Rise and Rise Again, till Lambs Become Lions

I find my tolerance for older single men waining.

Granted,

I used to be one.

Still am in fact

... sort of.

But remember Robin Hood.

Even though he lived in the forest with a bunch of guys doing cool things like swimming and hunting and shooting bad guys, he still had Maid Marian off in a castle pining away for him.

Even if you appear single, you should always have a Maid Marian. Its really nice.

I know this because I've found mine. But she's about two-thousand miles away right now so I have time to do this.

No, the real problem lies with young men who lack nothing, but the gumption to rise up and be men. That's an old phrase so I imagine it's an old problem. I just happen to be of the right age and circumstance to have finally noticed it myself.

I have nothing against the socially inept,

of which we are all members in varying degrees.

But there are some among us, too many I feel, that would rather go back to being fourteen than face the reality that time advances on almost a yearly basis.

I'm 28 years old. When am I going to grow up? I find a wonderful remedy is to look at one's life and recognize what is different now that you are 28... or whatever ripe old number you choose.

You can vote.

You can buy firearms without a parent.

You can open and close bank accounts, get a real job, drive your own car, and not live at home.

If I want to eat, I have to go to the store and buy groceries. The magical self clearing table and self emptying sink is gone from my life.

If I want clean dishes and to avoid botchulism, I have to clean them with dish soap.

I have to buy it.

At a store.

That means a certain amount of my income has to be spent on things I don't drool over in catalogs.

The magic of the bedroom and bathroom floor also disappeared when I moved out of my parent's home. My clothes have forgotten how to clean themselves and appear in my drawer hours after hitting the floor.

The startling thing to me is the number of men my age who still think these things just magically take care of themselves; that if you leave things out, they will somehow organize themselves and be found, clean, folded, sparkling, and or sorted neatly in some appointed place without any effort on your own part.

Its maddening.

And that's leaving out all the other strikingly annoying perceptions and habits of single guys my age- one of which is dating.

I get that rejection stinks.

And I get that sometimes it seems like nobody is interested.

And I further get that "it used to be easier."

And when it stopped being easy was probably about the time you got dumped or dissed or jilted or something horrible which no one else could possibly understand because it was the first time in the history of the world that someone felt lied to and got broken-hearted.

Guess WHAT! Everybody faces rejection!

IT IS A REALITY.

Perhaps we should thank rejection for just a moment for allowing us the chance to move beyond our first crush which we forgot all about because it was kindergarten.

If it weren't for rejection, you would be stuck with that girl from junior high. The one that liked you because she didn't know you yet and that you didn't like back.

Yeah.

That one.

Without rejection, you'd be married to her. So thank rejection.

Please.

It bugs me.

Why can't a guy that is this old learn that when a girl rejects you, you should stop pursuing?

Should he not have learned this years ago? Learn to read body language. There are books on it. Read one. When you've met someone and they seem really nice at first but then turn cold and are hard to get a hold of, stop trying. Just leave her alone. You're wasting your time, making her uncomfortable, and making yourself a nuisance.

Go away.

Also can guys stop singing the inverted Snow White song of, "Someday my princess will come."?

This is not how it works!

She doesn't come to you.

I know too many who think the idea of arranged marriage is a good one.

You have no taste.

Get some.

Your obligation and duty as an adult male is to go out into the world and find HER.

This involves dating.

You have to try out different people and relationships and get to know how to behave generally so that by the time you get to be my age, you're already married because no girl could resist the man you've become.

You've got to learn that its not fun being alone forever.

And if its not, then how much is it worth to not be.

And if its worth a lot like we're talking up there with breathing, then you'd better learn that when you see a girl you have interest in, and you haven't met her, and you still don't have a date, there had better be Hellishly good reasons why not, like that your face is on fire and your hands are chained to an enraged grizzly bear on PCP.

If you look around and none of those things are happening, you better get over there and meet her because if she's good enough to notice, she's good enough to date.

Your excuses will kill you.

Stop thinking before you do something good.

Treat this like the latest dumb thing you did. Did any consequence cross your mind before you did whatever it was you did?

NO.

SO WHY NOW???

Stop it immediately. Stand up and be men.

And can we stop with the high school girl thinking puzzles?

I get that girl's mature faster than boys, but is this really where you are?

When you've met someone interesting, but things seem to be kind of impossible and you aren't sure if this could work out or not- STOP.

Stop your stupid internal dialogue. You've only been on one date anyway.

There's only one question you need to ask yourself,

"Am I still interested?"

If the answer is yes, then you go out again and you find out how you feel from the actual reality of being with her, not at home or on long drives.

If you have something to say, say it to her.

Stop telling your friends what you're wondering.

Build some freaking intimacy between you and her and ask her directly what she thinks about things. You'll get a lot farther, and your friends will respect you more because you don't sound like a sixteen year old girl anymore.

And if you're not interested anymore, stop calling her.

Can we also stop feeling inadequate, unattractive and altogether lost in life?

I am tired of hearing people say how lost they feel.

This is life. Its supposed to be a surprise!

If you plan on getting married someday, having a career, and even a family, then do something about it.

Can everybody just stop worrying about the future for a moment and evaluate what you've learned about the world at this point,

what goals you've set for your future,

what accomplishments no matter how small you've made,

and then start to feel good about it?

Can you please just stop complaining and appreciate for one small moment the infinitesimally small contribution you've made in the world?

Can you for one moment look forward to the future with a little bit of confidence and say to yourself,

"That's where I'm going to be. And this is what I'm going to do to get there."

You find whatever you can do to advance.

You figure out some way to work on it every week and you write it down.

And then you do it.

This practice will give you confidence and direction. You'll find yourself more confident in your future because you're doing something about it today, and you know it. And when you do find someone you're interested in, you'll have developed a direction for your life.

If you plan on growing up someday and getting married, chances are the girl you marry will love you.

Quite a lot actually.

So can you start living like you mean it?

If someone is going to love and adore you, then maybe you ought to start figuring out why.

Then maybe you can walk with a little confidence that you actually do possess some good qualities.

In a world where childhood seems to be extending farther and farther into adulthood, can some of us stand up and shine a little.

Manhood, adulthood, and Robin Hood are what we should be growing up to be. Especially Robin Hood because he could shoot arrows and Maid Marian couldn't live without him.

So go find her.

MALK! an example of coolness

For more Julian Smith go to  juliansmith.tv

Yet another shockingly high quality example of how the world

 of entertainment is changing thanks to new

 technology.

Granted, not everything out there is that good, but when we didn't have the technology, movies like this one were shot on crummy hi8 and mini dv cameras. So your audience was limited to family and friends. You'd get some laughs and pats on the back but that was it. The gap between your own work and what you saw on TV was insurmountable. 


The gap is closing.


 Higher production quality suddenly pushes good work forward into the realm of the real world of entertainment. We respond to the shallow depth of field, the sharp focus, the the lack of hot spots due to a wider ability to soak up light. All of it combines into something we  subconsciously take more seriously. That's the future. 


Sure not everything's going to be up there. 


But now the good stuff can be. 
Here's to progress.




If you make things, make them.

7th of July Celebrations Continue Weeks Afterward!

Everybody knows the joy of wearing a Kool-aide smile and blowing stuff up. Here's my brother Aaron blowing up stuff with his home made canon. It doesn't get any better than this, and yes, those are rabbits in the background.

I think we can all learn a valuable lesson here.

1. that you should always have reliable combustables around.

If matches won't do, try piles of gasoline soaked rags.

A hair dryer can usually be employed to get a flame out of something like that... Or simply fill the tub with water, slosh some gasoline over the top, plug in the hair dryer, toaster, or clock radio and toss it into the tub.

Make sure the home electonic has been turned on before doing this as experience has shown that doing so after can result in hand and arm damage including loss of life.

Then you can simlply roll up a newspaper or towel and transport the flame via homemade torch to the backyard where your fire cracker awaits.

and 2. Never eat flamingos. They taste like pink chickens.

The management takes no responsibility for the views, opinions, and or bad advice displayed on this blog. If you are insulted, offended, or otherwise dandered up, please leave a scathing comment or email care of dublbz@hotmail.com so we can post it for the entertainment of our readership. Thank you and have a pleasant life.

Caution: do not ingest. May cause blindness if inserted in eye socket.

Nathan leads an Australian tour through the wreckage of the end of the world!

The Turtle that Ate up Everybody

Wednesday, May 7, 2008 at 2:45am

Ted, a 36 year old bachelor and bank teller was enjoying his first day off in over five weeks by taking his pet turtle Chippy out for a walk. The sight of a thin man in jogging shorts toddling through the park behind a small turtle on a string is an uncommon sight on any day of the week, but on this particular Tuesday afternoon it was exactly what Dr. Silas P. Scrimshanks had been hoping for. He’d been sitting in the park for three days now waiting; waiting for some poor fool to happen by. Ted was too well qualified to miss.
“Excuse me.” Muttered the doctor as he stumbled past Ted dropping the contents of a large cardboard box he was carrying. Books, papers and scientific discourses spilled out onto the sidewalk nearly smashing Chippy. A look of horror graced Ted’s pasty cheeks.
“I’m terribly sorry. How clumsy of me.” Dr. Scrimshanks lifted a few papers uncovering the slightly dazed Chippy. “Hello, and who’s this might I ask.”
“Chippy!” Ted smiled relieved that his only friend in the world was still alive. “He’s a turtle.”
“Yes.” Smiled the doctor with a hint of sinister glee only a passing blue bird happened to notice.
“He’ll be about six to seven months old now I should think.”
“Yes uh…he is- Hey how’d you-“
“I’m a scientist friend. It’s my business to know.” He smiled again and shook Ted’s limp hand. He looked around at the ground apologetically.
“Look at this, I’ve interrupted your afternoon and made a mess of a public thoroughfare! Please, would you be so kind as to help an old man collect his notes and papers?”
Ted quickly obliged and within a few moments the doctor was up off his knees and off again down the sidewalk and across the street. Ted sighed and turned to see what Chippy was up to. It was unlike him to stay still for so long. He nearly fainted as he realized why Chippy hadn’t been pulling at his string. There where Chippy had been only few moments before was an empty loop of string.
“Chippy!” Ted whirled around checking the sidewalk behind him.
“Chippy?!” He franticly checked the grass on either side of the path. No trace. Not even a foot print; although he wasn’t sure turtles could leave footprints in grass.
“CHIPPY!” he looked to the trees.


It had been a wonderfully informative day thought Julie as she walked home from school with her best friend Amber. It had been “Don’t Talk To Strangers Day”, and both girls carried booklets and stickers to remind them of what they’d learned. The back of the booklet featured illustrations of the most popular ways strangers try to engage children in conversation. Offering candy and breakfast cereals from minivans was mentioned but the most frightening by far was the one of a stranger in a park disguising himself as a man searching for his lost puppy. Both girls chattered nervously to each other with this one illustration burned freshly into their young impressionable preservationist minds. It was at this unfortunate moment that a man came crawling out of the bushes on his hands and knees combing the grass franticly with his fingers and babbling to himself. Both girls froze, equally alert at the danger they now faced. Aside from the lunatic Stranger’s startling behavior, his bare thighs reminded both girls of page three in their booklets which featured a man dressed similarly trying to coax a seven year old into conversation aboard a cruise liner. They realized they were already in phase two of an encounter with a stranger. The stranger upon seeing the girls quickly rose to his feet and approached.
“Have either of you seen a little turtle around here? I was taking him for a walk and he’s disappeared. I can’t find him anywhere!” Alarm bells sounded deafeningly in both girls heads.
“He’s about this big.” He raised his hands to show how big the fictional lost pet was. Julie recognized phase three and opened her mouth to scream, but fear had gripped her throat so tightly nothing came out. Like in a nightmare she struggled to scream. She had to scream. The booklet said to. Her head was swimming. She couldn’t breathe!
“Are you alright?” Asked the stranger as he stepped forward pretending concern. Amber’s scream rang out true and clear like an air raid siren.


Ted jumped. His body became a jumble of adrenaline and nerves. He knew that whatever was behind him was either very big or very dangerous or both. What else could make a little girl scream like that? He didn’t wait to find out. He tried to run from whatever must have been pursuing him but something got in the way and hit him hard in the stomach. It was the screaming girl’s head. He fell down hard knocking his face against the pavement. Now the other one was screaming too.


Hanging from a nearby telephone poll Angel Fuentes, a City Power employee, heard the frantic screams and turned just in time to see the pedophile attacker rush the two little girls. He was a thin pale man in ridiculously short shorts obviously driven to his perversion by the lack of female attention in his life, but this wasn’t a time to analyze. Angel was particularly fond of analyzing the little people that passed back and forth beneath him as he worked, but as was mentioned before this was not one of those times. This was a time for action.
Angel knew just what to do. He’d rehearsed it for several months now hoping an opportunity like this one would happen. He smiled a satisfied grin as he pulled a long heavy wrench from a loop on his belt. The metal felt cold and solid in his fist. As if in slow motion, the action played out just as it had a thousand times in his mind. He pulled his arm back and with a steely eyed stare, targeted the perpetrator like a hawk fixed on his prey. Everything went still for Angel. Time had come to a screeching halt. All that existed was the cold balanced steel in his fist, and the head of a man down there on the ground; a perverted sick man trying to hurt children, and then Angel was ready, A satisfied whisper escaped his lips. “You’re already dead.”




“This is Martha Shapiro reporting live from Franklin Memorial Park where earlier today a man tried to molest two six year old girls returning from school when he was stopped by a literal guardian angel.”
Ted’s bruised and confused mug shot was replaced on the flickering screen by a live video feed of an interview with Angel Fuentes. The reporter’s microphone was stuck into his face in time to hear him say, “When I saw that guy tackling those little girls, I knew somebody needed to stop him… so I did.”
“and it was quite the throw!” remarked the smiling reporter as the image changed to the shaky home video footage of a grandmother out videotaping pigeons that day. The abrupt swish pan came just in time to capture Angel swinging his arm and the gleaming wrench flying gracefully through the air. Then there was the lovely jolt the camera made when the wrench made contact with the would-be child molester’s face. They replayed it several times as the reporter praised the accuracy and distance of Angel’s heroic throw. “I used to play baseball in School.” beamed the City Power employee.
“Fotsworth! Turn that off and come help me with the next batch of serum!”
Fotsworth, like most laboratory assistants was short, ugly, and remarkably dimwitted. How he came to work with Dr. Scrimshanks was a long complicated story that boiled down to the fact that if Dr. Scrimshanks was going to finally do what he’d dreamed of his whole life, then he needed an assistant with enough intelligence to follow instructions, but not ask moral questions or consider personal danger.
“It’s too big for this bowl.”
“That’s why we have larger bowls for subsequent batches.”
“Oh.” Replied Fotsworth as he wondered to himself what subsequent meant. He figured it probably had something to do with the subway.
“Now, place our friend in the bowl please.” Dr. Scrimshanks ventilator mask reminded Fotsworth of the alien invasion comic book he hadn’t gotten around to reading yet because he wasn’t used to staying overnight in the laboratory yet and was too scared to look at it. As he put the foot long turtle into the larger bowl he wondered why he didn’t have a mask too.
“I still think we should have done the jellyfish.”
Silas Scrimshanks sat silently concentrating on his display of gauges and graphs.
“It could sting people.”
“Including us you diptherious imbecile. A jellyfish aside from being extremely messy lacks two very important qualifications. Fotsworth waited but the doctor wasn’t forthcoming with any explanation. He lowered the hose into the bowl. Fotwsorth still waited.
“Switch on the pump and release valves three and six please.” Fotsworth flipped a switch and turned to twist the corresponding knobs. The doctor lowered a dark set of goggles over his eyes as glowing green radioactive plasma flowed down into a special chamber in his machine. The room glowed green for a moment. Then the doctor closed the chamber. Tightened a valve and flipped another switch. As a low hum reverberated through the laboratory he removed the goggles and ventilator and continued.
“First, a jellyfish cannot survive out of water. Therefore we would find ourselves with a lot of useless rash generating jelly and a horrible stink.”
It took a moment for Fotsworth to realize the doctor was back to giving his qualifications.
“And second, even if a jellyfish could survive out of water it lacks any form of locomotion.”
Fotsworth tried to nod in agreement, but he was having trouble processing that last bit.
“Legs Fotsworth. It hasn’t got any legs.”
“It’s got tentacles.”
The doctor stood and leaned over the experiment.
“Yes it has.” His voice was soft and far away. His eyes flickered with a wicked gleam.
“Fotsworth… I think its time for something bigger.”