It is late or very early and I’m very, very tired. For some reason I got it into my head that I would redesign my site while simultaneously watching football on TV. Of course I decided that it would be really cool to have a skinnable site, so I had to recreate my entire site from scratch. Aren’t I just the big ol’ schmuck?

If it doesn’t look different to you, then I did a good job.

The main difference is the skins. If you look over to your right you’ll see a new menu called amazingly enough, Geek Skins. If you click on one of the links the entire look and feel of the site will change. And let me apologize in advance for there being only two. I had bigger plans but I’m just too tired to make more right now.

Also, look at the new and improved site navigation. It took me a long time to figure out how to make the navigation work the way it does while still being skinnable, so I’m rather proud of it.

I’m l337, yo.

Anywaste, my arm is starting to spasm and I really need to get some sleep so I’m sorry for the lack of actual humor. Right now I’m so deliriously happy that I managed to make this work, I actually think I’m all that and a bag of extra-crispy chips. If you find a problem, bug or anything else wrong with the site, please let me know by writing a comment or emailing me and I’ll make a note about it for the next “What Up With Dat, Yo?” meeting.

I sleep now.

I think I’m turning into an old man.

HoBiscuit my girlfriend and I are going to a concert next week. Not just any concert mind you, but a U2 concert. I’m not a big fan of U2 anymore, they went out of my life at about the same time as the Pet Shop Boys and OMD, but HoBiscuit my girlfriend loves them so I guess I’ll just have to suffer in silence. Most likely U2 won’t even play any of their classic stuff, like ‘Sunday, Bloody Sunday’ or ‘Where the Streets Have No Name’, so I’ll be forced to sit in my seat like a chaperone at a high school dance while HoBiscuit my girlfriend jumps around like a bunny rabbit on speed getting electro-shock therapy.

That’s a fun mental image.

I suspect we’ll be surrounded on all sides by young girls in teeny, tiny, this-is-my-naval shirts screaming, “This is my favorite song! EVER!” to each other while they hug and dance in place during the entire concert. Should Bono look their way, they’ll scream as only young girls can and begin crying tears of pure rapture.

“Did you see that? He looked right at me! Oh god, I love him!”

There’s nothing wrong with that, except I’m too old to enjoy watching these sweet young things anymore. When I was younger I used to love concerts. Especially rock concerts, where you were almost guaranteed a look at some really hot girls boobies as she flashed the stage. When I went to these concerts I usually spent my time looking at the audience and not the stage. I remember this one time when a girl decided flashing the stage wasn’t going to be good enough so she proceeded to throw her underwear up on stage.

Of course, she had to get them off first.

Anyway, I’ve reached the stage in my life where all I want to do is wrap my jacket around these girls’ shoulders and chastise them for ever leaving the house wearing such outlandish getups. I mean, do these girls’ parents know that their daughters are out and about in the big city wearing nothing more than a tube-top, a handkerchief and a pair of go-go boots?

By the way, the tube-top and handkerchief are interchangeable.

Sigh, I’m going to be the weirdo. You know, the guy who’s not actually old, but just a little too old to be at a concert? Yeah, that guy. HoBiscuit my girlfriend will fit right in. She’s still young enough to fit right in at these events and she even looks a lot younger than she is, too. She’ll probably be singing and dancing and having a great time. She’ll be mesmerized by the light show and put in a trance by the heavy base pumping out from the two-story tall speakers. She’ll add her voice to the thousands of screaming fans and she probably won’t even sit down the entire time U2’s on stage.

And me? I’ll be the guy trying to get her to put on a sweater.

9-11-01

All right, so I was sitting there on the couch Sunday, minding my own beeswax when suddenly it dawns on me that someone is talking. Somewhere in the back of my mind an alarm bell went off, but a little person in a football uniform quickly hit the snooze button and the sense of impeding dread subsided. I continued to watch the football game on TV oblivious to the storm clouds gathering to my right. A while later, perhaps three plays or maybe after a slow-mo replay, I again became aware of some noises emanating from my right that might have been construed as human speech.

Female speech.

This time the little guy wasn’t quite as quick and the alarm set off a chain reaction of events within the confines of my football-hazed mind that allowed me to do what all men learn to do as a means of self-preservation at a very young age. I waited until there was a break in the flow of speech-noise to my right and made a non-committal grunt.

A little history about the noise I made, known to scholars throughout the ages as the ‘Male Grunt’. It is something that every man knows how to do almost instinctively, a kind of nasal humming noise made for the sole purpose of appeasing a talkative mate. Long ago, in simpler times when fire was new and exciting, and the wheel had not been invented and hence there was no garage for the male caveman to retreat to in times of great stress, the grunt came into being. Female Neanderthals would try to strike up conversation with the males during times of inactivity. Our ancient ancestors were not stupid though, and quickly learned that hunting a saber-tooth tiger while wearing a suit of raw meat was preferable to ignoring their females should they wish to talk.

The men knew this because some actually tried it.

They also knew that it didn’t matter whether the male wished to talk or not. Male cavemen were taught at a very young age that their role in these discussions was to simply listen and sympathize with the female. Whether the conversation was inane, juvenile or completely unimportant was not the point. Whether he thought she was right or wrong, or simply insane was irrelevant. Being able to follow the conversation, or comprehend the ‘logic’ behind it was not necessary. He was merely required to ‘support’ her in her time of need regardless of his own thoughts on the subject. He was not to ‘find a solution’ or ‘fix’ anything. He was merely to listen.

And so, the noncommittal male grunt was born.

Fire paled in survival importance next to the male grunt. Before the perfection of this grunt, there were many misunderstandings between male and female members of the tribes. Many battles were fought because one party ‘never listened’ or the other ‘never shut up’. These horrible battles and unfortunate deaths led to the creation of a new and vital social class within the tribes known as the marriage counselor. Most scholars agree that these marriage counselors probably invented the noncommittal grunt to help them survive the terminally boring sessions with their clients. It is highly probable then, that the males in these sessions saw the benefit of this new sound and adopted it for their own uses.

Ancient man was no dummy.

Anywaste, back to my story. HoBiscuit my girlfriend, momentarily satisfied by my masterful male grunt, continued to make her conversational noises and I continued to watch the game. All was calm and good in GeekLand. Then, just as my team was running an interception back for a touchdown, HoBiscuit my girlfriend jumps in front of me, blocked my view of the TV, and asked me a dangerous question.

Pop quiz hotshot.

When a woman asks, “Is watching that game more important than listening to me?” you should;

1. Say, “Would ya’ leave me alone I’m watching the game!”
2. Say, “Of course not, my love. I was listening to you but became distracted by your figure. Have you lost weight?”
3. Turn up the volume on the TV and eat another pork rind. Or,
4. Swallow a bullet and call it a day.

What do you do, hotshot?

What. Do. You. Do?

Sometimes, I surprise even myself with how clueless I am. Allow me to elaborate.

A few months ago while I was in the shower, I had an epiphany of monumental proportions. Now, I don’t know why most of my life-changing realizations occur while I’m blissfully washing the accumulated daily dingleberries from my posterior with my ‘sensitive skin’ llama-shaped loofa, but they always do. It’s almost as if the dark green mold growing in the folds of my shower curtain is hatching ideas, concepts and thought processes overnight only to spring them upon me while I’m blinded by shampoo.

Lather, rinse, epiphany, repeat.

On this particular day I did what every good father warns his sons to never do and dropped the soap in the shower. Quickly looking around to make sure that there were no other men present within the confines of my private bathroom, I reached down to pick up the soap from my scum and mildew covered bathtub floor. It was then that my life as I knew it came to an end. Right there, as I bent over in the shower with my soap-covered tushie exposed for the entire world to see, I came face to face with the ugly truth and found religion in an instant.

I had a belly.

Not just any belly, mind you, but a beer belly. In and of itself, there is nothing wrong with a beer belly and I have a quite a few friends who are exceedingly proud of theirs. They’ve spent years in training, going from dive bar to dive bar, in an effort to acquire the perfect, oblong, almost-round belly shape. Many have even foregone fun-filled weekends with friends in order to ‘train’ the entire weekend by watching bad TV and eating pork rinds. Some women I know even enjoy their man’s manly belly, rubbing the “little pooch” and referring to it as their “baby”. But it’s different for me, y’see I don’t drink. That’s right, I’ve never had a drink in my life. Ever. And suddenly, almost overnight, I had developed a beer belly.

Small for a belly since I had caught it in the embryonic stage, but a belly nonetheless.

I was at a loss for words. I stood aghast, incredulous and flabbergasted as the water ran over my back, across my sides and fell from my stomach as if my belly button was a spout. I’ve always been the skinny one, the guy who women look at and curse for having better curves than they do. I was the beanpole, the stickman, a scarecrow but suddenly I looked like a straw that had swallowed a pea. I poked my new discovery and it jiggled back as if it were laughing at me, mocking my confusion and horror and proving beyond a doubt that it was really there. And then, as if to push me over the edge of sanity, it did the unforgivable.

My stomach made the ‘I’m hungry’ noise.

That was the last straw. However this malignant growth had come to be attached to my body I was going to make sure that it died an agonizing, horrible death. I quickly went into the city and joined HoBiscuit my girlfriends gym. I chose her gym because it’s a large chain with many gyms in and around NY. And although there was no gym near my house, I figured I could always stay at her place when I needed to work out. It was also a great excuse to see her without her feeling like I was making a booty call.

Like I would ever do that.

Believing that I needed help in my war against the insidious evil of my sloth-like behavior, I decided to pay one of their ‘Fitness Trainers’ to torture me with daily workout routines that involved much sweat and pain on my part and lots of helpful suggestions on his part. I would meet with my Fitness Trainer, who I liked to call Lord Beelzebub, every other day at the gym closest to my girlfriend’s place in the city. It was a good working relationship. I would sweat and moan and bitch and cry and generally feel like a wimpy piece of wet noodle while he took my money and did all he could to make sure I left the gym as a wimpy wet noodle of a man.

Sadist is too weak a word for him.

So far, things have been going well. My belly is getting smaller and I’ve stopped using Lord Beelzebub’s services because he seemed far too happy when lifting weights forced my body to make loud, embarrassing sounds. I’m talking about whimpering and sobbing for mercy.

Sicko’s.

The only problem I have with the gym is that I have to travel over an hour to get there every time I want to work out. It’s become a hassle and a chore but I’ve been going as much as possible because hey, at least I get some boo-tay from HoBiscuit my girlfriend afterwards.

At least, I used to until I wrote that last line.

Anywaste, to get back onto the topic of me being a clueless moron, yesterday HoBiscuit my girlfriend sent me an email wherein she asked me a very important question. She was wondering if I knew that there was a gym not ten minutes walk from my house and that it even had indoor basketball courts?

Say WHAT?

Why, no my sweet, lovable HoBiscuit girlfriend, I did not. I did not know this piece of important information for I am a clueless moron whose inability to notice the world around him has marked him as a social outcast and community pariah for all time. Thank you for once again pointing out something so blatantly obvious that I should simply hang my head in shame and wear a sign around my neck proclaiming to the world that I am mentally unfit to be trusted to blink without assistance.

Needless to say, I went over to the gym yesterday and it’s big, clean and not crowded so I think I’ve found a new workout home. I’m going tonight for a kickboxing class and if that goes ok I’ll have to find some way to thank HoBiscuit my girlfriend in an appropriate and gentlemanly fashion.

Can anyone say Boo-TAY?

I really need a new computer. I bought this computer so long ago that I regularly receive phone calls from paleontologists who want to excavate the data buried deep within its boring beige exterior. How can I be Mighty when I can read War and Peace before my computer finishes booting? Every time I double-click, the hard drive spends the next couple of minutes protesting so loudly that the garbage men knocked on my door and asked me to keep the noise down. Just yesterday, while waiting for PhotoShop to load, I was able to make a life-sized llama out of duct tape, a few coat hangers and some old socks.

I sold it on ebay for $135.

Don’t get me wrong, I really love this computer and it’s served me well over the last few *coughfivecough* years, but I think it’s high-time I got me a new one. Especially since I make my living with it. There comes a time when even old reliable becomes just plain old and not worth upgrading. Why, I bet that if I hadn’t found that book of ‘Ancient Computer Resurrection Rites and Other Satanic Rituals of Evil’ it would have died long ago. So even though I enjoy painting ‘abort, retry, fail’ on my nekkid body while chanting the entire text to The Road Ahead in C++ and dancing to the windows startup song, I think it’s time I broke open the old wallet and bought a new computer. I’m really tired of the strange looks I get from my neighbors the next day. Especially when they shield the eyes of their children and whisper, “Don’t look at the crazy-man, Tommy. He’ll eat your fingers.”

In my defense, it was only one finger and the doctor says the operation was successful so it should heal fine. If the little brat had only let me see his limited edition, gold-foil Pikachu card… bastard.

Anywaste, I’m a busy little Geek today because I’m having a Monday Night Football gathering tonight and I have to get ready. I’m making Cream of Pumpkin Curry Soup, Filet De Tofu with Apricot Dijon Sauce and baklava for dessert. I’ve even made fondue for a snack during the game because nothing says ‘Guys Football Night’ like fondue.

Yeah. Right.

Actually, I’ll probably be making seven-digit pizza or, if I must cook, tacos. Hot, spicy, death-to-your-colon, my-anus-is-bleeding-lava tacos. I think my tacos are really good and a recent survey of prison inmates on death row agrees. According to the study, the inmates preferred eating my tacos to a lethal injection almost 2 to 1!

Wow. If that’s not a ringing endorsement, then I don’t know what is.

HoBiscuit my girlfriend and I might be on TV. Oh yeah, you heard me llama-breath, The Mighty Geek might be coming to a small screen near you.

Yesterday HoBiscuit my girlfriend got wind of a special taping of Inside the Actors Studio starring Will Ferrell of SNL fame. For those of you who don’t know about Will, he does a hilarious impersonation of the host of Inside, whose name is James Lipton. With his makeup on, he even looks like him. So we decided to go over to the New School and see if we could be part of the live audience. Expecting a long line of students and faculty waiting to get inside because every episode I’ve ever seen has a packed audience in attendance, I arrived at the theater two hours early in order to guarantee seats for myself and HoBiscuit my girlfriend.

What can I say, I always try to be early.

When I arrived at the school I politely asked the security guards checking student id’s where I should wait in line for seats. The guards asked me where my id was and I patiently explained that I was not a student and merely wanted to see the performance and would they please tell me where to stand in line. They stood there like cud-chewing cows and blinked at me.

Moments pass.

Trying not to sigh in exasperation, I looked deep into their glassy, uninterested-in-life eyes and tried to make contact with whatever shred of intelligence might have once lived within the confines of their hollow skulls. I reiterated to them that I wasn’t a student and was only there for the show. The guards then explained to me, in small monosyllabic words, that they were clueless, minimum wage morons who were barely able to work up the mental strength to remember how to swallow their own spit and they again asked me for my id.

Lord, give me strength.

After ratcheting down my intelligence to the level of your standard pile of steaming broccoli, I managed to fight through their intellectual deficiencies and finally found myself standing alone outside the main entrance to the theater. Two hours later I could still be found standing there with only HoBiscuit my girlfriend and a grandmother-type woman as company. Apparently, no one at the school or the show bothered to promote this meeting of the minds and therefore no one knew it was taking place except your friendly neighborhood Geek and his HoBiscuit girlfriend.

I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that the old lady was Will Ferrell’s mother.

She spent the time ignoring us completely and simply stood there with a bag of knitting supplies as her only companion and knitted. By the time we got inside she had knitted a pullover, a pair of mittens, two sweaters, a few hats and some square things that looked like mutant red and yellow doilies.

Really, this woman should be on the Team USA Olympic Knitting Brigade.

Anyway, we really enjoyed ourselves because Will was super funny and we laughed like crazy. Even James was funny, which surprised us since he seems so pompous and arrogant on TV. In person though, he was a pretty cool guy who wasn’t at all afraid to poke fun at himself. It took a while for everything to get set up once we were inside and a few students showed up while we waited, so all in all about 40 people were in attendance. We got lucky and sat in the center of the second row, so we have a good chance of being caught on camera.

The show should air October 14th on Bravo as some sort of special intro to the Gene Hackman show, which is also the 100th episode of Inside. If they have any audience shots with us in them I’ll be sure to point it out here. Especially if I’m picking my nose, cause that’s real entertainment for the masses. Nothing like a Geek picking a winner on national television to brighten your day. Only thing more entertaining than that would be watching a seniors bowling competition on widescreen HDTV complete with Dolby Digital sound.

You wouldn’t want to miss it when Old Man Johnson throws his back out shooting for the seven ten split now, would ya’?