Oh, It's Flaming Alright

Some people do strange things to their cars. You see SUVs covered in spray-painted camouflage stuck in traffic on a highway downtown. Or someone so rebellious that they covered their back window with “bumper” stickers, including one that says, “I can’t see out my back window.” Cars dropped so low they get stuck on speed bumps. Or monster trucks jacked up so high you have to be wearing a parachute to be a passenger. Oh, and a secondary parachute, in case the first should fail on the way down.

But the style that made me laugh today is the “flames painted on the front” look. The idea is that the car is going SO FAST that it somehow burst into flames. This car zooming down the street, pushing the limits at a cool 37 mph, appears to have caught fire due to the absolutely insane amounts of speed it's generating. I’m sure it looks just as impressive in the parking lot of Chuck E. Cheese, where it is still smoldering from pulling into the space so unbelievably fast.

No car in the history of motorized vehicles has ever caught fire from going too fast, except maybe a Pinto. Even the car that broke the sound barrier didn’t spontaneously combust, but instead made a loud pop, which is the sound of everyone around the world (at the same time) not caring. The only car that ever came close was the DeLorean from Back to the Future, but that car could travel through time and you have to expect some amount of heat when jumping dimensions. Oh, and it was fictional.

I wouldn’t think that catching on fire would be a good thing. Other things that go fast don’t have flames painted on the side. It’s not like NASA is “pimpifying” the space shuttle, and that thing can haul some major ass. Plus I think flames on the shuttle send the wrong message. And frankly, there have been instances... NASA is smarter than that. These are the same people that designed the beds where you can sleep next to your glass of wine. Or drop bowling balls on it. It will remember how you slept, that you like to randomly drop balls from high places, and other strange things you’re into. So basically, NASA is SO smart, THEIR BEDS are smart. So no flame art.

I bet, though, they could paint a fiery design on the front of the military missiles.
So terrorists could look up and say, “Oh, look that missile coming towards us has flames painted on the front of it, it really must be fast.”
“You’re right, Mustafa. It does.”
“You know what? Kind of reminds of that movie Back to the Future.”
“Oooh, that’s a good one. I like that Michael J. Fox.”
“Remember when Doc says, '1.21 jiggawatts!'”
“Oh yes, ha ha. That was funny. 'A bolt of lightning!'”
“Yeah yeah, great movie. Third one sucked though.”
“Really disappointed in that one, I gotta say.”


I’ll be honest, I thought about getting body art for my car awhile back. But flames don’t really belong on the side of a Mazda. Something about the phrase “four door sedan” really kills it.

What I thought about instead was painting a robot on the hood. Something that says, “This car is going SO FAST it’s turning into a mechanized soldier of numerous capabilities.” Like a Transformer. Or even something slightly more menacing, a Decepticon. Or, get this, a Decepticon with flames painted on the side.

Hilary Duff Gives Up

In a startling announcement from Hilary Duff, the teen star admitted that she is “not at all cute” at a press conference Monday.

The 17-year-old actress threw in the proverbial towel five years after her debut on “Lizzie McGuire,” apologizing for becoming famous. Duff told reporters she suspected something was wrong when her movie opened seventh at the box office behind many other bad movies and a documentary about penguins. It was only until recently, she added, that she realized she is “incredibly ugly.”

“Like, I was on the set of my new music video and I walked by a mirror in my trailer,” Duff said. “I took a long look. After I threw up in my mouth a little bit, I thought, ‘Wow, I look really really disgusting.’ I went out and called off the video. I’m just too damn ugly.”

Hilary Duff had a very public feud with mildly-attractive movie star Lindsay Lohan over Aaron Carter in 2003. When asked to comment, Carter responded, “Yeah, I was really stuck between a rock and a hard place there. They’re both hideous girls. It was really just a choice between the lesser of two evils. How did I get mixed up with these trolls? Hermoine, if you’re out there, call me!”

Duff allegedly fell off the “ugly tree” and hit every branch on the way down, according to her mother, who is also not a looker.

Duff concluded the press conference saying, “A wise man once told me that everyone is beautiful on the inside. Well, I sold that to the record company a while ago and believe me, it was ugly too.”

Bathroom Bigfoot

I love my sister. She’s a cool girl. And having her around was nice over the summer. But I’d probably like her even more if she was bald. And she had her own bathroom.

When I head to the bathroom, I’m assaulted by a sasquatch of congealed face powder and shed hair, swallowing me up at the ankles. My feet don’t even know when they’ve left carpet and onto the ancient linoleum. Sometimes it gets so thick that it beckons me from the cracked floor to jump into it like a pile of leaves.

If I take a shower it’s there, mocking me and stretching itself over the drain, forcing me into a race against the clock or risk certain overflow. So there I slosh, calf-deep in murky water, scrubbing myself with a pink washcloth with a kitty cat on it. And all I can think about is the impending tsunami and trying not to accidentally crack my head against the carry-all that hangs from the showerhead bearing various lotions and creams. And sometimes... a luffa.

One time I picked it up, the tangled mass of dead skin cells that had captured our floor. "The Sasquatch." I even considered using a rake, but the amount of effort that would have required tricked me into gathering it with my bare hands. I almost lost an arm.

I went to wash my hands after the ordeal and there was Winnie the Pooh staring me in the face, his head perched on the soap dispenser. He grinned at me as I slammed my fist on his plastic skull and flowery scented soap poured onto my ruddy mitts. It’s only then that I realized that the hair had migrated and infiltrated my sink, leaving me helpless with soapy hands, Winnie my only ally against it.

The hair heap shot up and grabbed me around the wrists, restricting circulation as it pulled me closer. Winnie jumped into action, bobbing his head furiously to provide enough lubricant for my hands to slip free. I wrestled my arms loose and dashed for the door just as I heard Winnie cry out, “Go! Forget about me! Save yourself!”
I summersaulted into the hallway and yanked the door closed, straining to keep the knob from turning. Inside I could hear the death struggle and the muffled cries from Winnie. And then... suddenly... all was silent.

The summer is over now and my sister has moved back to college. Winnie was since replaced by an ordinary hand soap dispenser. But sometimes I still have nightmares about that fateful day. I can still hear the muffled screams of poor Pooh.


I know, I probably sound bitter, but that’s what happens after 6 months of bathing with Bigfoot.