America loves Michael Phelps!

He won 8 gold medals! He won his races by a combined 1/100th of a second! He has nearly exposed his pubic region to millions of adoring viewers on multiple occasions!

And now, he must marry Sasha Cohen.

Think of the greater good that would be brought unto the greater number of people by their gloriously unholy union. Those two could swim, skate, dance, and crabwalk circles around the rest of us while we would lift up their names in song and kneel before their graven images.

Think of how many Americans would pay premium money for a pay-per-view event televising a night of their precise, patriotic procreation! Their union would be the marital incarnation of America’s manifest destiny, and the world would bow in subjugation!

Barack Obama, let’s make this happen!

The stinky men with the stringy mullets came to our house!

They made our sun room all dusty and banged on things. Then they installed new windows!

The one with the leathery skin and chewing tobacco did most of the work. He used loud machines to cut things and put them in our walls. Then he increased the energy efficiency of our sun room many times over by installing glorious windows that do not facilitate easy entry by teens wearing oversized white t-shirts and black do-rags!

We did not have to pay for these new windows - the cost was covered by our insurance company. They compensated us after we were robbed. The police let the boys go. Now they spend their days loitering outside a house on our block where marijuana is being grown in the basement. On an unrelated note, I’m glad that Minneapolis mayor R.T. Rybak is holding press conferences to announce that the city is spending $500,000 on designer water fountains.

Our new windows are the best! Thanks, dirty window installation men!

I am a man, mightier than any since Cain smote his brother!

This weekend, I built a fence for our backyard. It is a white picket PVC fence that would cause Tom Sawyer to defile himself with its beauty.

Behold!

Did you just defecate yourselves with envy? Do you need to pause to find appropriate cleaning supplies in order to salvage the chair you are sitting in? Is your poop permanently ground into the fabric due to the sheer shocked velocity with which it exited your anus? Yeah, I thought so. It’s my new fence. Believe it.

I was aided in this fence’s construction by my soft-spoken father, and my oft-speaking father-in-law. Watching them together was something akin to an Abbott and Costello routine. Meanwhile, I dug holes with the strength of Sampson, the hair of Absolom, and the wisdom of Kissinger. Today, my arm muscles are weary and fatigued with overuse, and my brain-muscle is strained from thinking about digging. I fear I am as useless as an iPod in the palm of a thumbless Amish man.

The pain in my upper extremities is great on this day, my friends. With each excruciating keystroke, I bring my body closer to the brink of utter oblivion. Like Lance Armstrong pedaling up the slopes of Mount Everest, I punish my body for the glory of something greater – in this case, another entry in a middling blog to be read and instantly forgotten by several hundred people. It is a cause that makes the life of Abraham Lincoln look like a weak-chinned SuperAmerica employee.

Also I did the dishes.

While our car remains out of commission (more on that tomorrow), Bridgette and I continue to enjoy the cozy, golden confines of our rental 2008 Hyundai Elantra. With its beige interior serving as our moral and ethical center, the car has strengthened and comforted us during this time of trial. It is the Atticus Finch of cars.

The hidden secret to this vehicle (which I will henceforth refer to as Pepper) is the button on its formidable dashboard labeled “XM”. That’s right, my friends, Pepper comes equipped with XM Satellite Radio, the most coveted item in the western world since the exotic spices that Vasco da Gama rounded Africa and mutilated the lesser peoples of the earth for.

Now, as you know, Bridgette and I are not curious, risk-taking people by nature. It is not our style to spend money on exploratory endeavors or change radio stations once we have found one to our liking. For this reason, Pepper’s radio has been tuned to XM channel 23 (The Heart) for a week and a half. All love songs, all the time (not unlike our local Love 105). Whether it’s Foreigner’s “I Want to Know What Love Is”, or Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart”, the Heart plays songs that are bombastic and familiar, like Sean Hannity.

Perhaps most impressively, on XM 23 (The Heart), Bryan Adams and Phil Collins never really went away. Listen for any 30 minutes at a time, and you’re going to be greeted with the epic strains of “Please Forgive Me”, “Hold On My Heart”, “Everything I Do (I Do It For You)”, or “One More Night”. It’s almost as if the musical zenith these two creative giants reached in the late 80s and early 90s was never shat upon by the likes the Nirvana, Radiohead, and the 90s ass bands. The Heart is an alternate pop cultural history, where Bryan Adams and Phil Collins proudly stand at the right side of Elvis and the Beatles on the Throne of Musical Genius.

Also, they play a lot of Peter Cetera.

I’m at my parents house right now. I am relaxed and drinking from a can of Coca-Cola, a carbonated beverage of some repute.

In what is believed to be the greatest development in human history since the invention of books about Abraham Lincoln, AMC is showing the 1985 smash hit Teen Wolf.

In case you’re unfamiliar with it, this feature film is loaded with Stiles’ welcome comedic mugging, Michael J. Fox’s utterly inept basketball dribbling, and this scene - perhaps the greatest expression of teenage angst and vulnerability ever captured:

Best morning ever.

Have you guys ever tried Potato Olés® from Taco John’s?

Holy crap you guys. Seriously, holy crap.

These tender, crispy, grease-flaked potato-cakes summon heretofore unknown quantities of passion and longing from the depths of my soul. I love my wife, and I worship Jesus Christ, but I yearn for Potato Olés®.

If you get them, you should dip them in the warm, tangy nacho cheese they so generously provide for a mere 75 cents extra. It will rip your tongue in half with taste-ecstacy.

The other day, Jim’s blog featured an interesting recap of some famous a priori philosophical proofs for the existence of God. This morning, I would like to offer up some logic that would make St. Anselm of Canterbury incontinent with envy.

1. Potato Olés® exist.
2. Therefore, God exists.

Someday, I would like to meet this Taco John and thank him for sharing his bounty of Potato Olés® with the rest of us. All of the earth rises up in anxious rejoicing of the succulent potato-orgy contained in each mini-tub of his savory, glistening flavor-drops.

And they’re only 620 calories per serving!