Winner!

Last night at 8:12 I realized I hadn't drawn names yet!

So I cut up an Offical KludgeSpot Pink Post-it© note and hastily scribbled names on it. Given the sheer volume of past winners in the mix I'm blown away that there wasn't a repeat winner...



This pen is heading to Missy in the sweltering Arizona heat! Congrats, and thanks to everyone for playing and keep looking forward to the next one!

Shoot me an email with your address and I get this heading your way!

January Pen Giveaway

It's time for another Pen Giveaway! Click here for past giveaway results. I will be giving away another of my cross style pens. This one is made of Brazilian Cherry (Jatoba) and is super slick!



All you need to do to enter is comment below. As I'm still in the middle of my diet, I would love to hear what you all are eating. If it has any meat or cheese in it, you can bet it's better than what I'm eating, or just say hello if that's too much work for you...

Like Kludge Spot on Facebook and you get a second entry in the drawing. (With a qualifying comment below)



The Game Rules:

  • 1. No vulgarity. I reserve the right to delete any comment. This will remove you from the contest.

  • 2. Wining. I will randomly draw the wining name from a hat on Sunday January 29th of all caption entries. The winner will be contacted Sunday evening via email, and announced Monday January 30th.

  • 3. United States for free shipping. If you live elsewhere and don't mind pitching in the extra cost for international shipping (about $8 I think) I'll totally ship it to you

  • 4. Contact. I need a way to let you know you've won the prize. And I'll need your shipping address to send it to you. So sign up with blogger, or OpenID, or something that I can contact you with. Otherwise I'll move on to another contestant.

  • 5. Have Fun!
  • Peters Theorem of Domestic Relativity

    Albert Einstein said lots of stuff. I'm sure most of you are aware of that. Some of the things he said makes sense to me. Most of what he said made sense to no one but the most brilliant minds on Earth. Odds are if you are reading this blog, you're not too smart either. Which means that no matter how much I screw up his theories no one reading this is ever going to know!

    Now that we have established a baseline for this post, let me continue. One of Einstein's big ideas was that all motion was relative. Which means that time was relative to motion as well. Which means that although we perceive time as being a constant it could change depending on how fast you get going. In grade school we were told that if you could travel at the speed of light you would perceive the passage of time differently then those who were not traveling at the speed of light. A week to you traveling at light speed might be equal to a decade or so for those not traveling that speed.

    This is getting complicated...let me try again.

    You go fast -> time slows down.
    You slow down -> time speeds back up.

    So what if this were true when you weren't traveling at light speed? What about other times in life?

    Two people can perceive time totally differently. For instance, when you have no obligations doesn't time seems to fly by? Like vacation?

    "This is the longest day of vacation I've ever had in my life!"

    "I know. I just sit and relax, sit and relax and it's still only 9 O'clock!"

    Never. Lets be honest, vacations always fly way too fast. Am I right? And work seems to drag on till there is no end in sight! If it didn't who would ever complain about having to go to work?!

    "Off to work! See you soon!!"

    So if we all experience the same perception of the passage of time relative to our situation then who's to say it's not true? If it is true then there a few things to take note of.

    First is that when time is moving more slowly you are moving more quickly and therefore aging less. Which means that on vacation you're just dying quicker than you would at work. That's a nice way to think of it when others leave for fun in the sun and you can't. Replace jealously with pity and know that your life just got longer relative to theirs.

    Of course if the corporations ever got hold of this information the propaganda campaigning would be unbearable.

  • Live a long and healthy life, work overtime!

  • Sign up with Corpacon, our company offers 1/2 the vacation time of other firms!

  • Corpacon cares, we give you double shifts!

  • Day passing too quickly? Try some filing!


  • Some of you are saying to yourselves right now, "How much younger do you think I am, now that I've just mucked through 500 words of this crap?" Well, instead of contempt, you should be thanking me for all those wrinkles I just saved you! Of course right now it's just a theory, but hey you never know...

    Ultimate Advances in Self Deprecation

    I am hungry. Very hungry.

    In a constant battle of man versus buffalo wings I have been a near heroic figure. If I could take that a step further I would claim a near godhood. Of all the people that I know there are few who champion the cause of over-eating as much as I do. It is fun, it tastes good and I genuinely look forward to it.

    The trouble isn't the looking forward it's the looking down. As I look down I see a nice well built reserve of nutrients that I am stowing along in tow these days. Not as much as some but still a sizable bit more than most. At some point everyone has to say to themselves. "Who put my freaking pants in the washing machine?! These things barely fit at all!"

    Maybe not that exact phrase but you know what I mean. You stand there in the morning and think, "Well the hell did that happen?" And you're not entirely sure. You remember them fitting a while back. You remember all the times you've gone for a walk or a bike ride but you have a hard time remembering the date of your last excursion.

    So you say to yourself,


    "It's the governments fault for all the tariffs on healthy foods!"

    "It's the fault of food companies using all that sugar and fat!"

    "It's the fault of fast food for being so dang convenient when you've had a long day!"

    "It's the fault of society for making me work so comfortably at a computer and not picking cotton all day!"

    "It's the fault of my next door neighbor for playing his stupid TV show so loud that I'm forced to leave the house and eat poorly! If only he were more reasonable I would look like a super stud in my jeans!"


    None of it true. It's your fault. Yours alone, unless of course someone is actually force feeding you fast food while holding you down. Then of course it's not your fault at all and you really should call the cops. So... Yeah, anyway. It's your fault, you did it but you can fix it!

    Which is what I'm doing...but I'm kinda hungry. I suppose that's good. If I wasn't hungry it wouldn't be very effective.

    "So I've decided to make a change for my health, well being and the betterment of the seam work on my jeans."
    "Excellent! What are you doing?!"
    "I've cut out chocolate donuts."
    "Wow. How many of those were you eating everyday?"
    "None."
    "What?"
    "Yeah, I know! It was easy! It's so simple it's brilliant! You know many calories are in chocolate donuts!?
    "Er..."
    "I've also cut out falafel, apple fritters and-"

    So, I've cut out food.

    Wow right? Tell me about it. It's Just for a few days. Just to get started on my way. I'm on a juice diet for the next 10...no the next 7 days. That's right nothing but juice from my blender for the 10 days and I'm already on my 3rd day. Then after that, I figure a more balanced diet and hopefully a more permanent change. I figure once I'm done with 10 days I'll be so delighted by the progress and the ability to eat again, good food will be more appealing to me. That's the plan at least.

    For the record. This kinda sucks right now. It's suppose too. I mean, who would honestly believe that giving up caffeine and food would be fun?

    Right. I did...

    Allergic To Cactus


    "I'm allergic to cactus."

    "What do you mean?"

    "I mean, it hurts when it gets on me"

    "Uh...not to be rude but uh, it hurts everyone. That's why you don't touch it."

    "I know, but it's different... it leaves these little circle pin pricks on me."

    "Hum. Yeah, okay. You don't know much about cactus do you?"


    Seriously though, I am allergic to cactus.

    Coup d'état Le Télévision

    After a week of sitting around the house over Christmas break Patricia and I resolved to get us and the kids some fresh air on Saturday. This was said Friday night as we climbed into bed after a day of doing absolutely nothing productive all day long. The strain of vacation was getting to us and the lack of structure was going to drive us insane.

    Saturday morning greeted us with her frosty charm and warned us not to venture out into her icy realm for at least a few hours. We sighed deeply but agreed that throwing the younglings out in 29 degree weather, although tempting, was not the right decision. So we set back the expedition until after the sun came out and warmed up our California neighborhood a few degrees Fahrenheit.

    We resigned ourselves to the pattern of the last few days. The annoying sound of a repeatedly played signing Christmas gift. The well meaning friend who gifted it to our daughter was now officially on our naughty list. We found what solace we could in our coffee regiment and braced ourselves for the first round of cartoons.

    But instead...I did something crazy. I looked at my bride and had an idea. Something all couped up parents dream about but few attempt. We staged a coup for control of the TV. I announced that I would be watching a show. A real show. One with people and real sets in it. Not a single frame of animation would appear on the TV and no one would start signing or dancing, or counting to ten. It was a parental Coup d'état of the TV that we had paid for but rarely got to use!

    The children had lost control! I then directed the tube to display live action shots of grown ups whining about their undersized kitchens out of control gardens or favorite recipes for baklava. It was exciting, fun and we could scarcely believe that we'd done it. Patricia and I reveled in our new found power and soaked up all the entertainment we could from what we knew would be a short lived rebellion.

    My special needs daughter formed an anti-daddy movement almost instantly and stormed off to the bedroom to lash out at the mini-blinds in protest. The mini-blinds were just a causality of war and we marked it up to collateral damage. It didn't matter and we wouldn't be detoured. Mike Holmes was on and we were going to stand our ground.

    Hannah, our youngest, decided on a more diplomatic approach.

    "Uh, what is this?"

    "Mommy and I are going to watch one of our programs."

    "You do that we we go to bed."

    "Today, we're going to do it now."

    "For how long?"

    I sized her up and threw out a little puzzle for her. "How long did you watch shows yesterday?"

    I saw her brain trying to devise a strategically sound response. I could tell because she looked like her mind was aching. I presumed this was due to atrophy while she was on break. "Just becuase it was on a lot yesterday, didn't mean I watched it much."

    It was a good stance, and well thought out. I countered.

    "Perfect. Then I'll leave it on my show, and you don't have to watch it much today either."

    The fun went on for about 3 hours or so. For us it was a major milestone and a welcome relief from the previous days. Days with little comfort from the annoyance of singing cartoon animals, dancing children, and puppet monsters insisting my little ones learn to count in Spanish. There is only so much insanity a parent can stand. We reached it on Saturday.

    And even though we eventually retreated and lost the ground we had fought for, the children learned a valuable lesson. Parents have more power than they realized and the TV is not as safe as they once thought it to be...