5 Reasons Why We Should Elect A Ninja as the Next President of the USA

Tonight, as I collect my thoughts, I have decided to take a slightly more serious approach to my often lighthearted ramblings.  The country is going through some pretty serious possible changes and choices and me, being a proud member of country (I do live here, I think that qualifies me...) I have decided to touch on the sacred topic of the office of the President of the United States of America.  And I think we should be very careful about who we elect.  In fact, I will just come out and say it.  I think the next man we put in the Oval Office should be a ninja.  Now, don't get all crazy on me.  I know that is a ridiculous proposal (We are way to far along in the election process to get a ninja on the ballot.  Duh! I'm not dumb).  But I really think a ninja for President might be a brilliant and here's why:

Reason #1 Ninjas Got Skills
The office of the President is no slouchy position and I think it is vitally important that the man we elect as our next Commander and Chief has a certain set of skills.  Skills far beyond the average mans ability to heat a microwave burrito or build a campfire using nothing but paper, wood, matches, a lighter if necessary, paper towels, and kerosene.  (I want  the reader to know I think those skills are vitally important; however I am just saying that if a man wants to be president, it should be given that he can already microwave food and burn things.  If he hasn't learned that , how would he ever expect to upkeep any real form of foriegn policy (The Russians+Microwave Burritos=Love))

Anyway, aside from obvious basic skills, the President needs some serious SKILLS.  And a ninja would have those skills.  I mean, what can't they  do?  They can run on trees, wear masks and not look lame, and speak with their lips moving unsyncronized to their words.  That way when they are talking about the awful economy, no one will care because they will be like "How is he doing that with his mouth.  That is so weird.  Jen, you got to come see this."  "What's he saying?" Jen would ask. To which her chubby, unemployed husband would say, "I don't have a clue, but look at his lips.  They don't even match his words. That is so cool.  Hey isn't American Idol on?"  With that distractionary skill alone, the ninja president could all but rule the universe.  And those are just some of the skills they learn the first week of ninja academy and theres so so many more.

Reason #2 So So Sneaky

President's, except for Jimmy Carter, have a long history of doing things that seem like a good idea at the time, but upon waking up the very next morning realize they have made a terrible choice and they need to hide knowledge of their whereabouts and actions for the previous twenty four hours from...well, everyone (looking at you Clinton, Nixon, Baby Bush, Grant, Jackson, Kennedy(Although, I think he wanted everyone to know about Marilyn) and Vampire Slaughtering Lincoln just to name 6).

Now, if there is one thing we have learned about ninjas, they never get caught.  Ever.  Can you imagine the time that would be saved if we didn't have all the obsessive media attention on the things the various presidents have been caught doing.  The time, the money, spent covering the non news could then be used to give more money toward the deficit and the added productivity of the American people would single handedly not only bring the country out of recession, but we would finaly have enough focus to cure pesky diseases like cancer and hunger.  So a sneaky ninja would fix the deficit, cancer, and hunger.  Finally.

Reason #3 and #4...Ninja Stars! (They probably have some cool name, but we called them Ninja stars in the 2nd grade so I am sticking with that.)

Yeah it gets two spaces.  We are talking about Ninja stars.  Think about it, you started making them when you were old enough to start folding paper or pasting popcicle sticks together.  You used to dream about one day being able to throw them through a forest of bamboo at multi colored hopity hop ninjas moving on conveyor belts just like my man Shinobi.  Can you imagine the President, all up in the middle of intense discussions for world peace, the British are getting all upity about "Violent Americans" and then suddenly, for pure show, the President whips into his suit coat, whips out a Ninja star and flings it right in the throat of a would be assassin dressed as a French maid with a beard.  "Whoa!" the British would say "Was that just a Ninja star?! Let's get this things signed!"  So as you can see, reasons three and four is Ninja stars.

Reason #5  Batman Was a Ninja

No need to explain you say? I agree, but I have to...for the people who don't get it.  Batman is awsome.  I want an awsome president. Hergo, I want Batman for president.  What...Batman is a fictional character and can't run for president.  Fine, Batman was also a ninja.  Great, if I cant have Batman for President, I would argue that a ninja is the closest plausible option to Batman for President.  Maybe there is enough time to get him on the ballot...

3 Reasons I Know I Will One Day Definitely be Eaten by Zombies

I have been reading about and watching the Olympics today, both online and on TV.  I normally make a valient effort to change the channel whenever I watch TV and a commercial comes on, but this is the Olympics.  It would be completely un-American not to let NBC and thier advertisers do their absolute best to sell sparkly things to my brain during the conveniently spaced comercial breaks in the tape delayed prime time coverage. The truth is I am amazed at the number of different sparkly things that are out there to see and buy.  Along with the countless things everybody wants to sell me, the folks who know also want me to watch stuff.  They want me to watch funny things and news, but it seems that more than anything, "They" want me to watch shows about the end of the world, aliens taking over our brains, and more often then not, zombies that want to eat peoples brains at either high speed, or slow speed.  I don't think it matters at what speed it happens, they just need to eat stuff.  After a full day of brain melting advertising, I have come to the conclusion that when the zombies come, I will be one of the first ones eaten, and heres why:

Reason #1: Its inevitable that the zombies are coming.  I don't know if any of you have noticed, but I have!   A suspiciously high number of zombie themed tv series, movies, and video games are making their way into our daily lives.  After careful research, I have come to the conclusion that the people making the zombie stuff have done more careful research than I have done.  This means that they probably know more than I do.  And what is it that they all seem to know?  That the zombies are without a doubt coming...in some cases as soon as the 60's.  But in that version, I think we all die in a farmhouse or something.  Truth is, I had to look that one up on Wikipedia because it was black and white so I go bored and didn't finish it.  Anyway, Reason #1 take it from a man, who is taking it from people who quite possibly have maybe done some research on the subject, there is no future scenario where the zombies don't come into our lives and decimate the human race.

Reason #2: I am average looking at best.  As I was preparing to write this blog, I wracked my brain, almost passed out from the effort, came back from the mind numbing brink and thought of all of the current and past and especially current zombie media that I have seen. There is one commonality in all of these productions.  All of the people who survive the apocolypse are not just a little, but A LOT hotter than I am.  I mean seriously, there are so many hot chicks that are all but guaranteed to make it through, brains intact!  If you are a hot chick, you at least will survive the first wave.  If you do a nude scene, you will most likely die in the second act, but you got a few extra hours out of it anyway.  If you hook up with the hottest guy left around, you might just make it to the part where there is an awkward silence as the credits roll and the two of you have to decide how to repopulate the now decimated planet.  Anyway, reason #2 is that there is no possible way I would make it out of the opening credits because I am not hot.  I would probably be eaten not first or second in the zombie attack, but more around 78 or so.  Not bad, but still dead.

Reason #3: I lack motivation.  Have you seen the guys on these things!  They are so incredibly motivated to survive.  "Grab the rope. Out the window. Up off the couch. Blah Blah Blah."  They never stop with the survivor attitude.  I do not have that attitude.  I can barely get motivated to get up in the morning.  Hell, I can't motivate myself enough to watch the Olympics live.  I instead watch my spoon fed Olympics replays during primetime because that is way easier than trying to figure out how many hours I have to count forward or backwards to calculate London's time (I am not some math genious so back off).  Anyway, reason #3 I'm getting eaten is my intense lack of motivation.  I am not going to cover myself in ketchup or anything, and I might punch one or two before the chewing really sets in, but one or two tricky situations and I just might crowd dive myself into the zombies.

So as you can see I have no chance, and the end is just a few years away.  I am going upstairs to grab some ice cream, then coming back down to watch sand volleyball for the second time today on NBC late night because I can't find the remote.  Go USA

Through the Rose Garden

Okay everybody, I have been gone for a couple of days.  I was given the opportunity to wander around the wilderness with 12 scouts for 4 days.  Myself and another scout leader took 12 backpack toting, wrong shoes wearing, over packing, slow walking, mommy missing boys up into the forests of the High Uintas, where they participated in the time honored tradition of wandering around and freezing. The whole while, we the leaders lied to them about how much fun we are all having and how much character they are building.  We do this for the sole purpose to ensure the boys, when grown, will know how to inflict the same amount of misery and pain on the next generation and so on and so on until the world blows up in a huge ball of back packing fire!

The following is the true account of one of countless character building events that happened during this important right of passage:

We pulled up to the trail head in the Uintas.  The trail head was located just about a mile from a beautiful touristy lake where people park and walk with their young children to spend the day in relaxation.  We were not going to the touristy, close lake. The plan was to leave from the parking lot, point the boys at the forest in the direction where you think there are the fewest number of bears, and let them walk until they collapse.  At that time they will set up tents and we will be miles from civilization (Maps and compasses will be used to ensure that we are as far as humanly possible from a Dr. Pepper).

Anyway, we walked and we walked.  We went up rocky hills, and we went down scary slopes.  They boys started walking slow and then they walked slower.  We turned left at the fork, and looked at a map in a very convincing manner.  When we had gone for about four hours, we finally arrived at the most beautiful campsite you have ever seen.  Next to the most beautiful lake you have ever seen.  It was there we decided to set up camp.

As the scouts set up their tents in the areas of the campground guaranteed to collect the largest puddles of water if it by chance rains, I took a walk over to the lake to take in the sites of true seclusion. It was glorious.  My eyes moved across the lake taking in all the wonders of nature...and then I noticed the swimmers...right there on the other side of the lake.  This was not the lake of our destination, this was the lake that was located 15 minutes from where we parked.  It just took us hours to walk 15 minutes.  I started to cry and realized those weren't tears...they were rain drops...I looked up just as the sky opened up and and let us have it.  As the rain fell, I started to laugh.  Bring on the character!

Recipe for Silence: a Driving Conversation

So, while driving 3 hours to a family reunion, two of my boys were arguing about this or that and pushing me to the brink of disaster.  Literally, I came this close to driving the van, lemming style, off the edge of a cliff just to shut everybody up.  Good thing there was a shortage of cliffs across the barren Idaho wasteland.  Okay, on with the story.  I was about to go nuts when I saw they had both brought thier portable electronic gaming machines.  The following is the real conversation that took place:

Me: Boys! Boys!! Boys!!! Why don't you grab your games and start from the begining and race to see who can make it to the end of the game first. (I know that this is poor parenting, but my options were rapidly diminishing)

Boys (In unision):  Yes! (Grab game systems and start playing)

   *Five minutes of blessed silence*

Dacoda (Not looking up from the game, speaking excitedly): Dad, what do we get  if we win the contest?

Me (Shocked by the noise after my brilliant plan was working):  I don't know.  Nothing.  I guess Bragging rights!

Dacoda (Without a pause, litterally without missing a beat): Okay! How many bragging rights?

Me (Wanting nothing more than the silence to come back): 11 Dacoda! 11 bragging rights!

Dacoda: Awsome! (Coda bows head and begins playing even more furiously than before)

     *Five more minutes of silence*

Ayden (Throwing down the game): This is a dumb contest!  I QUIT!

Dacoda (Without even looking up from the game): Don't worry ayden, I will beat the game and I'll share my bragging rights with you! (Keeps playing quietly and diligently for next two hours.)

It is now 10:30 at night and he is patiently waiting downstairs at this moment for me to deliver the promised bragging rights.  I think I will just wait...maybe he will just fall asleep.

And You Thought Your Driver's License Photo Was Bad!

So the other day, my wife and I had to get new Costco cards.  On the  new Costco cards, they now take these great and beautiful color pictures so that when you spend money, you can also be fully embarrassed by the idiot look you had on your face when they tried to mimic the old DMV style picture while your five children were doing their absolute best to ensure that anyone with your last name is forever banned from the store.

Anyway, I took my picture, and a few days later my wife went in to get her picture taken.  I have a beautiful wife see...

She is just straight up darling, and for some reason, she hates getting drivers license style pictures taken but it had to happen. So she went in and got the picture done.  Well, they took the picture and told her that her card would be sent in a few days.  A few days later, the card came, She looked at the front and her name was on the card, and when she turned it over to look at the picture, this was the picture staring back at her:

I told her the next time she goes to get that kind of picture that I would watch the kids.  Because by the look of her picture they must have been being horrible.

She didn't laugh.

A Mostly True Story About How I Was Nearly Eaten By A Bear

Over the 4th of July weekend, my family and I decided to spend the weekend camping in the wild and wooly forests of Montana (Fact).  That is precisly where all of the bears hang out (Also a fact).  While on the trip, we decided to take the kids fishing (A little lie.  I am a lousy fisherman and I don't see myself making my children pay for that fact).

While we were fishing, I wandered around the bend looking for the perfect spot to catch a giant whopper (Still lieing, see above).  Just after I dipped my line into the cool water of the stream, I looked up to find a huge 13 foot grizzly bear staring hungerally at me (Okay, this part is also a lie, but my brother in law did see a black bear after we had left and went home). Anyway, the grizzly reared up on his hind legs and let out a huge growl that made the entire forest shake in fear (I think this may be a scene from "The Edge" starring Alec Balwin and Anthony Hopkins.)  The bear lunged at me with its mouth gaping wide open filled with over 200 razor sharp teeth (That may be a sharks mouth...) I was able to dodge out of the way just in time and as I rolled to my feet, I noticed I had dropped my well worn fidora and was able to just retreive it before the bears crushing weight would have taken my awsome hat from me forever (This part is from "Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark").  I turned around, stared at the bear, thinking about the scary fact that my family was just a few yards away, and without wasting any time, I charged the bear and tackled him, begining a legendary struggle that raged throught the entire forest ripping up trees and literally reshaping the landscape (I think this part was taken from some Disney cartoon about Paul Bunion and his blue ox Babe).

After an almost godlike effort, I killed the bear in some dramatic way...you know, ripping open his mouth too wide or stabbing him with a stake just as he was about to kill me or something.  When the killing was done, it was too late to go home so I cut open his stomach and slept in his guts ("Empire Strikes Back").  The next morning, I got up, ate the bear's heart ("Dances with Wolves"), and made my way back to my family where my wife and five children were waiting with baited breath for my triumphant return (Just a lie).

After all the hubbub and hulabalu, my family drove home with very little to no additional mishap (Absolutley true)!

Who is Filthy Now!?

Today I wanted to make sure and write a great post.  So I decided I was going to sit down and do some serious research to make sure to provide the most educated and powerful information possible.  Three to four minutes in, I put  down my research material after realizing there is very little interesting on the back of a Doritos bag and decided to handle instead one of the most problematic situations faced every single day...Proper Shower Wash Order.

When you step into a shower and get your fuzzy washy thingy all lathered up with the soap your wife bought because some really musclely looking guy said you would one day have a sexy body if you washed with the same soap he used...what a freaking lie that was!  Anyway, first lather the fuzzy thingy then stop.  Don't just start washing away all crazy like.  Start with your face.  This is really, really important.  If you don't start with your face first, you may make the fatal mistake of washing your "undercarriage" first.  Then, when you are in the middle of washing your face you will remember that you are scrubbing your face with the remnants of what you just scrubbed off your backside, and you will have to start the whole damn shower all over again.  And even after a second washing, you will never live down the cold hard fact that you just rubbed your own bottom all over you own face.

So...to sum up, the correct wash order is to wash your face first.  Anything after that, who cares.  But I don't want anybody to face the life crushing embarassment I will constantly have to face after yesterday morning...I will forever be scarred and just don't want the same thing to happen to you.