I'm Going to Need Douchebag Insurance

I am already bored into rigor mortis.

I subscribe to the notion that even if you're completely satisfied in your current state of employment — and if you are, I hate you but would like to have to forward my resume to the HR department  — it never hurts to keep your resume up-to-date and ready in the event you hear about that dream job earning six figures alternating playing the Grand Theft Auto franchise, testing the deliciousness of various chocolate desserts, and rating the skills of very attractive masseuses.

Well, a guy can dream. That's why I uploaded my most recent resumes to Monster and Careerbuilder the other day.

The good thing about these sites is that new resumes alert employers who can scan your resume and get in touch with you about jobs that you didn't know were available.

The bad thing about these sites is that new resumes alert employers who can scan your resume and get in touch with you about jobs that you didn't know were available. I will explain.

Too Many Delays, and a Fun Chat

I've been pretty bad about updating this blog, but things have been a little hectic. Oh well. Anyway, here's another crazy IM chat I had with a robot/scammer.

When "Annita Sansing" contacted me with "[smiley face] hi sweetie" I knew I was in for another round of instant-messenger lunacy. I keep this going until I finally get bored, which happens quickly because it's probably not a real human on the other end. The "conversation" starts out well, but devolves into an argument between two deaf mental patients.

But see if you can spot my references to Shakespeare's Richard III, Logan's Run, Wikipedia, and a sign that you'd find on a wet floor!

Strip Club Week, Day 3: Stripper for One

I'm running out of related
images for these posts.

How have you enjoyed Strip Club Week on The Anthony Show so far? Wow, that's great. Have you thrown up yet?

Meanwhile, I'd mentioned that although I've been to strip clubs, it's only been while in the company of others. I've never gone to a strip club alone. Hell, I don't think I've ever walked into a normal bar by myself, and I even have trouble going to the supermarket without a chaperone: I tend to wander the aisles, spend way too much time reading labels, fill up my cart with impulse items, freak out moments before I reach the checkout line, and abandon the cart and slink off empty-handed.

Now, if you recall, my first club experience was in Niagara Falls at a place called Mints. That locale required people to sit at tables or on stools right in front of the runway. There was a bar, but it was mainly for the waitress to fulfill their orders. If you got your drink at the bar, the waitresses wouldn't get tips, and the waitresses would get mad.

But other clubs had accessible bars. These bars are very handy if your party just wants to check things out without making the commitment to sit at a table. Some strip clubs don't have this option, while the smaller ones have only this option: in other words, the main "stage," if you can call it that, is surrounded by the bar, and there are private-dance areas in the back.

Strip Club Week, Day 2: The Stripper Force-Field

The Mints I dealt with were
curiously nude.

When we last chatted, I was in the middle of my first strip club experience. Let's return to that den of sin!

Mints was the kind of place where a hostess seats your party at a table. I later learned that other clubs let you kind of roam around or hang out at the bar, but at Mints they kept the men on a tight leash. The other things that made the ladies of Mints different from those at other clubs I later experienced in the States:

• They took off everything, and I mean everything
• They worked with a force field

One of my friends called over one of the girls, who was dressed in her not-yet-naked attire. When she showed up, he whispered in her ear and pointed at me. She nodded and gave me one of those "come with me" gestures. I had no choice but to go with her — when a woman in a bikini gives you an order, unless that woman is Joy Behar, you follow that order.

Strip Club Week, Day 1: Welcome to Strip Club Week

Whoops! Wrong stripper.
But that IS a very sexy car!

Even though I've already told my best strip club story, I want to back up a moment and share my overall musings regarding what is referred to by a number of euphemisms, including "adult entertainment," "gentlemen clubs," or, as we'd say when we'd drive across the border into Canada, "the ballet."

I don't know whether I'll have enough posts about strip clubs to fill a week, but "Strip Club Week" on a blog sounds almost as cool as "Shark Week" or "Exotic Hamburger Week."

Or, maybe it doesn't, and it actually sounds misogynist, pathetic, and soulless. But anyway, here's the first post.

Before I'd ever set foot in such a place, my only impression of what a strip club would be like was formed from movies that included scenes in strip clubs, which usually starred Eddie Murphy before he started wearing fat suits or co-starring with children or talking animals, such as Beverly Hills Cop. These movies were mass-market films that presented strip clubs — if I can accurately summon the memories from my mid- to late teens — as tantalizing dens of masculinity where men whooped and hollered and waved rolled-up dollar bills in the air, and the women were not tragically deformed by plastic surgery or drugs.

The women also wore a lot of makeup, never completely disrobed (a rare topless shot was as risqué as it got), and, if I remember correctly, occasionally wore outfits made of feathers. I should note that these movies were made in the 1980s (which could explain the feathers and why the men all seemed to be wearing plaid dress shirts), and they weren't the kind of movies that showed anything seedy, like if Jodie Foster's character grew up and starred in a Taxi Driver sequel where instead of hooking (or maybe in addition to hooking) she worked at Larry Flynt's Hustler Club.

(The movie would end with Travis Bickle showing up with a flamethrower to fry Larry Flynt in his wheelchair, and I know you'd pay to see that.)

Anyway, onto my first (and, alas, not last) strip-club experience...

On Being Italian, Part I

If you ever catch me in this shirt,
you have permission to hit me
in the groin with a bag of meatballs.

Some days I'm not sure what to blog about. I come home from the soul-suck of a job, fulfill my parenting duties until the kids go to bed, then stagger downstairs to one of the computers to face a blank Blogger screen in order to write something for which I will receive no compensation instead of working on something that could possibly lead to compensation, even if it's the literary equivalent of an incomplete Powerball ticket.

For inspiration, I headed over to the blog written by my former boss, a blog I highly recommend, and noticed that he had written -- with his usual flair for logos, ethos, and pathos -- about his confusion regarding his heritage. So I decided I will do the same.

I have a very Italian-sounding name, even though I'm only 75 percent Italian. I'm 12½ percent Greek and 12½ percent German. When I mention these ratios I usually get an odd look, like I'm trying to be amusing with those "half percents," but it's simple math:

Spend the Night With This "Booty Call," or Lists of Lists, Volume 4: Film Edition (Part 2)

"They TOOK the BAR!"

I haven't done one of these list-lists in a while. Last time I discussed films I liked and despised, so I'll just build upon that theme.

I could probably do a list of "my favorite films" several times a year, and each time, I'd have a different list, depending on how I'm feeling, how much I've been influenced by the films I've seen most recently, and how long I spend thinking about it.

So, let me have my first list be

THE BEST FILMS I CAN THINK OF, TYPING THE FIRST TEN THAT COME TO MIND

1. Animal House (1978)
2. The Godfather, Part II (1974)
3. The Godfather (1972)
4. Mesrine: Public Enemy #1 (2008)
5. Groundhog Day (1993)
6. The Boys in the Band (1970)
7. The Hangover (2009)
8. Trailer Park Boys: The Movie (2006)
9. The Count of Monte Cristo (2002)
10. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)

Yes, it's an eclectic list, but if I were to compile it again15 minutes later, it would probably be different. The point is...