Sunday, March 30, 2008
Fool Me Once, Shame On...
What's that saying, that Dubya claims to have originated from both Tennessee and Texas?
Anyway, about a month ago, I was working late one evening. Around 19:00, I decided to pack up and leave. As it was a cold and wintry day, I decided to cut through the hospital on my way to my parking garage. The hospital, at least the Galter Pavilion part of it, locks down the door to the public at 19:00, I was hoping that the security guys didn't make their rounds on time.
That night, my hope yielded. As it was already 19:05, the doors were still unlocked. As I crossed the street from my building towards the Galter Pavilion, some black guy came up to me, steps before the revolving door. As I was about to brush him off, he started giving me a spiel about how he was a patient at the hospital, and that when he left near closing time, he realized that he had left his wallet at the doctor's office. He couldn't retrieve it, because the office had already closed, and that he was told by security that he would have to come back the next day. Then he proceeded to plead with me that without his wallet, there was no way for him to get home.
I thought to myself, what the hell. So I gave him five dollars, and proceeded to go on my way. For the most part, the story sounded legit, as the Galter Pavilion is an outpatient facility. And plus, he didn't really look like a bum. In fact, he didn't smell like one either.
Well, fast forward to this past week. As I was leaving work late again, I saw him out by the Galter Pavilion. As I crossed the street, he began to target me. I recognized him right away, and he did too a few seconds after he repeated his spiel. Then he walked away.
Damn right, bitch! Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. And I wasn't about to let this guy fool me twice, cos I would've raised hell and demanded a fucking refund! Now you know why I'm not always generous with strangers.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Special Day Today?!?
For the most part, I consider myself well-versed and quite literate in the English language. At times, better than the average American who was born and raised here, I suspect. I don't claim, however, to know everything. That is why I enjoy learning new vocabularies from either the Readers' Digest magazines, or occasionally a new word once a month or week while reading the news.
Well, today must be my special lucky day! Why? Because in a matter of less than two hours, I came across two words that I had no idea what they meant! The first one I couldn't even guess from the context, and the second one I was semi-correct, thanks to the Merriam Webster Dictionary.
Do you know what egress means? How about hubris?
If I come across another word I don't understand today, I swear I'll stop reading the news for the rest of the day, or I'll just throw in the towel, stand up on the desk of my cubicle, and scream, "I, John of Taipei, am a stupid, dumb f*ck!"
Or maybe not...
Egress (noun): 1) the action or right of going or coming out; 2) a place or means of going out.
Hubris (noun): exaggerated pride or self-confidence.
[Note: Can you imagine if the signs in our buildings read EGRESS/SALIDAS? I would be tempted to think that both words were Mexican!]
[Double-note: I didn't write Spanish on purpose, cos I thought it would be funny to use Mexican as its own language.]
Labels: language
Sunday, March 09, 2008
Need Inspiration?
Ever heard of Heather Dorniden? I have not, until recently. If you're a runner, and you want to see an inspirational finish to a race, look no further. Just watch the video below and see the unbelievable feat accomplished! (She is about 30 seconds into the video.) (Incidentally, she shares the same birthday as mine: Jan 19.)
Labels: running
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Are Americans In General STUPID?!?
Okay, aside from the current president, I don't think Americans in general are stupid. Sure, Americans have for years been lagging behind citizens of other countries, including third world and developing nations, on math and science, but I have for the longest time defended the notion that in general, Americans are not exactly stupid.
I have taken this stance even before I became an American citizen myself back in 2005, including way before as in when I was merely an international student in college (1996 through 2001). Sure, the other kids in class tend to sit next to me so they can copy my answers, and I was always the one who answered questions thrown out by the professor, but I typically attributed why most American students wouldn't dare raise their hands to the fact that Americans are typically shy when speaking out in public, including public forums such as classrooms.
But today, I'm starting to think that maybe, with a slight possibility, that Americans in general might be stupid. Case in point: Aluminum. First of all, despite the fact that the ancient Greeks and Romans have used aluminum compounds for different purposes, Humphry Davy in 1808 discovered aluminum in its base metal form. He called the pure metal aluminium. In every country where the Roman alphabet is used, this common metal is spelled with an i at the end, except for the United States! What the hell??? But I am not going to go into this spelling debate, as there is something more important at stake for this topic...
So what prompted me today to get on this topic? Well, I went down to the Corner Bakery Café to get a simple lunch: pesto pasta with bread. When I got back to my cubicle and began eating, I noticed that although my pasta was still hot, my grilled bread has quickly turned cold. And there is a very legitimate reason, because my grilled bread was wrapped in aluminum foil with the wrong side facing out!!!
Okay, for the average reader, you probably are wondering why that mattered. Trust me, the majority of my friends would share the same reaction as you, which quite frankly, is helping me make my case here. Do Americans lack the urge to be curious? I mean, when I saw aluminum foil for the first time when I was a kid, aside from learning quickly that the edge can slice my skin open, I immediately noticed that one side of it is shiny and the other side is dull! Of course, I quickly learned in junior high why that is so. But let's not get into that just yet.
If you have no idea why I'm going off and off on some stupid aluminum foil, let me dare you to try an experiment. Go bake some lasagna in the oven, with two separate casserole dishes. Give each dish the same ingredients and the same amount. And make sure the dishes are of the exact same size, shape and manufacturer. Now, cover one casserole dish with an aluminum foil with the shiny side up, and cover the other with the dull side up. Leave both on the same rack, and bake both together per the instructions as far as time and temperature goes. What do you think will happen? Let's get back to this later...
The incident with the Corner Bakery Café today wasn't the first of its kind to happen to me. There was once when a friend, who will remain anonymous, who baked some delicious food with the aluminum foil with the wrong side up. Thankfully, the food was not frozen, and it was quick to cook. Nobody got salmonella out of that. Then there was this one time when I went to a non-chain deli store and ordered a nice, warm Italian sandwich. Since the store wraps their sandwiches in aluminum foil, I noticed that they were wrapping everybody's warm sandwiches with the wrong side up!
My favorite aluminum story of all? The 2005 Chicago Marathon. Whenever the Chicago Marathon ends up occurring during cold weather, race organizers have always provided finishers with warming blankets. Warming blankets are nothing more than the thinnest and cheapest version of emergency fire blankets used by fire fighters. Anyway, in 2005, I noticed that all marathon finishers were given warming blankets with the Chicago Marathon and LaSalle Bank logos printed on the wrong side! Of course, nobody wore the blankets with the logos inside and the non-logo side outside, so everybody was wearing it the wrong way, save for a few runners which I proudly commend for their brilliancy.
[Please note: A few years ago, a team of firefighters in California died in a passing forest fire that they couldn't beat due to lack of training. Basically, if the wind kicks up and you cannot outrun the fire, you are trained to pull out the emergency fire blankets and cover yourself in it and stay on the ground. This will only last you a few minutes, but most fast blazing forest fires will blow by within the average few minutes. Anyway, autopsy revealed that this young team of firefighters burned to death because they didn't have the necessary training, since they wore their emergency fire blankets made of aluminum the wrong side up!!!]
So let's get back to the basics. I learned in basic, generic science class in seventh grade that the shiny side of aluminum reflects heat, whereas the dull side absorbs heat. Sure, it was covered again in chemistry as well as physics in my high school years, but it was first taught in basic science in seventh grade! [Note that I went to a school that uses American curriculum.]
In the case of my grilled bread for lunch, had the food preparer used the aluminum foil with the dull side out and the shiny side in facing my bread, the grilled bread would still have been nice and warm by the time I got upstairs. That's because the shiny side would have reflected the heat from the bread back into the bread!
In the case of my friend who cooked that chicken, had my friend baked the chicken with the shiny side in and the dull side facing the oven, the food would have been cooked significantly faster. And I wouldn't have accused my friend of trying to poison me with salmonella.
In the case of the 2005 Chicago Marathon, nobody got to stay warm except for the handful of runners who actually wore their warming blankets with the dull side out, and the shiny side (with the logos) in. Basically, their body heat escaping the bodies would have been reflected back into their own body, while the dull side facing out would have absorbed as much heat from the sun as possible. 95% of the finishers were probably wondering why they continued wearing defective warming blankets when they know they still remained cold.
So can you guess what would have happened to your lasagna casserole? If you guessed that the lasagna covered with the dull side up would have turned out perfect, you're right. And the one with the shiny side up? Well, you better learn how to heat up lasagna in the microwave if you have guests waiting for dinner.
Long story short: How the hell can so many people make this damn mistake? Seriously! How can the company that makes warming blankets allow the logos to be printed on the wrong side, and have 35,000 such blankets distributed?!? You would think that a company that specializes in the manufacturing of warming blankets would have caught this mistake if it was done by them! Worse yet, if it was specifically ordered by the race organizers like that, the manufacturer should have given a warning and try to correct the problem!
So, back to my question. Are Americans in general stupid? Something as simple as a piece of effing aluminum foil cannot even be used correctly! What's next? Using Q-Tips® as toothpicks, and plastic Saran® wraps as condoms? You decide... Before today, my answer had always been no. But today, I am sooo on the fence on this one...
If I get food wrapped up the wrong way in aluminium ever again, I swear on the baby lord Jesus, I am going to sit there and provide a free lecture!
Labels: life, logic, science, stupidity, tips
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Brisky Brisky
So this happened last week, and I simply did not have the time to write about it. But now that I do kind of have some free time, here it is.
You know you haven't gotten enough sleep when you start doing strange things. You know, the usual day-to-day activities should be the easiest one to remember. Or you would think. But it all started on Sunday, February 24.
A few of my friends called and wanted to use my condo as their movie theatre, and hang out. So I told them that they were more than welcome to head over to my place and watch a movie and have dinner together. Well, it turned out that we ate lots of good food, drank two bottles of wine, and watched not just one movie, but two in a row!!!
Granted, I did have fun hanging out with my friends, but that completely threw out my plans to get a good night's sleep for Monday morning. You see, ever since I began working out with a personal trainer, I have yet to arrive at the gym on time. The best that I have done so far was arriving four minutes late. Thankfully though, I have never been more than 10 minutes late before. So anyway, my personal training days are on Mondays and Thursdays.
I was so tired on that Sunday evening by the time I kicked out my guests that I began to experience weird delirious moments. It started out with brushing my teeth before flossing. When it happened, I simply chuckled and thought nothing of it, as I have probably done that before.
As I headed to bed, I went into the kitchen in the dark to take my daily pills. No, I am not taking birth control pills, thank you very much. The ones I take every night is for my asthma, and the ones I take every morning is for my allergies. But my mind was in a hurry to shut itself down for the night, so I quickly took my pill. As I hit the sack, I realized that I had taken my allergy pill instead of my asthma! Damn!!!
Of course by this time, I was worried about what would happen to me if I had taken two 24 hour pills in a matter of 12 hours. But soon enough, I wasn't too terribly worried about overdosing, since I didn't swallow the entire bottle's contents.
I woke up the next morning, on a Monday, and began getting ready for the gym. As usual, I went to the bathroom to drop the kids off at the pool. It's kind of funny, as before I started my job here in Chicago, my number two routine had always occurred in the afternoon, but ever since I starting my new job and going to the gym, I had somehow miraculously moved my bowel movement's schedule into the 06:30 timeframe. Actually, I'm secretly proud of that fact. Anyway, the only reason why I did that was because early on in my first few training sessions with my personal trainer, I found it hard to pump irons or being stretched out while trying to hold shit or gas in. Thankfully, during the first couple times, no extra pockets of air escaped me.
Anyway, on Monday morning, I went to drop the kids off at the pool as usual. As I pulled my boxers down and bent my torso to get myself situated on the bathroom, I accidentally sunk into my toilet. F*ck!!! I had totally forgotten to put the toilet seat down. If there is anything I hate more than when male guests accidentally peeing over my toilet seat, it is getting my nut sack and ass cheeks wet by falling into the toilet bowl.
So apparently, last week was just not meant for me at all whatsoever. But wait, it even gets better!
When I arrived at the gym, I started to unpack my gym back so that when I was done with the workout, I can just hop in the shower without going through my bag for the facial scrub, sandals, towels, et cetera. As I was going through my bag, I realized that the night before I had totally forgot to pack a boxer!!! For a brief moment, I thought about just calling it a day and cancelling my workout session and heading home. But thankfully, I did think about the cold weather the night before and packed a pair of Patagonia technical tights for the day. I often use it as a long underwear during days of extreme wind and cold. So I decided maybe I would go pseudo commando for that day, considering that the tights were snugly enough that it could very well keep my carrot and acorns in check.
As if God didn't have enough material to humor me for that day, I went to the showers after my workout and began my usual routine. But instead of putting my facial scrub stuff in my hands and washing my face first, I somehow began washing my hair with it! Damn!!! The funny thing was that this had actually happened to me a couple times in the past when I was tired also...
As I walked my way to work in the cold shearing wind from my parking garage, I felt a sudden brisky brisky sensation in my crotch. Yup! It must be the commando effect! So much for having a great start to the day and week, I thought to myself...