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One day in the late 1980s, the minions of hell conspired to figure out another way to make life unbearable for humankind. Anyone who studies demonology or has a passing interest in Buffy the Vampire Slayer would surmise that it was the demon Dantalion who spearheaded this campaign against humans. He quite possibly visited the Schering-Plough pharmaceutical company and imparted his demonic knowledge of science to the researchers there and helped them develop a nasty little product that we know as Afrin.

Afrin is a nasal decongestant spray that works by shrinking the blood vessels in your nasal sinuses that get swollen whenever you get a cold or a sinus infection. Sinus congestion/stuffy nose is a pain to endure, especially when you're trying to sleep at night. On the surface, Afrin seems to have many positives:

• Works within seconds
• Lasts for twelve hours
• Is fairly inexpensive
• Can be obtained without a prescription
• Has a phallic-shaped applicator tip

But freedom to nose-breathe does not come without a price. The blood vessels in the nasal sinuses will eventually expand and you're left with the feeling that your breathing COULD be just a little smoother if you had that liquid gold sprayed up your nose. Then you spray more up there and your brain releases some endorphins as a reward for allowing more oxygen to get to it. Soon you find yourself buying multiple bottles of Afrin to keep in your gym bag or the office "just in case." When you leave for work in the morning, you incorporate Afrin into your mental list of things you need before you walk out the door. Your friends try to take it away from you, but they soon regret it when they see the look of desperation on your face as you claw their face.

A lot of people who use Afrin soon develop a dependency, resulting in a condition called Rebound Nasal Congestion. Ask anyone who has used Afrin and you're sure to find one or two people who went through the nightmare of trying to get off of the stuff. My advice is to avoid it if you can.

Meanwhile, Dantalion and his subjects at Schering-Plough are looking at you through their crystal ball and laughing as they count your money and keep a tally of your days of dependency on a little chalk board they keep around just for the hell of it.

I like to pick out a DVD series or a fun video game to keep myself entertained whenever I feel like I'm going to be sick from a cold or flu. I felt one nasty cold coming on last week, so it became a toss-up between Alias: Season 4 and Professor Layton and the Curious Village for the Nintendo DS. The video game won out for the sheer fact that I hate getting up to switch DVDs. Professor Layton and the Curious Village is a brain teaser type game, featuring animation similar to that of The Triplets of Belleville and over 135 puzzles to solve. It looked like a cute little distraction.

After the first few puzzles, this little gem popped up and caused the biggest brain fart since the time I was naming off the Von Trapp children in my evening prayer and forgot Kurt:

Puzzle No. 033 : Light Which One?

You have only one match left. You want to light the room with an oil lamp (LAMP), start a fire to warm the room (FIREPLACE), and heat your bathwater (TUB). In order to complete all of the above actions, which of these should you light first?

I'll list the answer at the end of this entry. It was a real noodle scratcher for me and I was suddenly wishing that I'd paid more attention in school. The puzzles get progressively harder, so you can imagine how encouraging it was for me to know that it would only get worse from that point.

After fucking lots of circuit boys during my brief stint as a top years ago, I always thought that something that looks cute and juvenile is always easy to conquer. But after playing going 33 rounds with Professor Layton, I'm starting to rethink my strategy.

It might interest you to know that it is not beyond the realm of possibility to find similarities between certain video games and circuit boys. Not only do they both seem child-like and conquerable, but you can also find E on both of them. Naturally, I'm referring to E as ecstasy on the always-tweaked-out circuit boy and E as the ESRB "everyone" rating on the video game box.

The answer to the puzzle? It's the match, of course.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the human condition is how we respond when something threatens people or things that are close to us. I once got into a heated argument with a six year old boy who pushed my niece off of a teeter totter during a play date at the park. It was more of a one-sided argument, starring me as the crazy uncle who shouted "YOU APOLOGIZE! YOU APOLOGIZE!" while chasing a frightened little boy who (for reasons beyond my comprehension) chooses not to play at the park anymore.

The same protectiveness instinct came about when my boyfriend, who I will now refer to as "the BF," told me about his experience running for a position in the Valpo Law Student Bar Association. The BF's sexual orientation is common knowledge on campus, primarily because he's possibly one of the only openly gay students there. This was made clear during the Barrister's Ball when practically everyone told us that the BF was possibly the only openly gay students there.

Apparently, various members of the Valpo Law SBA have been scrutinizing the BF's movements and surreptitiously striking down any attempt to have a successful campaign:

• He was approached by a member of the SBA, informing him that he could not hand out leaflets... even though other favored candidates were handing out leaflets in the same area. They did tell him that he was free to put leaflets in all of the lockers. But here's the kicker: All of the lockers were removed at the beginning of the semester!

• The current SBA held a forum so that candidates could give speeches, but the BF got half as much time to speak as the girl he was running against.

• The BF's opponent put up a poster with her picture on it and at had the phrase "Giving it to you STRAIGHT" at the bottom.

It's times like this when I feel like ripping my shirt off like the incredible hulk, stampeding over to where the cunt lives, shaking her senseless, and screaming "WHAT THE FUCK, YOU FUCKING HOMOPHOBE? WHY'D YOU PUT UP THAT POSTER? GAAAAAH!" Then while she's cowering in the corner, I'd redecorate her apartment, make a pomegranate martini, flirt with her boyfriend, and leave.

I read some of the minutes of Valpo SBA meetings and the parts that didn't put me to sleep indicated that the primary function of the SBA is to organize and plan social events. The last sentence in the "about us" section of the Valpo SBA homepage reads:

SBA committees are responsible for many activities at Valparaiso, and SBA members help in planning annual events such as the orientation program kickoff picnic, graduation activities, and VUSL's famed annual softball tournament, the Cardozo Cup. Each year the SBA plans the events for Law Week in February, which include an Honors Luncheon, Bar-A-Thon, and the Barrister's Ball.

If half of the things you do in the year involve parties and other social gatherings, why WOULDN'T you want a gay person on your team? Are they afraid that the gay person will have enough sense to not have the chocolate fountain at the Barrister's Ball? Why would the BF want to be a part of such a disorganized group anyway? It's like wanting to place first in an Ann Coulter lookalike contest.

Perhaps it's silly of me to be so concerned about something over which I have no control. It's just that when the BF told me about his problems (especially the obvious dig about his homosexuality), I had a feeling similar to that of when the little boy pushed my niece in the park. We all want what's best for the ones we care about, but there's nothing wrong with entertaining a bit of radical gay pride in these situations.

In all fairness to the Valpo Law SBA, they do discuss other important issues such as the noise coming from the library stairs.

I attended the Valparaiso School of Law Barrister's Ball with my boyfriend a few weeks ago. It's a black tie event where law students can mingle and schmooze with their peers as well as get their names and faces noticed.

At first I was excited because I hardly ever get to wear a tuxedo, and the last black tie event I attended was an Eyes Wide Shut themed gay orgy at a fancy hotel suite.

Excitement soon turned to horror when I saw that 90% of the attendees were dressed like they were going to a New Jersey high school prom. I hadn't seen so many women with acrylic shoes since my uncle took me to a strip club on the military base.

Here are some of the highlights of the evening:

• There was an open bar - and by an open bar, I mean AN open bar. With about 2000 grad students in attendance, you can imagine how long the bar line was. This caused a lot of people to not tip and to triple fist, both of which are extremely high-class... if you live in Arkansas.

• The much-touted sit-down meal consisted of roasted chicken, mashed potatoes, broccoli, and baked ziti. Mashed potatoes and baked ziti shouldn't be served in the same meal, much less at a black tie event. The organizers did make sure that there was plenty of coffee to drink during the meal. I had to hunt down a member of the wait staff to get my water glass refilled, but I never feared for lack of coffee!

• The DJ was a joke because he just stood there the whole time with his arms crossed and his CD collection (a CD collection that spanned 20 years) set to "random." We were only able to dance to three of the songs that the DJ played in his three hours of DJing. You just can't dance to Sean Kingston's Beautiful Girls because it uses the beat from Stand By Me and it's hard to get jiggy when you're thinking of Gordy pointing a gun at Keifer Sutherland.

• There was a chocolate fountain, because nothing says classy like a chocolate fountain! Not only is the chocolate extremely unhealthy due to the added oil or cocoa butter used to make the chocolate viscous, but you can also count on the fact that half of the people have stuck their dirty fingers in the fountain to taste it.

The actual highlight of the evening was being able to dance with my boyfriend. We were there together, he introduced me to all of his friends, and nobody called me a faggot to my face. I may be a tad over-critical about the evening, but the fact is that he went of his way to make sure that I was comfortable and that all my needs were met.

Sometimes you have to ignore little things like parts of the centerpiece falling into your food or the police coming inside the ballroom to ask people if they knew the gentlemen who'd passed out in the parking lot because he drank too much in the first twenty minutes of the ball. It's all about the big picture!

There is a reason why I'm blogging about this event that happened weeks ago. It's not just a random rant and tomorrow's entry will delve deeper into this subject.

I've known them for, like, seven years. So, just a little bit longer. I've just known them for a really long time, so... longer, just better friends. So... longer than you guys. So...

We all know someone like Penelope, and I have the distinct pleasure of being in the employ of one such individual. No matter what I say, my boss always seems to have done something slightly better. I once told him that I saw an ex boyfriend at a bar and I flirted with the guy he was with. My boss then said that he saw two of his boyfriends at a bar and their boyfriends ended up making out with him in the bathroom.

I once mentioned that I hurt my knee in yoga class and he had to outdo me by saying that he broke his leg in three places when he lost his balance doing Tai Chi, which he says is more relaxing than yoga.

Today my boss was telling one of his clients that he was published in a book.

His old apartment was featured in Spectacular Homes of Chicago, one of the books in the Spectacular Homes series published by Panache Partners. It's basically a yuppie version of MTV Cribs in book form that ultimately ends up collecting dust on some cocktail table of an angry divorcee who lives in Lincoln Park and doesn't let anyone wear shoes in her house because it'll scuff up the floors.

My boss went on about how "if you haven't been in a book, then you're just one of the little people." Refusing to let this fauxhawked, pants-too-tight-for-his-age-group version of Penelope outshine me for the thousandth time, I casually mentioned that I was also mentioned in a book:

"Um, my writing has been quoted in a book. It's written by a notable psychologist who specializes in adolescent cognitive potential."

I'd rehearsed that line a hundred times for cases such as this.

The Human Odyssey: Navigating the Twelve Stages of Life is an interesting book about human development, written by Dr. Thomas Armstrong. It explores life in stages, from pre-birth to death. If you read the section that deals with the transition from adolescence to early adulthood, you'll find a direct reference to my humble little blog where I discuss my own fears of moving away from my family in Houston to the seemingly scary city of Chicago.

The look on his face was priceless. It was as if we were both competing in the Junior Miss pageant and I follow his modern ballet routine with a double fire baton spectacular.

I am prepared for a rebuttal if he tries to criticize Dr. Armstrong's book. It's currently ranked #37,264 on Amazon.com's bestseller list, while Specacular Homes is ranked #437,710.

I try to toot my own horn about this particular citing, mostly because I'm just one of many references in Dr. Armstrong's book, but there are times when you just have to stand up, flip your imaginary hair, and put a stop to a one-upsman.