethan Reynolds' is blogger heroin. And the comments, well... since Zac already posted his favorite, I'll give you a sample of mine:

The guy who was writing these blogs (Rick) come across as VERY savy, and has a msstery over the language which is very powerful. (Which is why I never believed that Ethan was writing them. He was to young to write that way.)

Water seeks its own level, you know. Good luck in life, loyal Brat Boy readers. I have a feeling that many of you will need it.

Also, if you send me $30 I will send you a t-shirt. Suckahs...

THEY MADE US A CITY WE CAN'T REFUSE
As Aatom notes in his comment at Gawker, West New York, NJ is the new gay mafia hotspot.

And to prove the point, tonight I'm going to extort some protection money from the new Fuddruckers at the Port Imperial Ferry Terminal. Oh yeah...

FROM THE DEPT. OF 'IT'S ALWAYS THE PRETTY ONES'
Warning: if you click on this link, you will need eye-bleach.

You've been warned. That's all I can do.

...WITH PATTY HEARST, AS 'SUZANNE'
An interview with John Waters:

Q A couple weeks ago we had a case of somebody seeming normal but behaving oddly --

A Oh, at the airport! I hear that airport is becoming a big tourist attraction. I want to make a movie about it. "The Last Stall on the Left." Sex in a public bathroom? How could you? In every airport bathroom it's very crowded. It's in the main airport, eh? I have to go there. Which stall was it, do you know?

(Via Drudge)

WHY WE BLOG
Forget about high-minded discussions about public affairs, the dissection of pop culture, or even a recount of our most recent drunken weekend. Those are mere space-fillers.

This is the reason we blog. (NSFW!)

In the dark ages (i.e., pre-2002), this episode would have merely been passed around between a few friends, and eventually forgotten. So God bless the Internet.

And the digital camera.


(Via Fagat)

WHEN GLOBAL WARMING GIVES YOU LEMONS...



Gotta love the Google ads sometimes.

(Image from here, via here)

RETURN OF THE BOONE
Our century's Anita Bryant, at work in Kentucky.


Hatin' on The Boone right now. As opposed to 'Isn't he dead?' Which I suppose is a good career move for him, all in all.

Earlier: THE NEA WANTS TO SODOMIZE YOUR CHILDREN IN NORTHERN VENEZUELA

COMING TOMORROW: MARSHMALLOW CLOUDS!
Oh, this will work.

NYC Declares Day Against Hate Crimes

Also, mean people suck.

In New York City, we are all about the substance.