Dude, are you all right? You don’t look so good. Your skin is pale and clammy. Seriously dude, you look like Ray Liotta from the last 30 minutes of Goodfellas.

Yeah, I know that there’s a bug going around, but this looks more serious to me. Beads of sweat are dropping from your chin and your eyes have gone gray. Dude, what’s going on? This is jacked up!

No, don’t avert your gaze and attempt to slip past me – you need immediate medical attention. I swear to God, I’ve never seen blood randomly start flowing from both nostrils like that. You look like you just got out of a medieval Turkish prison, except for the fact that you still have your hands and (presumably) testicles intact.

SICK! You just doubled over and vomited a live cobra, along with other miscellaneous contents of your stomach! This is medically unprecedented! You’re like C. Manohoran Snake Manu or something! Now the cobra slipped away into the underbrush, hissing and slithering like Whoopi Goldberg on meth!

No, I don’t know what that means either – it’s difficult to devise a satisfactory simile when I’m looking at a dude who pukes cobras.

I’ll be honest with you. I’m more than a little repulsed at the moment. I’ll probably have the vision of what that looked like stuck in my head for the rest of my life, and that thought alone makes me want to dip a shotgun muzzle in chili before putting it between my teeth and pulling the trigger. Everything is so terrible now.

Personal aside: I’ve been made aware that my pastor and my parents occasionally read my blog. I have no regrets.

The city of Minneapolis assessor’s office sent us a friendly note in the mail yesterday. The note had a picture of a sailboat on it! Also, it told us about how our home has dropped in value by nearly 30% since 2007.

I liked the sailboat part better.

Lots of helpful swear words sprang to mind as I read the letter. As my hands began to tremble and my skin turned purple with rage, it became clear that only one profanity was truly appropriate. Only one word was vile and objectionable enough to the accursed Minneapolis assessor that perhaps his heart might burst open the moment I shouted it.

FARKLE!

FARKLE is the risk-taking, dice rolling game that in no way resembles YAHTZEE! Dating back to the Renaissance, FARKLE was probably enjoyed by Galileo, and likely inspired his advanced theories on inertia and proof of a heliocentric universe. Shortly afterwards, FARKLE was ruled an abomination against the Blessed Virgin by the Catholic church.

FARKLE is fun for children, too!

Say FARKLE out loud! It will make the rainclouds run for cover and the Home Depreciation Trolls die of dysentery! Their diseased, bloody, mucus-riddled feces will slop down from the treetops in my neighborhood where they live! FARKLE, FARKLE, FARKLE!

Hey, housing market collapse! FARKLE you, right in your FARKLING face!

Listen up, friend. Just for you, I’ve got a clean, late-model cocker spaniel ready to move out for just $1,000.

Look, I know times are tough. I’m not going to lie to you and tell you that this cocker spaniel probably hasn’t been beaten with a belt to the point of near blindness. It’s probably been through hell. But I’ll tell it to you like it is – this is as good a cocker spaniel as you’re going to find in this hellhole of a neighborhood, and I’m willing to unload it today for only nine bills – $900, plus tax, title, and groper’s fee.

Still not convinced? Well, how about this? How about I personally let you in back to take a look at the dog? C’mon, let’s take a peek, shall we?

Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to keep the lights turned off. She don’t like the bright lights too much. If you turn ‘em on without warning her, she’ll piss all over the silk carpeting I had custom manufactured and installed in my garage for some reason.

So you’re totally uninterested in the cocker spaniel, huh? Anything I can do to sweeten the deal for you? Throw in a dead black lab? $15 in store credit redeemable once I open a proper store? This old VCR with a busted rewind button? No? Nothing?

Well, it appears we’re at a crossroads then. How’s about I slap you on the back a couple times and you can go about your business? I don’t want to hold up an important, spaniel-seeking man like yourself. After all, someone might throw a brick at the back of your head when you aren’t looking.

No, that wasn’t a threat, it was just an observation. The same thing might happen to me, for all I know. But seriously, it’s more likely to happen to you in about 30 seconds. Again, observation.

If you’re still in the market next weekend, swing by. A guy I know is dropping off a dumpster full of sheepdog parts I’d be willing to sell you.

China has handed down the death penalty to two men who ran workshops responsible for introducing melamine, an industrial chemical, into China’s milk supply (in an attempt to fool government protein tests). Six babies died and hundreds of thousands fell ill as a result of drinking chemically altered milk.

Both men will be forced to drink milk until they barf on each other. Then they will be shot.

Then their rotting milk-barf will be fed to their babies.

In other news, all of China’s problems are solved now.

This morning, as I gazed admiringly at my body in our bedroom’s full-length mirror I happened to overhear a commercial for a new Aveeno skin product. Being the rapacious lotion-hound that I am, my ears perked up as I surveyed their new wares.

Over footage of smooth, bronzed, lithe legs not unlike my own, the voiceover intoned that Aveeno’s new moisturizing lotion featured “soothing oatmeal essence”.

Uh, what?

Not quite sure if I heard correctly, I listened on as the commercial cited Aveeno’s patented “triple oat formula”. Oats? That’s what we’re hanging this ad campaign on – oats? Is this an Amish product or something?

You know something I’ve never thought? “Hey, you know what has really great, healthy skin? Horses. What do horses eat, anyway?”

Having said that, if Aveeno could somehow hook me up with a pair of massive, dripping horse nostrils, I’d be much obliged.

I’m wearing a green sweater today. I’m not sure about this green sweater. I feel like it makes me look like Brett Favre, except taller and less petulant.

Why did I put a green sweater on this morning? It was just a whim, I suppose. I saw it sitting there, so I took it. In this way, I am like a miscreant teen stealing a Milky Way from a local convenience mart before being gunned down from behind by a vigilante mob hell-bent for justice. The not-yet-sated mob then severs the teen’s head and skewers it atop a pike placed at the convenience mart’s entrance as a warning to all Milky Way-craving ne’er-do-wells who might enter. (This story takes place in Sierra Leone.)

Anyway, back to my green sweater. I’d take it off, except that I’m not wearing anything underneath, and topless teaching is frowned upon these days in our litigious society. I guess my only option is to continue wearing the clothes I dressed myself in this morning. To look at my pitiful condition one would think I were a medieval Russian serf left to choose between a life of tilling barren, dusty soil, or being violated by unwashed Cossacks.

Stupid green sweater. Barack Obama had better do something about this.