Happy New Year... hope you can hear

I've been told that what you do on New Year's day is important because it is a microcosm of what you will be doing for the entire year. I'm really hoping this isn't true.

I'll be the first to admit that I've become spoiled by having full use of all of my senses. None of the senses should be taken for granted. Image Union made sure that I appreciate my sight. Today, I flew home from visiting my girlfriend. I got sick on New Year's Eve. When we were descending down into LAX, my ears decided to forgo the usual pressure equalization process. I can't say that I agree with their decision.

The only thing more surprising to me than the loss of my ability to hear was the fact that when we landed, neither of the people sitting to my left and right were covered in blood. I was pretty sure that violent streams of blood were shooting out of my ears during the decent, but apparently the intense pain I was feeling was a bit misleading.

I'm sure this condition is irreversible, so I'm going to go practice my sign language and lip reading. I'll be honest, I'm hoping that I'm a natural at lip reading because I don't think any of my friends know sign language, save for a few vulgar phrases that I don't think will help clarify any questions I may have for them.

Blame it on the rain

I was out doing some Christmas shopping the other day. It was raining. No, not the sunshine and smiles that usually fall down upon us here in Southern California, but actual drops of water. It was a long day filled with a lot of road rage because everyone kept thinking that the guy in front of them was incessantly washing his windshield. But we got through it. We’re Californians. We’re tough.

California toughness aside, I saw something that changed my definition of sad. As I mentioned, I was out doing some Christmas shopping. This led me to a strip mall near my home. As I trolled through the parking lot to find an empty space, I came across a very sobering scene. It was cold, it was raining and it was around 2 pm. There, next to the vitamin shop, in a small, red and white-stripped tent, for that day only, was a mobile petting zoo.

First of all, a strip mall next to a vitamin shop? What kind of research did they do before opening up this mobile petting zoo business? Maybe I’m not familiar with today’s petting zoo marketing techniques, but I’d think your target audience would be small children with an overwhelming desire to touch things. I’m not sure a vitamin shop is going to provide you with that kind of clientele. Of course, perhaps I’m reading this all wrong. Perhaps it is the vitamin shop employing the petting zoo. Perhaps they think that passers by will feel a great need to stock up on any and all vitamins after having had such a close brush with all those hairy beasts.

My point is this. As hard as it may be for some of you to comprehend, there were no patrons at this petting zoo. And seeing a lone man, standing under a tent in the rain with a bunch of smelly, wet animals made me a little sad. Not because I felt bad for this poor soul who has clearly made some abominable business decisions, but because I believe this is exactly the sort of thing that is killing our economy. It cost money to put a petting zoo next to a vitamin shop in the rain. I’m no expert, but I think even a video game store owner would tell you that there’s no money in cold, wet animal petting.

All I’m saying is that we are in a recession and that I blame petting zoos that refuse to pack it in on rainy days. That’s not the shining American spirit cutting through the gloom of a bad situation, that’s the stupidity of an Ivy League educated, trust fund baby with a horribly misguided interpretation of husbandry and children.

Saving the best for last...

Well, here we are at the end of another NaBloPoMo. I think we learned a little bit less this time around than we did last year. I’m currently flying back to Los Angeles. (and yes, I typed out Los Angeles instead of abbreviating it to L.A. because I’m really trying to finish strong with a nice high word count.) Tomorrow will be December 1^st, and I will no longer be required to post each and every day. I’m sure this will be a welcome change back to the way things should be for my readers.

This year, I think we learned that just because I post every day doesn’t mean that I’m getting any better. We learned that I’m not a fan of smoking and that if I ever grace the restaurant industry with my presence, I’ll be 100% logical in the naming of my fine eating establishment. We learned that the more I post, the less people comment. You learned that I have lurkers. I say you because I already knew, but I won’t pretend like the lack of comments isn’t a huge blow to my ego.

Right now, I’m learning that typing on a plane is either really good exercise for my weak, dainty wrists, or it’s one of the most uncomfortable ways a person could ever hope to get any work done. Also, Minesweeper without a mouse is one of the least entertaining games my laptop comes preloaded with.

Unlike some of my previous posts this month, this one isn’t going to make any sense at all. Which is why I’m proud to announce that while I was away, I was bequeathed an old computer. When I say old, I don’t mean mid 80’s, I mean it’s probably 4 or 5 years old. It is the ideal candidate for a Myth box, and since I won’t be spending any money on it, so much the better.

Ok, hope you enjoyed this edition of the Shuck N Jive. I’ll be around again soon I’m sure. I’m posting this from my car since I don’t think I’ll make it home in time. Please ignore not just the inconsistencies on this post, but all of them. Thanks!!

It's ok, I'm not even reading this anymore either.

It’s not that I’m against smoking in restaurants; I’m just against being around smoke while I’m in a restaurant.

I am not a fan of smoke, there’s no question about that. I do understand not wanting to be told what to do. I do understand wanting to have a choice. But what I don’t understand is why the choice of non-smokers doesn’t matter? When you light up in my presence, my choice not to smoke is completely invalidated. It hurts my feelings.

If we’re going to have smoking sections in restaurants, then they need to be better separated. I’m from California, where all indoor smoking is banned. I’m spoiled over there and I know it. Right now, I’m visiting an area of the country where such bans do not yet exist. Their idea of smoking sections = this table isn’t, the table right next to it is. That means that pretty much the whole restaurant is a smoking restaurant.

Why not give them there own separate room with a nice air dam to seal in the smoke? I would support that. Why give me a headache and take away my ability to taste food? Am I really asking too much?

Also, could I possibly have a better topic for tomorrow’s post? That might be asking too much.

Ohio encourages poor judgment

I don’t currently own a chain of successful restaurants. This is a gross oversight on my part. I hope to correct this sometime in the future. When I do, you can be sure of a few things:

I will always serve fresh, delicious food.

I will require my employees to wash their hands excessively.

I will never choose to name my restaurant in a confusing manner.

This is a restaurant I will never own.

Look, all I’m saying is Park first, Eat second… seems a bit more logical to me. I don't care if it is the best breakfast in Cleve at special prices!

Spice up your life

Let’s talk about being stupid and eating things just to prove you’re not a sissy. Scotch Bonnet peppers are the item of the day. They rank fairly high on the Scoville heat rating scale. For a quick reference point, a jalapeno pepper rates somewhere between 2,500 and 8,000 on the scale. A Scotch Bonnet lands somewhere between 100,000 and 350,000 on that same scale. For the sake of my ego and legend, I’m going to pretend that I hit the top end of that rating system.

The worst part of trying to prove you’re not a sissy is that you can’t complain at all when you screw up and eat something that burns you from the inside out. On the plus side however, if you’re having trouble producing excessive amounts of mucus, or perhaps there’s not enough deep red in your complexion, those issues will be resolved by eating just one Scotch Bonnet pepper.

I now have a chemical burn in my mouth and I can’t even complain about it. You’d think that after awhile you’d get used to the pain, but not so much. In fact, it only seems to be getting worse. You’ll have to excuse any spelling errors in this post as I cannot see that well right now. The tears I’m holding back are not from the pepper though, they are from the loss of my soul, which I granted freedom from the hellfire within me now shortly after I swallowed that pepper. I’m hoping for some massive good karma based solely on that move. Of course, I realize the irony of building up karma for a soul I no longer possess…

At this point, my biggest complaint would be that the super market where this pepper was purchased did little if anything to help the average, ignorant customer. They separated the peppers into three categories: Mild, medium and hot. That’s all well and good, but there’s a pretty big difference between a jalapeno pepper and a scotch bonnet pepper. Were it not for the very well informed, leather clad biker (seriously, I make a lot of stuff up, but I’m not making that up.) that knew the names of all the peppers, I could have easily confused this cute little orange guy with having a harmless nature. How hard would it be to put up a little name card with a picture of a skull and cross bones next to these guys?

Somebody kill me. Kill me now.

God help me...

INDIANA!!! OH MY GOD!! WHAT A STATE!! IT WAS AMAZING.

Then I got lost in Ohio.

None of this matters though. Right now, I need everyone in the country to focus on one singular goal: Carson Daly needs to be taken off the air.

Look, I know there’s a writers strike going on right now, and I fully support the writers, but at the same time, something needs to be done about this. I’m smart enough not to watch, but there are others out there that don’t have a choice. Please, help me get this show off the air.

Semantics

I may have exaggerated slightly before when I said that I was going to take a trip around the world. I suppose it would be more accurate to say that I’m taking a round-trip in the world, but that I will only be going to the Midwest.

Chicago is the first stop. It’s cold. Ohio will be the next stop. I hear it’s cold there too. Already I’m feeling like my travel agent screwed me. To be fair, I said I had a limited travel budget. Then, for seemingly no reason at all, I also casually mentioned that I had a pretty nice coat for cold weather situations. Honestly, I was just trying to make conversation, but I see now, in retrospect, how that could have been misinterpreted.

If you’ll excuse me, I have to go prepare myself mentally for the voyage to Ohio. As I understand it, it can be quite taxing if you’re not ready for it. They say it’s like Vegas, New York and Paris all rolled into one. And it’s like that for the whole state, not just in vacation hot spots like Columbus and Kent. I only hope I can find the time to continue posting through what I assume will be the single greatest party stretch of my entire adult life. Fortunately, since I’ll be driving in, I’ll be able to soften the culture shock of Ohio by driving through Indiana first. I don’t think I could take it if I just flew straight into the belly of the beast like that.

Wish me luck!

Ways to test my patience

Let’s talk about what is acceptable and what isn’t today. In my book, the game Minesweeper* is a very acceptable game. It is a game of skill and awareness. Not just anyone can be good at Minesweeper; it takes a special blend of patience and determination in order to succeed at the highest levels.

At least that’s what I had thought. Then I started my journey around the world. While I was sitting on the plane, I witnessed a game of Minesweeper being played by a boy I assessed to be in his late teens at best. He seemed pretty savvy with the keyboard shortcuts, so I can assume he’s not new to computers or the game of Minesweeper. I’ll tell you right now that if I were a scout for the national Minesweeper team, I wouldn’t spend much time on this kid. He was making bad moves and getting stuck when there were still plenty of obvious mines to mark and move on. It was hard enough just to watch him struggle through his bad moves, let alone not go over there and manually instruct him on how to play the game. Then he did something that made me want to press the call button for the flight attendant and request that he be forcibly ejected from the plane. He got halfway through the board, was stuck, SAVED the game, made a wrong choice, then reloaded from the save point!!!

This, my friends, is unacceptable! The game of Minesweeper teaches us valuable life lessons about how to make good, logical, well-thought-out choices. You need to know that if you choose wrong, you will die in a fiery explosion and the game of life will end. You can’t just save it, test your choice and if you get it wrong, reload from that save point! It’s completely against the code of the Shuck N Jive. It is something that I will not stand for. As soon as I landed, I sent a letter to the M.A.N. (Minesweepers Association of Nantucket, the foremost authority of Minesweeper players everywhere) to officially have his Minesweeper license revoked for life.

I wish that’s where the story ended, but it is not. The reason the letter was sent as soon as I landed and not shortly after I landed is because after saving and reloading nearly half a dozen times, he “beat” the game and gave an overly enthusiastic fist pump as a means of self congratulation. This is beyond unacceptable. There can be no celebrating that victory, only mourning the death of your self respect.

*You’ll notice that I never explain the rules of Minesweeper. That is because I believe this game to be more popular than soccer, so it would waste our time as a society for me to bother explaining it. It should also be considered redundant and unnecessary. And if you don’t know what it is, then I probably don’t even want to talk to you in public anyway.

The Road Show

I think it’s pretty obvious that everything has gotten stale here on this blog, so in order to spice things up, I’ve decided to take this show on the road. I’ll be traveling all over the world in order to bring you some of the most exciting blog fodder you’ve ever seen/read.

I left from Los Angeles international airport. I flew Southwest because, let’s be honest, they’re cheap. I’d like to commend Southwest on their new boarding system that they didn’t bother to tell anyone about. Basically, there’s a new system that involves both letters and numbers. Think of something really confusing, multiply the confusion by 10, then thumb wrestle an alligator and you’ll have a small glimpse of what the new system is like.

I’m on the move right now, so I’ll get back to this later, in the mean time, I’ve got a globe to trot.