It’s amazing the kinds of things you can find to do when you should be working.

Take Google Maps, for instance – now I know that these features have actually been out for quite some time now, but when was the last time you saw that old house on Carter Street where you grew up? Why not pull it up right now?! Don’t worry – your boss won’t mind, mainly because little do you know that he’s actually doing the exact same thing with his own childhood house in his office right now! And if you thought that the satellite pictures were cool, then check out their new-(ish) Street View for a truly stalker-ish look at what the place looks all up close and personal. What’s that – there’s a person in their bathrobe checking the mail next door? Maybe you were better off moving – that sure is one hideous bathrobe…

There are all sorts of fun things that you can do with Google Maps, and even a few that don’t have to do with scoping out the houses of every person that you’ve ever been even slightly romantically involved with (rest assured, it’s only creepy if you’re the only one doing it, and you’re not – wink wink!). Second only to the illustrious MySpace, Google Maps is a great stalking tool for checking up on ex-girlfriends, ex-fiancées, ex-wives – you name it, really! If you’ve got an address, and you’re on the Internet so I don’t know why you wouldn’t, in a matter of seconds you can be zooming in on their home from above like a spy out of some sort of wanna-be science fiction movie from the ‘90s, except with much better resolution than those films ever bothered to show! Really, the only thing missing is to be able to zoom in on a live view of a pixilated ex- smoking on her back patio, but something tells me that might be pushing it a little too far – even for Internet creepiness.

Nonetheless, even with dated imagery and when you’ve had your fill of stalking for the day, there’s still plenty of amusement to be found in wandering around the virtual world presented by Google Maps – think of it kind of like World of Warcraft, but without all of the orcs and goblins and trolls constantly trying to kill you for experience points. Plus, while technically virtual in nature, it’s still a world that we all more or less know so there’s little worry about taking a wrong turn at Mount Blackrock on your dragon or wyvern or whatever the heck you fly around on in that game! Tour famous cities to peep landmarks you’ll never see in person, tour not-so-famous cities to get virtual diarrhea from Waffle Houses that you’ll never eat at in person – the possibilities truly are endless on this web of worldwide wonder, my friends…

Sure, at the end of the day they’re just maps with latitudes and longitudes and satellite imagery overlays to recreate the world in a digital manner that no globe could ever even touch – not even those really cool, old-fashioned ones that you would expect to see in the parlor of a constable or lord – but more importantly, these are maps that just got you through an otherwise boring beyond comprehension Friday without doing a single iota of filing or collating or whatever it is that they pay you to do around here!

Thank-you, Google Maps, for making our mundane workdays just a little more bearable – whether it’s for casual stalking or even just a little mindless perusing of movie theaters around town to see what’s playing, we know you’ll always be there…

Today was a pretty rough day for me.

You see, earlier this morning I had a follow-up appointment with my doctor because about six months ago I finally decided to look into this whole hereditary high blood pressure that my family is always griping about. We agreed that I would monitor my blood pressure over the next few months to see if there was really anything to worry about, and oh yeah – while I was at it, it wouldn’t hurt to lose a little weight along the way! If all went well, when I returned in the fall I’d be thirty pounds lighter, sporting the textbook example of what one’s blood pressure should be for a dashing young gentleman like myself, not to mention rock hard abs that you could rest your drink on…

Needless to say, all did not exactly go well because I’ve spilt more martinis over the last six months than I care to count, and oh yeah, the blood pressure ain’t much better either. I suppose it shouldn’t have come as too big of a surprise, seeing as instead of losing all sorts of weight like the doctor recommended, I opted to spend my summer not doing that at all. Don’t get me wrong – I did “try” every now and then, if you can call fifteen minutes a month on the treadmill “trying” (note: my doctor doesn’t!), but at the end of the day it finally becomes time to pay the piper and in my case, it would be a brief scolding by the doc for being incredibly lazy and a prescription for pills to lower my blood pressure back down to a level where I don’t have to worry about whatever happens when one’s blood pressure shoots through the roof.

Pretty hilarious topic so far, eh?!

Of course, the odd little twist to our story isn’t that my veins could explode from the insane PSI at any given moment, even as I write these very words! Nope, instead I find myself facing a very real and very daunting threat with each and every breath, as I periodically glance over at the newfound pill bottle on the kitchen counter, taking special note of its almost taunting proximity to the cookie jar, as if to say, “Not anymore, chubby! Your snacks are in the crisper of the refrigerator, and we’re not talking about those chocolate chips that you’ve got stashed away amidst the broccoli and carrot sticks…” Oddly enough, when it all comes down to it, I’m not as much concerned about the health risks involved with where I’m at right now as much as I’m just reminded all too well, as I mentally schedule out my new pill-taking schedule in my head, that gosh darn it – I’m getting old!

Pause for dramatic effect, and also for anyone older than 27 to get all “up in arms” about how 26 isn’t exactly the new 85 or anything…

Aside from taking the occasional antibiotic to fix me up when I was younger, I’ve never really had any “medications” that I needed to take on a regular basis, so just the concept of being one of you pill takers is a bit daunting all by itself to me. Also, being as absent-minded and lazy as I already am, I’ve already been running lines of “Uh – did I take my pills today?” and “I’d better not forget those…wait, what was I saying?!” through my head. Of course, I mean no offense to those of you who already are amongst the pill takers of our world, but let’s face it – you’re no happier to see me than I am to see you. Well, those of you who can actually see me, anyways. Did I mention that my vision has been starting to go, too?

So I’m sure that you’ve probably all figured out exactly where this is leading at this point – my new goal in life, outranking Buy a Sexy Sports Car and Get the Band Back Together, is now officially Find the Fountain of Youth. Originally I was going to make a go for the Holy Grail instead, but I saw that Monty Python movie one too many times when I was a kid and have had a deathly fear of bunny rabbits ever since! But I really think that I can pull this one off because, really, it’s either this or remember to take my pills each and every morning for the rest of my life. And we all know that the chances of that happening are about as good as my remembering to exercise along the way, so if I just so happen to come across an Eternal Ab Roller or something during my journey, that would be great.

I’ll most certainly keep you posted on my progress as my crew scours the land in search of that sacred talisman that holds the key to my not growing all old and wretched like the rest of you out there. But seriously, in the meantime if you could just leave a sticky note here or there reminding me to pop one of those anti-death pills every now and then, I’d appreciate it…

Together, with much effort and determination, we’ll help me defeat the fear of getting old, and with any luck, the aging process itself altogether! These are exciting times and I, for one, just can’t wait to get started! But before we begin, now if only I could remember where I left those pills…

I’ve got an interesting predicament on my hands, and by “interesting,” I actually mean “lazy”…

You see, I’ve got a couple of packages that have been sitting on my counter for several weeks now – I think they’re some goofy kind of screw hooks or something that I thought I needed for a project that I was working on, but apparently I must’ve gotten by without them because they’ve never actually been opened. I need to just return them to Wal-Mart and be done with them, but therein lies my predicament of the hour – I, as a grown, certified male adult, have the memory of your average kumquat. No offense any kumquats that might happen to be reading this column, of course.

Now I know that I’m not the only guy who has this sort of problem because I see their own piles of miscellaneous junk that needs to be returned on their counters whenever I come over to do manly things (read: play video games and tell dirty jokes). But don’t get me wrong, I’m not implying that this particular issue is lumped in with the standard male behavior of forgetting all sorts of other important pieces of information (i.e. birthdays, anniversaries, children’s names) – I think this is a special case because consider this: you never really see anything of value just lying around, waiting to be returned, now do you?

If it’s a defective DVD player, an unwanted movie, or even just some random piece of sports equipment for an activity that you’ve never even played before that was bought for you by a relative who had received certain insight from your significant other that maybe you’d spend more time outside if you had, oh say, a tennis racket or something, those all manage to skirt their way to the top of the ‘ole memory list because hey, they’ve got a little value to them that we should be able to trade in for something that we actually do want! It’s been months since Christmas and I still haven’t seen the tennis court, but man, is that new King Kong game for the X-Box 360 sweet…

I’m probably going to paint myself into a proverbial corner, but I might even be so bold as to say that it’s a woman thing because in all of my years of knowing the female gender and all that they are worth, I can’t think of a single instance of where one of my lady friends ever “had something to return” because within a matter of seconds after realizing that it’s not the right shade / style / denomination, they were already waiting in line at that desk for their $1.29 back so that they could get the pink pens instead of the black ones.

It sounds like I’m exaggerating, but I assure you that I just couldn’t make this kind of stuff up – I once waited for a girlfriend for twenty minutes because she had grabbed a pack of grape gum and she was actually interested in more of a strawberry-banana concoction … that’s right, twenty minutes for a pack of gum. I didn’t want to brag, but I could’ve bought her one of every flavor in the display – that’s just how I roll – but ultimately we all know that it wouldn’t have mattered anyways. It was the principle of the thing, or something like that – I really stopped paying attention after about the twelve-minute mark…

The morale of my story is, well, I’m really not sure, but it sure killed a nice chunk of time that I could’ve otherwise wasted standing in line at the customer service desk, didn’t it? As far as when my screw hooks will actually get returned, well, your guess is as good as mine, but if anybody’s going to the store, would you mind picking me up a pack of gum? I’m in the mood for strawberry…

Wait – no, make that grape.

It’s that time again folks – the one that we love and hate the most, where the jingling bells can put a smile on your face one day and drive you to your wits end in the grocery store the next. During pretty much the happiest season of the year, it should come as no surprise that more people are driven to the funny farm during the winter holidays than any other time of year – between shopping for presents, decorating inside and out, all of that baking, and of course, the mother of them all…those lovely family gatherings that we talked about just last week, I’m honestly impressed that as many of us have managed to make it through as it is…

But never fear, for I’m here to lend my assistance with a collection of ideas to help you not go insane this Christmas! Note that I said “ideas” instead of “tips” because they technically have yet to be thoroughly tested in a controlled environment, but regardless, even if we can’t prevent the inevitable, we should at least be able to have a good time along the way, right! If we’re gonna go crazy, then we might as well all go crazy together, and I’m just the man to lead the pack…wait a minute, that’s not our goal at all – who said that?! Oh boy, this is going to be an interesting holiday!

So where do we start? Well, if you’re anything like me, one of the most stressful parts of this whole Christmas-thing is the fact that you’re pretty much obligated to come up with all sorts of gifts for damn near everyone you’ve ever met, and don’t be surprised if you’re approached by a few strangers expecting a handout or two as well! Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I have a problem spending the money on other people or anything, but the problem lies in the concept that everyone else is doing the exact same thing at the exact same time, and we all know just how good I am at dealing with crowds! It was only a few years ago that I nearly killed someone over a Tickle Me Elmo doll this time of year…that old lady just pushed all the wrong buttons on that particular Sunday afternoon…

…and that’s why I’ve devised an enormously simple system for purchasing my own gifts during the holidays and it goes a little something like this: if I can’t get away with just baking them something, they’re getting a singing fish. It’s a widely-known fact that I absolutely adore Big Mouth Billy Bass, as well as all of the knock-offs (…a singing lobster – genius!), so rather than fighting the crowds and psycho shoppers at the mall just to get everyone on my list something that they’ll likely return anyways, I just order a couple of cases of my favorite serenading bottom-dweller and direct my attention on to bigger and better things! Even one up on that, in the minute chance that the recipients don’t love their gifts as much as I do, they usually just end up giving them away or pitching them altogether, thus presenting me with the wonderful opportunity of being able to share the gift of singing fish again with them next year as well. It’s the gift that keeps on giving, really!

But gift giving isn’t the only thing that makes us want to fling our festive bodies in front of the nearest sleigh during this jolly time of year, for it comes as no surprise that decorating can also pose quite the threat to the sanity of those like you and I. Fortunately due to the fact that I’m already nearing my word count for this column, I’m going to keep this idea brief and just go with the whole “less is more” concept. Herein, you’ve got a tree here, some lights outside, maybe wreathes on a door or two, but unless you’re really into the whole interior design thing, just let it be and move on to bigger and better things…

Like baking!!! I’ll be the first to admit that nothing really gets that holiday spirit a churning like the smell of fresh Christmas cookies and the strongest eggnog known to man…but the problem in this department is that basically people tend to take on more than they can chew (pun only partially intended). You ever wonder why the old lady seems to go bonkers about the time when you ask when dinner’s going to be ready about the second or third week into December? It’s typically because she’s spent so much time preparing food for school and the family and co-workers and the elderly shut-ins from down the street that her original task of keeping food on the table for you is getting pushed to the side…don’t let this happen! Luckily, we can easily cure this problem simply by cutting down on the sheer amount of baking that needs to be done – if you’d prefer not to go the easiest route and purchase these foods yourself, go an alternate route and plan on giving away stuff that you actually do know how to cook. The kids can take Rice Krispy treats into school just as easily as they can take cookies, while it doesn’t really even matter what you opt to prepare for each of you to take into work – chances are you don’t really like any of those people anyways! The important thing to remember is that you’re trying to lighten her workload so that she can get back to cooking for you.

And finally, as for dealing with family get-togethers, I’m sorry but I just don’t have anything to tell you that I haven’t already gone over recently! Just do your best to keep a level head, take an extra dosage of Valium just before everyone starts showing up, and you should be just fine. For a complete overview of enjoying the holiday experience and all that it’s worth, however, I should be so bold enough to point you in the direction of my all-time favorite concoction from last year, So You Want to Have a Merry Christmas, which pretty much covers absolutely everything that needs to be covered for you to have a truly perfect Christmas – there’s a money-back guarantee and everything!

If that doesn’t help you, then I don’t know what will, but just bear with me and in a few weeks, this will all be well behind us and we’ll be able to get back to those very special booger jokes that we all love so dearly. We’ll get through this together, I promise!

Living in a small town can be both a blessing and a curse, and having grown up in one of these smaller communities, I think I can safely say that I’ve gotten more than my share of experience at both ends of the spectrum. There is a certain charm to living in an area where the trees still manage to outnumber the residents – being able to walk down the street without getting shot at is always nice, as is not having to wait a half an hour at the ATM to make a ten dollar withdrawal. Nonetheless, John Mellencamp wasn’t kidding when he sang about the little opportunity around these towns because I, for one, can vouch just how easily it is to be bored out of your freaking mind in a place like this!

“But up in the Great White North, there’s all sorts of things to do – you can go huntin’, or fishin’, or hikin’…” or so the people claim, but come on – this isn’t the 1930’s, Huck – how many kids do you know of that hurry home from school with plans of rushing down to the creek in search of bullheads?! Nope, kids nowadays have a very limited number of ways that they’re willing to spend their free time – either by a) hanging out with friends and complete strangers, or b) chatting with friends and complete strangers over the Internet because their parents won’t let them out of the house to do it in person…and rightly so, because just between you and me – there are some really creepy folks on the Internet these days! But that’s another column altogether…

Fortunately for my social skills, as meek as they may be, the Internet wasn’t truly a big deal yet when I was growing up, so hanging out was really my only option. This didn’t bother my parents in the least, as it usually just entailed gathering at one of my friend’s houses and playing video games or Dungeons and Dragons or whatever the geekiest thing in the world happened to be at the time – as long as I was home by 10:00pm, I was free to recite powerful spells and worship the devil and do all of those other things that the stereotypes suggested, and even a few others that they had never thought of! If nothing else, at least it prepared me for a few years down the road when I started a rock ‘n roll band, and then all hell broke loose… (we now collectively refer to these times as the good old days)

So while my friends and I chose to pass the time by being humongous nerds, other classmates of ours had their own ways of passing the time, whether it be by playing sports, working after-school jobs, or dry-humping on their parents’ loveseats – everyone had something to do! Times do change, however, and whether or not all of the Magic cards and basketballs and loveseats have simply disappeared at mysteriously high rates or because of some other, even more bizarre reason that my own creative forces can’t even come up with this late at night, kids today are finding themselves with just skads of free time on their hands – so much so that they’re pouring out onto the streets in troves, kind of like that mutant slime did in Ghostbusters 2, only with spiked hair and more piercings than the four members of the Red Hot Chili Peppers combined!

“They’re just hanging out with their friends – like you used to,” I’m told by their few and far-between supporters. I beg to differ, however – for starters, we didn’t have piercings to show our individuality, we had pocket protectors, and we didn’t hang out in parking lots so much as actual buildings – so while our activities could be considered hanging out, the new age version is more along the lines of loitering. Sure, it might be cool if the whole gang was just really into Rite Aid’s product line (their cotton swabs in particular are to die for…) and felt the need to share their love with new and potential customers as they drive by on Main Street, but I’m thinkin’ that this just isn’t the case…

Although the situation can be most noticeable during the summer vacation months, where it’s not at all uncommon to find many of the larger parking lots along the main strip completely packed with teens out for a night on the lot, to the point where there’s actually a waiting list leading out into the road, what caught my attention even more was the gathering I saw just the other night – keep in mind that this is Northern Michigan in the middle of January. Pulling up to a red light sometime between nine and ten o’clock at night, I looked over to see the parking lot of a local fish ‘n chips restaurant overflowing with cars…and no, their food isn’t just that good! There must’ve been two or three dozen kids huddled together in the lot, their pants halfway around their ankles and a steady stream of smoke coming from the center of the circle. The light turned green before I could tell exactly what kind of smoke it was, but…

Oh yeah, did I mention the temperature by chance?! It was seven. That’s right, just seven – Fahrenheit, of course, for all of you Nazis who somehow still manage to think that your metric system has a chance. The best visualization I’ve ever heard was passed on to me by another comedian whose name I cannot currently recall – around freezing (thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit), you can start to see your breath, but you know it’s really cold here in Michigan because you can both see your breath and hear it as it crashes to the ground! Here it is so blastin’ cold that the stars won’t even come out, and yet these kids are hanging out in the parking lot like it’s the 4^th of July! Now that’s dedication if I ever saw it! (or stupidity…the two tend to get confused a lot these days…)

Who knows, though – maybe they’re actually on to something and we’re just too big a wussies to go outside and see what all of the fuss is about. For all we know, they could have the knowledge of a lifetime brewing out there, like ‘Spending three hours a day, four nights a week in sub-zero temperatures will add ten years to your life…’ or ‘True happiness can be found for only 99 cents from the Burger King drive-through late at night, as long as Dave’s working…’ or even ‘A strict diet of marijuana and cigarettes maintained will convince your brain that the real cold weather doesn’t even start until it get into the negative numbers…’ I don’t know exactly what’s going on out there, but nonetheless it seems to be enough to keep the chicks coming in by the carload, which is more than we could ever say about our all-night Dungeons and Dragons sessions!

They say that you never have to grow old if you don’t want to? Well in that case, if anyone needs me, I’ll be out chillin’ in the parking lot…literally!

Along with the rest of the country, I’ve been caught up in the media trap that is NBC’s Fear Factor.  Yes, it’s a gigantic waste of time and there are probably better things that I could be doing, but until the next season of Survivor begins, this is all I’ve got!

If somehow you haven’t seen the show, basically it pits six people who’ve recently graduated college and have lots of loans to pay off against each other to determine who is the most likely to end up in an institution in the future.  The prize: $50,000.  All that’s required is that you jump off of a fourteen-story building, take a bath with a thousand rats, and eat two buffalo testicles.  And no, I’m not making this up…

Actually, these events didn’t all come from the same episode, but this gives you a taste of what contestants on Fear Factor can expect.  A typical show consists of three segments.  The first being a really insane stunt, such as this week’s episode where the contestants were strapped into a car which was then lowered into a lake.  They were then expected to save the child in the back seat as water rushed into the car and swim to shore without drowning!  Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?

The middle portion of the hour-long program is usually filled with an event where all of the girls get really grossed out because they’re going to have to eat.  Ok, there’s a little more to it than that: they’re going to have to eat something that only a caveman would eat, such as a beetle, worm, etc…  Come on, tribes of thousands of people all around the world survive on these types of creatures every single day, but for some reason the women on this show just can’t seem to handle a nice, crunchy cockroach, or five!  It’s great watching the guys during this segment because we’re all used to doing disgusting things like eating bugs and swimming in worms and all sorts of other stupid guy things.  Considering that most of these contestants are coming straight from college (and fraternities…), I’d guess that those weren’t the first buffalo testicles these guys had actually eaten…

The last segment of the show is typically pretty lame because by this point there are only two people left.  The writers know that their audience is a bunch of suckers and by this point we’re all hooked anyways, so they can come up with pretty much anything to fill in the rest of the time slot.  The show that featured the human targets in the junkyard was my pick for the all-time lamest event – it reminded me of a lot of the challenges from Survivor 2!  (Wow, they’re really going to have to step things up a notch now, aren’t they?)  Anyways, to win at this point, you basically just have to do two things:

1. Show up.
2. Prove that you’re not a complete idiot by listening to the instructions and not getting disqualified.

Last night’s prize was awarded because the other guy escaped from the flooding car through the wrong window, of all things!  He must have fun getting to sleep at night…

I’ll admit it: I like this show, but I still don’t consider myself a fan of reality TV.  I hated Weakest Link with a passion (although I did watch their latest comedian edition – Kathy Griffin and Rob Schneider were great!), and I forced myself to sit through one episode of Spy TV, which didn’t impress me either.  Temptation Island was alright, although it didn’t take me long to figure out that Cinemax was just as entertaining and lacked commercials!  Boot Camp, Big Brother, The Mole, even Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? – none of these shows did a thing for me, so that basically just leaves Fear Factor and Survivor.

What do I look for in a good television show nowadays?  Well, as long as bugs are being eaten, I’m tuning in…