* Actual results may vary

Is June 24 your birthday? Are you a blogger? Do you wish to highlight this annual observance of the day you were ejected into this world but fear sounding egomaniacal or vain?

Though it is your blog and people have a choice whether or not to read it, writing about your birthday may seem a tad narcissistic. Short of asking your blogging friends to write about you, or even ignoring your birthday all together, there is a way to blog about this day yet still appear aloof and whimsical.

Here’s my how-to guide:

1. Post a cute picture of yourself at a younger age.

Showing what you looked like as a child makes readers go, “Awwww…” and makes them think you’re not the self-involved asshole they all know you are. Is it a cheap ploy made worse by its gaucheness? Yes. Should you care? Absolutely not.

2. Write self-deprecatingly about how old you are.

Whether you’re a blogger who is turning 18 or 88, waxing pathetically about your age makes you appear humble yet strangely obsessive. For example, if you were turning, say, 33 today, you could write about how you’re really not that old. You’re just the same age Jesus was when he was crucified. Ha ha ha!! Hysterical!!!

3. Tell an embarrassing yet endearing story about a past birthday celebration.

Everyone at some point has done something stupid on his or her birthday. Some people celebrated turning 21 by making Midori Sour their first alcoholic purchase. Others have had their faces stuffed into birthday cakes when they turned 18. And some other people have gotten erections when they turned 13 and the girl they had a crush on sat in their lap.

To some people, all three of these things have happened.

4. Throw a birthday party and blog about it.

Use words like “crazy” and “so fucking drunk” to describe how popular your birthday party was. If you have photos of it, post as many as possible that don’t show you swinging a golf club on the way home.

If you don’t have any photos, be thankful.

5. Write a series of “This Day in History” trivia tidbits so people know why else your birthday is so fucking important.

You could mention that on your birthday, Henry VIII was crowned king of England in 1509, or that the term “flying saucers” was born on your birthday in 1947.

Unfortunately, most people don’t usually care about this crap.

6. Point out other bloggers — like Freckled K and Love is Blonde — who share the same birthday as you.

Two birds, one stone, etc. You get to be magnanimous in the face of birthday-wishing while simultaneously highlighting yourself.

7. Be thankful you’re not THAT old.

It could always be worse. You could be 34.

Thanks to WiB for this heart-warming someecard.

I recently added three blogs to my blogroll I think everyone should be reading when they’re not watching online porn.

Surviving Myself

This dude seriously cracks me up. A blogger from Brooklyn, he could write about his fucking shoe size and it would still be funny. He’s actually made me LOL or ROTF (or whatever the kids are calling it these days) with epics posts like his recent fight with a moth and his wish to fight Sean Connery.

Berg With Fries

If I lived in Chicago and knew anything about computers, I think this fellow MOT and I would be BFFs. Josh is a funny writer who has a talent for seeing the world just a bit differently than anyone else. When he’s not photo essaying his past work experience, he’s video blogging (vlogging, right?) an 8-book review in 3 minutes…while eating Pop Rocks.

Hup and Steph

This blog is written by a couple, who if I didn’t have the videos and photos to prove it, I would think they’re fictional. They live in Northern California and like to document every single second of their hysterical adventures. The video of them attending Bay to Breakers is worth the click to their blog alone.

Also, they like to wear their underwear in public:

I don’t usually receive comments from readers too long after I post something. Like all blogs, this one operates under the “what have you done for me lately?” mode. Subsequently, any posts older than a day or two are no longer deemed relevant by most readers.

Presidential hopeful Don Cordell, though, is not most readers.

On Monday evening, five months after I suggested his campaign motto should be “Get off my lawn!” in a blog post picked up by the Huffington Post, Cordell left me a comment:

Gas at $4.29 gal, and you don’t believe me that I’ll give you gas for $1.29. What are you going to do when gas is $10/gal? If you don’t elect Me this November, Welcome to the North American Union, on the way to the New World Order. You have to review some of the Video links I’ve included in my website, to see what is happening to our nation. I’m not a hard nut, I’m a citizen that is worried as to what is happening to our nation. We must return manufacturing to America.
Stop buying from China, or China will take our money and buy America. There are about 5 million Americans out of work, or downsized to where they can’t afford to make house payments.
God Bless America, no one else will.”

With constructive comments like that, I decided to re-examine my feelings about President Don (that’s his e-mail name) and see if I wasn’t too hasty in January when I wrote “Cordell would rip out my throat and bitch slap me with it if he knew I was linking to him.”

Looks like Cordell has been unfazed by the standard American electoral machine and is quickly making plans to become our next U.S. President. His motto is not “Hillary Shmillary” (that should be Obama’s) but it’s pretty close. Below his caring visage on his Web site, he writes:

“I am determined to save our nation. How can I smile, when America is in trouble.”

Also, aside from the usual hatred of anything un-American and his virulent stance against $10/gallon gas, Cordell also has written a plea to all his readers:

“If this website is not updated at least once a week, that means our government has decided I’m a threat to the Plan and removed.”

Removed what? I don’t know. Who cares? Cordell for President!

In my January blog post, I wasn’t the only one captivated by Cordell’s charms.

Roissy declared “don cordell 2008! just look at that mug!”

Jordan Baker wrote that Cordell “looks like my parents’ next door neighbor in AZ, who hates Hillary Clinton so much that he has donated money to EVERY presidential candidate EXCEPT her, just to make sure that ‘the broad don’t win.’”

And the very Latina Not So Little Woman swore “I have all my papers, Mr. Cordell! I have them all!!”

Also, in the post, I included a poll at the end. As of Tuesday, Cordell was still in third place out of 8 candidates with 21% of the vote.

So you have a lot of support from this blog and its readers, President Don. I’ll see you at the Inauguration Parade next January!

Four months after he failed to win the primary in my apartment because I didn’t register to vote in time, Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee.

I may have single-handedly cost him the much-needed “Arjewtino” superdelegate. I may have accidentally threatened to derail his momentum. I may have been unable to understand simple voter registration rules.

But at least I can change my Wordpress theme for one day.

One of my favorite posts by Rothko at Nicolasix was one he wrote telling his mom about his blog. Hilarity ensued. Here is how it starts:

I recently gave my mom the address to this blog. She’s known I’ve had a blog - or as she calls it, a ‘blob’ - for some time, but she’s always figured it was something I might not want her to visit. Because, who knows, I might say something a little vulgar, perhaps. Or slip in some vaguely sexual pun. Or, you know, I might drop a few F-bombs down on this bee-atch.”

I never had the problem Rothko had since my mom knew I had a blob — er, blog — about 10 seconds after I started it. There have been moments when I have wished she, along with other family members and friends, didn’t know I had it since it would be easier to write about things I often feel I can’t share, like my inability to drink water out of a straw. So embarrassing.

I don’t mind that my mom reads my blog mainly because she gives me constant validation about my writing skills. My mom honestly doesn’t understand why I don’t have a book contract with a $100,000 first-time author advance or why my life hasn’t been optioned into a movie. All in due time, mom.

That’s the great thing about mothers: they think you’re a fucking genius even when you’re writing about how many five-year-olds you could beat up.

But what happens when someone else’s mom finds your blog?

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Baby Bien (who I’ve written about a lot here) sent me an e-mail alerting me to the fact that Mama Bien had stumbled across my blog. She spent nearly half an hour reading all about her son stupidly losing a $300 bet, wearing what she called “a fake Hitler mustache”, and giving me his mailing address “so now you get schmutz from the internet….oy,oy,oy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” (yes, she’s Jewish, too; all Jewish moms talk like this).

Mama Bien added:

It was fun reading your demented friend’s website. [Arjewtino] should be ashamed of himself… ha,ha…

Now that I’ve had a chuckle and a panic attack, you can safely resume your life. It is no longer a “visiting” site… No parental guidelines…

Love ya, Baby Bien…”

I was on the phone a while back shortly after I posted a photo on my blog of a vagina with a fish painted on it. She said she told a friend of hers at work about my blog and that she checked it out. On the very day that photo was posted. I warned her to look into sexual harassment laws in the L.A.U.S.D.

I suppose there is a lot about us that we don’t want our moms to find out. They often know us better than anyone yet there are facets of our lives we just wish they didn’t know. Moms fed your ungrateful ass, clothed you, comforted you, put Band-Aids on you when you fell off your bike trying to impress a girl, and we thank them by growing up and having the gall to lead our own lives.

Rinse and repeat.

PHOTO CREDIT

My friend GoPats asked me in today’s comments:

Why don’t you blog from the wired wifi super bus?”

Having known him 9 years, I knew he was due to come up with a good idea. So here I am, on my very first BoltBus trip, writing to a total of five readers who Sitemeter tells me are currently on my blog (it’s Friday night, go out). Our WiFi connection keeps going in and out so I can’t guarantee that I can stay online or that it will even be entertaining, but I’m nothing if not determined to make you laugh.

Like a clown.

6:27PM: The bus is about to leave and the very first thing I have noticed about BoltBus is the silly people with their silly laptops (I am NOT excluding myself). The first thing everyone did was look for seats with sockets in front of them. Not two minutes went by before everyone took out their laptops and checked their e-mails.

6:35PM: Arjewtino: “Excuse me, driver, do you have the network code to get online?”
Random girl who thinks I was talking to her: “You don’t need a network code.”
Bus driver who just became my new best friend: “Actually, yes you do.”
Arjewtino to random girl: “Suck it.”

7:36PM: We lost Internet pretty much when we started the drive. Everyone is freaking out. There’s pandemonium. If we can’t GChat while on a moving conductor we’ll just about die. I entertained myself by watching an episode from the first season of Perfect Strangers. Don’t judge me. It’s a great show. That Balki!! So foreign and stupid!

I’m taking the BoltBus to NYC tonight to see Blue. It’s his 33rd birthday and we’re going to par-tay like we’re 23 again. Which translates to Sega hockey, Chinese takeout, and a Broadway show. Hopefully, this time, with less racism.

Yesterday, while discussing with Blue all the par-taying we’re going to do, he mentioned my recent lack of blogging.

Blue: “You haven’t been blogging much lately. Are you thinking about ending it?”

Arjewtino: “I think about it sometimes. Maybe I’ll delete this blog, take a break, and then start a new, secret one. You know, where I can talk about my feelings.”

Blue: “You should call it Ar-Christian-tino.”

Arjewtino: “That’s a pretty good idea.”

Blue: “Think about everything you would write about and then write the opposite.”

Next week will be a better blogging week. I promise.

Fucking vultures.

Nearly one year ago, I told Bridal Bird in the comments section of one of my blog posts how much I detested United Airlines for making me watch the movie Fever Pitch when I flew to Japan two years ago.

Since then, the Bird (sadly an Orioles fan who probably doesn’t even remember what it’s like to cheer for a winner in her lifetime) has been perpetuating a vicious rumor that I actually liked the movie starring Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore.

This rumor has not abated.

During an e-mail exchange yesterday between INPY, Jess, and myself, the following conversation occurred:

Jess: Whenever I see the phillies I think of when my dad took me to the all-star game there. There was a bit where the players came round and shook hands w/ fans. Darren Daulton walks by and a teased-out-hair Phillies chick turns to her lady friend and says, in Philly-tainted accent, ‘LOOK! At that ay-us (ass).’ My dad and I still say it when we see the Phils highlights….

INPY: Holy CRAP that’s hysterical! Wasn’t something like that in Fever Pitch? Arjewtino?

I forwarded the e-mails to Bridal Bird to show her how she’s ruined my life. She responded with this:

At precisely 5:12 and 28 seconds yesterday afternoon, exactly 388 days since my very first post on Arjewtino.com, a woman casually clicked on my blog and became the winner of the greatest contest that has ever been held anywhere.

Amy, a Northern Virginia mommy who blogs at Crazy Mokes, has been in porn, likes to keep things besides her breasts in her bra, and has two awesome kids. She is also the 100,000th visitor to my blog, an honor that bestows upon it a coveted autographed photograph of my butt AND a baseball card from my week at Dodgers fantasy camp.

Upon hearing about her victory, Amy had the following response:

“I won a MAJOR AWARD!”

Yes, you did, Amy. Yes you did.

Amy will receive the major award, er, photo of my butt, personalized and autographed, and has promised to in turn take a photo of her family doing something with it and send it to me. I suggested she take a photo of her kids eating cereal or napping with it, but the decision is really up to her. I’m assuming her husband is a really cool dude who won’t find out who I am and beat me up for traumatizing her family.

Seeing the joy Amy felt in winning the 100,000th visitor honor, I decided to give consolation prizes to visitors 99,999 and 100,001.

Visitor 99,999 is someone many of you may know, at least through her blog. Formerly known as Brunch Bird, Bridal Bird is a frequent commenter, reader, and was even a one-time guest blogger here. She clicked on my blog 33 seconds too early, making her the winner of a baseball card but no butt photo.

Bridal Bird’s pain, in an e-mail to me yesterday, was anguishing. She sent me this photo of herself clearly distraught. And she wrote me these words, which are just heartbreaking:

“I say with no amount of understatement that I’ve never been so glad in my life to lose a contest.”

Sniff. So sad.

Visitor 100,001 is someone I don’t know. Here is what I do know about him/her:

* He or she is from Valparaiso, Indiana
* Uses the Firefox Web browser
* Clicked on my blog at 5:13pm, and
* Subscribes to my blog using Google Reader.

He or she is probably unaware that he or she won this prestigious award. Sir, or madam, if you are reading this and would like to claim your consolation prize, contact me by clicking HERE.

For those of you who didn’t win and are hurting, let me just assuage you and tell you that the pain will pass. You tried your best and I am honored to have seen so many of you try so hard to win this.

Besides, there’s always the 200,000th visitor contest.

UPDATE: The 100,001st visitor and winner of the second consolation prize was none other than my blog crush The Maiden Metallurgist, who is by far my favorite metallurgist. She was traveling through a small town outside of Valpo yesterday and, according to Google Analytics, was my only visitor from Indiana yesterday. Fucking Hoosiers.

TMM will also receive a signed baseball card of me, once they actually, you know, arrive. Congrats, TMM, and stop kicking yourself for being 43 seconds too late for the grand prize.

Christian Lander has a publicist.

The man who writes the widely successful blog Stuff White People Like (close to 17 million hits) recently hired someone to handle eager reporters and bloggers looking for deeper meaning in his blog posts. This got Washington Post reporter Monica Hesse’s panties in a bunch when the publicist told her that Lander would be “taking a little breather from all media requests”.

But who are they kidding?” Hesse wrote on Friday in the Post. “With the (free) blogged list already at No. 90, the only things left to cover are Zipcar and Blelvis.

Stuff white people like: getting fat advances . . . and then clamming up.”

Look, Hesse, I can see why you might be resentful. After all, you are the one who went to J-school. You are the one who took crappy internships. You are the one who brought coffee to editors who only liked you for your tits. You are the one who made the brilliant move (like I did 9 years ago) to enter the lowest-paying career out of college. And this guy Lander starts some stupid blog after a discussion with a friend over “The Wire”, gets a fucking book deal, and has the gall to hire a freaking publicist whose job is merely to tell reporters to fuck off?

Like my friend said to me at the San Francisco modern art museum when I stood in front of a large black canvas and said, “I could have done that.”

“But you didn’t.”

Lander has been successful not just because of his simple concept that has made everyone say “Why didn’t I think of that?” but also because his writing style is hysterical. It is the reason copycat blogs haven’t been nearly as good. (Stuff Stick Figure People Like? Really?)

Lander’s decision to hire a publicist, I think, is brilliant. And it has made me realize that I need one, too.

Now, I know I don’t have too many e-mails begging me for an interview and Random House is not knocking down my door to sign me up for a book deal on what it’s like to be Argentinean, Jewish, and awesome. But given the responses I have received to my contest to award my 100,000th blog visitor with a signed photo of my ass, it might be time for some PR work.

I don’t want a picture of your butt actually. I just thought this was an amusing incentive,” wrote Jo.

I may have to stay away less I win this contest - my sons already have too much to talk about in therapy,” wrote Judy C.

I absolutely adore your blog and look forward to reading it, but I really, really, REALLY hope that I am not the 100,000th visitor,” wrote a commenter named Elizabeth.

Wow. Tough crowd.

In any case, visitor 100,000 and winner of a personalized, autographed photo of my butt AND a baseball card of me from Dodgers fantasy camp will arrive today.

As of 12pm, Tuesday, the count is at 99,865.

If you want to win this lucrative prize, click on my blog. Multiple times. After lunch. During your coffee break. Before dinner. Skip whatever happy hour you’re planning to go to. This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to win this obviously sought-after award.

Man. I really do need a publicist.