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A Life Without Gas? I'll Pass.
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10/19/2004
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A row of three seats. I got the window so I could look outside and watch the wing, but this trip had sinister plans for me. I think I was flying to Charlotte. About an hour's flight, so I figured it wouldn't be too bad to sit and draw or write for that amount of time.
Boy was I wrong. I still had to listen to the other two people in the row make small talk. She looked like she was in her 50's, and I later found out he was 72. I sort of thought he was hitting on her at first, and then I realized he was talking about digestion and regularity. I actually heard the phrase "colonic mucoid plaque coagulation" used in conversation. I could live a thousand more years and never hear that one again.
I guess in highschool it's all about what sport you play, then in college its all about your major, and then your career.
At some point you end up using the frequency and consistency of your stool to impress women. I witnessed it.
This guy was old and leathery, wearing a white tanktop with yellow pit stains. He had a beard that looked like he should be up in the mountains fending off claimjumpers in the 1840's. Most of all, he wanted to share his colon cleansing tea recipe with anyone who would listen and then convert everyone to vegetarian. He was apparently in great shape, having just gotten back from a lion hunting Ironman safari with his kids or some shit. Seemed to be the kind of guy who would jump out of bed every morning and be annoyingly excited to go ice climbing or something like that. He also smelled like a dead sasquatch's ass.
But he was regular, and she seemed genuinely impressed.
I love trying my best to look busy and being pulled into a conversation anyway.
"Whatcha' doing over there?"
"Oh...Just drawing a picture."
"What are you drawing?"
"Not sure, but it's starting to look like a stinky old dude in red trapdoor long johns pinching off his fifth loaf of the day."
He got into asking me about my eating habits and I told him honestly that a meal isn't a meal for me unless something on that plate moved about under its own power at some point in its life.
"So you eat meat?"
"I eat it like it's about to be outlawed. I've seen a million faces, and I ate them all." (I was hoping he was a super militant vegetarian who was going to tell me I was a murderer, because I love making them mad)
This guy was more of a vegevangelist homeopathic herbal douchebag. They always start trying to convince you with someting like "Did you know that every time you breathe secondhand smoke, somewhere in the world an orphan goes blind?" As if saying "did you know" makes it not bullshit.
The best method of derailment for this line of questioning is to say that you did in fact know that. Even add another made up fact to it if you want. Here's an example-
"Did you know that milk is poisonous to humans and you are a bad person for liking it?" (this factoid will be presented to you while you are drinking milk, of course)
"I sure did, and I am now 3,000 times more likely to be eaten by a giant spider."
So he asks me, "Did you know that when you eat meat, it sits in your colon for six months and just rots and then turns into cancer?"
I responded, "Sure did. Did you know that when I eat vegetables, I transform into a human salad shooter in one hour?" Back to the familiar ground of regularity. He told me that if you stop eating meat, you'll stop farting. I looked around and said quietly "I didn't think you could hear that over the engine noise." He didn't even laugh. Who would want a world without farts? Your diet sucks, old man, and you don't think fart jokes are funny, so you suck too.
He then told me that he was an ordained minister and proceeded to give me an all too literal interpretation of the book of revelations, where bugs eat your private parts, then everyone gets scabs for a year, and then everything burns.
"Hey, I dated her in college." Still no laugh, and that one was actually funny.
As far as that goes, the meat will have killed me long before I have to worry about the scorched earth.
 Dusty
RELATED LINK: http://antiagingchoices.com/Nutritional_products/fight_cancer/colon_cleanser.htm
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posted by Dusty at 2:25 PM |
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Another Year Gone By
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10/13/2004
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I turned 32 on Monday, and last night it hit me- I'll be 40 in 8 years. I'm really great at long division. So I decided to get a corvette and a girlfriend who is twenty years younger than I am because that's what guys are supposed to do at some point.
So if you see me driving down the street in a Honda with the word "corvette" painted on the hood and a twelve-year-old girl in the passenger seat, be sure and say hi.
I guess I'd be getting weird about getting older, but the truth is I have been blessed with a pretty kickass life, and I don't see it going anywhere but up from here. This past year in particular has been the best yet, and will only be outdone by the next. To celebrate, I thought I'd be pathetic and throw my own party. Then I decided that it wasn't pathetic enough and made it a surprise party. Check out the e-vite and leave a well wish if you want. I know that you can't make it because you are all from wild exotic places like Sri-Lanka, Greece, and Denver, but help an old fart feel loved and leave a shout out. If people no longer leave shout outs, then do whatever the kids are doing these days.
I know, this was a shorter and decidedly less funny entry than in the past, but it's my birthday. Give me a mulligan- I'm getting old. I'll be back next week with the goods. And perhaps a broken hip.
Dusty
RELATED LINK: http://www.evite.com/pages/invite/viewInvite.jsp?event=OVQTKNPLQIMCJRADDMBK&unknownUser=true
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posted by Dusty at 7:48 AM |
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The right job for a tool.
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10/5/2004
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Eight inches of knobby rubber and plastic on a sleek, ergonomic shaft, crisscross action, rubber stimulation prongs, and a vibrating head.
Yep, I'm sure loving my new toothbrush.
I even bought dental floss called "glide" to complete the package.
Next time you buy one, take some time to read the descriptions on the packages. The toothbrushes you get at the dentist are purely the no-frills brushes. The $4.00 kind you buy at the store have more features than some cars and are clearly marketed as sex toys. On a related note, they are huge. I feel like I am brushing my teeth with a shoe on a stick, and I have to stand in the shower because of all of the runoff.
And when you wake up hung over after having capped the night off with a fistful of garlic-stuffed olives and a cigarette, stop for a minute and think about how much it would suck to die and be reincarnated as a toothbrush. After some consideration, I figured I'd rather be toilet paper. At least then you'd only get used once.
I decided to clean my house this weekend. Not just do the dishes and wash clothes (which constitues cleaning in the mind of a single guy), but scrub the shower, seal tile, clean the stove and sinks...you know, actually make the place clean.
In order to maintain a macho facade in the process, I used some pretty serious hardware to get it done. I bought a few new buffing heads for my random-orbital car buffer, a filter for my wet-dry vac, and a tool belt just for appearances. It never hurts to have a hammer dangling from your belt.
There is some kind of special sauce you have to use on flat ceramic cooktops. It cleans them and leaves a protective coating to keep stuff from sticking. I'm sure it's lots of fun to put on rubber gloves and scrub the cooktop with a sponge for thirty minutes, but a 1.5 HP orbital buffer gets the job done in about 9 seconds. The rest of the time can be spent wiping the excess sauce off of random surfaces around the kitchen. Don't ask how I know this, but safety goggles are a good call too.
The orbital buffer can also be used to shine up your countertops and bathtub, but I'd keep it away from the toilet. Stick to conventional methods there.
I always vacuum last, because some of the side projects with which I become distracted while cleaning (like re-wiring the entire house) do create some fallout. I have a standard vacuum with a spinny brush head and convenient handle, and it sits in my storage unit because it does not actually pick up dirt as much as it just kicks it around. My answer is a 5 HP wet/dry contraption that sounds like an F-16. You pretty much just turn it on and stand in the middle of the room and everything that isn't nailed down ends up in the canister. Be sure your cat is well fed and watered before using this vaccuum, because she will hide somewhere and you won't see her for several days.
So now the place is pretty clean. I still need to clean the front of my refrigerator, but Home Depot isn't getting their sandblasting wands in until friday.
Dusty
RELATED LINK:
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posted by Dusty at 7:10 AM |
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