What I Learned Last Week, By Rich Lowtax Kyanka, Age 26

I've been somewhat out of the loop lately, and although I'd squarely place the blame on some mysterious, evil entity such as Carol Channing or Canada, personal issues encompass the reasons I've experienced an extended "User is Away / Not Available" status. In today's update, I will share the most private and personal aspects of my life with up to 100,000 of you, possibly hoping that one of you may read this and remark to yourself, "man, that Rich 'Lowtax' Kyanka, what a deep and meaningful guy," shortly before casually observing how downhill my writing skills have plummeted since, oh, roughly 1987.

LESSON #1: NEVER GET ROMANTICALLY INVOLVED WITH A CRAZY WOMAN.

Since I wanted to post something more positive and uplifting than my experience with my ex-fiancee, I included this image of SA Forum Goon "Horribleman" who got drunk, threw up on my carpet, then passed out in the bathtub.

This important lesson repeatedly surfaces in my life, much like how dark clouds gather before an acid rain storm in southern California, or as Robert Downy Jr. appears before the SWAT Team arrives equipped with an assault team of U-Haul moving vans large enough to comfortably relocate his current fix of cocaine and tar heroin. However, no matter how carefully I investigate potential mates, despite the amount of time I spend "getting to know them better" (or as the authorities refer to as "stalking them by hiding in the bushes and furiously masturbating outside their garage"), and regardless of whom I eventually grow romantically linked to, their brains eventually collapse into a Biggie-Sized bowl of wacko chili. By using convential logic, I must assume one of at least three possible conclusions contain some shread of truth. Please note the purpose of the following three items is to clarify and explain why I am no longer engaged to Emily "I Am Not a Crook" Reigel to the people who email me daily and ask why she never updates anymore. If you do not enjoy Internet drama, then please skip to Lesson #2 and pretend I wrote something witty and poignant about Iraq and / or George W. "W." Bush Jr.

1) I have a subconscious desire to date people who make my limited and fleeting grasp of reality appear superior in comparison. I somewhat believe in this conclusion, as Emily "I Do Not Tell the Truth" Reigel appeared to embody the ideal of a "normal" person for nearly a year. Of course, I conceivably might have overlooked a few tell-tale signs of her brain goofiness, such as the time she had a plane ticket to meet me in Seattle but she claimed the FBI and CIA stopped her at the airport, refusing to let her on the plane. According to Emily "Person Who Lies" Reigel, the US Government had detained her under the claim she was a threat or terrorist or very large explosive of some sort. She spent most of that day calling me and providing helpful, up-to-the-moment fictional progress reports concerning her fictional interrogation by fictional FBI officers in the fictional airport security room. She additionally provided me with their fictional names, you know, just in case if I didn't believe such a plausibly fictional idea. To take it one step even further, she chose to write up a lengthy, detailed, exciting summary of the fictional events that fictitiously occurred that day! I recently learned, in reality, Emily spent that entire day crying in her bed and never even bothered to leave for the airport. So perhaps this theory could still be considered "up in the air," much like where my brain had to have been located to believe such a ludicrous story.

2) I possess some ability which causes people to spontaneously grow nutty after repeated exposure to myself. I can safely rule out this one as well, as Emily "Lying For Fun and Profit" Reigel had completely made up some fictitious life she claimed to have lived before engaging in constant exposure to me. She told me she went to medical school; in reality, she was a hypochondriac who enjoyed visiting the WebMD website every other hour. She claimed she had never been in a "serious" relationship before; in reality, she spent nearly three years dating some poor sod named "Kevin" when she decided to begin cheating on him with me, then lied to him by claiming she planned on moving to Seattle "for a job opportunity." You know, as opposed to "living with another man." She professed that once my apartment lease ran out in May, I should move up to Wisconsin so we could live together once again and get married; in reality, she moved up to Wisconsin in January and decided to get back with her ol' buddy Kevin, since he is the only person in her life crazy enough to tolerate her insecure, patholigical lying bonus features. Poor Kevin, I hope he wakes up to his senses and decides to meet somebody who might have a more positive influence in his life, such as that time-traveling plane engine from "Donnie Darko." Trust me, that pain will seem miniscule compared to time spent with Emily "Oops, My Entire Life Is a Lie" Reigel.

3) I simply have lousy taste in women. Out of all theories, I'd say this contains the most truth. For example, I dated some girl for a few months in college. After I broke up with her, she promptly became a lesbian. I decided to become romantically involved with a woman a couple years ago, and now she sells beads and string online. Perhaps I need to embrace Raymond Watts' theory of "find it, fuck it, forget it" which makes sassy women relationship movies such a Lifetime Network blast these days. If I were to conceivably embark on a strict fucking and forgetting policy, then I wouldn't have to deal with the aspect of becoming engaged to somebody whose mind is composed of an equal mixture of "cryin' and lyin'" neurons.

Of course this lesson has essentially blossomed into a full-fledged e/n diatribe, but since I personally started this website and am forced to pay thousands of dollars for the bandwidth and servers so people may read this crap, I feel it is my public duty to inform you that I am forced to pay thousands of dollars for the bandwidth and servers so people may read this crap. I take solace in the fact that all my past mistakes and embarrassments will remain engraved on this site until the servers catch fire and fall into the Pacific Ocean. If you glean any knowledge from this lesson, I hope that it may be "getting engaged to crazy pathological liars = bad."

LESSON #2: MY PARENTS OWN THE MOUNT ZULU SEX ROOM.

Have you ever noticed something only after passing it or living in proximity to it for countless months or years? You know, like a coworker who has a boil on her face the size of volleyball, yet it remains "invisible" to you until the day she walks by your desk and it knocks over your monitor even though she's physically located 15 feet away? Well this situation recently thrust itself upon me as I traveled home to Kansas City, Missouri, and realized my parents own the Mount Zulu Sex Room.

Before going into the glorious details of this mystefying chamber of erotic horror, let me give you some background information on their home. They own what many people could refer to as a "normal" house. It's composed of stucco, wooden ceilings, carpet, grey walls, and various other bland crap that would fail to thoroughly impress you unless you have grown accustomed to living inside a barrel which repeatedly plummets off Niagra Falls. However, this house contains one room which appears to have been imported directly from The Twilight Zone or perhaps Area 57. My parents hired a "professional" interior decorator to concoct this so-called "bathroom" near the garage, and the design used to construct it may best be described as "what the fuck?" deco. Allow me to present some photographic proof for the more demanding readers out there:

The kitchen. Messy, but normal.	A hallway. Boring, but normal.
A bedroom. Dull, but normal.	THE MOUNT ZULU SEX ROOM.

Feel free to simply go nuts and click on any of the above images to view a much larger version, as exciting new advances in Internet technology allow sites like Something Awful to provide such wondrous features! As you can tell by examining the final picture in that barrage of excitement, the Mount Zulu Sex Room resembles an aberration of some sort. There's leopard-print wallpaper covering every corner, the towels have images of monkeys playing with themselves printed across them, a mysterious wicker stool which serves no functional purpose lurks beneath the sink, and a candle displaying some cryptic Oriental symbols rests upon the toilet. Why? Why did my parents agree to construct this monstrosity? Why did I fail to revel in its insanity for literally over a decade? I have but one fear in life, and that fear dictates I will die alone and afraid before I am able to unravel this bathroom enigma.

As you can plainly see, the Mount Zulu Sex Room does not belong in my parents' home, or much less any other home occupying this plane of existence. Hell, I don't believe my parents have even bothered engaging in any sort of sexual activity since Carter occupied the White House, so the Mount Zulu Sex Room seems particularly unecessary to me. Let me additionally point out that if my parents have in fact experienced sexual relations since then, I honestly do not want to know about it or acknowledge the fact they possess body parts which would allow them to do so. I would offer tours of the Mount Zulu Sex Room, but I think my parents may be slighly uncomfortable with a parade of Counter-Strike players wearing Yoda t-shirts walking through their house.

LESSON #3: I AM STUPID FOR MANY, MANY REASONS, BUT MORE SPECIFICALLY BECAUSE I AM BUYING A HOUSE.

I think I may have purchased this house, although there's really no way I can be sure at this point.

Many newspaper people and "industry analyists" (whatever the hell that means) claim now is the best time to purchase a house. However, they fail to inform you that although now may relatively be the "best" time to buy a house, you should never actually go out and do so. Their claims are the equivalent of saying "medical technology is so advanced that now is the best time to have your head cut off and replaced with a bull's scrotum." I went shopping for houses this weekend, as I'm sick to death of living next door to MC Smokes Weed Every Day and DJ Loud Fucking Rap Music. Although I may be 26 years old, I'm a bitter, retired, stubborn old man at heart, and I want to live somewhere quiet and free of people who become unconscious until they die in the forbidden "pool area." This mental outlook led me to the search for a home, a procedure which lacks the fun and excitement of cleaning up cat vomit encrusted in your carpet.

After viewing roughly two houses, my braincells began to fuse together and merge the entire "house shopping" experience into one long, vague motion blur. My parents would ask me baffling questions such as, "did you like the Continental house at Pinewoods Creek?" and I would respond with stupefying remarks such as "what's a Pinewoods Creek?", "what's a Continental house?", and "help." Seriously, house shopping grows into a hideous nightmare after the first two houses; even respected scientists lack the ability to discern between home models after 30 minutes into the procedure. I know I ended up purchasing a house in Lee's Summit, Missouri, but I cannot for the life of me remember exactly which house I purchased. I look at this as a very exciting, fun experience, one which will cause me to drive from Washington to Missouri in roughly nine milleniums, ending up in some kind of residence which may or may not contain a functional bathroom. Hell, I cannot even sort through the various housing districts I visited, as Congress apparently passed a law requiring neighborhoods to name themselves vague, confusing, generic names that begin with a form of nature and end with a type of land, such as "Oak Springs," "Birchwood Valley," "Maple Fields," "Opium Gulch," and "Triffid Wastelands."

The only thing I actively recall from the home-buying procedure occured when my dad, in an attempt to display the home's weak foundation, jumped up and down in the kitchen like one of those retarded children you see at the bus stop trying to eat their own mittens. Although he failed to demonstrate this so-called "weak foundation," he did successfully make approximately every object in the kitchen rattle while critically injuring his knee. After his frighteningly effective display of home consumer wariness, he collapsed into a nearby chair and started complaining about his knee, which currently consists of one large, misshapen wad of bone and rusted Erector set parts.

I believe we somehow overcame the "weak foundation" issue and I decided upon purchasing this home, which supposedly occured at the correct point in our space-time continuum, as the impending war with Iraq and the economy and Martin Lawrence movies have somehow resulted in what many people claim "the perfect time to purchase a home." With such low interest rates, the bank claims I can pay off my home in 30 years, which works out for me because I know I'll be dead in 10. Chew on that, suckers!

Wow, what an exciting week! I learned a little about love, a little about life, and just a little bit about myself. Oh, and houses, I learned something about houses, although I cannot recall offhand exactly what. Wait, I also discovered the whole disturbing Mount Zulu Sex Room in my parents' home, something which I prefer to forget for the time being. Who knows what this week will hold? I'll tell you who, only God and Batman, and Batman ain't talking. How incredibly deep and meaningful!

Gone Gold!

It's Tuesday, so you know what that means... NO MORE RED MEAT! Wait, no, that's not it at all. Oh yeah, it's time for the Tuesday Comedy Goldmine thingy, where we grab a thread courtesy of the SA Forum Goons and slap it up for everybody to see! Taking material from the forums and moving it into a slightly different location is the best idea since Freedom Fries! Today's Goldmine is entitled "Hollywood Films vs. Internet Subtitles" and combines big screen movies with big stupid Internet slang!

Click or be clicked!

– Rich "Lowtax" Kyanka (@TwitterHasBannedAllMyAccountsEver)