My life coach recently accepted a position with the Civil Engineering Department of Alameda County, so I'm pretty much on my own with respect to goals and ambitions. That's why I recently typed up my fifty-year plan.

As it stands, here's the plan:

[Age: 31, Year: 2009] Obtain more than 250 friends on an Internet social networking website.

[Age: 32, Year: 2010] Become a regular at a bar that is east of San Francisco.

[Age: 36, Year: 2014] Impregnate someone, without resorting to the mail order catalog that is on my coffee table.

[Age: 40, Year: 2018] Better familiarize myself with a local professional sports franchise, so I may speak of them intelligently in conversation and find camaraderie with other individuals who reside in my metropolitan region.

[Age: 43, Year: 2021] Visit the Disneyland in Iran and the Disneyland in North Korea.

[Age: 56, Year: 2034] Fully pay for the education and substance abuse rehabilitation of my first born child.

[Age: 57, Year: 2035] Use the bathroom in the Dennis Kucinich Presidential Library.

[Age: 58, Year: 2036] Exercise the right of every father of adult children to abandon holiday activities for the greener pastures of television and sleep.

[Age: 64, Year: 2042] Stop the robot from raping my wife and I.

[Age: 69, Year: 2047] Demand grandchildren, by any means necessary.

[Age: 79, Year: 2057] Give 10% of my Social Security check to charity, abiding by a last-minute adherence to scripture.

[Age: 85, Year: 2063] Have the last laugh.

[Afterward] Discover or fail to discover that the last laugh was on me.

The wedding through a web of lies

I just got back from the strangest wedding imaginable. I know the bride and groom very well, and I consider both of them to be good friends. Strangely enough, they met on an Internet social networking site for Asian professionals. After discovering that they were the only pair of chronically unemployed Caucasians to use the site, they met each other for coffee and quickly fell in love.

Everyone knew the wedding would be difficult. The groom and the groom's father come from a long line of psychiatrists. Unfortunately, the bride's family members are Orthodox Scientologists. So the situation was awkward, to say the very least. However, after the minister read from the first two chapters of Dianetics, everything seemed to be copacetic.

Unfortunately, a moment arrived when the best man almost ruined the wedding for everyone. He got drunk before the ceremony and gave a best man speech at the worst imaginable time. When the minister asked, "if there is anyone here who thinks these two should not be married," he launched into his best man speech right there. "Let me tell you about this guy," he shouted. "This man is like a brother to me," he shouted again.

And then, afterward, when the right moment arrived for his speech, things got even worse. "Ladies and gentlemen, this man is a joker," he said. "And he is so lucky to have the bride," he continued. And then came the awkward line: "Ladies and gentlemen, until my best friend met the bride, he was routinely having sex with animals." I was a little shocked by this comment, agreeing with the couple's grandparents that it was somewhat inappropriate.

I could go on forever, but I also disagreed with other elements of the wedding. For instance, it seemed unorthodox for the bride and groom to give 2nd and 3rd place trophies to some of their ex-girlfriends and ex-boyfriends. Even worse, for the life of me, I don't know why they're relying on Google Earth for their wedding photographs. And last but not least, they really should have chosen traditional glasses of champagne for their toast, instead of aluminum cans of malt liquor. Nevertheless, regardless, and nevertheless, I honestly and honestly wish them the very best.