the FITS year in review!

I figured I should put out at least one final post to close out 2007 before we begin looking forward to 2008 here at Farting in the Shower... It wasn't easy taking a look back at the disaster that was the first half of the year, but I decided to take one for the team anyway. So here it is, the Farting in the Shower "Year in Review":

January- It was not a good time for my blog... I didn’t write a "New Year’s Resolution" post which is of course one of the top 5 easiest posts you could ever think of writing, which is of course why just about every blogger wrote one... you know, every blogger but me.

In fact, I only managed to make two posts the entire month, and one of those was actually me informing everyone that I was having a hard time finding motivation to blog… you know, in case you couldn’t figure that out on your own.

The other post was about Rosie the Cat’s near death experience… I didn’t even bother to follow that post up with a little “the cat didn’t die” update until the following month.

February- If you thought January was kicking my ass, just wait until you see what kind of output I managed in February!!!

ONE post… really! That’s it! And that was only the above referenced update to the Rosie saga!

I did however somehow manage to throw in a little anecdote about ordering a Koran online…To tell the truth I had forgotten all about that until I just now re-read the post in my archive… That Koran did finally arrive weeks later but I never managed to crack it open, so my life as a Muslim didn't get off to a very good start... Let’s just say you won’t catch me fasting for Ramadan any time soon.

March- We’re now knee deep into what shall from now on be referred to as “the dark period” in my blog history… I only put up one post the entire month and it was basically just a copy and paste from The Washington Post. It was an article about the death of the lone surviving woman from the Massacre at El Mozote… Bummer…

April- Normally I would beat myself up for not posting anything at all from this month, but actually, I took the entire month off so I could give free medical care to rural peasant farmers in Africa… In retrospect I probably should have written something about my good deed but I was just so damn busy saving lives. I did manage to take this picture though:

May- My pro-bono medical mission ended up spilling over into early May… and then Moe Greene and I went to Las Vegas!

No really, that part actually did happen… It was my first ever Vegas trip, and even though it was “The Dark Period” it’s still pretty amazing that I somehow managed to not write something about our journey.

It was a pretty eventful vacation, but I'll do my best here to try and sum it up with a few of the basic highlights:

- Moe Greene accidentally shits himself in the parking garage of BWI Airport in Maryland. It was just a small “leak” but it did require him to pull out an undershirt from his suitcase to “clean up”… He then spends most of the flight to Vegas wondering if he might somehow be arrested when we get back because he disposed of his soiled undershirt underneath the car next to ours… So just to sum things up, we were off to a great start!

- We got into town and I then spent the next three hours or so walking around in awe that such a place can actually exist and wondering how/why I’d never made a trip to Nevada...

“They’ve actually legalized gambling and prostitution here!”

I obviously knew that ahead of time but seeing it in person made me realize that Vegas is actually my Mecca... so in a way, I was actually doing a decent job of being a Muslim, after all aren't they supposed to visit Mecca?

- Moe Greene was an unstoppable force at the Black Jack tables…

- I destroyed the Planet Hollywood Casino. I even began referring to their video roulette machine as "my ATM"... Caesar’s Palace… ummmm, not so much… Basically, I turned all my Planet Hollywood winnings [and then some] right over to Caesar's Palace.

This is followed by the revelation that I’d only be able to make the minimum payments on all my credit cards the following month… Vegas Baby!

- We return home as exhausted, dirty, sinful people, but at least we got a good shit story out the trip… And of course Moe Greene was not arrested for his earlier parking garage incident.

In short, it may have been the greatest 4 days of my life.

June- I’m back to posting… sort of… I had one sappy post about my wife (backlash from Vegas guilt), and then I played up the triumphant return of Film Vault Tuesday. I promised that it would be back again on a regular basis... I doubt I even believed that when I wrote it. This means I lied to you the reader...which was pretty much a recurring theme in 2007… who needs a drink?

July- I’ve got nothing for July… No posts… Nada… “The Dark Period” is in full swing!

August- In case you’re scoring at home, I had nothing for April or May, two lousy posts in June, and then I followed that up with two more months of absolutely nothing… To the untrained eye that would look like I basically took off for 5 straight months… but you’d be wrong… August, much like April was spent giving back to humanity… I spent the entire month teaching the illiterate hookers of India to read… See for yourself:

September- Things started off pretty slow. I had my mandatory “I promise to start posting more” post, but then at the end of the month I was struck with a nasty case of inspiration... I was officially ready for a comeback, only this time I meant it!

October- “It’s Brittney Bitch!”… before the blogging world even had a chance to brace itself for the awe inspiring wave that was my comeback I was firing off a virtual tour de force of posts ranging from creepy fantasies about women on the subway, to tips on making sure you get the most out of your strip club experience… I ended the month by switching religions for the second time in 2007 when I embraced Hinduism under a fog of alcohol and drowsiness.

November- This turned out to be a historic month for my blog as I said my long overdue goodbye to Asi Es and put “The Dark Period” officially behind me. I topped it all off by moving to my current home, Farting in the Shower… To my surprise most of my hardcore reader base actually came along for the ride… suckers… And oh yeah, Moe Greene almost died of a heart attack while sitting in a half empty movie theater!

December- I have to admit that this month has been a little on the slow side due to the holidays… But despite the fact that the newness of Farting in the Shower has worn off, I’m still pumping out mediocre blog posts and scarfing down cream cheese bagels… and I think that’s a good thing...

It was a rough year, but I'm still still here, and still blogging. Let's hope that 2008 won't include any "dark periods".

Happy Christmas Bitches!

Yesterday I was walking down the street rocking out to my iPod, completely immersed in my own little world… I had eaten some Peruvian Chicken for lunch about an hour earlier, and although it was very tasty it was just starting to disagree with my stomach a bit… Since I was basically walking alone on the street, when I felt some gas build up I didn’t think twice about letting one rip… Actually, I let more than one rip. We’re talking 3 or 4 consecutive farts.

But before you get all grossed out let me assure you that they weren’t stinky farts... I'd like to think of myself as an expert when it comes to my own flatulence, and I can say that I'm 99.9% sure that these were NOT stinky farts… but they were loud... Loud enough in fact that it made me double check that there was nobody else around.

You can probably see where this is going… Sure enough, when I turned around there was a woman walking no more 5 feet behind me. I guess the iPod had blocked out the sound of her clicking heels coming up behind me... Opps...

I was hoping that she hadn’t heard my non-stinky but very loud farts, but it only took an awkward half second of eye contact to know that indeed, she had heard… What's the proper protocol for when you accidentally fart on a stranger in public?

I thought about saying “excuse me” but decided instead to turn away quickly and the speed the pace of my walk up... You know, to get as far away from the scene of the crime as I could.

At first I wasn't sure I should post this story... After all, who would want to read my farting in public story? But then I remembered, you fuckers would!

This blog is called Farting in the Shower for a reason.

Anyway... I hope you all have a Merry Christmas, and if that woman that I farted on about a block south of the Cannon House Office Building is reading this, let me sincerely say- my bad...

A Happy Ending to the Foggy Morning

This morning I stumbled into my kitchen half awake and flipped on the light switch… At that exact moment I heard the loud crashing sound of steel on concrete come from the parking lot of our building. The sound coincided perfectly with my flipping of the switch. I was sure I'd caused it. “Oh shit, I’ve done it now,” I thought to myself.

It wasn’t until 15-20 minutes later when I was in the shower that I realized that the noise had actually been a trash truck picking up and then putting down our building’s dumpster… “So I’m off the hook then… Thank god.”

But my morning fog/confusion didn’t end there… Once I got on the subway this morning and sat down, I immediately began to drift back into that disoriented half asleep-half awake state… Just when I was about to completely fall asleep I caught myself and jerked my head up. Sitting directly in front of me was Mary Louis Parker… no seriously… in the flesh… It was Mary Louise Parker, I’m sure of it… well, maybe “sure of it” is too strong… It looked just like her though, trust me I got a really good look at her; I was staring at her for the better part of 7 stops. And I mean directly at her too, I couldn’t help it. I was still trying to fight off sleep.

It wasn’t until she stood up to get off on the next stop that it finally occurred to me, “What the fuck would Mary Louise Parker be doing getting off the Metro in Chinatown at 5:45 AM in our Nation's Capitol?!”

For the second time this morning, I felt pretty stupid… But as the title of this post indicates, this story has a happy ending… When I got off on my stop a few minutes later I buried my hands deep into my coat pockets to brace for the cold walk to my office. To my surprise, iside my coat pocket I found a bagel wrapped in a napkin…

I had stuffed it into my coat pocket this morning with the intention of eating it on my drive to the subway station. But somewhere between the magic light switch and Mary Louise Parker I had managed to completely forget about it.

I’ve heard of people pulling out a winter coat and finding a long forgotten $20 bill before, but I’ve never heard of someone finding a toasted and sliced bagel filled with a generous helping of cream cheese…

And it was still warm too!

The Cronicles of Moe Greene: The Middle School Years

When I was in Middle School I spent a lot of time defending Moe Greene… he was a year younger, he was small for his age, and he had a real knack for pissing off the wrong kids.

Most small kids who can’t fight have a certain type of survival skill ingrained into their DNA. It keeps them from mouthing off to bullies and allows them to safely blend in with the crowd, but Moe Greene possessed no such skill.

Remember in The Karate Kid when Daniel San decided to turn the water hose on Johnny Lawrence at the Halloween party even though he knew Johnny could and would kick his ass?

Well that’s the kind of kid Moe was… It seemed like every week I was trying to mediate some sort of mess Moe had gotten himself into. It was no easy task but I was usually pretty willing to stick my neck out for him, with a only a few notable exceptions.

One of these exceptions took place during my 8th Grade year, Moe’s 7th.

It was a Friday and school was only 45 minutes or so from letting out for the weekend... To make things even better this Friday was “Club Day” where we got to spend the last period of the day goofing off in whatever academic club the school had forced us to join.

I was stuck in a really lame computer club, while Moe was in the “Sports Club” which was basically playing basketball with all your friends... Well I wasn’t about to get stuck in the computer lab with all the nerds on a Friday, so I waited until the teacher wasn't looking and made my way to the gym.

When I got to the gym’s lobby I saw a crowd of about 20 or so kids laughing and carrying on… I went over to check out what all the fuss was about.

As I approached I could see that Moe Greene was being beaten up while the crowd shouted words of encouragement to his attacker.

Normally in this situation it was my duty to jump in and try chase off his bully... I took a deep breathe and dropped my backpack, fully prepared to do just that.

But as I approached the fracas I saw something that stopped me dead in my tracks… Moe's attacker was none other than Sam, the muscle bound drug dealer that most of the school was afraid of… Picture a 7th Grade version of Mike Tyson, only without the lisp and facial tattoo.

As a rule I didn’t mess with teenage crack dealers who resembled Mike Tyson; But this was my best friend getting tormented. I had to do something, right?

So of course I did what any true friend would do; I stood towards the back and watched on from a safe distance, hoping Moe wouldn't spot me in the crowd.

I’d like to think that if the situation had gotten too ugly I would have at least stepped in and attempted to break it up. But luckily for me (and Moe) it was just a pretty straight forward ass kicking; nothing he hadn’t endured a dozen or so times before.

If my memory serves me correctly the whole incident had begun when Moe insulted one of Sam’s best friends… And now all Sam wanted him to do was apologize... But of course Moe (because he didn't have that self preservation instinct I mentioned earlier) was refusing to comply.

The entire incident dragged on for about 5 minutes. Eventually, Sam and the crowd got bored and gave up. Moe ended up stuffed into a trash can with a bloody nose and a wedgie, tears streaming down his face.

The way I saw it, he was lucky he hadn’t been stabbed.

As the crowd dispersed I tried to act like I had just arrived on the scene… Moe wasn’t buying it.

“Why didn’t you stop him?”

“Why didn’t you just apologize?”

“Apologize!? Fuck him… Now help me out of this trash can…”

Mugging for the Camera

I’m a firm believer that everyone is "innocent until proven guilty”… I believe that everyone has the right to a fair trial, and that we should wait until all the facts have been presented before passing judgment… I believe in all that bullshit, but still, every now and then I see a mug shot and immediately think: “GUILTY!”

Let's face it, sometimes it’s just way more fun to make rash uninformed decisions based on a picture, than waiting for insignificant details like: "the facts."

So with that theme in mind I’d like to share with you all a collection of some of my favorite mug shots collected over the years from The Smoking Gun… so anyway, I don’t know what any of these people are accused of, but as far as I’m concerned- they’re all guilty!

These Guy Have to be Sex-Offenders, Right?:

I know these people are all guilty because their shirts give them away:

Two of my All-Time favorites:

And finally... just hot girls:

Coyote

Last week I was working two jobs. I had my regular gig in the day and then I was filling in for my brother in law at his grocery store while he was away in El Salvador.

One of the biggest revenue sources at a Latin American grocery store is phone cards. Almost everyone that comes in to buy food also buys a $2 or $5 phone card to call home with.

There are about 30 different cards for sale at the store and they all sell fairly well with the exception of one… El Coyote, a card for calling Mexico… Nobody could figure out why… After taking a look at the card it took me approximately 2 seconds to solve the riddle.

Check it out:














Are you serious?! The guy is wearing a sombrero, he’s dirty, he’s hairy, he’s got the moustache, and he’s SMOKING A RED CHILE PEPPER?!

To top things off, in Spanish the word coyote means (in addition to the small wolf like animal) a person that smuggles illegal immigrants across the border!

I thought it encompassed just about every Mexican stereotype they could convey with one cartoon drawing, which is almost impressive in a way... but then a Mexican friend at my real job thought of two stereotypes they missed:

“They could have added gold teeth and a rooster…”

*note- when the guy from the phone card company came in to restock, all the poor selling cards were switched out thus ending the "Coyote Era" at the store.