Quick! Someone Hand Me An E-Club!

Earlier today, while ensconced like a zebra mussel at the redundantly-named Nina's Coffee Cafe, I was looking through previous posts in this blog to remind myself of what lies I have already told you. Since I cherish my remaining readers, it is my fervent desire to be consistent if not truthful as I crank out new entries. Eventually I led myself to an old blog entry called "Sadly, It's Come To This Once Again," published in December of 2006 (!). That post contains the following paragraph:

In conclusion I would remind you that these rules are in place to ensure your comfort and safety while at the Hulles blog. Also, let me once again point out that when the day comes when I open the gates of New Lugburz and release the ravening hordes of Hulles Death Commandos in slightly-modified Hooters uniforms upon an unsuspecting world, you will want to be one of those with the correctly-drawn Smiling Mamegoma on your door so they will pass you by. And you will only find that Smiling Mamegoma on this blog. So please check back here early and often for your own continued well-being and that of your family.

After reading the above post, I found myself chuckling at my own subtle wit and dry humor as usual: "Ravening hordes, hah hah, Hulles you kill me. Not to mention Smiling Mamegoma!" It was then that I realized that I had absolutely no idea of whatever the hell a Smiling Mamegoma might be. I immediately turned to the Hulles Mythos (which is why it exists) and found this entry:

Smiling Mamegoma

No idea what this is either

Well that wasn't very helpful, but at least I was honest. Time to google "smiling mamegoma". I did this, and on the first page of the search results I found this:


Check it out! My Hulles Mythos page is in the top 10 results! Unfortunately, this links back to:

Smiling Mamegoma

No idea what this is either

Lucky for me there were a couple other search results that were more promising. The one that fascinated me the most was an entry in Destructoid, a gaming forum. This entry contained the following video:

WARNING: THIS VIDEO CONTAINS INTENSE CUTENESS AND IS NOT FOR THE SQUEAMISH, SO TIGHTEN YOUR NETSUKE STRAPS AND GRAB YOUR OMIJUKIS



The person who wrote the Destructoid entry said this about the video:

Between the ability to dress your tiny aquatic friend in wigs or anachronistic finery and staring into its beady eyes as you coo sweet promises of a life free from e-clubbings, I think it's safe to assume that this sort of thing is expressly designed to moisten the underoos of Japanese teenage girls (and a few of my female friends).

One thing I noticed immediately is that this person thinks a lot like I do. In fact, it crossed my mind to rip off the e-clubbing comment, it was so good. My atrophied moral sense was able to kaff weakly and hack out an objection to this idea however, which suprised me as much as it no doubt surprises you. As a result of this I (forgoed? forwent?) resisted the temptation to steal the phrase except for in the title. However, I should mention in passing that I thought that "moisten the underoos of Japanese teenage girls" was pretty Hulles-like as well and it provided a similar temptation.

I Still Have A Friend In Japan!

So once you're done puking day-glo pink foam over the cuteness of the above video, you'll probably start wondering where the hell I ran into Smiling Mamegomas (and Netsuke Straps and Omijukis) in the first place. I know I wondered, so I traced this all back to another blog entry of mine, called "I Have A Friend In Japan!", which contained the following paragraph:

Even better than the seal mascot costume rentals was a web site called “J-List – You've got a friend in Japan!” I found this on their site:

”Mamegoma is a super cute seal mascot franchise from San-X (Tarepanda, Nyanko, Rilakkuma) that features colorful and genki seals. This netsuke strap not only features a smiling Mamegoma, but also has an omijuki that tells your fortune!”

Yikes! I only know what three of those words mean. But I really like the idea of a seal mascot franchise.

So there you have it, the Smiling Mamegoma story, soon to be made into a cable TV miniseries. If you want to know more about seal mascot franchises etc. I leave it to you to read the aforementioned blog entry. It is, of course, subtly witty and drily humorous like everything I write except for the stuff that isn't. And if you're in the market for genki seals yourself, in spite of it sounding like a Jewish dating service try J-List for all of your inscrutable Tarepanda, Nyanko, and Rilakkuma accessory purchases. You also have a friend in Japan!

I need to wrap this up now, because my own personal omijuki just told me my fortune: "Tonight you will be lucky in love." I imagine that means the roller girls are back in town so I need to go knock over a liquor store for some cash. This fortune is ever so much better than the last one I got: "Help! I'm being held captive in an omijuki factory!". Good Lord, a Japanese Alan King is out there somewhere.

- Hulles

Outside Of A Dog

“Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.” -- Groucho Marx, as quoted on Lucille's mouse pad

I woke up late this morning after a grueling night of satiating myself on female flesh so I had to dump most of my morning cup of Kahlua into a travel mug and race like mad to get to the coffee shop on time -- these days I need to get there early so I can score an outlet for my laptop Lucille. The poor thing needs to be on external life-support or she remains comatose. Luckily I made it just in time, so now Lucille's awake and reasonably alert and I am happily ensconced at the redundantly-named Nina's Coffee Cafe. And I want to write a book.

I know, everybody and their Aunt Marge in Cincinnati wants to write a book. What, you think I'm too old and decrepit to still be able to jump on a bandwagon? Hardly. These days bandwagons are required by law to be curmudgeon-accessible. Granted, it has to stop and lower a special platform that I can hobble onto that then raises me up to the same level as everyone else, but making all the rest of you chafe for ten minutes on your way to bestsellerdom as I creep aboard bitching about the shitty bandwagon service these days pleases me to no end.

One thing that makes me different from you (unless you're Anne or Amanda or...) is that I've already published a book. Two books, in fact. A few years back I took a stab at being a children's book author. As I found out however, and much to the chagrin of both me and my creditors, this is a much harder market to crack than appears at first glance.

My first children's book, A Lutheran Boy's First Book of Tits, didn't do particularly well as far sales were concerned, although it did receive some critical acclaim in Canada. I'm still a bit puzzled by this lack of success. I did a lot of research prior to writing it, and carefully selected the models so that none of the women depicted in the book had a cup size bigger than a C. I already knew, never mind how, that lusty little Lutheran lads tend to be intimidated to the point of dysfunction by tits bigger than C's. Fine, no problem, lots of lovely breasts out there that don't require structural steel in the manufacture of their brassieres.

I also somehow managed to convince my publisher to print the book with washable pages and little flap thingies that you could lift up to get beaver shots. They drew the line at scratch-and-sniff, however, the cheap bastards. Unfortunately, all this effort was to no avail. Lutheran parents stayed away from the bookstores in droves. I still have a garage filled with unsold copies of ALBFBTs, which, by the way, make great Christmas gifts, send me an email.

I'm sure you'll be relieved to hear that I emerged bloodied but unbowed from this initial foray into writing for the younger set. My next book, A Child's Treasury of Single Malt Scotches, was even more thoroughly researched than the first, but it too landed with a thud that rattled the chandeliers. To this day I privately believe that the reason most people don't start drinking single malts until they reach middle age can be directly traced to the failure of this book on the shelves.

But at last I think I'm ready to jump back into the ring like Stallone and crank out another book or two. Initially I thought I'd combine the current craze for zombie stories with my hard-won children's book expertise so I started working on a young-adult title called Zombies Ate My Homework. Sadly, I had to abandon this project when my publisher informed than young adults today are neither willing nor able to read books.

My next thought was that I could forget young adults as easily as I seem to forget everything else and go back to children's books, and yet somehow still keep the zombies. However, after much agonizing thought I decided that young children weren't really ready for large-format illustrated books of zombies staggering around with partially-chewed human flesh hanging from their decaying lips so I had to abandon my first few story ideas. Great, no problem, I'm a creative guy, I'll figure out something.

At long last I came up with a new concept that I'm pretty pleased with: werehamsters. It still has all of the disturbing and bloodthirsty elements of occult/horror that seem to be so popular today, yet it wraps the unrelenting gore in cute little hamster packages that are easy to market. Perfect.

Imagine: Jimmy the Ex-Hamster lies dead and buried in the back yard because little Billy used him for a badminton shuttlecock once too often. Night. The moon is full. The hamsterbane is in full bloom. All of a sudden, the earth over Jimmy's shallow grave stirs, a shoe box appears [note to self: call kid's shoe companies, get tie-in, so to speak], the cardboard lid is pushed ajar, and out staggers Jimmy. This Jimmy, however, has inch-long fangs, can suddenly speak in an Eastern European accent, and has a craving for blood. Pet blood. Blood like that flowing through the unsuspecting veins of Doris, Billy's beloved Shih Tzu lying peacefully asleep in the dog house near the driveway....

The franchise is worth billions. The netsuke straps and omijukis alone will buy me that candy apple red AH64D Apache attack helicopter I've had my eye on.

Remember you saw it here first when the cheesy copycat were-guinea-pigs start appearing.

-- Hulles

Blog = Globe, Misspelled and Without The E

I like the title a lot. I'm not sure what it means, exactly, but it sounds sort of cool. These are just bits that don't fit anywhere else:

First we have a little science piece to get the brain going. From the normally staid pages of Scientific American, an article about the molecular mechanism of cocaine starts out:

Cocaine--a stimulating alkaloid crushed out of the leaves of the coca plant--has been reported to increase euphoria and energy as well as to trigger a mind-killing addiction in humans. The appeal is not limited to our species; rats and other animals given access to the drug will pursue it with a vigor normally reserved for procreation.

I think this is funny because we seem to get a little bit of the reporter's (David Biello's) personality leaking out into the science news. I'll wager dollars to donuts that David's editor put the “has been reported to” in the first sentence to tone down the enthusiasm just a bit. You still sort of get the feeling the reporter is familiar with the subject he's writing about. And I for one plan on using the phrase “with a vigor normally reserved for procreation” at the earliest opportunity.

I finally got rid of the Oxford English Dictionary Word of the Day entirely from my Google home page. For a change, today they had a word I was interested in (don't remember what it was, sorry) so I clicked on the link and got a subscription form telling me that I needed to pay for the privilege. They were already on my shit list for “bootylicious” so that was the last straw. I guess I'll have to remain ignerant and mispel stuff; better that than supporting the New Sleazy Edition of the OED.

Speaking of “bootylicious,” I never did really look it up, in the OED or anywhere else. I just assumed that, since I'm pretty fly for a white guy, I knew what it meant. Maybe I'm wrong and it means “butterfly lips” or something. Regardless, I'm pretty sure the OED definition must refer to La Espia T. at some point.

Among the sadder news bits I have to report, Kat is not really a redhead. Her boyfriend Dave tells me that after running a number of thorough and rather painful clinical tests, he has determined beyond a reasonable doubt that Kat has hair that would be called “mousy brown” on someone less attractive that wasn't looking over his shoulder as he wrote the email. So my apologies for my shoddy reporting – as if. This is supposed to be a funny blog, not a blog where all the things that are said are true and the writer is not ignerant and doesn't mispel stuff. (She must have had a tongue job done is all I can say.)

I just recently heard that Esquire Magazine named Minneapolis' Nye's Polonaise Room the best bar in the world or some such nonsense. I'll have a thing or two to say about that in this blog shortly, you can bet your beer gut.

Finally, tighten up your netsuke straps and grab your omijukis: I have another one of my blog entries appearing in the next Avenues, due out on the 17^th. I sold it for (a small amount of) real American money, the suckers. (You wondered why I had that on the sidebar; well now you know.) This is a local St. Paul publication, so you won't be able to get it anywhere else, unless for some reason you decide to clean your birdcage in the MSP airport while flying somewhere warmer. I'm not sure why you'd want to, anyway -- if you care to read the original piece, it's here, so you don't have to go out into the cold for my sake. Unless of course you want to support Avenues and at the same time see how the editors emasculate Hulles, in which case head with a vigor normally reserved for procreation to a St. Paul newstand near you on the 17th.

Emasculate Hulles, did I say? Ouch. Big ouch. Anyway, it makes me happy and proud -- the article, of course, not the emasculation. The emasculation just makes me talk in a high voice until they grow back. They do grow back, don't they?

-- Hulles

I Have A Friend In Japan!

I was just looking for information on seals, when... “Stop! Stop! Hulles, are you talking about eared or earless seals?” you ask, proud that you know the difference (one kind has ears). Who the hell cares? I was looking up seals because recently it came to my attention that seals (both eared and earless) are occasionally killed by baseballs. Fastballs seem to be particularly deadly. So I decided to see if any seals are mascots for baseball teams.

First, though, I tried to see how seals have sex. This is important to me because I want to make sure I have an accurate visual representation of seals having sex when I write about seals having sex, which I recently did in a comment. Also, you never know when you'll pick up a handy tip or two. But googling “seal sex” turned out to be a mistake. First my laptop popped up a window that said

“WARNING! You are about to view sites that depict disgusting acts that are illegal in most states, notably Texas. You should refrain from eating solid food for two days prior to viewing these sites, and even so you should have a barf bag close at hand when you do. Do you want to continue?” (I love Ubuntu Linux.)

Like an idiot I clicked the “Yes, I am a creepy pervert and want to continue” button, even though I'm not really creepy.

Doctors tell me the scarring of my corneas won't go away without expensive surgery by, oddly enough, the doctors who tell me this. And apparently my medical insurance doesn't cover Porn Web Site Ocular Damage. Guys, take note: read your medical insurance contract while you still have good corneas.

So I gave up trying to find out about seal sex. I'll just imagine that it's pretty much like manatee sex and leave it at that. And by the way, you really don't want to google that one.

But seal mascots was still a hot topic for me, and I googled that with better luck. As it turned out, however, I never did find out the answer to my question, which I repeat here for the short-term memory loss crowd: “Are there any baseball teams that have seals as mascots?” This remains an unsolved mystery to me because I got lost in ads about seal mascot suits. Sure they're for mascots; if they are why do they rent them instead of sell them outright?

“Jimmie's Costumes.”

“Hi. Do you rent mascot costumes?”

“Oh yeah, right, the 'mascot' costumes. That would be Fred, he's the guy who handles 'mascots'. Let me transfer you.” (One hears a tiny crackling sound as the man winks lewdly over the phone.)

“Mascots.”

“Yeah, can I rent a mascot costume?”

“Sure. The selection ain't so great for Friday or Saturday night, but we can probably find you something.”

“Actually, it's for a Saturday afternoon baseball game. The Whitby Baby Seals are playing the Pickering Baseball Bat Toters, and I'm the mascot for the Seals.”

“No shit? I'm calling my bookie as soon as you hang up.”

“So do you have any seal mascot costumes for rent?”

“Seal mascot costume, eh? Eared or earless?”

“Whuh...?”

“Thought so.”

Even better than the seal mascot costume rentals was a web site called “J-List – You've got a friend in Japan!” I found this on their site:



”Mamegoma is a super cute seal mascot franchise from San-X (Tarepanda, Nyanko, Rilakkuma) that features colorful and genki seals. This netsuke strap not only features a smiling Mamegoma, but also has an omijuki that tells your fortune!”

Yikes! I only know what three of those words mean. But I really like the idea of a seal mascot franchise.

(Man walks into San-X Headquarters.)

“Hi! Welcome to San-X.”

“Hi. I'm looking to start a business, and I heard your company offers franchises.”

“You heard right. We're the guys to set you up in a mascot franchise. What about a nice seal mascot franchise? They're all the rage today.”

“Mascot franchise? I was thinking more along the lines of a Burger King.”

“Naw, burgers are for widows and orphans. What you want is your mascot franchise, trust me. The netsuke straps and omijukis practically fly out the door by themselves. Not to mention the genki seals. Can't you just picture yourself cutting the ribbon for your very own San-X seal mascot store, standing under your big neon Smiling Mamegoma sign? Of course you can. Sign here.”

I love the Internet.

-- Hulles