Remeber the Airplanes I was discussing?

Thought this was funny. I read somewhere that you can test positive for narcotics after eating four poppyseed bagels... Sweet. That was tested by mythbusters, love that show!

http://dsc.discovery.com/games-quizzes/airplane-myths-quiz/

Really? Is this necessary?

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/02/22/children.choking/index.html?hpt=C1

Now, just a quick disclaimer so people don't get too mad at me again and try to twist my words around and make assumptions... I'm saying that its sad that things have to go this far and it's sad that common sense is so absent in our society. That's the moral of the story, nothing else.

This goes right along with labels on plastic bags saying "this bag is not a toy, can cause suffication." Why the hell, with all the kids' toys out there, would somebody let a kid play with a plastic bag? How about, give the kid a cardboard box, unless they tend to eat cardboard, then maybe bad idea. But really, a kid can choke on anything, that statement should be the understood statement of our existance. I've chocked on a noddle before, that should make me realize that many things can cause chocking. I wouldn't be surprised if someday situated on the steering wheel of my car in black letters it says "If you drive this car, you could get in a car accident and DIE or find your brain contents on the pavement, whereas then you will DIE."

Yesterday, I got my tire changed. The guy made me sign a statement that said right at the bottom, "I will not sue you." What has this country come to?

And what ever happened to swine flu?

Seriously...

I just got pegged with an apple on my way to the DFAC. An apple. Seriously, who throws an apple?! The night was completely dark, and all of a sudden an apple exploded on my knee. It actually hurt quite a bit and made a funny sound, like an empty plastic bottle hitting my knee. I really don't have the patience to deal with this crap.

Irrational Fears

Does anybody stop and think about their fears? Why are people more afraid to fly on an airplane than to ride in a car? You never hear about people too afraid to drive their own car so they have to ride some form of mass transit, save maybe people with some sort of mental illness, maybe extreme anxiety that are too afraid to leave their house. The fear of riding in a car is Amathophobia, but these phobias as mental, not necessarily rational fears. When people are afraid of things that have no statistical backing, I start to wonder.

I had an acquaintance email me because of a rather cheeky comment I made to his wife, who was a sorority sister of mine in college. She had gotten swine flu, and I learned later was wrestling with her pregnancy issues. I don't know if she was actually pregnant, or was trying to get pregnant, but she was sick with swine flu wondering if she should take Tamiflu or one of the other anti-virals. At the time of my comment, I didn't know if she was really having complications. My comment was something along the lines of "I'll take swine flu, you take Afghanistan." I made this comment mainly because of the many somewhat medieval diseases that are present here: polio, TB and malaria, to name a few. Ones like TB that don't go away and are highly communicable are the most scary to me. Once you get TB, you've got it for good, pretty much. You can die a miserable, long death similarly to Doc Holliday with your final words being "well I'll be damned. This is funny." Of course in the more civilized world which we like to think we live in, we are shielded from most of these illnesses. Malaria, which kills millions of people a year has practically been eradicated from the United States. And then swine flu comes along and everybody is freaking out back home.

From my point of view, it is very irrational. My acquaintance's argument was that I was saying nobody was allowed, in my book, to be worried about anything, which clearly, I wasn't saying. But with the threats facing my health in this country, I'm seriously not worried about swine flu. From what I've read since, 4,000 die of normal flu every year in the US, but nobody has been worrying about that little statistic. A lot of people won't get flu shots or other vaccinations because of the 1 in a million chance that somebody might have a reaction. There is a reason why the diseases were eradicated in the US: vaccinations. School age children were required to get vaccinations to go to kindergarden. Sure, I understand that it would suck if my son or daughter had a reaction to a vaccine (a one in a million chance) and if that happened I might say to myself, "I should have been playing the lottery because my odds would have been good." I know. But what if my son or daughter got polio? One of my Dad's friend's had polio and you can clearly see that one of his legs is almost half as thick as the other. Needless suffering and pain and debilitation. Sure, when my Dad's friend was a kid in the 1940's they didn't have the vaccines. But now they do. I'm sure he wished he had it. What I don't understand is why people get so upset about people regulating their child's health, but not about how their taxes support clearly failing businesses with stimulus money, but that's for another rant.

Another anecdote on a similar subject happened while I was in Paris with the Baylor in Paris program. There was another student that worried constantly about toilet seats. She even carried around toilet seat covers to use around Paris when she needed to pee or whatever. Funny enough, her fear was of STDs. Sexually Transmitted Diseases. When she told me of her fears, I didn't say what was on my mind, but it was something along the lines of "Sexually Transmitted" is in the acronym for a reason: because you have to have sex to get them. The chances of getting anything from a toilet seat, anything at all, are extremely remote. I looked up this on google and found the following: "none are spread on toilet seats... bugs don't tend to live on cool hard surfaces" and "syphilis and herpes... can be spread by direct non-sexual contact with infectious lesions, so make sure there is not an infected person already on the toilet when you sit down." Well said. More unfounded fears, and seriously, if you're that worried, hover. Oh, and don't touch the light switch or door knob, those do carry diseases.

I read an article about helicopter parents on Time.com. It describes a situation like the one I discussed above but dealing with parents and children. It's a scary situation that kids can't be kids and are ending up being less worldly than even us, who are only about 15 years their seniors. I guess people my age are already having children; I'm 27 after all. And maybe my childhood friends have become the hovering parent without even realizing it. I really just want to get a plot of land and release my kids into the wild of a boundary of a couple of acres where they can ride bikes around and go to the local corner store, and go to the beach with some SPF 30 and not many other worries. I'm sure it's possible that I will become a hovering parent... If I see my children's success as a definition of my worth. It could happen I suppose.

They mentioned the word "gifted" and I wanted to share some memories of gifted classes when I was in 5th grade. I think it was called GT, for gifted and talented. In the school I attended in forth grade it was called "TAG," for talented and gifted. I remember wondering why I didn't get to go to these classes and why these students were somehow more "talented and gifted" than I was. Looking back on this point in my life, I guess I really didn't care about school. School was very boring and I could always get past with minimal effort. When allowed to get by with minimal effort in many things, I do. It happened with athletics and with school. But since then, I have learned that I do in fact enjoy working hard, when there is something to be accomplished that is within sight, a clear-cut goal. But when I monkey can do the job, I usually amuse myself with other things and read a lot. So, I never did well in school really. I think my high school GPA was around 3.4 because I rarely did homework and was generally bored. College was the same, I got a 3.0, minimum "acceptable" grades for college. You get automatic acceptance to many graduate programs as long as you have a 3.0 or over. I took some of the advanced classes in high school and so on. But as with the classes when I was pre-middle school, the classes didn't matter much. I remember GT classes allowed kids to look through owl pellets. That's right, owl hair balls. The bones and left overs of what an owl can't digest, similar to hair balls which cats can't digest. Lasting memories. I'm sure they did advanced math and reading and so on, but all I remember is owl hair balls.

Down the road, none of these kids have done any better than I have in college or life in general, which begs the question why waste time on these "gifted" classes. Because these kids were bored with "normal" classes? So was I. My 5th grade teacher told me I'd never amount to anything.

I guess I just want to always keep it in perspective, and I want others to do the same. If I'm not keeping it in perspective, I hope people will call me out on it too.

Stuff

I feel a lot better about myself lately. I don't know why. Am I happy without having reason? Not really. I'm annoyed at my friend Benny for whooping the LSATs ass. I'm really just jealous. He said all he did was take an LSAT course through Princeton Review.... unfortunately, they don't have those in Afghanistan! I am going through a online one, but that's slow.

Need help...

WTF

http://news.aol.com/story/_a/worlds-heaviest-man-is-getting-married/n20081002074709990023

How can this guy get married and I'm still single. There is something wrong with the world LMAO

That's the bomb

I was looking for some of my fav soaps for my mom to send me while I was deployed and came across this post/review for some of the products:

3 out of 5:
"I love your bath bombs (hate the militaristic name, though). However, it takes way too long to receive your products! Thanks, alicebdavis@gmail.com" Date: 4/29/2008 Rated by Buyer: alicedavis4

Ok. What the hell is wrong with you? Why would you post something so ridiculous?? Just so we get this out there... Bomb is not always militaristic. In fact, many times bomb is even used is not in a military-like way. Like the bombing of the World Trade center. Or the bombing of the USS Cole. Or the bombing of the subway in Madrid. All of the above were not military in nature at all. Violent, yes. But lets see what else bomb can mean.

How about to bomb a test?

Or these are the definitions presented on dictionary.com:

-An explosive weapon detonated by impact, proximity to an object, a timing mechanism, or other means.
-An atomic or nuclear bomb. Used with the.
-A container capable of withstanding high internal pressure.
-A vessel for storing compressed gas.
-A portable, manually operated container that ejects a spray, foam, or gas under pressure.
-A large amount of money.
-A great success.

In football slang I know it's a forward pass.

Dealing with computers, it's a a spectacular program or system failure... AKA BLUE
SCREEN OF DEATH!

In Jazz it's a sudden, unexpected accent or rhythmic figure played by a drummer during a performance. I really do like jazz too. I should download more on iTunes. I like swing too. That's fun music.

Talking about nuclear power, its a lead or lead-lined container for transporting and storing radioactive materials.

Sometimes I just enjoy making fun of other people. I make fun of myself all the time. If I do that, surely, everybody else is game.