Oh, Jeffy, if I had a dollar for every time I've tried to make the same plea while I stood naked before a completely disinterested woman...

After putting it off for too long, I've been going through some old boxes in my closet. Most of these were packed up when I moved out of the townhouse I was renting in 2002-03 and weren't ever opened despite three moves since.

I mentioned on Twitter that I'd have some stuff available to the highest bidder/whoever was willing to drive over here and pick it up first, but before I handed anything over, I had to through it all and see what unexpected surprises I might find. I'm pretty sure I hid some naked photos of my ex-fiancée between the pages of one of these comics back around 1999.

As I found some things, I mentioned them on Twitter and Facebook, but of everything, one item garnered the most interest. Not necessarily interest in acquiring it, but more in knowing how the hell someone comes to be in possession of such a thing.

And so we come to the extremely boring story of The Box of Captain Picards.

The origins of this tale are rooted in a nexus of sci-fi geekery and speech-and-debate geekery. In 1992-93, I was a member of my high school speech and debate team. One January weekend, we were headed to Prescott for a tournament to qualify for the state championships and had to stay overnight. We weren't allowed to go out on Friday night--not that there was anywhere to go or anything to do in Prescott on a Friday night even if we were allowed--so several of us hung out in our hotel room watching Star Trek: The Next Generation. But, because we were bored, we decided to mute the TV and each took a character to voice, improvising dialog and making jokes.

Anyway, I did Picard. At the tournament, everyone who'd been in the room that night qualified for state, so to celebrate, I went to Target and bought everyone a Star Trek action figure of their character for good luck the rest of the season. I got this one:(Ignore any of the junk in the background. It's just there because we're having the carpet replaced and everything from the bedrooms has had to be stacked up in the family room and dining room.)

For the rest of the year, I kept Captain Picard in my pocket for every round of every tournament. And I never lost. I won first place in Humorous Interpretation at every tournament for the rest of 1993 all the way through the state championship.(Hey, look what other junk I found digging though these boxes!)

I also qualified to go to Nationals in Indianapolis, which is apparently a reward in some cultures. Before I left, a few of my teammates presented me with another Captain Picard action figure for good luck at Nationals. I was quickly bounced from the tournament, though the unlucky new figure wasn't to blame as much as politics (Arizona's style of humorous interp and National Forensic League traditional style are apparently very different and my performance was considered insulting to the tournament) and my generally being burned out on speech and debate and preferring to spend a week of my first post-graduation summer trying to get laid with drama chicks from across the country that I'd never have to worry about seeing again than rehearse and stress about a ten minute speech that judges were going to pan regardless of my performance if only because it was about a cockroach and my haircut was ridiculous, even by 1993 standards.

(For the record, my piece was a recut version of "The No-Wax Killing Floor" from Beautiful Stories for Ugly Children. If you find a copy in the back issues at your local comic shop, pick it up.)

So, long story short, I won a lot of trophies and I displayed them in my bedroom. And with them put the two Picard figures since they were an important part of the year.

Enter my friend Robert, who saw the Picards, but didn't know their connection to speech and debate. Instead, he saw them displayed proudly alongside a cadre of trophies and assumed they must be special to me because of how much I liked Patrick Stewart. At some point in the summer of 1993, he was out at a store and saw a Picard figure I didn't own, so he bought it and gave it to me as a gift. A few month later, someone traded in some Star Trek figures at the comic book shop where he works, so he pulled the Picards and gave them to me. Soon, I had a dozen or so figures and things got out of control.

Whenever a new figure hit the stores, Robert would buy it for me. Whenever old figures got traded in, he would grab it before any customers could buy it. I was just along for the ride, not sure why he was doing so, but finding the whole situation fun. As most comic collectors can understand, there's a completist mentality that kicks in once you own a certain percentage of something and by the time I owned all but a half dozen or so Picard figures, I sure as hell wasn't going to tell him to stop before I found out whether it was possible to own it all.

I had Picard in various outfits.I had Picard in various sizes.I had Picard statues.And once I had everything Picard, various other Patrick Stewart roles began showing up.Then I started getting customized things like this Heroclix figure Robert made...And for Christmas of 2002, our friend Jim commissioned an all-Picard nativity scene from Robert. (Note that everyone's hair and headpieces have been painted flesh tone and that one of the wise men has been assimilated by the Borg.And all told, I've purchased two, maybe three of these for myself. The other 50-60 pieces, including the dozens I didn't photograph, have all been gifts. I used to display them in my apartment in Yuma (1999-2000) and the townhouse mentioned above, but since 2003, they've been living in this box. During that time, I learned the back story for why Robert started buying me the Picards, and I haven't acquired any new figures (though I did have an email alert on eBay for a while in case a rare set from the episode "Darmok" was put up for sale. The only ones I ever saw were from Australia, so I wonder if it was some kind of exclusive down there.)

So, it seems the time is right to cut my ties to the past. I think I'll keep the original figure, but the rest will be better off in some Trekkie's house where they'll get the love and appreciation they deserve.

"When exactly did you realize you were gay?"

When my friend Dan came out of the closet several years ago, I was able to ask him the question that I found most interesting about his sexuality. I remember first recognizing that I was attracted to a girl in kindergarten. I still vividly remember seeing naked breasts when John Belushi climbed that ladder in Animal House at the age of eight and thinking, "Yes, this is something I enjoy and would like to see more of." I first saw a Playboy in February 1982 and first got caught by my mother while reading a Playboy in March 1982.

There was never any question for me whether I was straight or gay, and I wondered whether it was as simple a realization for Dan, and, if it was, why did he wait until his late-20's to tell all of us? Considering many of us had our suspicions for several years leading up to his ultimately coming out, I wasn't sure if he'd waited our of fear of rejection and disapproval or out of indecision.

"I guess I realized I was gay kind of the same way I realized I was an atheist," he explained. His analogy noted the similarities between his Catholic upbringing and the social moires of heterosexuality. "When you're a kid, everyone tells you there's a god and you believe in him because you just assume everything your parents say must be true. Then I reached a point where I was going to church, but was thinking, 'I don't know that I really believe this.' Then I was agnostic for a while, but then reached a point where I wondered why. I didn't believe in God or Jesus or any of the pillars of Christianity, but there was a part of me still clinging to the idea that maybe my parents were right." Just as he realized he didn't believe in Catholicism and eventually that he wasn't agnostic, Dan also realized he didn't conform to the boy-girl dynamic he'd been told was correct his entire life, and, furthermore, he wasn't bisexual or "just curious." He was gay.

The act of coming out has been one of the most powerful tools in the fight for gay rights. The simple act of telling those around you that gays aren't "those people," but that they are our friends and family members. They are people we loved before they revealed they were gay and and that revelation should in no way affect our love. When I think of any issue affecting gays, it's impossible for me to think of "gays" as a faceless mass of "them." Anyone who wants to deny the rights of gays to visit their partners in the hospital wants to deny those rights to Dan... and to Jarvis and Derrick and Tim and Scharia and several other gay people I know and fully fleshed out human beings and not just one-dimensional caricatures based solely upon their sexual preference.

The more gays who come out, the greater the tolerance for homosexuality increases. The reason support for gay rights is highest in places like New York, New England, and the West Coast is not simply a reflection of liberal leanings in those regions, but of the fact that gays are more open in those areas and are seen as real people instead of as just a bunch of fuckin' faggots as they so often are by guys who have never met an actual live homosexual because they live in and have never had any desire to get out of places like Wewahitchka, Florida.

Surveys have shown that atheists are the most distrusted minority in the United States. The typical American would rather have his daughter marry blacks, Jews, Muslims, Mexicans, even gays before she marries an atheist. Yet at the same time, trends are showing fewer people attend church or claim any particular religious belief. The term "spiritual but not religious" gets thrown about fairly easily. With each generation, religious devotion drops. In other words, with each generation, more and more people realize, like Dan, that maybe their parents were wrong.

But if there are potentially more atheists than at any time in the past several decades, why are atheists still so hated? Because too many atheists are afraid to admit their lack of belief.

Just as coming out has been so powerful in the advancement of gay rights, it can do the same for atheists. I make no attempts to hide my feelings about religion, and I know several other atheists who are the same way. Letting your friends and family know that you are living a moral life without the guidance of a mythological overlord or a millennia old book puts a face to godless America. Those who care about you can come to the realization that atheists can't just be dismissed as irrational father-haters who've been deceived by Satan into giving into peer pressure to not believe in God. Most importantly, coming out may help those non-believers around you who are not brave enough to do so themselves yet to find that strength.

Certainly there are those who will not accept, but that is not the fault of the atheist. I have a friend who routinely insists on posting comments on Facebook telling me she'll pray for me or that god exists in the hope that some morning I will wake up and realize I do believe afterall, as though this was just some silly phase.

I can only wonder if she'd tell Dan that she's hopes he'll find the perfect girl.

Recently, Talk of the Nation did a segment about the dying newspaper industry during which the guest suggested that the industry's greatest weakness is its inability to understand that the internet is more than just a change in technology, but rather a change in philosophy. People who get their news online do not want to read a paper cover to cover, and anyone planning to produce the same product in a digital form is likely to fail.

NBC is facing a similar problem with its Olympic coverage. Years ago, ABC aired "Wide World of Sports" on Saturday afternoons. The show featured prerecorded sporting events, often days or weeks old. It didn't matter, though, because viewers often didn't know the results. For years, the Olympics have been covered the same way. When primetime rolled around, the network aired a series of edited segments recorded during the afternoon's play. People could stay blissfully unaware of the results because the newspaper wouldn't come out until the next morning and radio and TV stations often agreed not to reveal outcomes until after they aired.

Today, however, you can watch live streaming events on sites from other countries. Instead of being at the mercy of NBC, viewers who want to see the Swedish curling team take on Team Finland--which wouldn't get even a mention from Bob Costas, much less a clip--can watch every minute of play in either nation's native tongue. Because news doesn't wait until the morning paper is published, TV and radio can't pretend things didn't happen. Your drive home in the evening will be peppered with spoiler warnings from deejays and news readers, telling you to turn down the radio if you don't want to know who won gold in the Super-G.

Like the above examples, it's easy to think of Facebook like a big party with all of your friends. And all your friends invited all their friends. And all the friends' friends invited their friends and so on and so on.

In such a social setting, you might be engaged in a conversation with a friend, when one of their other friends jumped in to participate as well. In some cases, that friend might even be someone you know! For example, the only time I ever talk to Rhonda, one of my closest friends in 12th grade, is when I see her at the birthday parties of Ryno's kids.

In such a case, it would be perfectly acceptable to interrupt the flow of the conversation to interject a "long time no see" or "hey, what's up?!"

However, Facebook is not a party! It's a website. If you see someone who is a friend of a friend, you can send them a friend request. You can send them a message. You can poke them. You can do all of this out of sight of the rest of your Facebook friends without hijacking a stream of conversation.

The new technology represents more than just a faster way to do the same thing, so pull your head out of your ass.

Back in 2002, my general manager took me off the air for a month or two in an effort to make me and my fellow sports anchor, Scott Rossman, miserable enough to quit. However, my news director found ways to get me on the air doing feature stories in which I didn't actually appear. My motivation for most of them was to piss off my GM. Since Jack, the news director, was kind of fed up with the GM as well, he thoroughly enjoyed using me as a not-so-silent weapon.

One morning during spring break, Jack brought me a press release about a promotional booth Calgon was running on the beach. The "Ultimate Shower" offered the opportunity to shower with a model (and learn all about Calgon products). I decided to make it all about pissing off our ultra-conservative viewers by being news on small town television.

We did get complaints about the story, but not because of my nudity. People called to say the girls were "nasty." When producer Rebecca pointed out, "You do realize they were wearing bikinis while Jake was naked," no one seemed to care.

Recent polling has shown that a majority of people don't know what is in the health care reform bills. The upshot of that ignorance is that a lot of those who say they want congress to "kill the bill" would actually support it if they bothered to look into it instead of taking marching orders from Glenn Beck.

Unfortunately, Americans don't like to do things like "read" and "think" about things. It's much easier to be told what you think by someone who must know what he's talking about because he has a microphone.

Politics and religion have always been equally dangerous in my mind. The idea of having your thoughts and feelings dictated to you because you choose to be part of a group--be it Catholic or Democrat or Muslim or Libertarian--makes no sense to me. If you are a pro-life Democrat, you're not really a Democrat. Your party has made a point of stating that your belief is not a part of it's platform. If you are a gay Republican... well, no, you're not.

I have heard the case that a belief in free market economics and lower taxes for businesses can supersede one's desire to be treated with equal civil rights, but in my mind it is proof that the very concept of a two-party system is irrevocably flawed. If there are 200 million voters in America, there should be 200 million political parties. A two-party system merely dumbs down any debate to the most simple soundbites as if a nation of hundreds of millions of people can be run on a straight choice of abortions or miniature American flags.

Religions thrive on the same ignorance. In fact, they go so far as to encourage it, threatening eternal suffering to those who dare to question the Almighty's Divine Plan. "Faith" is defined as belief in that for which there is no evidence. In other words, believe what the guy with the microphone in the pulpit tells you and don't go doing a lot of research and reading and thinking that might contradict what he's said.

Ask most Christians whether God is cool with rape and they'll get indignant. "God would never do that. You atheists just hate God for no reason and make up stuff like that!" Then you show them Numbers 31: 17-18 where the followers of Moses are told, "Now kill all the boys and all the women who have slept with a man. Only the young girls who are virgins may live; you may keep them for yourselves." Translation: commit mass rape in thy Lord's name.

Oh, there are rules about rape. Like if you want to rape a woman after you kill her family in war, you have to wait 30 whole days and marry her, and if you decide you don't want to stay married to her, you have to let her go rather than enslave her (Deuteronomy 21:10-14). And if you rape a girl and get caught, you have to pay her dad 50 pieces of silver and you have to marry her and you can't divorce her (Deuteronomy 22:28-29)! Because if you ask any rape victim, they'll tell you the worst part about the experience is that, after all they shared, the rapist never calls.

The list goes on--God endorses the ravishing of women in Zechariah 14:2--and on--God punishes King David by having his wives publicly raped in 2 Samuel 12:11 (then he kills a baby seven verses later)--and on--rape victims who don't scream loud enough for help get put to death in Deuteronomy 22:23-24--and on--Babylonian babies get murdered while all the women get raped in Isaiah 13:15-18. Yet the majority of Christians are oblivious to these passages.

It's long been said that the greatest tool in the atheist's toolkit is the Bible. The overwhelming message of the book is not one of love, peace, and kindness, but one of hatred, violence, and intolerance. God endorses and demands genocide of his followers (Exodus 22:19, 23:23, Deuteronomy 13:7-12, 13:13-19, 17:2-5, Numbers 25:1-9, Ezekiel 9:5-7, 1 Samuel 15:2-3, Joshua 6:20-21, 8:1-29, 19:47, 2 Kings 19:35... Christ, there's a lot more, but I'm tired of listing them). Jesus suggests men should chop off their penises to get into heaven (Matthew 19:12). God commands thou shalt not kill, but then has a long list of exceptions where killing is okay, including cursing at your parents (Proverbs 20:20, Leviticus 20:9), being related to a sinner (Isaiah 14:21, Leviticus 26:21-22), not circumcising your son (Exodus 4:24), and not punching a prophet who asks you to do so (1 Kings 20:35-36).

What's most interesting is that a majority of atheists will have a passing knowledge of these passages, while most Christians will find them a surprise.

The Christian leader teaching the most accurate dogma per the Bible is Pastor Fred Phelps. The Westboro Baptist Church's leader is most famous for drumming up the "God Hates Fags" rallies and protests, often outside churches and cemeteries where funerals for homosexuals are taking place. Pastor Phelps can quote chapter and verse to explain why terrorist attacks and natural disasters are God's punishment for societal tolerance of homosexuality. He correctly points out that God says he will kill our children if we don't follow his every demand, such as killing our children for mocking bald guys (2 Kings 2:23-24).

Perhaps the greatest interpreter of the Bible is cartoonist Jack Chick, whose tracts are famous for using Bible verses to explain why Dungeons and Dragons is a gateway to Satan and telling your kids about the Tooth Fairy will make them murderers.

Understand, Phelps and Chick are both batshit insane. They promote hatred and intolerance, but they are the true voices of the Lord of the Bible. Any Christian who denies Phelps and Chick is as much a Christian as a pro-gun, anti-abortion Democrat is a Democrat.

I was going to write a series of posts on Twitter about how the guy who can't open ziploc bags is in line to become a manager at Fresh & Easy, but then inspiration hit me. It's been years since I did an Angry Jake cartoon and the world deserves better than a string of tweets that will be forgotten in a few hours.

Big thanks as always to Joe Bowen for the art.