Dear Kelly: I’m a 27-year-old graduate student attending CMU, and I’m still a virgin. I’ve dated several women but have never gotten past second base. Kissing and groping are swell, but I want to finally find out what it feels like to cross home plate. Please help me! I guess what I’m asking is how can I spot a girl who is likely to jump into the sack on the first date. My Mommy – I tell her everything – advised me to contact that new P-G relationship columnist, Mary Ann Wellener, for advice. But ever since I saw your “sexy” photo in the “Mug Shot Monday” section of the Beaver County Times, I knew you were the relationship columnist for me. I hope you beat the controlled substance and indecent exposure raps! You’re so young and pretty…I know I can trust your advice! HMP! Signed: Philo Phrisbee

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Cat crap occasionally harbors a parasite (T. gondi) that causes toxoplasmosis – a disease that can precipitate severe brain damage or even death when it is transmitted to the fetus of an infected woman.  Healthy people, sickened by this protozoan, quickly fight off the mild flu-like symptoms, and, then, the microbe lies dormant inside their brain cells. Or does it?  New research suggests it manipulates our neurons to produce behaviors that resemble the behaviors T. gondi produces in infected rats. By causing infected rats to lose their fear of cats, it helps insure the parasite’s survival – it can only reproduce in felines…Wait a minute! This post is boring me to death. It’s lousier than my average inane and inept post! Whadda you think Froggy? (Froggy’s my talking frog blog model and avatar image.)

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For months, I have been receiving free, unsolicited copies of “Sports Illustrated.”  Each time an issue arrives, I toss it immediately into the trash, along with the other “junk” mail. I have little interest in most sports, and rarely have enough free time to read the magazines I choose to peruse. But today, hooray, two issues of SI cluttered my rural mailbox, and one of them is a keeper. I and countless other PGPlussers are now proud possessors of the “2012 Swimsuit Issue.” My saliva-dripping tongue dangled disgustingly from its gapping oral-cavity cage as I slithered back to the house. Curvaceous, cover-model Kate Upton’s sensuous smile perfectly matched her itsy-bitsy, teeny-weenie, devil-red bikini. What a set of pects! She’s an athlete! Not some effete, anorexic stick-figure. Well, maybe, not really, but these air-brushed, digitally-enhanced beauties have about as much in common with most real women as most PGPlussers have in common with real professional athletes. Before the Internet brought abundant, free nudity into every connected home, SI’s yearly “Swim Suit Issue” was considered soft porn. Today, these issues are anachronistic pap. A shrinking magazine’s crumbling bulwark vainly holding back ESPN’s relentless attack. And now for Ms. Gulbis:

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I attended St. Veronica High School in Ambridge. Current Pittsburgh Bishop David Zubik was one grade behind me, and since the school was quite small, I remember him fairly well. His facial features haven’t aged that much, but something about his present-day visage seemed askew. It kept bugging me, and then he grew a beard – which has since been discarded. With all the facial hair, His Hirsuteness reminded me of a werewolf. And that’s when it dawned on moi: In high school, I never associated Dave Zubik with a magnificent mane! He has more head hair now than he did 46-years ago. It must be a miracle! I’ve included a photo of Bishop Zubik from my senior yearbook...it’s his National Honor Society mug shot! Dave was an outstanding student.

You might notice the Bishop's name is misspelled. Blame me, I was on the Crusader Yearbook staff!

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 One of the best articles I read in 2011, perhaps the best, was Sandra Tsing Loh’s menopausal Atlantic Magazine masterpiece “The Bitch Is Back.” Well, it’s only early February, 2012, and this Chinese-German-American wordsmith has word-processed out another humdinger. “Daddy Issues” should be required reading for any and every aged-parent caregiver. Rejoice! You are not alone! We are not alone! I am not alone in loathing the task at hand: namely, trying to help a one-foot-in-the-grave, short-term-memory-shot parent exist comfortably till the other foot follows. I cut her grass; shovel her snow; pay her bills; do her banking; prepare her taxes; buy her her food and other necessities; wash her dishes and grudgingly do other household chores. But I’m blessed, because Mom can still dress and otherwise maintain herself. If I’m not around when she receives her mail, she hides it somewhere, and I might not realize a bill hasn’t been paid. You know, till they shut off her electricity, or, God forbid, her TV cable service! Fortunately, Mom still knows me…but not precisely. When we eat out, and that’s daily, except Saturdays – that’s movie day – she’s introduced me to food servers and people we meet who know her – she rarely knows them anymore – as her father, brother, uncle, grandson, husband and boyfriend. Relax, incestophobes, there’s no Oedipal component to this relationship!

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Last Thursday evening, my wife and I returned home from a night out, and realized we’d been robbed! The back door was kicked in and every drawer and cupboard in the house was open. Luckily, we are minimalists and own nothing much worth stealing. The few valuable items we possess are in a safety deposit box. The miscreants took prescription drugs, some modest jewelry and a small cache of silver dollars and quarters. The saddest moment occurred when we realized our daughter’s high-school class ring and the summa cum laude medal she was given at her college commencement were missing. Thankfully, the house wasn’t thrashed. I’ve not lived a lily-white life and hope to be forgiven for a few terrible acts, so I hold no grudge against these individuals. If one expects to be forgiven, one must forgive! This, I instinctively believe. But we felt violated, and decided to purchase a monitored home security system.

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The United States, since the end of World War II, in terms of world dominance and power, has often been compared to past empires: the Roman and British, primarily – figuratively, not literally, because the rise of nationalism has effectively stymied empire building.(The preceding sentence has a curious construction and is undoubtedly grammatically flawed – solecisms is me!) Even if America had been able to fashion a physical empire, it went from a period of ascendancy directly into a period of decline without a long plateau where the civilization flourished. Today, America doesn’t lead the rest of the world in life expectancy, or median income, or literacy rates. Many of our schools provide substandard educations, and our healthcare system is an expensive, heartless disgrace. But, rejoice!, we still are #1, and lapping the rest of the field, is one category – prisons! If all the people incarcerated in America, well over 6,000,000, were counted as a city, say called “Hoosegowburgh,” it would be the second largest city in the U.S. Think of it this way: Hoosegowburgh would be larger than 20 Pittsburghs!

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Eight months, exactly, have passed since the P-G announced its intention to conduct an advice columnist contest. And with neutrino-shaming speed, the judges have separated the wheat from the chaff and moved into the final round. Scuttlebutt suggests the winning contestant may be two people: couples have entered as teammates in this torpid tournament for tyros. Beware! Beware! Why such a ribbiting admonition from Olde Toadsly? Well…let me demonstrate with this sham advice-column column…featuring the photogenic couple in this post’s photo, Virginia & Lin: Dear Virginia & Lin: I’m married to a wonderful man who treats me like a princess. He has a great job and always helps around the house. Our children adore him! He’s a great companion and enjoys listening to my every musing. He very supportive! Problem is I can’t stand him! I feel like a terrible person, but I want out of this marriage! He’s so…boring! What should I do! Signed: Not Kate Bolick

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Over on the free PG blogs – “Reg on Wry” to be precise – commenters have been listing and discussing their favorite films. The comment stream is quite engaging and before long I, as is my custom and frequent downfall, went off on a mental tangent: Which film that I’ve seen has had the most significant impact on modern society? To Kill a Mockingbird? Philadelphia? Paths of Glory? Nope! Nope! Nope! Hint: It was the most successful independent film ever made (estimates range as high as $600,000,000); it was financed by the mob (that’s why we’ll never know its exact gross); it was the first pornographic film to go mainstream, and featured decent production values and a storyline with fleshed-out characters. I was living in Philadelphia when Deep Throat (DT) was released in 1972. My wife and I watched this sexually-explicit flick in a sold-out local mainline theater along with mostly other heterosexual couples of varying ages. DT took pornography out of sticky-floored “art houses” and into movie theaters where the word felatio had never even been uttered by any actor ever appearing on its silver screen, let alone performed.  

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Dear Kelly: I’m a lonely CMU student who is trying to meet women. I’ve joined several dating sites, and would like your take on the type of profile picture I should post. My Mom says I have a great smile, but friends tell me smiling is a liability. What’s your opinion? I’m so desperate! Please help me! Signed: Philo Phrisbee

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