The Internet

Oh, I get it. You didn't go any of those places. There was no whale belly. There was no moon. There was no Mt. Kilimanjaro. There may or may not have been a swamp, but I'm a lot less willing to let that one go.

You were just in the Internet. I made you up. Or, maybe you made me up. If you're actually reading this, then you're probably real. I'm probably more real than you, though, because I'm not inside the Internet.

What? Of course I'm real. I'm the one who came up with this whole thing. I'm the one with the blog. I even ate lunch just a little bit ago, and only real people eat food. Seriously--I tried to fee my imaginary friend once, and it didn't work at all.

If you're so real, why don't you leave the Internet and go for a walk or something? Maybe you could go back to the swamp. Yeah, that shut you up. Bet you wish you could go to the swamp now, don't you, Mr. Internet-man.

I'm the best blogger ever.

The Belly of a Whale

First let me say that this is WAY better than the moon. A little humid, but humidity I can deal with. Plus, blowhole, which is always fun.

But before we get all gung-ho on the whale belly, I have to let you know that you, my friend, have been nothing but a jerk all day. I've been so kind and generous, I invited you down to the swamp, and we could have had a party, lived forever, and enjoyed the swampiness together until the sun melted. I'm not usually like that with everybody, but I was with you.

And then you have to run off to the tallest mountain in Africa, knowing full well that I'm too fat to climb mountains, without so much as a wave goodbye. Even if I was with you, you probably would have gone too fast for me to keep up. I bet you wouldn't even have taken a break if I wanted to get a Dr. Pepper. You probably don't even know how much I love Dr. Pepper. A lot, that's how much.

Thankfully I did catch up with you, but as soon as I try to feed the giraffes, you shoot up to the moon somehow. I could have dealt with the whole Kilamanjaro thing, but the moon took it too far. That made it obvious that you really don't like me. I can imagine the thought process: "Hmm...where can I go to get away from this butthole who keeps wanting me to go to his stupid swamp? I know, I'll go to the nearest place that can't possibly sustain human life! The moon!"

But now we're in the belly of a whale, which is pretty nice. Really, pal, good choice on this one. Sort of reminds me of the swamp, actually.

The Surface of the Moon

Whoa, how'd you get all the way up here? Did you jump from the peak of Mt. Kilimanjaro? I really didn't think you could jump this high. Maybe you should jump right now, just so we know if you really can jump from the tallest mountain in Africa to the moon.

I bet you can only jump that high because there's less gravity on the moon.

Patrick Henry once said, "The moon is a harsh mistress," and though I don't know exactly what that means, it's probably a good argument for you to return to earth. You could even come back to the swamp if you want.

OK, I'll lay off talking about the swamp for a while. Let's talk about the moon, shall we? Wow, just look at all that dust. The weather sure is nice when you don't have an atmosphere. Wait, did you hear that? You didn't because there wasn't a sound because there's nothing on the moon.

You're probably not even on the moon, are you? What a cruel joke. Did you go back to the swamp and not tell me? If you think you can just keep running around the universe trying to get away from me, you're wrong. Dead wrong.

The Peak of Mt. Kilimanjaro

Well I see you got out of the swamp. Now you're almost at the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro. That's pretty impressive, especially the part about getting out of the swamp.

You got up here pretty fast too. Normally it takes like a day to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, but you did it in like 20 minutes. Do you have a teleporting machine or something? You must really have wanted to get out of that swamp.

Was the swamp really that bad? I mean, yeah, it stinks, and you got a lot of mud in your shoes, and if you had stayed any longer, you probably would have gotten eaten, but come on. Mt. Kilimanjaro can't be much better. Look at all the snow.

Is it because I'm laying the whole swamp business on a little thick? I'm sorry if I'm being overbearing. But you didn't have to go all the way to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro. You could have just gone to another swamp (which incidentally is the same swamp).

Looks like you're getting tired. Maybe you should just give up and come back to the swamp.

The Swamp

Welcome to...the swamp.


You've probably never been here before. I know you're busy, but that's not a good excuse. The swamp has been calling to you. You shouldn't just ignore the swamp when it calls.

One time the swamp called me at like 3 in the morning. I didn't answer because I was sleeping. Then it came over to my house, snuck in because I forgot to lock the door, and threw up all over my couch. Now I always answer when the swamp calls.

I know you're worried about getting eaten by the things that live in the swamp. That's OK, everybody who visits the swamp is worried about getting eaten. And well you should be. People who visit the swamp have only a 30% survival rate. The swamp keeps pretty good statistics on these sorts of things.

Have you ever seen the movie Swamp Thing or the animated show of the same name? That's pretty much exactly what the swamp is like, except for the large swamp-colored superhero. But if you stayed here in the swamp long enough, you too would become swamp-colored, though you probably would not become a superhero.

Also, you can never leave the swamp.

Burrito Betrayal

I will never eat at Qdoba again.

I went there last night, excited to have my first chicken mole burrito in something like six months, only to discover that it's no longer on the menu. My conversation with the Qdoba burrito technician went exactly like this:

ME: (excitedly) I'll have a chicken mole burrito, please!
GUY: (extremely confused) Chicken mole?

So I had a chicken queso burrito instead, which was not nearly as great as it's been talked up to be, and which may have given me salmonella or bird flu. And as disappointing as that was on its own, it was compounded by the fact that I could not have the mole my heart so greatly yearned for.

I once argued with passion that Qdoba was inarguably better than Chipotle. Now that I've been betrayed and my favorite burrito has been stolen, Qdoba has dropped below Chipotle and may even fall below Baja Sol by the end of the week. That's how upset I am.

Double Cross

Somewhere in Russia, 40-50 years ago...

JOEY: Good thing we finally escaped from those Commies.
REX: Yeah. I don't know how much longer I could have taken that prison.
JOEY: Do you still have the microfilm?
REX: Sure do.
JOEY: (draws his gun) I'll be taking that.
REX: What?
JOEY: I was a Russian agent all along! Now if you don't mind--
REX: (draws his gun) Actually I do.
JOEY: What?
REX: Drop your gun.
JOEY: (drops his gun)
REX: I knew you were a double agent all along. Now I'll be taking you back to America with the microfilm--
JOEY: (draws another gun) Not so fast.
REX: You have another gun?
JOEY: I knew that you knew I was a double agent, and it was only a matter of time before I turned on you and you turned on me. I was ready to turn on you a second time from the moment we met. Now drop your gun.
REX: (drops his gun)
JOEY:
REX: (immediately draws another gun) Did you think I'd be so stupid to let you get away with double-crossing me a second time?
JOEY: OK, you got me. (drops his gun) But you'll never get--MY ZOMBIE ARMY!
(zombie army emerges from shadows)
REX: Actually, I brought my own zombie army. COME ON OUT, FELLAS!
(nothing happens)
JOEY: HAHAHAHA!
REX: No! I'm doomed! Oh, if only I'd hired two zombie armies!
JOEY: Prepare to be--
REX: No wait--we both hired the same zombie army!
(zombie army looks confused)
JOEY: Really?
REX: We must have. See, here's my receipt.
JOEY: (examines Rex's receipt) Yep, I worked with Grughh too.
REX: Wow, we're really not as different as we thought.
JOEY: I guess not. Can we still be friends?
REX: Only if we're the best.
(Rex and Joey shake hands)
(zombie army converges on the agents, but they disappear in a burst of stardust)
(dragon swoops in and devours the zombies in a single bite, then flies away singing a song about how he wished he was an astronaut who didn't have to eat zombies to survive)

Mammoth-Killing Pentagon

Here's the letter I wrote back to the pentagon in response to his first letter:

Dear Pentagon,
You should at least try to come back. I imagine it's cold in the Ice Age, and you didn't take any sweaters with you or anything. Even if you didn't make it back to the present, you'd probably end up somewhere where they can give you a blanket. Also, I'm pretty sure you're not immortal, and even if you were, it's best not to put that to the test.

Sincerely,
Ben

And then, like right after I sent it, I got another response with this picture:


Dear Ben,
Thanks for your letter, though I am not quite sure how I received it. I appreciated your sentiment about the weather. As you can see from the picture, I made myself a robe of mammoth fur.

Which leads to my main reason for writing: I've joined a tribe of nomadic cavemen and have developed a taste for mammoth hunting. I believe that this is my calling, and I plan to stay here in this time to teach and aid my caveman brethren.

We will probably never see each other again. It would be best for you not to write, I think. We should just move on with our lives.

Sincerely,
Infinity Pentagon

Oh well. At least he won't freeze to death now.

Time-Traveling Pentagon

I was just staring at the pentagon for a few seconds, and then all of a sudden it disappeared. About a minute later I got this picture and a letter.


Here's the letter:

Dear Ben,
I decided to travel back in time. I'm in the Ice Age, apparently. It's pretty cool (get it?). Here's a picture of me with a woolly mammoth.

I don't know if I'll come back. It's kind of boring in your time. Here we have mammoths. Also, I don't know how to get back. Maybe you should have invented me with some sort of chronometer so I could control my time travel.

I'll probably see you again, though. I believe I'm immortal, but that has yet to be proven. Look over your shoulder--am I there? [He wasn't.]

Anyways, I hope you're not mad at me. But if you are, it's not like you can do anything about it.

Sincerely,
Infinity Pentagon

At least that was nice of him to send something. Still, I'll probably have to invent another time-traveling pentagon to find him and destroy him.

Pentagon

Check this out:


It's a pentagon, and it has five fives in it! It's like the infinity box of math! Five fives in a five-sided figure! You could think about the fives forever!

I'm pretty sure I just invented it.

This invention opens up many new possibilities. It will revolutionize our way of life. It will show us how to make more money. It will restore our self-confidence by beating up all the grade school bullies in the world. It will steal all the famous art from the famous art museums. It will travel through time. The only thing it won't do is turn us into animals or other shapes.

Look at it.

Or don't. Whatever.

Broken Showers

I woke up this morning as I usually do, trying to stir up some joy in my heart. And I headed up to the shower as I usually do, expecting a warm and comfortable start to the morning. Unlike usual, though, the shower didn't work. The faucet ran fine, but when I tried to switch it to the shower, it barely showered at all (though the faucet still ran fine).

A friend of mine once said that life blooms in its lack. The lack of sufficient water pressure in my shower this morning should prove that this statement is not true. In such a great lack, there was no bloom at all. I also lacked lunchmeat this morning, which means my sandwich is not blooming either.

Tomorrow I may have no water at all. I may have to wash myself in bleach. We'll see what blooms then, shall we? Assuming I survive, my money's on skin disease.

The Dog and the Restaurant: Part 3

Portland burst into tears. She realized now that she would never cease to smell like tacos, and therefore would very likely never hold a job in this world either.

"Don't cry, little doggie," Ben said.
"But now I'll never get a job."
"Come now, that's nonsense. A talking dog can get any kind of job he or she would want!"
"She."
"You're a she?"
"Yes."
"You don't sound like it."
"Do I sound like I eat garbage?"
"What?"
She started crying again.

Once she calmed down, Ben discovered that she came from Narnia. At first Ben was skeptical, thinking that this random computer-traveling, taco-smelling talking dog was some kind of promotion for the new Narnia movie. Portland promptly dismissed that idea by peeing on Ben's shirt.

"So why are you here?" Ben asked.
"I need to get a job," Portland replied. "No one would ever hire me because I smell like tacos."
"Not to mention you're a dog."
"Do people not hire dogs in your world?"
"I think maybe, but the economy's really bad, and nobody really likes tacos--"
"Could you help me find a job??!!"
"Um, well..."
"Oh great! Thank you, Aslan!"

After stops at several neighborhood Taco Bells that were not willing to hire a talking dog, Ben took Portland to the one Tex-Mex place where it would make perfect sense to see a dog working: Don Pablo's. Portland was hired the moment they walked into the restaurant.

"What kind of work can I do?" Portland asked.
"What do you think we'd have a talking dog do?" said the Don Pablo's manager. "Answer the phones!"

THE END.

The Dog and the Restaurant: Part 2

Ben's coworker ignored him, and he abandoned the "butt" idea almost as quickly as he said it. He tried to think of something better to blog about, but nothing came to him. He decided to just post a picture and make some stupid comment about it. He began an image search with the phrase "talking dog."

And back in Narnia...

Portland arrived at home and turned on her old, barely functioning computer. It gradually whirred to life, and Portland rushed as quickly as she could to find the blog Aslan had directed her to. She googled the title and clicked the first link. It delivered her to an orange page with some pictures and some words on it, and that's when Portland remembered--she was illiterate!

"I'm illiterate, Aslan!" she yelled. "I can't read the blog! What should I do?" She lowered her head in resignation and leaned against the screen. "I'll never get out of Narnia," she said. "My dreams of getting a steady job where they don't think I smell like tacos will never come true."

And then she fell forward into the computer screen.

And then back in Earth again...

Ben's image search for a talking dog was proving fruitless. None of the pictures came with audio, so it could not be verified whether any of the pictured dogs could actually talk. Ben, however, would not be slowed by common sense and decided to post about a talking dog anyway. He clicked on to the next page to find a more suitable picture, but as soon as the page loaded, a live dog burst out of the computer screen.

"Hello," the dog said. "My name is Portland."
"Whoa," said Ben, "you smell an awful lot like tacos."

To be further continued...

The Dog and the Restuarant: Part 1

This is a story about a lady dog by the name of Portland. She lived in relative obscurity in the land of Narnia, where she could never hold a job more than a week. She was a good worker, but everybody she worked with thought she reeked like tacos.

After she lost her job as creative consultant to Two and a Half Centaurs, the Narnian equivalent of Two and a Half Men, Portland decided it would be best to leave Narnia forever.

"I'm through with this jerkwater dimension," she declared as she stormed home to her apartment beneath the onion patch. But before she could take another two steps, Asland appeared before her and blocked the path.

"So you wish to leave Narnia, do you, Portland?" he said.
"Yes."
"I must tell you that it is almost impossible for a Narnian creature to leave Narnia."
"Aw nuts."
"There is one way, but it takes great sacrifice."
"Please tell me, O Aslan."
"Do you have access to the Ninternet?"
"Yes."
"Then go home and visit the blog known as Garbage: Left, Recycling: Right. There you shall find your way."

At that Aslan disappeared. "Oh, thank you, Aslan!" Portland yelled, and she scampered home as quickly as she could.


Meanwhile, in Earth...

Ben said to his coworker, "Today on my blog, every other word I use is going to be a variation of the word 'butt.'"

To be continued...

I Love Kobe Bryant

Kobe, remember when we first met that one time I was in L.A.? I said you were my hero, and you gave me a hug. It was like we were kindred spirits. We went to some fancy restaurant and talked for hours about the planets, and we both wished we could live on Jupiter. We knew we'd be best friends forever.

Kobe, remember when you gave me courtside tickets to one of your games? Jack Nicholson made fun of me, so you punched him in the face. The league tried to suspend you, but you told them that you were standing up for me, so they gave you a medal instead. And Jack doesn't bother me that much anymore.

Kobe, remember when we climbed the Rocky Mountains together? I didn't think I could do it, but you encouraged me, and it kept me going. And then when I broke my leg, you carried me to the top and named the mountain after me.


Kobe, remember when we stole Burt Reynold's boat? You drove it out to international waters, and it was there that you told me you could breathe underwater. I didn't believe you, so you jumped in and you never came back. I stayed in that boat for a week. Thankfully it had a TV, and I watched you play two basketball games. You beat Dallas and Washington by a combined total of 120 points.

Kobe, remember when we were playing hearts with Lisa Leslie and Candace Parker and you shot the moon? That was pretty great.

Kobe, remember when we tried to get in free to Disney Land? They said that you could afford to pay, but you kept saying that you had a deal with Walt. I'm pretty sure they thought you were crazy, and maybe you were, but it was really funny. Then we went back to your place and watched Notting Hill. That was one of the best days of my life.


Kobe, remember when my airplane was taken over my terrorists? You flew straight into the air with a basketball in your hand, and you rescued us. You showed those terrorists that America's greatest athletes don't take their crap lying down, and you turned them into sand with the powers of your mind. And when the pilots passed out, you teleported all of the passengers back to base.

Kobe, remember when the doctors told me I had six months to live? You said they were liars, and you were right. Now all those doctors are homeless.

Kobe, you're the greatest.

17th Century Eastern Europe: Lest We Forget

Today is one of those days when I get bored and choose to read about relatively obscure yet moderately interesting events in world history. On this particular morn, I've read about the Ottoman Empire, also known as "the Empire of Large Onion-Shaped Hats."


This guy is Suleiman the Magnificent. In my opinion, "Magnificent" is an overstatement. I don't think conquering a good chunk of Eastern Europe is very impressive. History ought to have a little bit more discretion before dropping superlatives like that. Maybe "Suleiman the Onion-Hatted" would have been more accurate.

The best thing about the Ottoman Empire, though, was its loss at the Battle of Vienna in 1683. Like many people throughout history, the present, and surely the future, the Ottomans tried to conquer Austria. At Vienna, they were totally crushed, and it was the beginning of the end for the Empire as a whole. Which may explain why we haven't seen any onion-shaped hats for a while.

Bizarrely, this battle was the source of at least three non-onion-related culinary legends. One: croissants were invented during the celebration following this battle, shaped to resemble the crescents of the defeated Islamic heathens. Two: the victory celebration also saw the invention of the bagel, shaped in the form of a stirrup to represent the triumphant Polish cavalry. However, there is a reference to a similar baked good 70 years earlier that may or may not have been a bagel. Three: upon acquiring much coffee in the battle booty, somebody opened a coffee house in Vienna, and since nobody could stand the bitter taste of coffee in Europe, they added milk and honey, thereby inventing cappuccino.


I'm extremely disappointed that we haven't invented any victory foods in the past several centuries. Why don't we have something like Constitution Cornbread? Or some kind of Mexican-American War specialty? I want to rejoice in the humiliation of my enemies by eating something delicious! Give me liberty and appropriately symbolic snack food or give me death!

The End of an Era

No, I am not quitting blogging again.

The era that's ending is the era of me not being able to use my driver's side door. That's right, I now have a new door. I can get in and out through the driver's side. I can roll down my window. I can do all the normal things that drivers do.

Unfortunately, I am so used to getting in and out through my passenger door that I've still used that door more than I've used my new one. Which is precisely what I expected to happen. But hey, now in case my car starts on fire, I'll be able to get out faster, assuming it occurs to me that I'm able to open my driver's door.

Even more insulting is that I get a new door after gas prices are too high for driving to be affordable. I'll probably end up taking the bus everywhere now. And I'll probably end up on the bus with the door that doesn't work and we all have to climb through the windows.

Baby Names

The population's increasing, supposedly. If that's actually true, that means that there are going to be more babies that need names. And if naming trends have shown us anything, it's that the old names aren't good enough anymore. Allow me to present the new generation of baby names, which I have modestly titled (and trademarked) The Only Good Names for Your Baby, 2008-????

GIRLS

Seychelles
You may not know, but this is also the name of an archipelago nation off the coast of Africa. But honestly, it sounds enough like "Michelle" that no one will notice. And it still sounds different enough from "Michelle" that people will think your child is adopted from a very exotic country. Please do not try this with any other island nation. It only works with Seychelles because they do not have an extradition treaty with the US.

Laccospadix
It's always great to name your girls after flowers, so why not pick the relatively unheard of flowering palm plant of Australia? The two Greek words that form its name translate to "reservoir" and "spadix."

Death Valley
When you're thinking of naming your girl after a desert, you might land on "Sahara" or "Gobi" long before you'd get to Death Valley. That's why you need a naming guide to help you. Death Valley may not have the pretty sound or romantic sensibility that you'd like to give your daughter, but what it lacks in aesthetics, it makes up for in sheer crushing power. With this name, I guarantee that your daughter will rule her chosen career field with an iron fist to rival the greatest tyrants the world has ever seen.

BOYS

Charlemagne the Great
Don't balk at the idea of giving your child a three-word first name. That's practically more common than "John" or "Michael" these days. And there's no better way to milk all you can from three words than to go with Charlemagne the Great, the glorious moniker of the 8th century French king and Holy Roman Emperor. I might note that adding "the Great" to the name technically makes it redundant, as "magne" means "great," but it even more technically makes it like a billion times more amazing.

Lionfish Are Poisonous
Not only is it hip to use multiple words to name your child, but it's also becoming extremely popular to name them with complete sentences. It's not good to use more than four words, though, or people will think your child is an absolute nutcase. So keep it simple, but be as edgy as possible. Lionfish Are Poisonous is a great name because it references a striped wild animal AND the possibility of death, two of the edgiest topics or categories available. Zebra Assassination Attempt, however, is not a complete sentence.

The Mothership
Honestly, this one only works well with some last names. The Mothership Jones, for instance, sounds like a late 70s arena-rock band, and therefore is awesome. The Mothership Smithson, however, doesn't quite get off the ground. It may still be worth taking the risk because rarely does a single name combine all three essential elements for a boy's name: unlimited power, gender ambiguity, and aliens.

Another Century + 2

I really liked writing that post about how I've posted 600 times. It was way more fun than writing regular posts. Regular blogging is so lame. If only blogging had more to do with reaching numeric milestones. I wish that all my posts were about the number of posts I've posted.

Like this one--did you that the number of this post as the same as a Phoenix, Arizona area code?


602! It's in the middle, right next to 480 and 623, which are also Phoenix area codes, but they're not nearly as cool. It's all about 602.

Calling this post...


See how popular number blogging is! It's friends are calling all the time!

International Ridiculousness

I almost forgot to blog about one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen. I'm not talking about a three-eyed dog or old people playing basketball. I'm talking about the El Salvadoran airport. Not the airport itself, but something inside it.

For some reason, something like 75% of the shops in El Salvador's airport are perfume shops. I still can't fathom that. I mean, they only have 17 gates, but you've got something like two shops per gate, which means there were more than 25 perfume shops. And that, friends, is not an overstatement.

When we arrived at the airport, a couple friends and I embarked on a journey for chocolate and fast food. First we passed one perfume shop, then another right next to it. Odd as it was, we moved on. We passed a gift shop, and then another perfume shop after it. And another perfume shop on the other side of the hall. All this before we reached the next gate. We soon after discovered that the El Salvador airport boasts a whopping four restaurants (only one fast food, a Subway), four gift shops, and two book stores. The rest (like I said, about 25) were perfume shops, though I should note that some of the perfume shops also had alcohol.

Does El Salvador smell that bad? Do they just assume that people are so desperate to get out of their foul stench of a country that they'll jump at the nearest opportunity to bathe themselves in cologne? Or, perhaps even more bizarre, was the original perfume shop so totally overrun by tourists that they absolutely needed to open more shops mere feet away?

I don't know.

Another Century

Welcome to post number 600. It's almost gotten annoying how many times I've rolled another hundo on this thing. But really, these are the only posts that matter to me. The rest is just garbage. You would not believe how easy it is to make up 99 nonsense posts.

I'll let you in on the secret. Contrary to popular speculation, it's not hired monkeys. At best, it'd take them 1000 years at 1000 typewriters to write the perfect blog post, but I don't have that kind of time. The real method is this: ant farm.

Let me explain. You see, when you get a big enough ant farm--and I'm not talking one of those pane-of-glass ant farms that you see at the Science museum gift shop, but like a 400 square foot ant farm. So once you fill up a 400 square foot ant farm, the ants start to spell things. Not intentionally, but it just shows up, like how clouds look like things.


See! Were I to see these ants in my ant farm, I would blog about the deliciousness of ham. And it would be hilarious. Especially because I could use the word, "yumo," which I'm sure all of you would be in hysterics over.

I'll leave the next 99 posts to the ants. See you in October or something.

Breakable

My unbreakable nalgene-ripoff bottle has a crack in it. That's really not supposed to happen. I remember a time when I would hurl it at cars on the freeway and laugh maniacally as they exploded from even the briefest contact with the indestructible bottle. Now apparently that time is at an end.

I feel like this is precisely the nature of human life. We spend our youths wildly blowing up as many cars as we can get our hands on, but then one day, we crack. Maybe just a little bit, but we crack. And then not only are we unable to blow up any cars, but we're unable to find meaning even in trying to blow up cars.

So we can go on trying to blow up cars with reckless abandon for ourselves and others, or we can get go to the hobby shop around the corner and get some glue. I, for one, will be getting some glue. If you need me, I'll be at the hobby shop.

Adventures in Energy Boosting

Upon my return from the tiny country of El Salvador, I've discovered several things. Not the least of these things is the fact that I am now very tired all the time. I've been at work three days, and in each of them I may or may not have fallen asleep at my desk AND during a meeting.

Last night, I told my roommates that I was having significant problems staying awake, and Corey presented me with some creative solutions. Of course, I spurned them all and came up with my own. For your reading pleasure, here they are!

1. Mustard. I don't really like mustard, but for some reason it made sense to me that drinking two liters of the stuff (instead of water, of course) would give me a huge boost in awakeness. This experiment gets an 8.5 on the not-worth-it scale.

2. Robotic Heart Transplant. I figured if I removed my human heart and replaced it with a superior artificial model, I maybe wouldn't even need to sleep ever. Not that I actually went through with it. Stupid responsible doctors.

3. Jumping off of buildings. Nothing gives me a rush quite like a free fall. If I take a good five-story jump every few hours, I should have no problem staying awake for the whole day. Caution to the wind.

4. Hummingbird Blood. Native American legend says if you drink a creature's blood, you gain its strength. So why not drink the blood of the most energetic creature on the planet? Surprisingly, it did not taste as honey-sweet as I expected.