soul suckin'

Unless you're a Rock Star, a Movie Star, a Sports Hero or a Bank Robber, you are pretty much doomed to bounce along through life in one of three ways:

1) Being told what to do and doing it;
2) Telling people what to do and making sure they do it;
3) Doing stuff in a relatively unsupervised setup, with occasional check-ins from a big boss but a large degree of autonomy. This scenario exists much more often in the movies than it does in reality.

Unfortunately, I hate doing #2 and I don't have any particular skill that will allow me to find a #3 anytime soon. It looks like I'll be a worker bee for life. And not even a highly-paid worker bee.

I really don't like managing people. They inevitably disappoint you, and then you have to confront them about it. Fuck that. Most people in the universe are by nature unskilled, lazy, unhappy and uninterested in their jobs. So you're bound to have like, a ton of confrontations. Who needs that? I'd rather have someone else confronting me about my poor work. I can take it!

If anybody's looking for a responsible, good-natured #3, let me know.

Here's some more working man's wisdom for you. When you are evaluating a current or prospective job, you should look for satisfaction in at least 2, preferably 3 of these 5 areas:

1) Good pay
2) Good working environment/co-workers/bosses
3) Low stress
4) Fulfilling/Stimulating work
5) Reasonable Hours/Time off

If you are getting 1 or 0, it's time to look for a new job. What are you at right now?

I am a little concerned about my upcoming moustache. There is a definite shortage of lip hair right underneath my septum. I might have to rock one of those two-part moustaches with a little gap in the middle. Will you still love me? Will you still love Oscar Gamble?


Of course you will.

I wish I had a horse's cock...instead of this big thing

I saw a horse take a piss on the corner of 8th Avenue and 57th street today. It must have been a female horse because a) I didn't see the accompanying gigantic horsecock and b) the urine just seemed to come from everywhere, as if the horse's stomach had a huge trap door in it and there was 50 gallons of urine behind that trap door. It was incredible. I've seen horses shit before, and that's a pretty decent spectacle in its own right, but this was just ridiculous. It lasted like ten seconds, too. Ten long, pissy seconds. The entire street started staring and pointing. I was howling with laughter. The dude next to me just said, "That's fucking rude." I don't know what he expects from a poor goddamn horse.

Way to fucking go, horsey!

Then I was walking down Stuyvesant Street, looking for the purple Plymouth that's usually parked there. I couldn't find it. I wonder if the owner died or sold the car or if he just couldn't get a parking space. I always wonder stupid shit like that.

While I was looking for the Plymouth, I overheard this li'l snippet from two dudes who had just run into each other and seemed to be old acquaintances from the neighborhood.

Dude #1 (sketchy as hell): Tommeeee! What's up man? (said with great affection)
Dude #2 (less sketchy): What the fuck man, you takin' a piss in the the middle of the street? (said with great disdain)
Dude #1: Nah, man. Come on. I'm just waiting for someone. (said defensively)

I think Dude #1 had indeed just been pissing in the street.

So what I'm saying is that New York City today was up to its ankles in street-piss.

On a happier note, we have a WINNER in the latest genius challenge! Smoker joins cW and Joe M. in the annals of geniusdom. I may actually get around to sending each of you something, so please send me your name and address if you're interested (bungmeister at verbungle dottt com). Smoker, that was beautiful work all season long, especially the poignant shake shack letter today. PoCho Pete, your poem was tremendously entertaining as well.

Anonymous hostile haloscan commenters please note, I can look your IP address up on the internets and get an idea what city and state you are commenting from. I can also put you on the block. So try to play nice.

gotta get my 8

Every once in a while, the tranquility of the Stuytown night is shattered by the triumphant shrieks of joyous drunks. Usually I assume it's just NYU students or EJ, young kids out late catching a ride on New York City's never-ending train of stupidity. It doesn't bother me; I was one of those kids myself just a few years ago.

But tonight was creepy. Tonight, there was a maniacal laugh, just realistic enough to fall short of movie-villain caricature. It lasted for about twenty seconds, and I couldn't really tell if it was coming from outside the building or from another apartment. After the laugh, a voice yelled, "I killed them. I killed them all." Then it stopped. Probably just some drunk, but it was weird the way it just ended so fast.

Do you suppose it really makes a difference if you get 4 hours of sleep a night or 6 or the classic dose of 8? I bet it does. Kids need to sleep a certain amount for their intelligence to develop. I assume adults need a certain amount to allow their intelligence to operate at a normal level.

I get about 5 hours a night, meaning on most days I am dumber than you. But then there are nights like last night where my body and spirit give out and I collapse on the couch at like 10:30pm, wake up foggy-headed at like 3am and crawl into the bedroom for another 4 delicious hours. And on the days following those nights, I inevitably feel stronger than usual, full of great ideas and hope for mankind and I want to give silent lip-mimed high fives to everybody in town.

I dunno. I know that I had like four exciting ideas for verbungle posts today. Of course, I forgot the best one. It was good, too. The others look kind of sucky now that I think about them.

One was an open letter to a woman whom the narrator fell in love with on the grainy Shake Shack webcam. Or, better, an open letter to a woman he loved dearly before but lost, and then thought he recognized enjoying burgers and dogs and early spring hugs with another dude on the grainy Shake Shack webcam. Somebody else wanna tackle that one? I'm too tired. Fifty points to whoever attempts it and composes at least two legitimate paragraphs.

Another idea was celebrity non-lookalikes. This might be an example:

Rita Hayworth and Idi Amin:












I dunno. That might be of limited comedic impact. Definitely not as good as Joe M.'s "Retro and Wrong" throwback jerseys (Greg Luzinksi Portland Trail Blazers, Darryl Dawkins Hartford Whalers, etc.).

Good job on the AnnoyPackerdat answers. Points will be awarded except for those that duplicated answers already on the original list.

Can it really only be 73 days until my moustache? We should think of a name for him. A real name like "Teddy" or a more descriptive name like "The Lonesome Farmer" or "The Cross-Face Expressway." 5 points per submission, max three submissions per person.

Sounds like evan may have secured the softball field. If that proves to be true, he will go down as the only man in the history of sports to win an MVP award before a single game is played.

O'Malley's Rule: Never Bet with Your Heart

From last Monday through this Sunday, my life was a 168-hour suckfest of the 19th order.

One week, countless humiliations, failures, aggravations, irritations, and anxieties. And I am completely spent now. I look and feel like a zombie with a tequila hangover.

Working a week at my old job was far far more unpleasant than I'd anticipated, and I'd anticipated it being quite unpleasant. It was good to see certain people but others acted like fuckweeds. I'll spare you the details.

I also repeatedly tripped on a stupid bunched-up rubber safety mat that had been improperly installed. This happened like 38 times. Once I actually fell forward and jammed both hands hard on the counter. When you're already in the middle of a crappy day, stuff like that really turns you into a raging maniac. Which for me meant that I muttered a few swear words, phoned in a complaint to the facilities department, and continued my business. But in another universe I stormed out of the room without saying goodbye to anyone, after kicking those who desperately needed it right in the balls.

In the middle of the shittiness of the work situation, I was further tested when Ma Bungle got stuck in Toronto for three days due to bad weather, leaving me to take care of Baby Bungle on my own. Thank God that she's such a good kid. She didn't give me any problems at all. Only a couple times did she even say "Mommy?" as in "Where the fuck is Mommy?" When she did, I would say, "Mommy's at work," and she'd nod and say, "work," like, "wow, mommy works hard for the good of this family and I for one appreciate it." What a kid.

The nanny helped cover some of the extra baby shifts, so on Saturday I rushed out of work to relieve her after what was probably the lamest day in my mediocre career. Not the hardest day but one of the most stressful and unsuccessful. A series of small calamities, some of which were unresolved when I bolted out of there. I hate leaving stuff in the air.

Ma Bungle finally got home at like 2am. Then this morning we had to do some stuff, which we did, and then I wanted to go home and watch some of the Wisconsin game on TV. Of course, a) it wasn't televised here and b) they shit the bed anyway. Serves me right for picking them. On the way home from our errands I stopped for a six-pack of Rolling Rock at the corner deli and the lady behind the counter had to look up the price on the wall (bad sign).

"$13.00," she said.

"$13.00?!?" I said. "I think there's some kind of mistake."

"No, no mistake," she said.

I shook my head and returned the sixer to the shelf. I've been buying Rolling Rock beer in New York City for over 20 years, and I am fairly certain that it is never $13 for a six-pack. The reason I buy it is because it is never $13 for a six pack. For more than five years it was $5.50 at the deli across from my shitbox apartment on East 9th street, although that six-pack was actually a 12-pack that the guy sawed in half to maximize his profits (and give us a good deal at the same time). Generally I don't think it should be more than $7 for a sixer, even at a deli. Although maybe I'm a couple years behind on that. Whatever the case, I went to Gristede's right next door to the deli and picked up a sixer for $7.58, which suddenly seemed like a bargain.

Ma Bungle did bring me back a nice gift from her trip, a pair of swanky headphones (pictured above). I am liking them much better than my previous pair, which occasionally sent mammoth electric shocks through my skull.

I am ready for some spring weather and some Yankee baseball.

The tournament thus far has seemed way suckier than usual. I haven't seen that much but it just seems dull. And somehow CBS only booked college basketball's best play by play man Gus Johnson for the first weekend, replacing him with snooze-inducer James Brown at the Sweet 16. Senseless. And that curmudgeonly prick Billy Packer and his terrifyingly bland partner Jim Nantz will get the big assignments as always. I just don't fucking get it. Sigh. I guess my memo of two years ago fell on deaf ears.

2 points for each thing you suggest that probably annoys Billy Packer, up to ten suggestions per person.

shankin like al franken

So I am halfway through my 6-day Shawshank Tour at my old job. It hasn't been easy. Not one thing in particular has ruined it, just a series of small bad things that at the end of the day make my brainial ulcer bleed. In short, there's some fucked up bullshit going on. But what can you do? The Man lays down the rules, the rest of us just try to get ours and get out before we get squashed. Only three days left. Only three days left.

Too bad Wisconsin lost their lanky honky. They might have done some damage in this year's tournament. Oh well, I'm still picking 'em to go to the Final Four, because that's what you do when your school is a 1 or a 2 seed. Otherwise the possibility of acute roundball regret is too scary. Usually you insulate yourself by turning in a second, less emotion-based bracket, but not this year for me. Too busy. Go Badgers! Do it for Rashard Griffith! Do it for Steve Yoder!

Get even more caught up in the hoophype with Dan K.'s Slate piece about the death of the bracketmaster. I was the bracketmaster at one time. I loved it and hated it and finally gave it up. And I don't miss it even one little bit. My wife will never let me forget our vacation in South Florida in 2003 (starting on 3/16 -- also note that that was verbungle.com's frist month of existence and that I was already longing for a moustache), when I wasted a significant portion of the trip holed up in the hotel room fixing glitches in my first-ever internet-based pool. Sorry baby.

Oh and nobody got MDillyhairmetalballaddat: the answer was Warrant's "I Saw Red." What was MDilly thinking? What was America thinking?

beer, ball and baptism

That was my weekend. Hung out with BJL, his buddy Will, and the King of Beers on Friday night. It was fun as hell, even if we were patronizing what may be the worst bar in NYC, a bar with a name like a Simpsons punchline, a bar where bands (Live, Bush, Blues Traveler, Collective Soul) that have been mathematically proven to suck still rule the juke box like it's 1994. Still, the Bud was cold and tasted as sweet as the first girl you ever kissed.

On Saturday I played ball. My leg was operating at like 82% efficiency but for some reason I freaking turned back the clock and played out of my mind. Shooting, rebounding, passing, even remembering to hydrate properly. Ma and Baby Bungle were there watching, maybe that was it. Whatever the case I need to bottle that shit and guzzle it every time I play. It felt like 1988 except that I wasn't wearing a T-shirt with a pink and blue Nike Air logo on it.

Then on Sunday I got baptized at 1st Presbyterian Church on 5th Avenue, former nursery school of Hans and DLee. Baptism and all that stuff is weird, standing there in front of all the people and getting publicly moistened. What really bothers me about church is how everybody except me knows all the rules and traditions and when to stand, what to say, where to go, etc. There was one point where everybody turns to each other and shakes hands and says "Peace be with you" -- only since I didn't know that was what you were supposed to say I just said, "How ya doin'?" At least nobody laughed.

Anyway, I'm going to heaven now so you can all kiss my ass.

At least I'm not making rock videos like this poor bastard:

That face is not selling tickets.

For ten GP's, which horrible hair-metal ballad did MDilly insist on defending to me in like 1990? (MDilly, please refrain from answering until 6pm CDT on Monday, February 12th, 2007.)

Also, DLee, tell us what we need to do to make the permit a reality. We will marshal whatever forces we need to marshal to make it happen. Give us names to write to, numbers to call, officials to bribe, low-level bureaucrats to blow. Canceling softball would be like canceling Christmas. It simply cannot happen.

let's count the rings around my eyes

Couple notes from the previous post:

MDilly gets freshmangrossoutdat with his guess of a gutted deer. I am not sure about the order in which a dead deer is processed, so I am not positive that the animal in question had been gutted yet, but GP's nonetheless. The procedure that I witnessed was the "bleeding" of the deer. A quick googlin' indicates this apparently is ideally done in the field right after a kill:

First and foremost (after making sure the animal is indeed dead, that is), while not all hunters do it, I believe that a deer should be thoroughly bled as part of the field dressing. This is done by piercing the jugular vein with a sharp knife, with the deer preferably in a position where gravity will aid in draining the blood -- that is, with the head downhill from the tail. Take a few minutes to do this.

In my case the aninal had been brought home and was hanging upside down from the ceiling of the garage, with a huge puddle of blood underneath it. I didn't stick around long enough to discover whether it had already been gutted or not. If it hadn't, I coulda pitched in with the guttin':

After bleeding a deer, you should remove its entrails. If you had the deer lying with its head downhill, you'll now want it on a more level spot. Drag it around and roll it on its back; then, using rocks and small logs, prop it there. With the deer on its back. insert your sharp knife under the skin (in the pelvic area), and without puncturing any intestines, slit the skin from the crotch to the throat.

Underneath the skin will be an underlying layer of muscle: Insert the knife under the muscle -- and still being quite careful not to puncture an intestine -- hold the muscle away from the intestines and make a cut along the initial cut, extending it right along through and between the ribs, slightly off-center from the breastbone, thereby exposing the breast cavity.

Next, spread the hind legs apart and prop them there. At this stage, the entrails, will be exposed, and the problem is to get all of them out of the body cavity, and do it without rupturing any of them: First, split the pelvis, and then, with as much precision as possible, cut around the rectal end of the big colon, so it can be removed, intact with the rest of the entrails. Also, remove all the sex organs in the pelvic area.

The only organs that need to be cut out of the carcass are the lungs and diaphragm (the muscle sheet that separates the chest from the abdomen); with these removed, the entrails will be easy to remove. Hold the colon and organs that you have severed from the pelvic area in one hand, and just start pulling out the entrails, being careful that the edibles -- that is, the liver and heart -- don't end up in the dirt (put them in a clean bag). Also be sure to remove the musk glands. And lastly, remove as much of the jugular from the neck area as possible, being sure, however, that the head remains attached, since game wardens can become quite skeptical about a decapitated deer.

Most importantly, if you don't happen to know one organ from another, and wonder what should be removed and what should be left, the rule is: Remove everything that slightly resembles an organ, artery or entrails, because anything that is left in the body cavity can promote spoilage. Then, if there is blood in the body cavity, turn the deer so that it will drain out. Then, wipe out the inside of the carcass, as dry and as clean as possible. Don't let any dirt or grass get into the cavity, or touch any of the exposed meat parts.

It will promote cooling now to prop the rib cage open with a stick -- unless so doing will allow dirt to enter the body cavity while you're getting the deer to camp. Finally, cut off both the forelegs and hind legs, at the first joint.

I always get almost all the way through the process and then get queasy when I have to remove that damn dangling leftover jugular.

Oh, and since my last post re: scrubs/role players, etc. was sort of all over the place, let me clarify: I don't hate hustle players. I don't hate scrubs. I don't hate role players. I myself am a role player. What bothers me is when players (especially baseball players) are given undue credit for doing things (bunting, hit-and-running, low-percentage, high-volume base stealing, spitting tobacco juice just right) that are of negligible value to a team's winning percentage but of tremendous appeal to sportswriters and crusty old baseball men. As far as basketball players go, I agree with DLee that a good role player, like Rambis, can be a real value to a team -- but I maintain that a shitty player like Scalabrine, no matter how hard it looks like he's trying, is still just a shitty player who has little to no positive impact on his team. As for Bobby Jones and Rodman, those dudes were All-Stars so I wouldn't even include them in the debate.

My cellphone keeps shutting down so I called Verizon and bitched about it, then called and bitched again, and now they are sending me a new one. I'll let you know how that works out.

Prior to landing my new, ultra-stressful and time-consuming job, I worked at the same place for like 12 and a half years. Most of the time, it was neither ultra-stressful nor time-consuming. It was also not high-paying nor particularly fulfilling. I stayed so long for two reasons. One, the people were fun to work with. Two, and far more importantly, I am a lazy sack of inertia.

The thing about the place was, it created an environment that was just comfy enough that you couldn't find the motivation to leave: not much was demanded of you, you got some decent vacation time if you'd been there awhile, and you shared laughs in the hallway every now and then.

It was such a cozy place that about 2/3 of the people who left eventually returned in some capacity. Some more than once. Those of us who'd been there forever started affectionately referring to the returnees as "Shawshankers." This name obviously comes from the movie "The Shawshank Redemption,"* and here was the particular relevance: remember that scene where that one dude Brooksy finally gets out of prison and takes a job as a grocery bagger or whatever and lives in a SRO and hangs himself on like his 2nd day out of prison? Prison life was all he knew, and when faced with life on the outside, he got overwhelmed and couldn't take it anymore. That's how my old job felt: like a nice comfy prison. And when people left and had to face the harshness of the real world, they either committed suicide or came running back like little babies.

Anyway, the reason I bring this up is that I am officially Shawshanking starting next Monday for a week, and then possibly again for the entire month of May. And unfortunately, I don't think it's gonna be much fun or very cozy. It's going to be tense and uncomfortable. But it beats making rock videos!

I am now looking forward to softball season. My goal for this year is the same as it is every year: to switch-hit 2 called shots in the same night. And to remember to bring lots of small paper bags. Any permit news?

Let's waste some time thinking of Band Names today. I'll get started with a couple. The Beefy Workmen, Cab Drivers with Big Dicks. 5 points for each decent one you come up with, max 5 submissions per person.

And since it's Friday and all you got to do is stare at the screen and eat Nathan's, let's also think about this one: if there was an apocalyptic event, and you had an impossibly small and stupid early edition iPod with only enough storage space to hold one song, what song would you load onto there as you fled your home in search of higher ground? More simply, if you had to listen to only one song for the rest of your life, what would it be? Even more simply, what is your favorite song? Me: "I Will Dare." Never get tired of that shit. Close 2nd might be "I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man."

* The Shawshank Redemption is just an unbelievably well-liked movie. It's #2 on the IMDB readers' list, and almost everyone I know loves that shit. Some of my friends who couldn't be more different in most ways still agree that it is one of their favorites. I think it's darn good, too. But I don't quite understand its magic power.

doing the little things

Today it dawned on me -- I'll never be great at my job. I look at some of the people around me and shit, they are great at their job. Naturals. Skilled. Smart. Creative. Resourceful. Passionate. Focused.

But me, I'm a plodder. A banger. A scrapper. A bench player with a positive attitude. On my good days, I'm Kurt Rambis. On my bad days, I'm Bob Thornton. I try, I care, I hustle, and at the end of the day I usually have made some positive contribution to the project. My greatest strengths: a willingness to tackle thankless but necessary shit, and an ability to marginally boost the esprit de corps in a grey room full of toiling humans.

Are those things valuable? I guess. But would the company be better off hiring a hotshot in my position, a more talented dude who perhaps doesn't do as many things as I do, but does the things that he does much better than I do? Maybe. If he was a dick, maybe not.

In sports, there has always been a tendency to overvalue "intangibles". Sportswriters make careers out of hyping marginal players who appear to hustle more than superstars, even though in this case "hustle" usually translates as "fail." And fans identify with the less spectacular players because they embody every weekend warrior's own struggle with the limits of his natural talent. Do these lesser players, the guys who look funny in their uniforms, the Scalabrines and Ecksteins of the world, in fact hustle more?* And does it matter? Sensible people have begun to realize that it is mainly results that win games and championships. Results that can be measured through the rational analysis of statistics. In other words, stock your team with assholes who produce and you will usually win.

But don't you also need good locker room guys, people who keep things lighthearted and play practical jokes and hit .230? Of course you do. But the sad truth is, they are easy as hell to find. And therefore easy to replace.

I'm guessing it's the same in your office.

***

I'll get you an answer shortly to the NBAruindat challenge from the other day. Some of you have pretty much got it, although I don't know if anyone stated it specifically.

One weekend during my freshman year in college, I tagged along with my roommate as he went back to his hometown of Marshfield, Wisconsin. He took me to several house parties full of his old high school friends, and I got terribly, terribly drunk, as only freshmen can. At the last of these parties, I saw a grisly sight in the garage that overwhelmed my fragile, booze-addled city boy brain. For 10 points, what was in the garage?

* For now we won't complain about how often "whiteness" is translated to "scrappiness" by the aging white sports media.

growing old takes the romance out of failure

First, a couple of clarifications/addendums to the Moustaches of Peace post.

1) The month I have off is UNPAID. Hopefully I am eligible for unemployment, but I definitely do not get paid by my current employer. So it ain't gonna be all that great, other than the fact that I will be spending it growing one of the most intense and, in a certain sense, significant moustaches of the last 20 years. Won't you join me?
2) Maybe the Paypal thing is too aggressive for the Moustache project. I think pledged donations are fine, and you can send in a check once you actually see me deliver the moustache you hoped for. So Paypal is coming down, don't think anybody used it anyway. So far I have the following pledge amounts:
Dipak: $20
D. Kois: $10
pbdotc: $10
Christina, Doug and cW are all in but without specific dollar amounts. You can make a pledge by clicking on the photo on the right, or you can just wait for the results and donate based on how much you enjoy the final product. And of course, you can back out at any time (assuming you don't care about disabled war veterans).
3) I really enjoyed the Moustache Starting Fives you all put together. I am going to give everybody who submitted one a ten point bonus and I am going to give the 30 point Grand Prize to pbdotc. His list contained four moustache icons and then a nice humorous finish with Rosie O'Donnell. Well done to him and to the rest of you as well. It was a very tough decision.
4) I forgot that my 5-year wedding anniversary is on June 1st. So in the interest of complete disclosure, let me announce that the moustache project will actually get underway on 6/2/07.

I left my cellphone in a cab this weekend. I was on my way to basketball and I got dropped off at 11th st. and 6th ave. The driver pulled away and then a minute or so later I reached into my pocket and realized the phone was gone. I could still see the cab -- he was stopped at the light at the corner of 11th street and 7th avenue. I know that's a crazy 3-street intersection -- Greenwich Ave., 11th st. and 7th avenue -- because a kid in my elementary school got decapitated by a truck while crossing the street there in like 3rd grade. Armed with the knowledge that it would probably be a long light, I decided to make a dash for it. I ran right in the street, full sprint, flailing my arms so if he looked in his rear view he migt see me (I suspect he did, but chose not to care). When I got to about the halfway point in the block, the light changed and he drove away, making a left onto 7th avenue. I almost gave up but decided to push through in the hope that he got hailed again. Sure enough, someone had flagged him down and he pulled over. I was still a good 80 feet away as he started to pull from the curb, but at this point I simply was not going to let him escape. I screamed out "TAXI" like a goddamn lunatic and he heard me. He stopped, I opened the back door, and there was my cellphone, gently tucked under the ass of the new passenger.

It would have been a happy story except:
1) I hate my cellphone because it keeps shutting down for no reason.
2) I pulled a muscle in my lower leg and after about three or four good games of ball, the leg shut down completely and still hurts.

The moral of the story is that old greasebags like me have to stretch before doing anything physical.

It was a good weekend anyway. Hope you dug it too.

Oh, I figured out with 92% certainty what it is that happened in the last 15 years that fucked up professional (and college) basketball. Remind me to tell you sometime. Or you can state your own opinion and if it matches my (92% correct) opinion, you get 20 GP's.

Introducing Moustaches of Peace

You might have noticed that I talk about moustaches a lot in this space. Specifically, the one I someday intend to grow.

And each time it seems like I'm actually close to pulling something together, my plan disintegrates, my optimism erodes, and I shave my stupid face. It's not that I don't want to grow a moustache -- oh no, nothing would mean more to me. It's just that there are a few things standing in my way.

1) My wife has promised me that exactly one time in my life she will tolerate me growing a moustache. However, whenever I suggest that this time has arrived, she says, not now, maybe some other time. I don't blame her for this.

2) I have a job. And as much as you and I know that my moustache will be heartfelt and unironic, to an outsider it might look like I'm just having a few laughs. That I'm not taking my appearance seriously. That I am just a kid. And my stock with the bosses will plummet in some tiny way. Since I am a big pussy, this bothers me.

3) When I don't shave for like 6 days and I get a look at the actual hair growth that has accumulated, I actually have serious doubts as to whether I have what it takes, whether my 'stache will ever grow beyond what you're used to seeing in 8th grade yearbook photos. See:

There's no point growing one if it can't be supersexy and thick.

4) Even if it did eventually grow into something to be proud of (and let's face it, it would), the process would be long and embarrassing, with lots of questions like, Are you growing a moustache? I guess I could let the full beard grow and then shave it down to a moustache at the appropriate time, but that would look patchy and people might start to worry about my health.

So I apologize for constantly getting you all excited about my moustache and then just flaking on it.

And people, I think I have a solution, a way to make it up to you. Two factors have come together and created the perfect environment for 'staching.

One, my wife has always said that I could (attempt to) grow one if I could somehow harness its power to increase the overall level of cosmic happiness. She even sent me this link to one of several moustache-growing charities. Alas, I missed the most recent deadline and you know what, I don't want to jump in on somebody else's thing anyway. Good on those dudes for making it happen, but I want to create my own moustache project.

And this year, for the first time, my job will end at the end of May and won't start up again until at least July. So I will have an entire month to do nothing but lament past life-failures, put off any thoughts of improving my future, and grow one serious fucking moustache.

So here is what I intend to do. I want you to sponsor me and our new charity Moustaches of Peace. You can make a Paypal donation of any size and I will match total donations up to $37. If I get a reasonable amount of money in there ($37 would be a reasonable amount), I will begin growing the stache on my first day off in June. When I shave it, whatever donations have been accumulated will be transferred to a charity to be named later. As in, later today. Any suggestions? I was thinking about something for Iraq war veterans or Iraqi families displaced by the war. Please chime in.

I also welcome anyone who wants to join me in this project come June, and I will sponsor any of you who commit with a $5 donation into the MoP kitty (first five growers only).

Also, I would appreciate it if everyone could please spell the word "moustache" with the "o" in there. Moustaches are about flair, about giving it a little something extra, and that's why the "o" seems so right.

Give me your top five moustaches in history. Best list gets 30 points.