It has been very muggy and humid here in Pittsburgh as of late and I don’t know if you know this, but what humidity does to curly hair (Sally is SUCH a whiner about that), has got nothing on what humidity does to dinosaur skin.

Humidity + sweat + dinosaur skin + random drops of carcass blood * 50,000 = P.U.

I decided to do Norm a favor and go take my semi-annual bath a few weeks early when I encountered THIS:

What have they done to my spa bathtub at the Point?! It is completely dry!

This needs to be fixed immediately because believe you me, I can live with the smell, but as for you humans, I apologize for the scent of putridity and rotting flesh that is currently permeating downtown Pittsburgh.

On the bright side, now you know what Alex Ovechkin smells like.

Rawr.

In Norm’s apartment:

Norm: What the heck are you doing?

Rex: Using the Force.

Norm: What force?

Rex: THE Force.

Norm: The — hah hah — Jedi Force?

Rex: Laugh, you do. Eat you, I will.

Norm: What are you attempting to use the Force to do, exactly, because it looks like you’re just sitting there on the couch with your eyes shut real tightly.

Rex: From you, silence. Concentrating, I am.

Norm: On what!? Oh, never mind. Move please, I think you’re sitting on my laptop.

Rex: Sitting on it, I am.

Norm: Then move!

Rex: Move, I will not.

Norm: You’ll crush it!

Rex: Yes. Crush it, I will. [opens eyes] Unless you pay me a hundred bucks.

Norm: No way.

Rex: [closes eyes] Then crush it, I will. A thousand pieces, into. A pressure slight, it will only take. Watch –

Norm: OKAY! I’ll give you a hundred bucks!

Rex: Here’s your laptop. And what do you know, the Force works.

Having discovered that I do in fact have the powers of the Jedi Force, and also having a hundred dollars to burn, I bought myself a snazzy new outfit for May 4th, also known as Star Wars Day.

What do you think?

We’re going to have a photo shoot on Tuesday, May 4th at noon if you want to come down here and get your picture taken with me looking all Jedi-awesome. I wonder if I can get the mayor to come down and visit me so I can get a chance to say, “Luke, I am your FAH-THER!”

I just realized though, that I don’t have a light saber and I’ve used all my money on my costume. Looks like I’m going to have to use the Force to get some more money out of Norm.

I wonder how much me NOT sitting on his car would be worth?

Rawr.

I came to the Google Day photo session only because I wanted to be a period at the end of the word Google or perhaps a part of the thing that hangs down from the second “g.”

You didn’t have to all go running off screaming like Godzilla was after you and the Mayor certainly didn’t need to call Norm up and Norm certainly didn’t need to set the tranq gun to “DECIMATE” before firing it at me.

It’s okay though.  I got Norm back.  I set my butt to “ANNIHILATE” before I [redacted by Norm] in his apartment.

Rawr.

I finally got my WearPittsburgh shirt and it is as stunning as I knew it would be on me.

As you can see, Norm gave me a weapon with which to use on anyone that tries to climb up on me at the parade tomorrow.

You might call it “The Flag of Ireland” but I call it “Certain Death.”

Rawr.

This Saturday is the Pittsburgh St. Patrick’s Day parade, and as it is for all downtown parades, I’ll have the best spot on the sidewalk to watch the action as the parade rolls right in front of me.  And this year I borrowed a camera from the Photography Department so that I can take pictures of the action.

Let’s discuss the rules again, in case you’ve forgotten:

1.  Do not sit on me.

2.  Do not climb on my back.

3.  Do not climb on my head.

4.  Do not touch my tail.

5.  Do not put anything in my mouth except carcass.

6.  Do not bring food within 30 feet of me if you don’t plan to share it with me.

7.  Do not stand in between me and any of the horses taking part in the parade.

8.  Do ignore all of these rules if you are a cute babe.

As you know, the Art Institute of Pittsburgh is partnering up with WearPittsburgh to provide three shirts you might want to wear at the parade.

Norm asked me which I wanted to wear and this is what happened:

Norm: Whaddaya think?

Me: Do you really need to ask?  A shirt that instructs cutie pies to smooch me or two shirts that don’t?  Do the math.

Norm: Math?

Me: Dinosaur plus handsome times a billion plus instructional shirt minus Sally equals lots of smooches for Rex.

Norm: That’s a hell of an equation.  I see you borrowed a camera from Photography.

Me: I’m going to take some unbelievable pictures of the parade.  You might want to clear a date at the art gallery for a showing of my photographs.  I’ll sell them for $40,000 each, easily.

Norm: Have you taken a picture with a camera ever in your life?

Me: Hmm, can’t say that I have.

Norm: I see. Why don’t you go ahead and practice on me?  Go ahead. Pick up that camera and hold it up in front of your face and click the button.  Go on.  You got it in your hands?  Got it?  Okay, now using your GIANT LONG arms, lift that camera up high enough in front of your face so you can see the view-finder.  Up. Up. This is up, that is not up.  Up. Higher. Higher.  Are you lifting, Rex?  That’s all the higher you can go?  To your throat? Do you see my point, Rex?  Don’t stomp on the camera, REX!

Dear Photography Department, about that camera you loaned me.  Yeah, I don’t know anything about that.

Rawr.

This weekend, my girlfriend Sally dragged me to the Benedum to see Cats.

Here’s a tip.  They’re not real cats.

Here’s another tip.  I’m not allowed to go to the Benedum on an empty stomach anymore.

Rawr.

This morning I woke up and was listening to the traffic report when I heard that “The Bathtub” was back.

If you’re new to Pittsburgh, you might not know that The Bathtub is what we call the area of the Parkway East, that when the river rises high enough, floods enough to cover the road surface which creates a sort of, well, BATHTUB!

Naturally, I did what any dino would do when hearing a giant bathtub had formed out of nowhere, like a gift from Mother Nature:

(source)

What?  I’m sorry, but when your daily cleansing routine is simply your wrangler asking the fire department to turn the hose on you full blast, you take any opportunity you can to commune quietly with your rubber ducky.

What?!

Rawr.

I love Christmas and I always have, ever since that night that giant bright star appeared in the sky and we dinos thought it was an asteroid zooming toward Earth and boy, did we look silly trying to outrun it.

Christmas is wonderful.  Winter break, however, is not.

I hate it because it gets so quiet here when the students go home to their families.  No one to stop and chat with me, other than AIP staff, and I don’t need to tell you what a giant box of fun they are.

I’ve suffered through weeks of being bored and having no one to terrorize save for the occasional downtown accountant or lawyer, which, Norm, if you get a letter from Michaels, Michaels, Michaels, Michaels, and Smith LLC informing you of a lawsuit for personal injury, I don’t know anything about that, but ask them if LLC stands for Lame Losers who Cry.

Today, the students began arriving back at AIP to get ready for orientation tomorrow night and classes which begins on Monday, and boy, I have missed those little rascals and OH BOY, am I ready to greet them with love, affection, and spheres of icy death.

Remember kids, when you walk by me tomorrow and I pick the backpack off of your back with one well-aimed, 100 mph snowball, I did it with love.

I believe you humans have an expression, do you not? It’s on like Donkey Kong.

Rawr.

Tonight is the Portraits of the Past Gala here at AIP and yours truly is not only going to be there, daintily snacking on pterodactyl munchies (which is what I assume they serve at “galas”), but I’m also sure to be featured in some of those historical AIP photos.

For instance, here I am a few decades ago checking out the students doing sketches of each other:

You can’t really tell, but in that picture, I was sitting for a portrait being sketched by a total babe.  And I wasn’t wearing any clothes.

Don’t tell Sally.  It was ART.

Here I am sneaking up on AIP’s founder (left, holding the hat):

If you think his screaming was funny, you should have seen him throw that hat at me in stark terror before he realized it was me.

That was a fun day and since it was before AIP invested in a stockroom of highly powered tranq guns, I basically got away with it.

But here’s something I didn’t get away with.  Admiring the lovely ladies while they worked so hard in class:

All I did was breathe a little and it shook the windows, maybe exploded a few of them and then all this crazy screaming and throwing hats and pencils and purses at me.

Excuse me for breathing, ladies!  They did eventually forgive me when I agreed to be a sketch subject for one of their classes.

Again without my clothes.  It’s the story of my life.

In honor of this event celebrating our past, I decided to dress for the occasion and I dug up some of my oldest accessories:

I can see you’re rendered absolutely speechless by the sheer magnitude of my dapper-ness, but just wait until you see me in my tuxedo tonight.

Also, completely unrelated, do you happen to know the best way to get sheep blood out of a tuxedo?

Rawr.

Because I don’t say this enough, I am a freaking fantastic mentor.

Because I don’t get enough pats on the back for that, please, hot babes, come here and give me a pat on the back.

I took Jake to Light Up Night in downtown Pittsburgh last Friday and while any old dinosaur can use his perfectly right-sized and useful arms to hold a camera and snap some awesome pictures, it takes a special dinosaur, a talented dinosaur, to instead create original artworks depicting the fun of the evening.

This first one is called, “NO, JAKE!”

As you can see, Jake wanted to steal the bag of toys from Santa.  I tell you, you allow your mentor to participate in one teeny tiny Stanley Cup heist and the next thing you know, he thinks he can just steal anything he wants.  I scolded him and lured him away with the promise of fireworks.

As you can see, the city was so crowded it was hard to find a place for two giant dinosaurs to stand to watch the fireworks display.  Lucky for Jake and I, we were able to watch while taking a dip in the river.   If you look at the bridge, ninth person from the left, you’ll see Norm aiming the tranq gun at us.  He failed.

Lousy shot.  After the show, we headed over for some ice skating at PPG plaza.

What?  Don’t you judge me unless you can say that you’ve never flung human beings out of an ice rink to make room for you and your mentee to skate freely.

Like I said, I’m a fantastic mentor.  Come pat my back.

Rawr.