So, Do You Like ... Stuff?

My favorite commercial is the one with the horse. It premiered during the Super Bowl and now a shorter version airs all the time. The shorter version is much better because it gives us less time to become emotionally invested in this human-horse drama, thus highlighting the sheer ridiculousness of its premise. The commercial begins with a guy raising a horse from birth. Typical horse guy, wears a baseball cap, real blue collar, salt-of-the-earth, pays his taxes … let’s call him Fred. Fred teaches the horse how to be a horse. How to eat, run, neigh, all that stuff. (Fred teaches the horse how to run by driving his pickup truck—a Ford F-150 in an ideal cross-promotion universe—alongside a white picket fence while the horse tries to chase him.) We don’t see the parts where Fred teaches the horse how to farm his land by having it trudge through fields lugging heavy equipment and supplies, but commercials can only be so long, you know? Anyway, it’s obvious Fred loves the horse b...

  LOT OF PEOPLE BE LIKE PFFT "I DON'T EVEN LOVE MY GRANDDAUGHTER" BUT I'M LIKE, "I LOVE MY GRANDDAUGHTER, DON'T EVEN CARE WHO KNOWS IT." SHE'S A RACIALLY AMBIGUOUS PIRATE, AND SOMETIMES SHE'S LIKE, "SHUTUP B*TCH I'M STILL TALKING!" AND I'M LIKE, "WHOA, GRANDDAUGHTER - I'M YER GRANDMA AND YOU'RE ONLY LIKE 5 CHILL OUT." BUT IT'S ALL GOOD I STILL LOVE HER. IF YOU DON'T SHARE THIS SENTIMENT IT MEANS YOU HATE YOUR GRANDDAUGHTER BECAUSE EVERYONE ON FACEBOOK WILL BE LIKE, "WHAT'S UP WITH GRANDMA JONES - SHE NEVER REPOSTS GRANDDAUGHTER MEMES, SHE MUST REALLY HATE HER GRANDKID." THAT'S JUST TERRIBLE AND YOU ARE A TERRIBLE PERSON ThaT AIN'T RIGHT.

Subject: CELEBRITY SWEAT GOES GLOBAL WITH NEW PARTNERSHIPS FORMED WITH PRINCIPLE MEDIA AND DEAL GLOBAL HOLDINGS Amazing news! What is Celebrity Sweat, besides something I've been collecting in jars and selling on eBay? Dear Mike Pleased to make your acquaintance! Likewise, email! I’d like to take a few moments BOR-RING. Sorry. Habit. Please continue. to let you know about a press announcement concerning an exciting partnership between Celebrity Sweat, DEAL Global Holdings and Principle Media. This sounds like an exciting partnership. What is Celebrity Sweat? This is an exciting announcement concerning the global distribution of Celebrity Sweat, This sounds like an exciting announcement. What is Celebrity Sweat? the #1 celebrity fitness campaign featuring a wide variety of athletes and celebrities as well as hip hop singer Nelly. How does one distribute a fitness campaign? No matter. I want IN. I've always looked up to Nelly as a rapper/singer/frequent part...

There are perks to this job, I must admit. I once “covered” a beer festival by sampling all the beer and having my wife drive me home. One time that guy “Wolf” from “American Gladiators” came into our office and posed for a picture with me after I begged him to like a fourth-grade girl. Those are just two examples. But then there is this: I was recently asked to judge a “space cake” contest. I know, it’s difficult to even say without it sounding like bragging. It’s one of those things on a lot of people’s bucket list, and here I am at 35, already with one space cake judging notch on my belt. Sky’s the limit from here, pun intended. (Intended puns like that are, I imagine, why I was asked to judge in the first place.) It was all part of Challenger Space Center’s anniversary jamboree. The popular space center in Peoria hosted a slew of events last weekend to celebrate the 40 th anniversary of the Skylab launch; the 44 th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing; the 13...

Subject: Both sales books At first I thought this email was targeted at me in an effort to help me sell my book. Oh you didn't know I have a book ? It's a book and you can buy it! Anyway, that is not what this email is about. This email is about two sales books about sales, neither of which are my book, which you can buy and which is not about sales but does have a chapter about clogging the toilet. I am considering buying these two sales books to help me sell my one book. Let's see if they can sell me. "One of these top dog secrets can earn you a fortune." -Jeffrey Gitomer This is the opening quote of the email. I thought the Dalai Lama said that, or that it was from Proverbs. But this amazing quote re: top dog secrets was actually uttered by famous person Jeffrey Gitomer. I just Googled Jeffrey Gitomer and he has a Wikipedia page . Like this email, the word "sales" appears approximately 8 million times on his Wiki page, so I guess he is famous in...

I fell for my wife because she is beautiful and then I fell in love with her because she is thoughtful, kind, amazing, hard-working, principled … lots of adjectives that are good. Also because we share so many interests. Seriously, we are so darn compatible . It’s something I didn’t put much stock into while being lured by her magnetic force of attraction—I would have married her on the spot after our first date without any thought as to how she takes her coffee. But every day that passes I realize more and more just how soulmate-y we truly are. We find the same things funny, first and foremost. We share the same faith, which is kind of important. We come from similar backgrounds and share the same values, and therefore have matching parenting strategies. We express the same level of indignation at things like genetically modified organisms and Sheriff Joe Arpaio. And yes, we take our coffees the same—light cream, no sugar—and become equally frustrated when the dunderheads at Dunki...

Today's email comes with a big 'ol red exclamation point. The red exclamation point means urgent and TO THE EXTREME. I am concerned. Let's see what's going on here ... Subject: Did you drop in positions in Google due to this update? Darn it I DON'T KNOW. I honestly hadn't even thought about such a thing until this email, and now I am panicking. The absolute last thing I want to happen to this company is for it to drop positions on Google due to some update I didn't even know about because I wasn't paying attention. Who uses Google anyway? Is that the thing now? Hi, The headline is alarming, so is the issue. THANK YOU FOR EASING MY FEARS. Google has rolled out an update called Penguin 2.0 last week that is going to have a BIG impact in the rankings of keywords for websites across the globe. Oh snap they done rolled out Penguin? HOW COME NOBODY TOLD ME PENGUIN 2.0 CAME OUT? This is like that Y2K thing that never happened all over again! Nostrad...

I’ve been chewing more gum lately. (If that sentence hasn’t pulled you into this column, then I give up on trying exciting new ledes.) Why? Glad you asked. It all started, like many fascinating stories do, because I had water in my ear. Still do, actually, and I’m pretty sure there is some kind of infection happening there. Whatever. The point is, the water was making my ears and head pop. What to do? Then, I remembered all those times I forgot to bring gum on an airplane because riding airplanes also makes your ears pop. I thought, “Hmmm, maybe I’ll try some gum …” So I left work for a few hours and walked down to Circle K to find some gum. There it was, right by the candy bars and barefoot woman muttering profanities to herself. So many options though! Which kind of gum did I want? The kind where I can blow huge bubbles or the kind from the commercials that makes the Eskimo girl wearing a fur coat and bikini want to kiss you? I played it conservative with brand recognition an...

Subject: Charter a Private Jet Cool! That is something I am always looking to do, a very normal activity amongst my friends and I. Hey, you guys wanna charter a private jet and go to like an island or something? Yeah, mos def, sounds dope to the max! Where should we charter one though? And THAT is where we always get tripped up and subsequently distracted by our kids, lack of disposable income, reality, etc. So this email is PERFECT TIMING. Dear Friends & Fliers, Can I be both? LOL ROTF #frequentflier LOLZZZZZZZZZZZZZ I hope you are doing well. I am! Unless you count the fact that I am sitting here on land and NOT ON A PRIVATE JET. Do you have any upcoming jet charter trips that I can quote for you? Glad you asked, and yes, certainly. Hold on, let me check my "upcoming jet charter trips" calendar ... ... ... ... ... Welp, I am as surprised as you to find out that, no, I somehow do not have any upcoming charter jet trips requiring quotes. I s...

Of pure coincidence as it relates to the recent trifecta of columns regarding our daughter’s struggles, I have been drinking wine lately. Now, I am a beer drinker first and foremost. I want to make that abundantly beer, I mean clear. But also beer—I would like to make an abundant beer, actually. So yes, beer is great and I love it and it is my favorite. That said, I have been getting into wine lately. Now, by “getting into” I mean that I enjoy drinking it, especially with dinner, not that I am developing any sort of pretentious wine palate or saying ridiculous things like, “I prefer a French merlot to a California cabernet.” Just writing that sentence gave me the chills. Although it should be mentioned that the levels of disdain and respect I have for self-proclaimed wine connoisseurs is strangely equal. So no, I am not a wine snob. In fact, a major reason behind my dalliance into vino was my introduction to Trader Joe’s famed “three-buck Chuck.” (Which used to be two-buck Chuck...