Archive for October, 2008

And I mean really fell down. Hard. Like, throwing all your worldly possessions into the wind to catch yourself as you fall, leaving a debris field behind you as you lean forward with ever increasing flat footed heavy steps only to lean forward far enough to get to the point of no return and crash. Yea, that hard.

For me, it was about a year ago. A buddy of mine was at my house. He had come over to show me the new car he had bought. Not a “NEW” car in the common sense of the word, but new to him. It was a Ford Festiva (yea, it’s and oldie), and it was a stick shift. He had plans of making some sort of Redneck hump jumping, trail riding, mud skipping go cart out of it.

I walked him out to his car as he was leaving. He got in, and turned the key when I heard that all too familiar GGRRRIIINNDDDD noise coming from under the hood. Dead Battery. I thought about grabbing some jumper cables and hooking them up real quick to get him on his way, but then thought out loud, “Nah, I’ll just push you. Once I get you rolling, dump the clutch and it will start right up.”

I was leaned forward pretty far with my hands on the back hatch, but my driveway is on a slight slope, and it was a Ford Festiva that I was pushing, (Hell, I probably weighed more than the car did) so I had no problem getting him rolling.

He dumped the clutch a lot sooner than I expected. And he floored it. The object that I was holding on to (while I was leaning very far forward) shot out in front of me like it was in a competition to make it on the next “The Fast and The Furious” movie.

My feet immediately began slamming the asphalt with big flat footed “plops” as my body tried feverishly to catch up to its own center of gravity while my arms pinwheeled out of control.

Have you ever seen a race car go into a long skid, then suddenly start flipping end over end and coming apart? That was me.

I skidded and tumbled, eventually coming to rest on my back. My worldly possessions were scattered behind, beside and beyond me. My phone was out in front of me, my jacket was behind me, and my underwear lay beside me, whimpering.

My dignity was gone, and my friend had sped around the curve without even a glance back at the carnage that lay in his wake. I was all alone. Bruised and battered, I made my way back to the house where I soaked in a hot salt bath for hours.

So what about you? When was the last time you fell down?

Tags: Asphalt, Center Of Gravity, Clutch, common sense, Dead Battery, Debris Field, Ford Festiva, Hatch, Hump, Jumper Cables, Mud, New Car, Oldie, Plops, Point Of No Return, Possesions, Race Car, Redneck, Slope, Stick Shift, Worldly Possessions

OMG!

CLEARFIELD, Pa. — It took Brad Sciullo 4 hours and 39 minutes to finish a marathon. A meat marathon, that is. The 5-foot-11, 180-pound western Pennsylvania chef is the first person to eat a monstrosity called the Beer Barrel Belly Bruiser: a 15-pound burger with toppings and a bun that brought the total weight to 20.2 pounds.

The mountain of beef is the product of Denny’s Beer Barrel Pub, about 100 miles northeast of Pittsburgh in Clearfield.

Sciullo, 21, of Uniontown, said he was surprised he finished the sandwich Monday. “About three hours into it, things got tough,” he said.

When asked what possessed him to eat a burger that big, Sciullo said: “I wanted to see if I could.”

The burger included a bun, lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, onions, mild banana peppers and a cup each of mayonnaise, ketchup, mustard and relish, pub owner Dennis Liegey said.

For completing the challenge in the under-five-hour time limit, Sciullo won $400, three T-shirts, a certificate “and a burger hangover, as I call it,” Liegey said.

http://pantagraph.com/articles/2008/10/17/wtf/doc48f8806c88d26576599188.txt

How can a human stomach hold that much food at once? Seems impossible!

Tags: Ap Photo, Beer Barrel Pub, Bun, Cheese Burger, Clearfield Pa, Cramer, Denny, Hangover, Human Stomach, Ketchup, Lettuce, Mayonnaise, Mild Banana Peppers, Monstrosity, Omg, Pound Burger, Pub Owner, Relish, Uniontown Pa, Western Pennsylvania

When I was little, I figured there were three countries named after food: Turkey, Greece and Rice. My mom told me more than once that Rice was not a country, but I didn’t believe her. I pretended to be convinced. There was no point in arguing with a grownup who clearly knew so little of the world. I decided to travel to Rice when I grew up. I’d send her a postcard.

In Kindergarten I figured out where babies came from. Armed with my limited knowledge of anatomy I realized that a man stuck his penis into a vagina, whereupon one of his testicles would shoot out and implant itself inside the womb. The testicle was, of course, a small baby surrounded by a thin, protective membrane.

An informal survey of my friends revealed that none of us had more than two nuts. So the real mystery was not how babies were made, but how families ended up with more than two kids.

I believed that the people on television were actually miniature people who lived inside my television. I convinced myself that if I waved to them and talked to them, eventually they would wave and talk back. It used to disappoint me to no end that the people inside had no interest in talking to me.

Strangely enough, now that I’m older and no longer believe that miniature people live inside my television, I still find that I have a habit of gesturing and talking to the people on my television.

I also thought that when I listened to the radio the band was playing live. And when we turned the radio up some guy that was recording the band made them play louder.

So what about you? What did you use to believe?

Tags: Anatomy, babies, Food Turkey, Greece, Grownup, Habit, Informal Survey, Kindergarten, Mom, Mystery, Nuts, Penis Vagina, Postcard, radio, Small Baby, Television, Testicle, testicles, Womb

I received this via email, and felt the need to share. Though I normally tend to stay away from politics on this blog, I just couldn’t resist this one.

Bar Stool Economics

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

• The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
• The fifth would pay $1.
• The sixth would pay $3.
• The seventh would pay $7.
• The eighth would pay $12.
• The ninth would pay $18.
• The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that’s what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. “Since you are all such good customers, he said, I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20.” Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes, so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men…the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his “fair share?” They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay. And so:

• The fifth=2 0man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
• The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% savings).
• The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% savings).
• The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
• The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
• The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings. “I only got a dollar out of the $20,” declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, “but he got $10!” “Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a dollar, too. It’s unfair he got ten times more than I!” “That’s true!!” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!” “Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison. “We didn’t get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!”

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

David R. Kamerschen

Ph.D. Professor of Economics

University of Georgia

For those who understand, no explanation is needed.

For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.

Tags: Array, Bar Owner, Bar Stool, beer, Blog, Curve, Drinks, Economics, Email, Fair Share, Four Men, Six Men, Sixth Man, Tenth Man, Windfall

I’m not taking it in. I’ll tell you that right now. However cute it may be, I’m not of a mind to take in a cat. Nor does the wife want a cat. Which is fine by me. Pinkster, however, would be ecstatic.

But…

But as I was taking a quick walk, I was almost back to my home when I heard the distinct meow of a kitten. Foolishly, I stopped, looked around, and spotted a little gray-on-white kitten who ran right up to the wife and me.

So we walked the few remaining steps back to our home, kitten following close behind. I stopped on the porch and sat down in the chair a few minutes before going inside. The kitten hung out by my feet. And that’s when I noticed it had a cough. The wife and I decided there would be no harm in giving it a little food and milk to help it through the night. It devoured both. Before too long I went inside, perfectly content to leave the kitten to its fate. After all, it’s not all that cold this time of year in WV. It might actually survive as a feral cat, or it might find some other sap to take it in.

Then I found myself looking outside through the window every few minutes. The cat was sitting in one of our patio chairs, presumably soaking up the heat remaining from my ample bottom. I decided to take a few old towels and set them on the chair so the kitten could cozy up.

Now, five hours later, the kitten is still sitting on the chair, staring at me with its adorable little kitty-cat eyes every time I peek through the blinds. What am I to do? I’m not taking it in, but I can’t in good conscience let it starve. But is it any better to let it die of exposure? I can’t say that it is. Still, I’ve already done the kitten a huge favor by giving it some food and milk. Surely I’ve added days to its life expectancy. Maybe even given it the chance it needs to survive. How much more would my conscience expect of me?

Tags: Bastard, Blinds, Cat Eyes, Cat Sitting, Conscience, Cough, Cutsey, Fate, Feral Cat, Few Minutes, Kitten, Life Expectancy, Little Food, Little Kitty Cat, Meow, Peek, Porch, Sap, Time Of Year, Towels