Info Nugget: Christmas in July

Originally created by the German composer Wilhelm Richard Wagner at some point between his birth and death, Christmas in July appears to be another opportunity during the year to empower people with the Christmas spirit. In reality, however, Wagner’s intentions were not so pure.

In all actuality, Wagner was an anti-Semite and created the holiday because he was disappointed that the normal Christmas in December (often referred to as “vanilla Christmas” or “Christmas”) only alienated Jews from the gift-giving process once a year. He hoped that by having two Christmases a year he would be able to weaken the foundation of Jewish faith.

Unfortunately for Wagner, he was unsuccessful. The Jewish people in Europe did not feel alienated by the second Christmas, and actually felt even better about their faith because they got watch all their Christian friends deal with the bullshit that is gift receipts twice a year. Not to mention all the wrapping they didn’t have to do. That shit sucks.

Christmas in July in America
Not aware of the holiday’s original cruel intentions, President William McKinley made Christmas in July a recognized holiday in 1904. Nonetheless, the holiday was adopted with a few twists. Just like how New Orleans’s culture was born from a fusion of French, African, and hurricane influences, Christmas in July in America comes from a similar fusion of blind patriotism and love for baby Jesus.

Ways to celebrate
There are two acceptable ways to celebrate Christmas in July:

1. Celebrate like you would any normal Christmas, but at the end of the night shoot fireworks at the Christmas tree while chanting “USA! USA! USA!”

2. Go door to door singing, but instead of Christmas carols sing “Proud To Be An American” by Lee Greenwood. Or “Boys Don’t Cry” by The Cure. I really like that song. End your night by shooting fireworks into the tree while chanting the three magical letters that stand for freedom.

Why should I celebrate?
There’s fucking fireworks and presents! Who doesn’t like fireworks? And presents! Why wouldn’t you want to celebrate it? You’re not…gay… are you?

If you are, I won’t tell anyone. Do your parents know? Ah, I see. Don’t worry! I will be your rock. Together, you and I will weather this storm. Together.

Road to Wellness: Anger Management

Ever since the German's invented anger in the 12th Century, it has been the the accepted way to showcase your displeasure with others and their inadequacies. However, people can get carried away with their anger and scream obscenities, throw phones, and beat my mom at my 12th birthday party. Letting your anger get a hold of you can lead to awful things, but in his defense, she should have sprung the extra dollar for premium sprinkles. Anger in my family is hereditary, and in order to circumvent some future outbursts, I've taken it upon myself to research some possible hate-deterrents for both of our benefit.

In order to keep your anger in check, the different exercises will rated by the effect that it would have on your Killcumference. A moderate killcumference to have when you are angry is 4 yards, but infectiously angry people have been known to attack anyone within a three city block area.

Deep Breathing
If you feel yourself getting tensed up and ready to smash cars with your punches and kicks, just trying taking a step away from the action and taking a deep breath in, a steady exhale, and then repeat that for about a minute until you forgot about wanting to punch and kick cars.

Killcumference: It'll bring you down to about a yard, but very slowly. While this might seem like it would be effective, the method of breathing itself is for pansies. "Oh no, I'm angry! I guess I can just breathe and not be angry anymore!" Who would ever admit to saying that?

Also, you might need to punch and kick cars. What if this is that bonus stage from Street Fighter II and you need to destroy the car in 30 seconds? This furthers my point that breathing is retarded.

Tai Chi/Yoga
Tai Chi and Yoga have been lumped together because they both baffle and frustrate me. From what I gather, People achieve peace by balancing on one foot, raising their hands, and various other school yard things.

Killcumference: This stupid piece of shit of a goddamn Asian culture will lower your killcumference to 2 feet, but you look like a Goddamn idiot for doing this stupid ass exercise. Goddamn, isn't their one way to just lower your anger that won't make you look like some down-syndromed ballerina on barbiturates. FUCK!

IMAGERY AND VISUALIZATION
IS YOUR LIFE STRESSFUL AND MAKES YOU ANGRY AS FUCK? THEN JUST FUCKING IMAGINE A COOL... island... breeze coming off of the shore as you sip your... Mai Tai and just soak in your surroundings... just like that...

Killcumference: It brings it down to barely nothing, and that's a good thing.

Edit by Mr. Jones: At this point, Leon took a break from writing and went to the bar we have in our shared office. He came back furious, because "SOMEONE accidentally left the milk out." It was probably one of our interns.

FUCKING SHIT
FUCK THIS TAINT OF A PLACE. WHY DO WE EVEN HAVE MILK IF WE ARE JUST GONNA LET IT GET WARM AND AWFUL ALL THE DAMN TIME? WHY? I'LL TELL YOU WHY. BECAUSE THIS PLACE IS FILLED WITH SORRY SACKS OF SALSBURY SHIT.

KILLCUMFERENCE
I'm not angry. I just want to know where the intern is. He took the day off? How convenient. Give me that fire poker. I'll deal this milk justice myself.

Advice Jackers: BIG SISTER IN OKLAHOMA

Every week, countless people write in to various advice columns in various publications. We can only make the educated guess (a hypotenuse, as it is often referred to by people with glasses) that the only reason these advice columns still exist is because enough people aren’t aware of the fact that The Guide is more than qualified to answer any and all questions.

Instead, people write to columnists like “Dear Abby,” whom I feel is professionally under-qualified because she doesn’t have the courtesy to use her full name. Since the beginning I have always used both my last and first name (Jones and Mr., respectively), and I’m incredibly intelligent; I know things that only few know. Stuff like the longest side of a triangle is called the hypothesis.

Not to mention I’m pretty sure Leon is descended from Russian royalty.

You hear that everyone? All the obstacles in your life could be remedied by a Czar.

But we have adapted. If people aren’t going to come to us for advice, we’re going to just have to take their inquires. Leon has bred a hyper-aggressive flock of carrier pigeons trained to intercept mail in the hopes we manage to land a letter to an advice column. So far the success ratio isn’t that impressive, but on the plus side the pigeons have came back with all kinds of goodies, including a copy of Maxim, a flyer for the March of Dimes, and a postman’s eyeball.

This morning, however, one of our pigeons brought back a letter seeking advice just as we eventually hoped they would when Leon started creating these filthy, red-eyed abominations. You should see these fucking birds. They’re an absolute affront to God.

Turns out, it was a letter addressed to “Abby.” It reads:

DEAR ABBY: I am 19 years old and have known a girl I'll call Emma for a couple of years. She's 14 and like a member of my family -- a little sister. My parents joke that Emma is their second daughter.

Emma is an only child and lives with her mother. Her dad is an alcoholic who is currently serving time in prison. Lately Emma has been hanging out with a group of 18- and 19-year-old boys who let her drink and smoke pot with them. People say she's just "doing what all teens do," but I have never smoked or had a drink in my life.

Should I tell Emma's mother what's going on and risk losing our relationship, or should I wait to see if it's just a phase? I feel responsible, but don't know what to do. -- BIG SISTER IN OKLAHOMA

------------------------

Dear BIG SISTER IN OKLAHOMA: I am calling bullshit on your story. No one named Emma is that cool. Just like naming your kid Jeeves pretty much ensures he’ll become a butler, naming your daughter Emma ensures she’ll spend her adult wife knitting sweaters for no one until arthritis sets in and she is forced to give up her one joy in life and just begs for the sweet, forgiving embrace of death.

Unless Emma isn’t her real name, and you’re just using a pseudonym to protect her identity but I find this even more troublesome. Out of all the names in the world you picked Emma? Where the fuck do you get off? And, more importantly, were you really worried she was going to read Dear Abby and think “Oh shit, is that me?” No! She’s too busy being a victim of statutory rape and smoking pot to read!

It appears to me that “Emma” here has grown up. BIG SISTER IN OKLAHOMA, I suggest you do the same.

Best of luck,
Mr. Jones

How do I lose a guy in 10 days?

Ladies, has this ever happened to you? There is a man, or "guy," who seems pretty cool, but he's nasty in some way, and you feel as if you must get rid of him, or "Lose" him. Women! Say NO MORE! I, Leon Firestone and to a lesser extent Mr. Jones, have found the solution to your creepy "guy" woes which will take no more than a week and three days, or "10 days."

These plans are not exclusively for "ladies" "losing" "guys," but could be used by anyone to "lose" any sort of person. You could be a man trying to lose a mistress, a child trying to lose a stray puppy who is following him home from the baseball fields, a mistress trying to lose a man, a puppy trying to lose a stray kid who is following him home from the baseball fields, a man trying to lose a kid, a mistress trying to lose a stray puppy who is following her home from the baseball fields, and any other combination of people you might think of.

(Note: midgets are not people, and therefore cannot be lost in 10 days. See Appendix GG of the guide, titled Dealing With Midgets.

Day 1
Do not return calls. If caught in a conversation, become standoffish.

Day 2
Call when they pick up, but only yell non-sense in the phone and hang-up abruptly.

Day 3
They will stop by your house for an impromptu visit. Handle this by showcasing your previously unveiled dead animal collection.

Day 4
Stop by their workspace. Bring your dead animal collection.

Day 5
Invite their family over for a dinner. Pee on them.

Day 6
Apologize for the dinner party incident. Give them one of your most prized dead animals. The catch: the dead animal is filled with their family.

Day 7
Replace the milk in their fridge with expired milk. Watch from afar and get ready to laugh!!

Day 8
Burn their house down.

Day 9
Make them a new house. Use dead animals and expired milk.

Day 10
Burn their house down.

You notice some of the items are reused. CONSUMER CONSCIENCE! Buy dead animals and expired milk in bulk to save on costs. You'll be glad you did!

How do I pass time at the airport?

Leon and I were originally going to take a trip to the Galapagos Islands for the purpose of traveling the same path Darwin did as he wrote The Origin of Species so we could prove that fucker wrong once and for all, but the plans fell through. Leon told me “his people” could hook us up with plane tickets free of charge, so I left the responsibility in his hands. Little did I know that Leon had been stealing medicinal marijuana from a mutual acquaintance of ours that has glaucoma and that “his people” consisted of virtual versions of Joyce Carol Oates and John Grisham that he created in The Sims. Since he had spent this last week baked out of his mind, he was convinced that not only that his Sims were real, but he could use their immense wealth (which was attained through cheat codes, something I do not approve of) to get our plane tickets.

I have every right to be angry, but I am honestly a little thankful that we can continue writing guides for the everyday without distraction.

After all, there will always be more chances to undo Darwin’s accomplishments. In fact, just last week we firebombed the home of his closest living relative. Granted, that doesn’t hurt the integrity of Darwin’s work, but I’ll be damned if it didn’t feel awesome.

Long story short, Leon and I spent two consecutive days at a terminal in the airport waiting for the not real version of Joyce Carol Oates to give us the hookup.

For everyone who has ever been faced with delays at the airport, here are some games we played that will help you pass the time:

John Grisham Charades
This game is played like regular charades, but the only difference is that you only act out the works of John Grisham. This game had potential to be fun, but quickly became frusturating because Leon was under the impression that John Grisham was responsible for The Call of Cthulu, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Canterbury Tales, Back To The Future Parts I & III, and The Cosby Show. Leon also thought John Grisham was the black cook in Pearl Harbor. I did not have the heart to tell him that Cuban Gooding Jr. and John Grisham are not the same person,

After playing this game for the better part of four hours, I came to the conclusion that Leon was under the influence of marijuana. Two things tipped me off: 1.) he reeked of weed and 2.) he was constantly holding a huge blunt.

Luggage Jenga
Not only is this game just fun, it’s a great ice breaker for talking to people in the terminal. You simply wait for someone to fall asleep or become otherwise distracted and you take their luggage and stack yours on top of it. You then make them pull their luggage out while everyone else chants “Jenga! Jenga! Jenga!” at increasingly louder volumes. The game ends when someone knocks over the luggage or if a security guard comes by and calls you a faggot. Rarely has the game ended in the former manner, and more often than not in the latter.

Collect The Urinal Cakes
I noticed that the bathrooms at the airport contained urinal cakes and I saw this as potential entertainment. This game is played over the course of an hour. The rules are simple:

1. At the end of the hour, you receive one point for each urinal cake you possess.
2. You do not receive points for things that are not urinal cakes.

Whoever has more points at the end of the hour must declare himself “The King of Urinal Cakes” in a loud, bellowing voice. That person than wins the game unless that hateful security guard calls you a faggot. In which case, the game ends with no winner.