Finally jumping on the bandwagon… my 25 things!!!

False.

Joey Presents: Great Mysteries of the Universe

Mystery #108 – “25 things about me” blogs

I’m not even sure we can call it a bandwagon anymore, seeing as 90% of facebook now seems to be riding it. In my head, I picture something more like the field at the Cardinal’s stadium: some

huge, lurching monster on rails, loaded with college students.

It strikes me how easily we’ve given in to this, though. We’ve fought so fiercely to protect what is ours, first myspace and then facebook, from the toddlers on one side and the grown-ups on the other. We’ve been the guy sitting on the plane between two fat people, elbows working overtime at the armrests – “Hey, man, this is my domain. Find your own.” In a way, to me, this whole chain-letter-mania is finally the point where the fat flaps close in. The hipster suffocates silently in his sleep, his seat mates casting lots for his uneaten peanuts. My grandma sends me bumper stickers, and my little cousin updates his status at recess. Our world is finally, for the second time, taken over.

The question is, will we run again? Will there be yet another internet promise land to hold our generation of hipster web-refugees? Probably, but until some new, awesome place is founded which is totally for young people only and where adults will totally never understand, man, we seem to be getting along pretty well sharing the sandbox.

Oh and, uh, forward this blog to thirty of your closest friends or unicorns will eat all your underpants.

(Note: I realize the joke of this blog loses its luster when not on facebook. Deal with it.)

Mystery #Applesauce - A special, greatly mysterious announcement

I understand posting this here is stupid and redundant and stupid. However, I consider this canon and the whole point of this website is to be your one-stop shop for unabridged Great Mystery awesomeness. So yeah. Papow.

Joey Presents: Great Mysteries of the Universe

Mystery #Applesauce - A special, greatly mysterious announcement

Okay, so I didn't want to dignify this with a number, but I have some news which may very well interest none of you. On the other hand, maybe the following will somehow provide the key to your happiness. Perhaps there will be parades, and great improvised song-and-dance numbers in the streets. Maybe they'll build a statue in my honor. Of horses. For 1.5 million dollars.

Sorry. Anyways, I've been writing these stupid, stupid blogs for coming up on two years now. They started as a bored day on Myspace and kind of grew into... something else. I'm not sure what to call it. A big pile of whims that some people pay attention to? Social commentary? Stupid jokes? Meh. Anyways, some of you who have been reading since the beginning (#172, to be exact) will note that nowhere except my computer can all the blogs be found in one place. Plus, I feel lame writing a blog that only gets published to my social networking site. So, for a little while now I've been working on getting the Great Mystery archives posted to a blogger.com account. It isn't super polished yet, but all that I need to tweak are some finishing touches (better layout, some sort of introduction banner, etc.) and I have finally gotten every last blog to date uploaded. So, without further ado, the new home of Joey Presents: Great Mysteries of the Universe

www.gmotu.blogspot.com

Not sure yet what this means for the future of the blog. I'll post both here and the blogger site for awhile, but unless I get requests from ya'll to keep the facebook posts coming (gesture to comment section) I'll probably eventually move the whole operation to the website. Either way, I'm excited to make the switch as we continue our way through an increasingly Mysterious universe toward truth, enlightenment, and Great Mystery #1. Night, folks.

-jo

Mystery #109 – 83% of this blog is about Statistics

Joey Presents: Great Mysteries of the Universe
Mystery #109 – 83% of this blog is about Statistics

 

I made that number up. I’m sorry.

 

…

 

My statistics professor seems to be employed by ASU for the express purpose of driving me to suicide. I do not understand precisely why. Perhaps they want my scholarship money back.

 

Three times a week, I start my morning with a magical romp through her whimsical world, learning such gems as: how to draw bar graphs, the proper technique for dividing a pie chart, and (as I write this) how to use the arrow keys to navigate your calculator’s menu. Seriously, she’s talking about it right now. She just drew a diagram on the board. It looks like this. 

And then my brain imploded.

Mystery #110 – They eat dog in China

Joey Presents: Great Mysteries of the Universe
Mystery #110 – They eat dog in China

Invariably when my dad comes home, China is a popular topic of discussion. This specific point seems to come up a lot and, frankly, I’m done. Welcome to Great Mysteries, now with extra sass. Mm-hmm.

Yes. Yes, they eat dog in China. No, they do not eat stray dogs off of the street. No, they do not steal other people’s dogs to eat. And no, there is nothing gross, wrong, immoral, or at all dubious about it. I mean, come on people. We live in America. You’re supposed to be the open-minded, culturally enlightened citizens of the melting pot, not the idiot asking, “So, like, is it safe to have a dog there?” No. Chinese people are nasty, dirty little thieves so desperate for the sweet taste of puppy flesh that they routinely dress in their black ninja garb to scour the neighborhood for poor, defenseless animals who’s owners were foolish enough not to keep them inside. Upon finding their prey, these monsters do not even cook the meat, deciding instead to tear it limb from limb with their sharp Chinese fangs. Also, I hear they sleep in coffins.

Honestly? Are you safe having a dog there? I once knew a family with a pot bellied pig as a pet, a big fat thing which wore a collar and had a little dog bed in the corner. They had a small, fenced-in side yard with a dog door, which the pig used to go outside. Now, please show me the idiot who actually thinks this family’s pig is at risk, as random passerby may, at any moment, drop what they’re doing and make a grab for it. Perhaps it will be the businessman on his way to work. Suddenly, in the middle of the street, he stomps on his breaks and bolts out of his car. “BACON!” he yells, “SWEET, DELICIOUS BACON!” I know, I know, it happens every day, poor defenseless family pets devoured by random passerby. I’m not saying that Asian people don’t steal, or even that Asian people don’t steal things to eat, but to assume that the Chinese restaurant down the street may be responsible for your missing Pookie is just absurd.

I won’t spend a lot of time on the second point that dogs aren’t human, because then the racists win. We don’t eat dogs here, but we eat a whole lot of other stuff. I shouldn’t have to whip out the “cows=sacred” example, but it really is the best one out there. Your burger is just as disgusting in someone else’s eyes as dog ramen would be to you (on a related note, “dog ramen” would make a sweet band name…). And, of course, to a vegetarian we’re all on the fast train to some deep, dark, carnivorous hell, so really they’re the only ones who can talk.

Which reminds me, vegetarians… is my garden safe?

Mystery #111 - Global Warming

About a year ago I subjected you all to a rather graphic rant about Santa and projectile vomiting (Mystery #137!!!). It's been a long time, so I figured I owed ya'll a blog. Merry Christmas from me to you.

Joey Presents: Great Mysteries of the Universe
Mystery #111 - Global Warming

Just last week I was standing on my porch wearing shorts and a t-shirt and watching the rain. My Arizonan readers will know, of course, that rain outside of the summer months is extremely rare. My sane readers will know, of course, that shorts weather days before Christmas is a ridiculous thing. “My,” I thought to myself, “This certainly is a Great Mystery.”

These days you’re always hearing the cons of Global Warming: “the glaciers are melting”, “we’ll all get skin cancer”, “the polar bears are dying”. You need only turn on your TV and be flooded by propaganda. I just can’t help but feel it’s all just a touch one-sided. 

“But Joey... polar bears!” cry the zealots. Well you know what? Polar bears terrify me. Sometimes, I wake up in a cold sweat, thanking my sweet Lord for his ongoing protection from the White Menace. If you ask me, any enemy of the bears deserves our gratitude.

And know what hasn’t done a thing to protect us from polar bears? The freakin’ rainforest. Lame.

Mystery #112 – Fire Safety

Joey Presents: Great Mysteries of the Universe
Mystery #112 – Fire Safety

The fire alarm in the MU went off today.

Now, most of you will remember the Great MU Fire of ’07, a particularly nasty blaze which threatened tens of thousands, few of whom managed to escape with their lives [citation needed]. I myself was inside at the time, diving through the flames just as the roof collapsed with no less than twelve asphyxiated orphans clinging to my back, all of whom I single-handedly resuscitated before reuniting with all their long-lost families (most of whom were wizards).

Well, I can assure you that when that fire started, we knew it. Flashing lights and blaring alarms sprung to life throughout the building; the grating RRRGH- RRRGH- RRRGH sound most of us associate with lining up on the basketball court. The MU was closed for a long time after that, during which administration assured us the building was being remodeled and outfitted with a new, improved fire alarm system.

There is a distinct possibility that I am partially deaf, my handicap only being the exact pitches emitted by new, improved fire alarm systems, but I doubt it. When the alarm went off today, a flashing light began to blink every few seconds. From the basement there was an automated announcement I could faintly hear as I passed the stairwell, but on the main level… nothing. Some people looked around, confused, and most didn’t notice at all.

It finally took a woman in an ”ASU staff” polo to get people moving, “Fire alarm, everybody out of the building!” She yelled it over and over, kind of like, you know, a fire alarm. I didn’t check her for a control panel or a power cord, but I probably should have. It is, after all, a new and improved fire alarm system.

I was already headed out, so I suppose I’ll have to wait and hear how the Great MU Fire of ’08 panned out, but I’m not that optimistic. While “whisper quiet” sounds good in a car, vacuum, or bulldozer commercial, I’m not sure it should be the selling point for a new, IMPROVED fire alarm system. I imagine the singed, exhausted robot woman going home to her robot family. It’s been a long day at work, and she’s not sure she did her job to the best of her ability. She’ll cry oily robot tears as her husband gingerly clamps her shoulders. “It’s ok, wife-bot, you couldn’t have saved them all. That place needs four, five robot alarms minimum. They’re completely understaffed.” But she’ll just keep blaming herself, keep thinking... if only…

I mean, heck, the boy’s bathroom! She can’t even go in there.

Mystery #114 – Mosquitoes

Joey Presents: Great Mysteries of the Universe
Mystery #114 – Mosquitoes

I enjoy the weather in Arizona. It’s hot, but in the way my oven is hot. China, however, is hot like a hobo’s armpit: it’s warm and sticky and there are bugs here.

Which of course means mosquitoes. Like every other sane person on the face of the planet, I hate mosquitoes. They drink your blood and give you pimples without the silver lining/pastime of popping. Did I mention the blood? They also, I sometimes fear, might have the power to turn me into a mosquito vampire, which would be like a regular vampire except I’d be repelled by DEET and my castle would be in a bayou, which is lame. If I’m going to be transformed into a creature of the night for all eternity, I’m not spending it in Louisiana.

To protect against this (and, you know, itchiness) I’ve developed a talent for snatching bugs out of the air with my bare hand and crushing them. I used to do the same at home with flies and gnats, only without the crushing. However, I feel obligated to kill the mosquitoes – and quickly – lest my pastime become counter-productive.

It’d be kind of like an all you can eat buffet violently abducting a passing fat man, it’s magical forces depositing him before a silently whirring soft-serve machine. “Feed,” it would command him, it’s voice cold and metallic, “Drain me, and find sustenance.” His trembling, flabby hand would reach for a waffle cone, apprehensive but all too willing.

So yeah, crushing it is.

This was all well and good until the other day, when a mosquito made it through my defenses to score a direct hit. I was so angry, I caught him, grabbed a lighter, and held him by the wings with a pair of tweezers while burning him alive. That prompted a good look in the mirror. Just, ya know, FYI. Don’t bite me.