Marmaduke put his owner-man in his place.

Marmaduke (who did not actually die yesterday) is crying because he can no longer use Christmas tree decorations to choke himself for sexual gratification. He also appears to be melting.

Marmaduke has finally died, thus completing the 2006 American Icon Yuletide Expiration Hat-Trick that James Brown and Gerald Ford kicked off several days ago. It remains uncertain whether he committed suicide, was murdered by his owner-girl (who did a fantastic job at making it look like an accident), or simply lost his balance in one of his frequent auto erotic asphyxiation binges.

Marmaduke is about to do to Christmas what he does to most everything in his world: destroy it with the aid of some improbably-acquired props and/or costume pieces.

Becoming a dentist is not something that happens overnight

Sorry about missing a couple of days... Ever since I decided to become a dentist, my life has become very complicated. Last week I enrolled in Imaginary Dental School, widely considered to be among the finest institutes of higher learning that were made up by me, and have since found myself up to my elbows in teeth, and books about teeth.

Imaginary Dental School has been an enormously rewarding experience so far, but it is also very draining, both on my time and my finances. I will do my best to keep this blog on a daily schedule, but until I earn my IDS diploma things may be a bit rocky from time to time. In the interim, I've set up a charitable organization devoted to myself, and more specifically to helping out with my tuition bills. If you are feeling generous this holiday season, and would like to help out a plucky, hard-working, devastatingly handsome young man fulfill his dream of someday becoming a fake dentist, I would be the last person to stop you (provided that person you're helping out is me, and not someone else who fits that description). And apparently I'm not the only one who thinks this way, either.

All donors will receive a Certificate of Charitability with their name and their donor level ($1-$3: Wood Level, $3-5: Gold Level, $5-$10: Platinum Level, $10-$100: Chocolate Level, $100-$1,000,000,000,000,000: Razzleberry Jubilee Level). These certificates will be emailed to donors in the form of jpegs, suitable for color printing. They will also be really awesome.

Beats of comfort and joy,

Joe Mathlete

Marmaduke has been snooping around the Christmas presents.

Marmaduke has temporarily displaced a mall Santa, the abilities of whom he has confused with those of a genie.

Marmaduke is trying to help his owner-lady prepare chili by holding a ladle in his mouth and stirring the pot. Owner-Lady is horrified to discover that her dinner is now three degrees of separation away from a Great Dane's asshole.

Joe Mathlete answers some fan mail

Via "Aewryq" (possibly not his real name), someone who found my band's MySpace* page and sent me a note:

"Do you ever think of Brad Anderson reading your blog? I hope he does. I hope it scares the bejesus out of him being called out and all. It saddens me when I think of the checks that talentless hack is cashing for that shitfest of a comic.

Anyway, thumbs up for a job well done."

My response:

"I'd have to guess that if Brad Anderson ever saw my blog, he'd probably be a little irritated (particularly at all the references to his age, senility, and general out-of-touchedness with modern times), but he probably wouldn't care all that much, for reasons you yourself have mentioned-- he still keeps cashing all those checks, for doing something really easy (that he's not even particularly good at) for fifty-plus years, no matter how many detractors he has.

Anyway, as the last piece of new technology Brad Anderson bought was a color television and he thus has no internet access, it's a bit of a moot point. Otherwise he probably would have had me shut down months ago out of spite.

Thanks for the thumbs."

* For the record, I hate MySpace, but if it weren't for MySpace very few people would have heard of my band, and I don't know how to make a real website, so I'm forced to play the game. I should also take this opportunity to state that I hate blogs, too, so noodle that one for awhile.

Marmaduke is warned by his owner-lady not to mock her seasonal binge-purge cycle by making sarcastic dog noises.