Computer: Set Blog to Auto-Post...

The Old Lady's out at some fancy perfess'r-party tonight, so it has been just me and the spawnage all afternoon/eve'n. Hence, I barely have a fucking will-to-live, let alone an ounce of will-to-blog. So, instead, I'm just gonna post some doodles of Mr. Z's that I found tucked in his math book.



I was a little concerned about the fact that he really dislikes math so much, even though he's really good at it. But after seeing these drawings, I couldn't give two shits if he never listens in a math class again. He's basically got a ready-to-program video game idea right there that'd make him (us) millions. I'm calling Nintendo first thing in the morning. Look for it this Xmas: Big Huge Brawl for the Wii!

Crabbydad could be retiring early!

The Crabcorn Doesn't Fall Far from the Tree...

Well, Mr. Z had a shit-ass day today and, apparently, I didn't make it a whole lot better. He's already not a huge booster of Mondays, so the addition of getting a fairly carpy grade on a test and the realization that one of his best friends is moving away at the end of the school year pushed him right up to the fucking brink of junior crabbitude.

Then, after school, he asked me if we could go get the new Mario Kart game for the Wii that he's been jonesing for. When I replied that we can probably get it sometime in the near future but not today, well that fucking clinched it. Oh, and he had his piano lesson today. Maximum lid-flippage mode was officially achieved.

When we got home, he stomped up to his room and slammed the door. Then I heard the door open, momentarily, and then slam shut once again. When I trotted upstairs to see what the shit all this repeat slammage was about, this is what I found on his door:



I love that, as fucking pissed-off as he was, he still managed to come up with the cutest fuck-you-face possible. No amount of crabbiness can squelch that boy's love of all things kawaii.

Dad, Why Is Teddy Bare?

So, Mr. Z used to have a subscription to Neopets magazine -- the one-stop periodical for all your over-priced, shittily illustrated, anime trading card needs. Well, apparently, he was the only one who still gave a rat's dingus about Neopets, 'cuz we received a letter saying that they were discontinuing the magazine.



Not to worry, however, as they were substituting it with "Plushie Pals" magazine. That's right, I said "Plushie Pals." The periodical for both the young children who collect, and the sick-fuck grown-ups who dry hump, stuffed animals. I sure hope they don't cancel this magazine, 'cuz I'm pretty sure the next one's gonna be "Coprophilia Cuddlers."

Anywhich, Mr. Z and Miss O are obsessed with this rag. They pore over it day and night, making lists of which ones are the cutest, the rarest and which ones they're going to badger the Old Lady and I into purchasing next. The pages are filled with thousands of these fucking glorified beanbags, and the spawnage know the names, stats and value of every fucking one. They're like stuffed-animal Rain Men, these two.

So, on Friday, the new issue showed up and they both started flipping through it furiously. Apparently, they had each sent in a description of their favorite Webkinz and were hoping that their submissions were going to make it into the issue. And, wouldn'tcha know it, they did.

Here's Mr. Z's page for his penguin "Chillee":



Unfortunately, they fucked up Miss O's submission, I guess, and she was inconsolable. Apparently, they added the word "daughter" into her description, for some reason, and she was fucking pissed. (I actually had to clean the image up in Photoshop, because she scribbled out the word with magic marker):



I guess I'm just kind of disturbed that I had no idea they had sent anything in to the magazine, and only found out about it when I saw it in print. Maybe it's the fact that they got published in "Plushie Pals" magazine that really bothers me. Or maybe it's the thought of some hairy, overweight 40 year old man reading their submissions while lying naked on a bed of soiled stuffed animals and committing brazen frottage on an unwitting Winnie-the-Pooh that really disturbs me. Yeah... that's what really disturbs me.

Why can't they read normal magazines like I did as a kid... like Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella?

Miss Ollogisms...

After Miss O's bath tonight, as I was drying her off:

MISS O: BRRR!!! I'm freezing!

ME: Hold on... let me just dry off your hair--

MISS O: Well, hurry! My nipples are nipplefish cold!

Then, after dinner, as I was sitting down at the table to suck down a much-needed martooni...

MISS O: What's that?

ME: A martini. Do you want to smell it?

MISS O: Sure!

[she takes a whiff]

MISS O: MMMM!!!!

OLD LADY: You think it smells good?!

MISS O: Yeah! It smells like Purell!

Puppetry of the Z-ness...

Well, another Mr. Z project in the ol' hopper -- this one with the "assistance" of the Old Lady instead of me, for a fucking change. Last night, the boy, and m'Lady, finished up the puppets for his "Hoot" book report. I think they turned out pretty Hoot-tastic:



Just the right mix of creative and creepy. Of course, the creepiest of them all has to be the narrator -- I think it's the combination of the woman's owl blouse, the capri pants, the bad-touch moustache, the knowing smirk and the strategically placed popsicle-stick-that-looks-like-a-giant-schvantz.



I'm guessing Mr. Z will get an "A" on the project, and/or the narrator will be turned in to Child Protective Services.

Oh, and check this shit out -- some other kid in Mr. Z's class turned in a model Maglev train for the science project, too! What the shit?! Of course, according to Mr. Z it sucked donkey balls in comparison to the masterpiece that we birthed, but still. Methinks the kid's dad is reading this blog and stealing all my fucking brilliant ideas. I'm telling ya, if there's another skeevy, narrator-molester puppet in class today, heads are gonna fucking roll.

CrabbySkate 2008

Apparently, a year has passed since the crabbyfamily took an ill-advised jaunt to the school roller skating fundraiser. I swear to shit it seems like it was only yesterday that we dropped by that rink-that-time-and-deodorant-forgot, and I shattered my coccyx into a fine powder. But no, the archive confirms it -- a year.

And, apparently, the only thing that has changed in that year is that instead of photos, I have video. The first half of this clip is the tail end of the Hokey-Pokey, featuring a hip-shakin' Miss O and your's crabbily. If I look a little wooden in my hokeying and/or pokeying, it's either due to the fact that A) I can't fucking skate, or 2) I must have a giant, steaming turd in my trousers. How old am I, 200? "Not too fast there, Miss O -- remember, Daddy's got a case of the lumbago!"

The second half of the video is fucking gold. It seems that at some point, Mr. Z slipped into the alley and downed a coupla pints of Southern Comfort, 'cuz he was flopping around that floor like... like Mr. Z on roller skates. But every time he went hurtling ass first to the lumber, the dude got back up and just kept on a-flailin' along. For like and hour and a half -- he had a blast! That boy is inspiring -- he's like Rocky, if Rocky were a complete spazmo nine year old and Apollo Creed were the floor. Oh, and I get to be Burgess Meredith.

AND, at the end of the night, Mr. Z won the raffle drawing. The prize? A free pass for MORE SKATING! Xanadu? More like Xana-don't.

Anywhich, enjoy. (Oh, and extra points if you find the dead kid at the end.)

Explosive Diary...

Mr. Z has been somewhat obsessed with this book called "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" of late, and it has apparently inspired him to start his own diary. He's calling it "Mr. Z's World™," and it's a cross between real shit that's happening to him and completely fabricated events that usually involve Miss O or the school bully being humiliated in various and sundry ways. All I know is that it's fucking hilarious and I can't wait to read every new entry.

Here's the entry for last Thursday. It could be completely fictional but, man, I'm hoping this scene really happened...

Behold!

Sometimes a Trunk Is Just a Trunk...

Sorry, I've been up late (early?) for the last few nights doing freelance shit and trying to wrap my puny brain around Mr. Z's science project, which is gluing as we speak. Still don't know if that fucker's gonna work yet. Oh well, it's just his future that hangs in the balance.

Quick recap of a dream I had last night...

It was a fucking blizzard outside and I was out stomping around on the front lawn with the spawnage and we were trying to navigate these 20 foot snow drifts that were all over the place. At one point, we get separated, and when I finally look up, I see Mr. Z and Miss O fall backwards into this hellacious crevasse. I run up to the edge of the icy canyon and see the two of them sunken into the rotting carcass of a giant elephant.

I manage to somehow extricate them from this putrid pachyderm, and then I reach down, for some dumb-ass reason, to try to lift this decaying Dumbo from the hole. I grab ahold of its wrinkly skin and pull, and all the flesh from the head just rips off in one big sheet, and I'm left standing there, holding onto this giant, floppy, dripping, maggot-infested Silence-of-the-Lambs skin mask. I turn to show it to the spawnage, but they're gone, along with the snow, and I'm just standing there on my front lawn with this leatherface-esque elephant mask.

And when I woke up, an empty pillowcase was on my head. No, it wasn't, but wouldn't that have made this an awesome post?

Oh well.

Really, It's Okay -- Leave My Children Behind...

Enough with the fucking homework, grade school teachers, okay?! Jeez-ass! Look, I get it -- by sending work home, you're showing us skeptical parents that you're crackin' the ol' whip and really learnin' the spawnage some fancy knowledge. But spread it the fuck out a little, will ya? Holy duckballs, it's like a fucking Stanley Kaplan review session every night, here at the Crabshack.

Miss O's workload, I can handle. One math worksheet a week, maybe the odd drawing, some spelling words and even an occasional project. Fine. Mr. Z's teacher, however, is some kinda homework-hitler. The boy's got a coupla paragraphs for spelling due on Friday, a Social Studies test on Friday, a fucking Science project about magnets and motors and shit due... ON FRIDAY, and he's gotta write, create and perfect a puppet-show-book-report to be performed next Wednesday. I don't think I did that much work in a month... in college!

Granted, the science project was apparently assigned before Spring Break, but it somehow slipped Mr. Z's mind, so instead of casually assembling the thing over a leisurely two-week period, we've basically got to slap together some sort of nuclear fission accelerator in the next three fucking days. And the assignment sheet was completely vague -- make something with magnets or a motor or circuits or lights that illustrates the concepts they've been studying in class.

ME: So, what have you been learning about these things in class, Mr. Z?

MR. Z: Uh... I'm not sure.

Perfect. Then let's connect a bunch of circuits to a giant electromagnetic motor that illuminates a bunch of little lights that spells out, "I'm Not Sure." And then I'll help you take it into class on Friday, where I'll carefully set it on your teacher's desk and then proceed to drop my pants and take a steaming dump on it. Whattya say?!

And of course I won't allow him to do anything half-assed (see past project 1 and past project 2). So, we've decided to create something simple -- a working, mini-model of a MAGLEV train. And yes, I am insane, thank you very much.

ME: Hey Mr. Z! I have an idea -- let's make a working model of a LEVITATING MAGNETIC TRAIN!

MR. Z: Cool! How do we do that?

ME: I HAVE NO FUCKING IDEA!!!!

All I know is that, instead of a leisurely breakfast, a big mug-o-coffee and the New York Times tomorrow morning, I'll be shuffling up and down the aisles of Hobby Lobby looking for shitloads of magnets, some foam core, a coupla boards and some plexiglass, to recreate in three days what it probably took the Chinese five years and over a billion dollars to complete. Should be no problem.

Of course, if we fail miserably, there's always the magnetic levitation Plan B...

The Greatest Show on... a Saturday!

The crabbyfamily hit the circus today and, holy fuckcrap, it was actually big-top-tastic. This being Lansing, and all, I was expecting maybe a hula-hooping dwarf and three-legged dog, but it was truly a three-ring extravagizzle. Because it was 2 1/2 hours long, however, I have not the energy to describe it in detail, so I will recreate the magic for you in chronological, photo-medley form. Let the Show begin...


Adult-Baby Fetishists Love the Circus!


Bet Jumbo Wishes He Could Forget This Indignity


Lights Out, East Lansing!


Half-Nude Circus Fan-Dancers -- You Know... For Kids!


The Amazing Clayton Rosaire, Moments Before He Became The Headless Clayton Rosaire


I've Got It! I'll Ride a Motorcycle 50 Ft. in the Air While You Hang By Your Face


Miss O's Favorite Act: The Dude with the Frisbee Dogs. Great. I could've saved 75 Bucks & Taken Her to the Dog Park


The Amazing Ms. Angela & Her Aerial Pelvic Exam!


The Official "What the Shit?!" Moment: Overactor Strangled By Boxing Kangaroo


Bear Trainer James Hall Moments Before He Became Dining Hall


The Flying Espanas & Their Jump Off The Swing Into A Giant Bedsheet Deathwish-O-Rama


The Cortes Family Isn't The ONLY Thing Flying through the Air with the Greatest of Ease


Mongolian Contortionist Ms. Uugantuya's Not Afraid to Show-It-Tuya -- This Was the Exact Moment That Mr. Z Reached Puberty


Apparently This Pachyderm Forgot To Pack-A-Lunch


The Real Reason Woolly Mammoths Became Extinct


A Horrifying Apparition of the Exhumed, Desiccated Body of Bozo's Roy Brown


Sing Us Out, Ringmaster Billy!


And Finally, A Page from the Program -- You Know... For Kids!

Crabbydad: Aftra Hours...

I got a letter in the mail today from AFTRA telling me that I have $342.84 in an IRA account that I didn't even know I had. I don't even know if I'm still a member of AFTRA, actually. I had to join it like nine years ago when I was hired to do voice-over for a show on FX called "Fast Food Films."

The show was kinda half-assed and I might even go so far as to call it a tad slap-dash, but it was an incredible gig. The Old Lady and I were living in Chicago, and I was able to record all my shit in my crappy "studio," which was really just an old Mac and microphone shoved into a hall closet, and then I'd upload all the files to the studio in L.A. and wait for them to send me my oodles of cash. Oh, and since I recorded and edited all my own stuff, I somehow finagled it so I got paid as the "session engineer," too. Fucking brilliant, younger me!

Of course, it only lasted about a year and a half, so the free crabbycash dried up pretty fucking quick. The shitty thing is, though, I just looked it up on IMDB, and I'm not even listed in the goddamn credits. I mean, I was basically the only guy (voice) on the show. They'd just take shitty old B-movies like "Wizards of the Demon Sword" and then recut them into a wacky five minute movie about personal hygiene, or something. So they'd just run the movie and then I'd come in before and after the commercials and say something kooky like, "Gee, I sure hope Billy learned his lesson about keeping his sword clean and properly sheathed! Be sure to stay tuned... coming up next, we'll see why it was so hard for a young John Travolta to stay alive inside a plastic bubble!" Boing!

Ah, who gives a shit. The show fucking sucked.

By the way, Mr. Z just got out of bed and walked in here, completely asleep mind you, and just stood staring at the floor until I got up and walked him back to his room. I tucked him in and said goodnight, and he looked up and said, "I don't know what to put on my Galaxy Wondershirt." I told him we'd figure it out in the morning, but I should've just said, "Well, why don't you put 'My dad worked on a TV show for the FX Network in the late 90s and all he got was $342.84 in a heretofore unknown IRA account... and this t-shirt.'"

And what the shit is a Galaxy Wondershirt?! Man, what I'd give to do the voice-over for one of his dreams!

Putting the "Ow!" in Workout...

Sorry I missed a day -- work has been wacky and I've just started a freelance gig with a ridiculously hasty deadline, so excuse me if I don't have an extra few minutes to tap out my latest fascinating musings about woodpeckers and poop.

Speaking of which, can the YMCA purchase toilet paper that could possibly tear out my delicate anus flesh any more than it already does? And the answer is "no." My day, and perhaps the next few weeks, was ruined by the tree bark they're trying to pass off as fucking "bathroom tissue." Holy shitstain, I don't think I'll be able to sit down for at least 96 hours. I'm not sure, but this afternoon, I'm pretty sure I heard my road-rashed a-hole crying.

And is shitty toilet paper really that much cheaper than "okay" toilet paper? I mean, I'm not asking for 400 threadcount Egyptian cotton here -- I'd just like something that doesn't have burrs on it. Something that doesn't unintentionally give me a Brazilian while I'm taking care of my business. Something that comes in packaging that refers to its "ply" instead of its "grit."

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go change my gauze after I throw away my underwear.

Cashews up the Wazoo...

One of the myriad reasons why it fucking blows to be a telecommuter is that, on your birthday, no one takes you out for lunch. That may not seem like a big deal to you, but when you watch your co-workers on a TV all day, and you see them all file out of the office once a week for some big-ass birthday food orgy, while you sit at your stupid desk in an empty spare bedroom gnawing on the same goddamn turkey sandwich you've eaten for the last four years... well, it takes its toll after awhile, ya know?

So, you can imagine my surprise a coupla weeks ago when a package arrived, from the ol' home office in Chicago, on my birthday. I ripped the fucker open and was greeted with the mother of all care packages from Trader Joe's, my secret Chicago lover.



You've got your chocolate/peanut butter covered pretzel nubbins, your licorice nibs, your habanero pistachios, your dried fruits, your Thai Lime and Sesame Honey cashews, various pastas, coffees, teas, assloads of trail mix and countless other nibs and nubbins. The fucking jackpot, if you will.

At first, I was blown away. There was a card enclosed that was signed by everybody -- birthday wishes and messages of relief after the whole Mayo fiasco -- it was a regular lovefest, lemme tell ya. But now, about two weeks later, after ingesting about 9000% of my recommended daily allowance of sodium, fat and Thai lime dust, I'm pretty much in a constant state of about-to-hurl. Oh, and keep in mind that we still have about 18 boxes of Girl Scout cookies stacked in every nook and/or cranny that I've been stuffing into every one of my nooks and/or crannies, so you can add an additional 13,000% of the RDA of high fructose corn syrup and partially hydrogenated soybean oil.

I swear to shit, I'm about to sprout a goiter the size of a hippity-hop outta my fat neck any fucking day now. My pee tumbles out in sugar crystals and I actually sweat honey. This is an recent photo taken of me after a fistful of Dark Chocolate caramels:



So, I'm not complaining -- I loved the care package and the sentiment behind it. All I ask is that next year, toss a fucking carrot or a celery stick into the box... and maybe a carton or two of Metamucil?

Spring Hath Sproinged...

It was a weekend of crabcomplishments, to be sure. I'm sitting here barely able to lift my arms to the keyboard because, for some reason, I decided it was time to "get shit done." I guess it was all spurred on by the return of Woody Woodfucker yesterday morning.

After I was awakened by the 'pecker a-peckerin', I grabbed the wrist-rocket and assumed my post on the side of the house, a post un-assumed since the last pecker-attack, last fall. But apparently, word was out that I had murdelized one of the pecker-kin last year, 'cuz this pecker was not gonna show his little peckerhead while I was around. I waited... and waited... and waited... but soon, frostbite and hypothermia started setting in, so I blew it off and went inside for breakfast.

After a gallon of coffee and after the spawnage woke up and started running around screaming and playing the let's-be-loud game and giving me a fucking migraine, I decided to grab the ladder and the spray insulation and go fill in the pecker-hole. (The one on the side of the house, not my own... I'm not that sick.) Here's a shot of the altitude at which I was working:



And here's a shot of what happens when you don't properly cork up your spray insulation after you're done filling your pecker hole:



Ooh, I think I accidentally invented the poor-man's anal beads.

Oh, and speaking of anal beads, here's a picture of a very dirty cashew that I found in a bag of mostly G-rated cashews over the weekend. I think Mr. Peanut would pop his monocle if he ever caught a whiff of this nut-meat:



Hm. Seems I've veered off-topic a tad. Oh well. Uh, what else... we painted and installed some closet doors, I fixed the birdhouse, I swam, we played in the sun and we went out for ice cream. We were a goddamn Norman Rockwell painting all weekend.

Except for the cashew vulva... which, by the way, is my new favorite band name.

That Fowl Wind's A-Blowin'...

Well, it seems that the news of crabbydad's demise has been greatly exaggerated. There is no imminent threat of go-get-'em-dad taking over anytime soon, as we have all forgotten about a certain someone whose crab-inducing powers are the stuff of legend. I am talking about, of course...

The woodpecker.

More later... I'm off to find the wrist-rocket and the b-b's. Tonight, the crabbyfamily will be dining on squab.

Birth of the Anti-Crab...

I don't know how I'm feeling about this new, above-ground crabbydad. I don't know if it's the higher concentration of radon-free oxygen, or the constant bombardment of the UV sun rays, but he's kinda douching my crabbybuzz. Por ejemplo, yesterday, after picking up the spawnage from school, I rallied said spawnage (whose natural instinct is to scurry inside and stay there... as is mine) to go on a fucking bike ride around the neighborhood.

Who am I... Ozzie McHarriet?!

Oh, and they actually enjoyed the ride, by the by. For like a half an hour! They fucking loved it -- didn't argue, didn't complain about their legs hurting, didn't plow into the back of any parked cars. (Well, Mr. Z did get his wheel stuck in a sewer grate, momentarily, but he didn't even rack himself.)

And then yesterday morning, on my way out of the Y, I picked up this little ticket for the circus that's coming to town.



Now, I've picked up the exact ticket for the past three years, always thinking, "Hey, maybe I should take the spawnage to the circus. They'd probably dig it." Then I'd stick the thing in my pocket and forget about it. You know -- the time-tested, crabbydad way.

This time, though, the new above-terranean (is that that opposite of subterranean?) crabbydad got online tonight and ordered four row-three tickets to the goddamn circus! Can I get a "what the shit?!" Row three! The fucking clowns are going to be all over us like... like stink on clowns. We'll be close enough to feel the warm mist of elephant whiz raining down upon us, and when one of the motorcycles goes spinning out of control and bursts through the walls of the metal death-sphere, we'll be the ones ripped to shreds, as the steel-spiked tires tear through our sallow-usually-inside-people skin.

And it's all because of this dick: Go-Get-'Em-Dad.

The dude's gotta be stopped. If I don't keep his gumption in check, he's gonna do something really fucked, like volunteering to run the school rummage sale or, even worse, signing the spawnage up for after-school soccer practice. I think I'll go sleep in the basement tonight and force him back down into the dessicated, lifeless husk of my crabbycore where he belongs.

Well, We're Movin' On Up...

Have I mentioned that, after four, damp, musty years toiling away in the dewy bowels of the crabbyshack, I've finally ventured above ground and moved my office upstairs to the spare bedroom. Have I also mentioned that about four years ago, the Old Lady made this exact suggestion, but for some reason it has taken me four fucking years to pull my dumbass head out of my dumbass rectum to realize that it was a brilliant fucking idea?

I guess I'm just the kinda guy who needs to stew over things for awhile before taking action. The first year I was thinking, "I can't move all this crap upstairs into that tiny bedroom." The second year, was more like, "Hey, it's not too bad down here -- it's nice and cool in the summer, and nice and cool in the winter, and my skin never dries out because of all the moss and lichens growing on it." In year three, I thought, "Gee... my breathing's getting kinda shallow and my toes are numb... maybe I'll just put my head down for a bit and rest it off... so sleepy..." And, of course, this past year has basically been, "I'M DYING! I'M DYING!!!!"

But now I'm upstairs. With a window. And sunlight. And air. And I don't have to wear snowpants at my desk. Or fingerless gloves. And I'm less wheeze-y. And my gills have even closed up. Here's my former and current view:



Sure, I miss my friends: Frankie Furnace, Johnny Sump-Pump, the Spider family, and Toxie the Toxic Mold Patch, but I do get to visit them whenever I have to descend back down into the crevasse to record music. Which should be soon, as I'm about to take on another freelance gig to help stanch the seeping financial wound just inflicted upon me by the I-fucking-R-S. The bastards.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I've gotta go stand in a darkened closet for awhile, as the burning rays of the sun are starting to take a toll on my pink eyes and my wrinkled, unpigmented naked mole rat skin.