You can't take it with you... right?

During this year, as my wife has been on (mostly) unpaid maternity leave and our finances have been stretched to the max, I have often thought about the near-decade I spent in Business journalism.

One of the lessons financial experts stress to people, particularly young(ish) people, is to save as much as you can for retirement. Work hard, live frugally and put the maximum amount away.

I understand it, but that doesn't exactly mean I buy into it.

Here's the thing: The average person lives to be what, about 80-something? Now, admittedly, I'm playing the medical history crapshoot, so I guess I could live longer, or die young. But, hey.

So, I'm expected to work 46 years (from age 21 to 67), all while scrimping and saving, so I can enjoy the last 10 to 15 or so years of my life?

That makes no sense to me.

When I'm a senior citizen, my knees are shot, Emma (hopefully) has grown up, gotten a job, moved out (it's Jersey, you never know) and made us grandparents, then I'm supposed to finally enjoy life?

As much as I love Scandinavia... when my time comes, put me in my Raiders jersey and call it a day.

Not a chance. I mean, it's not like they're going to bury me in a coffin lined with $20 bills, or with all my worldly possessions, Viking-style. Like I keep telling Marisa, as long as, at the end of the day, when they sell all my stuff and pay all my bills, if I end up on the plus side, it all worked out.

Don't get me wrong. I'm saving for retirement and planning for the worst-case scenarios (I have extra life insurance!). When I finally leave the office for the last time, I don't need a gold watch or nice memo. I just want to leave vertical.

But I'm not skipping out on 40 years of family trips or buying nice things for Emma and Marisa (and yeah, me, too) for two-thirds of my life, just so I can really go wild in the last fifth or so.

A gold coffin might work for Michael Jackson, but not for me. Eh, I don't like gloves, either.

Someone once asked me how I wanted to be buried. I said, skip the suit, put me in my best Oakland Raiders jersey, forget the fancy funeral and just throw a nice party. Or maybe just cremate me, and scatter my ashes over somebody I really, really don't like. Like the Denver Broncos bench. In mid-game.

So they asked if I wanted to be buried with anything. And I said, sure: A crowbar, flashlight and shovel.

Just in case they're wrong.

But seriously, we had a choice: M could stay home with Em for a year and we could skin the bank account to the bone, or she could go back in a few months and we could carry a little less credit-card debt. Like our rabbi told us, nobody ever says, "Boy, I wish I'd gone back to work sooner so I could have spent less time at home with the kids."

Uwe Boll Mad Libs, Part II

In the last post, of course, I asked you to come up with a list of words for the Uwe Boll Mad Libs project.

This, of course, is the story that goes with it. So get out your notes and play along!

Remember, use yesterday's words in the proper order you wrote them down. This one's a bit longer than your average Mad Libs, but hey, don't all of Dr. U's films feel that way?

Ready? Begin!

---

When (German name) was a little boy in (Eastern European country), he had two loves: Movies and video games. All his (Time period), he dreamed of a way to combine the two. And then, one day, it (Action verb) him! Movies based on video games!

His first movie was called (Video game). It had no recognizable stars, though he did get the girl from (B movie) to show her (Body parts). Sadly, it scored only a (Number from 1-10) on (Website).

Ach! What to do? And one day, it (Action verb) him! Find stars to build the movie around!

So he launched a side career as a (Job). In that job, he took (Adjective) pictures of movie stars such as (Academy Award winner) in (Adjective) positions with (Plural farm animal).

Using the photos, he got many famous (Location) actors to star in his next movies: (Video game), (Video game) and (Virtue).

He even got (Movie star) to show her (Body parts) in his third film, before she was (Verb, past tense) by a (Monster).

Of course, even the (Adjective) one scored only a (Number from 1-10) at (Website). He was devastated.

Perhaps, he thought, he should film his masterpiece. Forget video games. It was time for his (Impressive-sounding word). A film called (Adverb) designed to offend just about everyone in (Nation).

For that, he thought, I will need (Movie star), the star of my second film - the one in which an actor once (Verb, past tense) by the (Royal title) played a (Animal) slowly turning into a (Awkward physical characteristic).

And (Movie star) to show her (Body parts).

Time to break out the old (Camera brand) and (Household pet)!

It was the happiest day of (Different German name)'s life.

Uwe Boll Mad Libs, Part I

Somewhere in my feverish brain, I came up with an idea the other day: Let's play Uwe Boll Mad Libs!

Why? Because we can.

You know Herr Dr. Boll, right? The man who brought you everything from "House of the Dead" to "Bloodrayne"?

Well, here's what we'll do: Today, I'll give you the categories, and you grab a pen and paper and write down your answers.

Tomorrow, the story will go up, and you can see if you've written a masterpiece worthy of the Boxing Boll himself!

And hey, if it turns out to be fun, maybe we'll do it again sometime!

Ready? Begin!

---

1. German name
2. Eastern European country
3. Time period
4. Action verb
5. Video game
6. B movie
7. Body parts
8. Number from 1-10
9. Website
10. Action verb
11. Job
12. Adjective
13. Academy Award winner
14. Adjective
15. Plural farm animal
16. Video game
17. Video game
18. Virtue
19. Movie star
20. Body parts
21. Verb, past tense
22. Monster
23. Adjective
24. Number between 1-10
25. Website
26. Impressive-sounding word
27. Adverb
28. Nation
29. Movie star
30. Verb, past tense
31. Royal title
32. Animal
33. Awkward physical characteristic
34. Movie star
35. Body parts
36. Camera brand
37. Household pet
38. Different German name

Inappropriate commercial thoughts

Perhaps you've heard me rant about the commercials they play on the News Radio I listen to on the way to work.

Like the ones with slogans that just don't make sense.

You know, the life insurance that pays "even if you don't die!" Um, I'd like to buy that one.

And just who the heck is Patricia McCann and why do I care what she endorses?

Anyway, the latest commercial to get me laughing in that "wrong" way is for the DUX bed, which apparently lasts forever.


The commercial stars Boomer Esiason, who tells the story of how some woman named Toula (presumably not this one) bought a DUX bed umpteen years ago, and despite her kids jumping on it, has never had to replace it.

Boomer then points out he and Toula have something else in common...

And my inappropriate instinct is to respond:

"No Super Bowl rings."

It's apparently really that he also is a longtime DUX bed owner.


I don't know if this Boomer owns a DUX bed, but she's got zero Super Bowl rings, too.

Best thing of the day!

Best thing of the day

If you deal with the business world regularly, as I do (until next week), you've probably seen countless photos of traders making faces on the New York Stock Exchange floor.

At last, somebody has decided to spice up the same old, same old, and thus:

Sad Guys on Trading Floors

Thought for the Day

Because it's been too long since I've posted anything and, well, after a darn good weekend - including Marisa's birthday - this week pretty much already sucks and it's barely Tuesday.

Thought for the Day:

The other day, Sarah Palin told Katie Couric, in the course of butchering her interview that, in essence, she was qualified in foreign affairs because Alaska is in between Russia and Canada.

Which, I keep telling people, is like me saying I'm qualified to treat a sprained ankle because my next-door neighbor is an athletic trainer.

(That probably wasn't worth the effort, was it? But I forgot my other Thought for the Day and I'm too depressed for a real post.)

Time to play the Feud!

I just noticed, laying around the office, a screener DVD for Celebrity Family Feud.

This, I have a hard time picturing.

Or maybe not...

Insert wavy "flashback" lines here...

The setting: Family Feud set. The Hiltons are on the left. The Hogans are on the right. Richard Dawson hosts, of course.

Dawson: All right, now we go over to the Hilton family. The topic: Popular celebrity quotes. Paris?

Paris Hilton: Umm...

Dawson: Show me, "Umm..."!

DING!

Dawson: Number 5 answer! Now, let's go to the Hogans. The Hulkster... Give me a celebrity relative most likely to embezzle!

Hulk: Well, brother...

Dawson: Show me "Brother"!

DING!

Dawson: Number 1 answer!

A thousand remotes click over to re-runs of Are You Being Served?...

Caption not-quite-contest, Round 2!

How about this one?


Some first ladies run for President. Others just blend into the background.

Caption not-quite-contest

Why you shouldn't wear white when the Pope comes to visit:


Wearing the severed head and hands of Laura Bush on his wrist like a rosary, the Pope gleefully announces that, thanks to a radical change in church policy, President George W. Bush can consummate his unspoken love affair with Vice President Dick Cheney.

A random Eliot Spitzer interlude

Under the circumstances, the circumstances also including insomnia, I thought I'd point out...


According to Dante's "Divine Comedy":

The second circle of hell is reserved for the lustful, but...

The eighth circle is the punishment for corrupt politicians (Bolgia 5)...

And hypocrites (Bolgia 6). Ahem:

"This was a sophisticated and lucrative operation with a multi-tiered management structure," Spitzer said. "It was, however, nothing more than a prostitution ring, and now its owners and operators will be held accountable."

Shh! Don't tell...

We named the monkey "George"...

One of Marisa's students apparently got George Clooney and George Washington confused the other day.

Hey, he's 7.

But imagine the possibilities. A powdered-wig mullet on "Facts of Life."

And the movies...

• "O Founding Father, Where Art Thou?"
• "Batman & No Taxation Without Representation"

And of course...

• "Revolution's Eleven"

He might also have confused George Bush and George Washington.

I'll let you make your own joke there.

Ah, domesticity...

I wish I could say I strained my forearm muscle doing something more exotic than carrying the holiday decorations and spare gift bags downstairs for Marisa.

Even the obvious joke would be less humiliating.

I laughed, I cried, I almost peed

I saw this - as an aside, no less - over on Boobs, Injuries and Dr Pepper, which usually cracks me up, but for different reasons.

14. Do you know they had a headline the day Ike Turner died and it said, "Ike Beats Tina Turner To Death"? I mean, seriously? Who let THAT one slip?

And of course, it was in... the New York Post.

Maybe only headline writers (like me) will find it funny. Or maybe not.

• National Ledger
• Gawker
• Next Things

Men are from Mars, women are from... Mars?

Anyone who thinks women don't get into gizmos hasn't seen Marisa with her new vacuum.

At the risk of jeopardizing my future marriage, let me point out she's been talking about this vacuum almost from the moment we started dating (and she realized my old townhouse needed a good vacuuming), itched for it every time my vacuum went funky, complained every time my vacuum - once good, now kind of sucky in a non-vacuumy way - went kerflooey and gazed enviously at my friends' version.

Then, when my (late, lamented) vacuum finally caved in under the weight of Norton and Pumpkin's pet hair, she researched this monstrosity online, postponed her dreams of a china cabinet and ordered what has to be the mother of all vacuums.

• It's bagless.
• It's got a filter.
• It rotates on a ball.
• It has brushes on the sides.
• It has lights.
• It has buttons.
• It's bright freakin' purple.

Then she tracked it religiously online. ("Guess where the vacuum is?!")

Then, on Friday, she had a half-day, so we could have lunch together. Every time a car went past the window, she looked outside, hoping it was UPS. It got so bad, I kept looking out the window to make her look.

Finally, as I left for work, I passed the delivery guys on the way.

By the time I got home some eight-plus hours later, she'd vacuumed the entire downstairs and tested all the attachments - and in a sign that despite her gadget obsession, she's a woman and not a man, she even read part of the manual.

She then showed me every single part. (See list above.)

Of course, when she eagerly said, "you try it!" I pushed one button and the whole damn thing fell apart. And she showed me how to put it back together.

So now I have a space-age-looking purple vacuum that I don't understand and am not sure I'm even allowed to touch again even though I'm normally the one who does all the vacuuming on cleaning day...

Hey, wait a minute, why am I complaining?

Vacuum on, my gadget-loving domestic-goddess-in-training!

Some things just don't make sense to a tenderfoot

Maybe it's living my whole life in the Northeast...

But even though this story caught my eye in the headlines:

DALLAS -- Texas, where strip clubs have given rise to Anna Nicole Smith and many other less-generously endowed performers, is about to make it more expensive to watch a little bump and grind.

In what some have dubbed the "pole tax," the Lone Star State will require its 150 or so strip clubs to collect a $5-per-customer levy, with most of the proceeds going to help rape victims. The tax goes into effect on New Year's Day.

Here's the part that mystified me:

Strip clubs occupy a mythic place in Texas lore as a spot where young women can work their way through college and small-town girls with dreams of Hollywood stardom get their start on the lowest rung of show biz.

Look, I have nothing against strip clubs. I've been to strip clubs. I've enjoyed strip clubs. I've known people who worked at strip clubs.

But anybody who's ever been to the (late, lamented) Box Car in Phillipsburg, N.J., probably agrees, most mythology about Northeast clubs is...

Well, less the stuff of "rags-to-riches glamor fable," and more the stuff of "eyebrow-raising awkward bachelor-party story."

Tenderfoot:

1. A newcomer not yet hardened to rough outdoor life; a greenhorn.
2. An inexperienced person; a novice.

I guess you could add, "3. Me."

Things come in pairs?

I always thought it was threes... but as an addendum to the last post:

Last week, one day, two of my staffers left messages for me when I got in.

The first one was a plaintive young lady, informing me she'd be late because she'd gotten a flat tire and was trying to get it repaired.

The second was a plaintive young man, informing me he'd be late, and in a rental car, because his brakes had gone haywire and he'd had to leave his car at the repair shop.

So today, I get in, with a bruise now growing on my forehead...

To find a message from my third staffer, a plantive woman, informing me she'd be late because she was seeing the doctor because... she slipped and fell on the ice this morning.

And to think, last week, we were the two going, "Man, we'd better be careful after what happened to them."

One more reason we need a video camera

No, this isn't a sex post, you perverts.

This is a post about how I could've been a YouTube star.

Maybe you read about the store clerk who decked a robber so he wouldn't look bad on YouTube.

"What was going through my mind at that point was that the security tape is either going to show me run away and hide in the office or whack this guy in the head, so I just grabbed the cup and clocked the guy pretty hard," Hoffmann (said).

Well, today I had my own missed opportunity.

No, we weren't robbed. But we did have 50 mph winds overnight.

And it was garbage night.

Needless to say, our trash cans ended up in the neighbor's yard. Downhill. On a sheet of ice thanks to this week's snow and the weekend Nor'easter.

And if only we had a video camera, I coulda been a star!

Sliding down the ice on my butt was the fun part.

The dog sliding down after me, taking my feet out from under me, probably would've gotten a laugh.

But I think what really would've done the "viral" trick was on the way back up, when my legs went back downhill, the trash can I was pushing uphill stayed uphill and...

SMACK!

Instant faceplant.

I smacked my forehead nice and hard, and my glasses cut my nose a little.

But I'm OK.

Which is why I promptly tried again, and slid even farther down the hill on my butt.

Eventually, I made it with the can, all the way to our side yard, where I could climb the tree-covered, shelfed hill, and then slide down our ice-covered driveway (shoulda used the damn snow-blower when I had the chance) to Marisa, who was waiting in the garage.

Of course, there were four more cans.

So, after a brief recovery period, I approached again, on my butt, on the ice, with a battle plan.

Using a shovel like mountain climbers use those ice axes, I dug and stepped my way up the ice to M, handing off the cans two at a time.

There was, of course, much sliding in the process.

But no more faceplants.

And sadly, no video camera.

So if you want to see me in action, you'll have to buy "Dead Hunt" - I'm on the special features.

I wuz robbed! In my dream, anyway...

I usually have very vivid dreams. Not that Vivid. I mean, really realistic.

Last night - well, really this morning - I had a dream that I was in a boxing match. It wasn't exactly realistic in the sense of boxing. I think I fought a girl, who was replaced halfway through by a 9-year-old boy, in Mexico.

And even though I was thumping the heck out of the poor little kid in Round 4 of a scheduled four-round bout (and feeling slightly guilty), I couldn't finish him.

Then, although the whole thing was announced in Spanish and I couldn't understand a word of it, from the celebration by the little kid, I realized:

I lost the decision.

Thing is, to borrow a quote, "We wuz robbed!"

Well, shortly after I left the arena in dismay, I woke up to my alarm.

And I was still honked off.

Funny how a dream can be so real, it leaves you in a bad mood when you wake up.

The one in which I question my masculinity

I sometimes joke I'm in touch with my feminine side. Mostly because I exude what I think of as a "beta male" vibe: I'm not quite an "alpha male," but close.

What a buddy in college referred to as a "flaming heterosexual" - in the sense that I'm the straight-male equivalent of a drag queen; ain't nobody going to mistake me for gay.

You know, the sports-loving, horror-movie-watching little munkee you've all come to know and love.

But the thing is, I really do think I am at least slightly in touch with that "kinder, gentler" Ace. Not so much because I sometimes think my action-figure-loving childhood might have been even better with Barbies and a dollhouse (the better to act out my little overactive imagination scenarios that mostly featured G.I. Joes and "Star Wars" figures). But just because I think I do have a softer side underneath it all - I've been known to sniffle a bit - and JUST A BIT! - during movies, or TV shows, even the occasional commercial. That sort of thing, anyway.

Still, the other day, I think my "beta male" vibe hit a nadir.

Bad enough I'm getting addicted to a show on the O! Oxygen Network for crying out loud.

But this was a double-whammy the likes of which nearly required a hooker, or at least some porn, to restore appropriate testosterone levels.

What happened? You ask?

(Or have you given up and sat back to await my next post, which might address the Chris Benoit tragedy?)

Well, if you're still reading, here's how it went down:

Marisa has a game called "Battle of the Sexes," in which the object is to answer trivia questions that should be obvious to members of the opposite gender, while mysterious to your own.

For instance, I kept asking her questions off cards related to things like tools and sports. She kept asking me questions off cards related to things like makeup and fashion.

I kicked her ass.

And then, a couple of days later, when I played a team of her, her kid sister and a good friend, I kicked their asses, too.

Which is to say, I know a lot about things like... makeup and fashion.

Urp?

Yeah, I'm good at trivia games, generally. But for crying out loud. I can't cook, I don't wear makeup and I dress like a retired jock. And yet, I know a helluva lot about food, makeup and clothing... and other things stereotypically popular with women, but not (straight) men.

This was a somewhat mixed blessing. On the one hand, I got to gloat about winning. Twice. On the other hand, it made me start to question my relationship with my testes and their natural function.

Still, I might have laughed everything off and chalked it up to my superior trivia skills, except...

Then something else happened.

It was Marisa's turn to pick our movie-of-the-week (hey, she sat through "300," and in a theater, no less. So we've agreed to alternate picking films, even though the first two I picked were romantic comedies I thought she'd like. (See "My Big Fat Greek Wedding"for example.)

Anyway, despite that bit of give/effort to impress her, she opted to not choose a favorite movie (of hers) in a favorite genre (of mine).

She picked "Bridget Jones's Diary."

And I loved it.

Laughed my ass off.

Grinned with delight when the right guy gets the girl.

Called the "twist" before it even happened.

And... wanted to cry.

Not about the movie. About my sudden, near-complete, conversion from beta-male extraordinaire to...

What?

I don't even know what this means.

Except that I'll probably have to turn in my membership card in the Manly Men of America Society.

(OK, so I have no affiliation whatsoever with that site. It just came up on a Google search for "Manly Men of America Society," a term I made up on the spot. And I wanted a link.)

Now, anybody got a copy of "Bridget Jones - The Edge of Reason"that I can borrow?

Oh, I do hope she (SPOILER!) hangs on to that D'arcy fellow.