Acting my age

Earlier this month I went another step up on the age ladder. I'm now high enough that I don't have to pay extra when renting a car, but not so high that the rungs on the ladder are starting to get a bit rickety. Now that I'm up here, it seemed like a good idea to take a look around and make sure I was acting my age. So I spent the last week meditating on the things I should be doing by 25 (it was either that, or do actual work...). Here's what I came up with, and how I measure up.

Complain about work: check and check. This one just came naturally to me. By this age, most people are just getting into this. I've been going strong for years.

Complain about aching joints/back. I just started to get into this, but I now vow to put more effort into it. The little I have dabbled in this, it's been fun. It's a good outlet, and as an added bonus, it's very annoying to those around you when you do it. I don't see any downside to this. With any luck, I can throw my back out, and then no one will hear the end of it. I'm pretty excited about the idea.

Act mature and grown up. Check, check, and triple check. I mean, people have been complimenting me on my maturity, adulthood, prime of life, ripeness, mellowness and development for years (Sometimes using the synonym feature in Word gives you interesting results...). When you look up maturity on wikipedia, it just shows my picture (provided you look within the next 10 seconds before it gets changed back to a less true definition).


Clear cut and to the point, you can always trust wikipedia. Just like you can always trust everything said on this blog (with possible exception to things said in the comments).


Reminisce about the good ol' days. I don't know if this task actually falls into the responsibilities of my age group, but I'm willing to take it up just in case. Man, things were good back then. So much better than now. And have I told you how much better the cartoons were when I was young?


Yup, that's right, I'd definitely say I earned this.

Well, after this thorough investigation, I'd say I'm still on target with my age. I can't wait until the day I become old enough I can just sit on a rocking chair on my porch all day and just yell at the young whippersnappers as they run by. I'm hoping the word whippersnapper comes back into fashion by then, otherwise I may be calling them hooligans. Either way, I'm excited for it.

Adventure part 3ish

Not the best of my logos...but time is short if I want to finish this by the end of Sunday, and I'm trying to get back to being more consistent on my updates. I used a picture I took in Disneyland, so that's got to be worth bonus points for the logo grade.

How many adventure posts have I done? I think this is the third one. Chances are I could go back and look, but ever since I hit double digits on the posts, it's seemed like way too much work. So this week, I knew what I should write about, but I wasn't sure how to do it. I didn't want to just do a list of things I did, but also thought that out of all my weeks to write about, this one should be the easiest, since I took some vacation time and went to Disneyland with family (brother, sister-in-law, niece, nephew, mom, and two sisters). So I decided, since Disneyland is the place where fantasy meets real life, I'd mix fantasy with actual descriptions of what I did. There's a chance you may have to look closely to get what I actually did.

Among the untold stories of this adventure is the tale of the capture of my sister, sister-in-law and nephew by the flying elephant. I was OK with the loss of the sister, but had to fight valiantly to rescue everyone else. I taught "Dumbo" not to mess with me.

I went to California on Tuesday, spent some time on the beach, and then Wednesday we went to Disneyland. Started things off with a submarine ride. The goal: Find Nemo. I was all over that. I saw him in the distance, swimming with a shady looking turtle. Word on the street said the turtle went by the name Squirt. Sadly I was unable to retrieve Nemo, as I was informed by the captain that the submarine was not equipped with diving suits and I could not leave the submarine until the ride had come to a complete stop. I suspect the captain had been paid off by Squirt. You may have won this time Squirt, but next time, I'll bring my own diving suit, and we'll see who waits for the ride to stop.

This picture depicts one of the many lessons I learned at Disneyland. If at first you don't succeed, crawl. After attempting to run under this arch, hitting his head and falling backwards, my nephew got right back up and crawled under it. I will use this lesson throughout my life. Next time I fail, I will get right back up and start crawling until I succeed!

Next up, I received a call from space command. The evil emperor Zurg was stealing batteries to power his ultimate weapon. I wasn't going to sit by idly while he destroyed the universe that I live in, so I set off, hopped in my star ship, and started blasting things. Luckily Zurg marked all his minions with a Z so I knew what to shoot. As you may have noticed, the universe has not been destroyed. I confronted Zurg and his weapon of mass destruction and took him down with my laser blaster that lit up in three different colors! After being highly praised by Buzz Lightyear himself, I set out into the world again. It should be noted that Zurg, who apparently wasn't killed, tried this scheme three more times, but don't worry, I took him down each time. Anyways, the rest of the trip was filled with action and adventure as I took on pirates, towers of terror, and let's not forget, Goofy.

Genius

I believe that everyone, at some point in their life, has one idea that enters their minds that exceeds the caliber and quality of all other ideas they have ever had and will ever have at any point in the future. This idea can be life changing, for them and the world around them. A moment of sheer, unadulterated genius. It is, of course, up to them whether they are willing to give flight to that idea, or stifle it and let it rot and die in their mind. After nearly 25 years of waiting, my idea finally came. And don't worry, I put it to action and let it live. And now I am going to share it with all of you.



Here it is, in all its magnificent glory. I give you the Oreo combined with a peep. I can die happy now, knowing I have made a contribution to mankind's progress. I expect the rest of my life to go by uneventfully, with nothing coming close to the awe inspiring ingenuity of this idea.


That's right, sometime last week, my stroke of genius came. I was trying to decide whether to have some Oreos or some peeps. Then it came to me. Like a tidal wave of brilliance lighting up my mind to new and glorious possibilities. I realized I didn't have to choose between them, I could have the best of both worlds. In one fluid motion, I quickly placed a peep between the Oreo cookies (on top of the double stuffing of cream) and put the Oreo back together. The above picture doesn't do this creation justice. Everyone of you should try this and see it in real life. If you need peeps, I have a few left...but after the creation of this idea, I can't guarantee that they'll last long!

I haven't experienced a culinary stroke of genius on this level since the day a friend of mine thought to put Easy Cheese on Cheetos. Sometimes I wish I knew a more amazing word than genius to describe the amazing and awesome nature of extremely good ideas like these. If I did, I'd be using it all over this post.

If you haven't had your moment of genius, don't worry, it'll come someday. But let me warn you. The jealous crowds may try and discourage you. They hide the fact that they are amazed with the brilliance of the idea with ridiculous comments like "Ewww, that's gross", and "Tell me you didn't eat that...". Don't give in. Remember, your idea may someday change the world we live in. I fully expect mine to.

Roommates

Webster's online dictionary defines a roommate as "One of two or more persons sharing the same room or living quarters - also called roomie." This is important because this post is centered around roommates, and it's important that everyone knows what one is. Many people have "roomies" at some point in their life. I currently have three. We get along well, and rarely have any problems...until this last week.

Look at this place. It's not an ordinary house, made of cement and wood. No, this house is made from the stuff that dreams are made of.

My roommates and I, along with some friends, have been considering leaving our apartment and renting a house. We found one we really liked...but didn't get it. Something about working through a realtor, who was working through a listing agent, who was working with the owner. Also, it is possible the owner was looking to rent to a family, not a bunch of college guys. I guess it's also possible I shouldn't have stood outside the owner's bedroom window at night, softly chanting "rent us the house...rent us the house...also, install a pool, with a high dive coming off the roof...". So, with that dream gone, I looked for another house. A friend of mine sent me a link to a beautiful, 7 bedroom house, with 6200 square feet of goodness. A little on the pricey side, but with that kind of square footage, we could have fit like 20 guys in there. A great idea, right? I thought so. Sadly none of my roommates seemed to catch the dream. Despite my bringing it up every 4 minutes for 6 days straight (yes that includes all night long too), they refused to budge on the idea. They tore my dream house apart, one dream brick at a time.

Two out of three roommates agree: Raccoons living on your balcony is not a good thing. Well, two out of three roommates are wrong!

If that were the only offense, I could have forgiven them...well...technically I probably still wouldn't have gotten over it any time soon, but might have some day in the distant future forgiven them. But that same day, more excitement entered my life that I tried to share with my roommates, only to be met with cold eyes, doubtful shakes of the head, and one yelling at me to get out of his room, he didn't want to rent that stupid house. I had woken up that morning to a crash from somewhere in the apartment (or just outside the apartment, as it would turn out). I went out, prepared to fall down and play dead if I saw a robber. But instead of a suspicious looking character putting our TV in a large bag, I saw that, somehow, two raccoons had gotten onto our third floor balcony. Exciting, right? Who doesn't want raccoons for pets? I'm not sure if we're allowed to have cats or dogs, but I'm certain there aren't any rules against raccoons. And think of the benefits. We wouldn't have to take our trash all the way to the dumpster any more, we could just throw it on the balcony and the raccoons would eat it. I'm pretty sure there was no downside to this. Yet, disappointingly, only one roommate seemed excited about the prospect of raccoons living on our balcony. In the end it didn't matter much. As mysteriously as they appeared in the morning, they disappeared in the night, leaving no trace...nor dead raccoon bodies on the ground from a three story plunge.