Bad conversations tend to happen. You’ll be at a party and someone will comment on your pants and before you know it, you’ve just spent ten brain-melting minutes discussing the merits of button-down shirts. Or maybe you’re at a restaurant and you bump into someone wearing a University of Whatever sweatshirt (oh – I went to that school!) so you’ll debate how awesome the dining common’s grilled cheeses tasted (they were super-sweet …but I was also stoned every day). Once conversations like these end, each participant walks away harboring a sinking feeling and sick heart – pretty much exactly how you felt last weekend after accidentally having sex with that chubby Mexican freshmen with the lazy eye and annoying dachshund.

It doesn’t need to be this way. There are at least seven thousand intriguing things you could be talking about that will lead to conversations several times more interesting than any dialogue about Ikea dressers. The trick is to forge the discussion on your terms, and the best way to accomplish this is with a groundbreaking opener:

I wonder what you’d look like pregnant.

Either a genuine curiosity or a twisted pick-up line – only you will know for sure. This one works great on girls and guys.

Considerations: May not be as effective when conversing with actual pregnant people.

Have you tried the artichoke dip? It tastes like a mole den.

This works best if you’re actually carrying around artichoke dip you brought from home. Bonus points if the dip is in a special container. I like to use my tiny plastic baby teeth treasure chest, complete with rotting molars poking out like ocean bathers.

Considerations: If artichoke dip is already being served at the social event, don’t bother. It will yield conversations as inane as the Jonas Brothers’ career.

If Count Chocula was accused of rape, would you defend him in a court of law?

A tricky inquiry indeed. One one hand, he’s a grown man who wears short capes and loves children (I’ve seen pre-teens eating elaborate breakfasts in his secluded castle). On the other hand, his cereal has helped you through your most depressing years.

Considerations: Feel free to substitute any of the monster-themed Cereal mascots: Franken Berry, Boo Berry, Fruit Brute, and Yummy Mummy are all ghastly pedophiles.

You look like you’d be proficient at repairing wristwatches.

Compliments are often the best opening lines as they put your converser in a cheery mood. Be sure to mention how agile his or her fingers look, even if they appear lackadaisical.

Considerations: Make sure you’re not talking to a watchsmith, unless you really want to discuss timepieces all evening. Also, make sure you’re talking to someone with fingers.

Which Microsoft Office app would make the best one night stand?

Visio 2007 would be the obvious choice because UML diagrams are hot as shit, but this is completely subjective I suppose. Perhaps the overly-calculated Excel would be a popular choice as well – they don’t call them “spreadsheets” for nothing (insert rimshot).

Considerations: Change it up by going open source with OpenOffice.org. You might meet someone better at grepping and fscking then you.

I’ve found that churning butter makes life less complicated.

Things were simpler in the old country – except for the whole Black Plague thing. That sucked for a lot of people.

Considerations: Don’t mention the Black Plague.

We should all aspire to be like David Duchovny.

I applaud the strength David summoned to check himself into sex addiction rehab. On the same token, I often imagine his sexcapades as being magnificent productions involving interplanetary visitors and the supernatural …or maybe just women with masks and large hands. I watched the X-Files religiously in middle school because I wanted to make out with an obsessed girl in my orchestra class. That didn’t work out so well.

Considerations: The truth is out there. Seriously. Good fucking luck.

I have a task for you. This weekend, go to some random bar, approach a complete stranger, and fire up a conversation using one of the above openers. I guarantee you won’t be disappointed – unless you get arrested for harassment. Unless, of course, that is your goal. If so, congratulations in advance from the bottom of my intrigued heart.

Together, we can make this world a more interesting place. Maybe.

My computer is absolutely fucked. Any application I run will inevitably crash within five minutes of use. In fact, a few moments ago I launched Microsoft Notepad to compile a top ten list of actresses I could bang to yield the most shocking party stories and the goddamn application – fucking NOTEPAD – crashed four times. Yes, this list may be part of a future post if you’re lucky. And, yes, the lovely Bette Midler is definitely top five.

In case you’re wondering – and you probably are somewhat curious seeing as though you’re reading a post titled “My Computer Crashes All The Time” and you’ve made it to the second breathtaking paragraph – the following applications crashed while writing these first sentences: Windows Media Player (two times), Microsoft Word (four times), Firefox (3 times), Windows Explorer (one time) and Windows XP (one time). I’m not even joking. I can’t use certain applications (iTunes, I’m glaring at you) or get through YouTube videos longer than 30 seconds.

Some people ask me, “Hey, MKM, how can you stand working on your super-sweet computer? Why don’t you do something to fix the problems?” A great pair of questions indeed. Truthfully, the consistent crashes have improved my end-user experience – and my life – dramatically, much like when I finally discovered Magic: The Gathering will never get me blow jobs …even though my “Madness” deck rules (Wild Mongrel FTW).

Don’t believe me? Well, for one thing I’m becoming increasingly passionate about my computing tasks. For instance, I tried watching an 8-minute out-take video on Mega64 and I wanted to email the creators to say, “hey, I liked your video so much that it took me a half hour to watch because my computer is fucked up and crashes every 30 seconds.” If that’s not brimming with passion, I don’t know what is.

Even the most menial tasks – like increasing my secondary monitor’s screen resolution to view high-resolution pictures of people fucking without scrolling – are overly challenging. However, conquering these challenges yields intrinsic and extrinsic rewards, both of which I crave. For the situation above, I feel the satisfaction of a job completed and enjoy browsing porn exerting as little energy as possible. Imagine the joy produced by successfully downloading a full album off BitTorrent. A veritable volcano of happiness. But not one of those sleeping ones. I’m talking about explosions and death – pleasant, happy death.

Well, shit.

I just lost an entire paragraph chalk-full of solid gold. I’m not even kidding. It opened with a brief argument discussing the social struggles of Balki Bartokomous, then continued on to explore Larry Appleton’s love of peanut butter. Somehow, the paragraph ended by detailing a novelty dance (obviously the Dance of Joy) performed by the two Perfect Stranger stars and Mr. Munch, the keyboard virtuoso who fronts Munch’s Make Believe Band. I’ve tried rewriting my mini-masterpiece but it’s no use; the rewrites lack the same pizzaz of the original. Your loss.

Data loss is expected, but I’ve developed a safety net: hitting CTRL-S to save my work every few seconds. I’ve been doing so well tonight, but anything involving Perfect Strangers requires me to be “totally in the zone”. You may claim that consciously remembering to hit CTRL-S stifles creativity by requiring mental interruptions, but I assure you this is not the case. In fact, it aids my creativity by providing breaks to review my last words …every few seconds. This way I can catch myself before I type something really retarded. It seems to be working wonderfully. I mean, who gives a shit about Perfect Strangers anyways?

Some people say I should switch to a MacBook. I like that idea because then I can buy a scarf and act pretentious in coffee shops as I type my stupid thoughts and not drink coffee, but I don’t know. Something tells me I’d still have maddening issues with a MacBook as well; instead of constantly crashing, it might constantly give birth to chinchillas. At first, it may be a welcome feature …but then my apartment would be bursting with chinchillas and their poop, and they’d be dying because I can’t afford to feed thousands of chinchillas so they’d resort to cannibalism and then sleeping would be difficult because I’d be listening to chinchillas feasting on each other all night. Then I’d probably be slapped with some sort of fine for being inhumane.

Chinchillas are stupid.

Attending the GOP debate party, our small group stuck out like pedophiles perusing an elementary school. Especially my friend – ironically masquerading in a tucked-in button-down, trucker cap, and American flag poking from his front pocket like a steadfast patriotic hard-on – as he seemed to silence the fancy bar while pretending to register for McCain campaign support. Perhaps the cap was a bit much.

After registering (using previous home addresses and phone numbers yanked from thin air) and slapping on name tags, we headed straight to the bar for stiff cocktails and overpriced appetizers. The first thing I noticed was how beautiful and well-dressed everyone was. Perhaps it was due to the inherent class of the Los Angeles bar. I like to think this is how young Republicans dress: confident, business-like, in charge. I wore a Lego skull t-shirt and tattered sneakers, grinning as I ordered a Jack and coke.

While I’m not officially affiliated with any political party, I most certainly lean towards the left. I think leftist thoughts (end the oil and terror wars, restore our raped personal freedoms), read leftist news (CNN, The Huffington Post), and cast leftist votes. And this year I was genuinely excited to be riding the Obama bus to a land of fresh change.

Our original plan was to assimilate ourselves into this GOP atmosphere – to become spies behind enemy trenches – but this was became increasingly difficult. Keeping a straight face while Sarah Palin dodged and pivoted her responses proved challenging, and cheering against legal homosexual unions was heart-sinking. In fairness, I felt Palin executed herself better that I expected. She appeared confident and strong, skillfully dancing around the moderated questions without stammering or breaking a sweat. It was a foul game of hide and seek. I applauded her deceptiveness while the rest of the bar simultaneously applauded her stances.

At one point, after downing a few Jacks, I boisterously scrutinized Joe Biden for misspeaking and correcting himself. A girl sitting at an adjacent table who had been suspiciously staring us down the entire evening turned to me and shared the enthusiasm. “That’s Joe being Joe, incoherent as always,” she said to me, smiling. “Yeah, he has no idea what he’s babbling about,” I agreed. I briefly contemplated jumping on this hot Republican ticket – the juicy boner party ticket – before shaking myself back to drunken reality.

And then the debate was over. There was no buckshot blasting through the air, no cries accusing Biden of terrorism connections – not even a virginal Green Party sacrifice. The crowd went back to drinking and talking as we slid out with little fanfare.

Driving back from LA in the early morning, I harbored a feeling of disappointment over the GOP debate party. Why was I expecting something so obscenely different from watching politics with my leftist friends? Last night I saw us at the bar: cheering for our candidate’s critical points, groaning while our opponent misspoke, clinking glasses when victory seemed obvious, neither side venturing into outlandish territory yet still believing our choice was the only correct choice.

Throughout the following week, I began including more “rightist” publications such as Fox News and the Washington Times, going out of my way to seek as many levels of conservative media as I could. It was like reading news in a parallel universe. There were reports of countless Obama and Biden gaffes including embarrassing stuttering and statements requiring fact checking. There were stories about children wearing extreme conservative t-shirts to school and getting suspended. There were timelines debunking the Democratic ticket’s experience and accomplishments. It was eerily familiar – in fact, it was everything I was reading from my side of the fence, but about my side of the fence.

All the while, I winced as the unconstitutional Bailout Plan slipped through taxpayers fingers and into law, basically shoveling materialized cash into the coffers of Goldman Sachs and friends while further weakening our dollar. Who would vote for this abomination – and so quick and recklessly? Why, all three of our candidates with the power to do so (sorry Sarah).

With a compounding sinking feeling, I turned to one final source before deconstructing my once semi-optimistic views of our political system: the campaign contribution lists. And sure enough, Goldman Sachs was the top contributor to date in Barack Obama’s campaign. In fact, both lists have similar guests appearances:

And sadly, this is only a small glimpse of who’s really in charge.

Last week it dawned on me that I had been sucked into the dog and pony show performed by our two-party system and presented by the media owned by it. I’m not here to tell you who to vote for (even though I still consider myself left-leaning) or unleash a storm of concrete “news” (the circus of hidden agendas) and “facts” (objective grand pictures seem almost mythical). I’m urging you to step away from the show, attempt to consider the big picture using whatever sources you have at your disposal as a civilian, and realize who you’re competing against. There are much larger issues than Obama visiting 58 states or McCain finishing at the bottom of his naval academy class, such as how one large independent bank is running our entire country into the ground. But I digress.

Perhaps it’s time we took a cute kitten break. And, please, keep your hands where I can see them.

I recently obtained a killer box. Check this shit out:

I’m naturally excited about the possibilities although my box repurposing skills are quite rusty; the last epic box encounter I had was probably in middle school, and by then I was too busy crying about my pathetic life to care. But before middle school thrust it’s dagger through my stomach, I remember boxes being mystical devices: peanut butter spearhead factories, giant cardboard glow worms, the entire cast of Silver Spoons ...the possibilities were infinite, much like Nick and Norah’s Playlist. Unfortunately, my “mystical devices” these days equate to bonus closet space and the “Credit Bumper” – a machine that raises your credit score proportional to the amount of nickels you feed it.

I decided to do some deep thinking and soul searching. If I could transform this killer box into anything, what would I choose? After a few days of pondering, I drafted this list.

Albatross Bird Bath

Dinosaur Jack-in-the-Box

Tiny Jack in the Box

Ghost Trap

Internet Confession Booth

Hot Sex Booth

Chuck Wagon

Portal to Brax, City of the Undead

Portal to Toys R Us on 28th Street in Grand Rapids, Michigan

Aborted Zombie Fetus Containment Unit (AZFCU)

The direction I take will be a tough decision, but I’m confident I’ll be happy with any of these choices.

Or I might just throw the box out. Or sell it. Anyone in the market for killer box?

Oh, and if you thought you were about to read a post about “sweet pussy”, you were sorely mistaken. Check back next week.

I sadly post my relatively large work desk on Craigslist because my new studio is about the size of an inflatable castle ball pit. To my delight, I immediately receive phone calls from two interested customers. After explaining the desk is approximately large enough to perform dual circumcisions and is in pristine condition, my first customer agrees to swoop on by so I inform the other caller of the pending transaction. But after waiting an hour for a stranger who refuses to return my phone calls, I call back interested customer number two.

“Do you believe in evolution?” she asks me.

“Sure,” I say and hear a concerned sigh.

“Well, did you ever practice any evolutionary science on the desk?” she asks.

“I don’t know, maybe,” I say.

“I cannot consider a desk that has been sullied by impure hands,” she says.

“Oh, then no,” I say.

“Ok, great,” she says with relief. “I’ll swoop on by.”

As I hang up the phone a scruffy bearded stick man lurches through my front door and shiftily greets me in a scratchy voice. Of course – this must be caller one. I offer my hand but instead of shaking it he removes his filthy spectacles, places them on the desk, and begins vigorously scratching his graying beard with both hands while his entire body quivers. Steel wool on sandpaper accompanied by tiny grunts. I take a step backward and glance out the window at the afternoon skyline, considering every strange soul that may be living within it’s confines. The audible scratching ceases and the man clears his throat.

“How many, er, circumcisions could you, er, perform on this desk at once?” he asks. We’ve been over this already.

“Two,” I say. “You can perform two circumcisions at the same time, side by side.” I step over to the desktop and demonstrate, molding two infants out of air, then consecutively picking each one up and snipping the ring of air foreskin around each air penis. The man nods.

“What about, er, vasectomies?” he asks.

“I suppose it depends on the clientele,” I say. “Seeing as how the procedure is most common in grown men and that grown men are usually much larger than infants, a single vasectomy would require the entire desktop.”

He stares at the desk for a long moment before asking me to make him a sandwich. I agree on one condition – that he buys the desk from me. Soon enough I’m in the kitchen spreading mayonnaise on thick slices of sourdough and thinly slicing a fresh tomato while the man, propped against my refrigerator, watches closely. Then I hear a woman calling my name from the living area.

“I’m sorry,” I say after approaching her, mayonnaise knife in hand, “but the first person I contacted actually showed up to claim the desk.” She frowns and glances out the window at the afternoon skyline, considering every stroke of poor timing the confined populous must have experienced today.

“Then why did you have me come over?” she says. “This has been a waste.”

“Nothing is, er, a waste,” the man says, emerging from the kitchen with a sandwich consisting of sourdough bread, mayonnaise, and tomato slices. He stands behind me in the doorway, slowly munching on my uncompleted creation. The woman’s jaw drops.

“This man is buying the desk?” she says. “I bet he doesn’t even have a vehicle to transport it!”

“Hey, do you have a car?” I ask the man. He shakes his head and gently lifts my acoustic guitar-equipped stuffed polar bear off my bookshelf, dropping the sandwich remains on the floor.

“What did I tell you?” the woman says. “Do I get a sandwich now?”

“It depends – are you going to buy this desk?” I ask her as I stare at the man who is now sitting on my unmade bed, staring into the eyes of my stuffed polar bear and scratching his beard.

“Yes – that’s why I came in the first place,” she quips. I turn to face her and see another man – taller and shaved – saunter into my studio.

“Hi, is the desk still for sale?” he asks the room.

“No, I’m about to buy it,” the woman says, violently fishing a wallet out of her purse.

“Wait, who are you?” I ask.

“I’m Tony,” Tony says. “I called over an hour ago but got caught up in a rousing game of Connect Four with a paraplegic child. It’s a long story, really.”

“Wait, then who the hell are you?” I ask the bearded man on my bed, pointing at him with the mayonnaise knife.

“Do you have change for a fifty?” the woman asks.

“Nice polar bear!” Tony says. His eyes light up and he bends over for a closer look. “They say the polar bear evolved from the brown bear – which is my favorite bear – so these hardy troopers are a-ok in my book.” Tony scratches the bear’s head and the bearded man stares at him. The woman’s jaw drops.

“What did you just say?” she says.

“Hardy troopers?” Tony says.

“Don’t play dumb with me,” she says. “You made an ‘evolution’ reference.”

“So I did,” Tony says. “Referring to the bears.”

“You’re a heathen, clinging to the empty promises of science. And you’re tainting my desk.”

“Yes – will someone just buy the goddamn desk?” I say.

“Yes – do you have change for a fifty?” the woman says, raising her voice to an intimidating decibel.

“Yes – I am a heathen with logic and factual evidence on my side,” Tony says. “Evolution is a sound biological process that expands our world for the good of mankind.”

“SHUT IT,” the woman snarls, crumpling the fifty in her palm.

“I think considering trilobites in your family tree frightens you,” Tony says. He glances out the window at the afternoon skyline, considering every multi-celled organism that may have swam through the city hundreds of millions of years ago.

“I think God frightens you,” the woman says.

“God, er, frightens me,” the bearded man murmurs.

“Trilobites! Trilobites!”

“THAT’S IT,” the woman says, stuffing the crumpled fifty into her wallet thrusting it into her purse. “This is COMPLETELY ridiculous. You can all take your nonsense and collectively shove it.” With that, she storms out of my studio and I turn to Tony.

“Please buy this desk,” I say. I can tell he’s not interested as he performs a brief inspection.

“How many circumcisions did you think this could accommodate?” he asks. We’ve been over this already.

“Two,” I say, ready to perform phantom circumcisions at any second. He scratches his head.

“Well, the desktop looked a lot larger in the photographs,” he says. “I was banking on four simultaneously, accounting for the photographs and your lack of circumcision knowledge. Obviously I’m wrong.” He turns to the bear, which has been discarded to the floor next to the sandwich. “Is your bear for sale by chance?”

“No, it’s not.”

“Well, good day then.” With that, he saunters out of my studio and I turn to the bearded man. He’s laying upright on my bed, propped up against the wall, staring at me. I sigh.

“Look, I have no idea who you are,” I say, “But will you just take this desk?” The man coughs loudly.

“I, er, have no use for a, er, desk,” he says. “But listen.” He slowly rises from my bed and approaches me, patting my shoulder on his way out. “You never know when, er, you’ll need a nice flat surface to, er, write about a bum that just peed all over your bed.” With that, he closes the door behind him and I’m left alone to wash my sheets and write the most random story ever.