Why even get out of bed?

http://gothamist.com

Well, I had quite a week. On Monday I got kidnapped, but my captor stopped at a convenience store for a drink and I was able to slip away to the back of the store and lose him. I hid out there for a long time, and survived by sneaking bites of ice cream from the freezer.

Tuesday got really interesting. I was castaway in the ocean on some air mattress with a few strangers. Eventually we floated down to Mexico, where I "woke up" up on some bus. The driver kicked me off and I had to walk home in the snow. I certainly didn't expect snow in Mexico.

The rest of the week: Wednesday - befriended a stray dog; Thursday - ran a marathon; Friday - rolled a stolen RV, then tipped it back up; Saturday - bought a bunch of ice cream, but couldn't keep it from melting.

That all happened while I was in the subconscious. Unfortunately, my waking hours weren't so interesting. Work, filing my taxes, and getting an oil change were highlights of the cognizant moments of my week.

As you can tell, I decided to keep a dream journal. I'm not sure why, maybe I just wanted to find out how messed up my psyche is. And yeah, it's messed up.

I went to a dream interpretation website and checked a few things out. Since two of my dreams involved ice cream, I decided to see what it meant: To see or eat ice cream in your dream denotes satisfaction with your life. Ok, good so far... To see ice cream melt in your dream symbolizes failure to realize your hopes and desires. Dang it!

How about that castaway dream? To dream that you are lost at sea suggest that you are drifting around in life without any direction. Luckily I wasn't at sea forever; as you will recall, I ended up on some bus. To dream that you are riding a bus implies that you are lacking originality and are taking no control over where your life is taking.

After a week of recording dreams, I wondered "why get up at all?" Dreams seemed like a lot more fun than real life, until I found out that all my dreams mean I'm a failure with no direction in life.

Turns out, I'm glad I did my taxes when I was awake: To dream you are paying taxes represents the price you are paying for the way you live. The dream may be stemming from some sort of self-guilt and the debt that you owe to society.

We're all becoming germ freaks

A while ago my wife came home from the store with a big jug of hand soap to refill the soap dispensers in our house. I picked it up and said, "you know this isn't antibacterial, right?" That's when panic set in.

She wanted to throw it away and immediately go buy another jug with antibacterial powers, but I refused. I knew soap in the olden days was made from potash and lard (in fact I made some for a science project in 5th-grade). So I figured that what was in the jug was just as good as the stuff people had been using for hundreds of years prior.

Indeed we were going to wash with it until it was gone, come what microbes may. Funny thing is, over the months that we refilled our soap dispensers with the non-antibacterial soap, we survived just fine.

Not that I was surprised, though. Any boy that's gone to a summer camp has spent a week without coming into contact with anything remotely related to soap--including toothpaste. To men not under the supervision of women, "washing up" is a water-free process consisting of wiping their hands on the front of their pant legs.

I've always had a bad habit of chewing on my pens. I also have a bad habit of never buying my own pens; I just use ones I find laying around or ones I forget to give back after signing my credit card receipt. Studies show pens are one of the most germ-laden things in an office, and I treat them like a piece of licorice.

These days, folks are just too obsessed with sanitation. We're scared of hand shakes, public transportation, and stair rails. I know people that go through their house once a week and Clorox every door handle and every hard surface in their home. This is all done while their kids are in the backyard eating dirt.

And then there's the instant hand sanitizer craze, the biggest "this is better for you" scam since the introduction of bottled water. The stuff kills 99.9% of the germs on your hands, but then the 0.1% left behind go ape because you knocked off all their friends.

I miss the pink powdery soap we used in elementary school; it was better than instant hand sanitizer. Boraxo was the brand name, I believe. It cleaned not so much by creating germ-killing suds, but by abrasion of the outer layer of skin.

I don't think we should stop washing our hands, I just think our germ-free world could loosen up a bit. We ought to get back outside and taste the dirt. We need to learn a lesson from man's best friend and drink water from the toilet. Or at very least, the tap.

Shopping at Costco takes some getting used to

http://images.businessweek.com

My parents gave my wife and I Costco Club memberships for Christmas last year. No doubt, it's been great. Yesterday we got a 3-pack of frozen pizzas, an 80-pack of fruit snacks, and a tub of salsa big enough to wade in--all at a reasonable price.

However, there are some things about Costco that I've found rather interesting...

On our first trip we turned in our gift card for a membership card. The process of applying for a membership card at Costco is similar to getting a drivers license at the DMV. You even have to get your photo taken for the card's picture ID. I tried to look cross-eyed for mine.

I'm also pretty sure they run a background check to make sure you're a white, SUV-driving suburbanite. At least that seems to be who fills the store.

My favorite part about going to Costco is trying to get past the membership card checkers at the entrance without showing them my card. I put on the facade of an angry man ready to snap at the next person that crosses my path, and they haven't stopped me thus far. My wife thinks my little game is stupid, though.

Before we had our Costco card I heard a lot about the free samples. However, I've been rather disappointed. When the samples are being prepared, nobody is in line. Instead they're all hovering close by, acting like they're interested in some nearby product. The only difference between them and the people in line at a soup kitchen, I guess, is the soup kitchen doesn't require a membership.

Once the samples are ready, though, you have to box-out soccer moms and shoulder-check CPAs just to get a chance at a 1-oz cup of granola. I guess knowing your cart full of groceries is going to run you 300 bucks makes you want to milk everything you can out of the free samples.

As a member of this wholesale club, I'm also entitled to bulk goods--right off the pallet. Of course Costco outfits you with a 100-gallon shopping cart that is willing to swallow up whatever you want throw in it; be it a 4-pound bag of Sunsweet prunes or a 96-pack of toilet paper... or both.

At checkout Costco is a mix between your neighborhood lemonade stand a 5-star hotel, in that they only take cash or Amex. They also don't bag your groceries, probably because they don't want to be held responsible for smashing your bread (I used to be a bagger at a grocery store, and I've seen nice old women start foaming at the mouth upon finding their bread smashed).

After checkout comes my second favorite part about Costco: trying to sneak past the Sharpie-toting receipt checkers guarding the exit. Then comes my least favorite: hauling unbagged groceries up the stairs to our 3rd-floor condo.

My Utopia

I spend plenty of time in my car--mostly because of my commute. About a year ago I decided to start listening to books on CD, and it has generally made driving much more enjoyable.

So a few days ago I was at the library looking for another book on CD. The library was closing in a couple minutes, and I couldn't find anything interesting. On my last glance I saw Sir Thomas More's Utopia and decided to give it a whirl.

Bad mistake.

I'm sure it's a great literary work and all, but it's as boring as C-Span. The book, written in 1516, is essentially More's ramblings (in very old English, mind you) as he describes the political arrangements of the imaginary island of Utopia to some other boring guy.

If you consider getting stuck in traffic to be lame, getting stuck in traffic AND having listening to Utopia is like salt in the wound.

Anyway, More goes off on the way this Utopia, or perfect society, should punish criminals, conduct sheep farming, monitor excessive fashion, etc... His dissertation got me thinking of how my Utopia would pan out.

What would not exist in my Utopia:

www.theonion.com

1. People that wear bluetooth headsets all the time
2. The Clinton's
3. John Mayer

What would exist in my Utopia:

www.show.me.uk

1. Domesticated penguins
2. A college football playoff
3. Carbonated water running through all culinary water pipes (for some reason I've always wanted to take a shower in club soda)

You may not sign up for everything in my Utopia, but I promise it will be more interesting than Sir Thomas More's.

Should we start looking for new heroes?

I played baseball for 6 consecutive years--mostly little league. I was flat out horrible at the sport, though. Memories of hitting RBIs or fielding grounders are lacking. In fact, my most poignant memories are bloopers:

• Having the third-base coach yell at me for missing a chance to score a run because I was staring at my cleats instead of watching the hitter
• Lying on the ground after missing an easy pop fly, then deciding to just remain on the ground for a while and act like I'd injured my shoulder
  

Indeed, I preferred chewing the rawhide off my glove in some abandoned corner of right field to manning some infield position. I think my coach invented the "rover" position just for me:

Coach: "Listen, I want you to go hold down that patch of weeds under the bleachers and watch for stray balls. If you get bored there, feel free to wander over to the ditch behind the field and catch garter snakes."

Me: "Sure coach, but will you send someone to the ditch to tell me when it's our turn to bat?"

Suffices to say that the Capri Suns at the end of each game is the only thing that kept me playing the sport. Unfortunately, that's not the only juice being served after baseball games these days, nor the only "juice" that keeps guys in the sport:

A new report says Alex Rodriguez tested positive for 'roids in 2003--the year he won the AL home run title and MVP award. So add A-Rod to the growing list of baseball stars that have been on the juice.

It makes me wonder how real their feats are. Would McGwire and Bonds have hit as many home runs if they weren't on the drug? Granted, no amount of steroids would have made me a successful ball player--a foundation of basic talent is certainly necessary--but I have to wonder how good these tainted athletes really are.

And then we've got the recent Michael Phelps drama. The only thing we're used to seeing him smoke is the competition, and I don't recall Mary Jane being the name of one of those guys on the French swim team.

In America we love our heroes. We want them to climb out of the gutter and into success, but we want them to be squeaky clean in doing so. Are our standards too tight? It was F. Scott Fitzgerald who wrote "Show me a hero and I will write you a tragedy."

Knowing darn well that our sports heroes will make a mistake, maybe we shouldn't judge them so much by what they do wrong, but by how they respond to what they do wrong.

I try to eat well, but is it worth it?

Photo: http://scrapetv.com/News/Images/

A couple nights ago I decided to make myself a double cheeseburger. But when I opened the freezer, I realized we had both hamburger patties and Gardenburger patties.

I was faced with a health-vs-taste and fiber-vs-protein decision. What did I choose? Let's just say I sat the fence; my double cheeseburger had one hamburger patty and one Gardenburger patty.

It was probably the first time the American Beef Council and PETA had met between two buns.

That's kind of how my diet goes. I do a descent job of eating healthy, but I can never go all-in. For instance, I don't think I'd ever be able to cut ginger ale out of my diet. I know, I know, most people my age are chugging Mountain Dews and Red Bulls, but I think ginger ale is the best drink ever made. I need about one a day to keep my spirits up.

(Random triva: today's ginger ale was developed during the Prohibition and although it's not popular in vending machines, it's a best-seller in airlines and assisted living centers.)

At work is where my diet really fails. I bring a square meal for lunch, but throughout the day I consume a ton of empty calories. By the day's end, the trash can in my office is full of empty fruit-snack pouches, Hershey's Miniatures wrappers, and crumpled-up sketches of army tanks. The night custodian probably thinks an 8-year old works in my office.

Overall though, I feel I make pretty good choices. For example, I like to buy the Dryer's ice cream that has half the fat of regular ice cream, because I know I'll eat at least 2 servings worth at every sitting.

However, most people I know get upset with me whenever I say anything about how I should eat better. That's because I have the metabolism of a gerbil, and bulk clings to me like snow to a hot tin roof.

I don't count that as a blessing, though. My steadfast scrawniness is probably the only reason I'm not playing in the NFL right now. Plus, being funny is an up-hill battle for skinny guys, because fat guys are naturally funnier:



That begs the question, should I have gone for the double cheeseburger instead?

Update: My world record attempt

As you may recall from my last article, I submitted a proposal to set the world record for the most 3-point baskets made with gummy bears in 10 minutes.

A few days after my proposal was sent off, I received an email from ol' Guinness:

Dear Rock, We are glad to inform you that your record application has been transferred to our internal system. As a result of this, we are sending to you the Agreement Regarding Record Attempts together with a document called General Information on Record Breaking, which will give you an overview of the process.

Unfortunately, the attached agreement was 16 pages of legal mumbo jumbo asking me to give up all my rights, along with a bunch of other stuff. Plus, it said I'd have to pay for the guy from Guinness (adjudicator) to come out and watch me set the record.

I guess some records are never meant to be made...

Anyone can set a world record

Photo: http://www.tv.com

Am I the only one that's become disenchanted with world records?

In middle school I remember checking out a copy of the Guinness Book of World Records from the school library. I thought it was great reading; the most tattooed person, the longest bridge, the fattest person (who certainly could have held the most-tattooed record if he wanted to, because of sheer surface area).

Well nowadays world records seem to be getting a bit overdone. It's not just the longest sword swallowed, it's the heaviest object dangled from a swallowed sword. It's not just the scariest woman, it's the woman that's creeped out the most people in a one-year span (set by Rosie O'Donnell in 2006).

I haven't seen the latest edition of The Guinness Book of World Records, but it must be huge.

To set a world record, all you really need to do is find something nobody else has yet thought of, nor would care to do if they heard of it.

Like 30-year old Kanchana Ketkaew from Thailand, for instance. She set a world record by living with 5,000 poisonous scorpions for 32 days. At the end of her stay she walked out of her enclosure in a wedding dress, covered in scorpions, of course.

She's also on track to set the world record for going the longest time without having any human friends.

To me, a legitimate world record should be something other people chase. Nobody cares about beating the scorpion queen's feat, so we really don't know if she's the best at living with a lot of scorpions.

Besides, I checked it out and people in Thailand eat scorpions. So Kanchana's feat is comparable to me living with 5,000 gummy worms for a month.

Furthermore, my first college apartment probably had a few thousand ants wandering through it, and I didn't bother to call Guinness at any time during my stay.

Anyway, if anyone's interested they can go to guinnessworldrecords.com and get on the fast track to breaking a world record. They're serving them up like hotcakes. All you do is fill out an online form about a record you want to break and they'll get back to you in 4-6 weeks.

In fact, I went ahead and submitted a proposal on-line this morning. My record: make the most 3-point baskets using gummy bears (instead of basketballs) on a regulation-size basketball court. The record will be set in 10 minutes. For "why I want to set/break this record," I stated that I really like gummy bears and that I have a good aim when tossing them.

I'll let you know if they decide to send an adjudicator out to ensure the record is being carried out according to [Guinness's] rules and guidelines but also to offer PR support and instant certification.

Oh, and for "media that I'd like to have present," I just put friends and family. So charge up those hand-held video cameras.

Cussing: should it really be put to an end?

Every once in a while I come across a story that reminds me of why I bother to read the news.

This morning I found an article about a 14-year old boy that went to school one day and decided he was sick of hearing all his friends cuss. Upon asking them to stop, they replied with complaints that they didn't even know they were doing it, and they didn't know how to stop. That's when McKay Hatch started the No Cussing Club.

I was introduced to the art of swearing in 4th grade. Mitch Bodily would guide me around the the playground during recess and use every word in the book to describe the goings on. "Lets go see who's on the #%*@ slide right now."

We swore for the same reason a kid does anything they're not supposed to do: it's a rush. Using such words brought about a sense of liberation.

I did my best to reserve cussing for recesses with Mitch, but I quickly found opportunities to use it at home. One thing led to another, and I was soon getting the soap treatment on my tongue.

Since those carefree days, I've done a pretty good job of watching my language. Even the summer before college, when I worked with a concrete crew, I did a good job of holding my tongue. And those guys swore so much they made angry sailors sound like devout monks.

McKay Hatch's No Cussing Club (nocussing.com) invites people of all ages to join their team and take the No Cussing Challenge. 30,000 people have joined thus far. After one week of no swearing you're an Apprentice, after one month a Journeyman, and after one year a Master.

I don't think I could make it to Journeyman. Over the last month I've had to fix the faucet, my wife's car door, and the dishwasher. Each one of those tasks required at least one well-placed hell or damn.

Anyone familiar with the movie Back to the Future will remember George McFly's conversation with Marty about stopping Biff from making a move on Lorraine:

Marty: OK, so 9 o'clock you're strolling through the parking lot, you see us struggling in the car, you walk up, you open the door and you say... your line, George! George: Oh, uh, hey you, get your damn hands off her. Do you really think I ought to swear? Marty: Yes, definitely, ...dammit George, swear.

It is said that the South would not have been bested in the Civil War without the aid of cuss-prone mule drivers to the Union army. Mules were much more durable and reliable in war-like conditions, compared to the horses often used by the Rebel Army. From Hard Tack and Coffee, written by John D Billings (1877):

The theory has been advanced that if all the (muledrivers) in the Army of the Potomac could have been put into the trenches and safely advanced to within ear-shot of the enemy, and then set to swearing at their level worst, the Rebels would have either surrendered or fled... General Grant has given them credit for being able to swear a mule team out of the mud when it could not be moved by any other process.

So while I appreciate what McKay is doing with his No Cussing Club, I don't think I'm going to join. Granted, cussing is not something to be thrown around willy-nilly, but the words exist for a reason. Just ask General Grant.

Women seem to love fictional men

It's hard for a guy to win over a girl; there are plenty of other dudes out in the world with more money, better looks, and greater charisma. So when a guy does sway a girl his way, he has much reason to celebrate.

However, he must not let his guard down. A hard reality he'll soon face is that while he's beat out all the real men, he'll still have to compete with imaginary men for his woman's love. Any guy out there that is unwilling to acknowledge this competition is simply living in ignorance.

Below are a couple of the biggest offenders:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/drama/prideandprejudice/episodes/pp_1_episode.shtml

Darcy (the one played by Collin Firth). This guy's a heavy hitter. The magnitude of damage he's done since 1995, when the movie "Pride and Prejudice" was released, is hard to calculate.

In the 5-hour film, he graces the screen with dashing looks and a melt-your-spine British accent. Though he fronts as a pompous English lord, anyone who gets to know him finds he isn't afraid to lend a helping hand. For example, he's seen teaching his little sister play the piano, and he isn't above helping a lower-class family with financial woes.

His woman-winning artillery includes
- An estate (a.k.a. "a fat crib")
- A carriage
- Careless locks of hair
- Ruffles on the front of his white shirt

The only weakness normal men can expose is that his first name is Fitzwilliam *chuckles all around*.

http://weblogs.cltv.com/entertainment/tv/metromix/2008/11/

Edward (the vampire in "Twilight"). Unlike Darcy, Edward from the book series is more dangerous than the Edward from the movie. From what I hear, the text does more for his suave demeanor than what the camera is able to portray.

Though he looks like a strapping 17-year old, Edward is actually 104. But that doesn't stop him from robbing the cradle and picking up teenage Bella at a local high school.

While normal men would think women would lose interest in Edward, since he sucks blood, they find it hard not to when he resists his urge to drink it for the love of Bella.

His woman-winning artillery includes
- "Impossibly beautiful" looks
- Swift feat (he can beat any Cullen in a foot race)
- The ability to read minds
- The ability to go without breathing

The only weakness normal men can expose is that he gets purple bruises under his eyes if he goes too long without feeding (hopefully it's mistaken for mascara, and any guy that wears make-up is a sissy).

As you can see, fictional characters like the two listed above are hard to compete with. Darcy would never sit around watching football. Edward would never chug a soda and then crush the can on his head. They'd go to the opera. They'd dance at the ball.

I've told my wife a hundred times that I'd be happy to challenge Darcy, Edward, or the like to a fist fight. I'd pay good money for the chance to roll up my sleeves and meet Edward in a back alley.

However, my attempt to impress her with my strength is always quickly countered with a plea for me not to be so mean. I'm reminded that Edward would never fight if he didn't have to. Plus he's not real, so he'd never show up to the fight anyway (what a wuss).

I, and other normal men, have to find a way to fend off these imposers. We have to find a way for women to start asking why these guys aren't more like us, rather than the other way around.

One option is to follow Sun Tzu's council from "The Art of War:" get to know your enemy before you try to beat them. I think the women would appreciate that stratagem best.

No trip is complete without pictures

Photo: http://www.kinfolks.info/arner/reunion/2004/Don-1.jpg

For some reason, visiting a place of interest is never enough. It's got to be documented--excessively, by photos.

When we return home, we need to be able to prove we were there. A cheesy picture of one of our mugs in front of some statue, waterfront, or crazy panhandler will do just that.

In fact, all we really see on a trip is the back of our camera. At least that's how it is for my wife and me. It'd be easier to just stay home on the couch and look through a kaleidoscope for a few days.

And then there are the occasions where we try to get both of us in the picture. Popular travel destinations really ought to have people you can rent that will follow you around all day and take pictures of you. Photo caddies, essentially.

Not that I'd pay for it, though. I've figured out that the world is a place full of makeshift tripods. A parking meter to one person is a tripod to me. Finding these tripods is one skill, and using them is another.

There are some variables to cope with when using a makeshift tripod. The most dangerous one is wind; a stiff breeze can knock your camera right off it's perch on a fence post, all while you're standing back with a stupid smile.

Then there's the self-timer to deal with. Our camera has a so-called "10 second" timer, but it's only called that. In reality it seems to go off anywhere between 5 and 15 seconds, capturing either me in stride as I'm making my way to my post, or me in anger as I'm marching toward it to see why it's not going off.

Every once in a while you have to resort to the hold-the-camera-in-front-of-you-at-arms-length maneuver, where the camera faces you. I've found one out of ten shots taken like this result in both my wife and I landing in the picture frame. Of that one in ten, a chin or forehead is usually sacrificed. Plus the arm holding the camera looks really big (desirable for guys, not for women).

You can always have a complete stranger take a picture for you, but there are certainly some risks to face with that. First of all, you've got to pick out a person that looks like they won't take-off with your camera once you hand it to them.

I've always imagined filling out a police report for that situation: "How'd he get your camera, sir?" "Well, I handed it to him, then we took 10 steps back and smiled."

Assuming they don't swipe your camera, you've got to deal with the picture they took. They'll always ask you "is it OK?"

Even though you want to say, "No, it isn't. Can you please take another where you don't zoom in on our knees?," in reality you have to say it's fine. Otherwise, if you hand it back to them for a second picture you'll likely be filling out one of those police reports I just mentioned.

So should you leave your camera in its case and just enjoy your visit, capturing the images in your memory? Or should you blow a couple flash bulbs on every trip?

It's a tough call to make: the images in your mind will likely look better than the ones you take with a camera on a makeshift tripod. You'll just never be able to share them.

Happy Holidays to All!

Sorry, no post this week. But be sure to stay tuned in for the first post of 2009!