Tuesday, November 3, 2009

I think at some point everyone has taken their eyes off of a child for a moment and something bad happens. I remember watching my niece one day and she left the bedroom to hang out in the living room with her cousins. I went in there a few minutes later to check on her and it turned out that even though she did go into the living room she didn’t stop there. She walked straight out the front door to go look for one of her cousins. Luckily I found her moments later, but when you are that scared one minute can feel like an eternity. No one can keep their eyes on a child 24/7 and because of that things are bound to happen, but I would have to say this is one of the worst. This woman did nothing wrong and the unthinkable happened. Luckily her child is fine, but you can just see the devastation and guilt in her poor eyes.

http://www.parentdish.com/2009/11/03/baby-survives-being-run-over-by-train/?icid=mainmaindl3link3http%3A%2F%2Fwww.parentdish.com%2F2009%2F11%2F03%2Fbaby-survives-being-run-over-by-train%2F

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Hillarious Ads

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This is what I want to be like when I'm old ... hell, I want to be like that now. Bring me my cane!
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The bottom of the ad reads, "Well, at least he drives a PRIUS."

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Wherefore art thou Cream?

So the other day, after awaking from a nap, I think to myself, "Hmmm, coffee sound FABulous"! So I go through my normal ritual of pouring my coffee and adding some cream. Mmmm, tastes good, and just the caffeine kick I need. Eventually, I finish my cup of coffee and go for a nice refreshing refill. I pour the coffee, I open the fridge, and I reach for the … wait a minute … where's the cream? Oh, it's behind the milk. Hmmm, I don't quite remember putting it all the way back there. Wait, this cream has never been opened, it's brand new. I didn't remember having another carton of cream. Was the other one empty? Did I throw it away? I look in the trash. Nope, no empty cream carton in there. Well ok, I'll just open this one up because obviously the Coffee Gods have blessed me with a new and unopened carton of creamer. That was nice of them. I go back into the living room and decide to forget about the whole thing and just enjoy my coffee. Twenty seconds later I'm back in the kitchen. Yeah, I know, I was supposed to just forget about it. Hmmm, I did throw a bunch of papers away just a minute ago … maybe I threw away the other carton and then threw the papers away afterwards and that is why I could not see the empty carton in the trash. I don't remember doing that and it doesn't sound very logical, but I look under the papers anyways. No empty carton of cream. Ok, what the hell is going on! Cream does not just get up and walk out the door! Does it? I check outside. Uh, not out there either. Ok, alright, in the past I have put things in places they don't belong so let's retrace our steps; because letting this go is obviously not an option. Here we go … I walked in the kitchen … I opened the cupboard so I could get a coffee cup ... THERE IT IS!

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Potato Bug Graveyard

The other night when I let my dog out I noticed quite a few potato bugs roaming around by my back door. I was a little surprised because I have never seen that many potato bugs at one time. I couldn’t help but wonder why they weren’t underground. Has the soil become too cold for them? Surely it has to be warmer underground than above. Then I started thinking about a zoology class I took a few semesters ago and how short lived bugs lives actually are; deaths are usually caused by freezing. Now for most bugs, earwigs mostly, I could care less since they are more of a nuisance or just plain creepy, but I have always had a fondness for potato bugs.

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I remember digging them out of the dirt at my grandparent’s house when I was little and watching them curl up in their shielded balls to protect themselves even though I meant them no harm. Then shortly after setting them back down they would unravel themselves and go about their day as if nothing had ever happened. I felt sad for these bugs knowing ultimately what their fate would be by morning. Mind you, not bad enough to bring them all in the house and have a potato bug farm, but still I felt bad. The next morning as I let my dog out again, sure enough, I had a potato bug graveyard at my back door. Poor guys.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

My Morning Ritual

Every morning I wake up with my hair still in perfect placement, makeup as fresh as the day before, and I make my cute little girly yawning noises … ok not really, my hair is usually all over my face and sometimes in my mouth, I look like I have two black eyes from my makeup smearing and the noises I make are more caveman like. Anyways, after all that, I slowly open my eyes to see what has to be the most dreadful thing you can possibly see when first opening your eyes … the light. My body goes into a state of convulsing shock while my eyes silently scream for mercy from the horror that is the light. I slowly drag myself out of bed blindly stumbling and confused as to where I am actually going; I just need to get away from the light. Suddenly I trip over something; damn dog! Although, I can't blame her, she's going through the same thing I am. We're both just trying to find sanctuary from the demon lght. Finally, after much searching, I find my sunglasses and drag my poor dog to safety—under the bed. Here we can hide until our poor eyes adjust to the light of day. Why is the light so cruel? Why must she hurt our poor eyes like this? What have we done to anger her? Why wasn't I blessed with a second set of eyelids to shield my poor eyes from this cruelty? Wait a minute, the dog has three sets of eyelids! I push her out from under the bed … she can fend for herself. Only one thing comforts me from this daily monstrosity … one day global warming will block out the sun entirely. This is my morning ritual.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

The History of Poop

Today I learned about the history of poop. That’s right I’m going to talk about poop. My second post on this blog and it’s a shitty one, literally. Well, if this doesn’t chase you away then you must be a brave soul. God shall reward you with cookies. So today at college I learned about poop, ah college, the best education money can buy. Ok actually I think Yale is the best education money can buy, but for this moment we’ll pretend its WSU just because I like my little phrase. Anyways, I thought I knew all there was to know about poop. I poop, you poop, they poop, poop happens, what more do you need to know? There’s more, and it’s very interesting as well as gross; but I’m sure you knew the latter already.

So, let us pretend we are in 19th century London … ok now let’s hurry back because if a person was actually able to travel back in time they wouldn’t be able to handle the stench. How did 19th century London deal with it? Well, they were exposed to it their whole lives so although I’m sure it wasn’t pleasant, they did have a sort of tolerance for it since they didn’t actually have a choice. Why didn’t they have a choice you may ask? Duh, they didn’t have toilets or a sewage system. Pfft. Dumb ass.

What they did have though were chamber pots. Go get a bucket real quick … go on, I’ll be here waiting. Ok now stand in your dining room and pretend that is the size of your house, set the bucket down, now poop in it. Well, what are you waiting for? Oh I see. That’s disgusting, hmmm, also no privacy, plus what do you do with the poop after. You throw it out the window of course. Right onto the city streets. Of course since the stench is outside as well as in your house you’ll probably wait until it’s full before you toss it because it doesn’t make a difference anyway. If you actually pooped in the bucket like I told you … well … your disgusting, but, you also got a taste, and smell, for what it was like to be a 19th century pooper. On a side note, only the upper class had enough money to buy a house with enough rooms so that the chamber pot could be in a secluded room and thus gracing you some well deserved privacy, but, it was about the same equivalent as using a porta potty today.


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In London there were people everywhere, around 2.5 million people, the average person disposes of a half a pound of poop a day, there were also a lot of horses as well as other various animals, I don’t know how much a horse poops a day but I’m sure it’s more than a half a pound, so close your eyes and image for a minute just how much shit was on those London streets. Not to mention there was always the risk of having crap thrown on your head when people dumped out their chamber pots just as you were walking by. Hence why people ran for cover when they heard a voice above yell out "Gardez Lui" - or, loosely translated, "Look out" right before dumping their pot; this is where the term “Lui” comes from in England. This is also why women walked on a certain side of a man so that she was closer to the street so that a man would be struck by the offensive disposal before a woman would; ah romance. I’ll give you a minute to process that, and throw up if you need to.

Are you done? Do you feel better? OK, back to poop. So eventually a man named Edwin Chadwick woke up one day and decide there must be something done about all this crap. His solution was to clear the cesspit known as London by flushing all the sewage into the Thames; pronounced temz, Thames is a river in England. This way they could flush, literally, all the poop off the city streets. Problem solved right? Perhaps, except that the good people of London not only used the Thames as their flushing system, but they also got their drinking water from it as well. What could go wrong right? A lot could, and in 1832 London had its first outbreak of Cholera.

Cholera is characterized by profuse diarrhea, vomiting, cramps, etc. ECT! My God, it gets worse? From 1848-1849 50,000 people died of Cholera, in 1853-1854 15,000 people died, and in that same year 750 people died in a two block area within 3 days! This disease had become so consistent that eventually it was just a normal part of life for the people of London to watch everyone around them die, and yet, they had no idea why. They believed that the bad smelling air was what caused this disease and they named it Miasma. Could it be the water perhaps? Nah! Au contraire my friend. One day a man named John Snow opened his mind just a little bit wider than anyone else that day and thought to himself, “Could it be the water?” Yes, it could be! After thousands upon thousands of deaths someone finally figured it out. Ok, I’ll stop talking about poop now.


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Night (Four Times of the Day) by William Hogarth, 1738

Monday, October 5, 2009

Peach Pit

So I’ve noticed lately that I’ve been very aware of how often I squint my eyes . . . which I do a lot. Why am I noticing this you may ask? ~WRINKLES~ I’ve never worried about this before so why am I suddenly noticing it now? Age perhaps. *Sigh* I’m 28 trying my damndest to run away from 29, but regardless of my pace it’s still creeping up on me; maybe I need better running shoes.

What should I do? Do I use expensive creams I can’t afford and probably don’t work anyways? Do I take vitamins? Do I super glue my eyes open so that I may never be in fear of squinting again? My eye sockets would probably dry out though. Do I just ignore it and accept that one day I will get wrinkles, or try to avoid it in some way so my face doesn’t end up looking like a dried piece of fruit?

I tell myself that my family has good genes so my wrinkles probably won’t be so bad, but is that true? Or am I just lying to myself in some vain attempt of comfort? What happens when I do get wrinkles? Do I join a club where they will initiate me by rubbing layers upon layers of cold cream on my face? That stuff really hurts when it gets in your eyes!

I see a lot of women with wrinkles that are still beautiful and the wrinkles only add to that age of beauty. Then I see women that look like a Shar-Pei, i.e., wrinkle dogs. Oh Jesus, which one will I become? Should I rip though all my old family photos and start comparing picture of the women in my family to pictures of those damned dogs, or do I just wait for it like some sort of surprise party you already know about?

The thought of all the medical procedures that we have today should give me some type of comfort, but what if something goes wrong and the first three layers of my skin is burned off and I have to sit in a dark room waiting for it to grow back? Or my eyes get pulled back so far that I look oriental and then I have to dye my hair black to match my new look. Do Orientals get wrinkles? What if I don’t have the money? I’m an English major for God’s sake! I probably won’t have money for paper to write on let alone major constructive surgery.

I wonder if the skin around my eyes will sag so much that I won’t be able to see. If it did, would I use toothpicks to hold the skin up? That would probably hurt. Oh and what if the skin is so heavy that the toothpicks snap and blind me permanently? Hmmm. If I can’t see my wrinkles I probably wouldn’t have to worry about them. Problem solved!

 
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