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. 

 

Don't Sweat My Swag (aka The Middle Aged ManSuit)

You're doing it right now and you may have no idea. That's ok, it won't hurt. I was doing it almost every day and nobody said anything or seemed to mind. I was doing it right out in public. Didn't get arrested, even once.

Every generation has a uniform, even if they or we don't realize it. Very often we're wearing the uniform of our generation without thinking about it or choosing it. We're quick to recognize other generations uniforms but we never see our own. Unfortunately for me I had a couple experiences recently that pulled back the curtain and exposed me. Or rather, exposed my...uniform. 

I see examples of uniforms everywhere I go. Teenagers, who believe they are so independent and like to make a "statement" about their identity are almost the worst offenders. When I pull up to my kids school virtually every girl comes out in sweatpants and Ugg boots while every boy has jeans, a zippered hoodie, and Justin Biebers haircut. (I could have Justin Biebers haircut if I wanted, once the restraining order expires.) Recently my lack of understanding of part of one generations uniform exposed me for what I am...an adult. Ugh. That was painful to admit.

One of my sons asked for money for Christmas so he could buy his own clothes. Apparently at some point me dressing him as myself, a superhero, or in Garanimals is no longer cool. So armed with a pocketful of benjamins (this is a word referring to Benjamin Franklin, who is on the $100 bill) I sent him to the mall completely unsupervised. When he returned home he showed off his purchases, one of which was a wrist watch the size of a hubcap and appearing to weigh several pounds. So after I was hilarious with the Wonder Woman and Flava Flav jokes, one of my other sons saw what appeared to be a NASA satellite affixed to his brothers wrist and informed us that the watch most definitely was "swag." Now being as hip to the teen lingo as I am, I know that "swag" is a good thing. I don't like to be flashy, so I keep my swag in a safe in the basement and only tell my children stories about all the swag I had when I was their age. Later in the week I was with one of my sons at a lesson and his instructor who might be moderately younger and perhaps, if at all possible, a little cooler than I, was wearing a similar swag watch. Apparently a swag watch, or Swatch for short, is an important part of the teen/young adult uniform. 

Finally we get to my uniform.  I was at the supermarket the other day thinking I was full of swag in my white Nikes, jeans, button down oxford and leather jacket. Then I looked around the supermarket at what appeared to be an army of guys my age wearing some version of the exact same jeans/oxford/leather combo pushing a cart and picking up a gallon of milk and a 12 pack of Cottonelle.It was like a "Where's Waldo" picture where everyone is some slightly altered version of the original Waldo. This was when it hit me. I was wearing The Middle Aged Man Suit.

Let's see, I've referenced Wonder Woman, Ben Franklin and Where's Waldo.Is it possible I don't have as much swag as I thought? Nah!

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The Junk on Your Trunk

Yes, it's the holiday season and with all the festivities we're all probably adding a little junk to our trunk. But that's not the trunk I want to talk about. Not that your trunk isn't worth talking about. I'm sure it's delightful, but it's the junk on your trunk I want to talk about. Many of you have the trunk of your car or SUV festooned with some decorative statement about who you are. 

First off, festooning is never good. Just using the word festoon impugns my manliness. And you know I don't have enough manliness to go around impugning it all willy nilly. The fact that I just used "willy nilly" is evidence of the limits of my manliness. Sometimes based on the junk on your trunk I also wonder how much manliness, or sanity, you have.

OBX: You think that you're telling us you've been to the Outer Banks region of North Carolina for vacation. What we see is someone who misspelled Box, which is 13 points in Words with Friends. 

13.1 or 26.2: You see these numbers frequently and some of you may have them on your trunk.. Apparently they indicate that the driver has run either a half-marathon (13.1) or full marathon (26.2). You know what? If your such a damn good runner, why don't you just get out of your car and run wherever you're going. You can have the numbers tattooed on your real trunk. And what's with the decimals? This is the United States! Decimals are for Canadians and their new fangled metric system. Oooooh! What a big shot you are! Did you run a tenth or two tenths more than someone? Apparently you have to run the extra tenth or two to get the sticker because I've never seen  just a 13 or 26 sticker. I wonder if there are runners out there who feel like failures  because they could only make it 13 or 26 miles. I'm having a 20 sticker made. That's the distance in feet from my couch to my refrigerator.

The Stick Figure Family: What is this supposed to tell us? Are you all anorexic, including your dog and cat? I once saw a car with the stick figure family but it was just the Dad and two kids and there was a space between the Dad and kids as if there had been a Mom stick figure and it was removed. Apparently she got that in the divorce settlement. Somewhere there's a sad, lonely woman driving around with a stick figure of herself on her car. If you're a single guy follow that car to the liquor store. She's probably an easy mark right about now. And if you're a single guy, I seriously do not want to see what that stick figure sticker is going to look like. 

The Ribbon Magnet: There are so many support ribbon magnets that they've become de-valued. You can support our troops, schleroderma, autism, and your favorite football team with a ribbon magnet for your car. If you're a left handed, autistic, football player from West Point who has bad skin you can probably buy enough ribbon magnets to put a ring of them all the way around your car. In fact, I'm thinking of creating a ribbon magnet for people who feel left out because they have no reason to have a ribbon magnet. 

Yes, I know there isn't much of a holiday theme to this one, but if you want to give the gift of The Phil Factor for Christmas, Hannukah or Kwanzaa just click the Facebook "Like" button below. The Phil Factor can also be delivered wirelessly to your Kindle wherever you are for just 99 cents a month. You can follow me on Twitter @ThePhilFactor and find me on Words with Friends as Phil2365. 

The Man with the Scorpion Tattoo

To coincide with the release of the movie The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo I've authorized the Franklin Mint to re-release in limited run this classic from The Phil Factor archives. Enjoy!

No, this is not a male version of the popular novel The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. This is much better than that. It's my blog where I make fun of stuff. I'm pretty sure nobody had very many laughs reading that dragon tattoo book. The Man with the Scorpion Tattoo also is not a fictional character. The Man with the Scorpion Tattoo is a guy I see at my Starbuck's almost every morning. To be fair, it's not really my Starbucks. I am neither owner nor manager, but The Man with the Scorpion Tattoo still shows up there regularly regardless of my lack of affiliation with the place. 

The Man with the Scorpion Tattoo is bald. Not old man, male pattern baldness bald, but "I shaved my head so I can look like a bad ass" bald.  The Man with the Scorpion Tattoo also has a giant scorpion tattooed on his bald head. A scorpion tattoo that is much larger than any real scorpion. The tattoo stretches from the top of his head, wrapping around the back and down to the top of the neck. Each morning I wonder, what exactly is he trying to tell the world about himself? 

Evil. I think having a giant scorpion tattooed on a menacing bald head kind of screams evil. My shamrock tattoo says I'm Irish. His scorpion tattoo says 'I'm evil." In fact after observing The Man with the Scorpion Tattoo daily for awhile now, I'm pretty sure he is actually Satan. Yup, the real one. Apparently, just like you and me, Satan stops for his Starbucks fix on his way to work every day. Coffee black of course. None of those frou frou girly drinks with whipped cream.  He keeps to himself and goes about his business quietly while at Starbucks, but just the same, I'm pretty sure he's Satan. He makes small talk with the baristas so as not to arouse any suspicion. He tips, but never too much or too little. He always sits alone at the table by the window. 

I suppose it's possible right? I mean, Satan has a job to do every day doesn't he? If he didn't show up for work each day encouraging evil, imagine all the police officers, military, and jail staff that would be out of work. Without evil our economy suffers. So like the rest of us, Satans day begins when his alarm goes off. Because he's evil, he hits snooze. Twice. Then I imagine Satan walking his dog clad in pajama pants and a Motley Crue reunion tour t-shirt. Obviously, he doesn't pick up the poop in a little bag because of his inherent evil nature. Unlike me,  Satan never bothers to iron his shirt for work either. Before leaving for work he grabs his bagged lunch, grumbling over the low carb kick his wife is on, and gives Mrs. Satan a little kiss and let's her know if he'll be home late because there's a need for a little extra unrest in the middle east. Then he hops in the Satan mobile (you would think a red car, but he thinks that's too flashy and goes with black. Tinted windows of course. Maybe a Mustang.) Then he stops at Starbuck's to have his coffee and go over his schedule, all the while making a mental note that when he gets some extra time he'll have to perpetrate some evil on that guy in the suit who stares at him every morning.  

Remember the 1995 Joan Osborne song, "What if God Were One of Us?"  If God could be one of us, so could Satan. And if Satan had a name, I imagine it wouldn't be any of those fancy biblical names like Beezlebub or Lucifer. Seriously, how much of a give away would that be? He'd be constantantly hounded by fans and papparazzi. No, I'm pretty sure that if Satan has a name it's something like Ed. And yes Ms. Osborne, I would call him Ed to his face. I wonder if Ed has a blog...If he does, I'm pretty sure he gets more reads than the 27 I got last week because his friends click on the Facebook "Share" button below. C'mon people, we can't let evil win!  

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The Guy Code of Conduct Chapter 3: Present Buying

It's the most wonderful time of the year. Yeah, if you like mental and emotional torture. It's that time of year when we as men are put to the test. The relationship test. Well, it's not THE relationship test. There are countless relationship tests day in and day out that test our mettle as a husband, fiance or boyfriend. Buying presents for special occasions is one of those tests. Whether you celebrate Hannukah or Christmas, put on your thinking caps boys because it's time to sharpen your perceptive accumen. Make no mistake though, it's not me assuming that men have perceptive accumen, it's the women, and therein lies the problem. 

Did anyone see or read The Davinci Code or any of the sequels to it? Professor Robert Langdon kept finding himself in life threatening situations in which he has to solve a mystery using obscure clues found in ancient artifacts and works of art that were usually hidden all over some city. Sounds like Christmas shopping doesn't it? Langdon had it easy though. He was only up against a murderous cult or psychotic nutcase. And if he was successful in saving the day he usually got a little nookie at the end. Still sounds like Christmas shopping to me. 

Now back to that perceptive accumen. Let's hop in Peabody's Wayback Machine, destination 1989. Our hero Phil had a fiance. And a mullet.Typically those last two things are mutually exclusive. One day Phil, his fiance and his mullet were strolling merrily through a store in a mall when the fiance saw a shower massage and said, "Oh, I'd like one of those." Fast forward a month when said fiance opens her Christmas gift to find the aforementioned shower massage. And it was a damn nice shower massage too. If  it was a Davinci Code novel, however,  Langdon's family would be dead and he was getting no nookie. Not even in the shower. I kept the fiance, lost the mullet and stll hear that shower massage mentioned every year as an example of the worst gift buying ever. 

My point is, sometimes the subtle hints women drop regarding what they want are often lost on men. It's not that we're stupid, it's that our brains work differently. Men are hard wired for action and reaction. We are hunters while women are gatherers. I've seen the pet pyschic have better luck interpreting a single woof from a one eyed, three legged basset hound with the pulse of a ficus tree. "What's that Lucky? Your owner doesn't hug you enough? You miss your siblings who were left behind at the pound? Wait, I hear a voice coming through from beyond. I think it's your grandmother. She says 'woof, woof', does that mean something to you? Wait, I'm translating, she says she didn't want a shower massage for Christmas. She wanted a rawhide chew." That's right, it's a pet pychic who channels the spirits of dead animals. And he's still more accurate at that than most men are at deciphering the byzantine, labrynthine maze of clues women leave to test us.

Getting the wrong gift ruins Christmas for everyone. If a woman isn't happy with her gift, we can tell and we feel like a jerk. Nobody wins. Often a Christmas gone wrong might go like this:

Woman: (sigh) "oh, a sweater. Thanks."

Guy: "What? What's wrong? That time when we were in the store you said you liked that sweater.You didn't mention anything else." 

Woman: "Yes I did. Several times. Remember when we went out to dinner and I said I liked the dessert? Well they make the dessert with the Cuisinart 6000 Deluxe Mixmaster Turbo. And I wanted it in taupe to match my kitchen. And one of those Jane Seymour necklaces." 

Guy: "What the hell is taupe? And those stupid Jane Seymour necklaces don't look anything like hearts. They look like swans."

Guys, don't stress yourself over gathering clues. Our brains aren't made they way. We're hunters. Ladies, if you want something just say it and we will go hunt it down. Yeah, I know, not a great final punchline, but c'mon, I worked in shower massages, pet psychics and Jane Seymour here, that's gotta be enough. 

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2011: The Year In Review?

No, just kidding. I'm seriously not going to review the year either personally or in music, movies, or news. I love the holidays, but I hate watching t.v. this time of year. There isn't a single media outlet that can resist the obligatory "Year in Review" piece. Why? We all know what happened! We don't need the events ranked for us. And for cryin' out loud don't give us that videography set to music of the people that died this year! That's so depressing it makes me want to join that list immediately. 

I'm also not one to send one of those form letter Christmas cards: "Dear (insert name here), 2011 was a wonderful year for my family. I started a new job, little Johnny learned to poop indoors and that rash on Susie's face cleared up...blah, blah, blah...." If you're a friend, I've talked to you throughout the year, followed you on Facebook and you know what I've been doing and I know what you've been doing. So lets look ahead. Why not list what we'd like to see in the coming year? Here is my list of things I'd like to see happen in 2012.

1. More David Blaine. I hate him, but I miss him. Where the hell did that guy go? A couple years ago you couldn't walk down to your mailbox without finding him locked inside it. He was on t.v. constantly,  just locking himself inside stuff. For no reason! No one even asked him to! I think maybe he locked himself in something two years ago and couldn't get out and we all just forgot about him. 

2. I'd like an end to all reality shows. Each and every one of them. There is an entire generation of television writers who haven't had to come up with a new idea in 15 years. Even the "new" ideas for reality shows aren't original. Most of the original reality show ideas were stolen from foreign television. "Reality" television isn't remotely like any reality I've ever seen. Not once in my reality have I been stranded on a desert island or locked in a house with a bunch of strangers and forced to manipulate others or eat live bugs in order to win a pizza. 

3. I'd like to see a law passed eliminating Leap Year and Day. All months should be the same length. This goes along with my Daylight Savings Time grudge. If we didn't muck about with our clocks so much we could probably get our calendar straightened out too. 

4. I'd like to see 2012 pass without so much as a single "news" item using the words "Lohan" or "Kardashian." Oh my God. I just had a thought. What if Lindsay Lohan marries Rob Kardashian? 

5. 2012 is an election year and I'll say it again:  I think we ought to elect our next President American Idol style. Week by week eliminations until the winner is announced on live t.v. Why not? It would get more people involved in the political process if they could participate via television and cell phone. Instead of 80's hits night we'd have the New Hampshire primary. Then again, why not 80's hits night? I think the President should be able to inform and entertain during the State of the Union address. If they hold open auditions in a town near me I am so going to sleep out overnight to be in line.  Gingrich and Obama would have no shot at beating out my obvious charm. And I would look really tall standing next to Ryan Seacrest. 

If you enjoy my nonsense and wan to see it continue in 2012 you can subscribe to The Phil Factor on your Amazon Kindle, follow me on Twitter @ThePhilFactor, and of course, please feel free to click the Facebook like button on this page to share my idiocy with your friends.

 

 

Dental Problems

Many people find dentist visits to be, at the least, anxiety provoking. I have an extensive history with dentists dating back to when I broke a tooth in the second grade. In fact, an oral surgeon once uttered the word, Oops!" while working in my mouth. That's reassuring huh? Despite that history, the most frightening part of dental visits is...receiving the appointment reminder card in the mail. 

What? Yes, that's right. The appointment reminder card freaks me out. Every time. Again, not because I fear the dentist. I like my dentist. We chit chat about our kids who play baseball. My hygienist is delightful and I've seen her for the past 15 years. It feels like I'm just visiting old friends when I go to the dentist. So why does the appointment reminder card freak me out? It's simple. It's because the reminder card is in my own handwriting. At the conclusion of each appointment I'm handed a postcard on which I dutifully fill out my own name, address, and next appointment. My hygienist then takes the card and five and a half months later mails it to me.

So why the freak out? The freak out happens when I return home on any idle Tuesday and get my mail. As I rifle through the assorted bills and junk mail suddenly I come across a handwritten postcard that stands out because it's handwritten, as so little mail we receive these days is. Usually when I receive mail with a handwritten name and address I don't recognize the writing. This time however the writing is oddly familiar. I know it, but at first I don't know to whom the script belongs. I think, "why do I know this writing?" It's just a brief moment, but for some reason I hate that moment of knowing that I recognize the writing but I'm not certain whose it is. It's kind of an eerie feeling as if someone is screwing with me. Like it might be a serial killer dressed in a clown costume taunting me by mail before he stalks me in earnest and eventually sneaks into my house to leave my bunny boiling in a pot on the stove for me to discover. Yes, for that one tenth of a second before I recognize my own handwriting, it's that kind of thing that flashes through my mind. Is it just me, or does everyone else hate getting mail from themselves? I wish they would just let me send myself an e-mail. 

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Unusual Things I'm Thankful For

In the United States it's traditional to get together with family on Thanksgiving and share the important things you're thankful for before gorging yourself on a meal centered upon the large, dead carcass of the ugliest bird in North America. Every year everyone shares the usual platitudes about being thankful for family, friends and good heath. Duh! Who can't come up with that? When I decided to write this I set out to write a positive, uplifting post so that my loyal readers don't think that my every thought and written or spoken word are tinged with biting sarcasm. So without further adieu, here are some of the everyday things I am thankful for:

Satellite radio. I have over 150 stations to choose from. I can pre-program 30 of them, making them available to me at the touch of a single button. I don't ever have to listen to a radio commercial ever again. I can put my satellite radio on one station and drive my car clear across the country without ever changing the channel. All because somewhere, several miles above the Earth, is a giant satellite beaming the radio signal directly to my car. I don't care if they discover that these satellite waves, possibly going straight through my skull on their way to my radio, cause tumors. The trade off is so worth it. 

Scallops wrapped in bacon. In my opinion there is nothing else edible that can cause me to go into a swoon like scallops wrapped in bacon with a little toothpick through them. I highly recommend removing the toothpick before ingesting these wonderful little delicacies. The taste isn't half as good when half of a toothpick is scraping it's way down the inside of your esophagus. If there is a Nobel Prize for cooking somebody should get one for this idea. Now these are a food to base a holiday around!

The Name Game. You know the name game right? That little rhyming thing where you take any name and impose nonsense syllables upon it. With my name it goes like this: Philly Philly bo billy, banana fana fo Philly, me my mo milly, Philly! I didn't learn how to do this until I was 21 years old and it never fails to cheer me up or make me smile. I want to see everyone do the name game with their own name when you post a comment below. (Just for fun at home, try it with the name Ducky)

The interwebs. Thank you Al Gore for inventing it for us. Without it how would we ever find our perfect match using 29 personality variables?  Also without the interwebs I could never get the daily positive reinforcement for my ridiculous thoughts and theories that I get when I check my blog and see how many page views I got. I was always that kid that caused your teachers and parents to say, "Don't laugh, you'll only encourage him." Thank you all for encouraging me. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

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The Curse of Bradley Cooper

People Magazine recently named their Sexiest Man Alive, and again, it wasn't me. Bradley Cooper?!!? Puh- leeze! I scrape stuff off my shoe that's sexier than Bradley Cooper. Have you noticed they always choose actors? Not once have they considered a blogger. First of all, I wasn't even interviewed. How fair is that? Go on, compare his picture, which you have to Google to even find, while I put mine right here for all to see, with mine in the top left of the page. His picture, my picture. His picture, my picture. His picture, my picture. I've been doing that all night and I still don't see it. Sexier than me? Who is doing the rating? Ray Charles? Stevie Wonder? (Why aren't there famous blind women?) I'm mean, c'mon, as far as I know he is completely unemployed right now. Meanwhile I have a full time job with health insurance and everything!

And how about Facebook, the social convention by which all human value is measured. Does Bradley let you be his Facebook friend? No, of course not. He is snooty. Snooty? Snotty! I of course will quote Ferris Bueller and let you be my Facebook friend. Check. Scoreboard, Phil again. And talk about snotty! He goes by his full name, Bradley. He's too good for Brad isn't he? Do see me going by Philip? Of course not. The Philip Factor would sound stupid and snotty. 

Raise your hand if you've read Bradley Cooper's blog? Of course you haven't! He doesn't have a blog. I do. I have a blog, a full-time job, health insurance and the ability to use what I've learned about personal hygiene. Cooper? No, no, no, and a big NO on the hygiene. Ask yourself this, who have you spent more time reading about this year, him or me? We all know the answer to that. You've been to my blog at least once or twice a week. How many times a week do you go out of your way to read what Bradley Cooper has to say? In fact, you see my picture everytime you visit this blog. Because of that you've definitely looked at my picture more than you've looked at Bradley Cooper's this year too. Do you know why? That's right, because I'm sexier. Case closed. In fact my argument here is so watertight that I doubt Bradley (read with sarcastic tone) will even attempt to refute it. In fact Bradley, if you disagree, feel free to post a comment here stating your case. 

Addendum: I had written all of the above last night with the intention of posting it this morning. Today I got up, took my dogs out, and as I re-entered my home I turned for a moment and as I turned back, the door I had just opened, much to my surprise, decided to meet me halfway, causing a 1 1/2 inch gash in my forehead that required four stitches. Bradley, you and your witchy ways may have delayed me from posting this, but I was not to be deterred. My hope is that the new scar on my forehead will only increase my ruggedly, handsome good looks to the point that People Magazine will see the error of their ways and I will supplant you. 

If you enjoy my nonsense and want to support my bid for Sexiest Blogger Alive you can subscribe to The Phil Factor on your Amazon Kindle, follow me on Twitter @ThePhilFactor and of course, scroll down a little and click the Facebook "Like" button below.

The Fountain of Youth

I've discovered the Fountain of Youth. We'll, I didn't really discover it. Someone else did and told me about it, and now I'm telling you. Well, I'm not telling you NOW. If I told you in the first paragraph you wouldn't continue reading would you?  We all want to live forever though don't we? I know I do, as long as I get to keep all my mental and physical faculties intact. Since I can't imagine myself any other way, I'm pretty sure that's how it's going to work out.

I like my teeth. I use them almost every day. They keep my face from caving in, and damn it although it may sound vain,  that's important to me. So, I've always been good about brushing my teeth at least twice a day because I hope to keep my real teeth for as long as I keep all the other parts of my body alive and functioning. According to some real, medical research I've been reading, (yeah, when motivated by the desire to live forever I'll read anything) your teeth, and mine, are important to survival, and not just because they allow us to eat food, which I'm led to believe is also important to survival. Maybe I should re-phrase that, the teeth themselves aren't all that important to survival, except for the eating part. It's the care and maintenance of said chompers which leads to a longer lifespan. 

About 5 years ago I did one of those surveys on www.realage.com to see how long I would live, and much to my surprise, how often I flossed my teeth had a significant impact on how long I would live. So, I dedicated myself to flossing at least weekly. Then about two years ago at my annual cleaning the dental hygienist said I needed to floss more because I was getting, get this, "calculus" between my teeth. Oh the horror! Calculus! I was so not a math major in high school. I barely passed trig, so I sure as hell was not ready to deal with Calculus in my 40's. I will do anything to avoid math, and calculus between my teeth did not sound good. So I re-dedicated myself to my grueling weekly flossing regimen. 

Ok, as brilliantly funny as my blog posts are, this is getting long, so I'll get to the point. I recently read that flossing your teeth daily will add 3-5 years to your life. To recap, I want to live forever, which means that eventually you'll all fall off my Facebook friend list, and hopefully you'll stipulate in your will that your children continue to read my blog. What it also means is that I'm actually flossing my teeth daily. In fact, I thought to myself, if flossing your teeth daily helps you live up to 5 years longer, I'm going to floss twice a day so I can live 10 years longer. That's right, my plan is to push the upper limits of human longevity as far as possible. Once my gums stop bleeding and my flossing muscles are no longer sore, I'll up my flossing to three times daily and then maybe four, with the longevity benefit obvious. You do the math. 90 years from now when I'm President and I  open the time capsule at the Smithsonian in D.C. and a copy of this blog post is there I think my point will have been made. 

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We're All Gonna Die!

“We’re all gonna die!” It seemed very funny to shout that out during a fire drill my freshman year at Cicero High School. It was still funny to my friend John Martin and I after we realized our only consequence would be a stern talking to by the principal. Yes, when confronted I dragged my friend into it. “He dared me to,” I said. What had really happened was that in the midst of 2000 students being evacuated from our high school I had turned to my friend John and said, “Do you dare me to yell ‘We’re all gonna die’?”  Of course John took me up on my offer and unwittingly became my accomplice when I caught heat from the man.  At the time I was young and foolish with no concept of my own mortality. I thought death was something to be laughed at. I no longer think death is funny. 

I generally still do not believe in my own mortality, but I’m starting to hedge my bets in this regard. Just because it happens to other people doesn’t mean it will happen to me. As my mother always said, “If your friend jumped off a bridge does that mean you have to also?” Much to my mother’s eternal satisfaction I am answering NO. If you want to die, go ahead and do it, but I refuse to be a follower. 

My problem is that earlier this week scientists with a telescope larger than a third world country notified us that an asteroid would be buzzing our planet last night close enough to knock some branches off of the trees in my back yard. I may not believe that I am going to die, but I’m not completely unrealistic. I will admit than an asteroid, in most cases, is larger than me and if it hit me in the head I would have a hard time surviving that. Yes, I know I have a large head, but not large enough that it has it's own gravitational pull. Yet.

Who I’m really angry at is the scientists. Damn them and their ever inquisitive minds! Why did they have to tell me this? Did anyone here really want to know that getting hit by an asteroid the size of Rhode Island is a possibility? In this case ignorance was bliss. Why couldn’t the scientists just leave well enough alone? My entire life I’ve been at the top of the food chain and that has been a pretty secure feeling. Now this. Now I have to spend the rest of my life staring up at the night sky looking for black holes and asteroids. In general I figure that if a really big one hit the Earth I’d be fine as long as it didn’t hit me directly in the head. 

Maybe all this is why the scientists developed the male birth control pill. They just figured that if “we’re all gonna die” then we might as well start gettin’ jiggy with it. Yes, that’s right, I said jiggy. I'm bringin' jiggy back.  In fact, that’s probably the new science geek pick up line. “Hey baby, you know we might get hit by an asteroid any minute, so why don’t you just go ahead and get jiggy with me?” Obviously I'm cool enough to say jiggy, but the scientists aren't. When I'm elected President, or Sexiest Man Alive, whichever comes first, I'm going to pass a law stating that if the scientists see an asteroid headed our way unless they have some way to make the entire planet duck out of the way they should just shut the hell up.

 

If you enjoy my nonsense and want to make sure you don't miss an episode until the big one hits, you can subscribe to The Phil Factor on your Amazon Kindle and follow me on Twitter @ThePhilFactor.  And if you're a Cicero High School alum click the Facebook like button below so we can continue to reminisce together about our high school highjinks. And tell John I said Hi.

Daylight Stupid Time

Yeah, I posted this before. And I'm going to keep posting it until it changes. Yes, it's happening again. This weekend, in case you didn't know, Daylight Savings Time ends.First off, why isn't it called daylight spending time since we are using more daylight in the summer months?

I don't know if other countries do this, and I know that all of the states in the U.S. don't abide by it. Daylight Savings time is when we move our clocks forward an hour in the spring and move them back an hour in the fall. I think it was created about 100 years ago to give farmers more daylight in which to do their work in the fields. Call me crazy, but why the hell didn't someone just suggest that the lazy ass farmers drag themselves out of a bed a little earlier each day? Because those cud chewing, overall wearing, udder jerking lay abouts can't be bothered to set their alarm clocks we are all stuck changing time. I don't know if anyone else noticed, but about 7 or 8 years ago the U.S. Congress, in another colossal waste of their time and our tax dollars, extended daylight savings time by a few weeks on either end. At this point the farmers (except the creepy Amish ones) all have electricity and alarm clocks, which may not have been the case 100 years ago. Reportedly the reason Congress is doing this is to save energy. How will changing our clocks twice a year save energy? Don't we set our thermostats and use heat based on the outdoor temperature, not how light out it is? I'd like to save the energy I expend changing my damn clocks! I'd like Congress to tell me when I get that back. Congress is again proving to be the biggest collection of morons outside of...well...I guess I can't think of a bigger collection. Why doesn't Congress set their alarm clocks an hour earlier so they can get up early and get more of this important work done? I for one am not going to go for this stupid daylight savings time thing anymore. I don't work at a farm or for Congress, so I told my boss that for 6 months I'll be to work an hour early or late, however it works out. When I'm elected President, or Sexiest Man Alive, whichever comes first, this is going to change.

If you enjoy my nonsense and need something to do in that extra hour this weekend you can subscribe to The Phil Factor on your Amazon Kindle and follow me on Twitter @ThePhilFactor.

I Am Pro-Choice! (It's not what you think)

As the political races are getting into high gear I thought I'd come out with one of my most important political statements. I AM PRO CHOICE. No, not in the political hot potato sense of the phrase. My personal, political and religious beliefs aren't fervent enough to hold up to public scrutiny. But I AM PRO CHOICE. Here is the choice that I want: 

When I walk into a public restroom, I would like the opportunity to choose if I want to dry my hands with a paper towel, or if I want to stand there like a dope rubbing my hands together under the pathetically underpowered air dryer. Whose hands do these things actually dry? Don't we all just end up wiping our hands on our pants as we walk out anyway? If you actually want your hands dried by these machines you'd have to stand there long enough that anyone you came with would probably think you had escaped out of the bathroom window. If you actually use a hand dryer to full effect everytime you use a public restroom you'll probably waste hours of your life each year and in the long run waste a significant portion of your finite time on Earth rubbing your hands together under what amounts to nothing more than the same breeze you'd get if you just walked around waving your hands in the air. The air dryers are fine for anyone who wants to save trees, but I resent the places that have made the choice for you and don't provide any type of paper towels at all, forcing you to use the hand dryer, or worse yet, trying to dry your wet hands with toilet paper that will only tear and stick all over your hands. In fact, I feel so strongly about this that if a restaurant actually posted a sign saying that they add 50 cents to every bill to cover the cost of planting trees to replace the trees cut down to make the paper towels in their restroom I would patronize that restaurant for every meal. 

When I become President, or Sexiest Man Alive, whichever comes first, I'm going to pass a law....

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Occupy This!

Aaaah! Thank goodness thousands are sitting around on the sidewalks and in the parks in the biggest cities' financial districts all over the world. I'm feeling better about my 401k already. Yup, there's nothing better to save the world economy from doom than sitting around on your ass with cardboard signs. I'm pretty sure that must be how the Roman Empire was built.

Hmmmm...I wonder who the brain trust is behind this movement? How did that meeting go? "Let's see, we have no jobs, and we want jobs. What's the best way to fix that? I know, let's go sit around in the street! That will look great on my resume!"  Looking back on world history how many problems have been solved by doing nothing instead of something? American Revolution: sitting, or throwing tea in the harbor? (Or if you're in Boston it's the "haahbah")  Berlin Wall: Did they sit next to it, or did they knock it down? Capturing Bin Laden: Did our troops go to the Middle East and sit down until Bin Laden surrendered? Let's see...where have we seen the "I don't like what's going on so I'm going to sit down right here until someone gives me what I want" attitude? Oh that's right! That's how 4 year olds try to solve problems! Now if the Wall St. protesters would just hold their breath until they get what they want I'm pretty sure we could knock a few percent off the unemployment rate at the same time. 

Yeah, I'm thinking that if a Fortune 500 company offers a job to any one of those "protesters" they would be suiting up and toeing a company line in a high rise on Wall St. in about two minutes. I wonder how long these sitting outdoors protests are going to last in New York when the first snow falls in about two weeks. I have a message for all of the Wall St. protesters who are reading my blog on their iphones as they sit in the street: Get out of the way you morons. Everyone who can fix the economy is trying to get to work and you're slowing them down, and thus by extension, slowing the economic recovery with your stupid "protest." Sitting down is not a protest. I'm sitting down right now and I'm not protesting anything. Well, actually, I'm protesting the fact that not enough of you are subscribing to The Phil Factor on your Amazon Kindle.

If you enjoy my nonsense and want to support my sit down protest you can subscribe to The Phil Factor on your Amazon Kindle and follow me on Twitter @ThePhilFactor. And don't forget to click the Facebook share button. That will show those Wall St. types!

 

The United States of Oprah

Oprah has a new t.v. show starting next week. And it's on every freaking night. Is it just me, or did every else think to themselves, "Oh my God! I thought we just got rid of her. What the hell else can she possibly have to say?"

Oprah Winfrey is arguably the most famous person in America. Oprah Winfrey could probably buy Switzerland and have enough money left over to order a pizza. If George W. Bush likes a book, it's probably by Dr. Suess. If Oprah Winfrey likes a book it becomes a bestseller. (I sure hope she likes my blog) If you help Oprah lay off the carbs for a few weeks, you can get your own t.v. show and become a pop culture icon. If Hollywood ever decides to update the ancient fable of King Midas as a movie they could just substitute Oprah's life story. Why she doesn't just ride to her public appearances in a Popemobile is beyond me. Was this paragraph redundant? Absolutely. Was it superfluous? I think not.

You get the point. Oprah is big, and not in the way she used to be. Her popularity has reached heights that few celebrities ever have known. Barack Obama can only dream of a public consensus like that. My question is, what's stopping Oprah from running for the presidency? If the population is, as they say, 52% women, how could she be stopped? Scary thought huh? Then again, I might not be opposed to Oprah as President. Think about it...with her money she could bail out the U.S. economy without batting an eyelash. And can you imagine the State of the Union address when she says, "To help stimulate the economy...(dramatic pause)...everyone in the United States gets a new car!" In fact, I hope Oprah does become President because that would mean we would probably see her on t.v. a lot less. 

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

 

Willy Wonka for the iGeneration

"The post-Cold War kids laid claim to AIM, LOL, OMG, yo, BRB, Space, colon, dash, closed parentheses. We sat at our laptops and typed away, and found that we each had something to say. Web-logged our fears, our hopes, and dreams. Individuated by digital means."-from "iGeneration" by MC Lars

Steve Jobs and his products defined a generation. More than the old labels that said some age group or another was "Generation X" or "Generation Y", Steve Jobs and his partner Steve Wozniak, made us all, to borrow a phrase from sarcastic rapper McLars, the iGeneration. News coverage of his passing has been ubiquitous this week. I've heard a variety of reactions ranging from sadness to "why is everyone upset? He was just a guy that ran a company." 

Steve Jobs was more than "just a guy who ran a company." He was our real life Willy Wonka, creating wonders in his chocolate factory that we never imagined but suddenly couldn't live without. A quiet recluse who fiercely guarded his private life, but then when he had a new Wonka Bar or Everlasting Gobstopper to introduce he would emerge from his castle in his loafers, jeans and black turtle neck to show us how his new, wonderful creation worked, kind of how as a kid your Dad would take you down to his workshop to show you his new gadget or shiny power tool. The secrecy that surrounded the new inventions coming from  Apple offices and factories kept all the other tech companies' Mr. Gates Slugworth just one step behind. I wonder if the workers at Apple all look like Oompa Loompas....And damn it, wouldn't we all love to have been his Charlie Bucket? But alas, who but a man with the imagination of a child could create the wonders he did? 

Steve Jobs may not have created the internet, but he gave us the internet in a multitude of ways from the first Mac to iPods to the iPhone4S. His inventions gave us the world in ways we never thought possible. And his Pixar Animation Studios gave us Woody and Buzz Lightyear whose motto "To infinity and beyond!" seems to perfectly capture what Steve Jobs thought possible. In my whimsical imagination I like to fantasize that before his physical body succumbed to cancer Steve somehow created one last amazing gadget that allowed him to upload his consciousness, his electrical brain wave patterns, to "the cloud" and that somewhere Steve Jobs is flowing through the information superhighway and able to see all the joy his creations brought to the world. 

As a related aside you can download the song "iGeneration" by MC Lars from of course the iTunes store. And if you enjoy my nonsense you can use your Wonka Bar to subscribe to The Phil Factor on your Amazon Kindle or follow me on Twitter @ThePhilFactor.

Rules For Choosing Your Facebook Pic

More than our driver's license photo, the Facebook picture is the face we show the world. That being the case, why do so many people screw it up? If you want friends and family to find you, is a picture of your left eye and forehead is going to help? Maybe a profile picture of your cat is the best way for prospective employers to say to themselves, "A cat? Well if this person has a cat they must be the kind of self-confident, go-getter we need on our staff immediately!"  

I know choosing just the right photo to is of crucial importance, so based on my extensive knowledge and experience at having an opinion, I've compiled these rules to help you put your best face forward.

1. If you're under 21, I think the 'standing in front of the bathroom mirror holding your phone out' picture is required, especially after every new haircut. If you're a girl under 21 you must never appear in a Facebook picture alone. Get a friend and lean back holding your phone out. Wearing sunglasses is recommended. Who am I kidding, no one under 21 is reading my blog. Hell, no one under 21 even knows what a blog is. To them a blog might as well be a vinyl record album.

2. When to choose the pet photo as your profile pic? A) when your pet is a near and dear part of your life, B) When you want to make sure no one searching for you will ever find you unless you have the world's most unique name, C) If an employer you're applying to is in a pet related industry, D) If you actually look like that, or E) Never, there's no good reason to portray yourself as an animal! Have some confidence! If someone is looking for you on Facebook they already know what you look like. Stop trying to hide like you're in a witness protection program run by dogs and cats.

3. The "I'm a fun person" photo. This is usually you in a Hawaiian print shirt holding a drink on a beach, boat, and/or surrounded by people. What a statement. This says that you're a fun, sociable person who has lots of friends and is always on the go doing something exciting. You know we don't believe that right? We can tell it was taken in 1998, the last time you were at a party like that. Yeah, we know this because we all put up the same picture at one time or another. We know that you, just like us, is home on Friday night scrolling through your week of Tivo'd shows, camping out on Facebook and nodding off from a glass of wine. 

4. The kids photo: Awwww....how cute! Now we know you have no life outside of schlepping your kids to soccer practice and school concerts. And have you ever noticed most parents only have pictures of their kids when they're under 10 years old? That's because none of us are all that thrilled to have them anymore once they've grown into teenagers.

5. The couple photo: When you're married, this is of course always acceptable, unless you have multiple spouses in which case you should probably stick with the solo photo for recruitment purposes. The couple photo when you're dating? Oh you're so in love and they're the one! Are you kidding me? How often will that stay on your page for very long? 

If you enjoy my nonsense and want to be in my Facebook picture you can subscribe to The Phil Factor on your Amazon Kindle and follow me on Twitter @ThePhil Factor.