We now interrupt this regularly scheduled blog...

Confession: This post has been a long time coming.

Until further notice, "Mental Poo" is going on a hiatus.

This is a really hard paragraph for me to write because I know there are a LOT of you out there who may be new readers or faithful fans and followers.

To those of you who have been with me for the last OHMYGOD 6 years or so of this blog, I'm sure you've noticed that - well - it's just not the same around here any more. The stories have turned to pictures. There is very little text.

I think, in large part, it's because I'm just not feeling funny here any more.

Back when I started this blog, I had a lot of stories to tell. A LOT of them. And I told them in a shitty style with bizarre pictures and people came and read and laughed.

That doesn't happen much any more. I think the fact that the blog is a dying art, and I've turned my attention to writing books, is a major part of that. PLUS, I have an actual REAL job that I'm trying to keep - so finding the time and material to do this is getting more difficult.

Truth be told, there is a LOT going on in my personal life that I DON'T put out on Twitter or Facebook or this blog. Everyone has their demons to deal with, and mine are sapping my desire to write on a daily or even weekly basis.

Once upon a time I wrote SO MUCH that I was scheduled out with posts 4 months in advance. Right now, I have 3 posts that were scheduled.

3.

I start my mornings tired. I go through my day mentally exhausted. My nights are sleepless. My stress and anxiety is off the charts. There is so much I wish I could tell you, but I can't. Depression? Probably. Anxiety? Definitely. Stress? Oh fuck yes.

Suffice it to say, my wife is amazing and supportive and I'm lucky to have found her. But there's so much more going on that even she feels the stress and strain of it all.

So, until things - hopefully - start taking a turn for me, I'm going to need to focus on getting myself back in order.

That will probably take some time.

Please note that I am STILL on Twitter and Facebook (you can find the links on the side) and have managed to move most of my funny over to those mediums because I have a short attention span and like chocolate.

You can also check me out on Amazon - where I currently have 2 best selling comedy books and 3 more in the works. No shit.

That said, I'm closing up shop here for a while, but PLEASE KNOW that I love each and every one of you.

Except you, Jim, from Accounting. I still think you're an asshole.

Moog out.

Things I learned in Vegas

Just got back from my first-ever trip to Vegas with the new wife.

I'd never been before, so I thought I'd outline a couple of things that you may or may not know about the city.

Enjoy.

Everything is HUGE

So you're all, like, 'Oh. Let's just walk over to the MGM Grand. It's right there.'

Then you start walking over to the MGM Grand because it looks SO CLOSE and then find yourself, 3 hours later, wishing you'd taken a cab because the hotel is actually 14 miles away at the other end of the strip but LOOKS close because the sign for it is roughly the height of the Empire State Building and now you're crippled.

YAY! Prostitution Poker!

Outside in the streets are people wearing bright shirts that say "Orgasisms" (yes, spelled just like that) and handing out cards with hookers on them.

I've collected all 500 of them hoping they'll be worth money some day. I also plan on playing poker with them because this is probably the best flush I've ever had:

Hotels are cities

Saying, "Oh. Let's go into this hotel" is the same thing as saying, "Oh. Let's wander into the center of a gigantic city and come out 4 hours later" because every single hotel fits a country inside of it.

For example, this is INSIDE 'The Venetian' where you can take a friggin' half-hour long gondola ride through the canal that runs inside of it:

..and this is inside Paris where we stayed:

Crazy.

Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum is one of the funnest things ever

Especially when you can pose like this:

Gordon Ramsey Steak is expensive as fuck

We made reservations at Gordon Ramsey Steak in the Paris Hotel (where we stayed).

2 hours and $400 later (not kidding) we left.

But, yes..we would totally do it again. Fucking amazeballs.

Rich assholes drive asshole cars like this and make you want to key them because they are rubbing this shit right in your face

I can't wait to go back there again. Preferably, I'll drive there in my Lamborghini and not have to take out a mortgage to buy Beef Wellington because my books are selling so well.

That's your cue.

The Summer Blogging Break

Well folks, it's just about time for my summer blogging break.

I'm doing this for a number of reasons:

1) I'm writing a sequel to my first book, "Things Go Wrong for Me," and it's pretty much taking up most of my time.

2) I'm lazy so #1 is taking longer than expected

3) I'm too lazy to come up with a valid #3 (please refer to #2)

I may be back before the end of the summer to help promote awareness for the second book - currently titled, "Perhaps I've Said Too Much - A Perpetual Liar's Survival Guide" - and to keep shit fresh.

Not literally. You can't keep shit fresh. I've tried.

*throws out Tupperware*

To keep you entertained, at least, I'm including a picture of myself shirtless holding the MEDAL I WON from the "Next Generation Indie Book Awards" this year:

FYI - this is how I've been going to work, shopping, having sex, etc., etc., EVERY DAY SINCE IT CAME IN THE MAIL.

It's so pretty.

In the meantime while I'm on hiatus, feel free to go ahead and prep for "Perhaps" by getting "Things" here:

Paperback: http://bit.ly/12o6h8N

Kindle (just $3.99): http://bit.ly/ZpoiVk

Thanks to everyone for your support as I walk down this road yet again in pursuit of fame, fortune and a date with Scarlett Johansson.

See you soon, everyone!!

Moog out.

"Hey, Rod. Are you SURE you won't be going back to Comfort Suites?" "Oh. Positive."

I recently came back from a trip with my kids to Hershey, Pennsylvania.

Hershey, Pennsylvania motto:

"Come for the chocolate. Stay for the diabetes."

Regardless, we stayed at the lovely Comfort Suites Hotel in nearby Hummelstown which we had to get to by passing a place called "Shartlesville" which still makes me laugh to this very day because it has "Shart" in it and I'm 9.

How was the stay?

Well, maybe this nice letter I sent to Guest Relations at Comfort Suites will fill the picture in for you:



Wait...there's more...


So now I sit here waiting for my complaint to be answered in which case I'm hoping I get some refund and maybe a million dollars or something to compensate for my mental anguish and all around general grossed-outedness but would seriously settle for one of those 5 lb. Hershey bars they sell at the gift stores.

I'm easy that way. Unless it involves blood. Then I make things complicated.

**************************
UPDATE!

Just got this email:


BAM.

Looks like I can file this under "the squeaky wheel gets the grease."

Or, more appropriately, "the blood-stained linens get the Resolve Stain Remover."

The Vacation Tweets that Never Were and Could Never Be Until I Got Back and Wrote This. I WIN.

After almost 2 years of dating, my girlfriend, Kerri, and I finally got a weekend away all to ourselves without children or work or any stresses of life other than me figuring out if I was going to go over my credit card limit paying for the effing thing.

Regardless, I was very excited to spend 2 nights in the White Mountains of New Hampshire...

..until...

Kerri: "Hey. How about we not do Facebook or Twitter all weekend."

*face goes pale

Ugh. FINE.

So I didn't get on Facebook but I DID manage to sneak in 3 Tweets on Twitter (which were automatically posted to Facebook so I totally broke the deal, like, 30 seconds into it):



That said, I present to you some Tweets that WOULD have been made had I not agreed to the deal in the first place.

THE COMMUTE






The latter one really pisses me off because you see 'MOOSE CROSSING' signs EVERYWHERE and no effing moose. None. I saw a turkey with turkey babies, though. I guess maybe that counts.

THE HOTEL









THE MASSAGE

The hotel we stayed in had a spa. As a nice little touch, I booked Kerri and I a 'couples massage' for the night we arrived. Please note that I had never had a massage before. And probably won't ever again. They touch your feet. Gross.







SIGHTSEEING











Then we headed home and I picked up my kids who began annoying the shit out of me withing the first 3 minutes and I was wishing I was back up north checking out the sights and fake-pushing Kerri off of steep cliffs and continuing my search for mythical moose.

Come to think of it, maybe that's what was in the room upstairs thumping around.

Gordon Ramsey should look into that.

Sleeping with the Little Enemies

I went on vacation with my two kids over the summer and because I'm cheap I got a single hotel room with 2 double beds.

For the sake of keeping track, let's just call that "mistake #1."

Mistake #2 was assuming that I would actually be able to share a bed with one of my kids and get a good night's sleep because..well..let's just get into it.

Attempt #1

Since the kids previously tried and failed at sharing a bed, I split them up and then hopped into bed with my then 7-year old son, Cam.

My son, as awesome as he is, is very...how do you say...'clingy.'

As such, about an hour into trying to sleep I woke up completely covered in 7-year old like this:


Awesome.

Of course now I'm sweating and he's snoring and I have no place to move because I was too cheap to get a room with two Queens or something so I tried to push him away into the 6 inches of free space that was available as best I could and closed my eyes.

Ah.

(ten minutes later):


SONOFABITCH.

This isn't going to work.

Attempt #2

I looked over at my daughter sleeping in her own bed only a few feet away, got up, nudged her over a little bit, snuck next to her, closed my eyes and then prayed.

Yes. I prayed.

Why?

You see, my daughter has not slept through a single night completely in her life without screaming or yelling or just being awake in general so I was PRAYING that the events of the day would be enough to get her to conk out but..

..um..

No.

I awoke shortly after closing my eyes with...I don't know...this strange feeling.

So I opened my eyes, looked over, and saw this:


GAH.

My daughter, Payton, was wide awake. Sitting straight up in bed with her eyes wide open pretty much just freaking me the Hell out.

After my heart slowed down from being completely weirded out and I cleaned the shit out of my underwear, I poked her in the shoulder with my finger..

Me: "Um. Payt?"

Payton looked at me.

You now that line in Jaws where Quint is talking about a shark's eyes being like a dolls' eyes..just black..they don't appear to be livin'..

YES. LIKE THAT.

Then she casually turned around and laid back down and went to sleep.

Yeah. Not weird AT ALL.

So I turned over, closed my eyes YET AGAIN but a short time later I could feel something pressed up against the back of me AND MOTHER OF GOD PAYTON WILL YOU GET..OFf..of..

..um..


Yes.

Somehow in the middle of the night my daughter took it upon herself to construct the Great Wall of China out of hotel pillows and put said China wall between the two of us and it turns out that one of the pillows WAS THE ONE I WAS USING HOW DID SHE DO THAT?!

Feeling defeated and OMG IS IT REALLY ONLY 11:30 WTF I got up, took my pillow from the Great Wall of Downy Softness and plopped my ass down on the floor in between the beds.

And I slept.

Next time I get a room with 3 beds.

And extra pillows.

The Spider that Almost Cut a Bitch

I hate spiders.

Remember that line. There will be a quiz later.

Continue.

So this past summer I had the great idea of piling into a minivan with 6 other people (5 of them children) and driving 11 hours to Virginia where it was 107 degrees in the friggin shade for a "vacation."

Smart be me not best of my characteristics, yo.


The place we stayed in had a jacuzzi room right off the living room and master bedroom. The jacuzzi was basically monopolized by said children so by the time my girlfriend and I had time to actually get into the damn thing, we were too exhausted because we had been scolding/chasing/yelling at the kids since, like, 6 am each morning and OHMYGOD WILL YOU STOP TOUCHING YOUR SISTER YOU ARE MAKING HER SCREAM AND JESUS CHRIST YOU'RE 10 YEARS OLD GET YOUR OWN GODDAMN CEREAL.

So that was fun.


On our very last night, though, the GF and I managed to grab some beers and hop into the thing for a few minutes. We did what adults in a jacuzzi are supposed to do...which is watch our bathing suits fill up with bubbles and then squish them really fast and make giant bathing suit farts with them and then laugh uncontrollably because we're 8.

Good times. Good times.


After that fun was over, I climbed out of the thing and was about to step onto the floor when I saw it.

TARANTULA..ZILLA.

About two feet in front of me was a spider and it was not the run-of-the-mill Ruben Studdard Ninja spider that I wrote about before, NO.

This one was BIGGER.

OH. Remember that thing I mentioned earlier?

I hate spiders.

Give yourself 5 points if you remembered that little tidbit.

But this spider wasn't an ordinary spider, NO! This spider was wearing Nike Pumps and a track suit and I'm pretty sure had gold teeth and was curling a fairly large rock while kissing his 6 biceps one at a time.

Fine. So it wasn't EXACTLY a tarantula but it was, like, the size of a dinner plate as long as we're talking about dinner plates for Barbie.


So of course I did what anyone would do in this situation which was scream like a little bitch and immediately jump 6 feet into the air and back onto the jacuzzi.

Please note that in the picture above, my 'helpless girlfriend' is actually 'hysterically laughing girlfriend' because I'm basically running around with my vagina completely out.

Regardless, the sound of my high pitch yodeling apparently sent the spider into some sort of frenzy because I watched - in sheer horror - as he back-flipped and roundhouse-kicked his way over to the far wall and then just hung out as he lit up a Marlboro.

Not a Marlboro Light, either. In fact, it was probably an unfiltered Camel.


The timing was right as this spacing allowed me to run past him - and by run I mean OHMYGODOHMYGOD RUN RUN RUN LIKE THE WIND - and grab approximately 400 pieces of toilet paper in which to try to smush him if, you know, I could get the balls to actually try to do it.


After a few minutes of psyching myself up in the mirror and touching my nipples, I gathered my composure and came back into the room.

He bolted.

This spider movement, of course, prompted me to immediately piss myself.

Undaunted in killing this beast, however, I approached him..ignoring my own whimpers and trickling urine...as he moved toward the sliding glass door and went UNDER THE BLINDS ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME, GIANT SPIDER?! UNDER. THE. BLINDS?!?

I sense an ambush coming.

Not from me. HIM.


So I kind of barely touch the blinds to see where he is and BAM off goes that giant motherfucker running across the room with his 8 legs flailing like he's juggling flies and now my girlfriend is actually crying laughing hysterically at my ABSOLUTE TERROR but the joke is actually on her because I'm totally making her clean up the pile of shit I just dropped on the floor.

At this point I see, out of the corner of my eye, a second tool to use in my arsenal:

Beer bottle.

With 16 pounds of toilet paper in one hand and an empty bottle of Sam Adams Summer Ale in the other (the preceding is not a paid endorsement..sadly) I somehow manage the intestinal fortitude to leap at the spider and mash a giant wad of shit paper on it.

With it now covered in toilet paper with no obvious escape except to eat it's way out I begin beating that motherfucker with the beer bottle like he's Rodney King violating a traffic law.


After about ten minutes of this I stand back, amazed that this bottle is actually still in tact because, seriously, I was really hammering on that thing like I was trying to push it to China.

**************
Sidebar:

On a related note, if I was on a deserted island and could eat one food forever, I would choose beef teriyaki.

Sorry. The China thing made me think of teriyaki.

End sidebar.
**************


With extreme caution I flip the giant wad of mashed paper over fully expecting a scene out of Alien where it jumps up and attaches to my face but, nope...

DEAD.

*insert 5 minutes of Irish step-dancing here*

I then flushed the spider and the 6 trees it was wrapped in down the toilet.

Then I did it again..you know, just to be safe.

Maybe one more.

What if he's still there? Crawling up the pipes like a zombie spider seeking revenge?!

One more flush.

I flushed that mother four frigging times..just to be safe.

Then I used the other bathroom the rest of the night when I had to go.

Can never ever be too safe.

I hate spiders.

Not sure I mentioned that.

Bananas and Boobies and Equal Opportunity Cereals - A Vacation Pictorial

So I took my girlfriend and her two kids and my two kids and her babysitter to Virginia in a minivan and somehow managed not to kill myself although I really considered it about 437 times ESPECIALLY when my girlfriend's 2-year old was like this for 8 hours of each 11-hour car ride:

"I'M HOT!"
*piercing screams

"Mommy? Mom? Mommmeeee? Mom? Mommmmm?!"
"What?"
*silence

"I'M COLD!"
*piercing screams

"MY SHOE CAME OFF!"
*puts shoe back on
"NO I DON'T WANT MY SHOE ON!"

"Mommy? Mom? MOMMMMMMY?!?!"
"WHAT?!"
"WANT MY SHOE ON!"

Seriously. It's a miracle I didn't drive that van off a friggin' bridge.

Regardless, we went to a few amusement parks during the week in Virginia and I'm including some of the best pictures we took that pretty much sum up our trip.

Enjoy.

*****************
Holy Crap.


This was taken by my girlfriend at my request. She completes me.

And, sure it's inappropriate dress for an amusement park but, then again, WHO CARES.

*****************
Virginia is for lovers...and, apparently, people dressed like bananas.

Seriously. No idea wtf is going on with Virginia, but people were dressed in yellow EVERYWHERE.


Sexy.


I would actually like a pair of shorts like this because I'm sure they hide misfire pee stains pretty well.

Perhaps I've said too much.


I don't know if there was a sale on this outfit somewhere, but I can only hope they're sold out of it because, seriously ladies, it's ugly as fuck.

*******************
The Hell?

We went to Washington, DC for a day trip and upon entering The Smithsonian, got behind this:



Best I can tell this is some sort of personal head-mounted drill or a purple spiral staircase.

*******************
Even Naval Cereal Officers aren't immune to Affirmative Action

One morning I poured a bowl of Peanut Butter Crunch and saw this:



One little black Peanut Butter Crunch guy in a sea of regular Peanut Butter Crunch.

Made me homesick for New Hampshire a bit, to be honest with you.

*****************
HOLY HELL HOW DO YOU PEOPLE LIVE DOWN HERE?!

Taken from inside the terror van:

Fuuuuuuuck.

..prompting this Tweet:



God, so gross. I have no idea how people deal with that friggin heat.

Maybe wearing yellow helps.