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.