It has occurred to me that I have not updated this site in a while. While I’m not at liberty to reveal the complete reason for this, I will admit that it has everything to do with ninjas. But ninjas aside, here are some more reviews of old sayings, with one dollar sign being the least totally rad and five dollar signs being the most.

There’s more than one way to skin a cat: I think that, no matter how you skin a cat, you’re still a sick person for mutilating an animal. I’d hate to meet the person who first said this. I picture a crazy guy who lives in somebody’s basement, and who always has a bunch of sharp tools spread out around the floor. “Must … skin cat. There are … several ways … to do this.” I have no idea how this saying got popular. There’s more than one way to kick a dog in the head, but you don’t hear me going around mentioning that. $

Don’t cry over spilt milk: Until I heard this quote, I would lose myself in a fit of tears every time I dropped a glass of milk. I’d say, “My glass of 2% milk! No!” I was an emotional wreck until this quote came along. It taught me to suck it up and keep all of my tears bottled up inside, and now I’m unable to cry. Thanks to this saying, now whenever I spill milk I just get really depressed. $$$

People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones: If you live in a glass house, there’s a lot of things you shouldn’t do. For example, you should never go upstairs, because you’d probably just crash through to the first floor in a horrible mess of glass shards and blood. If I lived in a glass house, I’d be more concerned with affording a real place to live than with throwing stones. Not even the three little pigs were retarded enough to build a house out of glass. Hell, I recommend throwing stones at your crappy little house. That place is a goddamn health hazard. $$

You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink: I hate when this happens. I’m leading my horse to get her some water, and she’s walking along behind me with no noticeable problems. Then when we finally get to the water, that little bastard doesn’t drink. I’m always like, “Damnit, Ginger! If you weren’t thirsty, why did you make me walk all this way?” Horses are very stubborn animals, but also very wise. $$$$$

You can’t have your cake and eat it too: The hell you can’t. If I bought a cake, I’m going to eat that son of a bitch. You have the cake, and then you eat it. You do both. Or you eat half the cake, and keep the rest, thus fulfilling both the act of having and the act of eating. Or you just buy two cakes: one for having, the other for eating. There’s a lot of ways to simultaneously have and eat a cake, and none of them are that difficult to figure out. The guy who said this was probably an idiot. $

The pen is mightier than the sword: The obvious argument denouncing this adage would be that nobody has ever won a sword fight using a 23 cent Bic pen, but let me play devil’s advocate for a moment and say this: “I’m the devil’s advocate! Ahh! Go to the dark side! Trust the devil!” So you see, the pen really is mightier than the sword. $$$$

You can’t teach an old dog new tricks: For some reason, this saying reminded me of those paintings of dogs playing poker, and I laughed for about twenty minutes. This saying is hilarious. $$$$$

Beggars can’t be choosers: Beggars have gone through enough hardships in their lives without people telling them that they don’t have the ability to chose. When somebody begs me for something, I make it a point to give them at least three choices. I’ll say, “Here you go, pal, take your pick.” It’s always good to raise beggars’ spirits in their time of need. $

A dog’s bark is worst than its bite: This saying sounds pretty accurate until a dog actually bites you. Then it’s just kind of like, “Well, hey, that was much worse than the bark was. I’ve … I’ve got to get to the hospital.” These dogs aren’t bluffing: Their bite is pretty much as bad as you inferred it would be from their bark. This is why some people are afraid of dogs. They’re very scary animals. $$

Curiosity killed the cat: Curiosity didn’t kill the cat, that guy who skins cats in his basement killed the cat. And anyway, from what I know about cats, they’re not very curious, as they always seem really, really tired. Whoever said this must have been thinking of the monkey Curious George, and he’s not even dead. $$

The best part about game shows is when the host consults a mysterious panel of judges. For example, Alex Trebek will read his little clue card and one of the contestants will give their response, but then, instead of Alex saying that their answer was right or wrong, there’s this awkward silence. At this point, nobody knows what to do, and Alex starts looking around the studio real nervously because he’s so confused. Then he’s like, “… Judges?” Somehow, these judges know the answer to everything you could ever want to know. They’re never actually shown or heard, presumably because they prefer to have their identity be kept in secrecy, and they’re almost never needed. I want to know exactly how much they get paid for doing this, because being a game show judge has got to be the easiest job you could ever have. “Uh, yeah, we’re going to need you to sit on this chair for a half hour and, when Alex is unsure of the validity of a response, give him the old thumbs up or thumbs down.” Hey, if you know the answer to every question in the world, you could probably do something more productive in your life than ensuring that Jeopardy is run democratically. These people know the cure for cancer and they’re just sitting around working for a dumbass game show.

Personally, I don’t really watch games shows due to their inherent retardedness. I’ve been spoiled by all of the Nickelodeon games shows that I used to watch back in the ‘80s. Double Dare may have seemed like a normal trivia show on the surface, but you never knew when the host would make the contestants dig around in a giant cream pie to find some sort of red flag. But the most interesting thing about Double Dare is that it was hosted by a man named Marc Summers, who was later revealed to have been diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, which caused him to have an unhealthy fixation with cleanliness. This makes me question his career choice. If you’re worried about not getting dirty, perhaps it might not be that wise of a move to host a game show where it is routine for a participant to jump in a vat of pudding. In fact, that’s perhaps the second worst job you could ever have in such a situation. The worst job, of course, would be to host a show called What Would You Do?, which Marc Summers also did. For somebody who likes to keep clean, this guy certainly picked a fascinating profession. I’m not knocking his disease, but if I was afraid of heights, I’m probably not going to want to become a goddamned tightrope walker.

What Would You Do? was another Nickelodeon game show, only when you did something wrong on this one, you would be strapped down to a contraption that simultaneously hit you with four cream pies. It was a little thing known as the Pie Pod, and, depending on your opinion of pies, it was either one of the worst or one of the best things that could ever happen to you.

The other Nickelodeon game show that I used to watch was called Wild & Crazy Kids, which is actually pretty self-explanatory. If you’re looking for a show where kids do wild and crazy things, most of which involve cream pies, look no further. As a change of pace, this show wasn’t hosted by Marc Summers; rather, those duties were fulfilled by the three dullest people Nickelodeon could fine. Compared to them, playing T-ball would probably seem pretty wild and crazy. Especially if, instead of hitting softballs, they hit cream pies. Leave it to Nickelodeon to figure out every possible way to make use of those things. I’m not sure where they ordered them from, but you can imagine the pie company’s bafflement when Nickelodeon first figured out that lots of cream pies equals good ratings. “What’s that? Nickelodeon wants to order another 15,000 cream pies? But they just ordered 10,000 last week! What the hell are they going to do with all those cream pies?”

“You don’t want to know.”

There’s a ragtag group of dogs in my neighborhood who enjoy having barking contests at about four in the morning. These dogs have absolutely no consideration for other people’s well-being. What I want know is this: What could their barking possibly do that would benefit them in any capacity? What are they hoping to have happen? If their goal is to keep me awake, mission fucking accomplished. I don’t know if dogs can sense fear or not, but I do know that they can sense the point at which I’m about five seconds from falling asleep, because they always know to bark exactly at that time.

My favorite part about dogs is that they’re always extremely enthused about everything they do. They’ll walk down the street on a leash and just be like, “Oh, hell yeah. Walking down the street is so awesome. I haven’t had this much fun since I chased that stick a few hours ago. Being a dog kicks serious ass.”

On an unrelated topic, sometimes I accidentally read Dear Abby, which is a syndicated advice column that appears in newspapers whose editor can’t seem to find anything cool to put in their paper. I am very offended by how insane the people who seek advice from this column are. For example, there was a letter in a recent edition from a woman who was pissed off because her coworkers brush their teeth in the public rest room sink. She wrote, “Could you please share the appropriate rule, if any applies, and assist me in scolding such offenders?” There’s a rule for that type of shit? What the hell is she talking about? Here’s somebody who is so upset that people are brushing their teeth next to her while she’s washing her hands, she actually took time out of her day to write a letter to a newspaper columnist. She is actually concerned with the fact that people are brushing their teeth next to her. That’s her big issue. The thing is, she’s not alone. It’s astounding how many people write to Dear Abby with their absurd problems. “Abby, I need help! I can’t figure out which hand to wipe my ass with, and now I can’t sleep at night because of it! Ahhh! I’m crazy! Ahhh!” It turns out that the answer to nearly every one of these people’s questions should be that they need to just chill out a little bit.

The good thing about being 19 years old is that now I’m legally old enough to enter Canada. Me and some other people who weren’t me went to the Windsor Casino the other day, and I have to say that this was the most confusing place that I’ve ever been to. Maybe I’m retarded, but I didn’t understand what the hell was going on the entire time we were there. For example, we dedicated about 20 minutes to walking around looking for a blackjack table, but the closest thing we could find was Spanish 21. What the hell is Spanish 21? My guess is that it’s like blackjack, only with some kind of zesty Spanish twist. Gracias, but no gracias.

Eventually I just went to the roulette table, because I understand colors pretty well. Being the high-roller that I am, I put ten dollars on black, but then they were like, “Oh, you just lost ten dollars.” Casinos are fun! After they denied my request for a do-over, I decided to put another ten dollars down. Now, I’m no statistician, but I was one hundred percent sure that black would be the next color that the ball landed on, because there’s only two colors and red was just used. According to algebra, it was simply black’s turn. After I was proven right, I took my original ten dollars back and moved to another table. Here was a game that was kind of like roulette, only instead of colors, they had numbers, and instead of understanding it, I didn’t understand it at all. However, I put five dollars down on the number 1, and then they spun the magical wheel of destiny and I pretended to know what I was routing for. After the wheel did it’s thing, they handed me two five dollar chips, suggesting that I had won five extra Canadian dollars (or roughly 20 cents American). That’s when I decided to get the hell out of there.

You know, a lot of people like to make fun of Canadians, but this is merely because of those people’s own self-esteem issues. Another reason is that a lot of Canadians are kind of dumb. However, I feel that we could all learn a valuable lesson from our neighbors to the north about friendship, loyalty and, most of all, trust.

I don’t even know what I’m talking about anymore.

My cousin recently told me to grow up. She’s six years old. You know you’ve got a problem when a six-year old tells you to act more mature. I would have disagreed with her, but I’ve found that it’s impossible to argue with somebody who’s that old, because they always know how to simultaneously insult and baffle you. For example, when I told her to put her wrapper in the trash while I was baby-sitting her the other day, she quipped, “You went to Jupiter to get more stupider.” I was like, “How dare you! I did no such thing!” Another time she put her hands out about two feet apart and asked, “Are you afraid of a person this big?” I said, “Somebody that big? Why, no, I don’t—” Then she clapped her hands together and was like, “You blinked! Ha, ha, you’re afraid!” I was all, “What? But I … h-how does … what?” See, you can’t argue with something like that. It’s just too bizarre. I mean, since when is fear represented by blinking? And even if I was startled by her clapping, who’s to say that this has any relevance to being afraid of a person of a height equal to the distance that her hands were apart prior to slapping them together? Still, somehow my cousin has proved that I’m afraid of midgets, and I can’t do anything about it.

The weird thing about kids is that they all have a collective obsession with wanting to dig to China. I remember wanting to do this when I was a kid, too, but I had no idea why. It’s like, what the hell were we planning to do once we actually managed to dig to China? Overthrow the Chinese government and then proclaim the country to be a no-school zone of awesome fun? It’s not a bad plan, but I just don’t think it’s very realistic. Call me a skeptic.