Top 5 Worst Ideas for a Love Song

So, I think I may have heard the worst love song of all time on the radio this week.  It’s Lady Gaga’s new song, entitled “Paparazzi”. To give you an idea of why I think it’s a bad love song,  here is a sampling of the words to the chorus:

I’m your biggest fan

I’ll follow you until you love me

Papa….paparazzi

Promise I’ll be kind, but I won’t stop until that boy is mine

Baby you’ll be famous, chase you down until you love me

Papa…paparazzi

Wow. That’s all I have to say. I can’t think of a worse metaphor to use if you wanted to tell someone you love them. Basically you’re saying, “I’m going to take pictures of you at all times of the day, not give you any privacy, chase you around whenever you drive or go anywhere in public, try to get naked pictures of you to put on the internet, and basically do all that I can to make you hate me and want to punch me in the face. If you’re really lucky, you’ll die in a car crash like Princess Diana trying to avoid my constant harassment. ” That’s just the kind of significant other I’m looking for.

Honestly, though, how many professions in our society are more despised than the paparazzi? I can’t think of too many. Telemarketers, maybe? Door-to-door solicitors? Used car salesmen? Possibly ambulance-chaser lawyers, or politicians, but  I think that the paparazzi actually sit atop most of these professions near the top of the “most hated” list. “Paparazzi” is maybe two or three steps below “rapist” or “serial killer” in the derisive vocabulary of our society. This song is basically like saying, “Love me baby, I can be your Dick Cheney. I’ll love you like Abu Grahib”.

The song is still becoming very popular, as evidenced that I’ve heard it 3 times in the last week. I think this mostly has to do with Lady Gaga’s established popularity, and the fact that you can dance to it. “Paparazzi” ’s popularity got me thinking to what other songs could fit into this anti-love song niche, i.e. love songs that are about some of the least romantic things you can imagine. There are probably hundreds of good ideas out there, but I tried to keep my songs within the rhythm and cadence of “Paparazzi”. Here’s the list:

5. Biochemist

Breeding microbes in a petri dish

Until you love me

Bio…biochemist

4. Old Cat Lady

I love you almost as much

As the forty cats around me

Crazy…old cat lady

3. Politician

Promise Anything

I’ll tell you lies until you ****  me

Poli…Politician

2. Paparazzi

I honestly think it’s really hard to do worse than this.  In fact, I can only think of one….

1. Kobe Bryant

Chick in Colorado

Hold you down and make you love me

Kobe….Kobe Bryant.

I welcome any ideas that any of you have in the comments section. If I really like one, I will edit it into  the post as an honorable mention. Tootles.

Top 5 Pet Urine Stories

In my last 8 months working as a vet tech before coming to vet school, I accumulated a number of funny stories that I wanted to share with people, but I was always too busy to blog about them. You might not think that my first semester of Vet School would be an occasion that I would suddenly have more time, and you’re probably right. I can’t really justify it; let’s just say I’m learning to manage my time better. Anyway, here are the top 5 funniest stories from my tenure at Banfield that involve urinating animals:

5. R Kelly reincarnated

Now, I can’t even remember what breed this dog was, but I do remember that he was an intact (un-neutered) male, sized somewhere between a pit bull and a mastiff, dropped off for a comprehensive exam and vaccines. He seemed like he just wanted to pee on everyone. It didn’t seem like a submissive thing, because he never put his head down or his ears back, and he really didn’t have a very submissive personality. It may have been a territory marking thing, because he did lift his leg on the corner of the table at least once.  It certainly happened in response to restraint; when I held him for vaccines, he peed on my arm and my scrub bottoms. By the time he peed on his third petnurse, I couldn’t help but ask, “What’s up with R Kelly dog? He really seems to like peeing on people.” Multiple coworkers told me that I was being inappropriate, but they couldn’t help but laugh, because the dog was so ridiculous. For a visual interpretation of what the dog was like, consult the link below (you may have to copy and paste it into your address bar):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-B7MpH9sAA

4. “I’ll show you, catheter….”

A rather friendly owner brought in a rather obese beagle, and told us he was concerned about said beagle’s continued weight gain, increased drinking and urination. The doctor explained that such symptoms could be brought on by several different causes, such as a UTI, thyroid issues, cushing’s disease, etc., and that we needed to do blood and urine work to rule these things out. The dog was not peeing on his own, so in the interest of time we decided to collect a sample with a urinary catheter. I held the dog, while another petnurse held back the prepuce (penis covering), and my boss, Michelle, fed the catheter. Once she got the catheter in, we noticed urine leaking around the sides of the catheter and onto Michelle’s hands. At first we asked,

“Did you not feed the catheter correctly?”

“Is there a leak somewhere on the catheter tubing?”

Then we realized almost simultaneously that the dog had decided that dog had decided to pee on his own after all, even if that meant peeing around the catheter. Fortunately, Michelle is always on her A-game, and when she withdrew the catheter, she was able to quickly grab a bowl and hold it under the resulting stream that came spewing off the table, collecting a more than adequate sample. I had always thought that having your pee siphoned out with a catheter must feel pretty strange, and honestly, I’m surprised I haven’t seen this kind of thing happen more often. However, this was the first and (so far) only time I’ve ever seen a dog pee around a catheter, and it was pretty amazing.

3. Lapdog Surprise

One morning I walked in to screen a room, and found young, newly married couple with a 1 year-old female Jack Russell terrier. They were very friendly, and after introducing themselves, invited me over to come meet their dog. The dog was beautiful, and I went over and rubbed her head while addressing her in my best puppy voice. This evoked a reaction not uncommon in young dogs — she put her ears back, wagged her tail vigorously, and peed a small puddle. I am used to dogs doing this when they come to see me at the vet’s office; going to the vet can be a scary experience for a dog, and I would much rather deal with a submissive urinator than a fearfully aggressive dog. The problem in this case was that the dog was still in her mom’s lap when she decided to let loose, and the somewhat sizeable puddle ended up all over the front of a nice pair of pants, which is a rather unfortunate place for a human to have urine stains. Think about it: how would you like to walk out of a Pet Smart with a big urine stain on the front of your pants, with your only excuse being, “I didn’t wet my pants — my dog did it!” Actually, there are probably pet owners out there who would completely understand. Anyway, the woman and her husband were actually very gracious about it, accepted my profuse apologies,  and thanked me for getting them paper towels to clean up the mess. The owners insisted that they had never seen that happen before, and that I was the first person who had ever brought out that side of their dog. Nonetheless, when they came back a few months later, they knew better and had the dog greet me on the floor of the exam room, where she proceeded pee as soon as my hand made contact with her head. Let this be a lesson to all of you who have lapdogs, that it is not always a good policy to keep the dog physically on your lap at all times.

2. Long Distance Kitty

So, for those of you who have a great deal of experience with animals, I would like to fill you in on a little secret: Cats, as a general rule, are completely intolerant of anything being forced upon them. If you are looking for a pet that will be obedient and submissive, a cat is probably not for you. As you can imagine, at a vet’s office, where cats are the recipients of shots, blood draws, ear cleanings, and rectal exams, their moods are somewhat less than amicable. I have had many a cat scratch me, bite me, and pee on me. I have fortunately avoided having anal glands expressed onto me up to this point, but I’m sure that will happen in time. Anyway, there is one cat that peed on me that sticks out in my memory, and this is his story. Let me begin by stating that I was neither restraining nor treating the cat in question; I was simply coming back from an exam room, and stopped to observe the cat being restrained on the table for a blood draw. My fellow petnurse Ramzie was scruffing and stretching the cat, and doing his very best not to get clawed or bitten. The doctor was doing his very best to get a quick blood sample, which was proving difficult, as the cat’s veins were both small and rapidly moving. The cat, for his part, was trying his hardest to thrash, bite and claw everyone in the immediate vicinity. Suddenly, the mowing, hissing, and thrashing stopped, and a yellow arc appeared in the air, coming to rest on my left shoe. I wasn’t mad — after all, I had already been peed on multiple times by pets, and the urine wiped easily enough off of my shoe. I was, however, quite impressed, because I was standing at least 6 or 7 feet away from the treatment table where the cat was being restrained. Imagine if you could urinate 6 times your body length! I seriously think this cat could win some sort of contest. I guess we’re all capable of amazing things when we’re properly motivated.

1. The Tom Hanks Golden Retriever

Whereas kitty earned a spot on this list for the distance he could urinate, the last pet on this list earned the top spot based on the volume and duration of his urination. Do you remember the scene in “A League of Their Own” when Tom Hanks walks into the locker room completely drunk, stumbles over to the toilet, and proceeds to pee for what seems like an eternity? The pee itself is probably under a minute long, but the fact that it lasts more than 20 or 30 seconds makes a brilliantly comically awkward moment for everyone watching the movie. Following in that tradition, we had an overweight Golden Retriever  come in for a comprehensive exam, and his owners had clearly not taken him out beforehand. When we brought him back to the treatment area, he submissively urinated two or three times upon meeting new petnurses. We put him briefly in a kennel while we attended to other pets, and when we brought him into the room for his physical exam, he squatted in the middle of the floor and started to go full stream. The doctor told us to get a towel to put under him, but his growing puddle quickly soaked through and around the towel. After he had been peeing for about 30 seconds, we started to ask each other, “How much pee can one dog have?” He continued to pee for almost a minute straight, and by the time he was finished, the entire area of flooring between the treatment tables had been flooded with urine. It took several towels and a mop to clean up the mess. The dog seemed very relieved,  and was very excited that he had made us all laugh. He wagged his tail and panted and had a wonderful time. Come to think about it, I had a pretty good time myself. These are the experiences that make it fun to work with animals.

I have some funny owner stories as well, hopefully I’ll get around to writing about them soon. See you then. Tootles.

Exploring the Worst Kind of Racism

I initially wrote this as a “page”. You can find my initial post in the “page” section, but basically I received and email forward of an article written by a man named Jonathan Rosenblum, and found it to be terribly slanted and racist. I suppose an alternate title for this post would be “Top 5 Reasons Never to Read Anything by Jonathan Rosenblum”, or “Top 5 Reasons why This is the Worst Thing I’ve Read Since The Secret“. The article he wrote can be found here (I found a link to it):

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/jonathan/rosenblum_evil.php3

And here is what I wrote as a rebuttal to said article (In top 5 format, of course):

5. His initial premise is flawed and unsupported.

The author delivers a broad premise in his title, that “sometimes it is more essential to define the nature of evil than good”. This is an interesting point of debate, from a moral standpoint. The problem is, he spends no time defining what good or evil actually are, or explaining why it is harder/less essential to define good than it is to define evil.  He seems to take for granted that people will agree with him that Hitler is evil incarnate (not an unreasonable assumption) and that modern Muslims are in the same category (much harder to swallow, particularly without significant support).

The way I see it, Good and Evil both lie on the same spectrum, and thus must be defined in relation to each other. There are many actions that are good, many that are evil, and many that lie somewhere in between. The problem with defining the West (US, Israel, etc.) as “Good” and Islam as “Evil”, is that it grossly oversimplifies the argument.  (Note: I know that Mr. Rosenblum does not claim to define any “good”, but the assertion of his article that Muslims are “Evil” implies that we are at the least “better”, if not “good”.) He hints at definitions of “Evil”, such as killing innocent women and children, but under that definition, almost any nation that has undertaken military action (including the US military presence currently stationed in Iraq) could be considered evil. I don’t think that is an argument that he is trying to make. Herein lies the problem of not actually defining what makes a group of people “good” or “evil”, when that is your stated premise.

Another interesting point: Mr Rosenblum talks about “radical Islam”, but he doesn’t take the time to define what he means by this, leaving it as a generalization. This is the rhetorical equivalent of defining the “Christian Right” as “people who bomb abortion clinics and murder doctors”. This is yet another example of how “the definition of evil”, apparently the premise of the article, is markedly absent from the body of the work.

4. His article is riddled with hypocrisy

There are two sources of hypocrisy in this article, only one of which I will address here, because the other source of hypocrisy is actually my number one reason that Mr. Rosenblum is full of it. The first source of hypocrisy is not stated outright, but more subtly implied. Mr Rosenblem implies, by stating that the US need not get tripped up in defining what is “good”, that we do not always need to take good or honorable steps to fight terrorism — that sometimes we need to resort to things that we don’t consider good, such as waterboarding, and detention of prisoners without trial, or even sufficient evidence to press charges. This is hypocrisy on a national level that our government has indulged in for some time. The reason it is hypocritical is because these actions by our government spit in the face of our national identity. The founding fathers conceived of a nation in which citizens and individuals would be free from tyranny, which is why we have rights such as habeus corpus, and the right to a fair trial. The founding fathers would be appalled by legislation such as the Patriot Act that strips away these civil liberties, or the govnernment holding (and sometimes torturing) prisoners without charges or trial in offshore locations such as Guantanamo Bay. I know I am appalled. Maybe that’s hubris on my part, thinking that the Founding Fathers would think the way I do. However, they did seem to care enough about these ideas to put them in the Constitution….

3. He ignores significant developments in current events that contradict his point.

Iran, part of Bush’s (and apparently Mr. Rosenblum’s) Axis of Evil, recently had presidential elections. There has been somewhat of a controversy involving allegations that the Iranian government falsified the election results. These allegations rest on two major points:

-All major polls leading up to the elections showed Ahmedinejad’s rival to be leading by a significant margin, not trailing 66 to 33 percent as the final election tally reflected.

-The Iranian government announced the results an hour after the polls closed, even though there were over 35 million paper ballots to be counted.

This story has two sides. The first side is obviously outrage at the Iranian government for undermining their own democracy. If the government actually falsified the election results in order to stay in power, that is nothing less than tyranny. However, the other side of the story, the silver lining, is that if the allegations are true, then it seems that the majority of the Iranian people want to modernize and move toward a more western society! That is a very positive sign, and would show that Obama’s heightened rhetoric and extension of a friendly hand toward the Middle East is more forward thinking than it is naive. The elections in Lebanon, where the people actually elected a more progressive government, point toward the same conclusion. It would appear that not everyone in the Middle East is out to bomb the US or Israel after all.

2. He leaves out very important parts of the story.

As I recall, didn’t the Allies win World War II? Yes, appeasement was a mistake, and yes, the Allies (including England) were underprepared from a military standpoint. However, when the Allied Powers realized what was going on, they banded together to defeat the Nazis and liberate the nations (and peoples) that the Nazis were oppressing. The Bush administration tried to use Appeasement as an example of why we had to invade Iraq, a decision which most people will now admit was a mistake. Yes, Hitler was a terrible person. Yes, Hitler was worse than world leaders could realize at the time, which allowed him to become more powerful than he should have. But if we immediately assume that everyone who has conflicting interests with the United States or Israel is as bad as Hitler, then aren’t we bound to overreact fairly regularly? We overreacted in Iraq, and that has cost the lives of thousands of US soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians (plus trillions of dollars and an unprecedented government deficit). I, for one, am glad that Obama hasn’t over-reacted yet.

1. He is the worst kind of racist

The second type of hypocrisy that I hinted at earlier basically runs as follows: How is labelling an entire group of people (be it Muslims, Iranians, whomever Mr. Rosenblum is tirading against here) any better than how Hitler labeled the Jews back in the times of World War II? Bush, who coined the term “Axis of Evil”, also talked about the “ideology of hate” that Muslims have toward the West? How are the sweeping generalizations made by this type of article any different? If you label an entire group of people as “Evil”, you are dehumanizing them and breaking the common bond that we share as citizens of this planet. What happened to the Christian motto of “hate the sin, love the sinner?” Last time I checked, it wasn’t written anywhere as “hate the sin, hate the Muslims”. Yes, the people who attacked the US on September 11th were terrible people. So were the people who attacked the London subway, and any other examples of Muslim terrorist attacks that have happened in the last 10 years. But you know what? So are Timothy McVey and the Unabobmer. So are the people who bomb abortion clinics and murder doctors. You can’t judge an entire group of people based on horrifically violent outliers. That’s just insane. You can level attacks at Ahmedinejad or the Iranian government for being tyrants, you can condemn the attacks and efforts of specific terrorist groups, but you cannot support this type of hate speech, or embrace racial profiling, or embrace any other type of dehumanizing generalizations against Muslims as a people. To try to convince people that Muslims are the definition of “evil incarnate” is worse than calling them towel heads, or sand *****’s, or any number of disrespectful epithets that we discourage people from using. It is the worst kind of racism there is, because it is the kind of racism that encourages people to take hateful action.

Well, it’s good to be back, and it feels good to get that off my chest. I welcome any comments, and I will try to get in the habit of writing semi-regularly again. Tootles.

Three thoughts for the day

Three random thoughts that I considered blogworthy:

1. If the Rolling Stones’ tour plane crashed in the Andes, like the people from Alive, and Keith Richards was the first to die, and the rest were starving to death, would it even be worth it to eat him? If they did eat him, do you think they would have some kind of crazy buzz/trip/hallucination, or do you think that the metabolized drug residues would simply make him toxic? Of course, this is ignoring any other moral questions about cannibalism, but I would imagine that eating Keith Richards would rank somewhere between eating a pot brownie and a poison arrow frog.

2. Is there a word for what happens when you correct someone’s grammar or spelling, but your correction itself is wrong? For Example:

person 1: “Between you and me, I think we’re gonna lose this game”

person 2: “Don’t you mean, ‘between you and I’?”

or,

person 1: “There’s a lot less space here than in the other building.”

person 2: “I think you meant to say, ‘a lot fewer space’.”

What would you call what person 2 is doing? Miscorrecting? Incorrecting? You wouldn’t call it “wronging”, because that’s already a word. “Erroring” doesn’t flow very well. I think miscorrecting would be a good word, but as far as I know, it doesn’t exist (at least Microsoft Word doesn’t recognize it).

3. There is a McDonald’s commercial running right now that I don’t understand at all. Actually, I understand the main point of the commercial, but there’s a joke at the end that makes absolutely no sense to me. The commercial is basically a bunch of people standing around their desks at an office, talking about the value of the dollar. They begin the commercial making small talk about how weak the dollar is, then when one of their coworkers walks in with a double cheeseburger of the dollar menu, they start spouting a bunch of other crap about how strong the dollar seems. Then, at the end of the commercial, the following dialogue ensues:

Person 1: “Hey man, how are you fixed for fries?”

Person 2 (guy with McDonald’s stuff): “I’m good.”

Person 3: “That’s cold, man.”

I don’t understand it. What is so cold about asking someone how they’re fixed for fries? Does it have something to do with the value of the dollar? Does it have something with the wording of the question? Does it have something to do with the fries? Is it because no one else at the office has McDonald’s food? SOMEONE PLEASE EXPLAIN THIS TO ME. I don’t know if the advertising people are smarter than I am, dumber than I am , or just have a really weird sense of humor. Perhaps part of the commercial that made this make sense got edited out somehow.

If anyone has an answer to any of these questions, feel free to leave them as a comment. I know that they’re kind of rhetorical questions (with the exception of the McDonald’s thing), but I would still be grateful for any thoughts anyone wishes to contribute. Tootles.

Thoughts on Barry Bonds

Before I begin today’s Top 5, I have an question about a current situation in professional sports:

How is it that Michael Vick faced a maximum of 5 years in prison for heading up a dogfighting ring, while Barry Bonds may face a maximum of 30 years in prison for lying about his steroid use?

Honestly, the libertarian inside me is screaming. A man who was responsible for the murder of countless dogs (some of which he perpetrated with his bare hands), would hypothetically only be able to be punished one sixth of the amount as someone who injected substances into his body to help give him an unfair physical advantage in baseball. ARE YOU KIDDING ME???!!!???

To be fair, in both cases, the maximum prison sentences in each case actually wouldn’t result from the base crimes themselves, but ancillary crimes committed in the process. In Vick’s case, dogfighting is only a misdemeanor (again, ARE YOU KIDDING ME?), and it was actually gambling issues (I believe some sort of illegal cross-state gambling) that actually opened the possibility of jail time. Bonds is not being charged with criminal steroid use, he is being charged with perjury for lying about his steroid use.

In all probability, if Bonds goes to jail, he will probably serve a sentence similar to what Vick faces (~2 years). However, just the comparison of the maximum sentences that each man could face leaves me wondering where our priorities are. Punishing someone for taking lives, albeit animal lives, six times more lightly than someone who cheats at a sport seems rather absurd to me.

Since Bonds is a professional baseball player, I suppose you could compare him to someone who cheats at his job (e.g. Enron executives), but the results of their actions aren’t even remotely comparable. One put thousands of people out of jobs, retirement funds, and life savings, the other tarnishes a hallowed baseball record. Honestly, is baseball that important? And really, isn’t the record issue easily resolved by placing an asterisk next to Bonds’s name, or removing his record from the books altogether?

Compare this to Vick, who created and managed an organization whose entire purpose is to kill dogs for entertainment. Not only did he fund and direct the operations of the dogfighting ring (and murder individual dogs with his bare hands), as a professional athlete and role model, he presented dogfighting as something “cool” or glamorous that his young fans could aspire to. Is this really six times less reprehensible than lying in court, or tainting a baseball record?

I would argue that in the long run, Vick did much more damage to the community. Yet Bonds faces potentially 15 times as much jail time as Vick will serve, 6 times the maximum jail time Vick could have served. Many Enron executives faced little or no jail time. We call this a justice system? What exactly is just about it?

Randy Moss, Terrell Owens…Wes Welker???

Sunday’s football game between the Dallas Cowboys and the New England Patriots, dubbed the “Duel in Dallas”, was hyped as not only a clash between two of the league’s elite undefeated teams, but also as a showdown of Randy Moss and Terrell Owens, two of the league’s top receivers.

Funny that they would both be shown up by a man whose relative stature approaches that of a garden gnome.

If the Patriots accomplish any of the goals that people are speculating they will (e.g. Super Bowl victory, undefeated season), a great deal of thanks will be due to Wes Welker, an offseason acquisition that is proving to be among the team’s most valuable.

Welker clearly outshined Moss against Dallas; his 124 yards and two touchdowns, combined with his punt returns, placed him among the most valuable players in the game. His two touchdowns gave New England and early lead, and his exploiting of Dallas’s interior defense forced the Cowboys to respect the short game, setting up later home-run passes to Stallworth and Moss.

Welker possesses great speed, quickness, soft hands, and an almost uncanny ability to make defenders miss. In fact, he has everything an NFL team would want in a wide receiver — except height (or weight, for that matter).

You would think that size would be something an NFL player would need, and that an NFL team would covet. I mean, Welker looks like a white Earl Boykins running around with all those other football players (if you don’t know who Earl Boykins is, you can find him on Wikipedia). He’s officially listed at 5′9″, 185 lbs (two or three inches shorter than I am, with similar build), but placed in the midst of other NFL players, the guy looks downright tiny. I almost feel sorry for him every time he gets tackled by linebackers and safeties who range from one and half to twice his size. Then I remember he plays for the Patriots.

Most of the hype surrounding New England’s offseason moves this year were centered around Randy Moss and linebacker Adalius Thomas. To be fair, up to this point, Moss is looking like the steal of the century, averaging over 100 yards and a touchdown per game. But part of the reason that Tom Brady and the Patriots’ offense are having such a record setting year is the fact that every receiver that Brady throws the ball to is amazing — and Welker is no exception.

Welker and tight end Ben Watson pose short threats that make the Patriots’ passing game nearly unstoppable. They are the New England equivalent of Brandon Stokley and Dallas Clark, only better after the catch. Basically, Tom Brady can throw the ball deep to Randy Moss for touchdowns until the other team stops him (a strategy that has already produced 8 touchdowns this season). When the other team guards deep to take that away, he can dump short passes to Welker and Watson for an almost guaranteed gain of 5 to 10 yars. Sometimes these short passes even turn into 30 yard touchdowns because of Welker and Watson’s ability to break and avoid tackles (as happened twice on Sunday).

This is why New England hardly ever needs to run the ball, and does okay with their 3rd string back. This type of running back production is called the Edgerrin James phenomenon. Average running back plays for a team who’s so good at passing that defenses are on guard against the pass at all times. Running back takes advantage of situation to inflate his statistics, fantasy points and earning potential. This is why espn commentators now all sing the praises of Sammy Morris and Kevin Faulk.

Great teams are always an injury or two away from stumbling. Most people’s dooming injury for New England would likely be Tom Brady. This is probably true, but I think that with the injury to Ben Watson yesterday, an injury to Welker could be almost as devastating.

Okay, by following up my long, girly post about Grey’s Anatomy with a rant about football, I have now evened out the yin and yang of my blog, and the universe is once again in balance. Now if I can just get on a regular writing schedule. Tootles.

How I Hurt My Neck

Now, this isn’t a Top 5, nor a Moral Question of the Day, and it’s a little outdated, but I hope that those of you who are still reading enjoy it anyway. This actually happened toward the beginning of the summer (I believe it was in June sometime). To give some background, I had spent the previous weekend driving to Akron to help my older brother move into his new place, and then I had driven 6 hours back to Chicago the night before, followed by an hour of trying to find a parking spot in the city where I was supposed to meet my friends for dinner. needless to say, all of the driving (particularly city driving) had elevated my stress levels significantly. The next morning was father’s day, and my family was going out for a celebratory brunch, which was rendered even more special by the presence of my brother and his wife who had recently flown in from Atlanta.

That morning I got into the shower feeling a little off. I hadn’t slept well, and the muscles in my back were a little tighter and stiffer than usual.  A hot shower helped me to relax a little, then when I reached out for my towel and began to dry my hair. Now, I don’t know how everyone else dries their hair, but according to my twin brother, my methods are a bit unorthodox (I find them simple and effective). I grab the towel with both hands, and rub it back and forth quickly across my scalp until my hair is dry — this usually takes somewhere from 10 to 20 seconds. Normally  a short, sweet, simple way to get my hair dry. Not this time, however. On the morning in question, for some reason, either the already tense and fragile state of my neck muscles and vertebrae, or an overabundance of vigor in my hand motions (possibly a combination of both), something went terribly wrong. I felt something move in a way that it wasn’t supposed to, and suddenly I was in sharp, terrible, dehumanizing pain. I let out several shrieks, shouts and curses as I tried unsuccessfully to move my neck back into place, many of which were heard by my sister in law (who said later that she felt sorry for me when she heard the noises coming from the bathroom, but I’m sure she was probably more weirded out than anything).

When I came out of the bathroom, the nerves in my neck had settled down some, but I could feel that something was still noticeably wrong. My family members pointed out to me that my neck was crooked, a fact that I later verified to myself in the mirror. Instead of coming out of my collar bone at the usual angle — I I — my neck stuck out at a diagonal angle like this: / /. In order to keep my vision angle straight, I had to constantly tilt my head to the left to compensate. I tried as much as I could to relax, hoping that the problem was muscular and with time my bend would right itself, but by the time I got home from brunch the pain was so bad that it was a colossal effort for me to even change position from sitting to standing, and vice versa. I spent the majority of the next two days lying on the floor with a rolled towel under my head, hoping my spine would right itself, and wondering how on earth I could possibly injure myself so badly with nothing more than my hands and a towel.

I called the chiropractor’s office Monday morning , but they couldn’t see me until the next day, so I just waited on the floor, reading a book, occasionally getting up to take eat something or take pain pills. The chiropractor was very nice, he used electro-stimulation to loosen the muscles in my upper back, and then cracked me all over the place. However, even after my first appointment at the chiropractor, I found I couldn’t turn my head to the right without turning my entire body, a fact which brought great amusement to my twin brother and his wife. Two more appointments later, I had all my mobility back, and only minor pain and swelling in my neck. I told the chiropractor that he was a lifesaver, but honestly I hope I never have to see him again.

Now, of course, I’m back to pretty much one hundred percent, but I’m still somewhat circumspect about how I dry my hair. My mother says I should blot it rather than vigorously rubbing it, she says my way causes split ends and other hair woes, not to mention the perils to my upper spine and vertebrae. I still maintain that my way is quick and effective; I just have to be a little more careful from now on.

I hope you have all enjoyed my thoroughly ridiculous story. Now whenever your friends are trading anecdotes about ridiculous ways in which their friends got hurt, you can say, “Well, I have a friend who incapacitated himself for nearly 3 days just by drying his hair!” This ranks right up there with my friend who broke his arm running into a parked car, or my dad, who broke his nose running into a tree. You know, maybe I could have made this into a top 5. Oh well. Tootles.

Brief Thoughts on Sarko-Royal Debate

I know I missed Tuesday’s blog, and now I’m in Switzerland, so I’m not gonna write much. But I just wanted to say a few things about last night’s presidential debate between Segolene Royal and Nicolas Sarkozy:

 If I were to vote right now, based solely on the outcome of last night’s debate, I would probably vote Sarkozy, although I wouldn’t necessarily feel too comfortable about it.

My reasoning is thus: Last night, Sarkozy seemed to be the more sincere, pragmatic, and composed candidate. However, he showed flashes of the personality that makes him so disliked among certain French circles. To put it briefly, he sometimes has the tendency to come off as a somewhat bigoted used car salesman. In particular when he confronted the issues of immigration, and the possible inclusion of Turkey into the EU, he clearly showed a Us vs Them worldview that can make a candidate very polarizing (a la George W. Bush).

Royal, on the other hand, seemed very idealistic and emotional, qualities that can be a double-edged sword for a politician. When she was talking about subjects that she clearly cared about, her emotion worked in her favor. On other topics, however, her fervor seemed forced, hackneyed, or dare I say, fake. She also has a somewhat annoying tendency to pause and smile between every three words she says. I think given my pre-debate bias, I might be inclined to lean toward Royal in spite of the debate, but Sarkozy’s economic policies are clearly more far-sighted (albeit a bit cold in the short term).

 I’m out of time at my swiss internet cafe, but I hope these musings are informative to some. See you all soon. Tootles.

Presidential Musings and Revisions

I’m too exhausted today to write a new top 5 list; perhaps I’ll write a make-up tomorrow. Also, I’m quite interested in some of the points raised by my history major friends about my Presidents list, 2 of which are reprinted here for your convenience:

From Anna:

My one addition, who should get an honorable mention or something, or at least would be #1 and #2 on my list are:

#2 – Martin Van Buren, 8th pres. He was nicknamed Old Knickerbocker (from NY, possibly origin of OK? That’s Okay not Oklahoma). Also he had super-sweet sideburns.

#1 – Calvin Coolidge. Silent Cal. Was sworn in around midnight suddenly when Harding (died? I think?) in a log cabin up in Vermont, where he’s from, by his dad who was a public notary. THAT’s the kind of presidential ceremony we need. I have a photo of him (from the high school US history book) fishing in a lake, but wearing a full business suit (and fedora) and waders, with the caption that he “liked to think he was an outdoorsman.” Also, I have a crazy picture of him wearing these HUGE ridiculous cowboy chaps with “CAL” down the side, and a cowboy hat. And finally, my favorite, the old stories (even if they’re not true, they might as well be at this point):
- A journalist challenged Coolidge, known for his general quiet/reticent personality, that she could get him to say more than two words together. His response: “You lose.”
(and this one is actually true, at least more verifiably true)
- During a press conference around election time (which was probably not until the actual election year… those were the good old days I suppose), Coolidge came into the room and faced all the journalists gathered to hear his statement, and just passed around pieces of paper that said “I do not wish to run for president.” And then presumably he just left.

Anyway, his presidency was not a particularly distinguished one, and probably he was if not part of, at least turned a blind eye to government corruption. But his presidency seemed to at least work because it was the 20s and there was enough to carry the economy and the country through on its own, and more importantly he’s just awesome. The fact that that guy could become leader of the country (and apparently not enjoy it too much, if he didn’t want to re-run) is what makes history so great. : )

From Jon: 

Ok, I think that props need to be given to Andrew Jackson, the only president (so far as I can tell) who had an assassination attempt on his life by someone without a cool name: Richard Lawrence. The other assinator or assinator (it’s a word, really) attempters are as follows: John Wilkes Booth, Charles J. Guiteau, Leon Czolgosz, Lee Harvey Oswald (or CIA/Castro, both also cool names), John Schrank, Guiseppe Zangara, Griselio Torresola and Oscar Collazo, Samuel Byck, Lynette Fromme and Sara Jane Moore, Raymond Lee Harvey, John Hinckley Jr., Francisco Duran, and Vladimir Arutinian.

How in hell’s name did a Richard Lawrence make it onto that list? To me that implies that Jackson somehow got normal people (who always have normal names) to want to kill him. I don’t know why you left Jackson off your list Curtis, I mean, he gets no respect! Anyway, to rap this all up, the History Channel does suck, big time.

For the record, I thought Anna made a better case for the awesomeness of Calvin Coolidge than Jon did for the awesomeness of Andrew Jackson. She even had a cool nickname for him (I don’t know if she made the nickname up or it already existed). She failed to mention that the word “Cool” is contained in his name, like a certain Peter “Cool Man” Kuhlman, but that is a relatively minor point.

On the other hand, Jon’s case for Andrew Jackson had some glaring weaknesses. First of all, almost being assassinated is not cool. If I thought almost being assassinated was a criterion for my top 5 list, I would have had to include Reagan (and I don’t think Jon would want me to include Reagan on my list). Second of all, the coolness or weirdness of the names of presidential assassins (or would be assassins) speaks more to their own coolness, not to that of the president they were trying to kill. One cool thing about Andrew Jackson is that one of his biggest military accomplishments was winning a battle in a war that was already over (i.e. winning the battle of New Orleans after the US victory in the War of 1812). However, I don’t see how Jon can say that Andrew Jackson doesn’t get any respect. His face is on the freakin’ 20 dollar bill! He’s like, the face of the most commonly used currency bill of all time! If that isn’t giving someone props, I don’t know what is. Thus, Jackson is not underrated, and while he may be mildly cool, he doesn’t belong on the list.

Good ol’ Silent Cal, however, seems like a pretty “Cool” dude (very bad pun intended). His media sass would almost him seem Rumsfeldian, were it not for the fact that he was reserved, intelligent, and possibly competent. His poser-outdoorsman aspirations remind me of myself in a Bass Pro Shops store. This, combined with his killer nickname, would almost make me consider restructuring my top 5. However, I’ve never really heard anything about him before this point, so he clearly isn’t important enough to remember. So I’m gonna leave him as an honorable mention for now, unless Washington does something to evoke my ire, in which case he’ll be demoted and Silent Cal can have the number 5 spot. Tootles.

The Bus Incident

Hey, I’m back! Did you miss me? I thought so. Anyway, after a week in Jolly Old England, I’m back in the saddle and ready to start anew with my bloggery.  I know that Tuesdays are normally a Top 5 day, but I felt like this story needed to be told first (I’ll make up today’s Top 5 tomorrow or Thursday).  Anyway, on to the story:

So, as many of you know, I spent the last week in England on vacation. I spent 4 days in London, followed by 2 days in the greater Leeds area, followed by an overnight return to London, from where I flew home. I journeyed between Leeds and London via a service known as Megabus, which is less than half expensive as the train when booked in advance, but given the state of traffic in England, probably takes twice as long. The trip was scheduled for four and a half hours each way, but took slightly over five and a half on my way up to Leeds. These details aren’t really that important; the point is that it’s a freakin’ long time to spend on a bus, so you relish the time you have at the gas station/rest area to stretch, buy food, go to the bathroom, etc. On each trip, we made one 10-minute stop in the middle of our journey. During this stop on the return trip,  I went to the gas station bathroom, and really wanted to get a drink, but I noticed the store was in another building. I walked over to this building, found a suitable beverage, and then got in line to pay. The line was moving particularly slowly, and I began to worry that I was approaching the 10-minute mark. I was really thirsty, however, and I remembered that the bus driver had counted heads when we stopped on the way up, so I figured even if I was a little late, there was no way the bus would leave without me. I was a paying customer, after all. I paid for my drink, and I walked out to where the bus was parked….er, uh, used to be parked. DAMMIT!!!!!

Where there used to be three buses, there was now one bus. More importantly, the bus that remained was not my bus. But given the fact that I was somewhere along the English highway halfway between Leeds and London, nowhere near anyone I knew, and with my luggage speeding off toward London in another bus, I figured I had nothing to lose by talking to the remaining bus driver. The following conversation ensued:

“Excuse me sir, was there a blue megabus just here a moment ago?”

“Yes, yes there was.”

“Did it just leave?”

“Yes it did.”

“DAMMIT! I mean, um, are you by any chance going to London?”

“Yes, we are, but you can’t get on my bus. We’re about to leave.”

“I’m really sorry, but I kinda have to get on this bus. Unless you know of any way that I can contact the bus that just left. I can pay you if you like.”

“Well, I suppose we have a few empty seats. Go ahead, get in. I’ll take you to London.”

A few minutes later, on the road, the driver had the presence of mind to ask me:

“Excuse me, sir, are your bags on that other bus?”

“Yes, they are.”

“So what are you going to do about that when you get to London?”

“I have no idea. I guess I’ll just search for them when we reach the coach station.”

“That might work. We should get to London at roughly the same time as the other bus. You might be able to find your bags at the station.”

As strange as it might seem, I wasn’t really panicked while any of this was going on. It all happened so fast that I didn’t really have much time to have any kind of emotional reaction. Literally from the time the Megabus stopped and let me off, to the time I was on the road in the other bus talking about how the hell I was going to get my bags back, maybe 20 minutes had passed, tops. I could have started to panic about my bags, but I figured there would always be time to freak out when I reached the coach station and my bags weren’t there. Fortunately for my sake, however, this situation never materialised. Another 15 minutes into my bus ride, the driver of my newly adopted bus had an idea:

” You know, at this next stop coming up off the highway, a lot of buses stop to change drivers at this time of day. Why don’t we just drive through the stop and check if we can find your bus there.”

By the grace of God (or at least the grace of someone really cool and English, like Gavin Rossdale), my bus had stopped to change drivers, and was still parked at the stop as we drove up to it. I had lost my comfy double seat; for the first half of the trip I had put my backpack in the seat next to mine so I could put my head on it and sleep. Somehow, however, the relief of being reunited with my luggage and on my way to London overruled any misgivings I had about the bastards who took advantage of my being abandoned in order to nick my seat. I talked to a group of girls from an English theater school on the way home. They laughed at the bewildered calm with which I recounted my dilemma, and told me that I was very lucky.

In retrospect, I guess I am pretty lucky. It’s not every day you get ditched by a bus in the middle of nowhere in a foreign country, only to catch said bus 35 miles down the road, thanks to quick thinking and a remarkably helpful bus driver. Everything happened so quickly, and I was so concerned with my own problems, I never even thought to ask the adopted bus driver’s name. Whoever he is, he is a model citizen, and I owe him an eternal debt of gratitude. If I knew his name, or anything about him, I would seriously consider buying him a really nice present, like a sweater, or glittens. But for now, he’ll just have to settle for this tribute of anonymous gratitude, like the tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Westminster Abbey, only much less heard of, and probably less aesthetically pleasing.

Anyway, British bus driver dude, whoever you are, you rock. I hope life treats you kindly, and I hope you have all you dream of, and I wish you joy and happiness, but above all this, I wish you love. Whitney Houston says it so much better than I ever could. To all you readers out there, I will always love you, too. Tootles.