R.A. Enterprises is a lot of things: political consultancy, creative consultancy, and entrepreneur consultancy not least among them.¹ Although the first two are the most interesting and profitable for me, it is in the third area that I find myself spending most of my time in meetings. Sometimes I take meetings with people who are actually interesting and have something of great benefit to humanity, but mostly I have meetings with multi-level marketers trying to interest me in their latest Ponzi scheme. I don't like taking them, but I hate passing up the chance for a quick buck even more.² One meeting, however, despite it's great promise in terms of revenue enhancement, left me feeling dirtier than a congressional Democrat voting for the Stupak amendment.³

So anyway, this tall guy with a soft southern accent sauntered into our appointment. He said his name was Bill C., and after exchanging meaningless pleasantries he began to detail his plan for turning the wide-eyed innocence of your average Facebook user into filthy lucre. Well this guy obviously had done his research, because anytime the words “filthy lucre” cross the airspace my ears prick up, my breathing quickens, and not even Tiger could rival the tent in my plus fours. Of course I'm professional enough not to let any of that show and so very nonchalantly I told Bill, “OK chuckles, you got 2 minutes. Shoot.”

Read more: Gone Phishing

This is a story about my balls. Not the typical story. You can get that from any number of highly satisfied co-eds and Swedish au pairs. This story is how Health Care Reform^TM is like my nut sack: big, hairy, and when you play with it you end up with a mess on your hands.

Now, I'm a man of a certain age, and, in the way of things that come to men of a certain age, I noticed a suspicious bulge in the groinal area. I'm no stranger to a bulge down there, let me tell you, but this was a bulge where it didn't belong. Since my health insurance is good I bundled myself off to that sadist posing as my general practitioner to sort out the problem. In response this highly trained medico told me to unbutton my pants and then produced a rubber glove and an index finger. He subsequently shoved said index finger up my scrotum and told me to bear down as if I was taking a crap. He repeated the routine on the other side and, with a kind of wizardly knowledge, like that of children's literature's favorite pederast Dumbledore, pronounced the diagnosis: double inguinal hernia. Essentially my guts had escaped their home. The doc's recommendation was surgery, laparoscopic, and the sooner the better. Although I wasn't feeling any constant pain and could probably survive several years without the procedure, if things suddenly went south it could be very bad and expensive indeed. So off he goes and a few minutes later in waddled the nurse and lo and behold I had an appointment with a surgeon.

Read more: Reform School

I can't say that I've heard much wailing and gnashing of teeth in the time I've been away from my duties here at this justification for keeping broadband penetration low, and, while that would dismay a lesser man, I'm happy to finally be back behind the keyboard. Not because you've missed me, you clearly haven't, but because it might just make your little, sad, life a tiny bit brighter. I know, I'm a hell of a humanitarian.

Like many of you, I've been affected by what, for lack of a better word, we shall call the economy. Unlike you, I've actually managed to prosper. You see as Mr. Suntori says in his latest book Zen's When, “It's possible to stay afloat when all is draining around you. Be the Ty-D-Bol Man.” Of course when you're hugely in demand as political consultant, a presidential election doesn't hurt the coffers a single bit. Still it left me without much time to act as your loyal correspondent and general guide through the morass that is our current economical state. For that I apologize. To make up for it, I've prepared a great new offer that will put you right in bottom of the giant hole into which the federales are busily shoveling billions of dollars. The best bit is you don't even need to know more about the car industry than the new head of The People's Automotive Corporation. [Formally known as GM—Ed.]

Read more: Largess? Oh, Please!

Every winter about this time I find the fog clearing and sanity reasserting itself.  Each year I resolve that it's never going to happen again, that I'm finally going to get my act together and abandon the follies of my youth.  I think this year I'll finally be able to make a positive change because, as I lay passed out in the middle of what I can only hope was corn chowder, I had an epiphany:  I realized that I was drinking to escape and what I wanted to escape was the no-fun, puritanical, hypocritical bastards that seemed to crawl out of the woodwork and ruin my holiday fun.

Read more: "Man Bites," God