Once My Looks Go, I've Got Nothing

     You know the traditional image of a jack-o-lantern?   The triangle eyes and nose, the grinning mouth with a few scattered teeth here and there? I don’t recall ever carving one in my life. I may have, and my grandmother certainly did, but I cannot think of a single instance in which I did so myself. And yet I have carved many a jack-o-lantern, often several each year. The reasoning behind this seemingly paradoxical situation can be summed up in a compound word: Carve-O-Lantern. However, just because it can be summed up thusly doesn’t mean it should be, so please allow me to explain.      A Wisconsin engineer by the name of Paul Bardeen came to the realization several decades ago (during the 1940s, as far as I can discern) that the time-honored tradition of hacking up a pumpkin with a kitchen knife or box cutter had some drawbacks. Specifically, the combination of knives and children inherent in pumpkin carving carried with it an alarming risk for lacerations and/or stabbi

     I wrote this several years ago and submitted it to McSweeney's. They didn't publish it, but I got some pretty positive feedback on it. I figured I would share it with the world in the hopes that someone might derive some joy from reading it.         I’m sitting on a curb in the Vandelay Center mini-mall, the dark concrete shimmering and waving as though it’s about to warp out of reality or something.   The sun is perched above the earth in a perpetual explosion, making each breeze feel like it’s coming from a giant hair dryer.   My knees ache from 20 years of tedious plumbing jobs.   I’ve just exited Coldstone Creamery, and directly in my line of sight lies the big red and white sign with a cartoon ice cream cone, hanging above the brick edifice with its array of peculiarly smudge-free windows.   As I slowly run my tongue over my double scoop of mint chocolate chip, I observe the seemingly happy employees in white paper hats performing repetitive motions.   The t

     As a poverty-stricken American, I eat a lot of lunch meat, due to the fact that I cannot subsist on Top Ramen alone (though I have found that using only half the contents of the flavor packet and adding a ton of Sriracha makes it much more palatable). I tend to alternate between turkey, in its various forms, and roast beef. Now, for the purposes of this article, we're setting aside the roast beef for a minute to focus on the poultry. After a quick Arby's plug. You see, I love Arby's roast beef, and as far as I know, they don't even hate homosexuals there! Plus I found this insane Photoshop mash-up of former Arby's mascot Oven Mitt and Mitt Romney, which proves that everything does in fact exist on the internet:      Now then: turkey. My current living quarters is more or less right next to a Safeway, so the majority of my lunch meat consumption has consisted of Safeway-approved brands such as Oscar Mayer, Land-O-Frost and Oscar Mayer. Now, there are varyin

Since I have been sitting in front of a computer for 95% of the past seven years (go ahead and do the math, Pointdexter!), I have become quite familiar with the various types of articles that online media websites like to post. One of my favorite sorts of article is the Power Rankings that websites such as ESPN.com will do. If you are unfamiliar with the concept, a Power Rankings article is basically a list of sports teams in order from best to worst or vice versa at a certain point in time, with an explanation for their placement. These rankings are arguable and often, especially for certain portions of the list, fairly arbitrary. Having said that, they are a hell of a lot of fun to read, so I thought I’d try my hand at one. The sports theme has been done to death, though, by writers far more knowledgeable in the field than I, so today we're trying something a little different. After a thorough investigation of what exactly constitutes my “wheelhouse,” I submit for your approva