This season may hurt a bit.

Whew! I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t more than a little concerned about the fact that the Razorbacks came EXTREMELY close to losing their cupcake game to a “directional school.” This year’s supposed patsy, Western Illinois, gave the Hogs everything they wanted and more. It may be a long season.

Rebuilding years are tough. We have an exciting new coach and a lot of young, talented players, so the future looks bright for the years ahead. It’s just going to be a while getting to that point. Meanwhile, with arguably the toughest schedule in the NCAA including the top-tier of the SEC and old rival Texass (not a typo), this year is going to sting.

One of my favorite old jokes.

I DID NOT WRITE THIS JOKE. I don’t know where it came from, but I heard this one along time ago back in grade school, so it should be public domain:


A guy has been having migraine headaches for as long as he can remember. Over the course of many years, he’s had several tests done, but the doctors can never tell him why he’s having these headaches. Every day he is in pain, and he’s considering suicide.

One day the doctors call him with some news. Although they still don’t know why he’s having these headaches, they do know the source of them – his testicles. The doctor has good news and bad news: The good news is they are 100% sure they can cure him. The bad news is they have to surgically remove both of his testicles.

The man doesn’t want to loose what he considers his manhood, but he gives this long, hard consideration. Given the choice of suicide, living with the migraines or having no testicles, the man reluctantly decides to have the surgery. He does, and all goes well. After the surgery is over, he feels better than he has in his entire life!!

Walking down the street with a new lease on life, he passes a fine Italian suit store. He decides since he feels so good, he should look good too. He’s going to live it up and get fitted.

He walks in and tells the Italian tailor that he wants his finest Italian suit, and that money is no object. He asks to see something in a 42 regular. The Italian man looks him up and down and says, “Excuse’, signor, please try this 44 regular, I think it fitta you better,” and hands him a suit jacket to try on.

The man puts it on and it’s the best fit he has had in his life. He’s amazed! “How did you know without measuring?” the man asks.

“I’m a tailor, itsa my job to know these things!”

Next the tailor gets him a shirt, “You are a seven-and-a-half neck, 35 inches on-a left arm and a 36 inches on-a right arm,” he says.

“Wow! How did you know that?” asks the man.

“I’m a tailor, itsa my job to know these things! Next, we getta you pants. What size?”

“Well, I’ve been wearing a 34 waist with a 33-inch inseam.”

The tailor says, “No, no! You want a 35-inch inseam. A 33 will ride too high on you nuts and giva you headaches!”


I love a good joke with a moral. The point here is sometimes when life has got you down, you still have to live it up. If that guy had got that Italian suit earlier, he might still have his berries.

-30-, bitches.

FF or WoW – what’s geekier?

Which pastime has the higher concentration of geeks – Fantasy Football or World of Warcraft? Of course all the frat guys are going to say “What!?! Fantasy Football is football, it’s not dorky! Those Dungeons and Dragons dudes are NERDS!!! Nerds! Nerds! Nerds!” Well not so fast there, Ogre. Talking about either for a prolonged length of time at the party is like spraying Chick Repellent on yourself before you leave the house. The fact that your game has the word “Fantasy” in it doesn’t win you any cool points either.

In the interest of total disclosure, I do play Fantasy Football and I was in a frat, and my name is Bret – crissakes, talk about stereotypes – and I think FF is frickin’ awesome!! But I didn’t always think so. Before I started playing FF three seasons ago, I would equate FF with WoW. And this would piss my Fantasy Football playing friends off to no end – which of course is why I did it. I also maintained that I was too busy following my beloved college team, the Arkansas Razorbacks, and this passion had no room for other passions. But I played, and now, I realize, that the only thing better than football in the fall is MORE football in the fall. But my stance remains, if altered a bit, that they’re both pretty dorky.

Last Saturday I was in the B-dub-dub (Buffalo Wild Wings) with a couple of friends of mine, having a beer and watching baseball and Olympic coverage (multiple TV’s allow you to do both). They proceeded to tell me about their experiences in the world that is World of Warcraft. I have to admit it sounded fun! I can totally see myself playing it. But since I already have so many geeky obsessions anyway, including comic books, vinyl records, and sports (watching more than playing) on top of Fantasy Football, I figured WoW would be one geeky obsession too many. Some would argue I hit that marker many moons ago.

Lets think about this another way. Given the recent trend of Geek Chic – what was once uncool is now cool. So consider this little essay to be an attempt to gain acceptance for my FF playing brethren into the now elite WoW crowd. We’ll go through some geeky topics and see who scores the most geek points.

1. Computer -Technology. Both games are played exclusively on computers. So members of both disciplines must be somewhat tech savvy.

Geek Points Awarded: wash

Score: WoW 0
FF 0

2. Mystical Creatures. WoW is loosely based on D&D, which features characters and critters from the Lord of the Rings and Chronicles of Narnia series. So it’s chock full of elves, goblins, trolls, dragons, necromancers and frikin lygers and tigons for all I know. Fantasy Football is based on actual football. Although Chad “Ocho Cinco” Johnson is pretty freaky at times it’s nothing like an orc. However, there are oft-told legends of the elders such as Butkus and Ditka that battled the beasts on the frozen tundra in the north land called Lambeau … aw who am I freakin kidding. WoW gets major points on this. FF gets none.

Geek Points Awarded: WoW – 8 geek points, FF – 0 geek points

Score: WoW 8
FF 0


3. Slang. You may hear WoW dudes talking about a Twink or Twinking, which, according to Wikipedia, “refers to outfitting a new character or player with items or other resources that are not normally available to new or low-level characters.” But yet another definition provided by Wiki for Twink is “a term for young or young-looking gay or bisexual men.” On the other side of the coin you may often hear FF players talking about needing a “good tight end.” Which would explain why most of these dudes’ “fantasy” involves hours upon hours of watching dudes in tight britches.

Geek Points Awarded: None. However, male homo-erotic points are through the roof for both on this one.

Score: WoW 8
FF 0

4. Social Interaction: You probably have images of FF dudes watching football hanging around, chuggin’ brewskis and slapping high fives. That does happen from time to time, but most often games are watched alone, by some poor fat guy with bad skin eating Cheetoes and drinking Diet Mountain Dew, watching his tv and laptop monitor simultaneously, keeping a close eye on the “stat-tracker”, praying that Willie Parker does or doesn’t run those 10 more yards, and hoping he will win this week’s game and advance into the playoffs. I know, because that’s me. Not so glamorous huh?


Geek Points Awarded: WoW – 2 geek points, FF – 5 geek points

Score: WoW 10
FF 5

5. Chicks (or lack thereof): It’s no secret that both of these hobbies are severely lacking in participants of the fairer sex. To be fair, I’m married and so are my friends I was speaking to at B-dub-dub. So we’re not online looking for love. But if you are a single dude who participates in either of these hobbies, all hope is not lost. There are a few girls/women who play both FF or WoW.

To the FF dudes: If you find an attractive person of the female persuasion that plays FF, that is a valuable find. As valuable as LaDainian Tomlinson is to your offensive rushing yardage. Odds are she is a uber-cool, jeans-and-t-shirt, low-maintenance, bad-assed chick. But odds are equally high that there’s way more dudes in your FF league than girls. It’s even money that she’s just out of your league in general.

On the other hand, there are probably more girls playing WoW than playing FF, believe it or not. And, there is more of a chance that the girl will be one of those sexy-ass-tattooed-goth-emo “Suicide Girls” type (attention: link is not safe for work).

So advantage here is with the WoW geeks, who get a lot of cool points, which means, unfortunately, that they loose all of their geek points, because interaction with hot, tattooed chicks is something pretty cool.

Final Score: WoW 0
FF 5

In closing, the point here is this: You are really missing out in life if you don’t have something that fills in the blank in this sentence: I am a ______ nerd. And you can’t say you’re a “wine” nerd, or a “cigar” nerd, or a “gourmet” nerd. That would be a connoisseur instead of a “nerd” there, Chet. The truth is we’re all geeks of some kind, and if you don’t have a hobby that a certain sector of the population considers nerdy, or dweeby you’re really missing out in life. There’s nothing like going to a convention celebrating your passion, shop selling your passion or movie showing your passion and being around people who are in your little pop-culture cult. It’s even cooler to discover someone you already know is into the same geeky stuff you’re into.

For instance, my wife and I once PLANNED OUR ENTIRE VACATION around going to the nearest town with an IMAX to watch the latest Harry Potter movie. We’re not just joined in Holy Matrimony; we’re joined in our geekiness.

So, no matter what you chose to put in that blank - whether it’s collecting yard gnomes, dancing to polka music or singing science-fiction folk songs - let your geek flag fly, America! Because being cool is for dorks.

So here’s something cool I did once.

A very talented artist friend of mine, Kasey Loman, had a web-comic. She also happened to be, and still is, a lesbian. The name of the web-comic was “Hippie and Bulldyke.” (You see, she can use derogatory language about gay people, because she is one.) Kasey once asked me to be a guest “artist.”

Let me explain, I’m not an artist by any stretch of the imagination, nor am I a lesbian. But I do golf, wear flannel shirts, and can tolerate the Indigo Girls. Oh, and I also find women sexually attractive. So I thought i had enough in common with the lesbian community to write a couple of comics.

If you think you’ll enjoy “Lesbian Mayhem at its Finest” as Kasey puts it, I highly recommend hippieandbulldyke.com. If you’re hung up about gay people and are generally a socially conservative, marriage-is-between-a-man-and-a-woman dickwad then you should probably steer clear of it. (and probably my site too)

Since this is my blog site instead of Kasey’s, I’m going to link to the episodes I did. Let me set it up here: I had some fun with the fact that I have no artistic ability, and Kasey encouraged me to make sure people got the idea that the person doing this wasn’t trying to showcase any artistic talents. I “drew” these by hand, with pen so I wouldn’t be tempted to erase them and “draw them better.” Because even though I know I’m not an artist, I’m so neurotic, and I would try like hell to do it “just right.”

I also left all the misspellings in the speech balloon, as I had no freaking eraser.

I thought the end result was pretty funny, and I thank Kasey for the opportunity. Here they are:

#139


#147


#154


#164


#171


#173

I are teh profeshenal righter on teh world wide interwebs.

Hi, I’m Bret, and this is my “professional” blog, in that it will have samples and news of my creative endeavors outside of my paying gig. So you won’t see a whole lot of general info on the wife and the kid and I, unless that stuff appears in the writing I’m doing, which it does from time to time. If you want to read more general stuff about the fam please check out my wife’s myspace page that she updates religiously.

Here is some short personal stuff about me in case you don’t know me and wonder what kind of subject matter you can expect on BeyondWriterDome: I’m married, an obsessive sports fan, and I’m a pop-culture/comic-book nerd. I know what you’re thinking – “your wife must weep herself to sleep every night.” You would think so, but actually she’s generally pretty supportive. Now you’re probably thinking – “Oh, she must be ugly.” But the truth is she’s hot, and I still wonder how the hell I talked her in to marrying me. She must have a warped sense of what constitutes a good husband, or I’m just one lucky bastard.

We have one kid, who is the most even-tempered, laid-back, cutest little dude you have ever met. I must have been a saint in a former life because I have done absolutely nothing in this one to deserve either of them.

Since this is my website, I’m going to make up some rules that I don’t expect any
readers to actually follow:

1. Don’t comment on the numerous typos and mistakes you’re bound to find on this website. I make a living neurotically worrying about that stuff at my day job. I’ll try to keep mistakes to a minimum.
2. Yes I realize how funny it is that I used the word “Dome” in the title of the blog and I’m a bald guy. The pun is intentional, and you’ll find I have a pretty self-depreciating sense of humor. (That’s not really a rule is it?)
3. If I offend you in any way with any of the content that appears here, please save us all a lot of time by not commenting and just going away. Have a nice day and go frick yourself.

But seriously, thanks for reading and come back often.