S O S

Help. Hv been kdnapped by blog trlls.
Frodo and Bernice are here 2.
Am sendng SOS via PDA tht Bernce
built with parts frm her iPod,
a spork, and 5 of my fillngs.
Ouch.
Do nt know where we r being
held, but judgng from smell and
guard accents, is either
remote Turkish prison or
New Jersey.
On plus side, foul
pollutants in air here hv
regrown body hair lost
2 duck mite infestation.
Frodo no longer naked mole dog.
Not a plus 4 Bernice, who
now looks like Robin
Williams frm neck down.

Pls send help if cn.
Beware of trolls.
May the Blog be with u.

Pulling myself together?

I found a funny link for you, reader! This guy named Mike Reed had a blog that got caught up in one a them nasty "flame wars", so he drew cartoon characters of each of the trolls infesting his site and dubbed them Flame Warriors. Just click on the box labeled, "Flame Warrior Roster" and you'll get a humorous look at what makes them blog trolls sick (lol!) tick.

Frankly, I could use me a laugh. Still walking around as bald-bodied as an eel, and now (promise me you WON'T tell a soul about this) Ol' Bernice tells me she has the hots for me. I know! My dad's girlfriend! Not to mention his cousin! She came by the other day, said she wanted to check up on me and talk about trolls, and next's I know, she's rubbing her Lutefisk-scented press-on nails all over my hairless chest. Says she thinks I look like Vin Diesel. Key-riced! Woman's done lost her mind.

Not that I weren't flattered. Truth is, I been feeling mighty low since I lost my manlocks. Ask me, I look more like Homer Simpson.

Anyhows, I tell Bernice it just ain't right, and I sent her home to Pops, poor sumbich. That horndog of a cousin of his is gonna give him a heart attack one of these days.

After she left, I give myself a good talking to. "Melvin," I tell myself, "Melvin, you gotta pull yourself together. Time to get serious about the job hunt. Clothes all baggy 'cause ya lost yer man fur? Get over it, man! Buy a few outfits down at the Farm-N-Fleet. And what about Doris? You been avoiding her for too long. Maybe she think you look like Vin Diesel, too, now that your chest is as smooth as an action hero's shaved bottom."

So I'm heading to Farm-N-Fleet today with my last fifty dollars, and then I'm going to the Dairy Queen with my spare change to show off the new me to my darlin' Doris, who ain't never smelled of Lutefisk in all her days. Smells like a woman should -- a touch of Aquanet, a splash of Jean Naté, a hint of dill pickles, and a dusting of Dr. Scholl's foot powder.

She intoxicates me. Mmmmmmmmm.

Houston, we have a problem! The hair ain't growing back! Do you copy? The hair! On my back! Ain't! Growing back!

At first, I figured my body was just in total shock, having so suddenly been shorn of its protective, lush black manlilocks by my trusty Shear Magic® Electric Shearing Set.

(Before I continue, a big shout-out to my ma, God rest her hirsute soul, for bequeathing her Shear Magic® set to me in her will. Poor ol' ma had the hairiest shoulders I ever seen on a woman after "the change", but these clippers were more than a match for her post-menopausal wooliness. To this day, every time I see a sheep being sheared, I bawl like a baby. Ma! Maaaa! Maaaa!)

Anyhows, here it is some ten days since my doctor-ordered shearing so's I could get rid of my duck mite infestation, and I'm still bald in all the wrong places. Frodo's still nekkid too, though he seems to have grown fond of that stupid hoodie ol' Bernice crocheted for him.

Speaking of Bernice, I ain't seen hide nor hair (ha!) of her since her electrolysis treatment, so I'm still flying solo in my research on how to catch me a blog troll. I'm in contact with a blogger (who I won't identify here but thankee very much, my friend!) who has found software to track trolls to their source. Once she gets their IP addresses, she "outs" them so that other bloggers can pay it backward, filling each troll's email inbox to the brim with spam so that the troll gets a taste of his/her own medicine, so to speak.

In the meantime, I may have to put my plan to become a full-time troll hunter on hold. Gonna have to find me some paid work darned soon, now that I've sunk several hundred dollars in Rogaine products. But trolls, do not rest easy: I will continue my crusade.

See you next week. And if you have a chance before then, pray for me to St. John of Beverly (patron saint against hair loss). Ay-MEN!

Itchin' to catch me a troll

I've never been more miserable in my whole life. Frodo done gave me the duck mites. I'm covered with itchy, painful bites, and I look like a plucked chicken because my doctor made me shave my entire body, shoulders to toes. Turns out my coarse, manly body hair was preventing the duck-mite ointment from reaching my tender skin.

I feel like poor old Samson from the bible, my strength taken along with my curly man-locks. And now my clothes is all baggy, and I can't seem to get warm now that I've lost my bulky man-fur. After all, I been blessed with this God-given man-sulation ever since I was nine years old. I think my poor old bald body has gone into shock.

Anyhows, to keep my mind off my discomfort and jaw-dropping ugliness, I been trying my hand at researching troll hunting techniques. Bernice is on vacation at a spa where, ironically, she's having electrolysis treatments to remove unwanted body hair. Where the hair is, I don't even want to know.

This week, I found a pretty interesting strategy to drive away trolls from your blog. The idea is that trolls hate nothing more than the idea that their nasty spewings might actually result in something positive. So, every time a troll visits, you add a dollar to a "troll donation fund" that you give to a charity of your choice (preferably one the troll abhors). Can you imagine those poor trolls, their little brains trying to figure out whether they want to keep bothering you, knowing that each time they post, they are actually making the world a slightly better place? MOOWAH-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH! MOOWAH-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH!

See ya next week. I'm off to the pharmacy now. Gonna buy me a vat of Rogaine and try to kick-start my man-fur regrowth. May even put some on Frodo, the ugly son-of-a-bitch.

And if you get a troll anytime soon, feel free to make a donation to the new Melvin Body Hair Regeneration Fund!

Surrounded by parasites

I know she means well, ol' Bernice, and she just wanted to make up for giving Frodo the duck mites, but -- Kee-riced! What was she thinking when she crocheted him this "hoodie" thing? It was bad enough when he was just ugly. Now he looks ugly and stupid.

God bless her, though. Bernice also got me some real interesting info about how America's vultures, I mean our country's legal eagles, are starting to join the battle against blog trolls. This here article says that you can sue a troll even if you don't have a clue who he or she is. First you show that harm was done, then if the court thinks you got a case, you can get a court order to help find out the troll's true identity.

Now, I don't exactly cotton to the idea, cuz frankly I'm hoping to make some dinero with my troll-hunting biz. I don't wanna spend it all on blood-sucking-lawyer bills. But I'm figuring, one or two of the trolls get their nuts caught in the legal trap, it might just make the other pathetic blog parasites think twice afore they harass anyone else.

Well, that's all for now. I gotta go give Frodo another rubdown with the duck mite ointment, and then I'm gonna autoclave my hands.

The things we do for the ones we love, eh?

Frodo: the latest troll casualty

Bernice, my dad's cousin-slash-girlfriend, has been real helpful in my quest to become an Internet troll hunter. And so, I'm trying extra hard to forgive her for what happened to my darling Bichon Frise, Frodo, last week. I just have to keep reminding myself that Bernice is not the enemy: the true villains are the blog trolls.

Before
So, what happens is Bernice was over here for hours the other day, showing me some tricks of the trolling trade. Bernice found out that trolls ain't too creative or good at subterfuge. One thing is, they tend to telegraph their punches, so to speak. How? By their sorry-ass usernames or email addresses -- I swear, they may as well have flashing neon BLOG TROLL signs over their misshapen heads.

Bernice says a lot of trolls can't resist naming themselves after anime characters. If someone comments on your blog and has a "chu" in their name, be wary. They may be out to "get-chu"! (I told that one to Bernice, and she had to go home and put on a fresh Depends, poor thing!)

Other trolls use pseudonyms they steal from pop culture. Like, a troll might ID himself with a relatively normal-sounding name like Jonathan Crane. Type that name into Google and -- surprise! Jonathan Crane happens to be the true identity of the DC Comics villain, "Scarecrow". Holy lame username, Batman!

So, back to Bernice. She's telling me all this primo troll info the other day, and the whole time she's got my little Frodikins pinned down on her heavily-dimpled lap. And she's petting him like there's no tomorrow with her stubby little hands. (By the way, the other day I noticed that her hands are so fat that her fingers look like cocktail wieners with press-on nails, and now I can't even look at Lit'l Smokies without upchucking. I used to love them guys drowned in my Mama's famous grape jam BBQ sauce, goddammit.)

Next couple days, Frodo's all whiny, keeps rubbing himself on the carpet all frantic-like. So I take him to the vet, and she says, "Has your dog been playing by a lake?" Which, well, absolutely not because she knows I never let Frodo go outside. (Trained him to do his business on the toilet years ago, ya know. Otherwise his hair gets all nasty, and I pride myself on keeping him in Best in Show shape.) Anyhows, the vet goes, "Well, I can't figure out how else your dog got the duck mites so bad. He's covered in the little buggers." And I'm thinking: Bernice! That lutefisk-scented harlot done infested my baby!

After
Next I know, the dog doc's got the shaver out, and my Frodo's naked as the eyes of a clown. He looks like a mutated drowned rat. The ugliest, creepiest thing I ever seen, and when he tries to snuggle up to me, I throw up a little in my mouth.

I know Frodo's hair will grow back eventually, hiding his hideousness. Until then, I'll be using my loss of Bijon (and lit'l wiener) affection to keep my eye on the prize.
Be afraid, trolls. Be very afraid.

I been in bed all day with a nasty case of indigestion; took Pops to the VFW Father's Day smorgasbord yesterday, ya know. VFW Lodge motto: If we can see your face above your heapin' plate of food, you just ain't trying.

Pops is a cantankerous sumbich. My Father's Day gift every year is, I don't sock him in the kisser when he tells all his vet friends why he's called me "Butter Buns" since 1979. (That unfortunate incident involving me, the prom queen, and a well-greased powder blue rental tuxedo still gives me nightmares. That's all I'm saying.)

So anyhow, after I administered Pops' annual Father's Day Heimlich maneuver, he settled down and starts telling me how his "honey pie", Bernice, wants to help me hunt down blog trolls. He's always trying to get me to cotton to that woman of his. I don't know how he can stand to be around her. She always smells like lutefisk, cracks her gum until her dentures unhinge, and hands you soggy Kleenex straight from her cleavage if you sneeze. And you ask me? Dating your first cousin just ain't right.

But then he hands me this stuffed-to-the gills envelope from Bernice, filled with lilac-and-lutefisk scented papers. She's been doing her homework, I gotta hand it to her. Found me this hilarious "Are you an Internet Troll" quiz on another blog called Center of Gravitas. And she also had scrawled lots of stuff about something she called "cybertools" that you can use in troll hunting. Way over my head, I gotta admit. Pops says that Bernice, in addition to having thighs that can crack walnuts, is some sorta self-taught computer whiz.

Damn. I guess I got me a partner.