Napkins Please?

Can we just take a moment here to dissect my eating habits? I’m going to make one of those lists now. One of those, “who the crap cares what you ate today, guess what I ate? It’s unbelievable what I survive on compared to what you ate.” Lists. Undaunted, I carry on.

1. 2 oz bag of Cheez-its followed by a Snickers bar and then washed down with a bottle of Lemon Gatorade. Time: 9:42 AM
2. 1 burrito Supreme with no lettuce followed by 1 soft taco, also with no lettuce but with hot sauce from Taco Bell (although really, is that hot sauce from Taco Bell really that hot? I don’t think so. I’d call it more of a low grade mild at best.) and then washed down with a bottle of Orange Gatorade. Time: 3:06 PM
3. Some cookies??? I don’t remember. I think I took a nap, but I’m not sure. Time: ???? If this alleged event did happen, it happened some time around 8:00 PM, but again, there’s no evidence to suggest one way or the other that this actually did happen. I might be confusing today with yesterday, or possibly even tomorrow. I’m extremely fuzzy on the details.

So that’s the list. It’s after 11 PM right now and I’m debating whether or not to go to Jack In the Box to order a Big cheeseburger with a regular order of Stuffed Jalapenos (3) which will be washed down with a bottle of Raspberry Lemonade Gatorade OR stay home, nuke a Ham and Cheese Hot Pocket followed by some Chewy Chips Ahoy chocolate chip cookies (also nuked), then washed down with a bottle of Raspberry Lemonade Gatorade.

By now I’m sure you can probably see my problem. Am I too much of a health nut? The last thing I want is to be made fun of for keeping such a healthy lifestyle. But at the same time, eating well and treating my body like a temple is very important to me. I mean, I’ve been this way for so long now, I think it would be almost impossible for me to stop anyway. Why does society have to ridicule those of us with a sensible diet? It’s just not fair!

Obviously, I feel the most pressure from my family and peers to give in and eat more salads, but the random strangers that pass by me during my meal times (which never ceases to amaze me because I eat all of my meals at my desk. You wouldn’t think there would be a lot of foot traffic there, but you would be more wrong about that than probably anything you’ve ever been wrong about before in the past decade. I say the past decade because I don’t really know for sure what your life has been like and I do know that anything that happened between 1980 and 1996 was absolutely freaking nuts, so I can only safely argue that you’re more wrong now than in the past ten years.) really lay it on thick too. They say things to me like, “That looks good, but have you ever tried a salad?” or, “Taco Bell, one of my favorites. You know what else I like? The salads they have over at TGI Fridays. They’re pretty good. You should check them out some time.” I mean, for the love of the A-Team, how is a guy supposed to stand up to that kind of pressure? It takes less pressure to make a diamond out of coal. I just want to tell those people to go listen to Hootie and the Blowfish. I know I shouldn’t, but sometimes I can’t help it. You push a guy into a corner and he’s liable to lash out. I’m just saying you should know with whom you’re messing before you start telling him how to live his life by trying to manipulate his eating habits.

Hmmm… this ended abruptly…

What I can’t describe

I have some shocking news to report. You’re going to want to sit down for this. I may be jumping the gun here, but the preliminary reports are in, and if things stay the way the reports indicate, it would appear as though my readership is down. I know, I’m shocked too. Once I verify that this information is indeed true, I’ll have to order a full 100 member task force to investigate exactly how and why this might have occurred. It’s utterly baffling.

Some time ago, I was tagged with a meme by SNJ HOF member Cadiz. As it is written in the Shuck N Jive Constitution Page 4, Paragraph 4, Item 4, Line 4. Edict 4.4: “When in the course of blogging, should a meme be issued by any member of the most glorious and exclusive Shuck N Jive Hall of Fame ©®, said meme shall be ignored for a period of no longer than 20 months before it’s completion. Said meme’s completion is also mandatory under the August 14th proclamation of 1978 which states: “All meme challenges issued on behalf of any blogger whose name starts with the letter “C” and ends with a number and is a member of the Hall must be completed, even if that means doing so begrudgingly.””

As you can see, my hands are pretty much tied. I’m required to complete the meme tag issued to me by Cadiz. You may also note and praise me for attending to this meme long before my 20 month grace period is up. Also note that I am not doing so begrudgingly, that was just some legal mumbo jumbo to ensure the letter of the law as well as the spirit of the law remained intact. It’s an odd law to be sure. In fact, I was only recently made aware of it by our research department after I inadvertently spilled 6 gallons of ketchup on the research department’s jeans. I assume this is some sort of crude attempt to get back at me, but the jokes on them because I don’t mind doing this meme. In fact, I had slated it for mid July anyway. I swear though, sometimes, the research department just needs to get a life. Granted, they were white jeans, but seriously research department, let it go. Those jeans didn’t look good on you anyway.

But I digress… on to my 10 simple pleasures. These come in an order so amazingly specific, not even I can figure it out. To the uneducated, it might look like this was just the order that they popped into my head, but that would just be too easy. No, this order was predetermined several thousand years before I was born. I’m sure of that.

1. Gagné in the ninth. I have had the pleasure of being inside Dodger Stadium when Eric has jogged in from the bullpen with the good guys up by 3 runs or less at the end of the game. Welcome to the jungle.

2. The 4th gear shift. This doesn’t happen as often as I’d like, but sometimes, I’ll be accelerating, and I’ll drop down from 3rd to 4th gear, and it will be so silky smooth on and off the clutch that I can’t help but smile.

3. Sneezing. It’s just a nice little release. And as much as sneezing for 30 straight minutes puts me into a state of euphoria rarely matched in any other way, no one sitting around me seems to share in my delight… (sigh)

4. Highway One. Particularly when driving through Malibu on a nice clear day, with the windows rolled down and the music up loud.

5. Watching two of my favorite teams play at the same time. And by that I mean, watching teams in different sports play at the same time on two or three TVs right next to each other.

6. A Double Double with spread and tomato only and an order of fries with a side of spread from In N Out. For those of you not in California and select parts of Nevada and Arizona, I apologize.

7. Wireless keyboard and mouse. Well, pretty much anything that traditionally has a wire, if you remove it, I like it a lot more. But my keyboard and mouse have been quite handy in the wireless area. Nothing used to bug me more than having my mouse cord get hung up on something and make it hard to move. USED to bug me…

8. Gatorade Tropical Intenso. It’s delicious.

9. Turbulence on an airplane. I think I may be somewhat alone on this one, but I enjoy turbulence when I fly. The pilot is always spouting some nonsense about how he is going to fly around it and I’m like, “No, fly right through the heart of it!! Maybe circle back around and hit it again?”

10. The Transplant’s “What I can’t Describe” as my ring tone. Mainly because of who it’s assigned to. Although it is a great song to boot.

And there you have it. Meme complete. I plan to tag everyone else in the universe that hasn’t done this yet, so give me some time to research and compile that list. I should have it ready by 2367.