Always be aware of where your hands are at. Men that are manly don’t make a habit of letting their hands swish wildly about when walking or talking. Be cautious of hand gestures and placement that might appear effiminate, especially the hand on the hip, or for that matter, both hands on your hips.

Instead, try placing your hands in your pockets or near your crotch area. Occasionaly adjusting yourself in public, scratching inappropriately, and hunching forward are all preferred to flailing hands that seem to be directing traffic or trying to get the same sex’s attention.

Mouth Shut

Don’t talk about the fact that you like Grey’s Anatomy more than Football. Actually, don’t talk at all unless you have something to say that sounds complicated or is about sports. When surounded by a group of manly men, instead of opening your high-pitched mouth, just nod and grunt. Don’t look overly interested in anything unless it is a pair of boobs stuffed into a pretty pink sweater, then you can look interested, but once again, it’s best to keep your mouth shut. You big dandy.

MetroSexual No!

Whoever started telling men that they should be buffed and combed and gelled was a big retard. Men should be able to stumble out of bed and in the car in less than 20 minutes. When did guys start spending more time on their grooming than women? Well STOP IT. We don’t have to do all of that. The whole point of being attracted to the opposite sex is that they are OPPOSITE of us, we aren’t competing with them. They should be on display and you should fade into the background with your grey shirt and your worn blue jeans. Think Ruggedly handsome, not manicure and pedicure. This disheveled, not combed and groomed. Be clean and tidy, but don’t smell like you are wearing 8 types of lotion, facial moisturizer, sunscreen, hair gel, hair spray, cologne, etc.

Eat in Public

A manly man doesn’t waste time on salad. What a waste of good stomach space! Stick to the four major food groups: Beer. Burgers. Wings. Nachos. If it sounds girly, peach bellini apple tini, then it probably is. Behind closed doors eat whatever you want, or if you are already married and your wife wants you to lose that beer gut, then cut back on the suds, but other than that, we are carnivores, ravenous ones at that, so put down your salad fork and dig in with your hands!

Talking to Women

What’s there to talk about? Them! Stop talking about how much you love Grey’s Anatomy and LOST, instead just grunt and nod on occasion and then tell her she’s beautiful and that you love spending time with her. Then, at every chance you get try to put the moves on her. She’ll act like she don’t like it, but every woman likes to be desired, pursued, wanted, needed. Then when she slaps you away act all sheepish and tell her she is irresistable, like a piece of chocolate. Women understand chocolate and the desire it creates within them. If you follow these steps be prepared to fight the women off with a stick, I recommend a wiffle ball bat, it stings just a little and they get the idea that you mean business.

Play Something

Some men like to play video games, others like to play physical sports. You’ll score more points, no pun intended, playing real sports, but some guys will give you man-cred for being able to play games like Halo and Syphon Filter really well. However, whatever you do, do not mention World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy. Do not launch into a bunch of gibberish about how powerful your online character is or how you are a destroyer in the third underworld of Deviathor. No one, and I mean NO ONE, cares about this so keep it to yourself. The only type of fantasy that really scores you manly points is Fantasy Sports like Fantasy Football or Fantasy Hockey. Whenever the opportunity arises, say things like, Yeah, I LOVE fantasy football or How bout that game on Saturday night? Invariably someone will pop up with a million things to say and all you have to do is sit back and grunt and scratch and you are in.

Confidence

No matter what you are doing, be ready to back it up with confidence. Don’t let people laugh at you or make fun of what you believe to be important. So maybe you think the Steelers are better than the Cowboys, you have a right to your backassward opinion and people should respect that. Standing up for yourself is important, however, it’s best to refrain from controversial topics if you can keep from it. Instead, stick with the grunting.

Lead or Follow

We’ve all seen the bumper sticker that says, “Lead, follow, or get out of the way…” No truer phrase has ever been spoken! When you are in a group, find the leader, determine if you can take over and if you can’t, be prepared to follow wholeheartedly. No one likes a whiner.

Go ahead and print this out and post it in your cubicle or wherever you play World of Warcraft or on top of your Pride and Prejudice DVD. Then come back often for more tips and tricks on How to Stay Manly Even When You Aren’t.

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When I was really young I went trick or treating one time. I was batman and I had one of those hideous plastic masks that you strapped to your face with a piece of elastic string that invariably stung when it was snapped into place and then the mask limited your breathing and visibility. That year I truly was “blind as a bat.”

Soon after my first trick-or-treating experience we became Christians and we shunned everything in the world that smacked even remotely of sin or wickedness. This was a part of Christianity that I wasn’t too happy with at such a young age. To be stripped of this delicious priviledge - a night of free candy and fun costumes - was about as cruel as being born in a third world country and forced to grow my own food. It was so unfair!

Fortunately, the Christian church created fall festivals for those of us kids who didn’t partake in this forbidden candy apple and we were allowed to dress up as Biblical characters and spend the night in a safe environment surrounded by parents, friends and God.

I didn’t lament my loss of Trick-or-Treating as a child and fully understood the evils that surround All Hallows Eve. If you know anything about religion and history then you may know that the Christian church merged our holidays with the pagan holidays. If you can’t beat them, join them right? I’d heard of this practice but I had never seen a Wiccan holiday calendar until one day at work I saw it on a coworkers screensaver.  Easter, Christmas, and Halloween are the most obvious collaborations and we can look at each of these and see the Pagan influence.

If you look closely at Halloween you will find that for Wiccans this is their new year.

“Samhain (Sow-win, Oct. 31), Witches’ New Year, marks the death of the God and his the arrival in the Land of Youth, where he opens the gates so the souls can revisit their loved ones. It is said to be the day when the walls between the worlds are to be the thinnest and when contact with one’s ancestors can tack place. It is celebrated with the Festival of the Dead. This is a time of reflection on the year and a celebration of our ancestors.

So, there you have it, a holiday that celebrates witchcraft but one that we’ve slapped a bag of candy on and turned into something sweet. I’ll admit it, when it comes right down to it I don’t see anything wrong with trick-or-treating, it is the intent behind an action that makes it bad, but that doesn’t mean that I won’t educate my children to the truth and the dark side of this nefarious holiday.

Personally, I like to celebrate this time of year by celebrating the coming of Fall. You might see a pumpkin at my house and some fall colors, but you won’t see anything that is specifically tied to Halloween.

What are your thoughts on the matter?

“I think that the people you have showed them to understand the concepts before they see the slides, but we are using these slides to teach people who aren’t familiar with the process and they don’t make much sense, they are all over the place.”

“Belinda has seen the slides and she is a new employee.”

“Well, Belinda understands machines and machine language, I understand people. My point is, I think these slides can be improved upon and I don’t want ‘good enough’ I want them to be ‘the best’.”

“Well, if you have time you can redo them, but we’ve spent so much time on them already I don’t think anyone else will have time to update theirs.”

At this point I went back to my desk and took the 18 slides that seemed to lack cohesion and made them brilliantly simple. I kept all the material and graphics and turned those 18 slides into 3 simple slides. I emailed them to my co-worker who is coordinating this large training project that we are putting together.

“I got your slides, I’m okay with this, they don’t look too different from the others and so you can use them.”

I was more than a little disappointed. I took something that stunk like a big turd and turned it into something that was clear, concise and smelled like a cinnamon bark candle from Bath and Body works. I worked a friggin’ miracle and she said “It’s okay to use them?”

I sent her an email back.

“Have you ever been given a ‘demotivation’ award?”

I’m so tired with everyone thinking things are “good enough” when just a little more creativity and hard work we can have “Awesome” or “Unbelievable”.

Have you heard of Mark Driscoll? He started a church in Seattle that has now grown to 7,000 people. I don’t normally get excited about mega Church’s, but I like what Driscoll is selling and I’m buying it!

This is not a clip or Vintage Jesus, this is a clip called Macho Man, check it out…

Rencently Hudson Productions released an awesomely produced study called Vintage Jesus. I’ve never seen a video series like it and if you want to get a quick preview then check out www.songofsolomon.com.

What I like about Mark Driscoll is how real he is and with the way our world is now days I think sometimes its necessary not to beat around the bush.  Check out this Youtube video entitled Biblical Oral Sex…

I don’t know about you, but I’m scouring Youtube and listening to all of his snippets. I also recently read a piece of one of his books A Radical Reformission: Reaching Out Without Selling Out and it was hilarious and funny. I was so skeptical at first because I rarely like faith-based non-fiction, but this book was actually something right up my alley.

So go now to www.songofsolomon.com and pick up a copy of Vintage Jesus.
 

Others chimed in and said, “Yep, when you know, you just know, you can’t explain it.”

I get that. Love isn’t something that is easy to explain. However, when do you know when it is ready to get a divorce? When the divorce rate is at 46% then you have to ask, “Are you sure you knew?, because from what I can tell, most people don’t know, they only think they know.”

Not hatin’ on love, I’m Just Sayin

Last night while watching reality tv and icing my elbows I decided to peruse a copy of “Details” magazine that had come to me by way of a free subscription. “Details” is similar to GQ in that it is a men’s fashion magazine that deals with issues such as, “Why you are better off if your boss is a tyrant”, “Is your new baby making you gay?”, “Can the average guy wear diamonds”, and “How pot went gourmet” - as you can see this magazine is marketed to engineers and rocket scientists.

I was flipping through the fluff when an article caught my eye. It was titled, “1 in 5 Has Herpes”. Last time I checked the population of America was 296,660,730. That means that 60 million Americans are walking around with herpes. As I read the article some things popped out at me and so I decided to quote them here not for shock value but for educational purposes. In my 29 years no one has really ever described to me what genital herpes looked like or felt like and really I had no idea how what all it entailed.

This is an excerpt from page 69 of the August issue of Details,

“By the next morning, however, it felt like my [privates] had been dipped in kerosene and set on fire. In the bathroom I discovered several bubbling, crusting sores on my penis. “

The article goes into more detail about the problems with the herpes, but I had already read enough to know that this was not a pleasant disease.

I continued to read the article and was shocked to read this:

“Thankfully, if you have the H-bomb in your pants, there’s no shortage of fellow sufferers willing to help you cope- or even copulate, if you’d like. From Istanbul to Bakersfield, millions of infectees are out of the closet and looking to party - through online dating services and support groups called H clubs, which arrange matches, set up cruises, or simply let memebers vent…

…The uprising of the once shunned Herpes Nation is admireable for its attempt to destigmatize the virus. But it’s also kind of cynical triumph for Valtrex and its maker, GlaxoSmithKline… The message, according to health experts and commentators, is not just I’m okay, your okay. It’s If I have it, it’s no big deal if you get it too. ‘I think the Herpes stigma is gone, ‘ says Adam Corolla, cohost of the syndicated radio call-in show Loveline. ‘The commercials where the chicks are wakeboarding and kickboxing don’t hurt herpes either. If you don’t know what the commercials are for, you’d be like, ‘Sign me up for this Shit’.”

I read this and I read it again and thought, “Are these guys taking drugs?” Apparently, yes, they are taking Valtrex every day for the rest of their lives to combat a very painful disease. What is worse is that they are making light of a very serious condition.

If you read Posted Note often then you know that I only occasionally jump up on my soap box. Most of what I post here is intended to be funny and entertaining, but when I read this I couldn’t help but feel sick to my stomach.

America has become such a backward society. The only time you are supposed to worry about the consequences is when you are in the fast food line. When it comes to sex, any type of sex, then you should be allowed to enjoy it consequences be damned. If you get pregnant, it is okay, just have an abortion. If you get a horrific disease, no problem, we have a 60 million others who will sympathize with you.

I don’t want sympathy. I don’t want people to put a happy face on my problems, I want to be informed and I want to know the consequences.