One-Year Anniversary

Today (or technically yesterday, if you really want to split hairs) is the one-year anniversary of my last car accident. Many of you know that in that car accident, I lost my driver's door handle, so I could no longer enter my car on the proper side. And many of you also know that a few months later, the whole driver's door opening mechanism stopped working, so I could no longer exit my car on the proper side either. Just as many of you know that I have done absolutely nothing to fix my car since that accident.

That means it's been a whole year now of getting in and out of my car through the passenger door. In addition, it's been a whole year of not being able to roll up my window all the way, and it's been a whole year of not being able to use my driver's side rearview mirror.

On the bright side, though, it's been a year in which I saved around $300 by not buying a new door.

Some people have suggested that I do something to fix it. What if, say, there was a fire on the passenger side of my car? How would I get out then? To which I respond, I would rather die than pay $300 to get a new door.

My current plan is to wait for someone to crash into my car, cash in on the insurance, and then get a new door. That, my friends, is not insurance fraud. It's patient insurance expectance. And unfortunately it's the best I can do.

The Most Comfortable Socks

I am wearing the most comfortable socks ever today. My feet are more comfortable than they've ever been before. It feels like they're floating on a cloud.

No, that doesn't describe it. It feels more like they're wrapped in cats. Have you ever wrapped your feet in cats? It's probably better than wearing these socks. Cat hair is usually softer than socks, and the cat body heat would keep your feet warmer. But if we had to walk, we'd probably crush the cats, and then they wouldn't be as comfortable.

Maybe it's more like having my feet soaked in oil and then tied up in rabbit fur. Except that my feet aren't wet and I really doubt that mixing rabbit fur in with that would be anything close to comfortable.

Let's just go with the cat one. That's the closest I'll be able to get.

Traveler's Guide: Sark

Sark, a very small island nation in the English Channel, made news recently by becoming the last nation in the world to abolish feudalism. For those of you unfamiliar with medieval history, I don't really know how to explain what that means, but feudalism hasn't been a legitimate economic system since like the 17th century. So this is kind of bizarre.

A few other interesting things about Sark:

+It's area is two square miles. To compare, that is slightly less than half the size of Richfield. Population 600. Here's a picture.


+In 1991, an unemployed French nuclear physicist staged a one-man invasion of the island armed only with a semi-automatic handgun. He put up signs around the island one day announcing his intention to take over the country at noon the following day. He was arrested while sitting on a park bench shortly before noon. The king of the island missed all the action because he was picking up a check on another island.

+The king is the only person on the island allowed to own an unspayed female dog.

Personally, I think an island this small and weird ought to retain its treasured feudalism. Did anyone really have that big of a problem with it? I mean, it's not like the king of a 600-person island poses any kind of a threat to anybody. I have no doubt that this change will break the globabl economy beyond repair.

The Manitoban Invasion, Part 2

Turns out my alarmism was right after all. Unfortunately for us, the invasion is already complete. Now they're working on Phase Two: Deportation.

Let's recap for a second. Over a year ago, I noticed that the number of Manitobans in Minnesota was on the rise. I suggested that this was merely precipitating an all-out invasion of our state, which they would then use as a staging ground for an attack on the entire United States. As usual, no one took me seriously.

Now we're even more greater danger than I would have expected. Here's a billboard I saw while I was driving the other day:


This isn't the same billboard exactly. It was actually a lot more dramatic than this, and it was more clearly about tourism, and it really emphasized how we should all go to Manitoba. This picture isn't nearly as harrowing as the real billboard. I couldn't find a picture of the actual one I saw, and believe me, if you saw it, you'd be scared to death too.

This can only mean one thing, ladies and gentlemen. The Manitoban government is going to deport all of Minnesota to Manitoba by drawing us away with its excellent fishing and large polar bear population. If we don't put a stop to this Manitoban propoganda soon, we'll all be in death camps before the end of the year. Our only hope is that the whole Canadian government isn't backing this up or we're in a much more dire situation that I would have thought.

Hey American President, maybe it would have paid off to listen to my crackpot theory in the first place. I guess starving to death and moving giant rocks all day will teach you some humility.

Space Pizza

If you guys think pizza is good, wait til you have space pizza. Space pizza makes regular pizza taste like gerbils. It's that good.

Space pizza has all the things you like about regular pizza (cheese, sauce, various toppings, your choice of traditional or thin crust) plus it adds the tangy goodness of outer space. Like how a bagel is good, but it's a lot better when it's covered in garlic sauce. That's what space pizza is like in comparison to regular pizza: a million times more awesome.

How does it work, you ask? Allow me to explain. It begins with the ingredients, all of which are the same as regular pizza, only they come from other planets and are therefore more savory. Then, instead of being baked in an oven, it's baked inside a nuclear explosion of a far-off star. That's right, it's nuclear. We sprinkle it with dust from a nearby nebula, and then it's launched from the space pizza cannon (with locations on Saturn's moon Titan and somewhere in the Andromeda galaxy for your convenience) directly at your house at a speed of 20,000 ft/sec. Delivery takes anywhere between 3-10 years.

Dragon vs. Phoenix

People stop me on the street all the time and ask me, "Which do you think is better, a dragon or a phoenix?" This has happened literally a dozen times, and I'm getting tired of having to punch these people in their faces and running away as fast as I can. So it's time to settle the matter once and for all. And since I'm lazy, I'm doing it in the convenient point/comparison format.

DRAGON: Breathes fire.
PHOENIX: Made of fire.
Advantage: phoenix

DRAGON: Extinct.
PHOENIX: Presumably extinct, but could rise from the ashes at any time. Probably when you're not looking.
Advantage: phoenix

DRAGON: Can't fly because it's too fat.
PHOENIX: Has no feet.
Advantage: dragon

DRAGON: Comes in a wide variety of personalities, from happy-go-lucky and stupid (a la Dragon Tales) to malevolent and sleepy (a la a bunch of other stuff).
PHOENIX: Never says a word, but is probably a huge jerk.
Advantage: dragon

DRAGON: Lives in caves and dungeons.
PHOENIX: Homeless.
Advantage: dragon

DRAGON: Not Japanese. Or wait, maybe somewhat Japanese.
PHOENIX: More likely Japaenese.
Advantage: phoenix

DRAGON: .301 batting average for the whole species.
PHOENIX: Morally superior to baseball.
Advantage: dragon

DRAGON: No Nobel Prizes.
PHOENIX: Won Nobel Prize for Economics.
Advantage: dragon

Actually, next time somebody asks me this question, I'm gonna throw a pie in their face instead of punching them. Now I just need to figure out how I'm gonna carry a bunch of pies around with me.

Free Parking

Free parking. I love it. It's perhaps the greatest institution known to modern man. Nuts to hospitals or public education, neither of which really benefit society that much anyway. It's all about the free parking.

And that was going to be all I planned on saying on the subject, until I read a little about a book called The High Cost of Free Parking by some UCLA professor who's an expert on urban planning and development. According to this degree-holding lunatic, "free parking is the root problem of many of the ills that face our biggest cities. He posits that reforming parking policy will lead to a better pedestrian environment, cleaner streets and air, safer downtown shopping districts, and - yes - even less headaches for drivers trying to find that ever elusive curb space."

Excuse me? Free parking is the root problem of nothing, except perhaps the decline in availability of free parking spaces. Let me give you a few statistics of my own, Mister Smart-Guy UCLA Professor.

:> While a pay-to-park society would likely force more people to take advantage of public transportation, where would all the buses park? It may be of interest to note that buses fill up to twenty times as much parking space as the common car.
:> Contrary to what the author seems to suggest, charging for parking would not make cars disappear from America's roads.
:> Free parking has been shown to be good for foreign policy, as visitors to our country find us welcoming and generous.
:> Charging for parking will dramatically increase the suicide rate, as certainly no one would want to live in such a world.

Free parking is the source of at least one-third of my happiness. If anyone starts to take that away from me, I am definitely moving to Estonia. Or Latvia. I don't really think there's a difference.

Lessons from the 2008 NCAA Men's Basketball Championship

The Kansas Jayhawks, probably my favorite team in all of sports, won the NCAA Men's Basketball championship against Memphis last night. They came back from being 9 points down with just over two minutes left to force overtime, where they pulled off a seemingly miraculous win. Memphis missed all but one of its free throws when the game was really on the line, and Kansas put together an inspiring comeback run.

Memphis coach John Calipari described his thoughts for the last 10 seconds of regulation time, when his star Derrick Rose went to shoot two free throws, as follows: "When Derrick went to the line, I sat there and I said, 'Lord, if he makes these two, we're supposed to be national champs. And if that's your will, I'm fine with it. If he misses them, and we're not, I'm fine with that too.' I'm probably not supposed to say that, but that's where I was."

The Yahoo sports-writing guy, Gerry Ahern, reporting on that commented, "Apparently, God's a Jayhawks fan." Though this comment is not as true as I would like it to be (what happened in that 2003 championship game, God?), I am grateful that God let my team win last night. Until now, my team has never won anything important, and I'd begun to think that nothing important was winnable.

Most people, Christians in particular it seems, don't think God cares about sports. I tend to agree (even though I once prayed for Purdue to miss a short field goal in a football game against Wisconsin--they missed it, and Wisconsin won, and it was great), but I think there's more spiritual value in sports than we realize. And I didn't really realize it until the Jayhawks won last night.

God wins. He is victorious over all the evil in the world, all the evil in us. The devil loses. It's supposed to be simple, but in real life it never seems that way. Sometimes it seems like everything I experience is good losing and evil winning in my life, and I get disheartened. The same thing happens in sports. With Kansas down 9 and the game almost over, I was already feeling depressed, feeling the game was put away and there was no chance. Once again my favorite team would lose, as they always lose in the games that matter, and I'd just have to deal with it.

Somehow, though, a long shot from Rose that was ruled a three was reviewed and rightly determined to be only two. That one point could have won the game for Memphis. Somehow Memphis couldn't make a free throw in the final minutes. Somehow Kansas got a steal that turned into a three-pointer to drop the lead to four. Somehow the refs didn't call a foul when Kansas had the last possession with seconds left. Somehow Mario Chalmers from Alaska nailed a three-pointer with a hand in his face with two seconds remaining to force overtime. And somehow they carried that momentum into those extra five minutes to hang an extra 12 points on for the win. The game that seemed lost was won.

If my life were a basketball game, I could look back on many times when I was worse than 9 points down with not much time left and the game seemed lost. There have been several times when I believed that I couldn't come back from the deficit that I had against me. Satan scores as well as anyone, and I start to lose faith that God can win or that he even wants me to win. I get discouraged, and I start to fall even further behind.

Oddly enough, God showed me through the Jayhawks' win that He is winning. Even in staring down an insurmountable lead, He comes from behind. He turns the enemy's shots to bricks and He makes my shots fall. Even when the game gets hard, when the other team makes a really demoralizing shot, when the star player I've counted on can't be counted on anymore, when it seems like there's no way out, I will come back because God is for me. (If only 2 Corinthians 1:8-10 had used sports metaphor.)

I don't think God is a Jayhawks fan. I believe He's my fan. He let my favorite team finally win something--and it was hard and suffered for--to show me that my life is not a losing battle. It will not be crushing blow after crushing blow. And not only does He want me to win, but He won't let me lose, as long as I have faith in Him. I was really joyful after Kansas won, but I was even more joyful thinking about God and how through Him I win no matter what. Thanks to Jesus, I can look forward to a championship that will never fade.

Rock Chalk.

Nurse Ben

Somehow, probably from my relative lack of blogging, the days in the corporate swamp are getting longer and longer. Maybe I'm getting more efficient at what I do, though I don't think you can increase your efficiency at doing nothing. Or maybe there's just less work, or I'm just doing less of it.

Whatever it is, it's time for me to move on to a new profession. In the midst of my hours of boredom on Friday, one of my coworkers suggested that I get a nursing degree. I laughed it off, and then I decided it was a good idea. There may be better ideas, but I don't have time to think of any.

Starting in September, I'll be taking night classes at the local nursing school. I expect all of you to start calling me Nurse Ben. I may not answer or take it seriously at first, but I'll need to get used to it.


EDIT: Just got the news--I was not accepted to nursing school.

Sledding in Springtime

Everybody's work (or school) day is about to get a little less boring.

Check out Line Rider, which is really nothing more than a sledding program. You just draw lines for your sled guy to sled down. There aren't a lot of design variations you can do, but there are a heck of a lot of varied results. I just made the guy do a cannonball--legs tucked in and everything--and splat on the line beneath him.

I could definitely justify spending the rest of my day doing this. I hope you can too.

Twins Confusion

Went to my first baseball game of the season last night, which happened to be the third baseball game of the season overall for this particular team. They did not win the match, but in my opinion, the other team didn't win either. The real winners were the people who were lucky enough to buy several hot dogs for a dollar a piece before they were sold out.

Interesting things I learned at this baseball game include:
-The Minnesota Twins are actually fraternal, not identical, as the media would have us believe. Conspiracy theories as to the reasoning behind this cover-up are in development.
-When people lift their hands above their heads and then lower them again in a fluid motion, this is called "the wave." However, it is considered unsuccessful if one does it all alone.
-Points in baseball are called "runs," not points. Also, periods are called "innings." For some reason, when a sportsman fails to strike the ball, it's still called a strike. None of the rest of the terminology made any sense either.

I don't think anything else that happened at the game qualifies as learning. Most of it qualifies as booing.

What the Public Is Good For

Wikipedia has often been ridiculed for not being a reliable source of information, as it is open to edits from the public. I've never found reason to agree with such detractors, especially now that I've seen one of these free-wheeling edits for myself. This one made it to the front page of Wikipedia, ladies and gentlemen, and I'm sure it made for many a bored person's entertainment. Enjoy.

Ima Hogg was an enterprising circus emcee who brought culture and class to Houston, Texas. A storied ostrich jockey, she once rode to Hawaii to visit the Queen. Raised in government housing, young Ima frolicked among a backyard menagerie of raccoons, possums and a bear. Her father, "Big Jim" Hogg, in an onslaught against fun itself, booby-trapped the banisters she loved to slide down, shut down her money-making schemes, and forced her to pry chewing gum from furniture. He was later thrown from his seat on a moving train and perished; the Hogg clan then struck black gold on land Big Jim had forbidden them from selling. Ima had apocryphal sisters named "Ura" and "Hoosa" and real-life brothers sporting conventional names and vast art collections; upon their deaths, she gave away their artwork for nothing and the family home to boot. Tragically, Ms. Hogg (a future doctor) nursed three dying family members. She once sweet-talked a burglar into returning purloined jewelry and told him to get a job. Well into her nineties, she remained feisty and even exchanged geriatric insults with an octogenarian pianist. Hogg claimed to have received thirty proposals of marriage in her lifetime, and to have rejected them all. Hogg was revered as the "First Lady of Texas", and her name and legacy still thrive today.

Ah, April Fool's Day. Thank you, Wikipedia, for making me feel like an idiot. Now can you please direct me to whose house I should burn down?

Then I did some more research, and I guess this is actually all historically accurate. I don't know whether to feel more duped for thinking it was an internet prank on Wikipedia, thinking it was Wikipedia's prank on me, or for insisting that this had to be some kind of prank when it's all actually real.

Cooking with Plates

Yesterday I had another one of my culinary misadventures. (See "Hamburger un-Helper) And to prove that I can't handle any kind of meat, this time I screwed up chicken.

In my opinion, it's really debatable that I did anything wrong, so I don't believe I actually screwed anything up, but still, it tasted funny. Like I'll-probably-get-cancer funny.

So here's the story. I had a chicken breast to fry up, and normally I'd use the George Foreman to get the double-sided heating action. But since somebody decided to put the Foreman away without cleaning it, I decided to just pan-fry it. Had I gone the non-lazy route and cleaned the Foreman, maybe...um, well, I don't know what would have happened because that scenario is practically unimaginable.

So I throw the chicken breast on the pan. But this is a thick chicken breast, and I know it's going to take a long time to cook if I have to flip it over every few minutes. I needed something to keep the heat in. Utilitarian that I occasionally prove to be, I decided to cover my chicken with the plate that I just defrosted it on.

A few minutes later, the following phone conversation occurred:

BEN: Hey Rob, I'm about halfway through making dinner, so I think I'm gonna be a little late to hang out tonight. How does 7:30 work for you?
ROB: Well, the Dunn Brothers closes at 9.
BEN: Then I guess I could get there a little earlier.
ROB: Actually, 7:30 works a little better for me.
BEN: Haha, OK.
ROB: You're still willing to brave this weather?
BEN: What the heck is going on here.
ROB: What?
BEN: I think I'm burning my plate. Gotta go.

Poor Rob. He had no idea what I was talking about.

I pulled the plate off the chicken, and it had turned golden brown around the edges. I tried to rinse it off, and I thought I did a pretty good job, so I figured it wouldn't be a problem. But it definitely did not taste right. Something about cooking with plates, I suppose, makes your food taste ceramicky.

There's a bright side: I have enough leftovers from this to last me at least another two meals.

Go to Hell, April

April is probably the worst month of the year. You expect a little bit of springtime at long last, finally some relief from our long winter's bitter depression, but instead Jack Frost takes one last stab at our hearts and kills whatever hope we may have had. At least in January you know what you're getting into. Because April consistently raises my hopes only to sadistically crush them, it is the biggest jerk there is.

Perhaps typical of a backstabbing jerk, then, this month gets it all rolling with April Fool's Day, the only day I can think of that celebrates the humiliation of the people you care about. The only day worse than April Fool's Day is Leap Day, but you know, I'm a little grateful for Leap Day holding April Fool's Day off for one more day than usual this year.

I remember when I was in junior high, my brother rigged the bathroom sink so that it sprayed me in the face. Ruined my whole day. I think he also rigged the kitchen sink to do the same thing, come to think of it. It happened about twelve years ago, and it still might ruin my day today.

Seriousy, no day makes me despise mankind and myself more than this unholiest of days. If any of you tries to pull anything, our friendship is over. Or maybe not over, but it'd be on probation. Or someday I'll just burn your house down. Who's the April Fool now?