Thursday, August 29, 2013

I Hate Everything...

Hey buddy. So, the other day I was facilitating a meeting of high school social studies teachers--oh, sorry...lotsa people are fascinated when I say that and want to know what such a thing is like so I let them know it’s a lot like the Vatican conclave, only we allow some women and there’s no smoke because that’s against fire codes--and my colleagues let me know that they were a little tired of my “nice guy” shtick. See...I tend to be nice to people at the meetings I’m facilitating, and while usually that keeps me in good favor with the participants, apparently this time it ran its course.

So I tried being not nice, or the opposite of nice, or un-nice, or...just kinda’ dicky, and guess what? I really liked it!

Now, I know that you’ve come to think of me as synonymous with rainbows and koala bears and Desmond Tutu, but I’ve gotta’ warn you--you might start seeing more of dick-Pat, ‘cause I got a whiff of the bile and now I have a taste for it!

And you know what...it’s going to start RIGHT here, RIGHT now! I’m going to devote this post to all the things I HATE (yes, I know...that’s a very strong word), and indulge my inner dick. You can play along, but if you don’t want to, that’s cool. I completely understand.

Pat:  So...in this festival of hate, you know what I hate more than almost anything (until I think of the next thing I hate)? Stupid little annoying yipper dogettes. Hate the fuckers. Tried to get some reading done outside a coffee shop on a beautiful afternoon while my daughter was in a dance class next door, and this little vest-wearing chihuahua (<--hate that stupid name too! Not the state in Mexico, just the dog name) kept barking his miniature ass off ‘til his owner came out of the shop. I kinda’ wanted to kick it into the intersection, but I don’t think that’s legal to do. I was polite enough to turn off my cell phone; the least the dog could have done was silence his barker, or put it on vibrate.


Christian: You had a group of high school social studies teachers tell you that they are tired of you being nice? And now you hate tiny dogs?

Pat: No. I’ve always hated tiny dogs. It’s just that now--because of the teachers of our nations’ youth--I’m willing to say it out loud.  

Christian: Out of my way fuck-o! You’re full of crap!

Pat:  What?

Christian: You’re right. Being mean and hateful is fun.

I hate fancy water.

Wow! This IS exhilarating!

No.

Feel free to list off something else you hate but then can you give me an example of how you were not nice while herding those teachers.

Pat: Oh, don’t get me wrong. When I said I tried being not nice, it was a really lame attempt at trying. Like, I apologized afterwards for using harsh words and sounding so stern. But the 15 or so seconds between saying those harsh things sternly and apologizing, I felt REALLY good!

And get this--back at the same place where that little yipper dog was antagonizing me, I found a new thing I hate. I was trying to enjoy a nice afternoon while sipping a beer and reading a book, but was completely distracted by the couple at the table directly in front of me. Know what they were doing? Drinking beer, and MASSAGING EACH OTHERS NAKED FEET. Eww! And they were doing it in that gross, super tantric sexual kinda’ way, which made it so I couldn’t even finish my beer (‘cause it was kinda’ cloudy, and that made me think some of their toe or foot detritus had floated in there). Yuck! I HATED them!

Christian:  There should be laws against that kind of thing. Not finishing your beer is a crime against humanity.

Since you are all into hate right now maybe you could suggest something new and exciting for me to hate. As you may recall we did post awhile back where I talked about how I hate all bicyclists. Well I have recently purchased a bike and have now started biking to work and other places around town. Don’t get me wrong I still hate all bicyclists but to be honest, now that I’m a bicyclist, it’s kind of taken the fun out of hating them.

Do you have any suggestions for something cool and hip that I could start hating instead? I need something bigger than public foot massages or tiny dogs. Even bigger than public tiny dog foot massagers.

Pat:  Well...where are you lately on lawn-mowing, running or weather-people? We covered each of those earlier, though it seemed those were things you detested rather than hated.

(I don’t mean to parse words, buddy, but I want to make sure we’re talking about the same emotions)

Do you want to return to one of those topics?

Umm...I’ve had mixed feelings about testoster-rock bands like Insane Clown Posse. Not sure if I’d go so far as to say I hated them--as we all know the LAST thing you need working against you is a horde of juggalos--but I could pretend for the sake of argument.

Christian: Yeah I really don’t care for Insane Clown Posse and the like, but because of that they rarely cross my path. I need something that I will encounter regularly that gives me more opportunities for hate. That’s what I’m looking for.

How about our readers, do you guys have any good hate suggestions for me?

Thursday, August 22, 2013

The Quadracorn Winner!

Well today is the big day! The day that we announce the winner of our 100th Post-Quadracorn Artwork Giveaway!

In case you missed it we did our 100th post which can be found here, here, or here. Also here. In celebration of our 100th post we decided to give away an original piece of artwork by yours truly. It’s the coveted portrait of a Quadracorn I did with pencil on notebook paper.

Sorry Louvre, this one’s not yours.

But before we announce the winner we’re going to talk about how the winner was chosen to demonstrate the fairness and legality in choosing our winner. Hopefully this will help alleviate the inevitable rioting that will take place once the winner is announced.

Christian: First off we had to talk to our lawyers to make sure...

Pat: You mean Toby? That guy that’s always outside 7-11?

Christian: Yes. Toby. Anyways we had to make sure we took care of all the legal issues that typically come with giving away such a large and substantial prize. We wanted to make sure everything was sanctioned by the state, filed correctly and what have you. Maybe permits. Who knows.  

And once we bought Toby a Mickey’s Big Mouth™ he agreed to look over everything and told us we were good to go.

Now that the legal side of things were done, how were we to choose the winner? We wanted it to be fair and not show any special preference since we love all of our dearest cherished readers equally.

So we decided to gather up several neighborhood cats and attached a number for each entry to their tails. We then went to a local track and placed them all at the beginning of the hundred meter dash. They were in boxes at this point.

We then put several cans of Fancy Feast’s Flaked Salmon and Ocean Whitefish feast at the end of the finish line and decided whichever cat crossed the finish line first would decide the winner of the Quadracorn portrait.

We released the cats and they all took off running. Unfortunately they all took off running towards the woods nearby and no where near the finish line.

Pat:  Yeah...you know what they say about hindsight and 20 dollar bills, right? Well, so then we noticed that one of the cats didn’t really do anything and stayed behind at the starting line. And then we realized that it wasn’t one of our cats. Kinda’ scraggly and haggard looking. But it was really sweet!

So...we opted for a variation on good ole’ straw pulling. We decided that we’d pull hairs from the haggard cat, and each hair would be assigned to one entry, and the longest hair would win. Perfect!

Christian: Remind me again about how we knew which hair was for which entry?

Pat:  Duh! Simple numeration!

Christian: Oh yeah. Numeration. But it turned out that pretty much every hair on a cat is the same length, which we didn’t realize until the cat was about half bald. So we gave up on the hair pulling idea. But we did decide to name the cat Barbara.


Pat:  Yeah. What? Do they get haircuts or something? Geez!

So we then decided to get a bunch of quarters, and put an entry name on each one. Then, we filled up a little shot glass with, what, tequila? bourbon? vodka? I don’t know, but we filled it and then tried to throw the quarter into it. I remember throwing, like, four quarters.  

Christian: It was bourbon but the problem was that Barbara had drank the shot and knocked over the shot glass which we didn’t know until several hours and several quarters later.

Pat:  Hours? I thought we did that for fifteen minutes. Uh-oh.

In any case, quarters didn’t work either so we pinned each entry name to a night star, and then watched Barbara VERY closely to see which star she looked at first. But at that point in the night, a simple look wasn’t enough, so we decided that it had to be accompanied by an audible “meow” or “purr”.

Christian: And that is when we were attacked by a family of squirrels. I think they were going after all the Fancy Feast we had spilled on ourselves trying to open those damn cans. You know how hard it is to open a can of cat food without a can opener?

But fortunately for us Barbara was fueled with enough bourbon, hate, and lack of hair to fight most of them off. We did suffer a few squirrel bites and scratches, but on the plus side five of the squirrels now thought Barbara was their dad. And we knew we could use this to our advantage!

Pat:  Know why? Cause--weird as it sounds--this one squirrel seemed to REALLY glom onto us, like Barbara did before. Weird, huh? So we figured that we had to take our new cat and our new squirrel (by the way, we didn’t name him, because we didn’t want to become as attached to him as we had become to Barbara--squirrels die sooner, y’know!) to a new place and in Portland, Oregon that means Vancouver (Washington, not the cool Canadian one), in order to get new results.

Oh, if you’re confused at our logic at this point, read back a coupla’ paragraphs to the section on shots of alcohol.

Christian: I remember this. We had decided to go to Washougal up in Washington where they have BMX races and assign each biker to a racer and whichever racer won would be the quadracorn winner. It seemed like the next most obvious solution.

Unfortunately, we got pulled over just as we crossed the state border for doing an illegal pass on a four lane highway within a suburban designated area within a river bordering city limits while driving 30 mph over the speed limit.

It also turns out that it is illegal to transport more than one wild animal across the state lines and no matter how much we argued with the officer that Barbara was a cat he wasn’t convinced. I had told Pat we shouldn’t have brought the squirrel with us.

Pat:  Yep. Maybe not the best idea. But, c’mon buddy, keep going! It turned out pretty good, didn’t it?

So...we ended up in jail, and that kinda’ sucked. But because of some bureaucratic glitch--seriously, it was bureaucracy...it was NOT us!-- we ended up in the WOMEN’S jail.  

It certainly was not a result of my androgynous name and the fact that Christian’s name is often confused with an entire faith.

Christian: It also didn’t help that we were in our robes.

Pat:  No, or the fact that we both imagined that women's prison was going to be a lot like some of the, umm...adult (for lack of a better word) films we’d seen. Lesbians, man...LOTS of lesbians!

Christian: There were lesbians. Two actually. A lovely couple, named Gloria and Pat. They were quite friendly.

Pat:  I think they said they were arrested for illegally blocking the logging of Washougal’s last remaining stand of old growth firs. Pretty badass, yeah?

Christian: Totally. And I think they were pretty intimidated by us for having been arrested for transporting a squirrel across the state line along with an unidentified rat like creature (Barbara).

Pat:  Yep. That’s badasser! Even crazier, hard as it is to believe, one of them--Gloria I think--had a tattoo on her inner right thigh. Know what it said?

Christian:  I do. Because I was there. It said, “The Winner is Jeneral Insanity”

It was as sign from the Quadracorn portrait giveaway gods!

Jeneral Insanity is our winner! Congratulations Jeneral Insanity!

Pat:  So, umm...hey Christian. How do we get your drawing to them? Are you going to email them a copy? Isn’t that a little insincere?

Christian: No. Remember I said thee original was to be woneth. That’s right. The original! So Jeneral Insanity, assuming you are OK with us knowing your mailing address (don’t worry we will never send you more than three or four of our diary entries a month. Five tops.) go ahead and e-mail it to us (see our contact us page) and we’ll send you the coveted Quadracorn portrait, pencil on notebook paper. We haven’t talked to the post office yet but we are assuming they’ll automatically provide some kind of squad of armed guards to transport it to your address. We’ll request extra snipers too.

Congratulations! And thanks to everyone that entered. You are the bestestses!

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Hot Mess Counter-Mess Mess Point

First off we would like to remind you that our huge 100th PCPPP Post/Quadracorn portrait giveaway is still going on. If you would like to enter or at least learn more about it go to our last week’s post here and leave a comment. If you are not interested just go here and leave a comment.

Secondly, we are super excited because today we have a guest post up over at Host Mess Mom. To help prevent crashing her server from the inevitable biblical flood of traffic we are about to spawn towards her, we’ve created 10 different links to visit the post so that each of you will have your own link!

Here they are: Link, link, link, link, link, link, link, link, link, and link.

They all go to the same post but we’re sure that spreading out the clicking over 10 links will help preserve the stability of her mighty server. That’s just smart math people.

So please head on over there and say hi. And as a thank you from us, for visiting our post over there, here’s a picture of the cast of Airwolf. Enjoy.


Thursday, August 8, 2013

100th PCPPP Post!

By using a calculator, a half a dozen pencils or so, and a computer that I later found out was just an unplugged microwave, I’ve figured out that this is our 100th post! I know in a lot of blogging circles 100 isn’t a lot. Or actually very few. But considering we can’t even keep up with our blazing pace of one post a week sometimes, a 100 is a fucking lot of posts in our book.

So the obvious next question was what should we do for this landmark post in PCPPP lore? How do we honor and commemorate this historic event? What do we say or write about to give this post the specialness it deserves?
I had no idea so I decided to take a nap to let my brain gears cool down from all this thinking stuff. Pat you have any ideas?

Pat:  Really? One Hundred? Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever done a hundred anything. That’s cool! Guess my old man was wrong about my inability to persevere, yeah?

Umm...I don’t know. Wasn’t there a game we played in college called “Century Club”. That has a hundred in it. Should we play that to celebrate?

Christian: I’m not a hundred percent sure what “Century Club” is but there’s no way I’m having sex with you on an airplane. To be honest I was thinking of something a little more low key than sex. Like splitting a Fresca or something.

Pat:  Hey, if we’re talking Fresca, then I want a whole one! That stuff is refreshing!

No...I think the Century Club has to do with shots and...time. Like, you have to drink a hundred of something (ounces? sips? bottles?) in a limited time.

I don’t think it matters if it’s on a plane or on the ground, but I’m with you. All due respect, but I’ve never really thought of you as a sexual partner. Just the blog. That’s enough for me.

Christian: Agreed and agreed. Just the blog.

But to be honest, drinking a 100 of something, especially alcohol,  in a certain amount of time doesn’t really sound that celebratory. It seems more like a normal day-to-day activity.

How about instead we say 100 things that no one knows about us. That seems to be the bloggy thing to do. Actually I don’t want to hear 100 of yours. How about 3?

Pat: OK. Here goes:

1.  I showered with the Portland Trailblazers. Yep. Doesn’t everybody?
2.  I flew to Japan with the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders. Security unit, you know.
3.  I hung out one night at a gay disco with the First Son of Romania. And, no, he didn’t try to kiss me. He was very respectful of my limits.  


Christian: What the hell? I was going to say something like I don’t like butter on my pancakes or that I have two favorite colors but you’ve showered with a professional sports team? Flown internationally with professional cheerleaders? Hung out with Romanian royalty? Explain yours please.

Pat:  No. It takes too long. And it reveals more of the mystery of my persona than I am comfortable with. Sorry. Not even my wife knows the details of these stories. She only knows they happened, and is content to leave it at that.

Remember, buddy...sometimes a little knowledge can be dangerous.

What are your three secrets?

Christian: Well I already told you. I don’t put butter on my pancakes, just maple syrup, and I have two favorite colors, which I too will not name in attempt to remain more mysterious. Two can play that game, Pat! My third one was going to be that one of my favorite words is “escalated”. As in “the situation quickly escalated”.

This telling three secrets thing was a disaster. Who even came up with this idea?

OK, here’s another idea. And I think this is the one. How about we give something away to our dearest cherished readers to say thank you for all their support?

I know what you’re thinking Pat: But Christian, despite coming up with yet another awesome and fantastic idea seemingly effortlessly, while always maintaining an impressive fashion sense with your own personal style, what could we possibly give away that would be worthy of the thanks our dearest cherished readers deserve?

First off, thank you, and second off, don’t worry I’ve figured that out too. Our dearest cherished readers deserve something that symbolizes beauty and grace, something that will be admired for generations to come. Of course I’m talking about the personally hand-crafted pencil drawing I did of a Quadracorn for our post Pegacorn vs. Pegicorn.


Breathtaking.

I’m getting a little teary eyed just looking at the majestic beauty of it.

So what do you say Pat? Should we give away the original to one lucky reader to celebrate 100 years posts of PCPPP?

Pat:  Oh. You really DID draw that? I thought it was done by one of your kids...the younger one, actually. I mean, it’s good. You did a good job with the four horns. And the mullet. The teeth are a little unnerving, as they’re very...human.

Umm...yeah. Let’s do it! Especially because if we don’t, then we might have to consider opening up some sort of PC-PPP museum or archive where people could see it, and that would be embarrassing a lot of work.

Christian:  Yes a lot of work indeed. Then it is settled. In celebration for our 100th post we will give away the coveted Portrait of Quadracorn, pencil on notepad paper.

If you are interested in receiving this spectacular specimen of what the humankind imagination can create just leave a comment. If you would prefer not to win it or feel indifferent about it, also leave a comment, and then do some serious soul searching. If you don’t understand what’s going on or stumbled upon this post by mistake you should also leave a comment.

We’ll select one person at random and dub them thy winner of thy art.

The winner will be announced in the next week or so or whenever we get around to it. Because you guys, our dearest cherished readers, deserve it.