Early Work

My mom came up to visit this week, and with her came a couple boxes of precious artifacts from my early childhood. I've always sort of wanted to put together a time capsule, but never felt that I had enough cool stuff to put in it. For all practical purposes this was a time capsule. It was a bunch of 25 year old relics encapsulated in a tote that was stuffed under the stairs.

After sorting through the old pictures, birthday cards and a select few cherished toys, something amongst the pile of construction paper and progress reports caught my eye. It appeared to be some sort of creative writing assignment...wait a minute, I think I...yes. I'm pretty sure I was in second grade, and I remember this project. It was a joint project between our class and the fifth grade class designed to marry the budding penmanship and spelling skills of a fifth grader with the eagerness and expressiveness of a second grader. It was an opportunity for the little kid to get behind the wheel while the big kid facilitated the creativity with the vehicle of literacy. Basically, he was capable of recording whatever I felt like dictating. I must warn you though, it is a frightful tale, so if you scare easily I suggest you hit alt+F4 now. For all of you bold enough to proceed, I offer you a classic Halloween tale from the dusty archives of my childhood literary catalog.

These things happen.

Bromance

The term bromance can be generally described as a friendship between bros, but much like a romance, it involves higher levels of emotion, commitment, and sensitivity. An entry in Wikipedia speculates that "the financial pressure of staying single longer may lead to men becoming roommates for extended periods, fueling the bromance." This may very well be the case in many instances, but it is certainly not the case for Brody Jenner, star of the MTV reality series Bromance.

Brody, son of Olympian Bruce Jenner is not a dude that needs someone to split the rent and utilities with. His longing for the right wingman could have been sparked by the shortage of true homies in the modeling business, or maybe it was all the drama on The Hills that revealed a higher purpose. Whatever it was, it has sent this hunky socialite on the manhunt of a lifetime. Lather up your faux-hawks, put on your distressed Hollister t-shirt, and grab those aviator shades because you are about to get a cologne drenched sneak peek at Bromance.


The format of the show is the same as any other reality show (especially the Bachelorette) in that it presents a variety of challenges to the contestants in order to weed out the weaklings. In the one episode that I saw, Brody gave each of the remaining guys an opportunity to put together a fun activity to show that they knew how to be a super-rad party animal. One guy laid out a Slip-N-Slide, another one taught the others a bit of choreography...you know, your everyday average guy stuff.

"Hey there, muscly arm."

All the fellas were having fun as the evening went along, but things took a sour turn when one young man's stand-up comedy routine missed its mark, making him the butt of the joke. Ashamed of his performance, heckled into submission, and generally sad about stuff, he made his way to the bathroom "can-fessional" to unload his tearful disappointment. But just as soon as it boiled up, all the testosterone vaporized when the others realized how hurtful their actions were. How uncharacteristically non-tender.

Sadly, at the end of each episode one aspiring bro must go, but just before the curtain falls he mutters something about how Brody really made the wrong choice and how they could've had an amazing bromance using Axe body spray to lure hot mamas into their wicked-awesome frat house for the rest of their lives...and then, you guessed it...he cries.

Information You Can Use

I've been receiving a lot of fan mail recently asking things like,

"Why the sharp drop-off in posting...I thought the Oak Lair was the most reliable source for everything I need to know? I'm confused...and scared." "Does Cullen just not care about me?

or

"What did I do, and what would I do without the Oak Lair in my life?"

I'm here to tell you that I do care...crap-tons, and I'll prove it to you right now by sharing with you an assortment of handy information that will be sure to give you the upper hand next time a conversation goes stale. You see, I recently picked up a book called Pocket Ref in response to my growing desire to become a referee. As it turned out, the book had nothing to do with officiating sports...it was even better. This is the most densely packed smattering of miscellaneous knowledge I have ever seen. I don't know if I'll ever need to know the electromagnetic frequency spectrum or the uranium 238 decay series, but if I do, it's all right here at my fingertips. Here's what you'd see with a casual flip through.



Personally I can't tell you how many times I've frantically waved my arms in pure frustration at a crane operator. If only I'd known these simple crane/hoist directions then. Maybe those lives would've been spared.