Sex and romance are a young man’s game. Give me the sweet smell of a delicious BLT any day. This genius has concocted candles that smell like bacon, lettuce and tomatoes. I’ll take a full set, and I know a guy who’ll take a case of the bacon. Also, check out the bacon air freshener and the bacon soap. Yes, bacon soap. And you thought you couldn’t get me out of the shower before.

Drove very far O.T.P. to see the very funny Todd Barry last night. Too tired to describe the low-rent Dave & Busteresque venue. I will mention two hyphenated words: Go-Karts. Perhaps I will opine on it later. Can’t talk now. Have to make the surreal combination of oranges and hillbilly healthcare “compelling.”

I’m not sure what this freaky flash thing is, but it’s oddly hypnotic. If she gets stuck, you can move her with your mouse.

So Gary Trudeau has riled America’s heartland again. Papers all across the country either dropped or edited Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s Doonesbury strip because it used the President’s acknowledged nickname for Karl Rove: “Turd Blossom.”

Does the White House have any idea that Bush’s approval rating would jump 20 points overnight if people knew he referred to members of his inner cabal like the fraternity members they really are? Just imagine what that place is like on Saturday night. Cheney and Bush standing around in togas, giving Ari Fleisher wedgies for being a “funny Jew” and passing Condi around like a doobie.

Tenacious D is making a movie. I don’t know what it’s about, and from the looks of the teaser, neither do they. But that’s ok. I’ll still buy the soundtrack.

So the Burger King Coq Roq site was up 24 hours before it got in trouble. Well, actually, that’s not true. They changed some things after the launch, including taking down the picture of the hot chicks with the caption “Groupies love the coq.” But they’re saying nobody complained, they were just “tweaking.” Of course, that didn’t stop people from complaining. Weird how that works, huh?

After Crispin self edited their coqtastic double entendres, Ad Age managed to find a bunch of “experts” to lambaste the site.

“Just the name Coq Roq in general is offensive to families,” said Aliza Pilar Sherman, an authority and author on women and the Internet and founder of cybergrrl. “I can’t imagine if parents of a smaller child saw this… Of course there’s freedom of speech but does that mean Burger King should be perpetuating stereotypes, negative attitudes and demeaning behavior to the market?”

Isn’t the bigger question, “Should anybody make chicken strips shaped like french fries?” Frankly, between you and me, it needs to be a lot more demeaning than that to interest me in Chicken Fries.

The fact they adjusted the site indicates “they’re crossing the line and they know it in some sense,” said Pat McGann, director of outreach for Men Can Stop Rape, a group that works with young men to foster healthy relationships with women. He called the entire site an example of material that confuses men about what it means to be a man.

Now, I’m not sure if he’s saying the site confuses men into the patently false notion that girls are attracted to rock musicians, or the universal truth that men need to dress like HR Giger chickens to get laid, but the fact that he’s even talking at all implies Burger King supports non-consensual sex. Which I think we all already knew. Duh, thanks for the news flash, Ad Age.

Very impressive. Emory landed Adam Arkin for its very nice looking TV spots. Gee, why didn’t I think of that for Rockdale Hospital? Oh, that’s right. They couldn’t afford Gary Burghoff.

Kowtowing to insulted burger flippers and used car salespeople has resulted in scuttling a public service campaign designed to get people to go back to school and get their GED’s. Once again, the good of a few has outweighed the good of the many, at the cost of us all. Way to go, Oprah. I hope you’re happy for turning us into a nation of crybabies. Have we learned nothing from Wrath of Khan?

*I can say that because I’m clinically obese.

I’m not exactly sure I understand how this works, but those nutty Japanese have figured out how to splash ads all over people like raindrops from the sky. In other news: Totes introduces new “Spam-Blocker Umbrellas.”

Sadly, one more option for lonely hearts has been crushed before it even had a chance to bloom. The Wal-Mart home office halts ‘Singles Shopping’ events in its Roanoke, Va. store. I guess my road trip is off. As is that herpes outbreak I was looking forward to. Always low expectations. Always.

So Burger King is now selling Chicken Fries. Little chicken strips shaped and served like french fries. In what I suspect is an effort to piss off Stephen even more than they already have, Crispin’s campaign seems to be some sort of rock and/or roll inspired bit of shenanagry involving musicians wearing chicken masks, asking us to “bob our heads.” The band is called “coq roq.” Yes, “coq roq.” The website, www.coqroq.com, as of this posting, looks to still be in beta.

UPDATE: It’s up. And it’s a doozy.

I got in a little debate the other night about whether Paul Harvey was still alive. Turns out, he’s not only still alive and broadcasting his News every day, his Comments are getting him in trouble. He said some things recently that people are taking as an endorsement of slavery and genocide. Click here for The Rest of the Story. Ha! I crack myself up.

I finally saw War of the Worlds, and it was pretty much the rollercoaster I expected. It was sort of refreshing seeing Dakota Fanning play against type, i.e. like an actual child, but not so refreshing when you factor in the fact that actual children make me want to go on a smothering spree. The only thing more annoying than the constantly screaming little girl was the over-the-top “moody teenage son.” Why does every dramatic character arc in a popcorn blockbuster have to be the “parent trying to re-connect with their kid” no matter what the story is? Does every person in Hollywood have paralyzing abandonment issues? I hate kids. I can’t relate to them. I couldn’t relate to them when I was a kid. I definitely can’t relate to them now. I have no use for them in movies. And the movies either portray them as wise and/or wisecracking little Yodas or totally helpless blobs of innocence in peril. Either entirely unrealistic or entirely unsympathetic. To me, anyway. They’re nothing but plot devices used to tug at the heartstrings of parents who coddle their tiny monsters and perpetuate the chronic undeserved entitlement that will see the world dominated by the Chinese well within our lifetimes. I just hope I live long enough to see the dim lights go on in the eyes of my generation’s offspring when they realize the best they’ll ever amount to is selling Taco Supremes® to Taiwanese tourists hoping to catch a glimpse of “big American cowboy bang bang.” Spielberg did some cool things, like the 9/11 parallels, but he had a chance to really show the consequences of the monumental douchebagitude of today’s youth, and he pusses out big time at the end. If you’ve seen it, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

And if Tim Robbins starts to look any more like Jerry Cronin after an all-night Yalumba bender, I’m seriously going to start writing a screenplay about a Creative Director who saves the world and his adorable moppet with half a sandwich on his face.

Just in case you missed it, kudos go out to Monkey Satan for finding this brilliantly named flash game. It reminds me of the time a guy I know snuck “Donkey Punch” into a BellSouth radio spot.

I used to have a kick ass lawnmower. I bought it shortly after I bought the house. Sort of a housewarming present to myself. Gosh, it sure was exciting. I had a lawn, so I needed a lawnmower. Well, a few years went by, and, let’s just say lawnmower maintenance wasn’t really at the top of my priority list. Since I only used it once every three weeks three months out of the year, and my lawn is about the size of a very large Oriental rug, I didn’t think I was really putting that much mileage on it.

Well, I went to start her up a while back, and no go. It probably only needed a new spark plug or an oil change or new rotors or something, but that’s not really my bag. Plus, I thought I’d help out the neighborhood economy by taking it over to the little small engine repair shop on Memorial. I dropped it off, they gave me a little claim check and said it would take about 2 weeks, and they’d call me when it was ready. 4 weeks go by. Let’s be honest, I wasn’t exactly in a hurry to get my lawnmower back. It’s not like I was waiting on the big screen TV to get fixed. I stopped by on the way home a few weeks ago to check.

“Hey there mister boss man.”

“Uh, yeah, I wanted to check on my lawnmower.”

“Yes sir, mister boss man.”

…

“Can’t find it, mister boss man.”

“Uh, what?”

“What’s it look like, mister boss man?”

“Like a lawnmower.”

…

“You’ll have to come back when the boss man is here.”

“I’m right here.”

After the Abbott & Costello meets Moms Mabley routine finished I established that they “lost” my lawnmower. I’ve been back three times now to talk to the boss man that isn’t me, but oddly, he’s never there. Every time I go, the same guy takes my ticket, wanders along the parking lot that looks like a Snapper grave yard, and returns puzzled that he can’t find it, and recommends I come back when the boss man is there. I know it’s not there. I know I’m never going to get my lawnmower back. I know there will never be an attempt to recover my lawnmower and I will not be compensated in any way for its loss. But I will keep going back. Because that is what I do. My windmill has a Briggs & Stratton engine.

If you’ve stopped wetting yourself with fear, and can’t wait for the new season of Harvey Birdman to start, get your fix by dialing 1-877-MANBIRD. One call, that’s all.

I had a nice evening of wings and beers with my web ninja. His kung fu is very strong. And maybe I had a few too many beers. Maybe I’ll be a little late for that morning meeting. He tells me the blog is really taking off. Sort of. Right now, the number one search phrase for people who end up here at Pull My Finger – “Chinese Gang Bang.”

In an effort to help boost traffic, I’d like to add – naked Britney Spears, penis enlargement, X-Men, John Roberts, Steve Jobs is a douche, Anna Kournakova, hot sexy Playstation 3.

I got beat to the whole “Guy sexed to death by a horse” thing. I saw it the other day, and I was gonna do a whole riff on English v. Western, but I thought it a bit gauche. But I got a better one. And by “better” I mean “literally more nausea inducing.” Now, I admit, I’ve hid in a few closets before, but I never submerged myself in an outhouse to get a better view of the moon.

So it was another Wednesday night of trivia, spent with three women I’ve no business being seen in public with. And Rob, who is also too cute for me. And whenever you get single girls together, inevitably, the only thing they like talking about more than how much men suck is how badly they want to get married to one. The topic of proposals came up, as one of the G.L.O.T.’s was expecting her boyfriend to pop sometime soon.

G.L.O.T. 1: What if he just rolled over in bed one night and said, “Hey, let’s get married.” Wouldn’t that be awful?

G.L.O.T. 2: Oh, he’d never do that. He knows better.

Well, I guess I do too. Now. I’m not quite sure what the problem with that is, though. It was suggested that marriages begun thusly ended in divorce, but the provided evidence, i.e. that one friend she had, seemed to be a little statistically insignificant. Now, maybe it’s just me, but that’s pretty much the only time it ever occurs to me to do it. I mean, I thought love and romance were supposed to be spontaneous. But no, apparently it’s supposed to be etched on the side of Stone Mountain with lasers while you drift by in a hot air balloon with Celine Dion serenading you with the theme from Beauty and The Beast.

I bought a ring for a girl once. I spent three weeks staring at it and ended up breaking out in hives every time I picked it up. At the time I thought it was because I didn’t actually want to get married. But now I think maybe it was just because I didn’t have a good proposal worked out.

The flip side of course is the time I accidentally proposed. I was in the car with a girlfriend on the way back from a friend’s wedding. During the course of the conversation I asked her if she wanted to get married. You know, like, do you want to get married to somebody at some time in your life, hypothetically. I initially took her hyperventilating as a perfectly reasonable response to the general concept of marriage. But, as it turns out, I’d asked her to marry me. That was a long drive home, let me tell you.

We came in second at trivia, incidentally. We lost to a table of lesbians. I wish they could get married. At least we’d have someone to show us how to propose right.

So apparently, the insurgents in Iraq are just like those dumb ass hillbillies who do drive-by’s with paintball guns. Except, they aren’t paintball guns. And the guys they shoot at have machine guns and kevlar. Just watch, and listen to, the video.

So I checked out the new Barnes & Noble here at the Edgewood Shopping District ghetto reclamation center, and guess what they’ve got in there. A Starbucks. Just like in the Target on the other side of the parking lot. And just like in the Kroger across the parking lot. I was kind of hoping there’d be one in my car when I went back to it. I haven’t been to the Lowe’s or the Vitamin Shoppe yet, but so far they’re 3 for 3. If they want, they can put one on my porch and keep the hoboes jacked up on a whole new kind of flavor crystals.

Me not understand how this be not unpossible.

A Japanese guy has memorized and recited pi to 83,431 decimal places. That’s like, I don’t know, several phone numbers in a row. Crazy.

There was a kid in high school who knew pi to 20 places. I hated that guy.

Well, that was fun. A new semester started at the old tramapoline school, and I’ve got another bunch of 23-year-old heartbreakers. I’ve gotten plenty of dumb classes, but can’t ever seem to get an ugly one. I’m pretty sure the registrar thinks she’s doing me a favor, but she couldn’t be more wrong.

So I walked in tonight and one sassy sass face was all, “Hey, do people ever say you look like someone famous?” And I was ready for my usual Jay Sherman comparison that always makes me feel so good about myself. But I got an even better one. “That guy in The Princess Bride who says ‘inconceivable’! You look just like him!” Then, as the softball-sized black pearl of bile in my stomach gained what will now be known as the Wallace Shawn Memorial Layer of Self-Loathing, another girl apparently felt pity on me and was kind enough to pipe up with, “Or that guy from Sideways, only not as hot.” Not as hot as Pig-Vomit. Nice. I’m assuming the one that suggested Christopher Lowell knows she’s getting an F.

That’s what I love about these advertising school girls, man. I get more repellent, they stay just as cruel.

I miss the days when I was 19 and people thought I looked like Mr. Walsh from 90210. At least he had Cindy. I think I may just shave the burns and go straight to Danny DeVito.

I’m not sure how I feel about this. The International House of Pancakes is now serving funnel cakes as a breakfast side dish. I’m all for funnel cakes. I love funnel cakes. But with jelled fruit and creamy whipped topping next to my bacon, ham, sausage and eggs? They’re calling it ”Funnel Cake Carnival”, which is appropriate since most IHOP patrons look like carnies.

And p.s. I do remember what fun tasted like, and it sure wasn’t funnel cakes. Thank God. I can’t even imagine how screwed up/morbidly obese I’d be if it did.

Krystal, the purveyors of sometimes delicious little hangover meals, has been running a campaign for a while with “real people” who love Krystals. Their agency even invented a whole new way to make commercials just for them. And by “agency” apparently I mean their “guy.”

“THE VARNSON PROMPTER” – The Varnson Prompter, developed for Krystal by The Varnson Group president Alan Varnson, is specially designed to allow Alan to interact directly with Krystal lovers in a fun way from a remote location via a two-way video teleprompter. The people you see in a commercial are looking directly at a live video feed of Alan and are interacting live with him. The effect is that they completely forget they are looking directly into a camera and are filming a commercial. Inhibitions are completely put aside, and the conversation and responses are real and could only happen without a script.

It’s like magic. I gotta get me one of them Varnson Prompters. I wonder what he’s “prompting” them with? Promises of “party favors” or a new paint job for their ’98 Supra?

KEEPIN’ IT REAL – All the commercials feature real people, real responses and the kind of ‘creative’ that cannot be written at the desk of a copywriter but could only happen spontaneously on location with real Krystal lovers.

And you know what? It shows. The problem is real people are idiots. And Krystal lovers are creepy. And there’s nothing quite as sad as a girl who thinks she’s hot but isn’t. I assumed that “princess” girl was the president’s daughter. Turns out she’s just the best looking girl that walked by the Varnson Prompter who wasn’t totally skeeved out by it. I know, I know, Krystals are disgusting little grease bombs for disgusting people. I am one of those people. But that doesn’t mean I like to be reminded of it.

If you have a Dell running Windows ’95, you might be able to watch the commercials I’m talking about here. I can’t, but I don’t need to since I see them ALL THE TIME.

My convalescence has involved a great deal of television. Big surprise. I just finished watching a report on 60 Minutes about rich, successful professional women giving up their high caliber careers to raise children on their rich, successful husband’s dime. A female sociologist was claiming this trend could hurt women in the workplace. Ya think? Gosh, it’s a good thing they’re getting advice on how to bilk shareholders and be as corrupt and mercenary as a man can be.

Anyhoo, the most interesting thing about my 60 minutes of CBS wasn’t the well-manicured hand wringing of the former CEO’s, or the Andy Rooney repeat about junk mail (how do I get that job?). What caught my eye was the promo for a new show called Criminal Minds I think. But what I know is it stars Mandy Patinkin. Which brings up my Mandy Patinkin story. Some of you may only know Mandy as The Princess Bride’s swashbuckler Inigo Montoya. Or, if you’re gay, Babs’ man-crush in Yentl. Or if you’re at the big Comicon in San Diego this week, you might know him as Det. Sam Francisco from Alien Nation. But in actuality, he’s a Tony Award winning Broadway actor who first made it big in Evita with Patti LuPone (that would be Corky’s mom). And he has a voice like an angel.

I was in college, and Mandy was on tour. He was coming, and because she was cool, my girlfriend was able to score free tickets. Some friends in the drama department told me Mandy liked to hang out after the show and “rap” with his fans. I brought my MP CD’s and settled in for an evening of bliss.

After the show, I made my way down to the foot of the stage where a bunch of other Knights In Patinkin’s Service were beginning to cluster. Now, this was maybe 1990, when Gilbert & Sullivan revues attracted nothing but women in their 60’s and skinny drama guys with AIDS ribbons. Mandy came out and chit chatted and we cued up to get our sundries autographed. Everyone had a little anecdote about their favorite Oscar Hammerstein song, or the first time they saw Sunday In The Park With George. When it was my turn to get my face time with Mands, as I like to call him, I froze. I stuck out my CD’s, looked him square in the eye and said, “I love you.” Then I felt obligated to add after an awkward beat, “but, you know, not in a gay way.”

He was kind enough to mention he gets that a lot.

I highly recommend you check out his website. It looks like a deli menu from 1983. And note the midi version of Barry Manilow’s “Mandy” that plays in the background after you enter. Seriously, there are so many sureal things on this site I could do a whole other entry on my sister site, “ThingsthatarecrazybutonlybecauseIknowwaytoomuchaboutgaystuff.com”

So I just watched the remake of The Alamo.

*SPOILER ALERT*

I know everybody dies, but I watch it anyway. I’m not sure what that means. But I do kinda understand how Billy Bob gets to break off a little somethin’ somethin’ with Angelina. He’s pretty groovy.

And I don’t know what consumption is, but I’m pretty sure that’s what I’ve got.

As I found myself suffering from what will now be known as “my body catching up with my will to live,” I stared at my ceiling all night instead of succumbing to the sweet nothingness promised by the Nyquil. As light began creeping in my bedroom this morning, I figured I’d turn on the television to see if the world had blown up yet. Katie Couric was interviewing a reporter from Fast Company, who was doing an expose on “Psychopathic Bosses.” Katie proceeded to ask, “So how can you tell if your boss is a psychopath?” Apparently, it’s a simple little magazine quiz, like, “Is your beau the best in bed?”

Anyway, I haven’t been able to leave my house, or actually, my underwear, to go pick up a copy at my local newsstand, but the quiz is online here. All I can say is, 328796621 in virgo rising, and as the magazine says, “Be very afraid.”

In a bold move to not only take money from lonely women at the box office, the genius makers of the new John Cusack/Diane Lane “romantic” “comedy” Must Love Dogs have constructed a film to continue milking lonely women long after the movie has left the multiplex. It’s product placement as script replacement.

If you’ve seen one preview or commercial for it, you know it’s one of those fantasies where a woman like Diane Lane can’t find a decent guy. So her friend/sister/whatever usually played by Bonnie Hunt character signs her up on “Perfectmatch.com,” and after some funny, heartfelt, poignant revelations, she realizes she can somehow be happy with a slightly older Lloyd Dobbler. Now, I assumed “Perfectmatch.com” was simply a fictional plot device – a Hollywood cipher for the universally known “Match.com.” But no. It’s real. For only $49.95 a month, you can find a John Cusack all your own. Unless of course, you don’t look like Diane Lane. Then, as they say on the websites I get my dates from, your mileage may vary.

I saw a video once. It was raw, unedited footage of an Afghan rebel beheading a Russian soldier with what looked to be a chef’s knife. The soldier was completely conscious and aware of what was going on. I mention this because it’s probably the most horrific act of blind hatred and cruelty I’d ever seen. Until last night’s Average Joe: The Joes Strike Back. At this point, the only thing the Joes could possibly do to “Strike Back” with anything that remotely resembled justice would be to do to the pretty boys what that Afghan did to that Russian. And I would be ok with it. But that’s not going to happen, because there is no justice for pretty people.

I would now like to formally issue a fatwa on this guy. Will pay extra if his dismembered head is delivered with his own genitals stuffed in the mouth.