HOW GOOD IS YOUR LOCKSMITH?

i was about 10 years old when my grandparents came from pocatello, idaho to our seattle home. the purpose of their trip was that my dad needed some help turning our garage into a nice family room. my grandpa loves that kind of stuff so naturally he wanted to help.

my dad is very busy with his clinic and such, so my grandpa would do as much as he could by himself while my dad was at work. and when my dad returned he would help with the hard stuff. for this project my dad bought a brand new table saw. it was nice, but it had one of those pesky safety flaps to keep you from touching the moving blade with your hand. but that didnt stop ol' grandpa.

i was in the other room watching tv when grandpa came in with a towel around his hand. "hey kids come look at this!" he had nicked his pinky finger. it took off all of the skin and most of the muscle to the bone. it was just gross enough to instantly impress a ten year old boy.

well, my mom heard the commotion and made grandpa come to the kitchen and clean up while she called my dad (who happened to be at a medical conference a couple hours away). he determined it wasnt bad enough to justify a trip to the emergency room and he would stitch it up when he got home.

it took him longer to get home than expected and my grandparents had already gone to bed. they were planning on leaving at 6am to return to idaho. so my dad had to get up early to make sure he took a look at the finger.

my grandpa is not fond of doctors. in fact, he hates them. my dad always said that his profession was a form of teenage rebellion. i have heard a few explanations but im still not sure i know exactly why he hates them so much. so, my dad had a heck of a time trying to get grandpa to stop loading to car long enough for him to have a look. and when he did, he had an even harder time convincing him that he needed stitches. "oh, i'll be ok. just give me an ice pack."

i think my dad threatened to slash his tires.

so, my dad starts sewing up grandpa's finger and grandpa is fuming. then enters grandma.

"charlie, i think...i locked the car with the keys in the ignition..."

it is a good thing the kids were still asleep. my grandpa was a sailor in ww2.

grandpa runs outside, pulling the threaded needle out of my dad's hand. my dad follows him, trying to calm him down. and my grandmother was probably being comforted by my mother.

there it was. a brand new white four-door sedan. engine running like a dream with a full tank of gas. the doors had auto-locked. after a couple minutes of further hot-headedness, my dad convinces grandpa to let him at least finish sewing up the finger and then they will call a locksmith.

it takes a long time to find a locksmith at 6am sunday morning.

after calling up several locksmiths in the area, they finally get ahold of one. a very small asian man. according to my dad the locksmith walked around the car once, noticed that the door key was dangling from the key ring, climbed on top of the car armed with a blank key and scissors, peered through the windshield at the dangling key and cut out a copy, jumped down and opened the door.

in related news, i am sitting 20 feet away from a guy who made his own 'bump key.' believe me, you want to look this up. you are no longer safe in your home.

FOR CEREAL

so as i stood in line at subway i overheard the server talking with the guy in front of me. their conversation went something like this: "so besides sofia, where did you serve?" "oh, ummm, plovdiv." at which point i said, "bulgaria?" and then they were all like "yah." and i was all "pshaw, no way!" then they were like "waaay!" "are you for cereal?" "we are totally for cereal."

or something like that.

it turns out that they both served in bulgaria (after i did, of course). the server even said he recognized me, which was kinda creepy.

the weird part is that i havent seen anyone else that served there for so long i had trouble remember the guys from my group. in fact, they remembered the guys from my group better than i did.

speaking of nostalgic crap, i have recently posted some stuff on youtube.com that i think my regular readers will appreciate. i have never posted anything on youtube or tried to embed anything from it on a blog before. so dont be surprised if your computer explodes or something.

some of you may remember a certain fhe video starring zack, matt, moydie and the shredder!



some of you may also remember a certain 'educational' video about living at the villa. this is one that every one can appreciate.



this is another fhe video. i dont like it quite as much as some of the others, but it is still pretty funny.




this one is my most recent and one of my favorites. it was a project i did for my orthopedics class. it is an informational video about the achilles tendon, brought to you by the international ninja federation. muahahahaha!

THE LITTLE PEOPLE

i remember when i was a kid. no really, i do. some times we would even go outside and play. i know, amazing isnt it? you are probably wondering how we possibly found a break from the rain long enough to actually go outside and play (i grew up in seattle, by the way). well, we actually didnt care if it was raining. we had some great raining day activities. we would ride our bikes off plywood jumps and see who could make the biggest splash. we would collect worms by the handful and throw them at girls. would play badminton with slugs. we would jump off a ten foot cliff and see who could get the closest to the creek without actually landing in it. we would blaze trails through the brier patches and stinging nettle using sticks and machetes.


but my personal favorite was when i was 10 and my brother was 12 we would go out to the trampoline (very similar to the word "trampling" hmmm...) with dirty towels. we would jump around until the towels had absorbed plenty of rain water. then we would take the towels and try to whip them around the other person's feet and pull them out from under them. it was a hoot. that is, until i fell off the trampoline.



i remember when we would find a couple of sticks about 2-3 feet in length and start sword fighting with each other. but that would eventually get boring. so we would find a good sturdy tree and swing the sticks at it and see how many pieces we could break them into. then we would would find more sticks and see who could get their broken pieces to fly the farthest.


have you ever looked at an extremely skinny person and wanted to walk up to them and put your right hand on the side of their face and with your other hand slap them as hard as you can? ya know, just cuz you are curious?

have you ever looked at an extremely small person and wanted to grab them by their ankles, spin around a few times and let go? ya know, just to see how far they would go?

i dont really like it when people cut and paste song lyrics and call it a blog. this is usually because i rarely relate to the songs they quote. with that in mind, i present to you my favorite line from a song by they might be giants:

A man came up to me and said

"I'd like to change your mind

By hitting it with a rock," he said,

"Though I am not unkind."

We laughed at his little joke

And then I happily walked away

And hit my head on the wall of the jail

Where the two of us live today.

ILLUSIONY OPTI-WHAT-ICAL?

i have seen dozens and dozens of optical illusions. most of them are really cool. but so far i have to say that julian beever is the best at it. he does 3d perspective illustrations ... on the sidewalk with chalk. enjoy!

this next one shows just how big these are. julian is the guy on the bottle cap.

ok, this one has a side view as well.

this one just gets bigger and bigger.

here is another one with an alternate view.

i like this one a lot. the perspective is actually upside down.

if you want more check out his homepage. http://users.skynet.be/J.Beever/pave.htm

PURPLEY HAZING

they say that everyone has a different experience in high school. sure, why not? every state and county and neighborhood has its own culture and sub-cultures. some areas have more whites than blacks and in some areas the opposite is true. this influences the culture of the school.

story: one of my friends just started an assistant coaching job at a local high school. she helps with the freshmen girls basketball team. at this high school there are very few blacks. in fact, there are very few black people in the state of utah.

the other night the team had a retreat of sorts and played halo for a while. somehow the subject came up that when my friend was in high school her team was mostly black girls (california). they were amazed. so much so that they started asking questions about them like "were they nice?'" and "were they all athletic?"

they dont mean to be ignorant. they have just never met a black person.

now, it is common for high school kids to find silly or weird ways of entertaining each other. there are a few ways of doing this. lets look at the local high school basketball team again. when riding to and from games they sing church songs and kids songs rather than listen to the radio. on my high school road trips we had people getting drunk, looking at porn and hazing freshmen.

oh, there is a great subject. hazing. let's see... high school girls: dress up like steve urkel (together). my high school experience was quite different.

ok, i was on the wrestling team. we had some very large card board tubes that we would use to roll up the mats. the longer ones were about 12 feet. one day the seniors (i was a freshman, i think) grabbed a really annoying sophomore in the middle of practice. they wrapped his arms and legs around the tube and tied them together on the other side using jump ropes. then they picked up the tube and carried it to the main gym where the girls basketball team was practicing. while he was dangling and pleading for his dignity, some one pantsed him. he was left on the sidelines of the court where the basketball coaches promptly came to his rescue. the weirdest part tho, was that no one was punished. sure the head basketball coach came in and yelled at us for a few minutes. but that was it.

we got away with all kinds of stuff. most of which i prolly shouldnt tell you. like the time a couple guys peed on a mop and started hitting freshmen with it in the locker room. or the time someone photo-shopped the principle's head over a very nude centerfold and put on a very high window in the middle of the school.

but my favorite prank related story was never to be.

my high school was extremely ... liberal. annoyingly so, actually. the most controversial thing my school ever did was to participate in the "national day of silence." it was such a big deal. it was so big that we actually made the news as the only school in the state of washington to do it. "what is it" you ask? well, it is a day when participants wear pink, upside-down triangles and do not speak for the entire day to symbolize being "in the closet" about your sexual orientation. sort of a "gay-pride" party, if you will.

the first year, many parents didnt allow their kids to go to school. they didnt feel it was an appropriate topic for teenagers. then, as the initial tension faded slightly, the pranksters came out to play.

most of the pranks were inappropriate. but since mine never actually happened, i can tell it.

one day during lunch i was sitting with some football buddies (i never played football, but since i was a wrestler and could whoop any one of them they tried to stay on my good side) and we were discussing our feelings about the next day of silence. so i told them my grand idea. they go to such-and-such street and steal the yield sign (the entire yield sign--post and all). then they flip the sign around, spray paint it pink and put the letters "no gay zone" on it. then on the eve of the day of silence they pull up to the school entrance with shovels and picks, make a hole, put the post inside and cement it with quick-dry cement and be out in 10 minutes flat.

it was fool proof. it was genius. even if they did it, i would get "credit" for the idea but not the accusation. if they didnt do it, well, then no harm done.

they were chased off by a night-watch cop.

OH MY CRAP

for a long long time i have argued with people over the appropriateness of certain types of jokes. i wouldnt go so far as to say that nothing is sacred, but i do think that people can be silly or even hypocritical about the jokes they laugh at. or deliberately dont laugh at.

for years comedians have pushed the envelope (as they like to call it) and material is considered to be fresh if it might offend some one.

perhaps people are just too easily offended.

now, i dont swear or curse (usually) but i do see the irony in the fact that we have several synonyms for the word poop, but only certain ones are considered offensive. why? it doesnt make any sense to me. they all mean the exact same thing, dont they? are some synonyms somehow more suggestive? or perhaps they have a hidden meaning i dont know about. whatever it is, i think it is silly.

in the same light, how can come jokes be considered 'ok' while similar types of jokes are 'too soon' or 'border line?' why do we hold certain things or even people on a pedestal while others are fair game? why can only minorities refer to themselves as such? is it the term that is offensive or the people saying it? who gets to decide? comedy central? cnn? the public school system?

and why is it that cancer is never funny?

i think we take ourselves too seriously. who cares if some one doesnt like you? that shouldnt change you.

keeping all of that in mind, i heard the funniest radio commercial today. it started out like a beer commercial with the announcer addressing the listener as a male icon. he compliments the listener as the pinnacle of manliness and all things testosterone. saying things like "you are a man's man because you played football in high school and you own a tool belt. and you have a hammer. not just any hammer. a 'big enough to swing it and put a hole in something' size hammer."

after the flattery, the announcer calls you a wuss because you are scared of a prostate exam. "oh, im soo scared. does it hurt? i dont even know where my prostate is! (whimper and moan)."

then he tells you to buck up and take it like man.

see, cancer can be funny too.

I ALMOST DIIIIED, TOO

in light of nama's recent near-death experience (http://namabanana.blogspot.com/2006/11/i-almost-diiiied.html) i posed the question to myself, "how many times have i almost died?" well, not that many times. but i do have some cool stories along those lines. enjoy.

i was two years old. it was sunday morning and we were supposed to be getting ready for church. but naturally my four year old brother (he seemed so much more mature) and i decided to play a game we liked to call 'zoo.' it was simple. one person gets on the couch and pretends to be various animals at the zoo, while the other person walks by the couch and pretends to be amazed. it was my brother's turn to be the animals and he decided to be a tiger. as you well know, tigers like to growl and roar. as you may also well know, two year old children are often startled by roaring tigers.

i was so terrified i ran straight for the hallway. but i missed the hallway (i blame short legs) and my forehead found its way to the corner of a book shelf. i still have the scar, which is partly due to the second part of the story. two weeks after the stitches were taken out we went to a family reunion in idaho. we were having lunch at a park and all the kids were playing on the swings and such. remember those swings that were just large metal horses? ya, they kick hard when you stand behind them.

picture if you will a concert by an award winning high school jazz ensemble. they are in the middle of their set and the crowd just loves it as the lead alto sax starts an emotional love ballad called "for you." the piece is quite complicated and challenges even the best musicians present. as the song reaches its climax, the soloist pours his heart out with the support of the trumpet section. the second seat trumpet plays a run to the peak of his range and holds the last note as long as he can as the lead trumpet plays a similar run to a higher note. then in a flurry of flying music, stands and trombonists, the second seat trumpet player passes out, falls straight forward--narrowly escaping landing on the trumpet which would have inevitably been forcefully shoved through his face.

i got up minutes later and finished the set.

one time i jumped out of a moving train (i thought it was moving slower than it really was...). when i finished skidding across the gravel and grass, my head was inches from a large cement block.

i flipped an atv once.

one time i was wrestling some one much larger than myself and he fell on my head. his knee landed right on my temple. when i came to, i couldnt stop shaking. i also couldnt talk or see straight. and yet, i didnt get a concussion. huh.

i flipped a canoe on class 4 rapids once. it was the first set of rapids on a two day white water canoeing trip. it was snow run off and the canoe got stuck in an up-turned tree. it took a while to get it out. i was cold for days.

i have been picked up by a wedgie. that is a true near-death experience.

ok, i was debating putting this one in. i was in bulgaria on a bus when a group of skin heads got on. they didnt take too kindly to me. after an exchange of words, they pulled a gun on me and had it pointed at my head for about 10-15 minutes. if you want more details you have to talk to me in person.

I AM BOREDMAN

i have been trying to think of something interesting to say all day. there are lots of things i could say. like i am getting over a cold. or i could tell you that i am applying to graduate school soon. or that i started an internship recently. or that i spend most of my free time playing guitar hero 2. or i could describe how i am doing in my classes. i had a test today. it was hard. well, sort of. it was one of those "either you know it or you dont" tests. so for the questions i did know, it was easy.

i guess i just have to accept the fact that my life is becoming more and more boring.

i realized today that i have been in college for, what, four years now. and with the prospect of graduate school that means that i am just over the 'hump.'

i dont even do the things that make me an interesting person to begin with. like music, for instance. i used to play a variety of instruments. i was pretty good at the trumpet and piano, and i could hold my own on the sax and bass. but i havent touched my trumpet since about june. i did play the piano a couple months ago, but that was the first time in months.

and work, well, work has always been boring. but now that we have this new guy i do even less work! he is hyperactive. always busy and always talking and always doing stuff and always talking and so on and on and on.

sigh.

now i have to wonder how long i have been boring. and bored. i think it has been building up for about a year now. i have sperts of creativeness and zany activities. but you can read all about them in my previous posts. yup, everything that i do that is noteworthy, interesting, not boring or ordinary gets posted here.

if something exciting doesnt happen soon i may just errupt in an absolute, unbridled, massive, ragefull, 'look at me, im interesting,' flurry of activity. or i'll just reactivate my world of warcraft account.

TALES FROM THE RICH

who says rich and famous people dont contribute to society? look at what they have given us: papparazzi photos, "punk'd" and funny stories for vh1 shows. ok, fine. they are weird, self-centered, quirky, and wasteful and self-centered and...you get the idea. we have all had some exposure with rich and/or famous people. and for some reason those experiences seem special to us. yet, if it were any other person you wouldnt have noticed.

case and point. i grew up in seattle. this is a big city and there are a fair number of famous people that live there. like bill nye "the science guy." when i was a young teen (and familiar with his shows via 8th grade science class) we lived across the street from a "scientific glass blower." he made specialty items like those cool bobble thermometers and stuff for scientists...like bill nye. yup, i remember climbing on the couch looking outside our living room window watching as bill nye "the science guy" got out of his black bronco and when inside the house. it was amazing. i was amazed. but if it was any other person i wouldnt have turned off the tv.

but that story is actually kinda boring. what about the wild and crazy stuff you read in "the national enquirer" and other equally reputable news journals? i want stuff like, "bill and ted's excellent gay marriage" or "giant alien bat eats ted bundy's younger brother." you know, the good stuff.

so i got to thinking about it and i dont have any good stories like that. well, not of actual famous people. just regular rich people. the rich people that try hard to make up for the fact that no body knows who they are when they drop 30 grand on a home theater system for their toy poodles named jay and silent bob.

so here are my best "look at me, im rich" stories.

today i saw a car with a license plate cover that said "life flight pilot: landing daily at a hospital near you." my first thought was "that is funny." my second thought was "that is horribly morbid." then i noticed that the car was a lexus and i thought "that figures."

a couple months ago we had some old mini fridges that we were trying to get rid of at work. lots of people bought them. most of them were newly weds or students. a couple were just plain poor. but one lady came in who appearantly knew one of my bosses (i have several. they remind me daily). she picked up two. it was a pain picking them out for her. she said that she was trying to find ones that didnt have as many dings on them. they were all equally "dinged." finally she makes up her mind and i put the fridges on a cart and take them out to her brand new lexus. yup. i know.

i had a similar experience when i worked at rc willy a few years ago. a man bought a really nice flat panel plasma tv (back when they were still new). it was pretty big, prolly about 52 inches. and he insisted that we fit it in his porche. we tried for a good 10 minutes or so (during peek hours) but there was no way that tv was gonna fit in a car that small. disappointed, the man hollars over to his friend to back up his truck... we were pissed.

now for my favorite story. this doesnt exactly fit the "look at me, im rich" category. but it is a great story. micheal coleman is a local painter/sculptor. i know him personally. he is very quiet and timid in most social situations. but he is also very good humored.

over the years he has become quite rich. really quite rich. he gets several thousand dollars per piece of art. he is that good. as is typical of rich people, he has hobbies. expensive hobbies.

he is a big game hunter. he has been on safari in africa about 10-12 times and has every kind of animal in his art studio. everything from bears to lions to hippos to field mice to beetles to crocs to a shrunken human head (he bought it, dont worry). think of it as a small scale cabellas. it is really impressive. unless you are a hippie. as a big game hunter he has dozens of very large guns.

since he is rich, he lives in a rich neighborhood. now, one might ask "what do rich neighbors do for fun?" or perhaps you might ask "what do rich neighbors feude over?"

airplanes.

one of mike's neighbors was in to model airplanes. not just any model airplanes. remember, this is the rich neighborhood. we are talking $20,000 replicas that fly. so this neighbor is enjoying the afternoon and flying his ridiculously expensive model plane over the neighborhood. mike hears the motor running and comes outside to investigate. did i mention he was carrying a shotgun?

mike also has a wide variety of ammunition. he happened to have handy a particular type of shotgun shell which has a delayed charge. this means that the slug will split into pellets after it has travelled a certain distance. this increases the shotguns accuracy while still allowing a spread shot.

well, when they found the plane they counted over 100 holes.

as a peace offering, mike later painted a landscape with WWII fighter planes dog fighting. he signed it "saddam coleman."

CRAZY GO HEALTH-NUTS UNIVERSITY

there are several things that irritate me. pet peeves, i guess. one of my biggest pet peeves is health crazes. everyone and their dog has a special diet that works wonders for them. it usually includes some magical ingredient either to be taken hourly or to be avoided completely. they have found their holy grail of health.

sadly, when this happens there is usually some scientific basis for their theory. they just take it to the extreme.

take for example, the atkins diet. you want to know the magical ingredient in the atkins diet? it is a "carb." it is a sugar. it is glucose. you see, glucose requires a lot of water to be stored in the body. in fact, for every gram of glucose stored, 4 grams of water are required. sure you cant store that much glucose in the body. but if you restrict how much glucose you take in, then naturally you are going to require less water. less water means less weight. less weight means more healthy...

this is ridiculous. if you follow this diet for more that a month you will see the adverse effects of too little glucose and too little water in your system. it is a great "quick fix" for those red-carpet premieres. but after you lose the initial 5 pounds, go back to a healthy diet of fruits, vegetables and grains just like your first grade teacher taught you.

another pet peeve of mine is the organic craze. show me literature from any credible source (something that doesnt end in 'dot-com') that organic foods are more nutritious than regular foods. you cant. but you can say that organic foods dont have any preservatives. well, so what? unless your immune system is somehow sub-par and cant handle mild irritants that the rest of the population has no problem with, there is no functional difference.

wow, im on a roll, what else do i have? how about lactose intolerance. most cases of lactose intolerance are actually nothing more than a food allergy. you dont just all-of-a-sudden get it. you are born without the necessary enzyme (lactate) required to breakdown lactose. if you are an adult and you find that you can no longer consume milk without getting stomach cramps and pooping your pants, then you most likely have a food allergy.

yes, type 2 diabetes is reversible. eat right and lose some weight.

there is no magical cure for a common cold. even high doses of vitamin C does not cure or prevent a cold. it can only lessen the severity and possibly the duration.

yes, carb loading works. but only for long duration activities, and you have to follow the format to a "T."

yes, sodium bi-carbonate (baking soda) loading works. but only for short high-energy activities. and it will give you explosive diarrhea.

no, blood doping doesnt use drugs. yes, it works. and yes, it is illegal in professional competitions. and dont share blood or needles with others.

every energy drink has caffeine. this will dehydrate you, give you cramps, make you even more tired afterward, and so on.

for the average casual athlete there is no difference in sports drinks. if you are a professional athlete, use gatorade.

carbonation is not bad for you.

creatine works. but not like steroids. it will give you cramps because it draws water into the muscles. it doesnt make you stronger necessarily. it delays fatigue which allows you to work harder, and longer, thereby reaping benefits from doing extra work. steroids will actually help build muscle mass.

ok ok, time for wine. it is true that drinking moderate amounts of wine will lower your risk of heart disease and cardiovascular complications. and it is true that red wine will help with this effect more than other wines. there are two elements of wine that do this: antioxidants and resveratrol. antioxidants can be found in any citrus fruit. and resveratrol can be found in grapes, berries, peanuts and other fruits and legumes with a peel.

so there is nothing magical about wine, or the fermentation process. every good thing that wine offers can be found else where.

this is what the american heart association has to say about wine: "There is no justification for nondrinkers to start consuming wine as a preventive measure, considering that several other well-proven therapies exist for cardiovascular risk reduction, such as exercise, smoking cessation, blood pressure control, and cholesterol lowering, that do not have wine's undesirable effects."

so dont be stupid about health choices. eat smart, not extreme, and get out and exercise. do this and we can avoid another "half ton man" incident.

BLOGGER BREW

halloween is here. so they tell me. i dont really get into it as much as other people do. one of my friends asked me what i was planning on doing for the big holiday. i said something like "eh, who knows." then she invited me to hang out with her and her roommates. they are going to a party and then bowling. sounds like fun. but i havent a thing to wear!

so we start listing off my possibilites. you see, they are going as fairy princesses (re-living the glory days or something i guess). so with that in mind, my costume may very well end up being a...zombie lumber jack fairy!

ok, so the zombie thing got vetoed, but the rest is still a possibility. should i be ashamed? im mean, a fairy! how the crap did i agree to that?

anyway, we'll see how it goes.

so last friday was the birthday of a girl i know. she had a fondue party and such. after watching "the count of monte cristo" we just hung out. people came and went. one girl who showed up just after the movie has one of the most amazing bodily ... malfunctions (?) i have ever seen.

the birthday girl tells me to make fake gagging noises. not seeing any good reason not to, i accomadate her request. after all, it was her birthday. then this other girl almost pukes on me. tada! she has the most hypersensitive gag reflex i have ever seen (and i have seen some pretty bad ones).

well, in a room filled mostly with guys you can imagine what happened next. 8 guys showing off the acting skills they picked up in their youth. 8 guys...making gagging noises at the same time! euphoria.

she ran out of the apartment screaming that we were all evil people (in between dry heaves, that is) and then had us "read between the lines."

well, about 15 minutes pass and she walks past the front room window and, you guessed it, we did it again through the window! pure hilarium.

just a side note: a month or so ago i entered an art contest for blizzard themed artwork. the results are in. i didnt win. this was my entry. follow the link to see the winners. you will notice that all of the winners had color in their entries...how predjudiced.

http://www.blizzard.com/inblizz/contests/artcontest2006/index.shtml

CRACKED PEPPER WITH YOUR FORTUNE COOKIE, SIR?

lemme tell you about my lunch today. at about 11:45 i realize that i am hungry. quite hungry in fact. the kind of hungry that only certain fast food establishments can satisfy. so i ask a friend on AIM to choose between carl's jr and panda express. she chose panda express because "orange chicken is delicious."

she is right. orange chicken is pretty much the only reason to go to panda express. sure they have other stuff too, but not like orange chicken. so i go there and notice some new items on the menu: "mandarin beef" and "mandarin chicken." i figure i will get the mandarin beef and orange chicken with chow mein. i get my food and go back to work to eat it.

well, the beef was good. but the vegetables that came with it were something else. i dont have anything against vegetables, especially in chinese food. but these werent even normal veggies. it had stuff like mushrooms (i dont really like them. i think it is a combination of texture, taste, smell and anything else that they can do to my senses), green onion stalks (actually they werent that bad, but still not a normal veggie for chinese food), and various peppers (these were normal and good). so i scarf the veggies and beef down and save the orange chicken for last. sort of like dessert for eating my veggies.

and i forgot all about the mushrooms...

now for the actual reason i am writing this blog. everything i just said was filler. no real point. not even really interesting. i just have this thing about short blogs...

i was sitting at my desk talking to people around me while i finished my food and went for my fortune cookie. as i opened the plastic wrapper i said "come on million dollars" as a joke. then i opened the cookie and this is what it said, "you have the attitude of a winner." i just about wet myself.

"SUP GOLLUM" "HEY SMEAGOL"

i am taking a course on "health behavior change." my professor is a quack. i think that he is trying to induce the development of dissociative identity disorder in his students. you know, multiple personalities and such.

each week we have an assignment to read certain passages from a mind and body health book and then write a one page report on our experience with trying the techniques in the book. most of the exercises are typical of a yoga class where you try to control your thoughts and use them to relax your body. things like putting out outside influences and concentrate on breathing and such. i have heard of this stuff but until this class had never really tried it. i dont really get much out of it. but i can see how some people might find it to help relieve stress.

well last week our "assignment" included creating a special secret place in our minds and creating a figure that is an expert with a problem we having in our lives. once the figure is there you are supposed to ask it questions and seek advise with your problem (usually an ailment, like cancer). you are supposed to follow the direction of the figure and ponder its answers to your questions. if you dont want to do that, then you are supposed to create a figure for your "pain" to take shape in. then do pretty much the same thing to it. ask it stuff like "why are your here tormenting me?"

now let me explain dissociative identity disorder. an individual has a traumatic experience. this experience is often violent and painful. in an effort to cope with the trauma, the person develops an alternate ego or personality that they can assume. this personality can be completely unrelated to the person in gender, age, maturity, expertise, etc. if this practice is repeated, over time the secondary personality can actually take complete control of the person for an indefinite period. it could be years before the original personality actually comes back into control.

i dont know about you but i see several similarities between creating a fictious cancer expert to help you cope with your disease and the development of multiple personalities. i pointed this out to my professor in the report and told him i thought the assignment was ridiculous and that he should explain himself during lecture.

i recieved full credit for the assignment and no explanation. i doubt he even read the report.

by the way, dissociative identity disorder is not the same as schitzophrenia. schitzophrenia implies halucinations but not a personality taking over the person's mind. only tormenting it.

DOWN HILL BOTH WAYS

age is relative. i know this. but when talking about old versus young there are certain things that help with those pesky grey areas. for instance, i recently moved from a student housing apartment complex to a house. how this makes me old is that i had lived in that complex longer than anyone else currently living there. in fact it will be a few more months before the runner up catches up to my record.


i recently hit the quarter century mark. not too impressive in the grand scheme of things i suppose. however, not a week after my birthday i discovered a grey hair on my face. this wasnt a hair that had fallen from my head or anything like that. this sucker was 1 inch long and still growing. (i have a beard, by the way. so dont think that i would not notice a hair like that growing out of my face if i were otherwise clean shaven.) since then i have found many other white hairs coming out my face (insert bill cosby voice here).

sigh, girls i dated in high school now have up to three kids. some of them were younger than me.

and the clincher, this saturday my little sister will be married. she is over three years younger than me and she beat me to the punch (no real surprise there, but i have to act like it to protect my pride).

congratulations, melissa. what's his name again?