GMYH's 2005 Year in Review

As 2005 draws to a close, we here at GMYH have taken some time to reflect on the events of the last year. The ups, the downs, the geniuses, the ass clowns. So, without further ado, here are the GMYH Year-End Awards for 2005 (note: any albums or movies are only ones that I own or saw):

Best Album: Get Behind Me Satan by The White Stripes. Another masterpiece from the best rock & roll band in the world. It's certainly the most eclectic of their albums, but it works really well. With songs borrowing from the Beatles, Motown, Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, Queen, soul, the blues, C&W, bluegrass, and calypso, Get Behind Me Satan has foot-stompers, heartbreakers, and catchy pop songs. There is more piano and less guitar in this album than in past albums. Jack White's songwriting is as colorful and imaginative as it's ever been. After this album, there should be no doubt that Jack can successfully write any kind of song he wants: ball-busting rock, hook-laden pop songs, ballads, blues, bluegrass, Lady-Madonna-esque soulful rock, and toungue-in-cheek fun songs. Runner-Up: The Best Little Secrets Are Kept by Louis XIV. Louis XIV is not as well known as they should be, but this album is fantastic. It's harkens back to the days of early-'70s Bowie, the Kinks, T. Rex, and Mott the Hoople. The music is raunchy and sexual, earning a Parental Advisory sticker even though there is not one swear word to be found on the entire album. Get it. Now.

Best Movie: Wedding Crashers. Since I hate crying, I'm pretty sure that I only saw comedies this year. And by far, the best one was Wedding Crashers. With a cast of Christopher Walken, Vince Vaughan, Owen Wilson, and Will Ferrell, how can you go wrong? Runner-Up: The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Steve Carell is hilarious. So is the movie. Watch it. Love it.

Best New TV Show: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. For those of you who didn't see the 7 episodes of the show's debut season on F/X, be sure to tune in during 2006 for the second season. From trying to pick up women at an abortion rally to purposely serving minors at their bar and then getting invited to the prom, it's all hilarious. Runner-Up: Reunion. Sure, the acting is piss-poor and the costume designer apparently didn't realize that people didn't wear in 1987 what people wear in 2005, but it's still a pretty cool idea for a show. Every episode is a new year, starting in 1986 and building up to 2005, when the identity of a murderer is revealed. Too bad we'll never know how it ends.

Best Sports Story: The White Sox win the World Series. Finally Sox fans were able to feel like their team was the talk of the town. At least for a couple days. Runner-Up: Lance Armstrong wins his 7th Tour de France in a row, then bangs Sheryl Crow, probably doggy-style.

Worst Development: Fecal phantoms. Disturbing, rude, unreasonably expeditious, smelly, and downright filthy. All of these words describe the fecal phantoms that have infiltrated the fair men's bathrooms at my firm. For those of you who do not know what a fecal phantom is, the following four links should get you up to speed: 1, 2, 3, 4. Hopefully 2006 will usher in a new era of shits that last more than 45 seconds and wiping that lasts longer than 5 seconds. Runner-Up: Fox canceling Arrested Development and Reunion. The geniuses at Fox decided that it's a good idea to start their new shows 2 weeks before the MLB playoffs. This means that Fox does not air any new episodes for an entire month while the playoffs are going on. In turn, people forget about the shows that are not staples. Arrested Development is one of the funniest shows on TV. It should never have been canceled, and there's no reason another network shouldn't pick it up and run with it. Canceling Reunion now is like canceling 24 after 3pm. The whole premise of the show is that it's only going to last one season. For the few people that are watching it, for shit's sake, leave it on and take a loss.

Dumbest Fashion Trend: Wearing sport coats with jeans. Nothing evokes my will to stab a throat more than when I see some douchebag at a bar with a sport coat and jeans. It's not 19 fucking 88. You're not a young, hip executive trying to show "the man" that his stuffy suits don't mean he's better than you. You're a piece-of-shit, just-out-of-college worker bee who listens to Coldplay while driving the BMW daddy bought you because he was so proud you eeked your way out of Marquette in 4 1/2 years with a 2.6. I hate you and pray that you're sterile. Runner-Up: Those stupid-ass furry boots that females wear. They look like moon boots, which are only appropriate for Napoleon Dynamite to wear. No mom should allow her daughter to go out in public with pieces of Chewbacca's shit on her feet.

Best Public Humilation: The chorus of boos following Ashlee Simpson's awful performance at halftime of the Orange Bowl. She sounded like a cat being simultaneously raped and murdered. Man I hate that bitch, her recessive genes, and her jaw of steel. Runner-Up: Ashlee Simpson's SNL debacle. I know it happened in 2004, but man I hate that bitch. How she and Jessica came from the same parents is something I hope will be explained in 2006. And in a perfect world, said explanation would come only after Ashlee's death.

Best Day: June 11. I got married. Nuff said. Runner-Up: October 26. Sox win the World Series for the first time since 1917. Holla.

Here are some others:
Most Disappointing Movie: War of the Worlds. So the aliens were allergic to birds? That's it? Birds?
Best Character Actor Who Died: Vincent Schiavelli. I'll never forget they way he called on Lane Meyer in math class in Better Off Dead.
Ugliest Brain-Dead Chick: Terr--no, no, even I can't go that far. Actually, I can, but I've been told I'll be divorced if I do.
New TV Show That Should Already Be Canceled But Isn't: Stacked. Hey look, it's Pam Anderson wearing skimpy clothes and making tired jokes about how she's a moron with big boobs.
Most Badass Hurricane: Katrina. Man, that bitch was shrewd.
Most Shocking Military Surrender: Russia surrenders to Japan at Port Arthur, China (aka Lushun and Ryojun) during the Russo-Japanese War. Oh wait, my bad. That was 1905.
Best Funeral: Hunter S. Thompson.
Best $25,000 Pyramid Player Who Died: Nipsey Russell. That guy was a guaranteed 7 points every round. And God help us all if you got him in the final round--that $25,000 was as good as yours.
Best Celebrity Break-Up: Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson. No pre-nup = Nick is a genius.
Hottest Royal Wedding: Princess Margaret of Connaught marries Gustav, Crown Prince of Sweden. Damn, again, sorry. That was 1905.

Best Christmas Ever

Well, the firm holiday party went off without a hitch, or so I assume. Nothing quite like slamming Dewar's at noon on a Thursday with your bosses watching. I was trying my damnedest to drink in scotch what I hadn't been given as a bonus. As far as I know, I didn't say anything too stupid. I do remember ripping on this one turbo Christian guy that I went to law school with who works at my firm. Yeah, we get it, you hate it when people say "happy holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas." Stop talking.

The holiday party ended as every holiday party should: with the office manager giving Holt $20 to go to CVS to "get as much beer as you can for $20." Bear in mind that at this point, there are about 8 of us who had closed down the party and had made our way back to the office with drinks in hand. Holt returned promptly with 2 12-packs and a 40.

Apparently drinking scotch starting at noon, accented with a delightful almond-crusted tilapia, followed by several hours of drinking beer has an adverse effect on my stomach. Only through chugging vast amounts of water and ancient Assyrian mind-control techniques did I ward off the often-feared "shit-puke," which I have luckily never had to experience. The night ended with a viewing of HBO's phenomenal show, Cathouse, which is a documentary show about the Bunny Ranch outside of Vegas. And you thought you loved hookers before.

Friday, Jester, Harley, and I headed to the in-laws' (mine, not Jessie's) house in metropolitan Roanoke, Indiana. By virtue of a raffle amongst all family members, we had Christmas Eve dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Ft. Wayne, which was all good with me, even though my entry in the dinner raffle was "linguini with clam sauce." After dinner, we opened presents (such pagan pre-Christmas present opening was strictly forbidden in my house). I guess the rule in their house is that the new guy gets the most presents because I racked 'em up. If you take a look at the multitude of presents by the tree, all but about 2 of them were for me. I got CDs, DVDs, books, t-shirts, a Casio karaoke keyboard, and a bottle of good scotch.

Just when I thought it couldn't get any better, Christmas Day smacks me upside the head with 2009 years of limp dick. I got about 10 hours of sleep, which -- for those of you who have never had 10 hours of sleep -- is awesome. Ari, Jessie, Harley, and I decided to head back to Chicago Sunday instead of Monday. In Columbia City, Indiana, at the junction of US-30 and IN-9, we were stopped next to none other than former first lady Barbara Bush driving a Buick (see below). Man, I can't believe George H.W. Bush married a dude.

We dropped Ari off in the city, then headed to my crib, where the family was just finishing Chirstmas dinner. They had no idea we were going to be coming home a day earlier than previously planned, so you can imagine the confusion and excitement when we sent Harley (my dog) in the back door while we waited outside. My aunt says something along the lines of "oh look, a dog," apparently concluding that the dog had unlocked and opened the back door all by herself and was just popping in for a quick drink and a chat about the market. So then Jessie and I bust in, shouting about Christmas miracles and such. We got to open some more presents and then got to watch the end of the Bears/Packers game (Bear Down muthatruckas!!) Then I watched the 10th anniversary extended version of Mallrats, which was pretty good, although the extra half-hour they added to it didn't add all that much to the movie.

Then today, I got to open even more presents at my dad's house. Triple bonus. If I don't get any presents tomorrow, I'll probably flip out and finally start that killing spree I've been talking about for all these years.

GMYH would like to wish a Happy Hanukkah to our Jewish reader, whoever you may be. GMYH would also like to wish a Happy Boxing Day to all of our Canadian readers, or as ubergenius Tucker Carlson might call you, our retarded cousins. Well, have a good one, and be on the lookout for Mr. 6000's biography coming soon.

Holiday Party

Today at noon is my firm's holiday party. It goes from noon to 4 and has an open bar. My guess it that they do this as a "fat-trimming" exercise, enabling them to fire the person or persons who get the drunkest and make the biggest asses out of themselves. Like the guy who got fired a couple years before I got here. This is a great story, so I'll set the scene for you.

A male associate in his mid to late 20s gets rip-roarin' wasted at the annual holiday party. Also in attendance is an attractive, notoriously promiscuous, female summer associate from the previous summer, who was in town for the party. He told her that, if it wasn't too much of an inconvenience for her, he wanted to "take her back to [his] house and fuck [her] brains out and then bring over some of [his] friends so they could fuck [her] brains out" and that he wanted "to hear [her] head hitting the wall," on account of the hate-fucking I guess. Apparently this offended her, even though the requests were surprisingly not out of the question for her. She went straight to a partner and told her what the guy said, and the partner went straight up to the guy and fired him right there on the spot. Now that he no longer worked there, it wasn't sexual harassment, so the girl ended up going home with him.*

I hope to get drunk enough to rally the other non-bonus-getting associates (i.e., all but about 5) and stage a massive coup. My newly established puppet regime will support lock-step bonuses based on the number of billable hours over the minimum. We will also support polygamy, which I think will ultimately be the firm's downfall.

*That last sentence is complete lie, but man, that would've been a sweet end to the story. Instead, the guy just found a job at another firm in town, and the girl got fired the next year when it turned out that the reason she couldn't sit for the bar was because she never graduated law school.

New Links

I'm busy as hell today, so I don't have time to do much posting (not that I have anything to talk about anyway). But I did add a GMYH Classic™ section of links below the GMYH Biographies section on the right hand side. Check 'em out, and make sure to check the GMYH Classic links section periodically to relive the greatest moments in my life over the past 15 years. Well, maybe not the greatest, but some funny moments.

Too Little Too Late

I have very little to talk about today, since all I've done since yesterday's flurry of posts is watch IU dismantle Charlotte. My walk to work this morning can only be described as colder than a witch's titty in a brass bra. It was somewhere around 2 degrees, with a windchill around -10 (i.e., a solid kick in the dick). President Bush should really pressure Congress to pass some sort of law prohibiting negative temperatures and windchills. "The War on Zero" seems like something he would aggressively pursue with a conscious disregard for the resulting cost and casualties.

I found out today that the higher-ups have decided to close the office on Friday. That 8-10 hours that we'll be missing certainly makes up for the thousands of dollars in bonuses that most of us didn't get. Merry fucking Christmas.

Hilarious SNL Rap

Jamie "Mountie" Belanger just sent me this link for a rap by Andy Samberg and Chris Parnell that was on SNL this past week, entitled "The Chronic of Narnia." It's hilarious. My favorite line: "You can call us Aaron Burr from the way we're droppin' Hamiltons."

Hella Good Weekend

What a great weekend. Holt "Loves" Hedrick joined Jester and I for our drive to Chicago. Upon arriving in LaGrange, we dropped Holt off at the LaGrange Road Metra station with detailed directions on how to get to his friends' place in Wrigleyville. Along the way, I'm told he met a Brazilian woman and a Serbian woman. Quite a weekend for a chap from Rockport, Indiana.

Anyway, Friday night Jester and I went to Palmer Place, the LaGrange bar with the largest beer selection in the Chicagoland area, to share some ales and tales with Chris "Gemkeezi" Gemkow, his fiance Selina "Soon to be a Gemkeezi" Wozniak, and their friend Amy. Good times were had.

Saturday, of course, was the long-awaited wedding of Ryan "King Canute" Knudsen and Carrie "Now Part Danish" Bunting, which took place in Darien. The attendees that I knew read like a who's who of Ryan's friends: Matthew Spring and Volleyball Katie, Jones and Lynch, Sean and Bridget, the Gemkeezis, JD and Tray-C, TZ and Chach, and the Brothers Lenhardt and Their Lovely Ladies. In addition, Ryan's uncle from Rome was there. He is a priest, and actually got a papal marriage blessing certificate signed by the Pope for Ryan and Carrie. Not too shabby.

There was a little over 3 hours between when the wedding ended (about 3:45) and when dinner was to be served (7). The reception hall was across the street from the church, and it had been arranged so that the bar at the reception hall would be open at 4:30. This is nothing short of a remarkable idea. By the time dinner was served, most of the people there were more than half in the bag, including me. Why the bartender didn't cut me off after my 5th or 6th J&B on the rocks is beyond me, although I think I gave him a $5 tip at one point, so that might have had a lot to do with it. As with most weddings, it was a blast. Anytime I drink enough to dance means that I had a hell of a time. I'd tell you more about the evening, but all I really remember is Jessie and Katie were polka'ing a lot, even though no polka music was played, and I told Bridget (pictured to the right, trying to escape the clutches of my camera-phone by dancing away) that I wouldn't post any pictures of her on my blog after she got the DJ to play "Livin' On a Prayer." Great song.

After such a glorious evening, one could only expect a shitty drive back the next day. Luckily I had early taken some Excedrin Migraine, which is the single greatest hangover cure, this side of not drinking 8-10 scotches on the rocks. Jester and I picked up Holt at the Pilot gas station at Exit 201 on I-65, as you would expect. We were making great time on the way back, and it was looking like I would get back in time to see the kickoff in the Bears game. Then we get about 25-30 miles east of Indy and we come to a complete stop. And by "complete stop," I mean that we did not move an inch for an hour. We must have arrived just a couple minutes after an accident a couple miles up because all of the emergency vehicles made their way down the shoulder a couple minutes after we stopped.

After the first 15 minutes sitting completely still, it started to get annoying. My eyes couldn't help but notice the median, which had a prisitine blanket of 3 or 4 inches of snow. Could Rhonda, my totally pimped-out '91 Accord with nearly 193,00 miles, make it across? The consensus in the car was "probably not."

At 30 minutes, the meter had passed the drunk Ohio State fan level of annoyance. SUVs and pick-ups began to cross the snow-covered median to freedom. Meanwhile, about 100-200 yards behind us, a conversion van was not so lucky. It apparently misjudged the speed necessary to get up the other side of the median, serving as a grim reminder to all of us without SUVs and trucks that Mother Nature is a cold-hearted slut who punishes the weak and dumb. But still, that median was just so damn inviting.

At the 45-minute mark, sitting there had become more annoying than listening to a conversation between Suzy Kolber and Kathy Griffin. A brave Ford Focus wagon had turned itself completely around, and got a head of steam on the shoulder and cut across the median at a diagonal. While Jessie tried to tell me that my car wasn't as heavy as the Focus, the median began to look more and more like a really drunk chick who just broke up with her boyfriend--vulnerable, enticing, and conquerable.

When we finally hit an hour, it was full-on Scott Stapp-level annoying. Something had to be done. If I was going to go down, I was going to go down swinging. By this time, the consensus in the car had shifted from "probably not" to "85% sure we could make it." I maneuvered Rhonda so that I was perpendicular to traffic, face-to-face with the median. Once the traffic on the other side cleared, I gunned it, making it across with relative ease. Screams of joy and elation poured from our lungs as the sweet concrete of I-70 West fell victim to my proud and victorious tires. When we looked back, other cars (i.e., not just trucks) had followed my lead. All they had been waiting for was someone who didn't have a vehicle endorsed by Toby Keith to have the courage and foresight to challenge Mother Nature from a standstill. I hesitate to call myself a hero, but nothing else comes to mind at the moment.

We made it back to the previous exit and headed down to US-40 (which runs parallel to I-70), which we took for about 15 miles before hopping back on 70. The excitement of driving faster than zero mph caused me to miss Rhonda's big 193,000-mile landmark. But on the bright side, I got back for the 2nd half of the Bears game, which allowed me to see Lovie Smith finally bench Kyle Orton and his hideous facial hair. And I got to see the Bears defense beat down the Falcons like they were scared, quadraplegic mules. Anyway, this week I don't have anything very pressing to do, which means that I will be looking at the clock every 30 to 45 seconds, waiting for Friday afternoon to get here.

Fecal Phantom World Record

I figured there was no way he would strike again. Not now. Not during the holiday season. Boy was I wrong. Not only did a fecal phantom strike again, but he struck with the kind of blind, swift vengeance normally reserved for a Texas courthouse. Sadly, what I am about to tell you has not been embellished in any fashion.

Today, at approximately 10:45 a.m. EST, I made my way to the lavatory in hopes of expelling some urine that had begun to stockpile itself in my bladder past the point of comfort. When I turned the corner to go to the men's room, I heard the door shut. As I entered the bathroom approximately 4 seconds later, the door on one of the stalls slammed shut before I could notice who had gone in. I looked at my watch before I sidled up to the urinal for what I assumed would be a routine piss. The second hand had just crossed the 9.

The expected noises and odors emanated from the stall. When I was zipping up, I heard the unmistakable sound of a toilet flushing. The handle being pounded down. The deafening rush of water carrying human excrement to its final resting place in the Great Miami River. It was all too real. The second hand of my watch stared at me like an angry homeless man. It had just crossed the 3. Thoughts of rational disbelief engulfed me as I made my way to the sink to wash my hands. "Maybe it was just a courtesy flush," I thought to myself, "Because there's no way. It's not possible. It just . . . can't . . . be." I'll never forget the terrifying sound I heard next: the rustling of pants being brought from ankles to waist as a shirt was being tucked in, complete with the jingle-jangle of a belt buckle being maneuvered into the closed position. The Cinnamon Life I had for breakfast was creeping up my esophagus and tears were beginning to well in my eyes. I quickly dried my hands and headed for the door. Before I could get out, I heard the stall door open.

The second hand was at 6 as I sprinted back to my office. I couldn't even bring myself to look at the culprit. The resulting combination of laughter, crying, uncontrollable vomiting, and merciless cock punching would have surely ended my employment with this firm. Until we meet again, Mr. Fecal Phantom. Perhaps then I will have summoned the courage to look you in the face -- assuming you have one -- and tell you what a deplorable, holiday-ruining shit monger you are.

"Well Just Talk About the Future, Forget About the Past"

Hair Band Friday is rockin' as usual. On the jukebox we got some awesome albums: AC/DC's post-Bon-Scott masterpiece "Back in Black," Warrant's sophomore effort "Cherry Pie," and Motley Crue's shit-kickin' "Greatest Hits." Man, it's been pretty crazy in my office since the HBF Christmas Party last Friday. That stripper on the South Pole who was dressed up like a penguin OD'd on angel dust. Luckily, we had a back-up on call to fill in for her. I've been on a four day memo-writing binge, supplemented with a healthy dose of Jack and coke (and I don't mean the kind being hawked on TV by those freaky-ass polar bears). I've never felt so alive.

As usual, The OC was phenomenal last night. It was the annual Chrismukkah episode. For those of you who don't know what that means, it's a holiday that combines Christmas and Hanukkah, created in 2003 by Seth Cohen, whose mom is Christian and dad is Jewish. As Seth explained last night, "Every Jewish boy dreams of having Christmas. I gave myself that." Not only is this a sweet idea, but it's also a sweet word combination, which I obviously support wholeheartedly.

Anyway, this year's Chrismukkah miracle was two-fold:

Miracle #1: Seth came up with the brilliant idea to give Ryan an honorary Bar Mitzvah (the "Bar Mitz-vahkkuh") to raise money to give to Johnny so that he can get the knee operation he so desperately needs to get back on the surfing tour. Hesitant at first, Ryan decides that this is a good idea. As you can see, he becomes so delighted with the idea that he actually eats shit and subsequently grins, which is simply out of character for someone from Chino. Needless to say, he's lucky Volchok didn't see this side of him, or else Volchok might not have been so eager to walk away from that fight under the pier when it looked as though Ryan was going to gut Volchok from crotch to throat with a broken wine bottle, keeping Volchok alive just long enough to see Ryan eating his innards with a similar smile on his face as this one.

Miracle #2: It turned out that Johnny didn't want to be some charity case, so he refused to accept the whole Bar Mitz-vahkkuh idea. He told everyone he would take care of it on his own. Apparently he figured, what better way to pay for an operation to repair a torn ACL than by leaving in the middle of your friend's fake Bar Mitzvah to hold up a convenience store? Surely that will reap $5,000-$10,000 and have no consequences. It's this same line of reasoning that allows him to avoid the barber shop.

Miracle #3 was almost pulled off, but just as she was about to sit down to eat something for the first time in nearly 2 years, Marissa noticed Johnny buying the gun with which he eventually was going to hold up the convenience store. Sadly, Marissa got up from the table to go talk to Johnny below the pier, thus allowing the inner lining of her stomach to continue to devour itself.

Anyway, it looks to be a good rest of the season, as Marissa's little sister returns from wherever the hell she's been since Season One's finale. It appears that the time away has been kind to Kaitlin Cooper. She has now become some sort of Lolita, set on turning all that angst toward her nuevo-trailer-trash mom and absent dad into a chance to spread her legs all around town. That'll show 'em! Here are some questions raised by this episode and the preview for the next episode:
1. Will Julie Cooper-Nichol continue to dip alone in her trailer? If so, when will she contract mouth cancer? A related question is whether living in a trailer park actually does force you to buy and use Skol.
2. How many dudes will Kaitlin Cooper do before someone gets arrested for statutory rape? My hopes is that it's hundreds, if not thousands.
3. When the gang tries to petition Harbor to let Marissa back in, will Dean Hess reprise his role as Supreme Cock Chugger? If so, just how many cocks will he chug during each episode? Anything under 50 would be a disappointment.
4. Will Marissa finally eat something? If so, what will it be? Maybe an almond? Or a dried prune? Or a cookie crumb? Or an ice cube? Will she just throw it right back up, since she has conditioned her body to sustain itself without such toxins?
5. Assuming Johnny has the knee surgery, will his head please have to be shaved for the operation?
6. Isn't it about time for Teresa to show up with Ryan's kid?
7. Now that Summer's dad (who I thought resembled a combination of Edward James Olmos and Hellboy) has made one appearance on the show, will he never have to be seen again?
8. How will the show's producers possibly make up a scenario where all of the kids go off to college, but the show stays intact? Will it be like Saved By the Bell: The College Years, where Zack, Kelly, Slater, and Screech conveniently went to the same school, Cal U, while Jessie and Lisa were cut out of the show because they went to school elsewhere? Or will it be like Beverly Hills, 90210, where everyone except the ugliest character (that nerdy Andrea Zuckerman) went to the same school, which I think was also called Cal U? My guess is that everyone except Johnny will go to a school named Cal U because Johnny will die in a surfing-with-a-shitty-haircut-related accident.

Jester and I are off to the glorious western suburbs of glorious Chicago for the wedding of Ryan "The Dane" Knudsen to his longtime girlfriend/fiancé Carrie "I Can't Believe I'm Marrying a Dane" Bunting. It's sure to be a good time. Plus, I'm leaving work around 2. Holla.

Mr. 5000 - Kris Kringle

Every so often, a man comes along whose impact on the world is simply immeasurable. Kris Kringle, popularly known as "Santa Claus," is one such man. Since his meteoric rise to prominence, the often-loved, sometimes-maligned Kringle has been the subject of countless stories, movies, songs, and legends. Most people think they know about his life, often erroneously recounted in stories, movies, and songs. As Kringle recently told GMYH, "I just want to set the record straight. People see some shoddy made-for-TV, stop-animation movie and they think it's the gospel. Yeah, like some fucking mailman knows my story. Anyway, there's been a lot of shit written about me over the years -- most of it untrue -- and there are a lot of people out there who don't even believe in me. I'll be honest, I haven't exactly been the best role model, but it's time for everyone to learn the truth about Santa Claus." Kringle's story is as old as time: family turmoil, alcohol abuse, womanizing, and, ultimately, unparalleled success.

His exact date of birth is unknown, even to him, but as he has said, "I'm pretty much old as shit." Born in what is now Belarus, Kris Karl Kringle (in the 1870s, he officially changed his middle name to Tyrone, so as to prevent any possible inference of affiliation with the Ku Klux Klan) had humble beginnings. His parents, Vladimir and Veronika Kringle, were hard-working and strict. All of their children worked on the family reindeer farm, which, as Kris described, was a "24-7-12-52-365 job." Kris was in charge of keeping track of the farm's inventory. His older brother Claus, who Kris looked up to, was in charge of making sure the reindeer had enough food and enough exercise. The oldest sibling, Natalia, was in charge of birthing, while Olga, the youngest, was in charge of gathering the reindeer's milk each day, which the family would use and would also sell at the market.

Tragedy struck Kris in his early teens. As Kris looked on, Claus tripped and fell while leading the reindeer on their daily run. By the time all 200 reindeer had passed, Claus had been trampled to death. Kris had not only lost his brother, but he also lost his best friend and his mentor.

On the farm, Kris bore the brunt of Claus's death. His parents gave all of Claus's responsibilities to Kris. Tension was high on the farm, as Vladimir and Veronika constantly prodded Kris to be quicker with his work, especially on the inventory side of things. Kris's innate habit of double-checking his inventory was not meant in any way to anger his parents, but it did just that. Kris constantly argued with his parents, trying to make them understand that he needed to check everything twice in order to ensure that the farm was fully stocked. What his parents (and Kris) did not know is that Kris had what today is called obsessive-compulsive disorder, or OCD.

Kris eventually had enough of the bickering. In the middle of a July 332 night, he left the family farm and headed west, not knowing what the future would hold for him. For several years, Kris wandered throughout what is now Poland, Germany, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, working as a blacksmith.

Then in 335, he met a man who would change Kris's life forever. The man was Nicholas, and he was from Myra, which is in modern-day Turkey. Nick, as he was known to his friends, was a very generous man, who liked to travel around Europe (then called "The Roman Empire") sampling the mead, wine, and women in every town, and delighting each town's children by leaving treats in the shoes of the well-behaved children while the kids were asleep.

Nick and Kris became fast friends, and Kris liked Nick's way of life, as well as the message he sent to kids. As Kringle explained, "Nick and I were drinking buddies. We'd travel all over Eastern Europe and Scandinavia. He had a habit of getting wrecked and going around house-to-house, leaving candy in shoes. Then there was this one little bastard who kept egging Nick's house. Instead of leaving this kid candy, Nick found a big horse turd that he put in the kid's shoes. We could barely do it without busting up. Long story short, the kid killed himself the next day when he found out that he was the only kid in town who got poo in his shoes instead of candy. I guess it was his only pair of shoes. Anyway, that's when he decided to put lumps of coal in bad kids' shoes instead of shit."

Several years passed, and Kris was enjoying his travels with Nick, whose health began to dwindle. He had kept in contact with his sisters, Natalia and Olga. In December of 341, Kris received a disturbing message from Olga: Vladimir and Veronika had died from a bout with dysentery after drinking some sour reindeer milk. She wanted Kris to come home for the burial. At first Kris was hesitant, but Nick told him that going home was the right thing to do. Before Kris left for home, Nick told him that Kris was a good person and that as long as he continued to spread joy to the hearts of children everywhere, Kris would never die. It would be the last time Kris would ever see Nick, who died 2 years later and was cannonized as a saint about 200 years later.

When Kris returned home, the farm was in shambles. Natalia and Olga had tried their best to keep the farm running, but the onset of winter had taken its toll on the reindeer, as well as the equipment. Only one sleigh and 8 reindeer remained (Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, and Blitzen). Kris used the money he earned as a blacksmith to buy out his sisters' shares of the farm, giving them enough money to live on for many years. He then used the reindeer and the sleigh to carry out Nick's work. Traveling across the Empire, Kris delivered toys once a year to the Christian children who had been good throughout the year.

"In the early years, I was pretty modest. A lot of times I would visit houses and accidentally wake someone up. When they asked who I was, I would get flustered because I was pretty shy and because I didn't want someone to think that I was breaking in. So I'd give 'em a fake name, usually St. Nicholas or Santa Claus, in honor of Nick and my brother. Those names stuck, I guess."

Word of "Santa Claus" and "St. Nicholas" soon spread, and Kris found it to be increasingly difficult to keep track of all of the children. "That's when I came up with the idea of the Nice List and the Naughty List," he later recounted, "Of course, I still had to make sure that it was correct, so I started checking it twice a year, rather than just once."

Kris was also finding it difficult to deal with the ever-growing population and the continual growth of Christianity. After a year of rigorous training, Kris had taught the reindeer to fly. This allowed Kris's efficiency to increase 100-fold. However, with the increase in efficiency came an increase in the number of children he could reach, and a resulting increase in demand for toys. To deal with this, Kris hired about 100 elves from a neighboring community. Elves had a reputation as hard workers and good company men and women.

A side-effect of Kris's growing popularity and notoriety was that he was swarmed wherever he went, whether it was by angry children who thought they had deserved presents, good children who were awestruck and thankful, or enamored women who would do anything to make it onto the Nice List. It got to the point where Kris couldn't even walk down the street or go to a restaurant without getting bothered by someone.

This prompted Kris to sell the family farm, using the proceeds to buy the entire North Pole, a region that had not been previously inhabited. Land and labor was so cheap in the North Pole that he was able to build a huge toy production facility, a giant distribution center, a state-of-the-art mail center, heated stables for his reindeer, and a house for each family of elves.

Things went smoothly for years, until one unusually foggy Christmas. Kris's sleigh had no lights, and his 8 reindeer could barely see six inches in front of them. Luckily Donner's son, Rudolph, had a birth defect that made his nose shine like a red lightbulb. Kris redesigned his sleigh so that it would work with 9 reindeer, with Rudolph by himself out front, leading the pack. To this day, Santa has kept that same configuration. Interestingly, Rudolph has developed a bit of a cult following, with at least one song written about his exploits.

Always a perfectionist, Kris became better and better at his craft, to the point where he could deliver presents to every kid on the Nice List in just one night. As his gift-giving prowess became legendary with children, his libido became just as legendary with the world's women. As Dasher explained, "Santa had a way with women like I've never seen before or since. I mean, imagine you're a lady sitting at home late one Christmas Eve, and who comes slidin' down the chimney but Kris fuckin' Kringle with a bag of shit that you want. The irony, of course, was that to get off the Naughty List, you had to do something naughty. Back in the old days, we would sometimes be waiting on a roof for an hour or two, knowing damn well what -- or should I say, who -- that fat son of a bitch was doing inside. Because of his shenanigans we almost had to make Christmas a two-day holiday."

Kris recalled, "I had some great times back in the day. There wasn't a woman I couldn't bag. Back in the '30s, Errol Flynn and I had a running contest. Last I checked, I was way ahead." Kris pledged himself to 2 things: making sure the good little boys and girls of the world were rewarded for their deeds, and making sure he remained a bachelor forever.

But that all changed on December 25, 1942. While visiting an apartment building in Los Angeles, Kris came to the dwelling of a 20-year-old aspiring actress, Missez Claus Jones, known to her friends simply as Missez Claus. "It was love at first sight for both of us," she explained. Luckily for Kris, her presents were the final delivery of that year's Christmas. He and Missez Claus spent the night getting to know each other on a carnal level. They married three days later in the North Pole.

Kris Kringle, the man who once deemed himself "the eternal bachelor," was married. Marriage, however, didn't quell Kris's indelible sexual appetite. Visiting millions of homes thousands of miles from his own home, both on Christmas and during the rest of the year when he tried to keep tabs on who was naughty and nice, Kris succumbed to the temptations of life on the road. Most women just couldn't resist a man draped in red velvet, and Kris just couldn't resist them.

With the burgeoning popular music market, it was especially hard to keep his flings from the rest of the world, much less Missez Claus. In 1953, Eartha Kitt released "Santa Baby," a tawdry song that included an invitation for Kris to "come and trim [her] Christmas tree," which Kris had done the year before. Darlene Love released "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" in 1963, recounting all of the fun she and Kris had on December 25, 1962. And, of course, there was the extremely obvious "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus," which Kris discussed in a 1968 interview with Playboy: "A lot of people have the misconceived notion that 'I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus' is about a kid who thinks he sees his mom kissing me, when it's actually the kid's dad dressed up as me. Well, it was me. The guy who wrote the song, Thomas Connor, saw it when he was a kid, and his mom told him that I was actually his dad dressed up like Santa. Man, she was a good lay."

Eventually, Kris realized how hollow and materialistic these little trysts had become. "They wanted one of two things: one, to be taken off the Naughty List so that they could get a present, or two, the chance to say they got railed by Santa. I was living a lie. For goodness sake, I was telling millions of kids to be good, when I wasn't being good myself."

Kris came clean to Missez Claus in 1965 (and has been faithful since then). After a six-month trial separation, where she went to stay with her sister in Omaha, she returned to Kris and the North Pole. Missez Claus explained, "I realized that he had well over a thousand years of this kind of behavior, and it was silly of me to think that I could just expect him to change at the drop of a hat. It was going to take time, but I know that he has a good heart and that he and I are soul mates."

Unfortunately, Kris's OCD began to emerge in other facets of his life. Beginning in the late 1970s, Kris became a compulsive overeater. He recalled, "Anytime something went wrong, whether it was Blitzen tearing his ACL, another kid who stopped believing, or a toy that didn't come out of the elves' workshop the way I wanted, I would turn to the fridge for solace."

Technological innovations didn't help his state of sloth either. The advent of computerized spreadsheets and databases allowed Kris to update his Lists with ease, rather than by hand. GPS systems meant that he didn't have to spend time getting to know each and every new street in the world. And by 1995, Kris had installed infrared, night-vision cameras in every house to determine whether people were sleeping or awake. The cameras also meant that Kris didn't have to do nearly as much traveling to determine whether people were naughty or nice. As he noted, "All I had to do was sit on my recliner and watch a whole bunch of monitors. Whenever I saw someone on the Nice List do something naughty, I would eat a whole pizza and a pecan pie."

By 2000, Kris's weight ballooned to over 400 pounds. The reindeer could barely support his weight while pulling the sleigh. "I was a complete mess. I could barely walk up a flight of stairs without throwing up the entire turkey and sheet cake I had just eaten. It was pathetic." Kris's problems also spilled over into the bedroom. As Missez Claus recalled, "He could barely survive 30 seconds without being drenched in sweat. It was like trying to ride a wet manatee. So then, we would have to stop before either of us got off or before he had a heart attack, which resulted in him crying, which resulted in him running for the fridge for several gallons of ice cream and a couple pounds of roast beef, which just resulted in him gaining more weight, which resulted in him lasting an even shorter duration the next time we tried to have sex, which sent him back to the fridge again. It was a vicious cycle."

On December 25, 2000, the cycle ended. While delivering presents to a home in Shermer, Illinois, Kris had a heart attack after seeing what he described as two large, living M&Ms. "It was a scary experience. The last thing I remember is saying something along the lines of 'They do exist,' and then the next thing I know I'm waking up in a hopsital bed. That's when I finally realized I had a problem."

Kris underwent therapy to overcome his compulsive overeating. He installed a workout facility at the North Pole and hired a year-round personal trainer. By Christmas 2003, he was down to 185 pounds and could bench press 350 pounds. In 2004, he authored a best-selling book about the battle with his waistline, entitled "You Don't Have to Be Fat to Be Jolly."

Unfortunately, not all has been jolly for Kris in the past few years. Running a multi-national enterprise is expensive, and Kringle's operation felt the crunch of the economic downturn that plagued the first several years of the 21st Century. In 2002, he was forced to lay off several hundred elves, the first such layoffs since the Black Death. In 2003, Kringle outsourced his mail operations. He explained, "Most kids think that when they send a letter to me and address it to the 'North Pole' that it actually goes to the North Pole. In actuality, it goes to our new mail processing center in Bangalore, India."

Fear not, though. He is fully prepared for Christmas 2005 and will make every scheduled delivery. That is, after all, what keeps him alive. Call him a shrewd businessman, call him a misunderstood genius, call him a pagan diety, but just don't call him Kristopher. "I've been called a lot of things, most of which I don't mind: Santa Claus, Father Christmas, Sinterklaas, and St. Nick, even though that's not technically me. But I can't stand when people call me 'Kristopher.' It's 'Kris.' It's only one fucking syllable. How hard is that? At least Missez Claus and I know a telemarketer is calling when they ask for 'Mr. Kristopher Kringle.' Bastards."

So what's next for Kris Kringle and Missez Claus? "Well, we've talked about having kids, but right now we figure what's the rush? Hell, we got time -- we are immortal. But wouldn't that be a trip? Me with kids? They would always be trying to sneak into the toy factory or sneak a peek to make sure they were on the Nice List. At least they would have to believe in me. In the meantime, I'm just gonna keep on doin' what I'm doin', making sure the good boys and girls of the world are rewarded and the bad ones get lumps of coal. And you know what? Even if only one kid on the Naughty List makes it over to the Nice List, then it's all worth it."