This Friday, I'm having a vasectomy, or as I like to call it the Big Snip. That's actually a misnomer, since there are two snips involved, but my testicles are a package deal, so I think the singular is justified.

The first medical professional I asked about this was my GP at my checkup a month ago. He told me that fewer and fewer GPs are doing vasectomies. He said he had done one once and that I definitely did not want him to do mine. This was my first appointment with this doctor, and I found his candor refreshing. I have a feeling that my previous doctor, a grandfatherly type who often teetered on the precipice between folksy and dottering, would have told me he was able to do them, regardless of where the technique resided in his skill set. Give me a doctor that knows his limitations any day.

Before you can get a vasectomy, you have to go in for a consultation. First, they want to make absolutely sure that you really want to do this. They tell you repeatedly that, reversal procedures notwithstanding, you should consider this a permanent change. Next comes the video.

My favorite part of the video was the scene where a bunch of guys are hanging out at a pizza joint after a (heh) softball game. Our hero mentions that he's thinking about having a vasectomy. His buddies then proceed to bust his chops mercilessly, impugning his masculinity, asking if he's having a sex change, etc. Seriously, who does this? Who would have the (heh) balls to do this? Clearly, the video is meant to address the fears men may have about the reactions of their friends and family, but all the video managed to do was momentarily insert fears where there were no fears before.

Are guys really worried about a vasectomy somehow making them less of a man? I suppose there must be. I don't see it myself -- if anybody ever implied that to me, I'd just say, I'm going to have a doctor make incisions in my scrotum, slice the tubes inside, tie them off, and stitch up the wounds. Then I fully expect to spend the weekend with my testicles the size of grapefruits -- and that makes me a wuss how?

Look, if you really want to make men feel better about it, how about offering to let them get a tattoo at the same time? Flames? 8-balls? I'd go for fuzzy dice myself. Of course, they'd just have to tattoo the dice -- the fuzzy part kind of takes care of itself. Not that I would need that anyway. I'm completely cool with my masculinity before, during and after this. Moreso even.

Hell, for the first time in over twenty years, I'm going to wear an athletic supporter. I haven't done that since the first week of high school gym.

Lileks gives the new Guthrie a good going-over. Of course, by "good" I mean "merciless."

While the new Guthrie was being built , I saw it from the window of a high-rise and thought to myself, is IKEA opening a store downtown? Why would they put it there?

Hey, I'm headlining the Minnesota Comedy Club this weekend. Come on out.

Yes, I mean you.

Now I'm off to the Apple Store to see about the keyboard. Apparently, the numbers rubbing off is a problem a lot of people have been reporting, which is both alarming and reassuring. I'm alarmed at Apple's shoddy workmanship, but I'm reassured that I haven't done anything in particular to cause or exacerbate the problem. An irrational fear I know. It's not as though I've got some sort of corrosive acid seeping from my fingertips -- and let's face it, if I did I wouldn't be a comedian. I'd be a Spider-Man villain.

I had my first checkup in about three years last week. I'm here to report that the hernia check procedure has changed. Rather than going under the "boys" and pressing his fingers into the space at the bottom of the pelvic bone and doing the "turn your head and cough" bit, he went over the boys and checked on either side of Mr. Happy. He didn't give me any explanation as to why he did it this way.

There are three possible reasons for the change:

1. Maybe this method is equivalent to the under-the-boys method, but I just haven't encountered it until now -- the Coke vs. Pepsi of medical procedures. Maybe they're equally valid, but not equally common and my doctor's the kind of maverick that likes to keep things interesting. Maybe it's a regional variation. Maybe my doctor learned from the Pennsylvania Dutch.

2. As men age, their boys have a tendency to drop. Maybe mine have dropped so far that they cannot be maneuvered around without actual cupping and holding, and nobody wants to add that sensation to an already uncomfortable moment.

3. This is simply the new way to do it, and I've never had a doctor young enough to have learned to do it that way.

A young man came up to me after a show (I think he was an EMT) and said that the over-the-boys method was what he had been taught, so it appears that #3 is the reason.

Jesus, guys. Put out a press release, would you? It's an awkward enough moment for us both without you changing it up without warning.

Come see me this week at ACME. More blathering this week as the jokes get set. Some new ones this week, but no new Wallpaper Now! or Firefly. Just me and my snark. Watch me work it out as the week goes.

Also, if you check out ACME's Myspace page, you'll notice they used a picture for me they found on the deathless beast that is the Internet. The first person to email me (matt@ this Web site) with the URL they ganked the picture from wins a free copy of my CD. Good luck. Let's see what the power of Google can do when mixed with my miniscule fan base.

The Boise airport has free Wi-Fi, so here I am, waiting for my flight to board (in about an hour), and for once, not really feeling that put out. This is what I'd be doing in the condo anyway, except I wouldn't have the parade of humanity passing by.

The nice thing about airports is that you don't get too wide a range of people. Chances are, if you can afford to take a flight somewhere, rather than Greyhound, you've done something right in your life (or something wrong if you can afford first class). I'm no classist, but the 900-lb elephant in our collective room is that a lot of poor folks are that way at least to some extent as a result of the choices they have made in life. That tendency can make them difficult to take when you're thrown into the mix with them. Not that wealthy people don't present their own challenges, but you don't usually see them unless you happen to be serving them food or drinks, or happen to be within earshot of their cell phone conversation with one of their underlings.

There's a family in the waiting area. Mom, dad, brother and sister. Sister is probably about 2-3 and brother is probably about 4-5. The same distance between my girls. They were squirmy and whiny a few minutes ago, and dad was not coming off well with his frustrated responses. Fortunately, they realized that there aren't very many people at the gate yet, and that there is a long expanse of carpeting that they can race back and force across. The kids are squealing happily, running to a bank of seats, climbing up and then immediately getting off and running back to mom & dad.

Unfortunately, somebody just sat in their target area, so that's the end of that. Back to whining. Ah well, I have a laptop, headphones and Harvey Danger. Plus, I'm right next to an outlet, so no worries about the battery. Life is about as good as it can get in an airport -- at least without an expense account anyway.

Ah, the interloper has left the target seat. Thank God. The race is back on.

If last night's show is any indication, this is going to be a fantastic week. The Boise 'Bone has been on my "must get" list for, literally, years, and so far, it has not disappointed.

I spent some time walking around the newly-developed downtown area. As I mentioned yesterday, the area has been dubbed "BoDo." I found out from an extremely helpful lady at the souvenier shop, that the name is at least partially derived from the name of the developer contracted to revitalize the downtown. It seems there is some controversy.


Here's my local-reference joke. It's a variation of a well-traveled structure, but I don't think I'll be able to resist.

So, there's been some controversy about the name "BoDo" for this area. What you may not know is that "BoDo" is actually a Spanish word brought over by the Basques, meaning "pointless one-way."


Boise folks will get it. The whole downtown area is riddled with one-way streets, which makes a wrong turn an opportunity for many leaps of directional faith to get back on track. Fortunately, I flew here. I'm on foot anyway. Hah!

I also noticed this sign on my walk back to the condo.


Great deal, right? Take a closer look:


You're not fooling anyone, you know.

Wheels Down in Boise

I'm in the Boise condo, taking advantage of intermittent mystery Wi-Fi. I've been up since 4:20 this morning to catch my 6:30 flight to Boise. I make no promises of wit or wisdom here.

I'm just banging on the keys of my iBook, which by the way, continue their steady decline. Now the left Apple key is popping off from time to time, serving as a constant reminder of a) just how much I use it and b) just how staggeringly irrelevant the Apple key on the right is -- that one isn't near anything as far as I can tell.

The key popping off, however, has given me a glimpse into how the keys work. One would think it would just sort of snap back on, but there is a small metallo-plastic membrane array that defies logic. How it was attached in the first place is a mystery to me.

I flew Frontier here. Each seat has a television screen on the back which gets 24 channels of Direct TV for $5. Not worth it for morning television, but I may treat myself on the way back. Let's see how the CD sales go, shall we?

Boise seems like a lovely town, but my exposure has been limited to the airport and the downtown area. The downtown area is called "BODO." I don't think this name happened organically the way it does to neighborhoods in other cities, like "SoHo" or "Dinkytown" or "Hell's Kitchen." I get the impression that "BODO" is the brainchild of some high-priced marketing consultant brought in by the city a while back -- the naming equivalent of an artificial lake -- it may work quite nicely, but it still feels like cheating.

I'm more than willing to be proven wrong on this. If any Boise residents ("Boisians"? "Boiseites"?) happen to be reading this, please feel free to confirm or deny.

Oh, and Boise folks ("Boisetanians?"), trust me -- I'm funnier than this.

I did a benefit for Parkinson's Disease last night, and one of the door prizes was a bobble-head doll.

That is all.

Here are ten words never heard:

Welcome to the Apple Store. How can I help you?

You see, the letters on my iBook's keyboard are starting to wear off. It started with the "s," then went the "e," then the "l." The "a" is in mid-fade like Marty McFly's brother just before his dad-to-be finally completes the slowest fist-clench in screen history. I've been meaning to stop in to an Apple store to see if you can get replacement keys. I figure since it's unlikely that mine is the only iBook with this particular strain of keyboard alopecia (Christ, this is quite the metaphorical jambalaya I've got going here, isn't it? Shit. There's another one), Apple may have a solution. Maybe they've got a supply of replacement keys you can get. Hell, I'd pay a buck a key.

Unfortunately, every time I go to an Apple store, I feel like a gate crasher. Is there some sort of procedure I'm supposed to be following? Am I supposed to sign in someplace? Is there one of those bakery number dispensers, and I keep missing it? Is this somehow related to the fact that I don't have iLife or a .mac account? Are those two things even related? I'll never know, because no matter how folorn and/or needy I look when I stand at the genius bar, they steadfastly refuse to acknowledge my presence.

Good God, you may be thinking, just approach one of the employees, and they'll tell you what you need to do. Hey, you're right. I should do that. Unfortunately, there is something about the place that makes me feel as though that would somehow violate the gloriously austere environment they have worked so hard to achieve. Direct action has no place there and might somehow cause a rift in the space-time continuum of the Appleverse, and my iBook will revert to one of those Apple IIEs we used in high school, and me without any floppies.

Fortunately, for me anyway, I know how to type by touch. They haven't reinvented that wheel yet. They will though. Mark my words. Five years from now, Apple will have found a way to reduce the keyboard to five keys. How would you use such a thing?

Hey, just ask one of the geniuses. Then tell me, would you? I'll be the one standing behind you wondering how to get their attention.