Answering my own questions

Yomper's right. I really should have answered my own questions. Or to quote him, it would be like 'just walking away with the Mardi Gras beads without paying for them'. So, my answers to my own questions...

1. What is your opinion of the spork?
The spork is the unholy union between the spoon and the fork. I find the fork part to be fairly useless, leaving you with a pointy demon spoon.

2. Gnomes: good or evil?
definitely evil. All of them. Even the Travelocity Gnome. You know he's plotting something. Look into his eyes, they're nothing but pure evil.

3. What do you think of your dodgeball playing experiences?
I have a hypothesis that one's dogeball enjoyment has an inverse relationship in proportion to one's schoolage geekiness. That said, I really dreaded every time we had to line up for dodgeball in gym class. Like Yomper, we played against a brick wall in graded school. We had a small school so the boys and girls had gym together until 8th grade. The only redeeming factor was that in highschool, the genders were separated, leaving me the largest person on the dodgeball wall with 8 years of frustration to get out of my system. But I'm not a violent person, really.

4. What mythical creature or fictional character do you fear most? (or would, if it existed)
Gnomes. Nothing but pure evil. And those flying monkeys from The Wizard of Oz.

5. Who would you bet on if the Teletubbbies have a Steel Cage match against the Tweenies with Barney the Dinosaur as a special guest referee?
My money's on the Teletubbies. They've got those things on top of their heads that can be used as weapons. And I don't think Barney would be able to call it a foreign weapon.

Random Questions That Need Answering

This week's Friday Fiver is kind of pointless. Everything they ask can be seen in my profile here on the blog. Let's have some more thought provoking questions, people. Below is what Friday Fiver asked.

1. Age?
2. Sex?
3. Location?
4. Single?
5. How long have you been doing the fridayfiver?

Honestly, I may need to stop posting these. But then I'd have to come up with some original material. Here are some questions I think are more fun and thought provoking. Feel free to answer.

1. What is your opinion of the spork?
2. Gnomes: good or evil?
3. What do you think of your dodgeball playing experiences?
4. What mythical creature or fictional character do you fear most? (or would, if it existed)
5. Who would you bet on if the Teletubbbies have a Steel Cage match against the Tweenies with Barney the Dinosaur as a special guest referee?

Embarassing Music

I was having a conversation a few days ago about music. It started off with the usual 'who do you like' and then moved on to something a little more interesting. What albums have you owned that you're a little ashamed to admit now? What quetionable music choices did you shell out good money for? What do you still have in your collection that you'd rather get caught listening to? I'm going to exclude single songs that have been downloaded, unless you happened to download the entire album. If it makes you feel better, a friend of mine actually admitted to have owned not one, but two Vanilla Ice cds (I was unaware there was another album). So here's some of my gems....

Embarassing music I once owned
House of Pain (we all loved Jump Around)
Richard Marx
Hootie and Blowfish

Music I still own and listen to occasionally
Falco's Greatest Hits (beacuse Rock me Amadeus and Der Kommisar are so much better in the original German)
Daft Punk
Every Metallica album (yep. All of them. Even ReLoad. And I still listen to them.)
Garth Brooks - No Fences
Romeo & Juliet Soundtrack
Blood Hound Gang (One Feirce Beer Coaster and Hooray for Boobies)
Skidrow
Eminem - Eminem Show
8 Mile Soundtrack
a hole bunch of Ultravox (and I listen to that a lot too)
Butt Boy - now here's a cd with a story behind it. Actually, if you can get past the name, it's actually some good newage/trance music. Good for background music. Although it' s a little embarrassing explaining to people why you own something called Butt Boy.

In case you were developing too much self esteem

I was driving the other day and heard an ad on the radio for a product called 'HeightMax'. The ad started off with a father bemoaning the fact that his 15 year old son wasn't tall enough. My first thought was lay off the kid, jackass, he's not done with puberty yet. My next thought was why don't you bring this up with the family doctor? Apparently drug/supplement manufacturers have decided that they've finally beaten the dead horse that is the magical weight loss pill. Now it's time to bring out a new product. What else are people insecure about?

I checked out their website. It's a fun place to go for those of us of less than stellar height (yes, this includes me and my stubby little legs). I searched high and low and nowhere on the website did I find a list of ingredients (necessary packaging for anything being consume within the body). I can only assume that the ingredients are listed on the bottle itself. The only clue to the ingredients was found in this statement

Our proprietary, trademark patent-pending formula is a mixture of herbal, oriental and western supplements that gives you the required balance of vitamins, minerals and amino acids that helps promote height and boost the immune system.

Now I tend to be a little on the cynical side when looking at these types of natural enhancers, be they weight loss, 'male enhacement', or height. At best these pills do nothing and at worst cause serious health problems (anyone remember ephedrine?) The FDA can do nothing to get these pills off the market, or at least force manufacturers to prove their effectiveness, because the pills are marketed as dietary supplements, rather than medications.

In case you took a look at the website and still don't feel that you really need to be taller, there is a section titled '& Reasons To Try It'. This was my favorite reason, listed as #2

SHORTER PEOPLE DON’T HAVE MUCH FUN
If you have ever heard people say that shorter people do not have as much fun as taller people, you may have listened with skepticism. By clicking on the article below you will find that this premise is in fact true.

As you get taller, you will not only gain more confidence, make more money and improve your self-esteem, but also earn the respect of your colleagues both at work and in your community. If this is what you aspire for, then HeightMax™ should be part of your daily life.

I didn't read the article HeightMax pointed to, but even if I did I have a feeling that it wouldn't explain how being taller would help me earn more money or respect. Unlike weightloss pill ads that show hundredsof pictures of amazon like women with rock hard six pack abs that they can crack walnuts with, HeightMax is decidedly short (pun intended) of pictures of really tall people. There is only 1 picture of a group of happy, smiling teens, shown from the waist up. WTF? Where are all the pictures of the freakishly tall? I want to see some before and after pictures.

This wonderful product is aimed at people between 12 and 25, to maximixe growth potential. At first glance this sounds reasonable. I don't expect to grow another inch, dietary supplement or not. Then I got to thinking. If you're feeding this to your kid as he or she starts to go through puberty, how will know if it's working? This is when kids generally start sprouting up anyway. Say little Johnny starts taking HeightMax when he's 14 and one of the shortest kids in his class. He takes it everyday for the next couple of years like a good little boy. Around 16 or 17 little Johnny is now over 6 feet tall. Is it time to thank HeightMax? Or, maybe, genetics took over at that point?

The Friday Fiver

Or Things you never wanted to know about me and didn't want to ask...

1. Are you timely or always late?
It depends on the time of day. I am not a morning person. I make every effort to be on time in the morning, but I just can't seem to get out of my own way. I'm usually fashionably late.

2. Do you wear a watch?
I used to, but I broke it and have yet to replace it. Now it's hard to tell my left from my right.

3. What is the most important event you have been late for?
My period

4. What kind of system you have for keeping track of your bills?
Most of them are automatically debited from my checking account. Other than that, everything is due either on the 15th or the 30th when I get paid. And what does that have to do with being late? Is this going to be reported on my credit report?

5. What is your favorite time of day?
Aound 4:30 when I get out of work.

Yeah, I know it's Tuesday, but...

So I'm stealing a page out of Yomper's blog and trying out the Friday Fiver. And yeah, I know it's Tuesday, but then again I operate on Rafuse standard time. The Friday Fiver hosts a nifty little list of 5 questions that are posted the their website every Friday, hence the name. Bloggers everywhere can post the answers to said questions in a blatant attempt to get out of thinking up something original to blog about. So without further ado, here is my first attempt at the Friday Fiver. If anyone actually reads this thing (I generally feel that this blog is merely an extention of my inner monologue), feel free to post your own answers in the comments.

And now, the Friday Fiver...

1. Have you broken any New Year's resolutions yet?
Well, no, since I didn't make any to begin with. I resolved to never make another silly New Year's resolution I have no intention on keeping.

2. Broken any bones?
I am terribly accident prone.

3. When is the last time someone else broke your heart?
I'm not answering this question. I can picture a lot of little under 25's crying about how wronged they've been in love. To them I say this - shut up, put on some good angry music, and get over it. We've all had bad relationships. This is why Nine Inch Nails and other angst ridden music is so popular. Suffice to say, Chupa and I have never been happier.

4. What is the most expensive item you've ever broken?
As a biomed tech, I've fried my fair share of medical equipment. I'm not sure of the actaul cash value, but I know it's not cheap.

5. What phrase are your tired of hearing over and over again?
Fair and balance news. That's just a load of poop. And my other personal favorite - 9/11 changed everything. Yeah, it did. It gave a corrupt administration a free pass to do whatever the hell they wanted and if anyone disagrees with them, they're either traitors, letting the terrorists win, weak on national security, or demoralizing our troops.