Return, my estranged readers! Gather round for an opulent supper feast!

A fourteen course meal indulging every perverse, insatiable lusting of your craven flesh has been prepared! Seat yourselves around my table and prepare yourselves. Make certain that the waistbands of your pants are fashioned from the finest elastic, because the gratification we are about to partake in will be an affront to the natural order!

My servants, dressed uniformily in indigo silk gilded with pearls and shoes of the pointy-toed variety will now parade before us the dishes of our imminent feast. Salted cod! Wild boar slowly roasted over a flaming spit! Iberian peacock boiled in cherry preserves and stuffed with rose petals! Cheese quesadillas!

Now my dancers will gyrate about us as we lift high our goblets of reasonably-priced red wine! Imbibe deeply, my readers! See how my dancers are plumpened slightly, according to midcentury fashion. See how they undulate their hips toward you in a sensuous manner while maintaining a professionally provacative eye contact. All this according to my instruction, and aimed toward your pleasure!

Let us conclude our evening by watching the Detroit Pistons battle the Orlando Magic in a relatively meaningless Eastern Conference matchup! My team of technically-proficient eunuchs will prepare the home theater system! 5.1 Surround Sound for all!

Lean back, my supplicants, and savor the pleasures I have brought you tonight. I have lavished you with the luxurious indulgences of the Orient at great personal expense. No doubt these fleeting moments are the greatest you will ever experience. Never forget that it was I who brought them to you. Without my generosity, you would be desperately sucking the marrow from the bones of stray dogs.

Now, who will accompany me and the cats to my silken-pillowed bedchamber for dessert?

Yesterday, in the company of my two brothers, we spent considerable time playing historical trivia games (via the excellent sporcle.com), as brothers and dorks are wont to do.

My assigned challenge was to name all 44 U.S. presidents from memory. I accepted the task with a messy clearing of my throat and a gutteral summoning of my knowledge from the most depraved recesses of my mind. I was called upon to name the 44 men who have led this country, from the brave (Washington) to the bumbling (Ford), from the dandies (Buchanon) to the slobs (Taylor), from the great (T.R.) to the “like Hitler if you think about it” (Bush 43/Obama/Whoever Is President Next).

Like a machine, I began rattling off names like an patriotic auctioneer on speedballs. “Lincoln, both Johnsons, Pierce, Adams…” The names of perhaps 35 came to me as easily the secret code for infinite lives in Contra. After a minute or two, my pace began to slow as I labored through the obscure, ineffectual presidents like gray Ben Harrison and fat Chet Arthur. In the end, when the buzzer went off, I had named 43 of our 44 presidents. A valient effort indeed, but ultimately a failure, like Woodrow Wilson’s attempt to smile once in 1917.

The president I missed – none other than the spectacularly mutton-chopped Martin Van Buren.

How could I have forgotten poor Martin? He, of course, was cursed to follow Andrew Jackson, in that his lukewarm personality paled next to Jackson’s, and more significantly the fact that Jackson’s economic policies (namely dismantling the Bank of the U.S.) led to economic ruin in the Panic of 1837, thus crippling his successor’s presidency. It’s as obvious and relevant as the pulsating, oily blemishes that cover my fat face! I can’t believe I forgot Van Buren’s loveless marriage with his cousin, predating FDR’s more famous loveless marriage with his cousin by over a century! How could this have happened? Only a drooling imbecile wouldn’t immediately recall the presidency of Martin Van Buren!

Long story short, I’ve written a lengthy letter to the procurators of the Van Buren estate explaining the situation to them and extending my profuse, profane apologies. It is my hope that they will respond by sending me a lock of his hair and a t-shirt.

Sorry, dear Martin Van Buren. If you’re reading this from your cage in hell, please forgive me.

Look out, Halloween is right around the corner!

In eager expectation of this accursed eve, lanterns have been lit, skulls have been hung, and goats have been violated in the seasonal aisles of Wal-Mart by unenthusiastic employees!

Before we know it, we’ll be inundated with legions of children dressed as hobgoblins and deep sea fishermen with Hepatitis B. Bowls of bite-sized Milky Ways will be tossed in the air to attract feeble-minded passersby as homeless men thrust their pelvises and bellow haggard barks of satisfaction. All will be made right when the clock strikes midnight and the world vomits in unison with unbridled Satanic glee. Halloween is upon us!

Draw nearer to me, my pig! Feel the hot lickspittle from my lips sting your face! Smell the stale blast of cottage cheese on my breath as I hold you down and shout Halloween-related tidings at you!

Halloween is almost here! Mount the celebration device and let us begin!

Bridgette and I spent our Saturday at the hospital attending an all-day birthing seminar. It was pretty good stuff; we got lots of helpful information, watched some eyebrow-raising videos, and breathed in strange new ways. On the way out, I grabbed a pamphlet filled with information on parenting complete with helpful illustrations.

Since I believe in the free exchange of inaccurate information, I will now use the forum of my blog to impart my newfound wisdom to you, the gape-mouthed masses.

PARENTING AND YOU
A Journey Into The Infinite

Senior Prom is undoubtedly an exciting time in a young person’s life. If one isn’t careful, however, the prom experience might end with the greatest awkwardness of all – the birth of a human child. Take preventative steps by limiting yourself to one slow dance.

The 5-minute wait for the results from your pregnancy test can be a real drag. Try passing the time with a handheld Yahtzee game or by pinpointing the precise moment your life went awry.

Pregnant? Congratulations, you have preserved a trace of your genetic seed! As a man, the next 9 months will represent a challenging balancing act for you. Your partner will be suffering tremendously as your squirmy little offspring gestates inside her. Your role is to encourage her, support her, and tell her that she must immediately continue respackling the nursery ceiling if it’s going to get finished in time for the baby.

The birth of a child is a mostly unremarkable event of which little is known. However, once you and your partner have been discharged from the hospital, it is traditional for the new mother to give a horsey back ride to a sister or close female friend.

Ready or not, you’re a new parent! Understandably, there will be a period of adjustment as you and your partner figure out how to fill your taxing new roles. As such, be ready to be patient with your wife if you return home from work to find your pot roast not yet fully prepared.

*blink* It’s over! Your children are raised and have moved out of your house! Now all that remains is for you and your partner to hobble through the remainder of your days paying for their college education until your life functions are terminated by the state. Who says empty nesters can’t have fun?

We had a new friend this weekend! A bat came to live in our kitchen window!

I named him Mr. Pinches, after the way he somehow managed to trap himself between the two panes of our kitchen window. That’s where we found him on Saturday, wriggling away like a tiny, leathery-winged bum in withdrawl.

I have absolutely no idea how Mr. Pinches got trapped between the two panes of our kitchen window, but trust me, I found it thoroughly amusing.

My sister-in-law (she of the animal-loving, being-bitten-by-monkeys ilk) continued to exercise her death wish by opening the inside half of window in an attempt to coax Mr. Pinches out of his glass captivity. Fortunately, she was quickly shouted down by her sister and I, as we were somewhat less eager to welcome Mr. Pinches into the comfortable confines of our home.

Mr. Pinches made his escape sometime Sunday evening, presumably to be devoured whole by a bald eagle. Our kitchen window is a lot less evil looking today, being that there’s no longer a writhing bat right in the middle of it. A part of me misses Mr. Pinches. However, another part of me spent 40 minutes smearing Purell across our window and cursing him.

Anyway, my point is that finding a bat caught in your window is like getting a fresh pumpkin pie from Satan.

Welcome back, Jeffrey and others! Today, the JLP salutes goiters!

Goiters, otherwise known as a massive, disgusting enlargement of the thyroid gland, have long been a source of horror and amusement to all non-goiter sufferers. Thick and lumpy, goiters make it look as though the afflicted got drunk and decided to swallow a softball or two. In fact, this is not what causes goiter. According to the Mayo Clinic, goiter is most often caused by an iodine deficiency or Grave’s Disease. I will simply disregard this information and continue to believe my softball-swallowing theory.

In the 1890s, goiters were often lanced and re-sold as squeezable stress balls. That is an indisputable fact.

Check out this gentleman:

Man, that guy’s got beoucoups goiters! I bet he’s playing a song he wrote called “Neckties Don’t Fit Me No More”. I note with some suprise the fact that he is married. His wife must be a special gal if she’s able to look past his appearance. Compared to this softball-swallowing bastard, George Lucas’s neck actually looks human. You know how it goes though – guys who play guitar get all the chicks.

Stay tuned tomorrow for another installment of the JLP’s Humorous Disease Week!