-Congratulations, Class of 2007, you’re about to get your college degrees!  It’s been two years since I last offered words of wisdom to our nation’s graduating seniors (sorry, Class of 2006, I kinda forgot about you guys).  But, as a proud member of the Class of 2001, I now have six years of post-college experience under my belt – and I’m about to drop some knowledge.  Your days of frat parties and Facebook are over, and your days of martinis and MySpace are just beginning.  Here’s what you need to know.

-No matter what amount per month you were originally planning to spend on rent, any apartment you actually like will always cost $200 more than that.

-No one in the “real world” has any clue what they’re talking about.  Seriously, about 99.9% of people are talking completely out of their asses at all times.  The successful ones are those that just fake it better than others.

-The more hours your friends work, the more they’ll lie about how much they love their job.

-Twenty-two-year-old girls and twenty-eight-year-old guys are roughly equivalent in maturity level.

-A college degree doesn’t carry as many expectations as it used to.  For example, Bank of America’s CampusEdge Checking program offers free checking while you’re a student for five years – ostensibly implying that most of us are too fucking stupid to graduate in four.

-It turns out that attempting to cleanse ping pong balls by repeatedly dipping them into the same cup of tepid water is not hygienic.

-If you plan to rage during the week like you used to in college, try to remember that the people partying alongside you now are actors, comedians, and the unemployed.  They don’t have to get up in the morning.  You’ll be the one vomiting in the office bathroom then trying to play it off to your boss by saying, “I’m fine… must have had a bad spreadsheet or something.”

-No matter how old you are, if you’re at a party and two of your friends start hooking up in another room, knocking on the door and/or listening in are both always completely acceptable.

-I believe that the transition from college to actual society takes about a year.  The first six months are the hardest, at least until you stop thinking your roommate is playing a prank on you every morning when your alarm goes off at 7am for work.  The second six months, you start to get your bearings – you figure out how often you can realistically rage and become resigned to the fact that, in the real world, your monthly cable and Internet bill will always cost way more than seems reasonable.  And by the time the class below you graduates, and you realize in talking with them how much you’ve learned over the past year, that’s when the transition is officially complete.  So, Class of 2007, the clock is ticking.  Your one-year grace period is about to begin.  Be dumb.  Waste money.  Get drunk.  Slack off.  Have fun.  All the graduates that came before you are watching.  Make us proud.

-As always, here are some random things I’ve been ruminating about lately…

-How come on TV when the character wants to conceal a gun, he always either puts it down the back of his pants or down the front of his pants?  I’m no Jack Bauer, but those two spots definitely make my list of “Last places I would ever put a gun.”

-Also, do you think that when a show requires there to be pictures of one of the characters when they’re younger, they use actual baby pictures of the actor?  Can you imagine showing up at your parents’ house like, “Maaaaa, where’s my Bar Mitzvah album?  In the next episode of ‘Heroes’ they need a picture of me when I’m thirteen.  Don’t worry Mom, I’ll bring it back.”

-I’ve noticed lately that on TV they’ll not only bleep out a curse word, but also blur out the person’s mouth who’s saying it.  Though when the gun that the character is carrying in his pants accidentally goes off, I can pretty much deduce what he’s screaming anyway.

-At the same time that censorship of TV shows is growing, it seems as if TV commercials can pretty much say whatever the hell they want.  Some of my favorites: the Puffs commercial that claims their tissues have a “magical layer” (misleading); the Glad commercial that shows plastic bags dropping from the ceiling in an airplane instead of oxygen masks (unsafe); the Coors Light commercial that shows track and field superstar Michael Johnson racing to a bar to hit on chicks (inappropriate); the commercial for Southern California casino Pechanga that shows a guy stuck in traffic daydreaming and then being served a cocktail while driving (illegal); and, probably my favorite, the commercial for car-buying web site Vehix.com where a bunch of teenagers stop at a light, get out of the car while it’s still running, do a Chinese fire drill, get back in, then make a left into the intersection without even signaling (just plain ridiculous).

-At this point, most college seniors have been through rounds of job interviews that often feature brain teasers about hypothetical situations that are meant to test critical thinking.  To me, there’s only one brain teaser that counts:  if the cops or the administration are about to discover your fraternity hazing its pledges – who are half-naked and covered in dog food – what to do you do?  Think about it…  Answer: Tell every brother present to quickly get half-naked and cover themselves in dog food, too.  Then you can pass the festivities off as a house-wide event and not hazing.  Foolproof, right?  And to think I only had four years of CampusEdge Checking.

-And, finally, this is also the time of year for grad school graduation.  For business students, it is a bittersweet time, as two years of sitting on their asses doing jack shit is coming to a close.  For law students, it is more of an exciting time, as three years of torture have hopefully resulted in a high-paying job (and usually the first real job they’ve ever had).  And for med students, four years of being shit on and crushed with debt gives way to, well, four more years of pretty much the same thing.  But the difference between college graduates and grad school graduates is that the latter don’t get a grace period.  If you’re an MBA, you should know how much rent and cable is gonna run you.  If you’re a JD, you should know that showing up half-drunk and vomiting in the office could get you disbarred.  And if you’re an MD, you should know that dipping ping pong balls into a cup of tepid water is not hygienic (though you probably shouldn’t be playing beirut anyway).  Then again, what do I know?  After all, 99.9% of people in the world talk completely out of their asses – I could just be faking it.  Fuck me.

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-Oftentimes when people see my last name, they ask if I’m related to the makers of Karo Syrup – a popular brand of corn syrup that most twentysomethings have never heard of but that their parents have surely cooked with at some point.  I tell those who ask that, although I keep a bottle of Karo Syrup on my desk for good luck, the name is just a coincidence and unfortunately I’m not heir to the fructose fortune.  Lately, though, I’ve begun to think of Karo Syrup not just as the brown liquid on my desk with a whopping 63 carbs per serving, but, more symbolically, as the common bond between my family.  My parents, my sister, and I are an eccentric, idiosyncratic, and independent bunch.  It’s safe to say we’ve all decided not to drink the Kool-Aid… and opted for the Syrup instead.

-I can never tell my mom that I went out with a girl because she’ll inevitably ask me if we’re “going steady.”  Though I can’t help but snicker at my mom’s use of the phrase “going steady,” I usually just play along and tell her that I’ve even given the girl my letter jacket and fraternity pin.

-To me, talking to my parents is like being a producer for CNN – even if nothing is happening, I still have to come up with some sort of news to satisfy everyone.

-My dad calls my guy friends “the fellas” and refers to any type of pants that aren’t jeans as “dockers.”  This is actually progress.  He used to refer to jeans as “dungarees” but I convinced him to stop because all the fellas were making fun of him.

-My younger sister Caryn, who proofreads all these columns and, as longtime readers may recall, was accidentally given a name that rhymes with mine by our parents, seems like the nicest girl around.  But sometimes, she can be a colossal dick.  And since I can’t really relate to her usual altruistic behavior, it’s when Caryn is ripping into someone in private that we bond the most.  Our names may rhyme, but nothing brings a brother and sister closer together than calling someone else an asshole behind their back.

-I’d love to be able to text message with my parents, but they just refuse to learn.  Still, I hold out hope that one day I’ll be out with a girl, my phone will vibrate, and I’ll look down to see my mom’s number and the message “r u going steady?”

-Every once in a while I’ll rush my parents off the phone and tell them I’m too busy to talk, but a few minutes later I’ll get really worried that everything in the song “Cat’s in the Cradle” is coming true.

-Partaking of the Karo Syrup means a very serious responsibility to sacrifice for your family members.  For instance, my mother left her career to stay home and raise Caryn and me.  Of course, partaking of the Karo Syrup also means driving your family members fucking crazy.  And so, after only a few years, we aggravated my mom so much that she fled back to the workforce.  These days, with Caryn in Boston and me in Los Angeles, my parents are all alone in our house on Long Island.  Occasionally, I wonder if they miss us.  But then I call my parents with a pre-written list of personal news to discuss, only to be rushed off the phone because they’re too busy.  Somehow, I don’t think that’s how the song is supposed to go.

-As always, here are some random things I’ve been ruminating about lately…

-Guys leaving work should not throw on blue-tinted wraparound sunglasses.  You’re an accountant, not a centerfielder.

-Got a FedEx package the other day.  The envelope had the words “Extremely Urgent” on the flap.  But it wasn’t a sticker or handwritten – all the envelopes actually have “Extremely Urgent” pre-printed on them.  I think that dilutes the effect of the warning in the first place.  FedEx is like the boy who cried urgent.

-I’ve lived alone for two and a half years now and it’s so great that I can honestly say I’d be happy never living with another human again.  Perhaps the only downside is buying food.  I can’t eat a loaf of bread or finish a container of milk fast enough myself before it spoils.  I feel bad wasting food, but then again, I’d feel worse sharing a toilet, so fuck it.

-They’ve been playing Pink’s song “U + Ur Hand” incessantly on the radio.  From what I can surmise from the lyrics, she hates sloppy drunk dudes who hit on chicks at bars.  So essentially, me.  But frankly, if and when Pink ever even goes to a bar, I just can’t imagine she gets hit on that often.  Guys like me don’t generally go for the hot, rich, famous, married types.

-The fellas and I like to send each other funny YouTube clips all day.  But have you ever read some of the comments people write on these things?  Only about the first four comments are actually applicable to the video clip and then the thread inevitably devolves into everyone calling everyone else a douchebag before adding for entirely no reason, “Yankees suck!”

-Emailed with my friend Gadi the other day.  You might remember him as my high school buddy who moved to Tel Aviv last year because his “soul feels better there.”  I’m happy to say he’s doing very well and is still climbing the ranks as a trance music DJ.  In fact, he just played a huge trance festival in Acapulco.  The show started at midnight and he went on last at 11am – which I guess made him the headliner.  My favorite part is that his DJ stage name is E-Jekt.  I guess only in the Israeli trance music scene can you get away with calling yourself something that means “stop playing music.”

-And, finally, the Karo family had one of its finer moments two weeks ago when my sister ran the Boston Marathon.  Caryn is not exactly a runner, but she set this goal for herself, trained for it, and ran 26.2 mother-fucking miles.  This is the first marathon I had ever seen in person, and I have to admit, it was amazing.  The City of Boston comes out en masse to cheer the runners on (with plenty of BU and BC kids getting shitbombed along the route for good measure).   I jumped on the course near the end and ran the last leg with Caryn for moral support, and our parents cheered her on as she crossed the finish line.  Now, as I sit at my desk back in LA and look at my bottle of Karo Syrup, it reminds me that, however eccentric my family may be, we still make a pretty good team.  It’d be nice to be heir to a fructose fortune – but I’ll take son to a dad who wears dungarees any day.  Fuck me.

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-My powers of observation are both a blessing and a curse.  On one hand, they allow me to document and mock some of life’s more obscure moments.  On the other hand, I tend to notice and overanalyze the tiniest inconveniences, often sending me into a blind rage.  But I can’t be the only one out there who pays attention to these things.  If you’ve ever wondered why the faucets in restaurant bathrooms always seem to have only two settings – “off” and “splatter everywhere” – then you, like me, may be doomed to a lifetime of sweating the small stuff.

-When a certain friend of mine counts on her hand, she does it backwards.  She starts with her pinky for “one,” ring finger for “two,” and so on.  This drives me fucking crazy.  She says it’s normal.  I say she can forget a career as a boxing referee.

-It’s a great feeling when a buddy and I go out boozing, pick up two girls, and head to another bar with them.  It’s often ruined, however, when I get stuck sitting shotgun in the cab and have to awkwardly kick game to a girl in the back seat through the money slot in the glass partition.

-I’m staunchly pro-seat belt, except when they suddenly cinch tightly around me for no apparent reason, cutting off oxygen to my extremities.  I wonder how many accidents are caused by people yanking wildly on a seat belt that’s gone anaconda on them.

-Met this girl at a party a few weeks ago.  She clearly had fake breasts.  Later, my friend told me she was a virgin.  This annoyed me.  Virgins shouldn’t have fake breasts.  In fact, if you have implants before intercourse, I think you should get an asterisk on your v-card.

-My online grocery store always ties my plastic bag of apples too tight.  But after I struggle with the knot for twenty minutes, then finally open it and select an apple, I find that I proceed to re-tie the bag with as much vigor as had previously angered me.  Which just goes to show, an apple a day will fucking kill you.

-Here’s what I’d like to see on the runways of Milan and Paris next fashion season:  t-shirts that aren’t a foot too long.  Who designs these things?  There’s no reason t-shirts should fit me perfectly in the shoulders but then reach down to mid-thigh.  The fourth grade look went out in fourth grade.

-When characters on TV go to the grocery store, they always exit with a single, generic brown paper bag packed to the brim, complete with a stalk of celery sticking out of the top.  I always wonder: One, who the fuck shops like that?  And, two, why isn’t the celery in a frustratingly difficult-to-open plastic bag?

-I’ve pretty much given up on trying not to sweat the small stuff.  It’s just a part of who I am.  Besides, sometimes I feel like I can’t escape it.  For instance, I only use a cell phone, but I also have a landline phone solely to connect to the intercom at the entrance of my apartment building.  No one has the number, so unless someone is buzzing up (which is rare), when the phone rings it’s always a wrong number or a stray fax machine.  This happens so often that now merely the sound of the landline ringing enrages me.  Sometimes I have to count to five just to calm down – but of course I start with my index finger first.

-As always, here are some random things I’ve been ruminating about lately…

-Text messaging has made hitting on girls more fun and efficient, unless the girl texts “i m with my bf” and you have no idea if she means “best friend” or “boyfriend.”

-Apparently, being a good person actually pays dividends.   Everyone seems to love my buddy Chi – compared to me, I guess he’s just a generally nice and friendly person.  One time, he asked me to lend him some money and I obliged.  Later, I was talking to another friend of mine, and when the transaction with Chi came up, she remarked, “Chi’s such a good guy.”  I was like, “Wait a minute, I’m the one who fucking lent HIM the money!”

-Using email and texting so much has led to the side effect of me barely being able to write by hand anymore.  If I try to write anything longer than a shopping list manually, I can barely hold the pen and my wrist cramps up – the real world equivalent of my instant messenger crashing.

-My old roommate Brian visited me in LA last month and we went out for lunch.  When I returned from the bathroom (soaked by the faucet, of course), I found Brian studying the menu intently.  Soon, he looked up and declared that if you ordered the chicken Caesar, it was five cents more expensive than if you ordered the plain Caesar and then just added chicken.  I was perplexed.  Finally he proclaimed proudly, “Don’t you understand, Karo?  I found an arbitrage opportunity in the appetizers!”

-It’s always bothered me that I can’t whistle.  I shudder to think about how many cabs and construction site catcalls I’ve missed out on over the years.

-It’s no secret that I’ve got a thing for chicks in wife-beaters.  But I thought it was common knowledge that wife-beaters are inherently white.  This is clearly not the case, judging by what some of the girls that I meet after my shows try to pass off as a beater.  If you’re wearing anything but white, or anything with rhinestones or designs of any kind, that’s not a wife-beater, it’s a fucking tank top.

-It’s gonna be a long five months waiting for Prison Break to come back.  For you hardcore fans like me, have you ever noticed that Michael has some pretty unnecessary tattoos?  I mean, he named the getaway boat after his mom and then tattooed his mom’s name in code onto himself.  Why?  Was he gonna forget his mom’s name?  I know the guy escaped from prison then outran the authorities for months, but what an idiot.

-And, finally, probably the bit of small stuff that bothers me the most is the phrase “Don’t worry about it.”  I can’t stand when people say that to me in response to a question.  I never said I was worried, asshole!  But the truth is, in private, I do worry a lot.  About weird shit, too.  I worry that Steve Bartman might never get to see another Cubs game (poor guy).  When I see an elderly person running to catch a bus, it makes me depressed.  About three years ago, I was working out at this gym that had an in-house daycare center for members, and there was this one little kid I saw who no one was playing with.  To this day, I still wonder if he’s OK.  So yeah, I spend my days getting pissed off about little things, while at the same time worrying about shit I can’t possibly control.  I guess you could say I’m simultaneously frustrated and overcompensating.  Sort of like a virgin with fake breasts screaming, “Fuck me!”

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-For generations, twentysomethings have asked themselves, “What am I doing with my life?”  Historically, the answer came after much introspection – you determined your interests and goals and figured out a plan to pursue them.  Over the past few years, however, I have begun to encounter many peers who are unable to follow this age-old path.  Why?  Because they have absolutely no interests or goals.  Mind you, these people are not stupid or lazy, but, for whatever reason, they never developed a calling for anything other than, well, just sorta hanging out.  Every day, more and more twentysomethings discover they have a passion for not having a passion.  I call these lost souls the Ambivalents.

-Ambivalents can be easily spotted.  In high school, they had a tough time coming up with a topic for their college application essay (and usually defaulted to the pedestrian “I was sad when my grandma died” angle).  In college, they couldn’t choose a major because they couldn’t fathom anything they’d possibly like to study.  And older Ambivalents can be identified by the comically vague “interests” they list on the bottom of their resumes, typically: Working Out, Travel, and Spending Time with Friends.

-Fortunately, Ambivalents have an organization that allows them to congregate with like-minded individuals – grad school (or as I call it: the get-out-of-life-free card).  I love that grad school actually gives you a countdown to when you have to start making decisions again.  My friend is in some crazy eight-year Ph.D. program so when she started in 2001 she was assigned an email address with her graduation year – 2009.  I also love when grad school Ambivalents encounter classmates who actually care, and then complain that these “dorks” actually do all the reading.  I mean, you can rightfully bitch about that when you’re a snarky undergrad, but if a married dude getting his Master’s wants to constantly raise his hand in class, I say just let the poor guy be.

-Of course, it is possible to be too enthusiastic about your interests.  For instance, my buddy Shappy, a music aficionado, once went to 100 concerts in 100 days.  I’m sorry, but that’s sounds horrible.  You couldn’t pay me to do anything, no matter how amazing – fuck, party, sit in a luxury box at Yankee Stadium – for 100 days in a row.  It’d be exhausting and I’d miss too many episodes of “Heroes.”

-But why then have so many of us become Ambivalents?  Perhaps it’s because life is so much easier than it was only a generation ago.  For years, the hardest decision I ever had to make was whether to shave through a pimple or around it – that’s not exactly passion-forging experience.  Or perhaps in our egocentric culture people have become more self-conscious about their career decisions.  Who wants to work for a company that no one has ever heard of (and when you explain what you do, have people respond tepidly, “Oh…uh, nice.”).  I know that, personally, I never feel comfortable doing something that I’m not already an expert at, which is why I avoid gambling or ordering first at a new restaurant.  The same could be said for trying a new job.  Or maybe my fellow twentysomethings are just lazier than I give them credit for.  Whatever the reason, the population of Ambivalents is growing rapidly and they need passions and goals.  They need someone or something to inspire them.  I’d do it, but, eh, I’m not really interested.

-As always, here are some random things I’ve been ruminating about lately…

-Went to the gym the other day and there was a half-full water bottle on the shelf of the only open treadmill.  It was just enough to signify that the treadmill might still be in use but not enough to signify that someone was definitely coming back.  I looked around vainly for the culprit, then headed to the free weights where there’s less gray area.

-What’s with customer service reps trying to commiserate with me?  Lately, when I call tech support and explain the problem, the rep replies, “I’m very sorry to hear that; I understand it can be frustrating.”  Shut the fuck up!  I mean, do you really understand?  Really?  Because if you did, you’d know that every additional second I spend on the phone with tech support is pure unadulterated hell so quit the bullshit scripted sympathy and try to fix my fucking problem for once without getting disconnected first.

-Valerie Plame is surprisingly hot.

-My buddy Claudio recently told me that he and his roommate – both heterosexual males – share the same bar of soap in their shower because it’s more convenient and soap is inherently clean anyway.  I argued that it was still disgusting, plus they’re using the same total amount of soap.  Eventually we agreed to disagree, though we all know the real winner was the one of us not sharing a bar of soap with his roommate.

-Ever notice that the Employee of the Month plaque in every store you’ve ever been to hasn’t been updated with a new winner in at least half a year?

-Here are my five rules for making medical shows on TV: 1) All injured female patients must also be pregnant.  2) The first diagnosis is always wrong.  3) There are only six doctors in the whole hospital but they’ve all been trained in everything.  4) Pagers must communicate way more information than is actually possible.  5) If a fellow doctor of the opposite sex does his or her job correctly, instead of offering congratulations like a normal human, they must nail each other.

-I’m not sure why, but it struck me as strange when I noticed last week that there are female cheerleaders at women’s college basketball games.

-And, finally, a couple of years ago, I realized what I believe to be the key to life: “In the long run, you will always be happier – and make more money – doing something that you love.”  It may seem like an obvious statement but I’ve found it to be quite profound.  After all, I am not one of the Ambivalents that I described in this column because I have a passion – writing and performing comedy.  I believe that many Ambivalents, deep down, have a passion as well, but they’re just not sure what the hell to do with it.  And that’s where my key to life comes in.  Something you try on the side can some day become your full-time gig.  And if you really enjoy it, you’ll excel at it, and eventually surpass your miserable investment banker friends.  OK, so perhaps that’s a bit of rationalization on my part, but it keeps me going and it might do the same for you.  In the end, if you’re really, truly Ambivalent, I just want you to know one thing: I’m very sorry to hear that and I understand it can be frustrating.  Fuck me.

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-Getting drunk is an American tradition – one could say the values we cherish most include Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happy Hour.  These days, the culture of inebriation is usually experienced first in high school.  For me, that meant waiting until one of my friends went on vacation with his family, and then throwing a party in their vacant backyard.  The indoctrination continues in college.  This spring, universities across the country will hold various annual festivals that in reality consist solely of undergrads trying to get as fucked up as possible – as they tend to do whenever a tent or a band is involved.  After college, the drinking does not subside, but its effects must now be concealed.  Business casual-clad twentysomethings trudge to work every morning knowing that if they must, the 14th floor handicapped stall is the best one to boot in.   Thus throughout our lives, it is our choices (of beer, vodka, or whiskey) that define us.   I drink, therefore I am.

-I hate bars that have a selection of like 500 different beers.  If I wanted to feel like an idiot ordering from an overly-extensive and confusing menu, I’d drink wine.  I’m a man who likes his beer in a red, plastic cup and served with a hint of ping-pong ball residue.

-I’m always the guy who gets a stray ice chip in his shot.  It’s horrible because, for a millisecond, I think I’m gonna choke to death.  Then I finally swallow, remember how much I abhor SoCo Lime shots, and wish the ice chip had just finished me off.

-I was partying in Chicago last year when I accomplished a first for me – I had two different tabs on two different cards open simultaneously at the same bar.  Some might call that being an idiot.  But I call it “building credit history.”

-Have you ever been to a Happy Hour where the drink specials are so cheap that when you offer to buy someone a round they actually make fun of you for not spending that much money?  I usually make sure that asshole gets the ice chip.

-I’m really neurotic about not eating once I’ve commenced drinking.  Food just either slows me down, gets in my teeth, or hurts my stomach.  Plus, I’ve found that even if I do eat while I’m still drinking, it has surprisingly little effect on the quantity of late-night pizza I consume when I’m done drinking.

-The electronic novelty that all bars should be required to have is a photo booth.  These amazing devices enable you to hook up with a chick in private, without having to leave the bar or close either of your tabs.  Plus, you get the pictures as proof.  Try doing that with Golden Tee.

-Between the Super Bowl, Mardi Gras, St. Patrick’s Day, and March Madness, the first three months of the year are often the drunkest.  Because there’s nothing we Americans enjoy more than getting fucked up while watching teams we don’t care about, or celebrating holidays whose origins we know nothing about.  But drinking isn’t always about excess and irresponsibility.  Countless relationships have been forged over cocktails on a first date.  Groundbreaking ideas have been spawned after a few beers.  In truth, alcohol isn’t just a social lubricant imbibed by libidinous teens on Spring Break – it’s part of the very fabric of our society.  And I’m not just saying that because I’m wasted.

-As always, here are some random things I’ve been ruminating about lately…

-I was shopping online the other day and when I went to enter my billing address, the drop-down menu for “country” was defaulted to the first choice – Afghanistan – and I thought that was strange.  I mean, how often is anyone from Kabul on drugstore.com ordering toilet paper?

-Why do I fall for it every time the announcer says there will be “More 30 Rock right after these messages” when I know it’s just the credits?

-I hate when bars use part of the street address in their name.  It’s not clever or even particularly memorable.  If that’s what you’re going for, name the bar That Place Where You Made Out With That Chick in the Wife-Beater in the Photo Booth.

-When I unscrew a blown light bulb, screw in a new one, flip the switch, and the light goes on – to me, that’s a miracle.  Sadly, that’s about the extent of my handiwork around the house.  I’m terrified of the garbage disposal.  And the box my toaster oven came in claims you can use it to broil a whole chicken, but so far I’ve only worked my way up to bagels.

-I’m not sure whose death I care about less – Anna Nicole Smith or Barbaro.

-I often find that the bar next door to the more exclusive bar that I really wanted to get into but couldn’t is more fun anyway.  And that’s not because I’m bitter or anything.

-Fun fact:  Hinder, Daughtry, and Nickelback are actually all the same band.  Who knew?

-How is it still legal to manufacture telephone books?  They’ve got to be the most wasteful and useless products ever.  Sure, I stand on a stack of them when I need to change a light bulb, but besides that the things are glorified tree coffins.  Al Gore could do a sequel just on the Yellow Pages.

-And, finally, as we reach our mid- and late-twenties, it gets much more difficult to organize life around our drinking habits.  Take my friend Christina, for instance, who’s an anesthesiologist.  (You might remember her from Ruminations #18 as my friend who cut her head out of a picture of her holding a drink in each hand, because that’s the most sober picture she could find for her med school application.)  Anyway, now that Christina is a successful doctor, several nights a month she has to be on “back-up call” – meaning she doesn’t have to be at the hospital, but she has to be ready to get there on a moment’s notice if needed.  Back-up call can be torturous, however, because essentially it’s a day off, but you can’t get wasted, thereby defeating the purpose.  Christina occupies herself with sober activities on these days because it was her lifelong dream to become a doctor.  Personally, I just couldn’t handle it.  I drink, therefore I am.  Still, there’s something comforting about knowing that if I go out boozing but choke on an ice chip, there will be sober people like Christina available to nurse me back to health.  And equally comforting is knowing that if she wasn’t on call, she’d probably be booting right beside me in that proverbial 14th floor handicapped stall.  Fuck me.

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-There’s nothing that requires less maintenance than male friendship.  Girls make carefully laid-out plans with each other.  Guys just sort of show up.  Your doorbell rings, you open it, your buddy is there, he has beer, you welcome him in, and that’s it.  Hanging out with the guys – sometimes referred to as “bro-ing out” – is an activity that all men are instinctually drawn to – just like texting while on the toilet or watching unnecessarily demeaning porn.  Guys in their twenties have an especially strong bond, due to having several years of actual life experience under our belts and the knowledge that marriage is slowly but surely dwindling our numbers.  Bro-ing out is our way of steadfastly maintaining that bond – as long as someone brings the beer.

-If chicks don’t see their friends for like two weeks, they often cry and send each other emails complaining that they feel “distant.”  I haven’t seen some of my friends in about a year, and I feel nothing.  My buddy Triplet #3 is having a bachelor party in Montreal next month, and just seeing the boys for 48 hours of debauchery will be enough to sustain our friendship for another decade.

-Sometimes I’ll be hooking up with a girl and, due to some particular circumstance, she asks, “Can you please not tell your friend about this?”  I always promise to oblige then immediately resume removing her Rock & Republics.  Of course, the first thing I do upon leaving the scene is call the guy friend in question and tell him every detail – including the fact that the girl asked me not to, which is often the best part of the story itself.

-Only dudes thank their friends for not caring about them.  A few weeks ago, I got a frantic call from my buddies in New York asking if I’d spoken to Claudio recently.  Apparently, they’d all gone out and gotten shithammered, but no one had heard from Claudio the entire next day.  I dropped Claud a text but was generally unconcerned and soon forgot about it.  Two days later, he resurfaced and explained that he was just really hungover and had lost his cell phone.  I told him I figured as much but that everyone else was freaking out.  Claud replied fondly, “Karo, I knew you wouldn’t be worried.”  “Hey,” I said, “That’s not what friends are for.”

-Chicks often seem surprised when a friendship suddenly wilts.  Guys, on the other hand, are pretty good at knowing who their true friends are.  If I’m genuinely excited to be invited to a friend’s wedding, as opposed to secretly calculating how much that shit is gonna cost me at williams-sonoma.com – that’s a true friend.  If I call a friend, and don’t hear back from him right away, but I feel totally comfortable calling a second time and leaving a “What the fuck?  Call me back, dick.” voicemail – that’s a true friend.  And if a friend hooks up with a girl, promises her he won’t tell me about it, but then just tells me anyway, well, that’s a true friend who’s as trustworthy as they come.

-At twenty-seven, it starts to become difficult to keep track of where your friendships originated.  I mostly bro out with my high school and college friends, but there are some outliers thrown in – like my buddy Chi who I met at work.  He in turn became tight with Claudio and the rest of my high school friends.  So tight in fact, that when I recently received some information about our upcoming ten-year reunion, I forwarded it on to Chi, completely forgetting I hadn’t even met him until five years after graduation!  There’s no denying, however, that as I’ve gotten older I’ve grown to appreciate my true friends more, no matter where they came from.  There’s just something comforting about knowing that there are guys out there who won’t care if I’m missing, will lie to a girl’s face for my benefit and, of course, will always bring the beer.

-As always, here are some random things I’ve been ruminating about lately…

-The latest Hollywood trend I’ve noticed is going to meetings and being offered a choice of cold or room-temperature bottled water.  I just don’t even understand why anyone would choose room temperature.  That’s like ordering a Caesar salad at a restaurant and having the waiter offer to sprinkle it with either black pepper or baby powder.

-High-definition is fucking everywhere.  Even radio stations are claiming to be HD – which I’m not even sure is possible.  I’m telling you, high-def is the new low-carb.

-Whenever I qualify a statement by adding, “But I’m not complaining,” you can be assured I most definitely am.

-For some reason I really get a kick out of reading the second email that people send me explaining how they forgot to include the file they said they were attaching in the first email.

-Went to one of those vintage t-shirt stores the other day.  My friend kept pulling shirts off the rack and proclaiming how “random” they were.  Um, it’s a fucking thrift store.  Everything is twenty years old and, by definition, random.  If you found a brand-new Urban Outfitters t-shirt (you know, the kind imprinted with an ironic yet pedestrian slogan) hanging on the rack, now that would be random.

-You know how in commercials people are embarrassed to raise their hand because of their underarm odor or hesitant to kiss someone because of their halitosis?  That’s the way I feel when someone asks me to borrow a pen because I just gnaw the ever-living shit out of them.  My Bics look like fucking gerbil chew toys.

-And, finally, I have a full weekend of bro-ing out ahead of me as my childhood friend and former roommate Brian comes to Los Angeles to visit.  It will be admittedly strange, however.  Brian and I moved in to an apartment in New York in 2001 and lived together for over three years.  Now, though, he’s married, about to get his MBA from Columbia, and is, for all intents and purposes, a real person.  I wonder, will we still get along?  Then I’m reminded of the day in 2001 when Claudio’s girlfriend dumped him.  It was the same day that Brian and I, both single at the time, had finally secured entry to an exclusive club we’d been dying to hit up.  That night, as we pre-gamed, Claudio, obviously upset, called Brian.  The phone rang and rang.  I looked at Brian, but he didn’t say anything and didn’t pick up.  Finally, I understood – we couldn’t get into the club with another dude, so Claudio, distraught or not, had to be sacrificed.  I think that being able to share and laugh at that ridiculous story with Brian means we can always bro out, married or not.  Claud, on the other hand, will have never heard this tale until he reads this column.  But knowing him for over twenty years, I’m certain it will only make him laugh.  And if not, well, I’m not complaining, but at least, for once, someone else will be left saying, “Fuck me!”

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-Valentine’s Day is a holiday – if you can even call it that – where couples are encouraged to rejoice in their relationships while single people secretly make fun of them.  I imagine some single chicks get depressed around this time of year, but for single guys, Valentine’s Day is like Columbus Day – it has no bearing on my life and I usually only find out about it the day before.  This year, however, Valentine’s Day does have some additional significance.  I just calculated that 23 of my 30 guy friends, or about 77%, either have very serious girlfriends, are engaged, or are married.  That means I’m part of a rapidly dying breed.  This week, as couples across the country celebrate their utter fucking lameness, I will instead be examining what it means to be male, twentysomething, and, well, free.  I hereby present to you my address on the State of the Single Guy.

-There’s one thing that I love more than anything else about being single.  And it’s not the freedom to hook up with whoever I want.  It’s much simpler than that.  Right now I just relish being able to fart at any moment.  I possess complete fart autonomy – “fartonomy” if you will.  When you have a girlfriend or a wife hanging around all the time, fartonomy is the first thing to go.  Frankly, that’s a level of sacrifice I’m not yet prepared to make.

-The truth is, though, being a single guy is a fucking job.  We have to work to hook up.  There’s a reason it’s called “giving head” – girls decide they’re either going to give it to us or not, and we have very little say in the matter.  That’s why single guys, as opposed to our betrothed counterparts, feel the need to go out so much.  If there’s a chance that some girl, somewhere, is considering giving someone head, I need to make sure I’m there to possibly receive it.

-One of the most frequent questions I get from my female readers is, “Why didn’t he call?”  Ladies, if you go out or hook up with a guy and then he never calls you, there’s really only a few possible reasons: 1) He was already seeing someone else and that relationship has since gotten more serious; 2) You’re not nearly as cute in person as you look on MySpace; 3) You didn’t fuck him; or 4) You did fuck him.  Yeah, I know those last two can be confusing.  I’d explain further, but I’ve already said too much.

-In my opinion, the Internet has gone from being a boon to the single guy to hampering us with information overload.  Do I really need to see 847 pictures of the same chick on her Facebook page?  And how is it possible that she’s standing sideways in every single one, cleverly obscuring her body?  It’s just too much.  I mean, the other day this girl gave me her parents’ address so I could pick her up there, and I immediately Zillowed it to find out how much the house was worth.  Knowing she grew up in a gourmet 4 bed/3 bath was interesting, though how I thought that knowledge was going to help me get head is still unclear.

-At the beginning of 2007, me and my buddy Brian (who’s already married), made a bet.  We input our four best friends who currently have serious girlfriends into a spreadsheet, and guessed the dates we each thought the four couples would get engaged.  Whoever is more accurate in the end, me or Brian, gets taken out to dinner by the other.  Wagering on the romantic relationships of our friends may seem absurd, perhaps even offensive.  But really, we could give a fuck.  Brian needs something to enliven his presumably monotonous, married-at-twenty-seven existence.  And as much as I’d like to win the bet and eat a boatload of sushi on Brian’s tab, a part of me hopes we’re both wrong and that at least one of my buddies stays single just a little while longer.  After all, it’s getting a bit lonely out there and sometimes I feel like I’m the only one farting.

-As always, here are some random things I’ve been ruminating about lately…

-Went to the dentist last week.  My co-pay was five bucks.  Parking cost seven bucks.  The irony, however, was free of charge.

-I had a very Hollywood experience a few weeks ago – I was driven in a golf cart on a movie lot.  (I wasn’t in a movie, I just had to get from one meeting to another on the same lot.)  It was still pretty cool.  Now all I have left to do is bang Kristin Cavallari and I can move back to New York.

-I was in South Beach late last year and got so drunk that I violently threw up directly onto the keypad of my BlackBerry Pearl, breaking it.  For a while, I was embarrassed to admit what happened, that is until I talked to my buddy Chi.  He locks his BlackBerry with a password so that no one can use it if he loses it.  Except last weekend he got so fucked up that he couldn’t remember his own password and proceeded to enter it incorrectly ten consecutive times – which automatically triggers the BlackBerry to erase all the data in its memory.  This is the same kid, you may remember, who in 2001 passed out drunk in the middle of a phone call and used all his minutes for the month in one night.  God bless him.

-I just want to make a quick retraction.  In Ruminations #99, I made a comment that “Grey’s Anatomy” was starting to suck.  But boy did they turn things around.  So I take it back.  Grey’s, you don’t suck anymore, and my apologies.

-Is it too harsh to say that I support the death penalty for people who smoke cigarettes?  The other day I was driving on Santa Monica Boulevard and the guy right in front of me had his hand hanging out the window holding a cigarette – and I could smell it in my own car even though I had my windows up.  Holy fucking shit!  I got so enraged I almost had to pull over to compose myself, but parking cost more than at my dentist’s office.

-Today marks four years since I got LASIK eye surgery, and it’s still the greatest investment I’ve ever made…ever.  There’s nothing like taking a girl home knowing I’ll actually be able to see where the fuck I’m going as I scamper silently out of her bedroom the next morning.

-And, finally, I would like to say that, for the most part, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being in a serious relationship, or even getting married, when you’re still in your twenties.  I’m just not even close to being ready.  And that’s because there’s one thing that I absolutely need to do before I get married – hook up with two girls at the same time.  I’m dead serious.  Ladies, if you’ve ever had a guy all of a sudden break up with you out of the blue, or get cold feet when you started talking about getting engaged, it’s for one reason – he was not ready to give up hope that he might one day have a threesome.  I’m not sure why guys hold on to that glimmer of hope.  We know how hard it is to get head in the first place, let alone get head twice…simultaneously.  It’s just something every guy dreams of I guess.  I’m realistic, though, and know I may never have that elusive threesome.  It’s unfortunate, but hey, at least that’s two less girls who won’t be left wondering why I never called.  Fuck me.

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-These days, girls in bars shoot down every guy right away – like they’re sitting really close to the screen and playing Duck Hunt.  This has made the already elusive one-night stand even more difficult to pull off.  Some may applaud this, as one-night stands have traditionally been stigmatized as inappropriate sexual behavior.  Of course, this hasn’t discouraged most twentysomethings, who’ll gladly take an inebriated, emotionless encounter any time they can get it.  As a guy who travels a lot, drinks a lot, and is single, I’ve had my fair share of one-night stands.  And I can tell you, that when done right (and with protection), there is nothing for the guy or girl to be ashamed about.  So when last call arrives and you’re looking for a relationship no longer than one night, it’s time to stand and deliver.

-The top three reasons why going home with a random chick can get awkward are: 1) you forget her name (I just try never to say it out loud); 2) you start to sober up (generally not a problem for me); and 3) you’re hooking up in complete silence.  That’s why I always keep an appropriate playlist set at Shuffle and Repeat All.  Jack Johnson and John Legend are the most-played artists in my iTunes – and I’ve never listened to either of them alone, clothed, or sober.

-I’ve found that girls who don’t have a lot of female friends tend to be wilder in bed.  I believe this is because girls tell their friends all the gritty details the day after they get laid – and their friends (admittedly or not) subsequently pass judgment on them.  But girls without female friends are less inhibited about one-night stands because they don’t have to worry about being judged by their peers.  These girls answer to a higher authority.  Sort of like the Hebrew National of hook-ups.

-I never understood why girls are always so self-conscious about getting dressed the morning after a one-night stand.  We’ve been naked hooking up all night and now you’re so adamant about not letting me see your breasts again that you’re desperately trying to wiggle your bra back on without taking your shirt off first?  And it’s such a struggle, too.  I’ve watched chicks almost dislocate their own shoulders like Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon.

-New York is a city optimized for one-night stands: bars are open until 4am, densely-located, and readily accessible.  Los Angeles is one of the worst cities for one-night stands: bars are open until 2am, are far from one another, and you have a better chance of catching a foul ball at Dodger Stadium than you do of hailing a cab.  In either city, it’s advisable to go to the girl’s place, so you can bounce at the crack of dawn.  But only in LA will you ever wake up next to a girl in your own apartment, as I did a few weeks ago, and have her ask you to drive her home – to Laguna Beach, a fucking two hour drive…each way…or in total, roughly four times as long as we spent actually hooking up.

-Every guy treats his one-night stands differently.  My buddy Moobs (so nicknamed because of his prominent man-boobs) always carries a digital camera and has a picture of almost every girl he’s ever hooked up with.  Looking at his Ofoto page is like flipping through the women’s section of an old J.Crew catalog, except you know all the clothes ended up on the floor.  My buddy Dr. Shermdog, whose prowess is legendary, maintains a cordial relationship with virtually all of his hook-ups, and I believe checks in on each of them on a biannual basis.  That’s what I call bedside manner.  As for me, I’ve spoken to some of my one-night stands again and some I haven’t.  Some I’ve even hooked up with again (though technically that voids their one-night status).  But in each instance, I went in without expectations.  And I left without regrets, often very early in the morning, and always with a smile on my face.

-As always, here are some random things I’ve been ruminating about lately…

-Pick a bar that you go to a lot, then ask a friend how many people he or she thinks it holds.  They’ll inevitably respond with, “I don’t know.  I’m not good at that kinda stuff.”  I’ve never heard one person ever claim basic competence at being able to gauge how many people can fit in a room.  I bet even the fire marshals who post those annoying capacity signs are just making it up.

-This is the most brilliant thing I heard all week.  My friend: “I eventually just stopped going to the gym.”  Me: “Why?”  My friend: “Well, because I never went.”

-What the hell is up with news and sports anchors having such messy desks?  Every time I turn on the TV these days I see a brightly lit stage and two guys (or girls) all nicely dressed up sitting in front of a slovenly pile of shit.  Coffee mugs and newspapers and laptops and pens and paper everywhere.  I know you’re a 24-hour network, but even 7-Eleven tidies up every now and then.

-I’m a bit of a compulsive hand-washer.  Recently, I got a free bottle of gingerbread cookie-scented hand soap with my drugstore.com order.  Now when I wash up immediately after eating, my hands smell like delicious gingerbread.  Smelling my hands creates a Pavlovian response in which I become hungry all over again.  So then I eat again but am then compelled to wash my hands, which starts the whole vicious cycle over.  This is what I get for ordering toilet paper online.

-When someone meets a really hot girl who happened to go to my high school or college, and then calls me to ask if I know her, I’m always really chagrined if I don’t.  I’ll never admit it, either.  I’ll just make shit up like, “Uh, yeah, she sounds familiar.  I think my friend banged her once.  He still talks to her biannually.”

-Every day for the past two months, I’ve heard a car horn outside my apartment playing “La Cucaracha.”  But when I run to the window, there’s no car in the street.  It’s the weirdest fucking mystery.  I feel like I’m in a really bad episode of Scooby-Doo.  Then I found out that the creator of Scooby-Doo passed away a few weeks ago – which, while sad, really is completely irrelevant to this anecdote.

-And, finally, I think that tales of one-night stands are the universal language of twentysomething males.  Put two random dudes in a room together and eventually they’ll start swapping war stories from the previous weekend’s conquests.  When we grow older, get married, and have kids, we lose that common bond.  And that’s why golf is so popular.  Put my dad in a room with another random old dude, and eventually they’ll start swapping war stories from the previous weekend’s back nine.  Until that time, however, I think I have a few more one-night stands left in me.  After all, I’m still learning.  For instance, while it’s preferable to go to the girl’s place over going to my place, I recently learned you should never go to a third party.  While in Dallas last year, I brought a girl home to the apartment of my doctor friend Christina, who I was crashing with, and accidentally woke up her fiance, also a doctor, who was performing an early morning pediatric spinal surgery.  Thankfully, the kid turned out fine, and though I never got her picture or phone number, the girl left at the crack of dawn.  As for me, I woke up hungover a few hours later and was greeted by the familiar voices of two old friends – Jack Johnson and John Legend.  Fuck me.

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-The year 2006 was one of firsts for me.  I touched my first pair of fake breasts.  I used a semicolon correctly for the first time.  I discovered my first gray hair (OK, my second).  During a stand-up show in Orange County, I drank too much beforehand and, for the first time in my career, had to leave the stage mid-set to break the seal.  I guess, as they say, there’s a first for everything.  But perhaps, in a larger sense, these incidents demonstrate that a year in the life of a twentysomething is not marked solely by forward progress.  Every step in the right direction is followed closely by one in the wrong direction.  For every fake breast I touched, a gray hour sprouted.  I figured out how to use semicolons, but I lost bladder control.  Yes, 2006 was a year of give and take, of good and bad, but I hope I came out ahead, if just barely.  This is my Year in Review.

-This year, I really noticed how my generation is, well, growing up.  A while back, two fans met for the first time at an event I hosted and later got married.  This year, they had their first kid (which, inexplicably, they chose not to name Karo).  Also this year, a longtime fan wrote me to say that she’d recently taken to reading my column while breastfeeding.  The fact that I’m even tangentially involved in the upbringing of these two children is an absolutely terrifying thought.  But the fact that at least one chick somewhere out there is reading this with her breasts exposed more than makes up for it.

-Some of my fondest memories of 2006 come from the road.  I’ll never forget headlining the House of Blues in Chicago – the largest, drunkest, and rowdiest crowd I’ve ever performed for.  One chick got so fucked up she vomited in the middle of the show, causing everyone around her to throw up as well, and the bar to temporarily cut off liquor sales.  I love to send my fans home laughing, but I’m happy with simply incapacitated.

-The older I get, the more I realize that New Year’s Eve fucking sucks – but only because people treat it like an extra-special night, which it really isn’t.  On average, it’s easier for me to hook up with a chick in the middle of a bar at midnight on a normal night than it is on New Year’s, when there’s more pressure.  Nonetheless, planning for New Year’s Eve, which I’ll be spending in Los Angeles for the first time, has begun in earnest.  It’s basically game theory: wait as long as possible to decide on a venue until figuring out where the most girls are going, then pack the place so tight that the open bar is rendered inaccessible, making you wish you went somewhere else instead.  In the past few years, I’ve spent New Year’s in Manhattan, Vegas, Sydney, and even once in the hospital with appendicitis.  Honestly, I’d say it’s a four-way tie for which one was best.

-In the end, 2006 was undoubtedly tumultuous.  A fight broke out in the audience at my show in Philadelphia, and my friend got beat up by a bouncer at my after-party in Miami.  The crowds in New York booed me every time I mentioned moving to LA, but I know they did it out of love.  When my dad came to my final show of the year, and saw my name in lights in Times Square and a line around the block, he cried.  It was a magical ending to a year that began in January with me breaking the seal mid-show in Orange County.  And after I returned from the bathroom and finished my set that night, came yet another first – my first request to sign breasts.  To my surprise, the girl was six months pregnant.  With plenty of room to work with, I wrote “Thanks for bringing a future Karo fan; hope he enjoyed!” with an arrow to her belly.  I signed my name, stepped back, saw what I had done, and was overwhelmed with pride.  I had just used my first semicolon.

-As always, here are some random things I’ve been ruminating about lately…

-This is the first year I’ve lived entirely in Los Angeles.  And while I’ve found that most stereotypes about the city aren’t true, you would not believe the shit that comes out of some people’s mouths.  From a chick in my apartment building who I overheard telling her friend about a new, all-liquid diet:  “Yeah, it’s pretty good, but you kind of miss the chewing.”  From a girl I hooked up with, when I asked her if she liked LA:  “Well, sometimes I just want to go away for a year to someplace warm.”  (It was 81 degrees in November at the time).  And, possibly my all-time favorite, from a chick I was walking with in the Hollywood Hills, through a beautiful but really heavily-wooded area: “Oh my God!  This totally reminds me of Rainforest Cafe!”

-I hate checking into a hotel room and finding that the toilet paper roll is already halfway done.  I hate that clicking anywhere on MySpace only results in the proper page loading error-free about 20% of the time.  I hate when a TV news anchor thanks someone he just interviewed and the interviewee doesn’t say “you’re welcome” or anything but just sort of sits there, so there’s two seconds of awkward silence for no reason.  And, I absolutely hate when people don’t get back to me when they say they will, or don’t return my calls, and when I finally get in touch with them after a week and ask what the fuck is going on, they say something like, “Oh I just wanted to make sure I had all the information before I called you back.”  No!  That’s fucking ridiculous!  Just call me back anyway to let me know that you’re still working on it!  What am I, fucking psychic?

-In the spirit of the holidays, here’s a very rare list of things I love (for a change).  I love people who will park anywhere as long as they put the blinkers on.  I love people who show up to costume parties dressed completely normal.  I love meeting two cute girls at a bar who are friends and happen to have the same name, so I only have to remember one of them.  I love when radio contest winners are less than enthusiastic about the prize they’ve won.  I love porn titles that at first glance seem clever but then later you realize they make no sense at all (for example, “The Little Whore That Could”).  I love that telling someone they’re “not drunk enough” is completely reasonable.  And I love when girls make a cute little pose just before someone takes a picture, but then the camera doesn’t work and they’re kind of stuck faking like that pose is normal, until their fucking idiot friend with the same name figures out how to work the flash.

-And, finally, my buddies from home and I have an informal tradition where every December we determine which one of us had the best year.  For instance, the year that my old roommate Brian got engaged and was accepted to business school, we declared it the “Year of the Brian.”  When Claudio got a new job, new apartment, and a new girlfriend, we declared that the “Year of the Claudio.”  Sadly, there’s never been a “Year of the Karo,” and I doubt I’ll win it this year, either.  That’s not to say I’ve never had a great year, it’s just that my accomplishments always seem to be too spread out; plus “new job” and “new girlfriend” aren’t exactly categories I typically compete in.  Whether or not I take home the prize at the end of 2006, I know that next year will be very special to me.  And that is because I will be celebrating the tenth anniversary of Ruminations.  Believe it or not, I’ve been sending these emails regularly since September 1997, so next fall marks one decade of ruminating.  It is a milestone that I am perhaps more proud of than anything else in my life.  And when I reach it, I will have all of you to thank.  You will have made it possible.  So to all of you out there, reading this at work or in your dorm, at home or on your BlackBerry, I hope your 2006 has treated you well.  And in 2007, may you look upon each toilet paper roll you see not as half-empty, but instead, as half-full.  Fuck me.

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-Recently, I found myself inside the investment bank where I used to work, futilely trying to take a shit in the bathroom.  I’ll discuss later how I arrived at this unfortunate moment, but at the time, my primary thought – besides wishing the guy in the next stall would fucking leave already – was that not much had changed since I left Wall Street over four years ago.  In fact, I don’t think cubicle life in general has changed that much.  Every twentysomething’s office across the country still has hideous carpet, fast Internet, and that one really hot chick who only dates rich, older guys.  It’s a less-than-serious work environment where the attitude, like the dress code, is strictly business casual.

-During my thirteen-month stint in the electrifying world of Equity Research, there was a six-week time period when two different groups in my company thought I was assigned to the other, and therefore I had zero responsibility besides consuming office electricity and coffee.  My roommate Brian nicknamed me the “human cost center.”

-My buddy in New York recently got laid off, went on interviews, got a new job, and then after the fact, told his parents only that he had switched companies for a better opportunity.  That is fucking genius.  That’s like showing up at your parents’ house all of a sudden with a wife and a kid and saying, “I just didn’t want you to be all annoying about it.”

-I believe that in every corporate cafeteria there is a long-ingrained hierarchy.  And on top of that literal food chain stands the Omelet Guy.  Everyone loves the Omelet Guy.  He dispenses the diced green peppers at will as the line snakes back to the untouched granola-and-yogurt parfaits.  The other cooks despise the Omelet Guy, and I bet he just bosses them around and bangs the cashiers.  Omelet Guy, I salute you for your charm, dedication, and egg whites-only option.

-I’ve become good friends with people I’ve worked with, but have never worked with someone I was already close to beforehand.  My friend Triplet #3 is an orthopedic surgeon, and he recently told me that he’s turned around in the middle of a procedure to find our other high school buddy, Seth, administering the anesthesia.  I don’t know how they could keep a straight face or resist telling the nurses the story of how Seth once got so drunk he threw up on his ceiling.  I’ll tell you this much – if my old roommate Brian had ever been assigned the cubicle next to me, I wouldn’t tell my parents.  Well, at least not until I was fired after two days, went on interviews, got a new job, and then lied about the whole thing.

-Probably the best part about working from home, as I do now, is spontaneous mid-afternoon masturbation.  I’ll be writing away, then just happen to catch a glimpse of a girl’s cleavage on a dating web site banner ad, and Boom! – that’s a mandatory eight to seventeen minute break right there.  It’s fantastic stress relief right after breakfast that you just can’t partake of in a normal office environment.  What can I say?  Sometimes it pays to be your own Omelet Guy.

-Of course, nothing could be further from the world of Wall Street than Hollywood.  A few weeks ago, I had a meeting at MTV’s offices in Santa Monica.  In the lobby with me were twenty of the hottest fucking chicks I’ve ever seen, all waiting for auditions.  My jaw hit the ground and I immediately called Triplet #1 at his stuffy consulting office in New York to apprise him of the situation.  He urged me to hit on everyone, but before I could gather up the nerve, I got called into my meeting.  By the time I got out, the girls were gone.  Probably off with richer, older men.  Because some things never change.

-As always, here are some random things I’ve been ruminating about lately…

-I don’t know what pisses me off more, waiting on hold with technical support for 45 minutes only to be told to unplug my device then plug it back in, or the fact that unplugging my device then plugging it back in actually fixes the problem.

-My alarm clock is poorly designed.  The button that lets you sleep for six more minutes is adjacent and identical to the button that lets you sleep for six more hours.

-I’ve had the Smurfs theme song in my head for days now.  Seriously, take a minute and hum the Smurfs theme song to yourself.  Go ahead, hum it.  Now it’s stuck in your head too, right?  I told you it sucks.

-Have you ever been alone in your apartment, and walked into your bathroom to find the shower curtain closed – because you closed it yourself after your last shower – but still for some reason you have this strange fear that there’s somebody hiding behind it?

-I have a problem.  I can’t keep my dick in my pants.  There, I said it.  I absolutely cannot keep my dick in my pants.  Seriously, every time I run on the treadmill, my penis falls right out of my boxers.  Wait…what did you think I was talking about?

-I’ve driven more since I moved to LA from New York last year than ever in my life.  Some thoughts:  When I drive my truck under something with low clearance, for some reason, I duck.  When I honk at someone who doesn’t move after the light turns green, they get embarrassed and speed away as if I’m gonna chase them.  If you don’t find a car within two days of moving to LA, you cannot continue to function in society – that’s where all the homeless people come from: picky car buyers.  In LA, if you want to get off the phone, you just say you’re pulling into a parking garage, even if you’re still home.  I once got lost after parking in Beverly Hills – not that I couldn’t find my car in the lot, I couldn’t find the fucking lot.  I trashed my first rental car in LA by driving ten miles with the parking brake on – that’s when I learned what a parking brake is.  The sidewalks of LA are almost always completely devoid of life.  If you happen to see a pedestrian, you have to yield to them – as opposed to New York, where you try to hit them.  And when a girl spends the night at your place, sometimes she’ll ask you to take her home in the morning.  That’s right folks – I’ve been introduced to the Drive of Shame!

-Babies love me.  Babies always smile and laugh when they see me.  But I don’t think it’s because I’m good with kids.  I suspect they just think I’m funny-looking.

-And, finally, recently my cell phone rang and when I saw the number, I felt nauseous.  It was coming from inside my old investment bank.  The call was from a work buddy of mine who had left the firm but recently rejoined it.  What a jackass.  A few weeks later, I was in New York and found myself back at my old firm, dropping off some Yankees tickets for said jackass.  When I entered the lobby, I got that same feeling I get when I see my shower curtain closed, only this time I thought I might get shot on sight by building security.  Luckily, I passed muster and was allowed upstairs.  I couldn’t believe how quiet it was.  Was it that quiet when I worked there?  Could it have been me who was making all the noise?  So I dropped the tickets off with my buddy and was about to leave when I realized I needed to make a pit stop.  And that’s when I found myself futilely trying to take a shit in the bathroom.  Everything was going fine, until an actual employee entered the stall next to me.  Just like when I worked there, as soon as I saw another man’s shoes, I clammed up.  This guy was taking forever.  And just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse – constipated in an investment bank – I heard a strange sound emanating from the next stall.  It took me a moment to recognize it, but then it was clear as day.  The guy shitting next to me… was humming the Smurfs theme song.  Fuck me.

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