International Relations Strained Once Again

Whenever I travel, I usually like to write a blog post. This is mostly because I prefer to labor under the false impression that anyone gives a crap when I travel. Also, layovers, ADD and narcissism are a potent combination.

When I leave the country, I usually worry about forgetting to buy or pack something but this year those things no longer bothered me at all and I strangely have peace of mind about them.

That is because this year I am only worried about when I pulled out my passport this morning just hours before I leave America to see the beard I've nurtured for 3 months makes me look a lot like "not the guy in the picture" and a "bad guy".

I do not want to generalize or stereotype, but I fully expect in my very near future to run into several unpleasant experiences:

1) A quite vigorous "enhanced pat down" in a private room. Whether there are candles and Barry White playing remains an x-factor.

2) A large, burly TSA agent named "Hugo" present for the pat down. I may even be on the receiving end of it.

(Reminder: the last line sounded way worse than intended so don't forget to delete it.)

The last time I went to Jolly Old England™, I planned way ahead by doing the following:

 - I think I wore clothes

 - got onto (probably) the correct plane

But I did not plan ahead enough to somehow sleep on the plane and since I flew out at midnight, when I landed I was awake for well over 24 hours, possibly 100. 

(I am not a "plane scientist" be we have GOT to be 
wasting a lot of time by not just flying in a straight line!)

On my last visit to England, the girl behind the counter in London quickly determined I was sleep deprived AND a filthy foreigner, so she immediately jumped into action and handed me the keys to a stick shift.

Being the first time I had ever driven on the wrong freaking side of the road with the steering wheel on the wrong freaking side of the car and gear shift on the wrong (freaking) side and my occasionally being awake, I unintentionally terrorized everyone on the island roads from east to west, but only for two hours.

Two hours were spent employing the tried and true practices of fervent prayer, opening windows, blasting music and slapping cheeks. I am sure there are still several places, clearly unmarked, where I did not scrape my left tires on their curbs.

But this time I have planned even more ahead and expect to sleep on the somewhere between 6 or 73 hour flight with the modern day help of a little something we like to call "chemicals".

They come in handy pill (sometimes liquid) form and can be bought anywhere from over the counter to even from a guy named Philippe in the airport bathroom.

I am completely confident that I may possibly wake up refreshed/alive when I hit London in 12 to 49 hours with my horseshoe shaped pillow covered in drool.

Uh oh... I gotta go. 

A scary, hairy guy in a uniform is walking this way that looks exactly like "Hurley" from LOST.

The Truths About The Government Shutdown

A lot of my friends have emailed me, both imaginary and real, to ask "what is this 'government shutdown' about" and "how does it affect me"?

These among others are great questions, so I've pasted the most common ones here to clarify the truths that the mainstream media are hiding from you:

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Q: "Is the government really shutdown?"

A: That's a great question. The truth is that the politicians and media keep referring to it as a "government shutdown" to get most of us excited and our hopes up. Sorry. Nope.

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Q: "But I heard things are actually shut down."

A: That's a great statement. The fact is that while national monuments and parks now have crudely laminated "shutdown" signs in Comic Sans font in front of them, the most essential services will never be defunded.

And I really do think 'defunded' is a word, despite those red squigglies. Great, now the word 'squigglies' has red squigglies.

Look, things like arresting potheads and internet download pirates as well as the feds spying on your emails will continue on as always. For instance, the fact you were dumb enough to click and read this blog has been logged, but will only be made fun of by a few guys at the NSA.

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Q: "I sent in more taxes this year than ever! It's stupid that they say they do they not have enough money to keep going!"

A: That's a great irrelevant outburst. In fact they still do have more than plenty for the truly needed job holders, like the President, tax collectors and bomb droppers.

The only ones "furloughed" (not "fur load" as some of you have spelled it) are what are called "non essential" governmental employees.

It is just like when you and I get overdrawn on our monthly budget or miss a paycheck, sometimes we are forced to temporarily cancel HBO or god forbid Netflix.

But we always still keep essential services like water, electricity, Facebook, Hot Pockets and high speed internet to download and pirate our missed shows on HBO.

Keep in mind that at the next election year, politicians will now be forced to slightly raise our taxes even more to pay for hiring just a few extra non essential employees to make up for this. Also, politicians do not know what is the definition of "non essential".

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Q: "Who is really at fault for this?"

A: That's a great partisan angle and the easiest one to address. Pull out your voter registration card. Look next to your name for a letter in parentheses. It will either be an (R) or a (D).

These do not stand for (R)idiculous or (D)ummy like everybody from every other country is saying.

They actually stand for (R)epublican and (D)emocrat.

The best part is that whichever letter is NOT by your name is at fault.

Good job picking the right side!

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Q: "Is it true this is the chance for China to scream 'checkmate' and call in our debts or Britain to invade again and just call it a victory in the 237 year Revolutionary War?"

A: Those are both great weird ways to look at it. While those scenarios are both possible, the truth is that all of this will either soon blow over or it is more likely just one more sign of the apocalypse.

Our world's greatest historical and scientific minds on some of the websites I go to say that at least some kind of apocalypse is inevitable at this point.

We just do not know how big it will be, what day it will land on or who will be fur load.

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Q: "What about zombies? I was told there would be zombies?"

A: That's a great conspiracy theory. Zombies are a given in any decent apocalypse and their proliferation or some other big word is definitely going to happen very soon with the biggest TV show about them coming back on in a few weeks.

The upside to this is The Walking Dead posts on Facebook will soon take over most of these political Facebook posts. But then those too will be overpowered and gobbled up by Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas posts before you know it.

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Q: "YOUR A JERK. THIS IS NOTHING TO JOKE ABOUT."

A: That's a great question. You misspelled 'you're' and left your caps lock on again.

Please keep in mind that the government has shutdown 18 times since 1976 and yet sadly all the "non essential" employees were not eaten by zombies.

Also keep in mind that my dad used to have a saying. I'll even tell you what it was. He said that Americans will never truly rise up and try to change their government or societal problems as long as most of us are kept fat, dumb and happy.

The main thing is that we still have this wonderful status quo and there is nothing to really worry about, including zombies, as long as all of us still have our Facebook and our internet conn