The Everyday Oscars

Well, it's happened again. I was passed over. Not a single Oscar nomination. The whole process is completely biased against people like me. Ok, I know that there aren't really other people like me, but that does not excuse the Hollywood establishments prejudice against me. The Oscars have been handed out longer than I've been alive, but not once have I been awarded a gold, phallic statuette. Just because I'm not some kiss-ass Hollywood insider who's made a movie in the past year they completely overlook my accomplishments!

It is because of this snub that I refuse to attend the awards ceremony. I do have Oscar-worthy acting talent. So do many of you. Just because our skills don't appear on the big screen doesn't mean our talents should go unappreciated! To recognize the acting achievements of everyone like me, I hereby introduce The First Annual Everyday Oscar Awards! I imagine the awards ceremony will go something like this:

MC Phil: The Everyday Oscar for Best Performance in The Workplace goes to...(fumbling with envelope)..Craig Snodgrass for his role in "The Overdue Report!" ;(video clip begins to roll on the monitor) Craig: "Yes Mr. Hendricks, I knew that report was due this morning. I was about to forward it to you when I got the call that my grandmother, the woman who raised me after my parents died, was in a car accident." Mr. Hendricks: "Is that a Hooters napkin sticking out of your pocket?" Craig: "Yes it is sir. The hospital needed two quarts of my blood for the transfusion. They said I should drink a lot of fluids for the rest of the day. I got a little woozy driving back to the office and I had to pull over."

MC Phil:That always brings a tear to my eye. Next up, the Everyday Oscar for Best Relationship Saving Performance goes to...Heather Stevens for her fantastic performance in "Whose Boxers Are These?" (video clip begins to roll) Boyfriend: "Heather, I just found these boxer shorts under your side of the bed! They're not mine! Whose are they?!!?" Heather: Awww! You ruined the surprise! I bought them for you, but I got so turned on at the thought of you in them, that I put them on myself and wore them around for a day. Would you like to see me in them?" Boyfriend: "Are these your skid marks?" Heather: "Umm...yeah?"

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Fun Ways to Prepare for the Apocalypse

It's 2012, the year the world is supposed to end. The end of the world concerns me greatly. What if the Mayans were right? Where will I live if the world ends? Now that the shuttle program has ended how will I get to the moon? And who among my Facebook friends will get to go with me? 

Should we be worried this time? Is there a chance the Mayans were right? In the news recently a current day Mayan leader said, "Dude, seriously, I am so sick of hearing about this. If the world does end, don't try and pin it on us. Damn, did you ever think that maybe the guy making the calendar just died, got laid off, or was fired for stealing office supplies?" I may be paraphrasing a bit, but that was the gist of it. He also pointed out that in some other carved-in-stone tablets another Mayan referenced the year 4077. He didn't reference a specific day, but I'll be pretty mad if the world ends right before my birthday again. My cell phone, pda, and computer all have calendar functions and all of the calendars go past Dec. 21, 2012 so there's all the proof you need that the world is not going to end in 11 months. In fact, I have written a post and dated it to be released to my blog for Dec. 22, 2012, the day after the world is supposed to end. Suck on that you Mayan calendar nutjobs.

Hmmm...should we all be prepared though, just in case? And how should we prepare? Build shelters in our basements and stock up on non-perishable foods? Nah, that's no fun. I plan on getting ready for the Philpocalypse all year long.  Yes, I've re-named it and am trademarking the word "Philpocalypse" so that any reference to the end of the world will have to use the word "Philpocalypse." I'm going to make a fortune on t-shirts and the evening news should be fun.

Other fun ways to prepare for the Philpocalypse?

1. Quit your job: No, not today. Give your employer a letter of resignation announcing that you're resigning your position effective December 22, 2012. Just make sure you word it so that your resignation is contingent on the end of the world. Get it notarized.

2. Pajama Jeans: Not that you ever need an excuse to wear pajama jeans, but if anyone asks why, a simple "The world is going to end. Does it matter what I wear?" should suffice. Who's going to argue with that? And besides, they make my butt look amazing.

3. Speak your mind: You only have 11 months left to say everything you've wanted to say to anyone who has wronged you at any point in your life. I am so digging up my class pictures from Cicero Elementary School. Yeah, you know who you are and now you know the Philpocalypse is coming for you. Nobody takes my fish sticks and gets away with it.

4. Vote for President: But not just a vote for just any Presidential candidate. If the world is really going to end and the election results won't matter, then why not join together, all of us, hopefully more than the all of us reading this, and write in a candidate together. Someone absolutely ridiculous but who would be so entertaining that we wouldn't mind the State of the Union address disrupting our regular t.v. watching. Charlie Sheen? A Kardashian? Russell Brand? The Situation? Carrot Top? Me? Any suggestions? 

If you enjoy my nonsense and want to embrace the Philpocalypse you can subscribe to The Phil Factor on your Amazon Kindle and follow me on Twitter @ThePhilFactor. 

 

 

 

 

 

Angry at the Angry Birds? There's an App for That!

Hi, my name is Phil and I'm an app addict. I admit, I'm powerless over apps. It used to be appetizers that I couldn't resist, but now it's smartphone apps. Well, honestly I'm no better with the appetizers, pizza rolls specifically,  but now I have two app addictions. It started a year ago when I got my first smartphone. And yes, it started with those damn Angry Birds. 

Is anyone else out there an app addict with me? I can't be the only one. In fact, I like apps so much that I'm hoping to land a part-time job at the app store. But you know what? If there's a 12 step group for app addiction I do not want to go. I've now moved on to my second smartphone so I could have enough memory to store more wonderful apps. I realized I had an app addiction problem when I was doing some reading on a website and was thinking of signing up to use that websites services until I checked to see if they had an app I could get on my phone. They didn't and I thought to myself, "I don't want to do business with any business that doesn't have an app." I'm addicted to having the ability to know what I want to know immediately no matter where I am. And what the hell is wrong with that?

For Christmas I was given an App A Day calendar. Here are a few selections from the calendar:

Food Chime: Food chime is a timer app that reminds a smartphone user to eat at specific intervals. I suppose that this is useful so that if you get to caught up in solving Angry Birds or Stupid Zombies it will prevent you from starving to death. Except, it has a snooze function. If you're too stupid to remember to eat, then a smartphone probably has more memory than you. 

Baby Sleep: An app for parents who want to put their baby to sleep to the sound of gentle music. Perfect, we can start creating new app addicts right out of the womb. You'll have kids crying for their Blackberry instead of their pacifier. This must have been created after someone saw that e-trade baby commercial. If I find any parents using this app I'm calling Child Protective Services. 

Drunk Blocker: If you add names from your contact list to the app and activate the app before you go out it will prevent you from dialing those people. This is only useful if you're so drunk you forget how to deactivate the app. I'm going to check my wife's phone to see if I made her list. I sure hope so. 

Use By Date: This app could also be called  Food Poisoning Roulette. The app allegedly helps you determine if a food is still edible even after the use by date. If you install and use this app I'd like to have to committed to a hospital because if you think this is a good use of your time then you are likely a danger to yourself or others in a myriad of ways. 

Declaration: Your digital copy of the Declaration of Independence. Great! This will come in handy if Britain decides to try to levy a tax on my tea. Not since 7th grade Social Studies have I needed to reference the Declaration. Anyone else? I suppose it will come in handy when I start my own country. I can just plagiarize the whole thing and just insert the name of my new country.

If you enjoy my nonsense and want to have The Phil Factor everywhere you go you can...(I bet you thought I was going to announce a Phil Factor app didn't you?) There's no Phil Factor app yet, but you can share The Phil Factor with your friends by clicking the Facebook Like button below. The Phil Factor is also available on your Amazon Kindle and you can follow me on Twitter @ThePhilFactor.

 

 

Should Old Acquaintance Be Forgot?

No, of course not. That's idiotic! Whoever wrote that song is a big, fat, dope. What if we really did that? What if we chose to forget our old acquantances at midnight every New Years? Then we'd have to spend the first 6 months of every year cultivating new friendships so we have someone to go to New Years parties with, whom we are then required to forget again. The Scotsman who wrote that song must have been drunk at the time, which would explain his difficulty remembering things the next day. He must have scribbled down the stupid lyrics on a bar napkin before he blacked out. He probably didn't even see the ball drop. Remember when we were kids and it was the ball, then for a while, like 20 years, they went with an apple? Now just over the past few years they've gone back to the ball thank god. I did not like that apple one bit. 

I don't forget old acquaintances, but what I mostly forget is my New Years resolutions. We've all made New Years' resolutions before. It's even possible some of you may have kept them. Not me. I'm tragically bad at keeping my resolutions. Had I succeeded in even a small fraction of my New Years resoltions over the years I would be the most wildly successful person you know. I may still be the most wildly successful person you know, but at this point that's more a statement about you than me. 

Here are my New Years resolutions, released out into the wild of the internet, probably landing in a 'cloud' somewhere so that you can all hold me accountable for them next December. Of course I'm assuming that you'll still be reading this blog regularly next December and thinking to yourself, "I wonder if Phil achieved all those resolutions he put here last January?" 

Resolution No. 1: Speaking of next December, isn't that when the world is supposed to end? I, Phil, hereby solemnly resolve to prevent the world from ending by the sheer power of my will. Feel free to plan accordingly.  You're welcome. 

Resolution No. 2: Now you may have thought that resolution No. 1, guaranteeing that the planet will continue to exist would be my big finale of New Years resolutions, but if you thought that,  you would be wrong. I like to set my goals high. I like to reach for the stars and dream the impossible dream. I, Phil resolve that in 2012 I will, by sheer power of my will, rehabilitate Lindsay Lohan to the point that she will arrested less than 10 times. 

Resolution No. 3: I, Phil, even though I am not running for public office unless the masses rise up to demand it, will end the so called "Occupy" protests across the world. Now don't get too excited about this one. You may not even notice it. My plan is to have the protesters slowly, gradually just sort of go home. It could take a few months. 

Resolution No. 4: I, Phil, resolve that in 2012 I will have a Phil Factor Kindle subscriber that is not related to me by blood or marriage. This may be the most challenging of all. I may in fact need some help with this one. Does anyone, anyone at all reading this have any idea how I might accomplish this? I mean, I know how to subscribe by just looking up The Phil Factor in the Kindle store either on my device or online, but how do I get the word out to others that for just 99 cents a month they can never miss an installment of The Phil Factor even if they haven't quite figured out how to manage the new Facebook changes that cause us to miss our friends posts? Like I said before, Mark Zuckerberg is the devil. 

I don't what it is, but this year I'm feeling pretty good about my resolutions. Happy New Years to all and I hope your resolutions are already accomplished, especially if you resolved to follow me on Twitter @ThePhilFactor.