getting older is weird

growing up is weird because when you are a kid and you eat coins, you get in SO MUCH trouble and your parents freak out and won't leave you alone. but when you're older and you eat coins, people mostly just stay away from you.

TNT part 2 (that's not that!)

well schoolpants's new hit game show, That's Not That!, is back for a second episode. this week, we learn about maps, driving, condiments, and maps. play along at home by yelling "THAT'S NOT THAT!" at each picture you see. then giggle and clap your hands.

the beach

i'll tell you two things i like about the beach:
1) when you're on the beach and your looking out at the ocean, you know everyone is behind you. well not EVERYONE but most of your countrymen are behind you, inland. and the way you're facing, there's no one in front of you for miles and miles and miles.
2) the other thing is watching babies eating sand. because man, those guys know how to party.

best birthday evaaaaaaaaaaa (falling off cliff)

yesterday was my birthday. birthdays are awesome because everybody's supposed to be nice to you. sometimes some people aren't. those people are dicks. so what i did, is i hung out with people who i knew weren't dicks. that's how i knew they'd all be nice to me.
my friend brian invited some friends and me to a place called morro bay. my friend margaret baked a cake for me that read "yay nic!" and it had flowers made of sugar and there was supposed to be a bear pooping but the bear wouldn't stand up.
also, we went to a place called hearst castle which is more of an "obnoxiously large house" than a "castle." hearst was this guy whose dad was rich and then he owned a bunch of newspapers and then he bought whatever he wanted to put in his house. stuff like art and zebras and polar bears and tapestries. and he had a cool looking pool where the tour guides get to swim on mondays. anyway, some girl took our picture at hearst castle and then demanded money. we said yeah right. one of my friends grabbed the picture and then i tackled the photographer and we flew over the edge of a cliff because i tackled her too hard.

That's Not That! (TNT!)

this is a new segment i would like to introduce to the schoolpants show. i call it "that's not that!" or TNT for short. i don't think i really need to explain the rules. i'll just show you what it is.



i've done something like this before. but now it's more fun because i have a name for it now.

picture texts

i recently received two picture texts, via cellular phone, which i thought were cool/funny. the first was from my friend kienan. it said "Holy cow! I think a space ship is going to eat the coliseum!" and it had the following picture:

the second was from my friend patrick. he was staying at a hotel in philly, or new jersey or some place, that advertised a comedy show where you could go and "laugh little." i really like when typos tell the truth. and i like when people capitalize every word in a message except the words, "night," "every," "the," and "and." and i like when people use six exclamation points!!!!!!

burritos

"burritos" is like the only real meal i know how to cook. it's easy because you just cook ground beef and throw a bunch of seasoning in. then you warm up a tortilla and throw the meat on it with some cheese and whatever else you want in your burrito.
other than burritos, i mostly just cook frozen foods. or canned soup. or i make sandwiches.
a couple weeks ago when i was watching hilarious people in new york, matt walsh and ian roberts were doing a cooking show on stage and showing easy food you can make to impress girls. matt walsh made some weird quesidillas in the microwave. owen burke was playing the show's stage manager. he was handing quesidillas out to people in the audience. he gave me the last one. and that made me feel special.

i'm just gonna buy mine online

my grandpa's birthday

today's my grandfather's birthday. he's 95 or 96. i can't remember. the guy in the picture is not my grandfather. i don't have a picture of him. he doesn't play the violin. or maybe he does and he just never told me.
anyway, my grandpa is awesome. when i was a kid i thought he was hilarious because he always made fun of my grandma. but not in a mean way. also, he would drink a martini everyday and he'd give us the olive. we would fight over it. i love olives. and i didn't know it but, i guess, as a young child, i also liked gin and vermouth because that's what the olive tasted like.
my grandpa grew up on a farm in southern indiana. he had a ton of brothers and a few sisters, but only he and seven of his brothers made it past childhood. they all went by their middle names, which i guess was like an irish thing that people used to do. my grandpa's parents were from ireland. anyway, they all have cool names like omer, mac, elmo, fred, frank, and gus, just to name a few. anyway, when my grandpa was in high school, he took this civil servant exam just because he figured why the hell not. then after high school, he moved to indianapolis and got a job washing dishes while he went to night school. then one day, two of his brothers showed up in indy because they got this letter back home that said he did well on that civil servant exam and he was offered a job in washington dc as a messenger. so he hopped on a bus out to dc and took the job. he rented a room in this building and one of the girls in that building turned out to be my grandma. anyway, he worked as a messenger for awhile, getting paid a thousand dollars a year, which i guess wasn't too bad back then because it was during the great depression. he started taking night classes at this small college that was put together by a few georgetown professors. when he graduated from there, he got a job with the IRS. he was there for awhile and had a few kids. my dad was one of them. then after awhile, he moved the family to fort wayne, indiana. they bought a house on standish drive next door to this big family. one of the girls in that family was my mom.
the men in my family are very lazy about going out and looking for girls to marry. but so far they've been lucky with living extremely close to pretty good ones. not me. my neighbors are weirdos.

schoolpants summer of fun tour '09

well, the weekend of 14aug09 saw schoolpants in new york city (usa). this past weekend (21aug09) was stop 2 on the schoolpants summer of fun tour '09: St Louis, Mizzuhhhh (also usa).
new york city is sort of up in the right-hand corner of the continental united states. st louis is sort of in the middle. sort of. where will i be next weekend (28aug09)??? stay tuned to find out. nah, i'll just tell you. i'll be in california. it's on the left of the country.
st louis was fun. they have this big dumb metal arch there and every time we saw it, i'd go "hey, st louis arch" and point at it. i thought they built the arch back in 1944 for the worlds fair that took place in st louis. boy was i wrong. they didn't build it for that at all. and the worlds fair was there in 1904, not 1944. have you ever seen that movie "meet me in st louis" starring judy garland? well THAT was made in 1944 and it takes place at the 1904 worlds fair. i had to watch that movie for my intro to film class when i was a freshman in college. i don't remember much about that movie but i remember having to write a paper about how this scene in the movie where people are trick-or-treating is a metaphor for world war II. i think it was the first paper i ever wrote in college. i was nervous. i think i got a B.
anyway, st louis was fun. i was there for my brother's bachelor party. it was fun because it was the first time EVER where i got to hang out at bars with ALL of my brothers at once. it was awesome. they are funny guys. also, my brother's friends were there. i would always try to tag along with them when they were in high school and i was in junior high because i thought they were hilarious. now we're all kind of grown up and i still think they're hilarious. and my brother's college friend was there. he's hilarious too but i never felt like i was tagging along with him. because i was already like 17 by the time i met him so he never treated me like a little kid. even though i was a little kid when i was 17.
hey, the st louis arch!

make oprah feel sorry for you

i forgot i did this. but awhile ago, i got a myspace friend request from oprah. this was funny for two reasons: 1) i forgot myspace existed; and 2) oprah JUST got on myspace and she's just asking everyone to be her friend.

jeez oprah, get your head out of your ass. just kidding. i know it's not really oprah. it's like how the mall santas aren't really santa. they're just santa's helpers. so i figured what's a funny thing to say to oprah's helpers? and i sent them this message:

DCM 11

so, the reason i went to new york this weekend wasn't just to make this blog bi-coastal. that doesn't even make sense. i was actually in new york for the del close marathon. despite the name, it was not actually 26 miles of del close. that wouldn't make sense. del close marathon is actually spanish for "of the close marathon," which doesn't make any sense either.

DCM is actually just a 72 hour marathon of awesome funny stuff. i enjoyed it. for 72 consecutive hours, i laughed, learned, and loved. i loved learning. i learned laughing. and laughed lernlove. which doesn't make sense. in fact, the whole weekend made very little sense. but it was pretty terrific. i was there from thursday night to monday morning and in that time, it is my estimate, that i slept a grand total of 13 hours.

on the plane home, my feet were itchy. when i got back to my apartment in LA, i took my shoes off. my feet were still black from dancing barefoot on stage the night before. i think this weekend might have been the least hygienic weekend of my life. it is my estimate that i sweat 4 gallons of beer, changed my underpants 3 times, washed my hands twice, and wore zero deodorant. it was great.

i am in new york city (USA)

today, i am in new york city (united states of america). i came here to blog from here so that schoolpants can be considered a bicoastal blog. i have only been here about 12 hours. and i spent the bulk of that time in a cab, asleep, or trying to be asleep. but i can tell already that i am going to have many laughs in this city.

for my next trick, i'm gonna go walk around and then eat a cheeseburger.

i'm on an airplane!

i'm on an airplane right now. an airplane is like a big hallway that CAN FLY! and there's chairs everywhere. and three bathrooms. and three people with vests who walk around and yell at you and sometimes give you drinks and sandwiches. my friend brian is letting me borrow his computer. that's how i'm telling you all this stuff.

i'm on an airplane called "virgin america." the male flight attendant really likes my friends brian and margaret. i think he just gave them free drinks. he keeps making jokes about being "virgins" to virgin america, meaning, we haven't flown this airline before.

AAAAAAAAAAANYWAY. i'm gonna play this fun anagram game on the back of the seat in front of me now.

copyright: brenda

too bad brenda got a hold of this one first. some girls have all the luck.

seriously?

so i was just google image searching for "squirrels" and this article came up. now, i consider myself a pretty open-minded guy. i really try not to judge people. but if you partake in SQUIRREL SEASON, then something is fundamentally wrong with you. for example, the kid in the above picture, holding the rifle (with a scope), looking proud of his kill. now, initially, i thought "this kid is just excited because he wants to be a hunter like his dad and squirrels are easy practice." but c'mon. this kid had a rifle with a scope. when i was around 13 years old, i was hanging out in my backyard with my friend mike zoretich. there was a squirrel in the woods, about 15 yards away. mike threw a stone at it and missed. i had no intention of hurting that animal but i wanted to test my aim. so without thinking of the consequences, i picked up a decent sized rock, chucked it at the squirrel, and killed it dead. i wasn't proud. i had no quarrel with that squirrel and i had no intention of eating the squirrel or using it's hide for clothing.

if i could go back and change it, i probably would (maaaaybe). but i killed the thing and that's that. but i will say this: if i had been the type of kid who wanted to be a hunter, i would've picked up the squirrel and shoved it in this dopey kid's face (above photo). i would've said "who needs a scope, you sissy?" and i would've made the kid eat the squirrel. fur and all.
because honestly, where's the sport in squirrel-hunting? i'm not anti-hunting, but being proud of killing a squirrel with a rifle (with a scope) is like being proud of squashing a spider in your apartment with toilet paper (with a scope). now, if you were to kill a mountain lion, in the wild, with a hatchet, then i think that would be something to be proud of.
not to brag or anything, but when i was around 13 years old, i was hanging out with my friend mike zoretich. and i killed a mountain lion, in the wild, with a hatchet.

this guy rules

i don't understand how this guy's glasses stay on his face. and i don't understand his left hand. and i don't understand the length of his right arm. but i understand his enthusiasm. and i support it. yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah party time.

corny jokes

this kind of stuff is so unbelievably hilarious to me. my friend, patrick, and i have been blogging about our adventures in orlando because there's a contest that sends two people to orlando to do just that. we gave ourselves the job, confident that we didn't ACTUALLY need to go to orlando to blog about orlando. the idea was that it would be fun for us to make stuff up. and if, in the process, we annoyed and/or confused a bunch of nerds who really wanted the job ... then that's just gravy.
anyway, some people get it. like jill townsend and michael w bunch. i don't know them. but they are cool in my book. some people don't get it though. for example, a fella named scott brooks is "effing confused" by us. what i find awesome is that when patrick and i started the orlando blog, we tried to write as if we were a real couple of nerds who were siked about going to disneyworld for two months. and we try to write extremely awkwardly. it's harder than it looks. but people like scott brooks make it seem SO EASY. he writes exactly how we STRIVE to write in the orlando blog. it's amazing. and hilarious. in his facebook comment, he accuses us of "hanging around," and "pretending to be funny, cool, and interesting."
i never could've thought of stuff like that! it's bonkers! anyway, patrick and i commented back, working on our scottbrooks-esque impressions. it was tremendously fun.
it reminds me of freshman year in college. i had this awful roommate named bill dinker. as far as awful roommates go, he's legendary. just an amazingly terrible guy. anyway, for some reason back then, everybody had these whiteboards on their dormroom doors. and people would leave messages and stuff. kind of like a pre-facebook wallpost type thing. anyway, to get dinker riled up one night, i went around and wrote "bill dinker is a stinker" on every white board in our building. he was furious! it was such a silly and childish thing to do, he just had no idea how to react. it was one of the happiest moments of my life. corny jokes are the best!

Dummit!

i like the phrase DUMMIT! it's like dammit. but funnier. and dumber. from now on, i'm going to say dummit when something goes wrong. it reminds me of this guy who says bob saget when something goes wrong.

my favorite mug

this is my favorite coffee cup. it has ducks on it. one duck is flying through the air. two other ducks are walking on the ground. this particular mug doesn't have any ducks swimming in water. but, just so you know, that is another way that ducks get around.

when i was a kid, i remember seeing my mom occasionally drink out of this mug. i remember thinking it was special because it looked so different from all the other mugs. it was taller and heftier, more resembling a beer stein than a coffee cup. it was also different because all the other mugs had words on them like "mom" or "paris" or "notre dame." this one had ducks instead of words. very strange.

when i was moving out to boston, my mom packed up a bunch of old plates and stuff and she gave me this mug. i was shocked. i asked if she was sure she wanted me to have it. she shrugged and said something like, "yeah, i don't care."

just goes to show you: when you're a kid, you think stuff is special. but adults don't give a crap about anything.

cats

this is a cat i invented. his name is gerald but he HATES that name. so he ran away from home and started introducing himself as donald. now everyone calls him that. he loves it.

leave that dog alone!

in my opinion, if you own a dog, you should just let it be a dog. i mean, i think you should wash it regularly and teach it to poop outside and all that regular stuff. but other than basic housebreaking, you should just let it be a dog. well, i guess it's fun to teach a dog tricks and it's cool when dogs can play frisbee. but other than all that, just let your dog be a dog. well, it's kind of funny when dogs wear sunglasses. and it's kind of funny when dogs have people names like Gary or Stephanie. but other than ALL THOSE THINGS, i think you should just let your dog be a dog. and you should never, ever, nerver, naver touch your dog as close to the base of it's tail as the man is in the above photo.

also, i don't think flowers should be spraypainted gold. also, i don't think curtains should be airbrushed. also, this guy looks like a real weiner.

i have a big head

the other day, i watched the incredible hulk. whenever i watch a movie like that, i sort of half-believe that maybe i have superhuman abilities. so i always try to do whatever those superheroes do. and it always turns out bad.

last 2 meals: in-n-out

last night, for dinner AND this morning, for lunch: i had in-n-out burger. specifically, i had a cheeseburger with onions, fries, and a coke. well, last night it was water. today it was coke.

and you know what, i don't feel the least bit bad about it. you wanna know why? i'll tell you why: because in-n-out burger is fucking delicious. that's why.

michelangelo: filthy pothead

i was born at a good time. i was at the ideal TMNT fan age (7) when the ninja turtles peaked in popularity. like most kids, i was initially drawn to michelangelo. he was a turtle i could relate to. he loved pizza, nun chucks, and calling people "dude." but as i matured, i found myself growing tired of michelangelo's antics. he was always slowing things down and screwing things up. all he ever wanted to do was skateboard and eat pizza. not that there's anything wrong with skateboarding and/or pizza, but come on dude, you're a ninja turtle. there's work to be done!

so i went against the grain. all the other kids like michelangelo the best (except for the NERDS who like that jerk raphael), and i chose Donatello as my favorite turtle. i still firmly believe don was the coolest turtle. he was definitely the smartest. yet he was still funny. he wouldn't go for the easy jokes like michelangelo. and he didn't fight with sais or swords (that could easily KILL people) like raphael and leonardo. he used a stick. and he beat the hell out of people with it.

i don't hate michelangelo. he had his moments. he was pretty funny and had good ideas sometimes. but i think he just needed to lay off the grass and get his shit together. he could've been great.

but nothing compares to the new turtle (the guy in the below picture). jeez, this guy makes michelangelo look like a real go-getter.

can akat

i have a friend called Can Akat. we went to grad school together. he's awesome.
he has a tattoo of a small circle, about the size of one of the three holes that you might find on the left hand side of a sheet of notebook paper, on his hand between his thumb and index finger. one day, while we were eating pizza, i asked what the tattoo meant. he said "nothing." i thought that was great.
one time, over beers, i was telling him about the funniest thing i had ever seen in my life. the funniest thing i've ever seen in my life is this: senior year of college, two teams of 4 men were having a case race, which is a race to see which team could drink a case of beer fastest. it was a very close race. i was involved. the last two beers came down to two friends. for the sake of anonymity, we'll call them "dafe" and "demefri." both were on the verge of barfing. demefri has a condition where if he hears, smells or sees barf, regardless of his own physical condition, he WILL barf immediately. dafe stopped drinking his beer in order to barf in a nearby trashcan. demefri, witnessing the barf, turned quickly to do the same. as a result, demefri barfed all over dafe's arm. i, in turn, began to laugh so hard that i, also, barfed. it was the funniest thing i had ever been a part of in my entire life.
i finished the story, laughing at it myself. Can Akat was not laughing. he asked me why Americans find vomit funny. he couldn't understand it and i couldn't explain it.
anyway. the word "artist" gets thrown around a lot. you could call me an artist because i make silly drawings and weird videos, but mostly i'm just trying to make people laugh. Can Akat, on the other hand, is a true artist. he shows people ideas that can't quite be expressed in any other way. call me corny, but that's what i think real artists do. anyway, if you're into that kind of stuff, check out Can Akat's website and while you're there, check out the video called "You, The Living" because it's really cool.

i love cheeseburgers

cheeseburgers are probably my favorite food.

fed up with angry seniors

i deal with a lot of people everyday at the coffee shop. some of them are old people. some of them are bitter old people. i used to try to be extra nice to mean old ladies. but not anymore. they're now the people who i feel the least sympathy for. because, come on, you're old! you've had your WHOLE LIFE to figure how to not be a prick and you've failed. how pathetic and awful is that?

i'm not mean to these old geezers. i just refuse to give them special treatment. i really want to level with them and just say, "look, you're old. you're probably going to die soon. you better figure out how to make your life not suck. and you better do it quick. because the clock is ticking. now, lose the attitude, ask me nicely for a cup of coffee, don't complain about the price, and say Thank You when i give it to you."

on the flip side, dealing with super nice old people is one of my favorite things at work. nice old people RULE!

national clown week aug1-7

well gang, it's that time of year again. clown week is upon us. it seems like every summer's the same. in june, you're excited and making plans. then comes the fourth of july, and you're high on pabst blue ribbon, screaming along to mellancamp's R-O-C-K in the U-S-A and punching foreigners in the neck. then, before you know it, it's clown week.

where does the time go?

when i was a little kid, i saw a clown perform at a carnival or something. i don't even remember. but the clown had these postcards that were just pictures of himself. his name was Sparkles or something. anyway, i loved that dude. he was hilarious. according to my mom, i didn't want to leave. i took two postcards from him and carried them around with me everywhere. my mom still has one of them somewhere. i'll try to find it next time i'm home. i'll take a picture and show you.
when did clowns stop being funny and start being terrifying?