reading the paper can kill you

it is hard to enjoy anything currently. just this past weekend, i was at the pub enjoying a meal with a friend. as we shared in good conversation, little nagging thoughts occasionally popped into my head. just how quickly does second-hand smoke turn my lungs into tumorous blocks? is my burger cooked medium-rare infected with bacteria that will liquefy my intestines? have the land burning, communist agents working for the philadelphia parking authority towed away my car for an 30 second-expired meter?

i fully blame this prevalent worrywart-itis on the media. anytime you open up the paper or turn on the ten o’clock news, it is all doom and gloom. corrupt city governments are misappropriating funds, old men in suits on wall street are reducing your retirement funds to the value of last year’s laptop, and toxic cat litter is turning your kitty’s insides to concrete – the list goes on and on.

eventually, someone is going to find a connection between newspaper ink and skin cancer. and because we’re told that watching the television gives you glaucoma and turning on the car radio while driving means you’ll go through the pearly gates backwards and on fire, how will we ever learn about the dangers of newspaper reading? surely not through the interweb, which is filled only with pedophiles and terrorists.

as i write this, i am reading an article that documents how drinking, even in moderation, shrinks your brain. the pathetic scaremonger who performed this study clearly has nothing in life which makes him happy and is seeking revenge on the world by spreading his hate and misery. rest assured, drinking only affects your brain in the short term, and in that short term, alcohol is a magical and wonderful thing. benjamin franklin once said that “beer is living proof that god loves us and wants us to be happy.” in the long term, alcohol in all forms lowers the incident of heart disease and red wines are chock full of powerful antioxidants. so don’t worry about your brain’s cleverness and enjoy your glass of chablis, your ice cold martini, or your pint of lager.

unless youre drinking keystone light, in which case i might start believing that article.

bankrupt and blind

every vegetarian and ecomentalist i know has been warning me how all the hormone-infused chicken i frequently eat (and greatly enjoy) will make my eyes rot so i thought it may be a good idea to see the ophthalmologist.

the eye doctor confirmed that all parts of my eyeballs were still intact and working despite my flagrant consumption of GMO foods and my pentium-processor-centric style of living. i used an atari joystick to take an entertaining peripheral vision test and as a bonus, he gave me a refresher course on reading my alphabets. i even got these cool teardrops put into my eyes that dilated my pupils, which happens to be a good excuse to give to a police officer who has pulled you over for driving while high on speedballs. all in all, my eye examination was educational and bordering on enjoyable.

i was then led back into the waiting area, where thousands of eyeglass frames lined every square inch of all four walls. the possibilities were excitingly endless. i could choose frames that would make me appear wise, hip, or homosexual. i could select frames that made me look like an emo rocker, the queen of england, or even elton john. except i couldn’t because my eyes were full of chemicals that prevented them from focusing properly. and even if my eyes could see, the lenses in these frames are covered in all sorts of stickers that advertise anti-polarizations, UV A/B/Cs, and safety warnings which effectively render you blind as a bat when you go try them on.

after groping about for a pair of glasses that fit my mutant, abnormally shaped head and confirming with the sales-woman that i did not look like a complete fool, i went to pay for my new glasses. they say that one’s eyes are the window to their soul. therefore, i was willing to splurge on window frames that would distract people from the twisted soul that lay hidden beneath. i was not, however, ready to be financially ruined. even with my health insurance, i had to pay a king’s ransom for such things such as high index lenses and scratch resistant coating. luckily, the going rate for a kidney on the black market will cover most of these costs and i hear you can function with only one.

i suppose its time to see the nephrologist.

sorry, mr. dow jones and mrs. nasdaq

it is only thursday morning and already, i have spent 8 hours of my week at meetings.

i understand that part of my new job involves communication between various departments in my company. i have accepted that our clients see value in stopping by for a visit to discuss their concerns. i even enjoy speaking with (some of) our customers about how their projects are proceeding and assuring them of the quality of their drug.

but why must all this be done while sitting around an expensive table, exchanging business cards, and turning verbs into nouns while advancing through slide presentations? nothing gets accomplished at meetings, except for setting a time for the follow-up meeting. this is as much of a law of nature as gravity is. or being rained on after leaving your umbrella at home.

below is what my work calendar looks like for this week:

and that is the reason why our economy is going to pot. millions of hours of productivity are being lost while people sit in board rooms, or bored rooms, appearing to nod sagely but really just daydreaming about their next holiday, while a beige man in a beige suit drones on and on, reading from his beige powerpoints.

the cure for the economy is not a stimulus package. nor is the cure for the economy emancipation from foreign oil dependence. and the cure for the economy definitely is not a tree hugging liberal in the white house.

to make right our dows, nasdaqs, and s&p’s, all we must do is outlaw the business meeting.

my week with the toyota prius

my car was unfortunate enough to need repairs this week so i was unfortunate enough to be loaned a prius for the duration my car was in the shop.

the prius has become a bit of a fashion item these days. by driving this car, you let people know that you care about baby polar bears, conserving the rain forest, women’s rights, and apple computers. a long list of hollywood celebrities drive a prius, including harrison ford, leonardo dicaprio, cameron diaz, kevin bacon, will ferrell, and tom hanks.

but aren’t fashion accessories supposed to be good looking?

the toyota prius is probably one of the most ugly car on the roads today. this is puzzling because clearly, toyota knows how to design a decent looking car. just look at the cutesy yaris, the understated corolla, and the handsome camry (see below).

so the prius is not too good looking. i could possibly live with that if there were enough good things about the car to offset its deformed appearance. the first thing i liked about the prius was the interior space. it was downright cavernous. the headroom is incredible for a car its size and the rear legroom rivals that found in the camry. there’s tons of room to carry 5 adults around comfortably. the automatic climate control was quick to warm up the cabin of the car on the cold winter mornings and the prius’s suspension was adept at soaking up the moon-like craters found on philadelphia back roads.

the car is also whisper quiet at low speeds when only the electric motor is propelling you forwards. at first i enjoyed the serenity and being thoughtful to people living in the houses i drove by. but after some consideration, i have decided that the quietness of the car is actually quite dangerous. if you are cruising about at a low speeds, as you would in residential areas, the car makes no sound. if you are in a residential area, there will likely be kids playing on the sidewalks. when a kid runs into the street to chase after his ball, he will not hear your prius coming and you will strike and kill the child. your license will be suspended and you won’t be able to drive your prius, which saves a ton of gas.

children in back of the car are not safe either because rear visibility is the worst i have ever experienced in any car. because the rear window is so close to being parallel with the ground, and also because of a spoiler that runs across the rear-hatch, you literally have only 6 inches of vertical space to see the things behind you. so after killing all children in front of and in back of the prius, you will surely be locked away in a turkish prison for reckless driving.

another way to save gas is to be scared off the roads. the prius is so unimaginably slow that merging onto a highway will definitely require you to hire a trauma therapist. you’re on the on-ramp, you signal, look left, the coast is clear, you stomp on the throttle, and….nothing happens. everything seems to get louder but your speedometer is not changing. quite frankly, i am surprised that i am still alive and writing this blog post after driving the car for a week. since dead people don’t drive and thus, cannot burn gasoline, the prius’s lack of any forward motivation further adds to the environmental friendliness of the prius. or maybe the car was designed to be slow so that when you strike the child that did not hear you coming, he will feel nothing but a nudge.

i really don’t see any reason for owning a prius. in regards to fuel consumption, normal diesel cars such as the golf tdi, jetta tdi, and upcoming diesel cars from honda all get better mileage than the prius, which is rated at 48mpg in the city and 45mpg on the highway. so if you want an eco-friendly car, get a diesel. if you want an ugly, slow, and unsafe way to get from home to work, you would be better off with a donkey.

whose mountain is it?

in norway, there is a rock drawing of a man on skis that is believed to be over 4500 years old. the word “ski” has its roots in old norse, and if you have a penchant for linguistics, you’ll be interested in knowing that ancient scandinavian historical records speak of a people called the skrithifinns, or “skiing wanderer.”

all this bookish history is jolly interesting, but as soon as you mention skiing in any conversation nowadays, the discussion inevitably will lead to topic of snowboarders and skiers.

let me make it clear right now that i don’t really care for snowboarding. i’ve been skiing since i was in elementary school and i can’t think of a quicker or a classier way to get down a snowy mountain. i don’t understand why i receive looks of contempt and incredulity when i’m asked whether i “ski or board” and i answer “ski.” it is unfathomable to me why snowboarding is considered cooler than skiing when james bond, the epitome of cool, killed baddies in “her majesty’s secret service” and “the world is not enough” on a pair of skis. in addition, snowboarders are reckless, block the bottom of lifts while they strap on their boards, have ridiculous looking goatees, and put their wallets on chains.

in contrast to the storied history of skiing, the origin of snowboarding cam be traced back to muskegon, michigan in 1965 when a frugal man named sherman poppen lopped the wheels off a skateboard to make a toy for his children.

some people say that snowboarders are dangerous but i’m not really bothered because a poor skier is just as bad, if not worse, than a poor snowboarder. an unskilled skier falls to the ground and in an instant, sharp poles fly through the air and impale your skull while two runaway skis sail down the slope like a pair of laser guided torpedoes. a crashed snowboarder lies in a puddle of blood and vomit but as long as you keep your distance, you can avoid contracting the blood borne diseases he might have.

taos ski valley in new mexico is one of the four remaining ski resorts that have banned snowboarders from its mountains. i am glad to hear that this season, the resort has caved in to the demands of the snowboarding scalawags and is opening its trails to both skiers and snowboarders alike.

banning snowboarding is one step forward on the path that leads to communism. we practically live in a police state already; trans fats have been banned in several large cities, if you touch your cell phone will driving a car, you will be sent to a turkish prison, and if you even attempt to bring a bottle of poland spring on an airplane flight, a sniper will shoot you in the face.

this feud then, between snowboarders and skiers over ownership of the mountain is a healthy one. as long as both parties continue their passionate bickering, we will continue to see both skis and snowboards offered at the rental shops and that freedom of choice is beautiful. the day that either skis or snowboards disappear from the mountain will mark the day that liberty dies.

buying happiness

ever since my freshman year of college, i have used the same bath towels. throughout the course of two weeks, three identical blue towels were used to dry myself off after a shower. given that these towels were shabbily made to begin with, i recently decided they were unfit to use even for sudanese refugees. it seemed a good time to go buy new bath towels, especially since half of the amazon rainforest has been turned into bed bath & beyond 20% off coupons. and they have all been mailed to me.

i left the store with two large bath towels. both were a mossy shade of green and very soft. i checked to see if any cuddly creatures were skinned to make them but unfortunately, the towels are 100% cotton. i am going to perform a long term test to see if the towel that cost $18 is actually better than the $12 towel. as of tonight, both towels are plush, warm, and make drying off complete bliss. i used to fear the end of my shower because it meant chafing my entire body with blue sandpaper. give the choice between that and the pit and the pendulum, i would find the rope myself to bind my body.

the $30 i spent on towels has brought happiness into my life and this brings me to my next point, which is that money can most definitely buy happiness, despite all the adages you may have heard. now, let me first make it clear that i am not speaking towards those whose goal in life is to accumulate mansions, sports cars, and yachts. i suspect that their problem is something else altogether. i am writing about the sort of person who buys ketchup wholesale because it will save them $0.13 per ounce. yes, i am talking to the sort of person who will wait to see a friend in person to deliver mail by hand to save $0.41 of postage.

i am convinced that every time you experience displeasure in your life, the root cause is some sort of unhappiness, felt either by yourself or by the person perpetrating the upsetting act, that could be allayed by a monetary purchase of some sort. for instance, just the other day, while stuck in a typical philadelphia traffic jam, i didn’t have multiple strokes because i was listening to a great kenny g christmas album i had bought last year. and my hands were warm because i had on a warm pair of gloves. because of these small, but significantly life improving purchases, i had only one stroke.

what is the point of toiling away at your job if you are unwilling to spend your money to better your life? after a hard day’s work, you go to shoprite to buy food, but what you leave with instead is shoprite branded orange juice from concentrate and a tin of tuna fish. not even the chunky white albacore tuna, but the cheaper minced version. “they were on sale!” you’ll cry. you’ll miserably eat your supper of tuna fish and orange juice in your home, heated to a frigid 60F to save money, and go to sleep unhappy and jaundiced. this is only after taking a shower, which was cut short to save hot water, and drying off with a ratty towel that has the texture of pumice.

people who go through life this way often will defend their actions by saying something along the lines of “if i save $20 a week, over the course of ten years, the interest will have made me $10,000 richer.” well, maybe, but how much will that money be worth in a decade if you count inflation? also, what would you be doing with the $10,000 a decade from now? buying things with it to make your life less miserable? i highly doubt it because you were unwilling to spend $20 a week to go out for dinner with your friends when you were younger. you havent a hope in hell of spending a much greater amount (so you misers currently hope) later on in your life.

my glib financial advice might just sound like the rantings of an consumer, but it isnt. i understand the value of investing in a future, increasing stability for your family, and planned purchases. i am not suggesting that we all start to impulsively buy the magazines and sweets placed at the checkout aisles of grocery stores. what i am pushing for is a more realistic view of what the point of life is and how we can all happily live together. when you are happy yourself, you tend to be a better and more pleasant person, making all those around you laugh and smile.

so go ahead and turn the heat up in your apartment and splurge on that tropicana orange juice. you can consider it as a charitable and selfless act – a christmas gift to the rest of the world.

MSG is great

today i will dispell a myth about msg.

myth: msg is unhealthy.

first, what is msg? msg, or monosodium glutamate, is the sodium salt of glutamic acid, an amino acid, the stuff that proteins are made out of. msg is used as a flavor enhancer in many asian foods and it harmonizes well with salty and sour tastes. the msg used in foods is isolated from starch or molasses from sugar cane or sugar beets.

although glutamic acid had been isolated in 1866 by the german chemist karl ritthausen, it was not until 1908 that its flavor-enhancing potential was noticed by kikunae ikeda of japan. before this, japanese chefs used seaweed broth as a flavor enhancer, now knowing that glutamic acid was its flavor-enhancing component. after its isolation, ikeda noted that it had a distinctive taste, different from sweet, sour, bitter and salty (the flavors in classical flavor theory) and he gave this taste the name “umami.”

enough of history. all of you just want to know if msg is bad for you. the answer is no. msg is not bad for you.

msg is found naturally in many foods, including cow milk, beef, chicken, seaweed, mushroom, tomatoes, and parmesan cheese. actually, parmesan cheese contains 1200 mg of msg per 100 g of cheese, making it the food with the most msg in it. our livers naturally produce a lot of msg – about 50x more in one day than the amount that is ingested during a typical chinese takeout meal.

what about those people who claim to be allergic to msg, a condition also called chinese restaurant syndrome (CRS)?

looking at the foods above, these same people should also be extremely allergic to mushroom pizza, which contains tomatoes, cheese, and mushrooms, all good sources of msg. ive never heard of anyone being allergic to pizza though.

a study conducted in the 70’s further showed that msg allergies were largely psychosomatic. a large sample of people were taken who claimed to be allergic to msg. symptoms were burning sensation on the neck, forearms, and chest, numbess of neck and back, and chest pains and comiting. various ethnic foods were presented to them over the course of a week. a random portion of these dishes contained msg but people only reported adverse reactions to the dishes from asian cuisine, regardless of whether msg was present in those foods. other dishes containing msg did not cause any reactions in the subjects.
anyways, msg is safe to use a food additive. just dont use too much. if you put too much msg in a food, it becomes slightly bitter.

references:
Food Chemistry, 2nd ed., Belitz and Grosch 1996.

Principles of Food Chemistry, 3rd ed., deMann 1999.

Lecture by Dr. Rui Hai Liu, Cornell University Department of Food Science, Spring 2005.

school bus

i was caught behind a school bus on my way to work this morning. normally, i don’t mind; i believe that getting kids to school is very important for their education and development into pimply faced adolescents. i often bang on about poor education and parenting being the reasons why philadelphia is the murderous cess pool that it is.

however, my opinion of education changed very quickly this morning. for two miles, a diesel burning cheese bus stopped at nearly every house, picking up a single child, who would languidly drift up the steps to the bus. meanwhile, a queue of cars stretching all the way into idaho was quickly building up behind the bus. people too far behind to see the flashing warning lights of the bus were honking, and in retaliation, drivers in front honked back. this woke up every family within a two block radius, disturbed the mating of indigenous birds, and all the carbon dioxides from the unmoving cars made a hole in the ozone layer the size of australila.

i took a school bus all throughout grade school and every morning, me and my sister would walk ten blocks, about half a mile uphill (both ways), to the neighborhood bus pickup, where about three other kids would wait for bus-driver jose to come in our clattering yellow school bus. while we waited, we chatted and played red light-green light-1-2-3. it was always fun and i believe i learned more about playing, patience, and friendship from waiting for the bus than i did from actually attending grade school.

i simply cannot fathom while today’s children idly wait for the school bus to come from their own doorsteps, within sight and earshot of their fellow students who live two houses down. it is not like they are in wheelchairs and crutches and need assistance to walk. sure, all the kids looked obese, bi-polar, and anemic but that’s all the more reason to have them walk a few blocks to a bus stop where all the children in the neighborhood can be picked up all at the same time. this would relieve congestion on the roads, bring the passenger pigeon back from extinction, and raise up a generation of fitter, more happy children. instead, sending our children to school by bus is teaching them that door to door car service is the norm, that their lives are more important than the lives of the other motorists on the road, and that being lazy is a good thing.

on the other hand, this is still better than the alternative, which happens to be my bete noire: harried soccer moms in honda minivans carting their brood to school while talking on their cell phones.

unforgivable motoring sins

there are some mistakes you can make on the road that, even though they are quite annoying, are excusable. for example, ending up in a right turn only lane when you don’t need to make a right turn, or driving an suv. however, just as jesus said that sins against the holy spirit are unforgivable, there exist a few errors that a motorist can commit that are unforgivable.

1. not pulling into an intersection when making a left turn on a one lane road.
2. driving slowly in the left lane of a motorway.
3. crossing the white line painted on the ground indicating where cars should stop at a red light.

these three things are all terrible things you can do to fellow motorists on the road. #1 holds up half the world, #2 infuriates the huge queue of cars you’ve inadvertently created, and #3 kills both the window licker taking his turn too quickly and the philistine who crossed that white line.

i am so certain that if the transit police crack down on the behavior listed above, we could cure road rage, mend the hole in the ozone layer, and restore the ravaged amazon rain forest. blood pressures would drop for drivers and pedestrians, civilians and police, men and women. spirits would be raised and people would smile at each other on the roads – “you go first,” “no YOU go first.” trees would hug you and foxes would blow kisses at you as you drove by at a gas efficient 55mph because traffic was flowing smoothly. extinct species of snails would come back to life, the polar ice caps would heal, and we could lessen our nation’s addiction on foreign oil.

in addition, my daily commute to and from work would be greatly improved and after all, isn’t that what really matters?

a city of brotherly shove

i haven’t ranted about philadephia’s crime in a while, but it is hard to avoid all the headlines our beloved city is making today.

in the past four days, three police officers have been shot. officer charles cassidy was shot in the head last night during an attempted robbery of a dunkin donuts in north philadelphia. the article made it to the front page of cnn. officer cassidy passed away a few hours ago at albert einstein medical center.

despite the occasional quips i make about police officers (9 parts hypocrite, 1 part bully), i actually deeply respect (non traffic enforcement) police officers. my worst day equates to their every day. the places in the city that i avoid are the places that they are assigned to patrol. they run into burning buildings and collapsed tunnels to save complete strangers. never in my wildest dreams would i ever oppose a police officer, let alone confront one head-on and shoot at one.

what sort of lawlessness has fallen over the city, that criminals have a mindset that killing cops is something they can do?

how can so much money be spent on fighting “terrorism” in iraq when there is still so much wrong with our own backyards?

as a result of all these shootings, capital punishment in pennslyvania is being re-examined, and i think that’s a jolly good idea.

1) prison doesn’t work to correcting criminals. if anything, criminals emerge hardened and with more connections to other murderers and pedophiles
2) punishments must fit crimes. if the crimes are getting worse, so should the punishments.
3) lets face it, lethal injections, electric chairs, and hangings are a much greater deterrent than spending a few months in prison. a few months in prison means free food and a chance to kick it back with your best mates. electrocution means that they’ll need a spatula to scrape your remains from the chair. the choice is easy, even for a thug with a 2nd grade level education.

the real solution to fix philadephia’s crime problem? better parents, a better school system, and God.