I am on my way to L.A. very, very soon. Which means I need to get cut, ripped, jacked. Or down to 95 pounds. I am too lazy to work out unless it is some sort of Wii based exercise, so I guess I have to drop 80 pounds.

I am not into vomiting or starving and I am illiterate so those books on dieting are no good for me. Which is why I needed to invent my own dieting system. AND I DID!

It is the best and simplest dieting system in the world. All you need is Candy Corn. With Halloween about over, I would suggest going and stocking up before you finish this sentence.

OK, you need more than Candy Corn. You need regular food too. But the most important thing is Candy Corn. Because if you are like me and you need a snack and you sit down with a nice bag of tasty chips or a fresh bucket of lard you can’t just stop when you know you should. It tastes so good that you keep going and going and going, but in a way that leaves you the anti-Enegizer Bunny.

This is what makes Candy Corn perfect. You buy the Candy Corn as your snack food. Unlike most, apparently, I like Candy Corn. But what can I eat? 10 pieces at the most before a nasty taste spreads through my mouth like that disease in that Dustin Hoffman movie, Outbreak. Now the Candy Corn has put a little bit o’ food in my belly, but it has also left my mouth with a feeling of complete rejection for any foreign object that may try to gain access to the throat. The mouth has become a PCP-addicted bouncer that thinks every piece of food is ugly as sin.

In short, you can only eat a few pieces, which gives you a little bit of a snack, but you can’t binge like Kiefer Sutherland at the Happy Hour that occurs right before his mandatory driving time.

No one seems to believe me, but it is the absolutely perfect plan. Go ahead. Try it out. Start small. But test quick because once November 1st is here all those bags of awful goodness are packed away until next year. (Incidentally, of course I have heard Lewis Black’s bit on Candy Corn and it being “recycled.” The truth is that all of your holiday treats are held onto until the next year. And most of it will continue to be held until it sells because it just can’t go bad. Yummmm.)

Try the Candy Corn diet and if in one week you haven’t at least maintained the same weight than I won’t care and you can just call me wrong. But I’m not. Jerk-face.

How do you say “goodbye” to someone you’ve known and loved for over eight years?

You both know it is never going to work out. One of you is moving to the completely other side of the country. You’ve both changed greatly over the span of your relationship. You no longer see eye to eye on anything. Your goals have changed. Your views of the world have changed.

But how do you end an eight year chapter of your life? Almost one-third of your life? What do you do when you know that the chances are very high that this is the last time you two will ever see each other face to face? It is probably the last time you will ever speak words to one another. Ever again.

How do you do that?

There will be a hug. There will probably be a quick meeting of the lips. But this is forever.

Should it be memorable? A big, thematic affair with weepy words and a five minute sexless, tearful embrace.

Should it be just like any other goodbye that you have ever said before? Simple and quick with the false tones of seeing one another tomorrow.

Or should it just be the final fizzle of a relationship that has degraded into a twisted friendship? An unreturned “I love you” and a simple, mournful squeeze of the hand.

Why even worry about this moment like it is the one that will define your life? Somehow goodbye will be said and one will leave, closing the door on what was always a very unusual thing. And that will be it. Yes, there will be an immediate sadness, but life will move on. One will never forget about the other as sure as the other will never forget about them, but as time passes those memories will become fewer and farther between.

Because it is not truly a goodbye of the most surprising and unwanted form. It is a goodbye that probably should have happened seven years ago. But neither could do it. Each needed the other in the oddest way. Now, however, that time has passed. And both know it is for the better. Neither need the other like they once did before. That is the only sadness of the tale.

So it probably won’t be weepy and mournful just as it won’t be happy with falsely high compliments. It will most likely be as strange as the two people parting.

Still, even though one might like to ignore it, let the moment just happen organically, as it undoubtedly will, no matter how many previews play in your head, you can’t. When you are faced with such a major juncture in your life, a final farewell to one you still love so much, just not in that way, you can’t keep the thoughts off your mind. All you can do is try to avoid those quiet moments.

When your head keeps repeating, “how do you say ‘goodbye’ to someone you’ve known and loved for over eight years?”

Epilogue:

Three days have passed….

She just left. Her tears are still wet on my shirt. I am still numb with the knowledge that we have just said goodbye.

For the final time.

Still, I don’t know how I feel. It needed to happen. But she is gone.

OK, I kind of lied. This is not the big new upcoming Pay-Per-View event of the season. But I think Chuck might have been kicked in the head a few too many times and may soon be ranting about lions as Stephen Colbert rants about bears. (The explanation is a few paragraphs away.)

It recently made news sub-headlines that Chuck Norris, in his exclusive column on WorldNetDaily (a right-wing rag that totes itself as “A Free Press for Free People”), has officially backed Mike Huckabee for President. Whatever. If the rest of Hollywood can stand up and declare their love for the spineless whores on the left, I see no reason why a Sunset Strip Outsider can’t stand up for what he believes.

After all, I am not one of those who thinks it is horrendous that actors have viewpoints. Because it is America where everyone supposedly can. I think some of the actors may be ill-informed and mildly stupid, but we shouldn’t complain that they have such a big platform. If you want to follow the Britney Spears’ kids crisis and see it on the cover of every goddamn magazine at the check-out then that is your prerogative. But if you are willing to pay so that paparazzi find it worth their time to be so invasive of her life, then she should be allowed to say that she wants to vote for Obama or Clinton or Huckabee or Donald Duck.

So when Chuck Norris stood up and spoke out, I took interest. Not for your typical reasons, though. My interest is more based on the e-mail passed around years ago, Chuck Norris Facts, and this song. My interest in Chuck Norris could be called nostalgic if I had any memories of his movies or TV shows from my youth. It is more like an interest in 8-tracks and Atari. Things that amaze me because once they were so incredibly cool to so many others, but I see them in clear hindsight as silly and kinda cute.

Yeah, I said it. Chuck Norris is cute in that I-worked-with-Bruce-Lee-but-than-had-to-take-my-act-to-bad-television-but-no-really-I-swear-I-am-a-bad-ass way.

So I went to WorldNetDaily and saw Chuck’s “column.” (Just admit it. Back in the day it was an Editorial or Opinion Piece, but now it is just a freakin’ blog). Which was fine. He obviously doesn’t reach the level of my parentheses happy genius, but he writes solid enough for a guy who made a living outta beatin’ ass.

The real excitement didn’t begin until I clicked on the link to ChuckNorris.com, however. That is where I found all the best stuff.

And the best among the best was Chuck’s link (and yes, I say “Chuck’s link” because I read in that e-mail how he invented the internet, so I am sure, judging by the early-90′s styles (post-homepage), that Chuck designed it himself)… Sorry, I lost myself there. Among the best was Chuck’s link called “Christian Area.”

Here are the links you get, listed in order, when you click “CHRISTIAN area”: KickStart, World Combat League, Norris Family Films, United Fighting Arts Federation, WorldBlackBelt.com, Norris Racing, Walker Store, Media World, New Man Magazine, Tirk Wilder “The Eyes of The Ranger” Buy the CD!, World Net Daily News.

Please, feel free to review those first few again. That is right. They are all about fighting, mostly in arenas.

So here is the conclusion I draw. Chuck Norris has been conked about enough that he believes that one day soon the Romans will return and all Christians must prepare themselves to be thrown into the arena to battle the lions. We also see Norris Racing. Perhaps he believes there will also be chariot races.

Chariot races where you must also battle ninjas. For all I know he thinks they are monkey ninjas.

BUT NO! Now that I have had my laugh at Mr. Norris, I must be honest. Chuck just did some poor page design and set-up a faulty link. A link to the “Links” section, actually. So if you click on “Christian Area” from this Links section, you get a list that is far less scary.

Here are a few descriptions of links from the Christian Area:

The National Council on Bible Curriculum
A program is underway to serve the public through educational efforts concerning a First Amendment right and religious freedom issue. This is to bring a state certified Bible course (elective) into the public high schools nationwide.

And.

Billy Graham Evangelistic Association
Many people today accept lies as truth and consider the truth to be a lie. Read Billy Graham’s message now.

And, my personal favorite.

Columbine Redemption
A Father’s Plea to our Nation
by Darrell Scott

Since the dawn of creation there have been both good and evil in the hearts of men and of women. We all contain the seeds of kindness or the seeds of violence. The death of my wonderful daughter Rachel Joy Scott, and the deaths of the heroic teacher and the other children who died, must not be in vain. Their blood cries out for answers.

The first recorded act of violence was when Cain slew his brother Abel out in the field. The villain was not the club he used. Neither was it the NCA – The National Club Association. The true killer was Cain and the reason for the murder could only be found in Cain’s heart….

Why is this one of my favorite? Because the media was so quick to blame Marilyn Manson and First Person Shooter video games. But maybe it was a Chuck Norris flick that inspired them. But then they found out they couldn’t kick like he can, so they chose a different route.

I know, I am being overly callous on the very sensitive subject of Columbine. But read what that guy wrote. He said our children should not die in vain, let everyone still have guns because guns don’t kill people. He is saying that the children of Columbine will have died in vain if we try and restrict gun ownership, because it was not the bullet that came from the gun that killed his daughter.

As the great Bill Hicks once said, “there have been studies done and there is no connection between having a gun and shooting somebody with it and not having a gun and not shooting somebody. There is no connection. And you’d be a fool and a communist to think so.”

Why would Chuck Norris have a pro-guns statement in his Christian Area anyway? That is the part I really can’t figure out. Because I know he would have just karate-chopped Cain before chariot racing the ninja monkeys and fighting the lions.

Just read Chuck Norris fact number 1. Guns don’t kill people, Chuck Norris does.

So I was just now on MySpace when one of those flashing banners actually caught my attention. It said, “Take The Smart Test,” only “Smart” was crossed out and scribbled above it was “Dumb.” Being a fan of Jeopardy and Scrabble I was intrigued. When the flashing banner told me that “75% of You Have Failed The Dumb Test,” well, I felt really challenged. So I clicked.

It was a lovely little trick quiz where you had to read the questions carefully to get them right. Nothing that special.

But at the bottom of every page was a question like this:

We want to know who is the dumber sex! Which are you?

And:

We want to know where the dumbest live! What’s your Zip Code?

I am no internet fool. I knew what was coming.

And sure enough, the third (or 239th) to last page was more info on me. So, of course, I gave them fake info. Then there were pages and pages of offers and offers and offers to cover just about everyone. But I tried to surpass them all as they would be sending their junk to fake places anyway.

Alas, the Online Quiz would not allow this. I had to pick one. So I picked a poetry contest. But I had to enter a poem right then and there to get the results. And I am pretty proud of my little piece. It could be better, but I spent all of five minutes on it and apparently it will be displayed on Poetry.com.

I just wanted to take
a “free” online quiz
but nothing is free
it is all dot biz

So now I am just
making this up as I go
for fun things online
make you a ho

Someone has to sell you something
its the way of the game
“We just need to start off
with your name”(and Social Security number and telephone and address and date of birth and pet’s name and mother’s maiden name and defining birthmarks and blood sample…)

Unfortunately for you Poetry was
the offer I did click
because the other offer
shave a problem with my dick.

Compared to chemicals
I like poems so much more
but maybe I need those chemicals
because, after all, now I’m an internet whore

But for those who collected the info
the joke is on you
because I am not stupid
and it was fake like you too

Still I say Thanks
though you won’t get a dime
because it sure has been fun
to make up this rhyme.

But then they told me that that poem was too long. So I got angry and wrote this one to Poetry.com:

You were the offer that I did click
because every other one hated my dick
Should I feel bad I gave you fake info
Or is it you that should feel the ho?
You ask if this is honest art
Yet with these “free” quizzes you take part
Is it I who has too much nerve
Or is it crap like this you deserve
With the “How Dumb Are You” Quiz
you aligned your dot biz
And you won’t find another Dylan Thomas
that is one thing I can promise
when your means to get readers
is a path of bottom feeders
Who sell all sorts of snake oil
to those who imaginingly toil
We both should feel shame
for we both are to blame
For the internet being a breeding ground for whores.

And then they wouldn’t allow the word “whores,” so I had to change it to “[not accepted word].”

Should I feel bad about wasting a poetry site’s time and money? Probably. But if they are whoring themselves out in that way, might they deserve it? Not necessarily.

And then I had pages and pages and pages more of offers. THEY WOULDN’T LEAVE ME A-GODDAMN-LONE!

But finally I passed through the battle field of offers. I think it was about half an hour over all. Why? To find out that I was correct and I wasn’t dumb.

Or did I disprove that by clicking the flashing ad?

Big Brother is Not Watching You.

No one is. You are pretty boring.