Balls and Walnuts
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Category Archives: Thirteen Candles
Thirteen things I bought
Jake’s growing up. Here he is enjoying a hunk of bread in Il Terrazzo Carmine.
We rented a lightweight wheelchair for Karen for this trip, and Jake insisted on doing most of the pushing. (Except down steep hills. Karen kept flashing on Kiss of Death; I kept imagining the chair careening downhill, Jake bouncing along behind it, saying, “I can handle it! I can handle it!”) He didn’t put up a fuss when we went out for sushi or dim sum, and he even tried most of the dishes. He likes dim sum now. Hallelujah!
We didn’t get into any major rows, either, for which Jake and I both deserve praise, but since Jake isn’t the adult, he gets most of the praise. Grumble. Anyway, all in all, this was a highly successful vacation. I’ll tell you more about it later, but for now: thirteen things I bought on our vacation*.
Thirteen things I learned from Doug Hoffman
I’m not sure how the Invisible Lizard found me in the first place, but he and I go back a long time — probably a year, which is a decade in blog-years. Count on Liz for spot-on reviews of movies and videos. The SOB also goaded me into doing NaNoWriMo last year. I hate it when people dare me. No resistance, no resistance at all.
What’s that? You don’t know what an Invisible Lizard is? Here’s one:
Pretty, ain’t he?
Here you go, folks. I can’t wait to read this one, too. Yes, yes, it seems to be a Thursday Thirteen, and today isn’t Thursday. Get over it.
Here he is, the Invisible Lizard.
***
(Yes, we’re counting backwards for this one.)
13. Blogwhoring. What is it? How does he do it? And how does he make it seem so easy? I’m still trying to figure it all out, but look at the man’s hit counter. He’s got a gift, no doubt about it. Doug, let me know when you graduate to the status of blog pimp. I need some representation.
12. The Rules of blogging (nos. 7 – 9): Photoshop, photoshop, photoshop. Amazing things can be done with a modicum of talent and a healthy dose of enthusiasm. (Doug, it’s possible you have more than a modicum of Photoshopping talent, but I, unfortunately, wouldn’t know the difference.)
11. A noodge (alt. nudge) is one who persistently pesters, annoys, or complains, not, as I suspected, based on the context of this post, one who enlists the aid of follow blogizens to help get published. Personally, I think that anybody with the self-discipline to write an entire 300k+ word manuscript should at least get read.
10. Not quite a lesson learned as still an outstanding question: is this dreidel supposed to look like the spinning thing from the end of Tron? And a further question: why is that the first thing I thought about when I sat down to write this 13 Things Learned list. Granted I did hide it down at number 10 to make it appear as if that wasn’t the first thing that I remembered about this site (which would be lame), but I’m owning up to it, anyway. I guess that’s what you get when you go off on vacation and leave your blog in the hands of (insert shameless plug here:) others.
9. Balls and Walnuts has cool guest bloggers (yours truly notwithstanding, see no. 10 above). In an attempt to contact Prof. S. for a comment on this entry, I was blessed with the following exchange:
| IL: Professor would you care to… PS: Turn you back into a newt? I’d be delighted. IL: Newt? No. Lizard, professor. Lizard, here. PS: As if I could possibly care less. |
8. Elmo has a camel toe. Not only that, but you can blog about it. I would have shied away from the subject, myself. But no, there it is, along with many other examples, in flagrante delicto, as they were. It was about at this post that I began to suspect that…
7. …Doug has “balls the size of church bells.” (See no. 8 above. And extra-credit to anybody who can name the cheesy 80’s movie from whence that line came, hearkening back to no. 10 above as I have now completely cemented my uncool status with bad 80’s references.) It wasn’t until his recent post detailing his own olfactory predilections that the point was hammered home.
6. Speaking of hammers, if you ever see Doug approaching you carrying a ball-peen hammer, run.
5. You can use the words “nasal polyps” in a punch line, but it may not work for you. This joke cracked me up, but I have the worst time re-telling it. Believe what he says: “only an ENT can make nasal polyps funny.”
4. The rules of blogging (nos. 4 – 6): Recipes, recipes, recipes. A few that I’ve been dying to try:
- Bread pudding
- Strawberry Shortcake (o I’m a dessert man, sue me)
- Plus one or two on this list.
3. Word Press can categorize! One of my biggest complaints about Blogger is the lack of categories. (That and its tendency to lose my posts in the virtual ether as soon as I hit publish.) Sure, some people have devised their own categorization systems, but it’s just hacks and whistles if you ask me. On my to-do list is to follow Doug’s example and convert, but I just can’t find the time.
2. When all else fails, post a picture of your own ass. (Balls and walnuts, my friends. Balls and walnuts.)
1. Sex sells. I’m sure most of you realize that Doug’s blog is founded on the first three basics rules of blogging: Write about Sex (rule 1), Politics (rule 2), and Boogers (rule 3). But let’s be honest, everybody’s got enough of those second two. It’s the sex that keeps ’em coming back. And with that, I give you the ever-popular category 22.
— Invisible Lizard
Thirteen fun facts about sex
Can’t . . . resist . . . power . . . of Thirteen.
Thirteen easy pieces
It’s Thursday on the East Coast, and that’s good enough for me, especially since my only other ideas for tonight were
- I am a Warcraft Widower (or, How My Son Used a PC Game to Win the Oedipal Challenge)
- I’m average! Praise the Lord, I won’t have to get my suspensory ligament severed after all! (Been reading about average erect penis lengths in Redbook lately.)
Yeah, that’s it. Slim pickens, my friends. The muse has been working her hiney off on my romance novel, so she tends to kvetch around blog-writing time.
Below the cut: thirteen simple and delicious recipes to get you through the day.
Thirteen things I learned from Cosmo
As promised.
1. Women need help shaving their pubes into dumb designs.
Guy tip #1: shave it all off. That’s what we really want, not furry “landing strips.”
2. Bronze eye shadow is “in.”
Guy tip #2: Bronze eye shadow is only “in” if your guy is “into” heroin chic.
3.“Damp, chilled tea bags work wonders for sleepy, puffy eyes.”
Guy tip #3: Surprise your guy with teabagging and he won’t give a damn about your sleepy, puffy eyes.
4. “Plan Two Hot Dates With Him. Instead of orchestrating a perfect evening you’ll both love, make a deal that you’ll do whatever he wants one night as long as he does the same for you the other night.”
Guy tip #4: I like this advice. I can’t think of a better way to assess incompatibility. Two dates, and you’ll either be engaged or broken up.
5. Don’t leave your contact lenses in at night, says Monica L. Monica, MD.
Guy tip #5: Monica L. Monica? I’m going back to my old name, Doug E. Fresh.
6. Astroglide has massage lotion!
Guy tip #6: I learned about Astroglide from a gay Bay Area psychiatrist. Instinctively, I realized this guy knew more about lubricants than a score of Pep Boys employees. I’ve never gone back to KY.
7. Brighten up your hair color by adding Kool-Aid powder to your shampoo.
Guy tip #7: Guys dig cherry Kool-Aid powder. We’ll lick it off anything. Anything.
8. According to actor Owen Wilson, “When girls put lipstick beyond their lip line to make their mouth look voluptuous — that’s no bueno.”
Guy tip #8: When guys throw dippy Spanish expressions into their conversations, that’s muy estupido.
9. To make her feel sexy naked, compliment her sexy parts.
Guy tip #9: It really doesn’t work to say, “Honey, your clitoris looks just like a wee penis!”
10. He says: “My buddies really like you.” He means: “Okay, we’re officially dating now.”
Guy tip #10: Be sure he doesn’t mean, “I hope you’re into bukkake.”
11. 57% of guys have accidentally zipped part of their member.
Guy tip #11: If your man does this, DON’T blurt out, “Frank and beans! Frank and beans!” or else he might offer you some of his style gel.
12. Big, fake eyelashes are sexy, but big, fake boobs are not.
Guy tip #12: Oh yeah? Says who?
13. If you cheat, don’t tell. You’ll be doing more damage to the relationship if you come clean.
Guy tip #13: Don’t cheat in the first place, dumbass! Jeez. If you care that little about a relationship, leave the relationship. Unless it’s one of those open relationships. Yeah. That would be cool.
Have you learned anything new today? Leave a comment, and I’ll link to your Thirteen.
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Technorati tag: thursday thirteen
Man-tush over at Darla’s place!
Dusty gives us the latest on the Rove & Leopold show (not a 13, but what the hey)
Thirteen smiles from Pat (With Wallace and Gromit cookies!)
D.
Thirteen favorite photoshoppes
Another lazy-bones thirteen involving (I hope) little or no effort on my part. On the upside: for those of you reading my maiden voyage into the seas of romance, I’ve written about 2000 words since the weekend.
Below the cut: my thirteen best photoshoppes.
Thirteen thirteens
Yes, SORRY, I admit it, I’m a lazy sack of poo, but I’m writing this on Wednesday night and I want to have time to work on my romance.
Current working title: Technical Virgin. Yes, there are similar titles on Amazon, but they look really unpopular.
Anyway, that’s why you’re getting a runty Thursday Thirteen. Without further ado, Thirteen Thirteens.
Thirteen favorite movie quotes
Let’s make it fun. I give you the quote, you name the movie. I’ll list the answers in the comments. Here we go . . . easy ones first. Extra points if you can name the characters.
1. Leave the gun, take the cannolis.
2. Great balls of fire. Don’t bother me anymore, and don’t call me sugar.
3. Yo, she-bitch! Let’s go! (Hint: Shop smart. Shop S-mart.)
4. Mom, Dad! Don’t touch it! It’s evil!
5. I’ve seen the EXORCIST ABOUT A HUNDRED AND SIXTY-SEVEN TIMES, AND IT KEEPS GETTING FUNNIER EVERY SINGLE TIME I SEE IT!
6. Q: If you’re the Devil, why don’t you make the straps disappear? A: That’s much too vulgar a display of power . . .
7. Hallo. Vould you like a roll in ze hay? (Hint: What knockers!)
8. Q: If you wanted to prove your side was right, Gabriel, so badly, why didn’t you just ask Him? Why didn’t you ask God? A: Because He doesn’t talk to me anymore.
9. I can’t believe I have a bunch of dead people watching videos in my living room.
10. I ain’t Jewish, I just don’t dig on swine, that’s all.
Can you do that one without a hint?
No?
Hint: I love you, Honey Bunny.
11. I’m your sister, I’m your sister!
12. My mom’s been fuckin’ a dead guy for 30 years. I call him dad.
13. No tears, please. It’s a waste of good suffering.
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Drop a note in the comments, and I’ll make up some funny sh!t about your 13:
Pat’s got triskadekaphilia. A shot of penicillin should fix that.
Thirteen great Doug Adams quotes from Darla. It’s Towel Day!
Trish’s son: a typical male.
Scarlett’s gonna get callouses if she goes to half these places.
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D.
Thirteen crushes
Funny, how some of them still own a piece of me.
1. T. I’m two months shy of my third birthday. She’s an older woman, maybe four or five, a head taller than me, and she won’t let me stand on top of that hill. Damn it! The game’s called King of the Hill, not Queen of the Hill! No matter how many times I try to fight my way to the top of the hill, T pushes me down again and again.
This establishes my lifetime attraction to doms.
2. S. I hope you’re still reading my blog, S, cuz this bit is about you. Remember how I chased you around in kindergarten, trying to steal kisses? Kinda scary to think what would happen to me now, behaving like that. Expulsion for sexual harrassment, no doubt. Back then, I spent countless hours (okay . . . minutes) in that gulag known as The Kitchen, Mrs. Bisetti’s time-out zone, but it did no good. The next day, I was back at it again.
3. Shirley Temple. Yes, there was a time in my life when I dug giggly, chubby-cheeked blondes. Imagine my consternation when I found out she was as old as my mom.
4. Elizabeth Montgomery. Okay, Liz Montgomery I knew had to be as old as my mom, but she was just so cute in Bewitched. One day, I was home with a fever, and I decided Liz was the gal for me. That crush lasted all of a day. It broke with the fever.
5. G. On to more age-appropriate interests. G held my fascination all through first grade. I’ve quite forgotten why.
6. B. What can you say about a ten-year-old girl with boobs? That she was beautiful. And brilliant. Yet extremely slow to realize why I loved playing touch football with her.
7. T. Towards the end of 7th grade, T’s friend told me, “She likes you. She thinks you’re cute.” Then she dragged me out of the library, where T waited on the steps. T wouldn’t look me in the face. She was trying very hard to explain my appeal to another friend of hers: “He’s cute!” Then she noticed me standing there and ran off.
I thought about her all summer. I’d never noticed her before, but that didn’t matter — she liked me! She thought I was cute! Those were two very potent aphrodisiacs, and indeed, they seemed like perfect (and sufficient) prerequisites. At long last, I would have a girlfriend.
Beginning of 8th grade, I learned that T had moved down to Rosemead. I never saw her again, but it took me two years to get her out of my head. Not that there weren’t others vying for head space . . .
8. L. Cute li’l thing and fellow brainiac. We danced the slow dances together in 7th and 8th grade. By 9th grade, she had developed an interest in older boys. She would still flirt with me, but that was the limit. Unless I suddenly developed facial hair and my wallet sprouted a driver’s license, I wasn’t in the running. No way, no how.
After I broke up with GFv1.0 (#11), I wrote L a letter. She wrote me back, telling me about her ambitious and soon-to-be-wealthy her fiance. I recall the phrase, “I know where to butter MY bread.” I never wrote her again.
9. L. We could never manage to be interested in each other at the same time, dammit. Certainly one of my most beautiful crushes. (Candace Bergen, circa 1975: my most beautiful crush.) Eventually she married young, and the marriage ended in disaster. But before she divorced that creep, I met up with her again. I hadn’t seen her since 9th grade. She told me, “Don’t ever get married,” but it was the depth of her pain that touched me — and made me fall in love with her, if only for that instant. She has a permanent bit of my cerebral real estate.
10. S. In 10th grade, I relocated to Alhambra High School. One of the first girls I noticed was S. Mornings, she volunteered in the school library. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her hair. It was amazing! A year later, I confided this in J, AKA GFv1.0, who laughed at me. “You idiot. That was a perm!“
Nevertheless, S served to distract me from my growing interest in J.
11. J. She sat behind me in 10th grade biology and entertained me with a seemingly endless supply of snark on the other kids in class. If Smart Bitches had been around back then, J would have been a founding member. For my part, I did her dissections for her, and I suspect I was pretty funny back then, too. It took me a whole year to realize I’d fallen in love with her, can you imagine? A whole year. And when it hit, it hit like a semi.
This was the girl I would marry. We’d raise a family and grow old together. I couldn’t imagine a future without her in it.
Things flew apart in our second and third year together, largely thanks to me. But even as I was busy sabotaging the relationship, I was still talking marriage. “You know,” she said about six months before the break-up, “you keep assuming I want to marry you.”
Yeah, I took a lot of things for granted. Which was the problem, really.
12. C. Towards the end of my second year at Berkeley, I met C — aw, Carmela, okay? God knows I’ve talked about her enough. We took German together. One evening, our class went as a group to a German restaurant in downtown San Francisco, and Carmela wore ruby slippers. Ruby slippers! How can a guy not fall for a girl who owns a pair of ruby slippers? But what really hooked me on Carmela was her schtick. One day after class, we sat together on a patch of lawn near Wheeler Auditorium, and we started riffing off each other. It was . . . oh God this is trite . . . it was magical. Somehow, we had launched into a mutual standup comedy routine, unplanned, unscripted.
Carmela had a gold necklace of the number 13, a gift from her grandmother, a Northern Italian witch whose workbook the villagers burned after her death. Carmela had a recurring dream of herself in ancient Greece. As Carmela got older, the girl in her dreams aged, too. When I knew Carmela, the dream girl had recently married, and her husband had left her to fight in a far-off war. The girl remained behind, like Penelope, biding her time, waiting for her husband’s return.
Sometimes, I wonder if he ever came home.
13. Karen. Long-timers here know the whole story (here, here, and here) of our courtship, but I thought I’d add one detail. After my friend Stan and I crashed Karen’s apartment two or three times, I called him one night. “What do you think?” I said. “Does she love me yet? Why is this taking so long? Gaaaaaaaaaah!“
I don’t recall being particularly coherent. I do recall Stan’s exasperation. He must have felt like he’d created a monster.
Funny thing is, I don’t think I was in love with her at that point. Fascinated by her, yes. Wanted to be around her, learn everything about her, be a part of her life.
I guess that’s love. As I’ve posted previously, I have a problem with the word.
D.
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Don’t get on Trish’s bad side.
The Red Queen has some reading to do.
Ms. Bizarre thinks twice about a piercing. (I think she should have told her husband, “I will if you will.”)
Sapphire Writer gives us her 13 favorite first scenes. (Better late than never, eh, Sapph?)
Kate’s never happy when it rains.
If Sting is the King of Pain, Darla is the Queen of Spam.
Thursdays suck.
Thirteen things I wish I’d said
. . . to that nice young man who gave me a speeding ticket last week. Seems I got up to 70 mph when I passed a Mazda truck.
Caveat
for my auto insurance provider and various and sundry individuals in law enforcement. This is SATIRE, capisce? Not an admission of guilt. Heck, most of this isn’t even true.
Thirteen things I’d like to say to that strapping lad from the CHP:
1. You mean there’s a law against that?
2. You may have clocked that Mazda truck at 55, but when I passed him, he was doing 54. I swear it.
3. While we’re on the subject, this 55 thing? Doesn’t work for me.
4. But anyway, that was pretty slick passing, huh? I mean, the way I slipped around that guy, it was like he was standing still.
5. Yes, it DOES matter to me if I get home forty seconds sooner.
6. Huh? Why? Because my childhood sucked. (The My Parents were Mean to Me defense. Hey, it worked for Zacharias Moussaoui.)
7. Live hard, die young, eh? You know what I mean. I saw you strutting back to your car, fondling your big hard billy club.
8. I don’t understand why you can’t let me off with a warning, like those last six officers who pulled me over for speeding. Excuse me — alleged speeding.
9. What if I promised to spend the remainder of my working career helping the old and sick?
10. It was just my crappy luck, you being there at that instant. You wouldn’t want to penalize a guy for bad luck, would you?
11. Look at the way my hands are shaking. I’m not sure I’ll even be able to drive again, let alone speed. I’d say I’ve been punished enough, wouldn’t you?
12. Tell you what. You rip up that ticket for me doing 70, I’ll take off like a bat out of hell, and you can nail me for doing 85. Think how much better that will look.
13. Look, over there in the redwoods — I saw a flash of orange. It’s an escaped Pelican Bay prisoner, I’m sure of it! Hurry, you have to hurry!
D.
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You know what to do. Do it.
Sigourney Weaver’s acting skills suck.