I spent most of the day today trying to fill some widows. Despite how that may sound, it has nothing to do with laying pipe for spouses of the deceased. It means fixing the copy so that it looks a little better on the page.

See, sometimes after all the copy is in the ad, you end up with only a few words left on one line.

That’s called a widow. Depending on the art director, you either have to extend the sentence to the center of the paragraph. Or write some B.S. to stretch it to the end.

Newspapers don’t usually give a shit about widows. But advertising agencies do. Words aren’t thought of as information, but more like graphic elements. Basically, we end up writing way more than is really necessary just to fill a little extra space. And then you end up reading it and thinking to yourself, ‘Who the fuck wrote this?’

So how obvious is it that I had nothing to blog about today? Show of hands? Yeah.

Hey there. Just wanted to say that I love those Tide Rapid Action Tabs. They’re so convenient and they work exactly as advertised. Just drop them in the water and they immediately start cranking out the suds. There’s only one problem: they’re fucking discontinued.

Come on, P&G. How could you do this to me? You got me hooked on these stupid fucking tablets of soap and now I can’t find them anywhere! Sure, Whisk sells its own soap discs and so does Surf. But they aren’t the same. You drop those things in the water and they just sit there. No fizzing. No foaming. Just bleh. That’s not what I want. I want my goddamn Rapid Action Tabs back! You stupid motherfuckers! Now what am I supposed to do, go back to scooping powder? You insensitive little pricks. I hope a water main bursts in your Tide manufacturing plant and you all drown in an ocean of foam.

By the way, love your Pringles. Especially the mesquite flavor.

Sincerely,

Smivey

This morning I had a whimsical idea. I was just about to get into the shower when I thought to myself, ‘Why bother?’ I mean, it’s not like I smelled that bad, and the bed-head do I was sporting was actually kind of cool. So I said screw it, applied some deodorant, got dressed and went to work.

Oh yeah, there was one other factor that helped me decide to forgo the H20 this morning: no fucking hot water. Yeah, that’s what makes apartment life so exciting. One moment you’ve got piping-hot water flowing out your faucets. The next moment, you’ve got shit. Well, feces wasn’t literally oozing out the shower head. That would be disgusting, and it would probably clog up those tiny little holes. Where the hell am I going with this? I have no idea. I need a shower. A hot shower.

This month, HUMMER unveiled its latest creation: The 4B4. If you thought the original HUMMER was big, you’re not going to believe this thing. The “4B” actually stands for “4 Bedrooms,” along with 2 1/2 baths, a full-size gourmet kitchen and a two-car garage. Available upgrades include a gold-plated 10-person whirlpool spa, a Japanese garden with Koi pond, and an 8,000-watt, 450-speaker sound system with 50,000-disc CD/DVD auto changer. The vehicle is estimated to get at least .25 miles per gallon* (note the decimal point) and go from 0-60 in approximately 3.5 hours. Happy motoring.

*Mileage is based on vehicle being driven down a very steep hill by an anorexic. Your actual mileage is unimportant. Just imagine of how jealous your neighbors are gonna be when they see you driving this fuckin’ thing. Not suitable for highway or surface street use. Always wear your seat belt.

Poker is all the rage these days. Seems like every network has covered one game or another. I just love all the characters you see playing: There’s the guy with the baseball cap and sunglasses, the dude in the basketball jersey, and that Asian man with the cigarette holder. I watch all these people and think to myself, ‘I could be a professional Poker player!’

Of couse, I’d probably have to learn a bit more about the game first. I think if you have all the cards in the same suit, that’s good. But not as good as if someone has all the cards in the same suit in order. I think. But I’m not sure. My friend tried to explain the rules to me once, but SpongeBob SquarePants was on at the time and I just can’t get enough of that Plankton.

Not that it matters. I think the key to Poker isn’t how you play your cards, it’s how you play the players. You know, all those mind games and shit. I could totally do that. But rather than play it cool, I’d put my own twist on things:

They’d deal me my two cards and I’d glance at them and just let out a, “Oh, fuck me!” and then I’d lower my head to the table like I just lost my life’s savings. But I wouldn’t fold, and everyone would be thinking, ‘Hey, what’s with that weird guy wearing the giant foam cowboy hat?’ (’cause that’s what I’d be wearing), and they’d all try to ignore me. Then I might turn to the guy next to me, the one with the cigarette holder, and I’d say something like, “Hey, what do the ‘A’ cards mean?” And he’d just glance at me and let some smoke out of the corner of his mouth. What an asshole.

So, there would be this round of betting and then the flop, and then the bridge or whatever the fuck it’s called, and finally it would come to me and I’d yell, “ALL IN, BABY!” and push the four chips I had into the pot. Of course, everyone would call or check or whatever they’re supposed to do and I’d show them my Pair of Twos. And then the guy wearing the basketball jersey would display his Three Kings, and that would be that.

Yeah, I’d be a fucking awesome Poker player. But it would certainly be a short career.

Guys, think about this: How painful was it the first time you had sex? Assuming you aren’t some kind of masochistic pervert who jams pins in your johnson, it probably didn’t hurt at all. Sure, it was over faster than she could say “Is it in yet?”. But what else did you have to complain about? Wearing a condom? Please.

Women, on the other hand, don’t usually have such fond memories of losing their virginity. In fact, some have described it as feeling like they’re being ripped in two. And while it would be really easy for me to make a joke here about my size being the cause of all that pain, I’m gonna take the highroad (yeah, right).

But seriously. The tearing. The bleeding. The headache from having their head bounced off the headboard over and over and over. How can that be fun? From what I can see from my vantage point, it can’t. And yet they continue to submit to our advances, with nothing to look forward to but a “thank you, ma’am.” at the end.

Well, it’s gotta stop. No, not the sex. Are you fucking crazy? I’m talking about taking women for granted. I want all of you men out there who have girlfriends or wives (or both) to do something nice for your girl today, and I’m not talking about just buying her some goddamn flowers. Get her a card. Write something nice in it. Let her know how much you appreciate everything she does for you. Maybe even grit your teeth and take her dancing. And don’t wait until February 14th to do it. Do it today. She’ll love you for it. And then tomorrow you can go back to treating her like shit.

Have you ever been waiting for a friend to call, and as you’re waiting, you decide to read a book. So you start reading, but as you’re reading, you start thinking about when your friend is going to call, and then you start thinking about what you’re going to talk about, and then you realize that you kind of need to pee. But you don’t want to have to pee while you’re talking to your friend. So you figure you should probably pee now. But then you think that maybe if you start peeing now, the phone might start ringing in mid-stream, and that wouldn’t be good. But then you figure, the longer you think about it, the more likely it is that your friend’s call is going to interrupt your bathroom break. So you decided that you just need to get it over with. And that’s right around when you get to the end of the page and you realize you have absolutely no idea what you’ve just read. Is that ADD or what?

It used to be that if you wanted to look like a real bad ass, there was only one thing to do: get a tattoo. Then the nineties rolled around and suddenly everyone was sportin’ ink. Heck, even my sister got a butterfly buzzed onto her ankle, and she’s a frickin’ CPA!

So, if CPAs and Tax Attorneys are going under the needle, what’s a genuine bad ass supposed to do? Pierce your eyeballs? Maybe. Better yet, why not do something that really makes a statement? Get a face tattoo.

That’s right. Only a real man could take so many pricks in the face…Okay, maybe that wasn’t the best choice of words. All I’m sayin’ is, a tattoo on your mug says ‘bite me’ to society. Because as soon as that gun starts grinding away, you’ve pretty much narrowed down your career choices: Prize Fighter, Mass Murderer, Used-Car Dealer or Tower Records Employee. Come to think of it, Tower Records might even have a problem with that one.

Okay, so you’ve decided to go for it and get the face tattoo. Good for you. Now the question comes up: What do you want permanently etched on your face? Something tribal? Eh. Too cliche. A snake? It’s been done. No, you want something different. Something that will get people talking. In other words, something cute.

Think about it. Anyone can get a black widow spider or “666″ carved into his face. But you walk into a bar with a Care Bear on your forehead and the rumors would really start flying: “Stay away from that guy with the Care Bear tattoo. I heard he ripped a guy’s arm off and then ate it for lunch, bones and all.” Yeah, with a Care Bear tattoo on your face, nobody would even think about fucking with you. Except for maybe the guy with a bouquet of daisies embroidered into his scalp. Now that would really be scary.

Check out my high school yearbook photo and you’ll find a pimply-faced kid who looks like he was ripped right out of the pages of The Official Preppy Handbook: argyle sweater vest, button-down shirt, Levi’s 501 Jeans and a pair of Sperry Topsiders.

Yeah, back then, you might peg me as a guy who had a collection of Huey Lewis records at home. And I did. But I also had some albums that might surprise you: TSOL, The Dead Kennedys, The Sex Pistols, Stiff Little Fingers, The Damned, The Dickies, Suicidal Tendencies, The Toy Dolls, The Pet Shop Boys… Okay, I never said I was a hardcore punk. I didn’t put glue in my hair or wear a leather jacket with the letters “GBH” painted on the back. I just liked the music.

One time, during a lapse in judgment, I decided to attend a reunion concert for The Damned at the Hollywood Palladium. Not surprisingly, I got a little too close to the mosh pit and almost died. Well, I fell backward, but someone caught me. Had they not, it’s very likely my last vision would’ve been that of the underside of a Doc Marten boot.

So that pretty much ended my punk rock phase. I started listening to jazz fusion for a while (don’t ask), then fell into the Manchester scene with bands like The Smiths, Blur and The Stone Roses. Lately, I’ve been into electronic music, specifically drum n bass. Not that Dieselboy and AK 1200 could ever replace Jello Biafra and Johnny Rotten. But they’re certainly a lot easier to listen to while I’m trying to write my copy.

In Long Beach, California, there is a street named “Ximeno Avenue.” At first glance, you might pronounce it Zimeno, but the locals actually call it Ex-imeno. Even the real estate agents do it. Why? We don’t call a xylophone an ex-ylophone. Or read xanthan gum as exanthan gum. What makes Ximeno so damn special? I don’t know of any other words that start with X that are pronounced that way. I mean, if it was hyphenated like x-ray is, I could understand it. Even the Latin pronunciation wouldn’t be Ex-imeno, or Zimeno for that matter. It would be Jimeno. Unless of course you’re that Brazilian* children’s-TV-show sexpot, Xuxa, who pronounces her name Shoo-shuh. She might pronounce the street Shimeno. But Ex-imeno? Never. Then again, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there is some foreign rule of pronunciation I’m just not aware of. Or maybe, just maybe, everyone who lives in Long Beach is a complete moron.

*Originally wrote that Xuxa was Spanish, until Xolo pointed out my ignorance.