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Burst of Weirdness
I was doing a routine sweep of the “Nature’s Market” section of The Store the other day. That’s where all the “Natural” and “Organic” stuff is, as well as the gonzo health products that you’d typically find at a GNC store. (By “routine sweep”, I mean exactly that: I was toting a broom.)
I glanced at the health product shelves, and my eyes fell upon an item that has to have the most questionable name for a medical product I’ve ever seen. Now, upon further review, it’s an “energy booster”, so the name sort-of makes sense on that basis, but it amazes me when people who name things seem to have never been in junior high. The product? Up Your Gas!
From the site selling this stuff: “So the time you feel yourself yourself running out os gas, reach up for Up Your Gas!”
Now, is it just me, or does this call to mind not the idea of suddenly getting a nice boost of energy, but rather that one scene in Blazing Saddles? The scene with the cowboys eating beans?
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Questions
When in doubt, I can always grope for a timewaster. Here’s one I found over on Left Coast Dementia. (I’m writing this on Thursday night, for posting on Friday. Why not post it Thursday night? Hell, I dunno.)
1 :: Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 18, find line 4. Write down what it says:
“We forget nothing.”
2 :: Stretch your left arm out as far as you can. What do you touch first?
A cup of pens and pencils.
3 :: What is the last thing you watched on DVD? On actual TV?
On DVD: Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones
On actual TV: ER.
4 :: WITHOUT LOOKING, guess what time it is:
11:02 pm
5 :: Now look at the clock; what is the actual time?
11:01 pm (I’m writing this just as the late night news is starting, so this is a bit of a cheat.)
6 :: With the exception of the computer, what can you hear?
The TV, tuned to a rerun of Friends. The fridge, although the compressors shut off a minute ago. Nothing else.
7 :: When did you last step outside? What were you doing?
About 5:15 this afternoon, to walk the kid while she rode her bike.
8 :: Before you came to this website, what did you look at?
I’m confused by this question: is it referring to the site from which I got the quiz? If so, I followed a link from my own blog.
9 :: What are you wearing?
Red henley shirt, blue overalls, black socks.
10 :: Did you dream last night?
Probably. I don’t often remember dreams for very long. I do remember them, but they fade really quickly.
11 :: When did you last laugh?
I don’t recall. I laugh a lot, though. I value zaniness.
12 :: What is on the walls of the room you are in?
A Star Wars Episode I poster, a National Geographic world map, a Casablanca poster, one of those reproductions of the world map from the Age of Exploration, a shelf with some knickknacks on it, a Celtic cross tapestry, a couple sets of the kid’s portraits. Oh, and a wall sconce with candle.
13 :: Seen anything weird lately?
Well, there was the woman who approached me at The Store today to ask me if I could direct her to a store employee. (My work shirt has a big-ass Store logo embroidered on the right breast.)
14 :: What do you think of this quiz?
Kinda weird. But my head is slowly filling with mucus. The brain cells in steerage are screaming for their lives.
15 :: What is the last film you saw?
In the theater? The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. I am currently watching, over several nights, that remake of Battlestar Galactica that was on the SciFi channel a few months ago. I don’t know if that constitutes a “film”, or if its “in progress” state renders inactive the past-tense “saw”. (See how weird my brain gets when I’m nursing a cold?)
16 :: If you became a multi-millionaire overnight, what would you buy first?
A home in East Aurora, New York. (One of Buffalo’s outlying suburbs – in fact, it might not even be proper to call it a suburb at all – and a very lovely town.)
17 :: Tell me something about you that I don’t know:
I like Culture Club. That’s a true guilty pleasure.
18 :: If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or politics, what would you do?
I’d flip a coin between education for every person on Earth (including music and art, dammit!), or exempting the Buffalo Bills from the NFL salary cap. I’d probably do that first thing, but you know, the Bills….
19 :: Do you like to dance?
No, although I’ve always wanted to learn Irish stepdancing. (Yes, I bought all those RiverDance and Lord of the Dance videos. And I like ’em. Bite me.)
20 :: George Bush: is he a power-crazy nutcase or someone who is finally doing something that has needed to be done for years?
Both, which is what really scares me.
21a :: Imagine your first child is a girl; what do you call her?
“Haley”, which is pretty convenient since that’s what we did call her. I like it when things work out that way.
21b :: Imagine your first child is a boy; what do you call him?
“Aragorn”. Good thing she was a girl.
22 :: Would you ever consider living abroad?
If it would be for a set amount of time – say, a year or two – maybe. But not permanently. Things would have to get pretty damned horrible here for me to ever want to leave. The United States is my country, and it is my home.
(This must be a fast-spreading meme: Lynn Sislo and PZ Myers also reply, independent of my discovering the quiz. Dr. Myers actually answers two quizzes; this is the second one. I’m not touching that first one he answers!)
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A surgeon and a doc, above it all….
Well, just when I thought ER couldn’t annoy me any more than they did when they killed off Dr. Romano, they topped themselves by killing off Sandy, Dr. Weaver’s lesbian wife. Now, this time out, it’s not like they killed off my favorite character (which was the case with Romano) – Sandy was a minor recurring character – but it had a “been there, done that” feeling, in a couple of ways. First of all, the manner of the death seemed too reminiscent of a remarkable second season episode that also involved the death of a firefighter; secondly, it all turns out to be set-up for a custody battle. Sandy had borne a child via in vitro fertilization; the episode ends with Kerry basically being shoved out the door by Sandy’s family, now that they’ve swiped the kid on the basis that they are the blood relatives. Sigh. (And given how ER‘s writers totally muffed, in my opinion, the show’s last custody battle, I’m not optimistic.)
I don’t know — ER has really decided to wallow in pathos this year, and there’s no sign of any turning away from this trend any time in the future.
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Uh, Kevin? I don’t think you want to drink THAT Kool-aid.
I never thought I’d see the day when I completely and totally disagreed with a Kevin Drum post, but hey, sooner or later everything happens. (Not the idea of videotaping interrogations, but the idea of ditching the Fifth Amendment. Yipes.)
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Ugh….
OK, now I have a cold settling into my head.
Ugh, ugh, ugh.
This probably explains my general sense of lethargy the last couple of days. Maybe I’ll post more stuff tomorrow, but if the damned cold flares into full-fledged nasal ickiness, I’ll start the hiatus early.
Keep checking, folks, and apologies.
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It’s Official
Now THERE’s a guy with the right attitude!
Terry Teachout relates the reaction of this year’s Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, and it’s great. Someday I’ll win something. Maybe.
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Uh, sure.
I really have no comment on this, except to note that I wonder why it is that I apparently don’t live in the same world as some other folks.