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Yes! It’s FINALLY here! The final of my annual Birthday Dares. Sorry it took so long. There’s kind of a long’ish story behind this final dare. It went through a number of permutations before I went and filmed it Sunday afternoon. I’ll fill you in on more of it when I do a dare recap in the next couple of days, where I tell you some of the behind the scenes stuff.

In the meantime, just enjoy it. The lighting wasn’t exactly ideal, but I made it work as best I could.

Thanks to my good buddy Melinda for helping out, and Maddie, too.

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Thanks to John over at Buddha on the Road for a fun-filled hour on SecondHand Radio last night. Had a blast. We talked about all sorts of great stuff, including the Democratic National Convention, my trip to California, our mutual love of MILFs, my new gossip column job…you need to listen to it. You can check it out at the above link or listen to it in the sidebar of my blog. Should also be able to find it on iTunes, too.

A big thanks to one of my best buds, Cindy, who had a fantastic guest post yesterday. Love, love, love her. And tomorrow? Well, it’s the LAST day of the Summer of Love. Yep, hard to believe the two months are over, but Winter will be doing the last guest post on Saturday and that wraps things up.

Thanks to everyone that helped me out this summer. You all rock and I loved every post. But with the closing of August comes the new season. Autumn arrives soon (though a couple of months later if you’re in Florida), the new TV season (yay!) - and I’ve heard rumors that a certain infamous TV blog will be soon brought back to life - and my birthday comes on September 18. Woo hoo! Speaking of my birthday…

CALL TO ARMS. Or legs. Whatever.

It’s time to begin preparations for my annual Birthday Spectacular. In less than a month, I’ll hit the big 4-2. And this year - back by popular demand - I’m resurrecting my Big Birthday Dares!

It’s not every year you have a birthday, so…oh, wait. Well, you know what I’m saying.

Some of you may remember my Big Birthday Dares from two years ago. I ate Vienna Sausages with my toes, kinda. I ate Pop Rocks AND drank Coke at the same time! Fuck, I jumped out of a freaking airplane, people. And I did it on video! All of it to act wild and crazy to usher in a new year on planet Earth. (You can see all five dare videos in the extended post.)

And this year I’m doing it again. Brand new dares, brand new feats of insanity, all for you.

Thing is, I don’t know what to do. This is where you come in. I want YOU to dare me to do something for my birthday. Want to see me dance in public? OK, I already did that and it embarrassed the everloving shit out of me. Want to see me jump into a pool with my clothes on? Hell, I don’t know. You’re the creative ones.

I just remembered…I owe prizes to the last group from two years ago. Ack. Anyway, there will be prizes for the five people that come up with the best dares. Or the dares I’m willing to do on video, anyway. That’s right! Leave a comment here with your best dares and if I select yours to perform on video, then you’ll win something. Besides getting to see me do your dare.

I’m leaving this contest open for a week. Get me your dares by midnight a week from tonight, Friday, September 5th. I need time to mull over the entries and then, of course, DO the dares.

So get cracking, folks. Double dog dare me. I, um, dare you.

Continue reading »

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Hi everyone, it’s Cindy, guest-blogging for Karl as the Summer of Love ‘08 draws to a close. I’ve known Karl since visiting his home page (’member those?) in early 1996 and leaving a comment about our shared love for C.D. Payne’s Youth in Revolt (sort of an Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret for horny teenage boys.)

Karl is nothing if not fastidious about replying to comments, so he wrote back… then I wrote back… then he wrote back… and the next thing I knew, I was crushing on him. Hell, I once sent him a rare 1991 Canadian 5-track cassette tape that was independently issued by the Barenaked Ladies themselves.

I got a couple of mix CDs worthy of Nick Hornby in reply, but let’s face it: this was 1996. People just didn’t up and fly halfway across the continent to meet someone they met on the Internet. I mean, for all we knew, we were both hairy prison inmates just masquerading as geeks.

There is something intoxicating about corresponding with someone you know you’ll never meet in person. You can say anything, be absolutely yourself. Because you’ll never, ever meet them. (Here’s a secret though: if Karl had asked me to come to Dallas in 1996 - I would have. I was too shy to ask him to come visit me. I blame this on my Catholic upbringing.) Boats were missed.

So we kept e-mailing - little notes about our lives, comments about books or movies or TV shows we’d enjoyed. At one point we even collected the first year or so of our e-mails into the manuscript of a novel we’d tentatively titled Virtually Yours. I give us full marks for creativity here - this was before anyone else had done an all-email novel. (I was hoping Meg Ryan would play me in the movie.) But alas, in addition to being geeks, we are also slackers, so the novel languishes - literally - in a drawer. And anyway, the ending needs work. Who wants to read a novel about two Internet friends who not only never get it on, but never even share the same time zone?

Then we met.

Five years after replying to my note on his home page, Karl flew to Nova Scotia to visit us for a week. (I say us, because by this point, I was living with my fabulous better half - the sort of man, who, when his girlfriend says, “Honey, I’d like to have the Internet friend I crushed on but have never met, who - it’s an infinitesimal possibility, but still needs mentioning in the interests of full disclosure - could possibly be a hairy prison inmate - come stay with us for a week,” he replies, “Sure!”)

There was karaoke, more than a few pints of beer, the hangover to end all hangovers (mine - Karl never suffers ill effects of liquor, dammit), pumpkin people, and a late night cigarette run that will go down in infamy. In short, we had a blast.

And then we didn’t see each other for another six years.

Karl’s second visit in the summer of 2007 prompted Black Belt Mama to make a wicked video to the tune of Before He (Karl) Cheats. The second visit involved even more beer, a crazy fun barbeque, whales, Paradise (Nova Scotia), a molested turtle, and a forced march (sorry, Karl!) through one of Nova Scotia’s most beautiful parks. And the evidence, in the form of twenty-seven eight-by-ten colour glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was - is all on Flickr.

What surprised me then and now is how real and enduring our friendship is. Before we met, I wondered whether it would translate in real life - maybe it would be some sort of friendship lite, certainly not like the kind of friendships that have years of shared history - of pub shenanigans, hanging out in coffee shops on Sunday afternoons, walks and adventures and in-jokes and hugs when life just plain sucks. But you know what? It is.

So Karl, buddy - this winter, when it’s dark by 5:30p.m. and the wind howls at the windows, and all of the fluffy movie snow grows dirty and disappears, only to be replaced with icy sheeting rain - I’m coming to Florida. Because, really, what are friends for?

Much love, my dear - thanksfor the spot on your Summer of Love roster.

Here’s the novel that started it:

Wednesday, July 18 - My name is Nick. Someday, if I grow up to become a gangster, perhaps I will be known as Nick the Prick. This may cause some embarrassment for my family, but when your don gives you your mafia sobriquet you don’t ask questions.

I am 14 years old (nearly) and live in Oakland, a large torpid city across the bay from San Francisco. I am writing this in the tenuous privacy of my bedroom on my annoyingly obsolete AT clone. My friend Lefty gave me a bootleg copy of WordPerfect, so I’m doing some writing to try and learn the command codes. My ambition is someday to be able to move entire paragraphs in a single bound.

My last name, which I loathe, is Twisp. Even John Wayne on a horse would look effeminate pronouncing that name. As soon as I turn 21 I’m going to jettison it for something a bit more macho. Right now, I’m leaning toward Dillinger. “Nick Dillinger.” I think that strikes just the right note of hirsute virility.

Wikipedia and IMDB both report that a Youth in Revolt movie is in production and set for UK release in April 2009, with Michael Cera starring as Nick Twisp (a stroke of casting brilliance, IMHO). You can visit C.D. Payne’s website at www.nicktwisp.com.

And for the record? No, Karl and I have never gotten it on.

Karl here.

Thanks, Cindy. Great post. I’m sure everyone can see why we’ve been friends for so long and instantly hit it off.

Don’t forget, gang. Thursday night at 10pm Eastern, it’s another episode of SecondHand Radio. My guest tonight will be John from Buddha on the Road.

Please tune in and tell your friends!

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