A student of mine recently made a trip to Japan with his family, and he brought back a gift for me – the newest issue of Japan’s favorite business and pop culture magazine, Big Tomorrow.

I’ll tell you, perusing this periodical was a remorse-riddled exercise in cultural malaise. Obviously, the thing was going to be confusing – it’s in Japanese, after all, but the sheer strangeness of it all is what struck me.

Take for instance, this ad for Microsoft Windows Vista from the back page:

Yours is emotion. What in the hell does that mean? That’s probably the single most cryptic advertisement I’ve ever seen. Why not just go ahead and print up, “Microsoft Vista: The Truth is Not In You”?

Here are a few other phrases from the magazine I found, with the help of Google’s translator tool:

“Party boss is in favor of lifetime employment and active! The job is negatively – Embarrassing the boss now “

If the party boss is active and in favor of lifetime employment, why would you embarass the boss now? Doesn’t that strike you as counter-productive? Japan makes no sense to me.

Brazil No.1 best-selling author:
“Recipe for happiness in mind to become a success in the Russian. Have the kindness of heart failure even to enjoy the creativity!”

Any recipe for happiness that involves Russians is a complete and utter fraud as far as I’m concerned. Having said that, “the kindness of heart failure” is a phrase that does have its merits.

What’s important is, for now, to lament the past. Does not begin to say that they fear the future. If you concentrate on the front of the eyes they will also be able to accept?

Dear Lord, is Friedrich Neitzsche the managing editor of this thing? The closer I get to understanding this, the worse I feel…

Despite all this, have a wonderful day everybody, filled with the kindness of heart failure!

Hey, what’s up with the ancient Olmecs of Central America?

Why’d they leave behind a landscape littered with mysterious colossal heads? Why did they flourish for a thousand years until 400 BC? Why didn’t they invent the wheel? Everything just seems so confusing!

All these questions and more will be answered unto you if you subscribe to Uncle Pete’s Summertime History Sass – a new educational program that helps “fill in the gaps” left behind by most public school systems. Here’s how it works:

1) Next time you see me, give me $600 cash.
2) I will answer three (and only three) questions about the ancient Olmecs.
3) I will slap you on the back and jostle you good-naturedly.
4) OPTIONAL: Go back to number 1 and start again.

Sounds great, doesn’t it? What’s more, if you approach me in the next 24 hours, I will tell you about the ritualistic bloodletting practices of the Olmecs for no additional fee! That’s a $400 value, free to you if you find me before 8am tomorrow! You won’t find that in home school!

Approach me today! I’ll be hanging out near the dumpster behind the Wendy’s on Lowry Avenue!

P.S. I am on crack.

Hey, look!

What a peculiar photograph! This whispy-haired gent is wearing a fanciful sash and holding a feather picked specially for you! What is the significance of this? Could it be some message to you from the distant past, like Doc Brown’s letter to Marty at the end of Back to the Future, Part II? What could the startled, slightly unnerved look in this man’s eye be? Perhaps he had just been told about America’s purchase of Alaska?

I suppose this man, whoever he was, is dead by now. I wonder what he died from? AIDS? Some sort of feather-related fatality? Whatever the cause, I’m sure this guy had it coming. I mean, look at that mustache! I’ll bet St. Pete took one look at this fellow’s mustache and sent him straight to hell. That’s justice the way it should be – fast, arbitrary, and irreversable.

We’re having a boy!

Bridgette and I had our ultrasound yesterday, and it was most pleasing. The lady-technician pointed at a blurry gray blob on her monitor and told us it was a penis. Straining our eyes, we nodded vaguely and smiled at the news. I suppose she would know – she’s the expert. For all I could tell, we were watching grainy home video of a Siberian nightscape.

On the way out of the door, I decided to try and take advantage of my wife’s beaming good spirits. Unfortunately, Bridgette immediately rejected my Neverending Story triumvirate of boy names: Bastian, Atreyu, and Falcor. This dampened my enthusiasm significantly.

I’ll leave you with this – one scientist’s bold prediction as to my son’s eventual appearance:

That’s science!

The dandelions came back again, again!

Those golden-faced, nutrient-sucking bastards…

Somehow, the dandelions in my lawn have survived more direct toxin squirts than Wilford Brimley’s toilet bowl. By now, most of them look wriggled and weak, but still they return with the sunlight and gobble up my soil’s goodness from the lush, green grass I so cravenly desire. I’ve tried everything I know – poisoning them, uprooting them, yelling the worst swear words I know at them (even the really bad ones that my cousin Steve thought of). Nothing seems to get rid of those little yellow sons of bitches.

I suppose it’s time for me to admit defeat, like the Japanese military leaders after the fiery deaths of tens of thousands of its loyal citizens. As far as I can tell, my situation exactly parallels theirs.

So, tonight I will go home and kneel in subservience to my new dandelion rulers. Unable to imagine living under the oppressive dictat of the dandelion, I will begin to eat the dandelions one by one until my internal organs start to fail. After swallowing several dozen dandelions, the one-peaceful vision of my yard will begin to spin and distort unnaturally. Still, I will continue to pop dandelion heads in my mouth like they were Werther’s Originals. Barking my despairing, disoriented final words to startled passersby, I will then collapse face down on my lawn. With my final ounce of strength, I will vomit forth a vile, milky resin that will soak into the earth and destroy the dandelions from below, like Satan pulling them back to hell.

If you’re worried about this blog, I shall hand over control of it to one of my 7th grade geography students. You likely won’t notice a difference in content or quality.

I sit here in a darkened room sullenly typing this Monday morning message for a multitude of miserly misanthropes. With a dour expression on my face, I silently consume a heaping bowl of Froot Loops; their bright, sugary tang an unwelcomed counterpoint to my dreary spirit.

Undaunted, I heap one spoonful after another into my acne-ridden, expressionless face.

Setting aside the bowl of children’s cereal so grotesquely inappropriate for me, a man of 30 years, I now turn to the issue of my blog. My hatred of blogs is severe, and this blog is no exception. It is clear to me that 99% of blogs are a vapid, clumsily-worded expression of the utter awfulness of the human plight. Ironically, I am compelled to submit myself to the haunted writhings of the barking blog-trolls thrice weekly, like a bum’s diseased dog returning to said bum’s vomit.

With my lips parted and my eyes drooped, I rotely type up 150 words on a meaningless topic before hitting the “Publish” button. I do not bother to proofread the day’s entry. To do so would be more dreary than the act of blogging itself, and I’ve got to brush my teeth, another doleful deed that I disdain.

I hope this post made you hate me.

J/K!

TTYL!