Friday Blogthing: Apparently I'm also a Japanese schoolgirl

I never really put much stock in these online quizzes/surveys/personality tests.

But it's spooky how accurate a profile about your bathroom habits can be (except for the caricature of the Japanese school girl. No way my eyes are that big).

What Your Bathroom Habits Say About You

You are very independent and self-centered. You don't solve other people's problems - and you don't expect them to solve yours. Your idea of fashion is jeans and a t-shirt. Clean, if you're lucky. You are a little shy and easily embarrassed. You often wonder if you are normal. In relationships, you are practical and realistic. You have a romantic side, but you only let it out when it's appropriate.

What Do Your Bathroom Habits Say About You?

tagged: bathroom, habits, Friday, blog, quiz, profile, test

Cool change

So I walk in to Starbucks across the street yesterday for my customary afternoon double espresso.

I give the barrista my order, make a little small talk and whip out the two bucks to pay for my tiny cup of concentrated caffeine.

As you know, a double espresso at Starbucks costs about a $1.85. I typically give two dollars and tell the kid behind the counter to drop change into the tip jar.

I'm guessing the barrista knew this, because when he rang up my charge the register showed that I was owed change of $9,999.12. Some tip!

tagged: Starbucks, coffee, tip, change, barrista, dollar

Slogan time again

The Kansas City Star, apotheosis of journalistic integrity that it is, has launched a contest for a new unofficial city slogan to go with the new ideas and administration of the new KCMO Mayor Mark Funkhouser.

And since I riffed severely on the state of New Jersey when they were going through their state motto crisis, I thought I'd try to give equal time to Kansas City, Mo. So here are a few lame thoughts to go with the lame thoughts posted as comments to The Star's article:

• Kansas City: Jazz + Funk = Junk.
• Kansas City, leading the way in steel-plated streets since 1993.
• Kansas City, the loosest slots aren't in the casinos, they're in Westport
• Kansas City: In Your Face, Omaha!

tagged: Kansas City, slogan, contest, Missouri, Omaha, Mark Funkhouser, jazz

That's not my banana!

I'm crazy with conference calls all morning, so I'm focused on taking notes, looking at PowerPoint presentations and contributing as little as possible to the call.

Finally during a break between calls, I try to do a little tidying up around my cube. That's when I notice that there was a banana peel in my trashcan.


Only, I hadn't eaten a banana all morning! In fact, I was so busy with conference call meetings that I had only left my cube for a few minutest to get the requisite cup of coffee after starting up my pc.

My superior powers of deduction have led me to conclude that some socially defective cube drone was eating their breakfast while passing my cube and, instead of disposing of the refuse properly, they decided to dump it in my own private trash can.

So now I have to deal with the smell of rotting banana peel all afternoon? I don't think so, Sunshine. I don't know about you, but that's not the way we roll in my little plot of the cube farm.

I deftly exchanged my trash can with the offending peel for a trashcan from a cube a few aisles away. I think it was an unoccupied cube. But if you work in cube 1B963, well, er, sorry 'bout that.

tagged: corporate, office, trash, banana, cube

YouTube Tuesday: Brutha can't drive

Here's the scenario: You're a famous actor, you're doing a movie about fast cars, and you have a chance to drive a $1 MILLION Ferrari Enzo.

Here's the result:


tagged: movie, YouTube, video, Eddie Griffin, Ferrari, Enzo, crash

Dream job?

Let's face it, most of us aren't in a job we love. Personally, I merely like my job, but I always have this nagging thought that there's probably something better.

Then I caught this little nugget. It looks like KMBC Channel 9 News, home of geezersauraus rex Larry Moore, is looking for a new weather dude/wench.

In my mind, there are pros and cons to any career choice and you have to weigh these carefully before telling you current employer to foxtrot oscar. So, regarding this opportunity...

Pros

• You don't have to know a thing about meteorology.
• Chromakey+Maria Antonia+remote control=tons of fun.
• I have more hair than Micheal Mahoney.
• Endless opportunities to riff on Larry Moore.

Cons

• I'd have to develop a "sky is falling" attitude about thunderstorms.
• I've been told I have a face for radio and a voice for print.
• Endless opportunities to be hazed by Larry Moore.

All in all, I'd say it's worth a shot. I'm off to polish up my resume and get my audition tape ready.
tagged: media, job, career, meteorology, Maria Antonia, Larry Moore, Kansas City

Carnival time

John B. has posted this week's edition of the Kansas Guild of Bloggers carnival over at Blog Meridian.

Great posts all around, including one from yours truly. So if you have a few extra minutes to kill while avoiding any productive activity, be sure to check it out.

And don't forget to submit an item for next week's edition, which will be hosted at Thoughts from Kansas.

tagged: Kansas, blog, blogger, carnival, KGB

The More You Know: What's that smell?

The next time you're in Houston and you smell something terrible, it might be a dude roasting his ex-girlfriend on his balcony.

But just to be sure, here's a primer from The Slate on what to look smell for

Burning muscle tissue gives off an aroma similar to beef in a frying pan, and body fat smells like a side of fatty pork on the grill. But you probably won't mistake the scent of human remains for a cookout. That's because a whole body includes all sorts of parts that we'd rarely use for a regular barbecue. For example, cattle are bled after slaughter, and the beef and pork we eat contain few blood vessels. When a whole human body burns, all the iron-rich blood still inside can give the smell a coppery, metallic component. Full bodies also include internal organs, which rarely burn completely because of their high fluid content; they smell like burnt liver. Firefighters say that cerebrospinal fluid burns up in a musky, sweet perfume.

tagged: smell, human, flesh, burning

Monday Malaise: Tell me something I don't know

I've seen this sort of thing on other blogs, and since I'm a radical conformist I realized I had no choice but to post a few random thoughts myself.

• I feel a little uncomfortable shaking all the hands at church during that time when you're supposed to get up and shake everybody's hand. I just feel like I'm picking up all kinds of germs. I actually sit with my "shaking" hand away from my body for the rest of the service.
  


• I've always thought I would die in a fit of spontaneous combustion, probably after the Democrats nominate Hilary Clinton for president.


• I have a horrible compulsion to peel and chew my fingernails. It's a shameful, disgusting habit I know, and it's a demon I constantly battle.


• I think gravity is an interesting theory.


• I wear only two styles of sock, white (on the weekends) and black (during the work week). Seriously, I buy multiple copies of the same black sock so I don't have to worry about having "pairs" of socks.


• Sometimes I think the hokey pokey is what it's all about.


• I absolutely almost loose it in crowded elevators, especially if people only take the elevator up one or two flights. I mean COME ON!


• I hold a very dim view of people who spend too much time working on their MySpace pages (not you of course, just other people).


• I would never actually do this, but sometimes, when I'm driving at night down a two-lane highway and I see the headlights of an approaching car in the other lane, I wonder what it would be like to veer into the other lane at the last second and get into a head-on collision. Please don't hate me.


• I wonder if anybody really "fits in," I mean really.
  

tagged: personal, thoughts, fingernails, elevator, myspace, driving, collision

Victory for wanking and free speech

I wanted to give a shout out to the federal judge in Philadelphia who dealt another blow to government efforts to control Internet pornography.

In overturning a 1998 U.S. law which makes it a crime for commercial website operators to let children access "harmful" material, Judge Lowell Reed Jr. essentially said the right of free speech outweighs parents' rights to have the government raise their pervy kids.

In his opinion, Reed wrote:

"Perhaps we do the minors of this country harm if (free speech) protections, which they will with age inherit fully, are chipped away in the name of their protection."

That's a good point. Everybody just needs to ease up a little and keep things in perspective.

I contend that if you’re a parent and you're worried about your kid seeing pornography on the internet, then you're probably already "with it" enough to use any of the myriad of blockers and filters available to prevent that sort of thing.

Besides, as the article points out there are bigger concerns for parents of connected kids to worry about such as predators on social networking sites like MySpace, identity theft through spyware, and the contagious geezerhood of Larry Moore.

tagged: free, speech , wanking, porn , Larry Moore, Judge Lowell Reed, internet

Headlines: Biting criticism

Back in high school, a friend of mine used to say he wanted to be a PE teacher.

He thought it would be cool to have summers off, wear sweats to work, maybe coach the JV basketball team.

I'm not sure if he ever pursued the dream. I lost track of him when I went to college. But I'm guessing if he had seen this story, he would rethink his grand plan.

A former Woodburn coach has gotten a state reprimand for biting the thigh of one of half a dozen wrestlers who tried to give him a wedgie. At a December 2005 practice, the Teacher Standards and Practices Commission said, team members tried to give Peter Porath a wedgie — jerking his undershorts upward.

I'm sorry. Maybe this makes me insensitive, but I gotta call a big fat BULLSHIT on this one.

Just so we understand what happened here: Half a dozen adolescent cro-magnons think it would be cool to attack the teacher and wedgie him (thank science they weren't going for the dreaded Atomic Wedgie), and the school board reprimands the teacher for trying to defend himself.

That teacher got freakin' screwed! The state board

"put him on probation for two years and said Porath must complete a class on appropriate behavior and write a public apology to the student he bit.

Public apology my ass! What kind of lesson are they teaching these kids?

If they asked for an apology from me it would go something like "I'm sorry I didn't have my posse with me to kick the shit out of those punks like they deserve."

tagged: headlines, news, wrestler, teacher, Peter Porath, Woodburn

YouTube Tuesday: Once Upon a Time in a Cage

I'm not so sure how I feel about mashup culture.

On the one hand it seems like cheating, especially in artistic endeavors, to take two (or more) works completed by someone else, combine them in some way and call it a new work of art. I mean, if I drew a beard and mustache on the Mona Lisa, that's just vandalism, right?

It just seems to signify a lack of original thought that is becoming epidemic in our culture.

But on the other hand, there are examples like today's YouTube Tuesday entry. YouTube member jthelms has taken scenes from one of my favorite westerns, Once Upon a Time in the West, and added a soundtrack from Canadian indie rock group Arcade Fire's My Body is a Cage.

The result approaches sublimity as the haunting mood of the chords make a perfect complement to the beautiful scenes of Sergio Leone's cinematography. I've watched this at least a dozen times and it still seems fresh and important to me. Let me know what you think.

tagged: movie, YouTube, video, western, music, Once Upon a Time in the West, Sergio Leone, Arcade Fire, culture, My Body is a Cage

Hollmark

It's been a few months since I posted anything about the new addition to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (you can see my previous posts on this subject here, here, here and here).

My friend and inside source, Matt the Architect, has pretty much wrapped up his involvement with the project, which is set to open to the public in June.

If you're at all interested in Kansas City and/or architecture, then you no doubt are aware of the controversy this project has spurred locally. Some keyboard critics have likened the structures to Butler Buildings, calling them an eyesore and an insult to the original neoclassical museum.

Personally I like the new addition, and not just because I have a friend who helped build it. I applaud the design daring and I'm glad the powers that be were willing to take a leap to the unconventional rather than settle for the same old thing.

And even though the rank and file plebs of Kansas City might have their doubts, the design patricians seem to be responding positively. Design journal Metropolis posted an in depth critique of the project last week, in which it calls the building an elegant, magic light box.

But the most delicate and entrancing aspect of the building is the way it pushes the current ideal of drawing natural light into exhibition spaces to its limit.

The article notes (in sometimes painful detail) the thought processes that went into solving the lighting challenges that come with building a museum out of translucent glass.

Architect Stephen Holl noted such challenges were expected, but working with light is the reason he took this commission in the first place.

"For an architect whose passion has been light from the beginning, it's really a rare opportunity to get to work with the sequence of natural light in a gallery and then have the building itself be kind of made out of light."

Read the article for more on how the particular lighting issues were addressed. There's a really good image gallery that includes some of the design sketches as well as shots of the nearly finished addition.

tagged: Steven Holl, Nelson Atkins, art, architecture, Kansas City, museum, Metropolis

They don't call it a Quarter Pounder with cheese?

I saw this on mental_floss and wanted to pass it on in celebration of St. Patrick's Day.

Mental_floss is helping us hone our snake-fighting kung-fu with this worksheet featuring history's most famous snake fighters, St. Patrick (who drove the snakes out of Ireland) and Samuel L. Jackson (who kicked major snake ass in Snakes on a Plane).

Here's the worksheet (or click the image below to embiggen). The instructions, from mental_floss:

...Decide which statements apply to St. Patrick (circle the shamrock), which apply to Samuel L. Jackson (circle the Royale w/ Cheese) and which apply to both (circle both). It’s tougher than you think.

tagged: snake, St. Patrick's Day, Samuel L. Jackson, Snakes On A Plane, quiz

Friday Blogthing: Your Leprechaun Name

This is appropriate in many ways.

Your Leprechaun Name Is:

Little Potfiller

What's Your Leprechaun Name?

tagged: leprechaun, blogthing, Friday, St. Patrick's Day

Sometimes a scimitar is just a scimitar

Some coworkers were discussing the movie 300 earlier today, noting that it brought in a staggering $71 million in its first weekend (nearly enough to cover KCMO's TIF tax bill for a year).

For those of you not paying attention to current events (or for those of you in Independence), 300 is the new motion picture adaptation of the comic book graphic novel by Frank Miller. It depicts, in a loosely historical account, a battle between the ancient Greeks and ancient Persians.

Let me be clear, I haven't seen the movie yet. And based on my Supermodel Wife's taste in cinema, I probably won't see it until it comes to HBO and I can DVR it.

But I have read/heard a lot about it. According to my many inside sources* it's essentially a wall-to-wall fighting fest with generous doses of CGI animated gore. Like Apocalypto without the storyline.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. Sometimes you just need an hour and a half of fantasy blood and guts to exorcise our baser savage instincts -- very much like NFL, hockey and KMBC Channel 9 News.

Of course, a person can interpret a book/movie/song/whatever in any way they want. But sometimes interpretation is taken way too far. Case in point is this AP story.

The hit American movie “300” has angered Iranians who say the Greeks-vs-Persians action flick insults their ancient culture and provokes animosity against Iran.

The offended Iranians say the movie denigrates them by portraying them as flamboyant, savage and evil. They say that the film is aimed at inflaming public opinion against Iran.

Frankly, I think the Iranians are giving Hollywood too much credit. Consider the source material (the original comic book graphic novel) and the audience for this movie (your 12-40 year old male) and I think you'll begin to see my point.

How many Americans from this demographic could even find Iran on a map? How many think of Persia in the context of anything but a rug?

Besides, if the Iranians are worried that people will think of them as decadent barbarians bent upon destruction, they might want to rethink their strategy of being an Islamist state with the stated goal of wiping the Jewish state off the map.

*© Greg Beck at Death's Door

tagged: movie , 300, Iran, Islam , Hollywood, Frank Miller, culture

Brooksidian

One of the annual traditions my family has developed is attending the Brookside St. Patrick's Day parade, which always takes place a week before St. Paddy's Day.

Admittedly, I'm not much of a parade guy. But being able to experience them through the eyes of our 4-year-old makes them much more enjoyable.

Anyway, does anyone else think the Brookside parade is loosing a little of its lustre? I dunno, it just seems like there used to be a lot more pageantry, more effort put into making the floats more festive. I seem to recall more costumes and costumes that were more elaborate.

To me it seemed like this year's parade was just a bunch of politicians in fancy cars. There were only a couple of floats.

I don't know if it's because some of the local stores are being run out of Brookside, but I got the impression that the businesses that did participate opted to just walk along and pass out fliers rather than build a decorated float. Doesn't seem like they quite got into the spirit of the event this year.

Anyway, that's just one man's opinion, and I admit that I'm not much in to parades anyway. If you were there, tell me what you thought.

In the meantime, here are some pics I snapped (and yes, that is KCMO mayoral candidate Mark Funkhouser dressed as a leprechaun).









tagged: St. Patrick's Day, Brookside, parade, family, Kansas City, float, green

Chinese checked

I followed a link posted by Dan at Gone Mild and found to my amusement that, like Dan, my blog has been banned by China.


I can only assume this is because of my recent rant against the poisonous food at China Star buffet at 95th and Metcalf.

But it's good to know that China is protecting all those little Chinese from the dangerous ideas that I spout out in this virtual fish wrap. Check your blog and let me know what you find out.

tagged: China, ban, blog, censorship, culture, free speech

YouTube Tuesday: La Traviata

The long-time reader of this virtual fish wrap will know that I'm kind of into opera. And since today's kind of a culture Tuesday, I'm posting another animated opera adaptation, this one from Giuseppe Verdi's La Traviata.

Interestingly enough, I find this entertaining not just for the music, but also for the dancing gobs of goo that remind me of a psychedelic mushroom trip I once took at a party in Niagara Falls (man, that was one crazy Yom Kippur!)



tagged: movie, YouTube, video, Verdi, music, opera, La Traviata, mushroom, culture

Nature's first green

The site of these first blooms near my office building brought to mind the famous poem by Robert Frost.

Nothing gold can stay

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

tagged: Robert Frost, spring, flowers, poetry, nature, Nothing gold can stay

Here's to your health

The Slate recently reported on some editorial shennanigans pulled by the John Edwards for President campaign in a promotional DVD in Iowa.

I personally think the criticism of Edwards' questionable edit is just a bit of hair splitting. What I'm really stoked about is that Edwards is making National Healthcare one of the primary planks in his campaign platform.

I can't tell you how long I've been waiting to get government healthcare. Why should I pay my hard-earned money to go sit in a waiting room for a few hours, just to have a overly-stressed general practitioner prescribe a course of antibiotics for whatever it is that I'm sick of?

Why should I dig deep into my own pocket to pay for generic prescription drugs when the government has the responsibility to do that for me?

If there's one thing that we know government can do well, it's healthcare. With Edwards as president, I'll finally get the quality of medical care that is currently reserved for government employees and military veterans.

tagged: Walter Reed, healthcare, John Edwards, medical, politics, policy

Friday Blogthing: TMI?

This may be a little too much information... but what the hell, it's Friday.

Your Penis Name Is...

Bavarian Beefstick

Penis Name Generator

tagged: penis, name, Friday, humor, Bavarian , Beefstick

Icing on the cake

Officials with the NHL, the Sprint Center and the Pittsburgh Penguins have been skating around a relocation of the hockey team for a few months.

It has been pretty widely accepted in the KC area that the sweet deal made by AEG, the managers of the new arena, was really nothing more than leverage for the Penguins organization to use against government officials in Pittsburgh.

But the leverage is taking longer than expected to move city, county and state officials to build a new Pittsburgh arena. And with each passing day, the Penguins ownership group gets closer to finding a new home.

Just the other day, they declared that they were at an impasse with officials in Pittsburgh. They have since met with the mayor of Las Vegas and approached city officials in Houston.

Meanwhile, the AEG folks aren't waiting in the penalty box. Though details were lacking, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported that AEG has sweetened it's already sweet offer to the Pengins.

Kansas City upped the ante in an attempt to lure the Penguins from Pittsburgh, Wednesday.

Penguins' co-owner Ronald Burkle met Wednesday with officials from AEG, which will operate the new Sprint Center in Kansas City. AEG has sweetened its offer to the Penguins.

"If the Penguins make a decision to relocate, we are absolutely positive that they will not find a better offer or a better market than they will get in Kansas City," said Michael Roth, vice president of communications for AEG. "We don't spend our days worrying about whether or not they will leave Pittsburgh, but we do strongly believe that Kansas City is where they will end up."

While I still think the odds are long that the Penguins will end up in KC, the Lloyd Christmas side of my brain is sayin' "So you're telling me there's a chance."

tagged: hockey, Kansas City, Pittsburgh Penguins, Sprint Center, Mario Lemieux, sports, NHL, Las Vegas

I'm Number 1!

I have no reason to be pissed about scoring a perfect 100% on this quiz about Tom Hanks' movie career.

All those other quizzes I sucked at are just water flowing under a bridge. I admit I was a little daunted at first, but I didn't turn yellow. I just went with the flow, since I didn't want to flush away this opportunity to show what a whiz I can be.

Go and try it yourself (ladies, feel free to sit down). I'm not going to leak any of the answers to you. If you can't get at least a few of these right, urine trouble. But by all means, like Tom Hanks, you should five pees a chance.

tagged: humor, movie quiz, Tom Hanks, pop culture

Headlines: Condom nation

Condom applicator wins design award

Design gurus in South Africa have declared the Pronto condom applicator the "the Most Beautiful Object in South Africa."

I look at that thing (you can see a video demonstration here) and I think (now this could just be me) that it looks waaaaaay too small.

tagged: condom, applicator, South Africa, Pronto

No more wedgies

I may have mentioned this before, but I think it bears repeating.

The "wedge salad" is the most ridiculous culinary fraud ever perpetrated upon the American dining public.

I mean come on people! This isn't a salad! It's a chunk of lettuce with possibly some peppers thrown in for color. Have we become so lazy that we can't chop up the lettuce? Are we so lacking in creativity that we can't toss on a couple of cherry tomatoes or cucumbers? This is like giving someone a loaf of bread and calling it a sandwich.

How have we let our democracy get to the point where a quarter-head of lettuce is considered a salad. That's not the America I know.

Hell, that's not even Mexico.

tagged: food, lettuce, salad, fraud, culture, cusine

YouTube Tuesday: Sun, Sun, Sun... Here it comes.

I'm taking this moment to declare that Spring has officially sprung.

Weatherwise, last weekend was amazing. And even though we're seeing slightly cooler temps today, I'll still take sunny and 55 over cold and wet anytime.

Don't get me wrong, I was pleased with the nice soaking showers we had last week. It's good to have something like that to wash away the winter grime. But in a lot of ways it has been a long, cold, lonely winter. And days like yesterday just make me want to skip work and sit on the roof and O'Dowd's with a Boulevard and the NCAA tournament.

But what do I have to thank for this springtime pleasantness? Everybody's favorite celestial body, The Sun.

Today's video is a reminder that the sun isn't just a big magical firey god to which we need to continue our monthly human sacrifices. Though it is that, it is so much more.



tagged: movie, YouTube, video, religion, God, science, weather, music, They Might Be Giants

The very model of a modern hypocritical

I know I'm about a week late with this story, but based on recent events I can see that I have greatly underestimated the new Democratic congressional majority.

I posted earlier that the "new boss is the same as the old boss" regarding the new political majority.

But I figured it would take more than three months for the Democratic hypocrisy drive to hit warp 10.

We've seen the House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi renege on promises of bipartisanship by denying Republicans a vote on their proposals during congressional debates. And remember those 5-day congressional work weeks she promised? Yeah.. not so much. They've only had one so far.

(Of course there's Al Gore's use of private jets and his exorbitant electric bills while he tells us all to conserve energy. But that's more of a general hypocrisy since he's no longer in the Senate.)

Then we come to the great Democratic promise to make this "the most ethical Congress in history." And how do they accomplish this? By giving Rep. William Jefferson, D-Louisiana, a seat on the House Homeland Security Committee.

Jefferson is entangled in a federal bribery investigation related to his dealings with a telecommunications company. Federal investigators found $90,000 in cash in his freezer in 2005 after Jefferson allegedly accepted a $100,000 bribe from an FBI informant.

Contrast this with the news of Republican Congressman Bob Ney, who resigned last November after pleading guilty to using his political post for personal gain. He's now in federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison with former Survivor star Richard Hatch.

As the abuses keep coming, it seems the best that Pelosiites can do is play the "it's our turn" card, saying that since the Republicans did it for the past six years, now the Democrats can.

Like I said, meet the new boss.

PS - I forgot to add that this is just further evidence for my theory that Liberal politicians are not only arrogant and pretentious, but hypocritical as well.

tagged: politics, Pelosi, William Jefferson, Democrats, Republicans, Al Gore, hypocrites, Survivor, Richard Hatch

Friday Blogthing: I am cool

I give my parents all the credit for this.

You Will Be Are a Cool Parent

You seem to naturally know a lot about parenting, and you know what kids need. You can tell when it's time to let kids off the hook, and when it's time to lay down the law. While your parenting is modern and hip, it's not over the top. You know that there's nothing cool about a parent who acts like a teenager... or a drill sergeant!

Would You Be a Cool Parent?

tagged: parent, parenting, children, kids, meme, quiz

Visual verification

Hey, over the past couple of days I've been having trouble with the visual verification feature on some Blogger blogs.

This issue arises when I want to post a comment. Many bloggers (myself included) use the feature where you have to type in a series of random letters to prove that you're a real person and not a spambot.

Well, on some blogs (XO's and Cara's lately) there's a place to enter the letters, but no letters are displayed.

My question is, has anyone else experienced this? Is this just a problem with my browsers (I'm using Firefox on bot PC and Mac)? Have I contracted some kind of weird, highly selective eye disease?

tagged: blog, Blogger, spam, visual verification

Falling China Star

Life is full of questions that don't have easy or concrete answers.

Why do bad things happen to good people? What's the square root of -1? Is this coffee regular or decaf? Do these jeans make me look fat?

But there are some questions to which the answer is indisputable, where all of the evidence points to a final undeniable truth. For example, when my Supermodel wife asked me last night if I thought our daughter had food poisoning, it didn't take a Magic 8 Ball to see that all signs pointed to yes.

What were the signs?

There was the large pool of puke that I had just finished cleaning up about 30-minutes before my Supermodel Wife returned from a well-deserved night out with the girls.

There was the three sets of vomit-stained sheets currently going through the laundry, along with Domino, the loyal stuffed lion who is king of the plush toys jungle that is our daughter's room.

Not to mention the shart-stained pants and continuing dry heaves that kept us up until 3:30 this morning.

The evening had started out so well. With mom out for the night, I offered to take the kid to her favorite restaurant, the China Star buffet at 95th and Metcalf. She was excited. She had her favorite foods, green and red jello, peaches, sweet and sour chicken with rice noodles, and of course soft serve ice cream to top it all off.

Who knows which food item held the poisonous bacterium that would cause havoc in her digestive system for the next eight hours. Hell, it could have been the plates or forks or spoons. It really makes no difference.

My Supermodel wife wanted me to call the restaurant (China Star buffet at 95th and Metcalf) to complain. But what's the point? I blame myself actually.

I mean let's face it, when you go to buffet like that you're consuming food that is sitting out in warm pans for who knows how long. Dozens if not scores of people are walking by the very morsels you'll put in your mouth, spreading their germs. Getting sick should pretty much be expected, even though China Star buffet at 95th and Metcalf seems like a fairly clean place by buffet standards.

Anyway, I'm not planning on suing or anything. I figure now that I know the dangers of eating at China Star buffet at 95th and Metcalf, I and my loved ones can avoid that particular establishment. We can choose a cleaner, more hygienic place to dine (like in the tepid water under the Broadway Bridge for example).

Suffice it to say that China Star buffet at 95th and Metcalf is now a former favorite restaurant.

tagged: food poisoning, Chinese food, China Star buffet, puke, vomit, Magic 8 Ball, sick