Friday, October 29, 2010
Beware!
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Nicaragua Day 6
The beginning of our day was a hectic rush to get our people to the various clinics and hospitals that we were each going to. It was planned that I would go the hospital with Paul, Rachel, Jeff, and Candido and my father would go to a clinic to continue teaching about ultrasound. What happened was that Paul, Rachel, Jeff, and Candido forgot about me and I only noticed when there was only one car left. It was my dad. As soon as he realized what happened, he told me to get in the car quick. He hopped in the driver’s seat and our translator and I jumped in the back seats. We were going on a car chase. In Nicaragua, where traffic signs are general suggestions and “double doubling” (a move where a car tries to pass you and you try to outrace it) is a normal driving maneuver. We swerved around donkeys and children. Finally, at a crossroad, I was able to get out of the car, run up to it, and slam on the window. They stopped the car and I jumped in before the oncoming traffic could reduce me to a tortilla.
No more messing around in clinics and mud huts. We were going to the main hospital! The first thing I noticed when the doors opened were the trees growing in the lobby. I was not initially impressed. We were soon greeted by several of the doctors in the hospital. They led us into a conference room where we talked about medicine, doctors, and Jeff’s soccer exploits. I was mostly busy trying to take pictures around the gigantic flower in the middle of the table.
As we checked out the rooms we were happy to find that the hospital was much better equipped than the clinic (understandably) but only had one sink (less so).
I drove back to the clinic where my dad was working and stayed there the rest of the day. Eventually the group from the hospital came over to the clinic to demonstrate the ECG machine and defibrillators. On me. All I could think during the entire time I was lying on the table was “if one of these nurses misunderstands the translator, she is going to press that button and deliver a thousand volts to my chest. Fortunately none did and I simply entertained myself by making my heart rate go up and down to annoy the nurses.
We drove back to the hotel we first stayed at. The hotel, Los Mercedes, had lost its touch of Hispanic authenticity with the giant, blue Best Western sign hanging over it. Some of us swam in the pool. I read a book. We ordered some nachos. I was a little disappointed that the chips were from a bag and the cheese was Velveeta. After our appetizer, we headed over to the restaurant where I had had my little misadventure with the egg man. We were all really hungry. I ordered two sandwich entrees, one steak and one club. Rachel ordered ravioli and a shrimp cocktail. When it came, it looked really good. The shrimp coctail came out. Rachel took a shrimp and plopped half of it in her mouth. Her eyes bugged out. She plucked the stringy mass out of her mouth and threw it to a nearby stray cat. “Do not” she said as she grimaced “eat the shrimp. It tastes like it’s been left out for days.” This is about the time I took my first bite of club sandwich. It was covered by a hidden layer of some sort of orange mustard that looked and tasted like cat vomit. Rachel stuck her fork in her ravioli. Her fork came up carrying a one-inch layer of cheese. She looked at it with distaste. She started throwing the rest of the shrimp to the cats. I took a bite of my steak sandwich. When I say a bite, I mean I bit down on it and pulled as hard as I could. I came away with half the sandwich trailing out of my mouth. Paul was happily munching on his hamburger. When we were all thoroughly discussed with our meals (except Paul. He seemed quite satisfied with himself) the girls had the bright idea of ordering cake: one chocolate and one vanilla. Paul ordered vanilla ice cream. My mother and Rachel both took bites of the their cake at the same time. They both looked at each other at the same time. They both slowly shook their heads. Paul was busy slurping down a lump of creamy vanilla. Rachel said, “I think I taste something fishy in my cake. It tastes like the shrimp I just ate.” It was then we noticed a faint red liquid leaking from the bottom of the cake. It smelled like shrimp. “That’s gross.” She said. “I wonder what it is?” Being the smart-ass that I am I replied, “Well it ain’t strawberry sauce.” My guess was that drippings from the shrimp, while in the refrigerator, had dripped down onto the cake. We all stopped eating. Even Paul, but only because he had finished his apparently delicious ice cream.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Day 5
Pineapple, Hispanic women, and a pack of Trojan condoms. Morning in Nicaragua.
Oh. You want more detail. I suppose I had better explain myself.
So I was eating pineapple served to me by Hispanic women when my father walked into the dining room holding a pack of condoms. Better? No? Whatever, on with the story.
Next to us was a Catholic group of some sort. My father brandished the pack of condoms, “guess what I didn’t forget!” At first I thought he was going to explain to everyone how I was conceived, but instead he just sat down and started eating breakfast. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one wondering what just happened. Apparently he had thought he was going to forget to bring the condoms to the clinic. And that was fine. But it was his proud exclamation of joy that really blew the moment for him.
We dropped my father off at the clinic happily clutching his planned parenthood surprise and drove to the government clinic that we were supposed to be staffing. We treated most of the same diseases that we had treated on day three. We had to convince more people that their baby screaming louder than a jet engine probably didn’t have asthma.
We toured the facility afterwards. It was a nice looking clinic. Certainly the wildlife living inside it was refreshing. We walked past trees growing out of dirt flooring on our way to the delivery room. When I say delivery room I mean a bed surrounded by four walls plastered with the obligatory Jesus, a cracked tile floor, and a ceiling that seemed to be melting in the heat. Honestly it looked like the building needed more care than the people.
When we got back to the hotel we were met by Jeff Thompson, CEO of Gunderson. Our group of eight sat down for a dinner of the usual tortillas, rice, and beans. We mostly chatted about what we had done and how much more we yet had to accomplish.
Day 6- The Final Day
The beginning of our day was a hectic rush to get our people to the various clinics and hospitals that we were each going to. It was planned that I would go the hospital with Paul, Rachel, Jeff, and Candido and my father would go to a clinic to continue teaching about ultrasound. What happened was that Paul, Rachel, Jeff, and Candido forgot about me and I only noticed when there was only one car left. It was my dad. As soon as he realized what happened, he told me to get in the car quick. He hopped in the driver’s seat and our translator and I jumped in the back seats. We were going on a car chase. In Nicaragua, where traffic signs are general suggestions and “double doubling” (a move where a car tries to pass you and you try to outrace it) is a normal driving maneuver. We swerved around donkeys and children. Finally, at a crossroad, I was able to get out of the car, run up to it, and slam on the window. They stopped the car and I jumped in before the oncoming traffic could reduce me to a tortilla.
No more messing around in clinics and mud huts. We were going to the main hospital! The first thing I noticed when the doors opened were the trees growing in the lobby. I was not initially impressed. We were soon greeted by several of the doctors in the hospital. They led us into a conference room where we talked about medicine, doctors, and Jeff’s soccer exploits. I was mostly busy trying to take pictures around the gigantic flower in the middle of the table.
As we checked out the rooms we were happy to find that the hospital was much better equipped than the clinic (understandably) but only had one sink (less so).
I drove back to the clinic where my dad was working and stayed there the rest of the day. Eventually the group from the hospital came over to the clinic to demonstrate the ECG machine and defibrillators. On me. All I could think during the entire time I was lying on the table was “if one of these nurses misunderstands the translator, she is going to press that button and deliver a thousand volts to my chest. Fortunately none did and I simply entertained myself by making my heart rate go up and down to annoy the nurses.
We drove back to the hotel we first stayed at. The hotel, Los Mercedes, had lost its touch of Hispanic authenticity with the giant, blue Best Western sign hanging over it. Some of us swam in the pool. I read a book. We ordered some nachos. I was a little disappointed that the chips were from a bag and the cheese was Velveeta. After our appetizer, we headed over to the restaurant where I had had my little misadventure with the egg man. We were all really hungry. I ordered two sandwich entrees, one steak and one club. Rachel ordered ravioli and a shrimp cocktail. When it came, it looked really good. The shrimp coctail came out. Rachel took a shrimp and plopped half of it in her mouth. Her eyes bugged out. She plucked the stringy mass out of her mouth and threw it to a nearby stray cat. “Do not” she said as she grimaced “eat the shrimp. It tastes like it’s been left out for days.” This is about the time I took my first bite of club sandwich. It was covered by a hidden layer of some sort of orange mustard that looked and tasted like cat vomit. Rachel stuck her fork in her ravioli. Her fork came up carrying a one-inch layer of cheese. She looked at it with distaste. She started throwing the rest of the shrimp to the cats. I took a bite of my steak sandwich. When I say a bite, I mean I bit down on it and pulled as hard as I could. I came away with half the sandwich trailing out of my mouth. Paul was happily munching on his hamburger. When we were all thoroughly discussed with our meals (except Paul. He seemed quite satisfied with himself) the girls had the bright idea of ordering cake: one chocolate and one vanilla. Paul ordered vanilla ice cream. My mother and Rachel both took bites of the their cake at the same time. They both looked at each other at the same time. They both slowly shook their heads. Paul was busy slurping down a lump of creamy vanilla. Rachel said, “I think I taste something fishy in my cake. It tastes like the shrimp I just ate.” It was then we noticed a faint red liquid leaking from the bottom of the cake. It smelled like shrimp. “That’s gross.” She said. “I wonder what it is?” Being the smart-ass that I am I replied, “Well it ain’t strawberry sauce.” My guess was that drippings from the shrimp, while in the refrigerator, had dripped down onto the cake. We all stopped eating. Even Paul, but only because he had finished his apparently delicious ice cream.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Nicaragua day 3
I am prone to carsickness and this did not seem like good news to me. At first it was just the highway that looked and felt like an asphalt tsunami. The only thing that prevented me from telling Paul to pull over was that opening my mouth enough to do so would have provided the necessary force to jettison my half-melted breakfast out of my mouth. I did what I should have done many times in my life: shut my mouth.
We stopped in the middle of the village. Our first order of business was to use the bathroom. I thought it was a terrible idea, but I did really have to go. Two ladies in our group went first. I don't know what I was expecting, but I was pretty impressed. Imagine a Portapotty. Now imagine a Portapotty without the sprayed excrement of 10-year-olds fueled by mountain dew and Cheetos. Difficult isn't it? The toilet shack was almost spotless. I guess that's what you get when the whole village has only one toilet. They realize that nothing less than the wrath of the gods would be inflicted if they so much as dribbled out of line. I was really quite impressed.
We sat in a literal mud hut with a tin roof. We had two hanging blankets separating us from our patients. We treated two children at once and a few adults. We handed out vitamins to supplement their diet of rice and tortillas. Many of the patients were the same: cough, headache, and general aches and pains. The most common disease we saw was “I want to go see the American doctors because I haven’t seen a doctor or an American in far too long ” disease. Apparently it’s serious enough to warrant a two hour hike.
Although most of the patients were kind of ho-hum "Here's some vitamins and stop standing with your face in the smoke" but a few were seriously ill. There was a NINETY year old woman who was probably more badass than Chuck Norris. She was suffering from aches and pains, dry skin and blindness in one eye. She said that her eye stopped working when she got hit on the head with a rock. Anyway, she was pretty incredible. I saw a lot of distended bellies and scabies on the kids. Mostly people just came because we were there. We saw about sixty people.
Later, while we were eating, I again noticed the group at the table across from us. They were a group of women, obviously American in all the worst ways. One lady who was particularly obnoxious seemed to have had quite a bit of work done on her face. Although, to be honest, it looked more like someone had stuck a finger in each of her facial features and just clenched their fist. She had a voice that grated across the eardrums like teeth on a chalkboard. All the women were very loud but she was particularly noticeable. I don’t actually think they were drunk; they were just naturally annoying.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Nicaragua: Day 2
Day two: March first
He was holding up what looked like a giant electric toothbrush. “This” my father said, “is the vaginal probe.” I was sitting in the back of a dimly lit clinic watching my father holding a pose of a slightly more masculine and promiscuous statue of liberty.
We were at the clinic to deliver an ultrasound machine to a small town in the middle of Nicaragua. My father, gesticulating wildly with several different instruments, was here to teach the Nicaraguan doctors how to see inside people without using a scalpel. Old habits die hard. But then again, so do patients.
I’ll back it up quick to earlier this morning. I woke up at about 6:00 and showered in under the lukewarm hose that passed for a shower. Nicaraguans seem to take things pretty literally. If a menu says steak you get a slab of meat. If a sign warns of a steep hill you had better expect a near vertical climb. If a it’s called a shower you will get pelted by a shower of rainwater coming out of a spout. Anyway, we ate a breakfast of tortillas and rice. We met with a member of the Rainbow Network who explained to us what we would be doing with all of the medicine we brought. First we had to convince the government to allow us to treat their citizens.
We went to the local ministry of health in Monagua: a pink building posters of Che Gevera, Fidel Castro, and Jesus lining the walls. On the way in there was a metal bar low to the ground that tripped everyone who entered the building. It was a typical office environment with ringing telephones and typing typewriters. The only difference was that the secretaries were talking on cell phones and typing on typewriters. We went upstairs where there were more pictures of Che, Fidel, and good ol’ Jesus. It really was weird how many posters there were of them considering they were not exactly the three musketeers. We went inside the the office of the local health administrator. He had more pictures of the unlikely triad and also an industrial-sized air conditioner. We sat in a meeting with him for about two hours. The only thing I could figure out was that while the liberal party was in power, they built a large clinic in the middle of town. Then the conservative party gained power and decided that they should abandon the well placed and nicely sized clinic to build a smaller clinic outside of town. That’ll teach those liberals. So now the conservatives want to move back into the better clinic but they need three thousand dollars to renovate it. We just decided to placate them with two suitcases of drugs. They seemed to like that and let us go with their blessing. Chances are that those drugs are either on their way out of the country or into someone’s private collection.
We left the mini ministry of health, tripping on the bar on the ground, and climbed back into the van to go unpack the ultrasound machine. I mostly sat in the back of the clinic while the temperature slowly rose until it leveled out around 90 degrees. I watched as the doctors fumbled around with the crescent shaped ultrasound receiver. When they couldn’t get a good enough image my dad’s only advice was “add more gel and push harder.” You know what’s coming. After about thirty minutes of the various physicians poking and prodding the practice gel, they decided it was my turn. Hooray. I climbed up on the table and lifted my shirt. My dad showed them what to look for: the kidney, gull bladder, and portal veins. It tickled a little. Then it was time for the other doctors to try. As per his training the first doctor seized the transponder, pushed it into my ribs, and started wiggling it around. “Now take a deep breath” my dad said. “Ya right” I said. He said something along the lines of stop flexing. Little did he realize that my flexing was the only thing preventing him skewering me with a piece of hard plastic. Eventually he realized that the extra two centimeters gained by leaning on the transponder did not actually affect the image all that much. I had similar experiences with the other five doctors. Eventually they finished me and all took part in wiping my gooey chest with paper napkins. I climbed up off the table just as a pregnant lady took my place. “Poor lady” I thought “she has no idea.”
Monday, March 1, 2010
Nicaragua: Day 1
Day one: Saturday February 28th
I woke up to the freezing cold. For a moment, I thought I could have back home in Minnesota. But no, it was because I was lying directly beneath a curiously strong A/C unit that seemed to have removed every molecule of warm air from the area directly beneath it: me. I did what most people do to solve problems; I curled up in a ball and went back to sleep.
Fifteen minutes later, I awakened to my father shucktting off the A/C right over my head. Half an hour later, I was raised from what had become a coma-like slumber to “get ready for the day.” I was given half an hour to complete the task. To me this seemed comparable to “Hey Max! Do you mind uniting the Middle East? Before din-dins? Swell.”
About an hour later, I was showered, dressed, and in operation of several of my five senses. I walked to the little breakfast area and loaded my plate with fruit and bacon. At the end of the breakfast buffet there was a little table of green onions, cheese, and more bacon. I reached for the serving spoons. “What do you want on your eggs?” a man I had somehow overlooked behind the little table. I realized then that he was probably wondering why I was helping myself to his condiments. “Uh, no.” I said. He started to crack two eggs. “No no” I said helplessly. But the eggs were already cracked. “You don’t want eggs?” He asked. “No thank you.” I said. The man was obviously wondering what country I was from that I could just come up to his stand, steal his condiments, and waste his eggs. I walked away. He opened the door for me on the way out. I felt fairly guilty, but drowned my feelings with my ill-gotten onions and bacon.
After my lunch debacle, our group of well fed travelers loaded up a giant van with all of our luggage, totaling about twelve bags and six hundred pounds. That is not an exaggeration. We drove for about three hours, but it was not unenjoyable. In fact, it was one of the most interesting parts of our journey so far. We drove through ramshackle towns and villages. When I say villages I mean shacks totaling four pieces of tin stacked like a house of cards. I observed hundreds of barrels stacked on top of one another. I found the life of these humble barrel-stackers quite charming. After a hard day of moving water from one place to another using three wheels and a bit of plywood, I can imagine nothing more relaxing than putting one barrel on top of another, and then doing that a hundred more times.
We stopped to shop at a market. I was first impressed by the size of their produce, but then, somehow, my eyes were drawn away from the hanging tomatoes to the bright red porn shop. It was the color. No really. It was. All the other shops were various shades of brown and off-white. I guess that’s why business was “banging” at the hottest shop in town. Anyway, their vegetables were really something to look at. There were carrots half as long as your arm, and stacks of melons bigger than your head.
My mother and Rachel began feeling up oranges, melons, and various other bits of the local flora at one of the fruit stands. My mother decided we should have some of the oranges. They did look quite good. The man at the stand pointed held up two oranges and pointed to my mother’s proffered dollar. Not a bad deal right? Two oranges one dollar? He took the dollar and put the two oranges in a plastic bag. Then he took three more oranges and put them in the bag. And three more. And three more. And three more. “That’s good” my mother said. And three more. She was slightly desperate now and holding out her hand to stop the man. And three more. We finally got his attention just as he was about to load three more oranges into the already bulging bag. He seemed confused that we wouldn’t want our money’s worth of oranges. The rest of our transactions continued in that fashion: us giving a dollar or two, and them unloading as much as they could into our arms. On our way out Paul pointed over to some men pouring water over cucumbers “That’s why you have to be careful with produce. That water they’re pouring, it probably came from that ditch right over there.” He was right as it turned out, just as I watched I saw a man come out of a vegetable shop with a bucket of water and throw it into the street. The water then ran into a large ditch on the side of the road.
We started up the road to a lovely little house on the mountainside. It was apparently built by rich German coffee plantation owners. We went inside for a lunch of $2 bacon cheeseburgers and cake. The family directly across from us consisted of six people. A mother who wouldn’t have looked out of place in the 1950’s, and a father who wouldn’t have stuck out among a rich group of overweight Texas oil CEOs. Their three children, one of which was staring into the distance and listening to his ipod, were sucking down Cokes and wolfing down cheeseburgers. The last member of this group was a stick-thin grandfather gripping his knife like he was still in ‘Nam. He stared, dead eyed out onto the lake while his children laughed and his grandchildren tuned out.
We left the restaurant to hike in the rainforest. We started out by finding our way to an abandoned chapel that seemed to be slowly succumbing to the forces of nature. Its walls were growing moss and ferns and its roof was probably more bio-diverse than the rainforest below it. We found leaves as tall as we were and twice as wide. We saw a strangling vine that grows over a tree, completely covering it and taking its shape as the tree inside dies. What is left is the shape of a tree in giant vines and a desiccated husk of plant matter in the center. It was quite charming really. We saw a group of about ten howler monkeys running around on the tree tops.
The last leg of our journey was back into town. Our hotel was atop a large, steep hill in the middle of town. The road we had to take was a sharp ninety degree turn across the crowded streets. Our truck struggled and stalled trying to get up the edge of the road. A pair of dogs began humping to the noise. Eventually we were able to scrape our way halfway up the incline. The nearly vertical climb was not helped by the six hundred pounds of luggage stuffed in the back which made our journey upwards as tenuous as... well... driving a truck filled with drugs up a steep hill in Nicaragua.
We made it to our hotel which looked like a garden and smelled like a giant pineapple. We moved our luggage into our sparse rooms (they spent all their money on the plants) and began sorting the medical supplies. I won’t bore you with the statistics of how much of whatever we needed where ever because I honestly couldn’t tell the difference between the nearly identical bottles of pink pills with latinate names.
Our dinner consisted of dishes that had names like “Tortilla carnes” which means meat and tortillas or “Tortilla res” which also means meat and tortillas. Tortillas and meat seemed to be the theme the menu.
Welcome to Nicaragua: land of Tortillas, cheap fruit, and brightly colored porn shops.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
I Am a Good Person. No. Really.
I AM INTERESTED IN
Absorbent paper towels. Useful in a variety of situations.
Radio lab (because you don't get it)
and... «ŖΛǤЄ»
Monday, December 7, 2009
Problem Child
Elementry school teachers I can generally understand. They usually enjoy kids. Even mean elementry school teachers like small children. Medium rare. For me, teaching elementary school kids would be like a dream where earth has been transported to Sesame Street. And everybody loves it but you.
I AM INTERESTED IN
The most recent THIS AMERICAN LIFE was great. It was on "mind games."
A clip from The Best Of British Commercials show that my parents recently went to
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=besDBr0bCWA
My favorite commercial EVARRRAR
You may recognise it ;-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6biz85fUv04
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Of Men and Monsters
This is a typical day in high school German. I can barely understand most people in that class. God forbid they attempt to sputter out a cohesive sentence in English. German, on the other hand, is where they decide to talk as much as possible and omit enough grammar rules to shame first generation immigrants. The way they speak in there would make Hitler want to put them in a... oh never mind. You understand what I'm saying right? Before learning a new language you must learn how to speak your own. I cannot possibly imagine how most people get through the school day. If you can't comprehend the difference between a verb and a noun it must be like trying to solve a Rubix Cube with your face to conjugate one.
Throughout the rest of the class I sigh loudly and often enough that another girl sitting next to me asks if something is wrong.
I am interested in
lobotomies to improve intelligence
RADIO LAB (I would strongly suggest the one about life after death)
Quad's blog @ http://quadsspittle.blogspot.com/
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Paper Mache People
Do you see what your lack of commenting has done? That's right. It made me make a gun out of question marks.
"Someday you might make some young lady very happy" my brother said. "Ya" I say, "Someday you could make a young lady very happy too." My brother's girlfriend gives me a dirty look.
It is my unique penchant for insulting everyone around me that makes me one of the worst people to have around in polite situations. In the above situation I was stuck in the car with the two of them for the next ten minutes.
One time, while at an important dinner party, I commented on the nice tie the man sitting next to me at the dinner table. At least, I thought it was nice. It's not my fault that I didn't notice that the colors were clashing, it was tied wrong, and someone had spilled red wine on it. Unfortunately for me, the man was aware of all of the reasons that his tie was not in the least bit, "nice." I wondered why he didn't seem talkative.
I went to a wedding of people I didn't know and didn't care about. Mistake #1. I had the facial equivalent of Niagara Falls spraying out of my nose. Mistake # 2. I didn't know the names of the bride, groom, or anyone else at the party. Mistake # 3. During the ceremony my sniffling and tears far outshined the mothers and fathers of the couple being married. Like a child baking mud cookies, the only thoughts going through my head were "this is not going to end nearly as well as anticipated" and "I can't believe people actually do this."
Sorry for jumping around a lot. I hope my little anecdotes were fun.
These things were enjoyed by me. (Passive voice)
RADIO LAB
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIwETgalWTQ
Comment or forever be eaten! er... never mind.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Oh my god. OMG OMG OMG!!!
There are several things annoying me at this very instant. Less than two feet away from my ear, my computer is making a high pitched buzzing sound that I am fairly certain was not there before. The cords around my mouse look as tangled as a homeless woman's hair. On a bad day. In addition, we only have one phone in our house. The other one is gone. Well, it did leave one part of itself here. I can still hear it ring. It is somewhere in this room. I will hunt it. I will find it. I will call myself over and over in the hopes that either I can find the phone, or my future self will somehow answer. Honestly at this point I would actually settle for either one.
My parents are watching a movie that can only be described by a mutant with two thumbs down and one thumb up. All I can hear are guttural nature noises. Fortunately my time here is almost up.
I swear upon my undead rhinoceros's empty grave that one day you will comment on one of these posts. I am starting to enjoy this whole "blogging" thing. And yet, even as my Hot Pocket finishes with a ding that promises indigestion and self hatred, I feel myself compelled to leave my chair.Farewell, and shall my cyber fingers always find a way through your ears and into your head.
I AM INTERESTED IN
RADIO LAB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!??!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!((()()()()!!!
Antidisestablishmentarianism
Monday, November 16, 2009
I Am Not Attacking you. I Am Simply Aggressively Hugging You.
Just to get you to comment, I am going to make you sons of mothers a deal. I will take suggestions from the comments for things to write about. The topic of yours I choose I will write a complete 1-3 page paper on it. Remember post your suggestions in the COMMENTS.
You Have Found This Post Informative
I AM ENJOYING
A delicious cup of hot chocolate.
also...
RADIO LAB (on Itunes in case you forgot how to use the scroll button)
http://www.sixtysymbols.com/videos/008.htm
The word colloquialism
Sunday, November 15, 2009
(Crappy Title Here)
Under no circumstances should your first sentence be appealing. It should not be shocking, deep, or out of the ordinary. Avoid interesting words that may, just for the sake of vocabulary, hold the reader’s attention. Make this paragraph too long, with far too few actual facts or opinions to warrant its word count. Throughout this essay, the actions or events described should be tremendously unremarkable.
Start this paragraph with some sort of bigoted generality. Don’t write anything too outrageous; your readers may become interested. At least half of your sentences in this paragraph should follow this formula: I (verb) (noun). Follow these statements with a run on sentence and a misused semicolon. Halfway through the paragraph remember your first statement and expand on it. Compare and contrast unrelated events and use its conclusion to halfheartedly prove your point. If you’re feeling edgy, say you will describe something later in the essay, and then forget about it.
Your readers are not supposed to get this far. This is the point of no return; they will finish reading this essay. Absolutely do not reward their efforts. They have slogged through this quagmire of nonsense only to land in your pool of boredom! Where before your writing was devoid of any description, suddenly it will be overwhelmed by tedious explanations. Express your fascination for Tupperware and rare models of extension cords. Remember that adjectives such as “very” can be repeated several times for dramatic emphasis while still being grammatically correct. In the case that you accidentally explain an idea, misspell a four-letter word and use the wrong “there.” End this paragraph with a significant idea, undermined by being encased in the words “maybe” and “I think.”
Your last paragraph should start weak and end with a whimper. Begin by misquoting a historically insignificant figure. Slip in a comic non sequitur that is either revolting or exceptionally unclear. Insert a smiley face. This should persuade your readers that their immensely low opinion of you was drastically overestimated. Do not disappoint them now (or rather, do). Your last few lines should sum up important events that you forgot to include. Finish by quoting yourself.
I AM INTERESTED IN
RADIO LAB (DOWNLOAD!!!)\
AND
http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Pie
Pi
It would be chocolate, dark chocolate with little bits of sugar. There would be little cracks running along the top where the gentle heat had expanded the filling. The crust would be firm enough to bite into, but yielding enough to separate without crumbs. Who, after all, would want to waste one single morsel of this pie? Before the buttery chocolate filling had even begun to melt, it was already swirling in my mind.
I set to work right away. The crust is not to be taken lightly. It gives a pie shape; it defines it. A pie without a crust is like a mind without a body. As I kneaded and fashioned the dough into the shape my psyche had imagined, I wondered about the stochasticity of crusts. Would this one puff up to the truly astonishing expectations that I had for it? My heart raced with anticipation as I molded the crust into its proper shape, and laid it in the refrigerator to rest. I felt like I had to lay down myself. But the ball was still in my court. A crust without a center is scaffolding without a structure. The filling must be made. It had to be.
Melting chocolate is a finicky and difficult business. No one melts chocolate more than once in his or her life and leaves without one horrific, although not altogether bitter, experience. The cheater’s way out is to add butter. Add too little, and people will ask about calories; add enough, and the thought that this could somehow be detrimental to their health will never cross their mind. My molten chocolate was smooth, rich, and smelled not too faintly of melted butter, but also, when poured into a clear bowl, was a perfect representation of what I thought my crust would be worthy of. With a little dab of flour, a touch of egg, and a quick squirt of vanilla, my pie filling was prepared.
By now my kitchen smelled like the bakery it has effectively become. I like to think that the wood and steel retain memoirs of meals past; little scents of hickory and dill from old cookouts, or whiffs of bread and exotic (or smelly) cheeses. I felt like I was adding to the extensive catalogue of tasty treats this kitchen had helped prepare.
My crust, still slightly cool from the refrigerator, I placed on the countertop. It stood out in a bright contrast to the dark granite on which it sat. Then I poured the glassy, chocolaty mixture into the center. I did not really need to pour it from so high; it would be fine from just a few inches above, but I loved watching the inky syrup trickle down and collect on the bottom. With that final step, I placed the pie in the oven with doubtless the same feeling that parents get when they send their child off on their first day of school.
Soon after, I opened the oven. I spotted a perfect golden brown crust, and a rippling, slightly cracked center. All at once the smells escaped: vanilla, chocolate, butter, almond, and all the meals this oven remembers, washed over me. I took the pie, for at last it was worthy of being called a pie, out onto the counter and promptly stuck my head back in the oven. My nose, desperately trying to find the source of the smell, led me back out of the oven and onto the counter. I took out a knife that was rather too large for the occasion. It glinted as it descended towards the pie. Some people like to wait and let it cool, but not me! I was going to enjoy every speck of my slice, and I would do it when the crust was hot, and the filling drippy.
I AM INTERESTED IN:
http://failblog.org/Thursday, November 12, 2009
Waar m eye?
For the first time in my life, I spit out some of my mother's home cooked food into the garbage. She asked me to try it, and I did. It looked delicious. It was slow-cooked beef stew. We were going to give it as a gift to some friends of ours. The tender chunks of meat were cushioned on a bed of glistening, roasted tomatoes. Little bits of spices hung on the carrots that looked as delicate as autumn flowers. And I spit it out. I spit it into the garbage and washed my mouth out with water. "That" I said as I wiped my mouth on a bit of towel "Was one of the most bitter things I have ever tasted." "That's weird" said my mother. "Maybe you just got a bay leaf." "Probably" I said, "I'll try another spoonful." As soon as it touched my tongue, I knew this bite would be worse than the first. I spit it out and gagged into the garbage. "That is disgusting" I said. The strange thing is, the stew looks like the most delicious thing in the world. I knew from previous stews that there was not one thing in there that I did not like. "I'll try it" my mother said. She took a clean spoon and dipped it into the surface of the tomatoes. She took a little bit of meat too. She chewed it for a while. "That is SO bitter!" She repeated this many times. Finally she reached breaking point. She started to cry.
I am really not the best in this kind of situation. What I should have said was something like "Oh we can fix it somehow." What I did say was "Well, at least we didn't feed it to our friends." As a mentioned. I am really bad in these situations.
I am going to cut that story short right there. Feel free to leave replies on how much of a smart-ass I am. I can take it.
On that lovely note. Here are some things I'm interested in!
Check out sxephil on youtube. He is one of the funniest people I have heard in a long time. He is the sixth most viewed channel on youtube.
Also, if you are interested at all in chemistry, (and I mean AT ALL) check out http://www.periodicvideos.com/
Click on any of the elements to learn some interesting facts about it. Do it. Trust me.
Download radio lab on itunes. If you have read this and not done that SHAME ON YOU. The best hours of radio I have ever heard. Bar none.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Cool Story Bro
I recently had one of those slow motion moments. This is not the triumphant I-just-threw-a-basketball-into-the-net-with-one-second-left-moments. This is not even the type where you barely make it through against all the odds. This is the kind where the odds are stacked against you, you fail, and you continue to fail for no other reason other that it's just not your day.
I was brushing my teeth. For some reason, when I'm done, I snap the toothbrush out of my mouth like I'm actually trying to break my face. I succeed at least in that sense. My bottom lip starts to bleed a little. The toothbrush flies out of my hand like the stone that hit Goliath. I saw it start to fall, and I'm sure you have guessed the trajectory. "Plunk." It lands in the toilet. Unfortunatly for me, I follow the camp rule, "If it's yellow let it mellow." I now had my only toothbrush floating in my soiled toilet. I sort of made a sad little grabbing motion where the tooth brush used to be in the air about 5 seconds ago. No, I'm not an idiot. I'm just very stupid. On the other hand, I am not stupid enough to overvalue my toothbrush to the point of me sticking my hand in to get it. I try flushing it of course, but guess what? Plumbing is not completely straight. It just floats right back up. There is no avoiding it now. Somehow, through hand or spoon This toothbrush must come out. Of course I choose hand. I wrap my hand in toilet paper. This is probably not the best idea considering toilet paper is probably the most absorbent thing known to man. I reach down in grab it. The moment it touches the water, my hand gets about two pounds heavier (I thought the more toilet paper I had the less water would reach my hand) and coagulates into a single, quickly disintegration mass.
Think about this scene for a second. Imagine you just walked into the bathroom. You see a teen age kid with a bloody lip reaching into his toilet. His hand is covered with toilet paper and clutching a toothbrush.
This American Life (anther free weekly podcast on itunes)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuG5WTId-IY
Monday, November 9, 2009
First!
Offensive
Long winded
fun
enjoyable
interesting
constructive
Otherwise it might just be better than my writing. Don't make me angry. I may hit my head against the keyboard too much and pop out a blog post.
Instead of reading my blog when you notice it has been updated,
Run like hell.
After every post, assuming I continue, I will include a list of things I am interested in this week. I'm sure you care. For emphasis, this week I will list only one.
RADIO LAB (check the podcast on itunes) If you have the slightest intrest in the world around you, you will enjoy this show.
