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Sunday, 20 September 2009

It's not hot. It's just a little spicy.

Those were the words the Mexican lady behind the counter told my friend G about his order of hot wings. He had eaten them once before, just the day before at some restaurant event, and they were tasty, but not hot. He swapped cash for two boxes of wings, and brought them over to my mom's for the Texas - Texas Tech game.

During the game, a bunch of us chowed down on pizza and those hot wings (or should I call them spicy wings?). We quickly found out what "a little spicy" meant. G sweated from the muy caliente wings (that translates to "very spicy"). Later that night, G suffered from horrible stomach pains that left him lying awake in bed. G's wife complained that they were too hot for her. My mom had to wash the sauce off one wing under the sink to eat it.

As for me, the wings almost crept up to a medium. Not bad.

I love having a cast-iron stomach. I've eaten raw chile pequines, which was the most painful experience my mouth has ever faced, and I still wanted more. I've also passed the Buffalo Wild Wing's Blazin' Challenge (12 of their hottest wings, 6 minutes, no other food or water). I still find some jalapenos very hot, but I've learned to "shift gears" where I think that level of heat is normal. Weird, huh?

So, what's something that nobody should ask your opinion about?

Friday, 18 September 2009

A sign of the apocalypse

The other day, I witnessed a sign of the apocalypse. In the overhead light over my mom's desk, I saw a strange flickering. I thought to myself, "What manner of witchcraft could this be, pray tell?" Sorry, but my speech has been skewed lately by my recent choices in reading. Anyway, I investigated the matter further, and I found this.

The compact fluorescent bulb flickered in the overhead light. A few minutes later, the bulb gave up and ceased shining forevermore. I was both saddened and shocked. I never expected to see this day come to pass. I thought these things were supposed to last forever (or at least 7 years).

So, now I'm left with a burnt out bulb, and no idea what to do with it. So, I approached that great guru called The Internet and sought my answer. Surprisingly, I found all the answers I needed... provided by the government. The EPA, to be more precise.

First, I found out what to do in case one of these compact fluorescent (CF) bulbs ever breaks. Apparently, the mercury in the bulb is kind of a big deal. What caught my eye was that they recommend duct tape to pick up the little pieces of glass. Wow, there are smart people working in our government. Go check it out for yourself.

But what do I do with this perfectly intact CF bulb? Home Depot comes to the rescue. According to the EPA website, you can take CF bulbs to Home Depot and they'll recycle them for you. I always thought you guys were a little cooler than Lowes.

Sunday, 24 May 2009

Performance-enhancing drugs

Hi, my name is DuckTapeJourneyman... and I've been using performance-enhancing drugs for the last 6 months.
It all started this fall. I was hanging out with a new group of friends. We got to talking, and they talked about using this particular drug. They said that everybody did it. Sure enough, I looked around, and everybody was doing it. My friends said it made them feel more alive, like they could do anything. After a little prodding, they talked me into it. In one night, I became hooked on a performance-enhancing drug.
Eventually, I couldn't go in front of people without my performance-enhancing drug. I needed the rush that I felt with it. I'm a big guy, so it didn't affect me like it did others, but I could still feel it. I felt more awake... more aware. All the other times without it, I felt sleepy in comparison.
I couldn't believe how easy it was to score these performance enhancing drugs. You could practically find it anywhere. I'd score my hits at this one gas station. And it was surprisingly cheap, considering how long it lasted in my system.
What blew my mind the most was watching children do this stuff. I saw teenagers downing these performance enhancing drugs like it was a coke. And it barely seemed to phase them. I couldn't believe it.
These performance-enhancing drugs go by different names. Some call them Rockstars, or Amp'd, or Full Throttle. My particular drug of choice was one called Monster.
So, the next time you join a theatre troupe, and they tell you to drink an energy drink before you go up on stage, think of me.

Wednesday, 20 May 2009

Prayer Collision

Monday night, as I drove home from play practice, I caught myself doing something weird. I caught myself praying that a local high school team would lose.
Before you go all psycho on me, let me explain. The lead actor in our play is a popular radio personality. He often does the play-by-play for local sporting events. One particular high school sports team was in the playoffs, and if they won the game on Tuesday, they would play another game on Saturday. Saturday happens to be the day of our last performance, and an important one at that. Should the team win, our lead actor couldn't get out of his job announcing for that game, and we couldn't put on our performance without him. Nobody could memorize the sheer volume of lines he says in the play. Therefore, I prayed the team would lose.
This makes me wonder about prayer. More specifically, what does God do with prayers for opposite outcomes? Someone might pray, "Please Lord, let the Yankees win this one," while the guy next to him at the sportsbar might be praying "Heavenly Father, please don't let those overpaid Yankees win another one." Does God tally up the votes like American Idol? Does he weigh the piety of the people praying, like a job interview? Or does he choose not to get in the middle of some matters, like a Jerry Springer show?
The site godisimaginary.com, an atheist site that gives 50 reasons why you shouldn't believe in God, gives a little test prayer that is supposed to prove to you that God doesn't exist. Basically, it's summed up as "God, eliminate all cancer in the world, and I'm blackmailing you with my belief because Jesus said all these things about you that I'm going to hold against you if this prayer doesn't come true." But what about all the people who prayed the opposite?
People prayed FOR cancer?!?!?
What if cancer is a part of God's plan? What if preparation for death leads us to straighten out our lives? What if someone is touched by the last dying moments of a close friend (or even a total stranger), and decides to devote their time to a good cause because of that? What if all along, when we Christians have been praying the prayer that Jesus taught us... "Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven," we've been praying for, among other things, cancer? Well, if God keeps a tally of the votes, you had better keep praying for the miraculous disappearance of cancer. We've got about a 2000 year head start on you.
Sidenote: So, does that mean we Christians should stop praying that God's will be done? Of course not. God's will is good, and there's a lot of great things that come out of God's will. Unfortunately, death is a part of the world we live in. Anyone who tells you otherwise has their head in the sand. And don't take my musings too seriously. I'm just guessing at things I don't claim to know about.

Sunday, 17 May 2009

Who knows best?
So, my darling Weedie came to Texas for the weekend. We had a wonderful time; we laughed, we talked, and we ate WAY too much (she may not have, but I certainly did). Anyway, one of the things we've started recently is shopping for guys clothes. Why? Because I need a lot of help in the fashion department.
"Do you hate me for taking you shopping all the time?" she asked.
"If we were constantly buying your clothes... maybe I would." I replied as we started walking into the women's section.
"Do you hate that I'm so bossy about your clothes?" she asked another time.
"Nah. I'll admit, I need help." I replied. And admitting your problem is the first step towards recovery.
To tell you how bad my sense of fashion is...
- I have gone to work with a duck tape tie on. (in another post, I'll tell you how you can make one, too).
- I've bought ten of the same color work shirts (five short-sleeve and five long-sleeve) because my work limited us to ordering from three different colors.
- I wear tennis-shoes to a professional work place because "I work with computers and most computer people break dress code and wear comfortable stuff".
- I have worn white socks with dress pants and dress shoes because I didn't feel like sifting through my blue dress socks to find a black one.
- And finally, I have worn suspenders to work.
Don't worry, they weren't this bad.
So, do you consider yourself a fashion expert, or a fashion disaster?