Have you seen this idiot? This is just one of his interesting and thought-provoking articles, all about how the stereotypes of romantic comedies and sitcoms are real and how we can avoid them by just doing whatever he says. I decided to send this article to The Professor, along with a response from someone who thinks that men are not from Mars and women are not from Venus, and that we actually have a lot in common, and that stuff like this belongs in the dirt of a cattle ranch. And since I love sharing the personal and trivial with you all, you get a gander! Lucky you!

1) Done.
2) I have grilled, you know. Seriously, there are plans.
3) I am not big on fire in the house.
4) Check!
5) Took care of that bad boy earlier - I hope you got it!
6) Who's picking baby up?
7) No.
8) I do the laundry, and I do believe I have offered to iron your shirts; it's not my fault you like to look all sloppy.
9) If the bathroom is a wreck, it's not because of my stuff.
10) We don't, so check!
11) Not really big on the shared shower thing... Sorry.
12) I just want to point out the "her backrub" to "his backrub" ratio is easily ten to one here.
13) "We're going out tonight, honey, and you're driving!" Our relationship has a different dynamic that doesn't necessarily encourage my solo planning.
14) Our first date was in a bar, so we should go to bars one night a week? Our second date was watching TV at your place, so we're good there! Our third date involved Christmas...what the hell do we do with that?! Could the class you taught and that I took be considered one long date? Should I take a class you're teaching? This is getting impractical...
15) "Hello?"
"Hi, baby!"
"What are you doing?"
"I'm calling in the middle of the day to let you know that I am thinking about you!"
"I'm teaching my class, idiot!"
"Oh... So, I guess I shouldn't mention that I'm touching myself?"

Another little tidbit of note; did you notice on the bottom of the page, the first two articles?
# 10 Fatal Online Dating Errors That Men Make
# 14 Fatal Online Dating Errors That Women Make

First of all, fatal? These mistakes kill people?!? Listen to Douche Wingnut, folks! People are dying!

And notice the numbers. Our sensitive male claims that women make 40% more errors than men. Not that I'm arguing, but I would have expected a complementary list or something from Mr. Surrogate Period...

-Zeepdoggie

From Frankfurters to Fondue

Yeah yeah, I know, I haven’t written in forever; I felt that, since I now have this fancy diploma that I should get a job where I actually have to use it. More on that later. I want to talks about something that I keep telling myself is trivial, but it keeps popping up as not as trivial as I think.

Have you ever heard of ancestry.com? Fun fact: it turns out that the site is run by Mormons (try this for fun, kids: take out the second “m”!), with the purpose of potential converts converting their dead relatives. Apparently, there is a tenet in their religion that allows them to do this. That’s kinda scary. What if you’re there, enjoying oneness with the universe, or you’re in Valhalla fighting the eternal battle and looking forward to this evening’s fornicating with ale wenches, or maybe you’re in the Catholic Heaven with the saints and halos and crap like that, when all of a sudden you get whisked out of there and find yourself in the Mormon Heaven? What if that sucks? I imagine it involves special underwear…

Anyhoo, The Professor has the super-whammy-dyne subscription to it, which allows her to look up ancestors in other countries and stuff. So one Sunday, hanging out at her place, I decide to give it a shot. I had been told that my family was German all the way back, after some point emigrating from Denmark. There were all these cool stories that the Zeepcousins and Zeepdaddy told me; my favorite is about how we were involved in the Third Crusades, in a leadership role, not just fodder for the Muslims.

Well, it turns out that they are all wrong. I’m Swiss. There is a direct line, from father to father, going back to the early 1500’s. And it’s most likely correct, since my family tends to pick some pretty oddball first names for sons. I am Swiss.

I am the first person to tell people that I am American; I was born here, I will most likely die here; I was willing to die for her when I served in her Navy, and I have a passport from this country. I always identify with the USA, and I root for our teams in the Olympic and world championships of the various sports. But there is a part of me, which is wholly American, to want to know where I “came from;” not the neighborhood I grew up in, but beyond that. And since Zeepmomma is British (Irish, Welsh and Scottish, so you just know there is some English in there somewhere – I saw Braveheart; I know what prima nocta is!) the side I most readily identified with was the German. It explained my desire for efficiency, my love of beer and sausage, as well as the desire to conquer France and my extreme xenophobia (aHaHaH! That’s a joke, son…).

But now, there’s this feeling that, since I am not German, I have lost a bit of my identity. It’s weird. Instead of being the big, strong belligerent nation, I am now neutral. Instead of a xenophobic invader, I am a welcoming banker. With chocolate in there, somewhere.

In the end, I am still me; still a bit belligerent, still willing to conquer French women, still anal about being efficient and on time - hey! The Swiss make good watches! I guess I have embraced a substance of my new heritage already!

-Zeepdoggie

School's Out!

I am rapidly approaching the end of my student teaching. For fourteen weeks I’ve worked with kids and seen the whole range of adolescence expressed in my kiddy-boos. Yes, it’s been a lot of fun working with them, even Bucky and his crew of idiot misfits that have stayed behind after his transfer.

I’ll miss the students whose grades have improved over 30% from last semester. I’ll miss seventh period and it’s collection of characters. I’ll miss the mouthy little girl in the back row who gave me grief because that’s how she shows she cares. I’ll miss the little fucker who called me a dickhead: the only time he was right in class, not that I’ll tell him that. I’ll miss the kid who didn’t have a response after I asked him just how EXACTLY he was going to make something of himself other than to start buckling down and doing his work. I’ll miss Li’l Bubbly telling the newest troublemaker, “Don’t come in here with your hot mess; we got rid of Bucky, we’ll get rid of you, too!” I’ll miss teaching inner-city black kids about ice hockey, and giving them extra credit for giving me an interesting fact about the ‘Hawks whenever I wore a jersey.

I’ll really miss reading their papers and seeing them reach for something outside their experience, like when Star Shine talked about putting someone on a “pedal stool;” that effort got her an A.

I’ll miss them teaching me about learning.

Some things I’ll take away:
• There is always time to listen to a kid, no matter what;
• A white man calling his girlfriend “my boo” is ALWAYS funny to black folks;
• It’s all about effort;
• It’s really easy to overestimate your students and to underestimate your effect on them;
• Students will dam the Chicago River if you tell them it’s extra credit, but wouldn’t add a thimbleful of water if it’s an assignment;
• As much as I wish it weren’t true, motivation comes from within;
• It might not be a bad idea to rethink the high school set-up so that everybody, from student to janitor to administration, can see the relevance and importance of what is being taught.

For everything that has happened in the last fourteen weeks, I will never be able to thank my students, the best teachers I ever had, enough for what I learned.

-Zeepdoggie

Cheap Seats

Last night, The GringO, the World's Biggest Asshole and I went to watch the 'Hawks destroy the Caps 5-0. It was a special night for me, since it was Tony Esposito night, and anyone who knows me knows that I am a goalie at heart; Tony-O, in particular, has a very special place in my life. I got to see him play only once; I was eight and he shut out the Flyers (at the time, my dad's second most-hated team). That game made want to be a goalie so bad. Forget Savvie's two goals and two assists, or Behn Wilson's epic pummeling of Dave Brown; I walked out of there inspired by 28 shots attempted and 28 saves made.

We sat in the cheap seats: SRO all the way! We had a great time; excellent view of the ice, and got to hang out with Berserker Bill, kicker of throats and crusher of uvulae, and the Trouble brothers, Sean and Dave, who TWBA hit in the nuts with his folding chair during the first five minutes of the game. I guess nobody puts baby in the corner...

Cheaps are great. You pay ten bucks and you hang out with great fans who know the game and the team as well as you do; you drink beer and you scream as loud as you can; you hurl obscenities at the opposing team because, in the cheaps, that is what you do. My favorites:

• "Ovechkin is a poor man's Pavel Bure!"- So spoke Dave and his sore testes.
• "Ovechkin is Russian for 'foreskin!'" - I'm quite proud of that one!
• "I don't care what happens on the ice, so long as someone KICKS HIM IN THE THROAT!" - Bill makes his mom proud with that one.

A truly fantastic evening. You should go; we could make asses of ourselves and just ride the wave of drunken, belligerent bliss that is an SRO hockey experience!

-Zeepdoggie

Working in some wrinkles

Thanks to Viagra and Cialis, old folks homes are becoming hotbeds of iniquity. Right now, someone's grandma and grandpa are hoping the kids will just get the hell out of their rooms so that they can get to some righteous boning.

I imagine that doggy-style is the most popular position in the old folks home, what with the old ladies already bent double and everything. The old men must be thinking, “Thank God for osteoporosis!”

-Zeepdoggie

There is a name to my pain...and it is Bucky

Tell me if you heard this one: a student sits in class, and s/he is bored. The lesson is not challenging; it’s just more of the same rigmarole that s/he has heard time and again. So the student, bright, bored and frustrated, acts out: s/he makes rude comments; the student wanders from his/her seat; s/he challenges the teacher’s authority with verbal jabs and by ignoring the lesson.

Sound familiar? We’ve all seen these kids in our classrooms; hell, some of us were those kids. I know I was.

Now you know that kid? Well, I have that kid’s opposite.

There is a kid, whom I will call Bucky, who is just about as dumb a person as I have met. I pity the dumb as I also envy them; they may not know what’s going on around them, but they seem happy that way and that’s fine, at least for them. Bucky is so dumb that he fucks up spacing out. If they gave out grades for lunch, Bucky would have an incomplete. Bucky is one more piece of proof that intelligence and jaw muscularity are directly proportional. Bucky drives me insane with his inability to think beyond the seven seconds his brain is currently failing to cope with. Bucky is failing P. E. for the third straight year. Bucky is so frustratingly ignorant and rude that I feel that I deserve sainthood for not wearing his blood like sloppily fitted crimson gloves. I find myself hoping, daydreaming, that Bucky tries something violent after school, so I can throw him into a trashcan so that he can begin his work on the rest of his life.

But I can’t do that. I am Bucky’s teacher, and while everyone else has given up on him (I’m not saying they’re wrong for doing so, mind you), I cannot. So I told him to meet with me after school so that we can discuss this day’s outburst and try to find reason and peace in the class. He didn’t show, and that’s a good thing, because then I didn’t have to face a moral quandary.

Had Bucky shown up, I would have tried to tell him that he can still make something of himself, and that high school is the last chance he would have to do so. I would have said that college is still a possibility for him, that he could achieve what he wanted, but only if he put his nose to the grindstone and worked with me and his other teachers; he could graduate with a GPA worth remembering.

Since he didn’t show up, I didn’t have to worry about lying to the little moron. Except for the GPA bit. I doubt anyone would forget a student who could win the James Blutarsky Award for Academic Embarrassment.

I think that what bothers me so much about Bucky is that he is the contradiction to what I am taught about students. What I am taught as a teaching student is that, no matter what, you don’t give up. You keep trying, reaching, and someday you’ll get through once you apply the perfect pedagogy to the student that was nearly custom fit for her/him. What I am seeing is that, once the students give up, it is almost impossible to get them back. There is no real extrinsic motivation; it’s all internal, and it’s all self-generated. I didn’t put out that fire, so I have no idea how to rekindle it.

That, and I have little patience for undeserved arrogance.


-Zeepdoggie

A Grand Bon Mot or Deux

While hanging with The GringO, a little nugget fell out of my mouth that lends yet more support to why we should have a podcast:

Z: What's he singing?
G: "We're only a lifetime away" (in a very ugly falsetto)
Z: Wow. Deep. but not as deep as the asshole those lyrics were farted out of.

"I tell ya, I can't think of a more humiliating and disgusting way to die than to be pierced by an interplanetary shit-sickle."

From whence that issued, many more as witty were spoken and forgotten. Admit it, you want to hear more.

-Zeepdoggie

Closing the Door on '07

Things I saw randomly walking around Chicago last year:

• A raptor of some kind taking a pigeon in mid-flight;
• A businessman shitting himself on the corner of Madison and Wacker;
• A bunch of guys pretending to be Elvis to raise money for cystic fibrosis;
• One human finger;
• More than twenty used condoms in the street;
• A young lady getting finger-banged on a tour boat;
• The largest pile of dog shit I had ever seen (you could’ve lost a toddler in it);
• More human excrement than I would ever care to see;
• Two people trying to push open a pull door immediately after watching someone fail in the attempt;
• A street performer falling in the middle of his dance routine;
• A huge stack of AOL Installer disks (I had forgotten those even existed!);
• A Hipster boy, while trying to rearrange his package in those insanely skinny jeans, tearing a huge hole in the crotch of said ridiculous fashion trend, spilling his fake junk onto the sidewalk (I think it was a pair of socks);
• A kid suffering splash damage from a horse taking a crap (he cried and cried and I laughed and laughed; seriously, Mom, what are you doing letting your kid get that close to a horse’s browneye?);
• A woman in a fur coat shouting “I HAVE MACE!” to no one in particular;
• Three rich white girls arguing about who was more “street;”
• Burned clothes surrounding the eternal flame in Daley Plaza.

Wow, but I saw a lot of shit last year, often literally.

What did you spot?


-Zeepdoggie

Christmas

Seventeen weeks of planning, preparation, and perspiration

Seventeen weeks of second-guessing, double-checking, and

over-analyzing.

Seventeen weeks of worry, and hope, and laughs, and reading and writing and stress and

cramped muscles and headaches.

Seventeen weeks of running from the Blue Line to Lincoln Hall so as to never be late.

Seventeen weeks of driving GringO and The World’s Biggest Asshole mad

with my schemes and my fretting.


Seventeen weeks, waiting for this.





Plan A: 27 August 2007 – 23 December 2007

As the guy no one elected but is still the President would say, “Mission Accomplished.”

-Zeepdoggie

Mad ups to the Crunk Monk Mafia and to The GringO and TWBA for all their support. Without you...

Look What I Can Do!

Several things I am oddly proud of:

• I can grow a great goatee;
• I somehow attract extremely talented artists into my circle of friends;
• My ability to leave a skidmark after even the most vigorous, industrious flushes;
• That I always have a nugget of information about obscure topics;
• My death metal vocal stylings;
• My encyclopedic knowledge of the psychologies and philosophies of comic book characters;
• I have never completed any writings of James Joyce;
• That I make people laugh with inappropriate comments;
• That no one can insult me as well as I can;
• My belches are both sonorous and have surprising longevity;
• That I can enjoy with equal fervor Spice Girls and Slayer, especially one after the other;
• I have expressive eyebrows.

So, whaddaya got?

-Zeepdoggie

Having sex with a pregnant woman bears a 50% chance of me nailing two chicas at once.

-Zeepdoggie


thanks, cookie!

Mmm...boot leather

I was working in Hell on Sunday when I did the unthinkable, the unrecoverable, the unforgivable, but yet still understandable, most feared act in all of customer service.

A rather bulky gentleman was looking through a table of shitty clothes that I had just folded, in the men's department, checking for sizes and such. I was annoyed so I walked over and said, to his back, "May I help you, sir?"
And he turned and stared at me. So I smiled and said, "Do you need any help, sir?" And he continued to stare. I stared back. Insert sound effect from Tom & Jerry of two piano keys corresponding to blinks.

And then I smelled what I was stepping in.

"I mean, ma'am?"

SHE continued to stare, and I felt her piggy little eyes boring into my back as I walked away.

When I revealed what I did to Wonder Woman, the coworker in closest proximity, she said, "Do you think you'll get fired?" And I thought about it. I have said some really bizarre and belligerent shit to both customers and staff while in my tenure at Hell, but I had yet to fully mistake someone's gender. At least, out loud.
So I answered, "Well, no, because I think that it's neither the worst thing I have ever said here and that I am most likely not alone in thinking that SHE'S a dude."

Two points in my defense: I have had gender differentiation issues before. I remember thinking that RuPaul was one hot cup of chocolate when he broke on the scene. I was twenty, what the fuck did I know? And the person SHE most resembled is this guy, from the back and the front:
I challenge anyone to be able to tell me a dude is not a dude when said individual looks like Mr. Color Commentary himself. SHE even had the haircut.

Thanks to the growing demographic of bull-dike lesbians shopping at the store, it will most likely happen again. And you know what? It will be just as funny then, too.

-Zeepdoggie

Deja Vu

Happy Thanksgiving, bitches!

I had the same conversation with two very different people, The World's Biggest Asshole and my sister Pinky, in the last 48 hours. It went like this:

The World's Biggest Asshole/Pinky: “We know what Plan A stands for.”
Z: “Yup.”
“So what’s Plan B?”
“Boobs.”
“And Plan C?”
“Plan C stands for ‘crazy!’”

Enjoy today, for while we feast, it is genocide for the turkey.

-Zeepdoggie

Naughty Thoughts

After a long hiatus from thinking dirty, I recently had several epiphanies concerning my most favored of subjects.

I can think of a lot of good reasons to date a teacher; the first on my mind is the potential pillow talk.

• “The more you fool around, the longer we’ll be here.”
• “You’re not going anywhere until you finish your work!”
• “How does that make you feel?”
• “You’ll just have to keep doing that until you get it perfected.”
• “You’re behaving like an animal!”
• “You did a great job!”
• “Now, for extra credit…”

Well, it’s got to beat lawyers any day.

• “Were you injured in an accident?”
• “Prior bad acts are admissible in your case.”
• “Objection!”

A little FYI for the ladies & guys with a penchant to fellate: with a cock in your mouth, your dirty talk sounds like “aaaoowwww,” like you’re romancing a sexy puppy.

It’s a good thing I like pale skin, cuz if I didn’t then my masturbating in front of the mirror would be creepy.

-Zeepdoggie

Radioheadache

Radiohead sucks. Why should I be interested in the music and lyrics when Thom Yorke is clearly bored with them? Seriously, the guy sounds like he’s doing all this stuff because he’s been told he can’t go back to sleep until he’s finished recording.

(Scene: some recording studio in England. Weather forecast is misery with a chance of mildewed melancholy, winds from the sad at forty tears per hour)
“Thom? Thom. Thom!” (kicks couch)
zzznnnrrrraggRRAGAgSNORT! “What, for fuck’s sake?”
“Sing the song, mate!”
“What, again?”
“Yeah; it takes more than one song to make an album.”
“All right, but one take and then I’m going back to bed.”
“Fine. Put your pants* on, Thom.”
“Jesus Christ, but you are a needy bugger, yeah?”

I just don't get the appeal of slow, offbeat musical drudgery with groggily atonal whining serving as 'singing.' Maybe I'm too American to understand. Or maybe I like to look at the sky instead of my shoelaces; maybe I live in my space instead of on MySpace; maybe I like to be entertained and not bored, especially if I am paying for it; maybe I don't confuse emotional disorders with genius; maybe I think life can actually be a lot of fun every once in a while, and that music can, and sometimes should, reflect that.

Or maybe they really do suck and a lot of people are deluding themselves for reasons that I cannot understand.

I like to give my readers options.

-Zeepdoggie

*Yes, I do know what ‘pants’ are in England.

Use the Force, Zeep

The Light Side

• The ‘Hawks are doing well.
• My pull box at Dark Tower has produced nothing but amazing comic books.
• Whedon and Cassaday’s X-Men story continues to be the best I’ve read (here’s a sample, but be cautious; this may make you like comics!), the new Thor and Atom are great, and Mouse Guard is simply stunning. If you don't like comics, check out Mouse Guard.
  
• Speaking of Joss Whedon, he will have a new show soon once the networks and other idiots give the writers what they deserve. While reality TV may seem like a good idea, that’s just because most shows aren’t written by Aaron Sorkin, Thomas Schlamme, or Joss Whedon.
• Both women I am pursuing are showing enough interest in me to keep me interested.
• I know Kung Faux.
• I am still working on the boats, and I am still loving it. I am the Deck Monkey!
  
• My co-teachings/observations are going great, confirming that all the bullshit I have put up with from UIC’s Council on Teacher Education has so far been worth it.
• I’ve made some friends that I really hope to have for the rest of my life. Crunk Monk Mafia holla!
• I have spent more time with my old friends recently than I have in the previous months, so the friends front is going very well.

The Dark Side

• I need to get serious about grocery shopping.
• I’ve reawakened my coffee addiction.
• Since both women are showing interest, I cannot just move on one.
• This might not be a bad thing, since it will force me to do the friendship first thing, which I wanted to do anyway. And it's probably best to wait until the end of the semester. But now I walk a keen edge, and my balance isn't all that good…
• The Bears are sucking like a Thai whore with a fifty spit-taped to her forehead.
• CTE’s bullshit is still bullshit.
• I still work in Hell.
• The boats won't go year 'round, and since I need the cash to woo the ladies and pay bills and whatnot, I must take more hours in Hell in order to make ends meet.
  

The dark side will always be defeated by the light side, because bad is dumb. Shitty paraphrase, I know, but fuck it, I am in a good mood for once; let me enjoy it while it lasts.

-Zeepdoggie

two posts in one day! how lucky are you? very lucky, indeed. if only gringo would get off of his dead ass and write something. -z.

Pictures, With Words

In case you didn’t know, the World’s Biggest Asshole has a blog now. Yup, he’s decided that inflicting his thoughts on those of us who have proven too stupid to run away just isn’t satisfying anymore; he’s going to force his bizarre mindset and reality onto the general population as well. Luckily, there is a carrot that comes with that stick; he is going to give us beautiful images on a fairly oftenish basis. So far there’s been at least an image per entry. His photos are like pizza; even when they’re bad, they’re still good.

Something I learned from his blog is that now he drinks tea. It reminded me of something. The last line says it all. Jesus fucking Christ.

-Zeepdoggie

The Plan B Pill is the "Oh shit!" handlebar of casual sex.

I Blew Out My Sequitr Sequencer

I have no problem with my source of food being ugly. I wouldn’t kiss a pig, but I’d slather it in applesauce.

The first person to eat shellfish was starving.

What the fuck is wrong with a man who leaves his love when she needs him most?

“You’ll find her when you’re not looking.” I have heard this several times from several, very different women. This statement alone just proves how little women know about men, and just how differently our brains have been programmed to function. We are always looking, ladies. Always; on the train, at work, after work, in bars, in cars, with green eggs and ham. We look, we hunt, we stalk, we seek, and we track you. I can think of only two periods in my life where I wasn’t looking, and that is quite a low number amongst my peers. And only women would think that passivity is the way to solve a problem. Advice to ladies: don’t say that to a guy; don’t sit around and wait for a goddamned thing, because the only thing that is sure to come is death.

One of the best things to see is a total stranger realize that s/he has just shit his/her pants.

A cure for my sporadic insomnia: I had a brief but good conversation with Professor Hottie after class, and I slept like a baby last night. She really is pretty.

The GringO and I are working on a book. Interested? Let us know and maybe we’ll put some of it up on the bloggy-blog-thing. We will be selling it, since it’s not free, and you can’t live off of what you can kill in Chicago.

A reason it is awesome to be a guy: the world is your urinal.

If you don’t know who Taylor Mali is, just know that every English teacher in America thinks of him as their Superman. Check him out.

Professional wrestling is as gay as three guys wearing chaps blowing four guys wearing fairy wings.

Speaking of gay: the coolest thing I saw this Halloween was a couple dressed as Quicksilver and The Flash. It is most definitely my favorite couple-themed costume set EVER.

I really like the shoes I wore yesterday. They’re comfy and they make my feet look like dinner rolls. My shoes look like the shoes Bill Watterson draws.

-Zeepdoggie

I think it might be good to date a woman who's about to die.