March

In addition to Caffeine Awareness Month, March is also the official National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month. At fist, I wasn't going to touch this one . . . but I couldn't resist. The Cancer Research and Prevention foundation promotes awareness of colon cancer and recommends regular colonoscopies and other preventative procedures. I went to their website and was greeted with a picture and description of their Super Colon. They describe it as "an inflatable 20-foot long and 8-foot high replica of the human colon. As visitors walk through the display, they get an up close look at healthy colon tissue." There are so many jokes I could make about this . . . Use your imagination so I can avoid the complaints I would surely get.

March is also National Noodle Month, National Nutrition Month and Kidney Month. March 5th is Multiple Personalities Day (should there be several days for that?). March 20th is Extraterrestrial Abduction Day. March 31st is Bunsen Burner Day. There are also several that I can't mention, but I really laughed about when I read them.

Today is St. Urho Day. Who is St. Urho? I'm glad you asked. According to legend, he used a pitchfork to skewer thousands of locusts out of Finnish grape vineyards, thus saving the farmers from losing their crops. He is now known as the official saint of grasshopper eradication.

To celebrate St. Urho Day you should wear purple and green to symbolize the grasshoppers and the grapes they never got to eat; you should also go to a lake shore and chant "Heinäsirkka, heinäsirkka, meine täättä hiiteen," which roughly translated means "Grasshopper, grasshopper, get out of here." He has a statue in Minnesota honoring him. He is depicted carrying a pitchfork with an enormous grasshopper impaled on it.

March 27th is National Quirky Country Music Song Titles Day. Grab some of your most redneck, backwoods friends (you'd better not call me) and line dance to the likes of "May the Bird of Paradise Fly Up Your Nose" by Little Jimmie Dickens, "You're the Reason Our Kids Are So Ugly" by Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty, "You're the Hangnail in My Life (And I Can't Bite You Off)" by Hoyt Axton, and "Flushed From the Bathroom of Your Heart" by Johnny Cash.

Make sure to celebrate all of our national observances. To save time, combine the celebrations. Just line dance in a large, diseased colon while yelling Finnish obscenities at grasshoppers. (If you do, make sure to send me pictures!)

Happy Conspiracy Month!

Whoa! A post! Don't pass out or anything.

I have a very serious matter that I need to bring up. Since the assassination of JFK our country has been obssessed with conspiracy theories and rumors of what "really happened." The Discovery Channel has been running a show recently on Area 51. It's an hour long and shows various camera shots from outside the super secret base while they basically say "We have no clue what went on in here" (past tense is intentional; the actual Area 51 facility has been shut down and moved into a less accessable, more remote part of Nevada. Or so they say . . .).

There is a conspiracy afoot to undermine the very foundations of our country and I have discovered it and am about to expose it. The conspiracy is disguised under the very innocent sounding title of "Caffeine Awareness Month." Don't be fooled by the innocuous sounding name (Matt, here is a link you may need to check out), it is hiding a very sinister plot.

Instead of celebrating the many billions of extra hours that Americans have worked only through the liberal use of caffeine, this is an attempt to defame the much beloved chemical component in most of our country's favorite drinks. The perpetrator is the Caffeine Awareness Alliance(CAA), whose mission is to "To raise public awareness, to provide advocacy and education, to publish and to advance research on behalf of those affected by this ubiquitous drug." (Again, Matt, click here) Their website attacks caffeine as "dangerous" and "addicting" and compares it to drugs like cocaine and meth.

Let's look at caffeine. In its pure form (Oh, that they would sell it like that!) it is a white crystalline powder. It was first discovered in coffee in 1820. Its chemical formula is C8H10N4O2 which tells us that it contains two atoms of oxygen, which is good for you. It works by blocking a chemical called adenosine in your brain; adenosine slows down your heart rate, nerve impulses, and causes drowsiness. High doses of adenosine will immediately stop a heart; do you really want adenosine working in your brain?

Americans drink over 450,000,000 cups of coffee a day. Without that extra boost of adenosine-fighting power, what would happen to our country's work force? To our national security?

Without caffeine you would have no paramedics, police officers, military (except for pilots-they can't drink it before flying), nurses, or ER doctors. America would literally fall asleep while radical terrorists walked in and took over like our nation was some giant version of Sleeping Beauty's castle (Disney analogies, the curse of having much younger siblings).

Imagine America with no freedoms being led by lethargic puppet zombies being controlled by radicals with their own best interest in mind. Oops, my bad. That's the scenario if Hillary is elected. The "no caffeine" scenario would be pretty bad too.

We must fight back. Grab a Vault in one hand and a triple shot espresso in the other hand and fight back against these unpatriotic Americans. Exercise your rights and enjoy your freedoms while they last.

Starbucks anyone?



"It is inhumane, in my opinion, to force people who have a genuine medical need for coffee to wait in line behind people who apparently view it as some kind of recreational activity."
Dave Barry

Hockey

My friend Jared has been encouraging me to go play hockey with him sometime at the Pavilion in Greenville but I haven't been able to fit it into my schedule until today. In spite of having grown up in Maine, my skating skills are marginal at best. I did play a little pick-up hockey at Northland but that was seven years ago. I'm pretty limited in what I can do on skates. I can't skate fast, turn sharp corners or stop without hitting a wall so I knew in advance that I would not be mistaken for Wayne Gretsky.

I figured out very quickly that I could use the hockey stick to support myself when I started to lose balance. Other than that, the stick didn't get much use. We skated around for a little while first so everyone could warm up. "Fat boy" here was tired before everyone else was warmed up. I did learn a little though. I found that if I had control of the puck and I was able to skate towad the goal at a leisurely pace, I could get it in past the goalkeeper; it was a different story once the game started.

At one point I was getting comfortable charging the goalie with the puck and shooting. I made a few and missed a bunch. So I decided to try to fake him out and shoot from a little closer. I got up speed and moved the puck back and forth well. I waited until I was really close and then . . . realized I wasn't going to be able to stop in time (see first paragraph). I took the shot which went wide and promptly crashed right into the goalie. I'm pretty hard headed so normally I would win a head-to-head collision, except when the other guy is wearing a helmet and face shield. So I've got a nice little bruise under my left eye.


Once the actual game started I barely got near the goal. I scored two goals off rebounds (are they called that in hockey?) and stole the puck once (twice actually but apparently picking up the puck and sticking it in my shirt doesn't count as stealing). Most of the time I managed to miss when it was passed to me and as I turned to get it I would keep turning and turning and turning and fall over.

By the time I made it from one end to the other the action on that end was usually over and everyone else was going the other way. On one such occasion, I had barely made it to the half(court, rink, field) line when they started coming back. I turned around and headed the other way just as the puck was passed to me. I was way ahead of the nearest defender so I got closer (not too close, I had already tried that once) and set up for my shot . . . and fell flat on my face. From then on, whenever I got the puck I would look up and see the goalkeeper set up his lawn chair and start cranking out strawberry daquiris with his blender.

I had a good time though. I will definately have to play again and see if I can improve my skating a little. I should get more protective gear though. . .