Story of the Day...Jan Crouch?

I often suffer from insomnia, it's just part of my job. Television watching is just one of those games you play when you can't sleep.

I can't remember the last year the networks played the national anthem at midnight and then went to either static or the color bar thing. Those were good days because the television was telling you, 'Yo, you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here.'

That was bedtime.

Now, television goes on forever, how do we know when to stop watching? They won't tell us when to stop, count on that.

But thank God for Jan Crouch. When I see her mug on the screen, I know it's time to go to bed.

Not sure what she's preaching about so earnestly. She's an earner, no doubt about that. I'm not too well briefed on Jan because, as I already said and you weren't paying attention, my television is off.

http://www.tbn.org/

This is the link to Trinity Broadcasting Network but beware Jan.

Real Place of the Day...Dunkin' Donuts Underpass?

The 30th street station underpass, I think it's the 276 to 76 nugget, is hiding a delicious secret. Have you smelled that smell lately? Obviously it's time to make the donuts, there must be a Dunkin Donuts super bakery under the station. The smell, the smell, the smell. One would think they only bake those mothers early, early, early.

But the smell times seem arbitrary and sometimes late in the evening like before midnight. But when do most Dunkin Donuts open, like 5 a.m.? I know they deliver to WaWas which are 24 hours, but still, we're not really getting fresh donuts. Not really too fresh at all. But who gives a crap, really. Some stuff is better stale. Sometimes, dead is better.

I'm happy that others have also noticed this. Gotta love the Internet.

http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/view.php?id=2649

http://www.phillyfuture.org/node/1004

Thing of the Day...Tea Tree Chewing Sticks?

Toothpicks. Fixes all oral fixations. I gave some to my dad hoping he's quit smoking since his cancer. Helped me quit chewing my fingernails. That was turning into a painful habit, bloody, swollen, hang nails and shit.

Pick your teeth, chew one side till it falls apart, then swing it around. Treated in tee tree oil, these have a bite, could be described as spicy or a refreshing menthol kick. The company says you can chew one for fresh breath. And that's pretty much true. Great alternative to gum or mints for fresh breath.

Willy Wilson, Kansas City Royals centerfielder from the 80s, played with a toothpick hanging out of his mouth. Rumor was he swallowed it once diving for a ball. Don't swallow, but be cool like Willy because you kind of feel cool driving with a toothpick or talking to somebody with a stick wagging on your lip. Not your boss though, maybe somebody else.

Real Place of the Day...Fallujah Candyshop?

Last night the History Channel showed a special on the Battle of Fallujah in Iraq in November 2004. A particularly brutal battle, 90 U.S. soldiers and just over 1,000 insurgents killed. Marines and Infantry moved like wave, pushing all insurgents into a killzone at one end of the town. Insurgents were well dug in, caches of weapons and mouseholes hidden everywhere. Insurgents were even said to have injected themselves with syringes loaded with stimulants to lessen physical pain and increase intensity. There for one reason, to kill American soldiers, insurgents were prepared to die.

The battles were reenacted with actual footage and dramatizations. Very well done. Very intense. One of the first American squads to break into the killzone found an abandoned convenience store under cover of night. Soldiers were quoted as saying that insurgents attacked only during the day. The night was quiet and still. The squad used the time to dig in and fortify.

They nicknamed the abandoned convenience store the Candy Shop, and from the Candy Shop the U.S. squad prepared for dawn. Turns out they were the only U.S. squad to make it into the killzone, the others waited on the fringe. From the Candy Shop the squad could see they were in the middle of a large group of insurgents awaiting the next American attack.

All together now. The squad began its attack from the Candy Shop and reportedly inflicted severe casualties on the insurgent gathering. Soon they were surrounded and were forced to blow a whole in the back wall of the Candy Shop and fight their way back to the fringe of the killzone. No losses reported by the squad.

http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/005873.php

Story of the Day...Store Receipt Checkers?

Fresh Grocer for dinner tonight. It’s a race to park, rush though a checkout line more chaotic than security at Philly Int’l and hop back to the car. Do I need to have my receipt checked as I stumble out the door juggling car keys, parking ticket, debit card? Apparently I have to. It’s a security guard with a sharpie pen.

Then I heard of this dude who left a BestBuy store I California and refused to have his receipt checked. The guy, Aaron Hopkins, claimed the store doesn’t have a right to check the receipt at the door. The BestBuy employees chased him down and even blocked Hopkins in his parking space.

The receipt check revolt continued when Hopkins wrote a letter to BestBuy. Naturally, the revolt was watered down with a nicely polished public relations masterpiece and Hopkins felt pretty much unsatisfied.
Then he got a letter from an employee of BestBuy on the front lines of receipt checking, who, as sometimes happens at multinational corporations apparently, saw the letter written by Hopkins and felt he needed to respond to it. When in doubt, blame the customer. But aren’t we all customers thereby blaming ourselves for being idiots.

http://www.die.net/musings/bestbuy/epilogue.html


All this fuss leaves me with one really burning question. Why do we spell Aaron with two As?

I am as anti-establishment as they come but letting the mothers swipe your receipt with a sharpie is not having your rights violated- it’s a reaction to the American culture of fear in which we live. The fact that it bothers us, that is raises hairs or smooth droplets of adrenaline, is an American phenomenon.

Story of the Day...Milk causes Calcium deficiency?

Herbs once drank whole milk and lots of it. I recently tried to get him to drink soymilk but that's a very difficult proposition. Whole milk tastes incredible and creamy and soymilk just kind of grows on you.

I like soymilk with oatmeal and brown sugar.

I like soymilk in coffee sometimes.

I like soymilk with Lucky Charms. That's healthfood.

Some milk news is happening. Medical School's home library contributed to this blog, otherwise this is hearsay to be denied in a court of law. This is a living breathing story with documentation to come. Here's the nuts and bolts:

• Dairy Council spending ~$200 million to promote milk drinking as a weight loss technique
• Corporations still pushing worldwide calcium deficiency propaganda when only U.S. and Canada, two biggest milk guzzlers ironically, are mildly deficient while rest of the world is cool.
• Overindulgence of milk products actuyally causes the body to absorb less calcium.

Face it, this is utter madness. More to come on this milk matter.

Thing of the Day...Cat gut?

Medical School put up the challenge and he’s beat me the last five games, but it’s tennis and tennis is tennis. My racquet is Target style already warped from when I threw it at the brick wall over and over again.

Good strings, City Sports guy told Medical school, are made out of cat gut. Insert my usual skepticism. Cat gut? What is it? It can’t be, can it? I love cats all over the country- where are they getting the cats for this cat gut? And for tennis racquets? Rackets?

Turns out, catgut, comes from the intestines of sheep, sometimes horses or mules, too. It’s stretched, seeped in lye, scraped and packaged and disgustingly used as strings for musical instruments, surgical stitches and racquets.

According to Wikipedia, the best strings come from the toughest gut- my gut’s producing dollar-store strings apparently. Let’s end this, kit means fiddle and the strings were called kitgut, which over time became catgut. No cats were used in the making of this racquet that just kicked your ass.

Real Place of the Day...Bala Park Tennis Courts?

I cleaned the tennis court at Bala Park today because I felt guilty about it. Medical School and me play there often so the moms and dads and kids would undoubtedly think it was us getting our garbage on. Mostly bottles and cans and just clap your hands into the garbage can. Why we're so proud to put things into another thing that will mysteriously disappear one morning while you sleep, I never get that. But I cleaned all the same.

Ever use a public toilet that was dirty but you felt compelled to clean it because the guy waiting for it outside would think it was your mess? Me, neither.

Pushers and gutters

Thanks to Bill Mountford from the Unites States Tennis Association for this tip about pushers. That sounds nice and professional, doesn’t it? Wonder what Bill would have thought about me twisting my ankle today and playing like a little girl hitting shots into the net, over the fence, on the train tracks behind me. I tried to change up the pace against Medical School. A pusher, turns out, is a guy who sits on the baseline and hits long shots. Pushers hate to run, hate to change things up, hate sneak attacks; none of which I’m real proficient at so thanks for nothing Bill Mountford. Wonder how much he makes a year.

Oh, gutter’s not a tennis term, just a word to describe how your talents eventually suck.

Real Place of the Day...Mugshots?

Finally made it to mugshots in Fairmount, awesome place. That as close to the Seattle style coffee/cafe place that I miss so much. Pretty nice, a little expensive though.

I was wearing my don't partially hydrogenate me shirt and the barista chick was like, love the shirt, and I was like, I love it too, and she was like, do you really stay away from those? and I was like, hell, yeah, coffee girl, and she was like, I have to tell you that the wraps here have parti. hydrogs, and I was like, I'm not surprised, most tortillas have parti. hydrogs, and she was like, really, I love you, and I was like, sorry my heart belongs to parti. hydrogs, and she was like, but what about the..., and I was like, shut up, it's just a shirt and who can live another day if it's not full of smashing a whole bag of Oreos in your mouth.

Mugshots had friendly people working there. It was a little sterile and the production of food/drink and stuff was way, way, way too organized for it to be cool yet. It’s cool when it’s hard to get your coffee and everybody is always on break even though they’re standing right there, in front of you, behind the counter, smoking a cigarette. Philly needs a coffee shop like that.

I was saying to my friend, not a source yet, while we sat in Mugshots that Fairmount could very easily become Philly’s coffee shop district, they just need to push out more of the poor people who eat at that pizza place a block north of Mugshots. There’s plenty of room for them closer to Broad, or Girard. Up, up, up, Fairmount goes. I couldn’t afford to live there anymore. Herbs makes better coffee. His is German, it's all in the roasting, he claims. Medical School doesn't drink coffee so he's got nothing to say about Mugshots. Wait, he actually told me to go to Mugshots, or maybe it was Crazyhair.

http://www.mugshotscoffeehouse.com

Thing of the Day...Lucid Dreaming Goggles?

Medical School was talking about these things one late night. It's actually possible to do, it is said. I don't want to control my dreams because I think that's a bad habit. I think, and my sources are sick of hearing this, that the instant you die you escape into a dream state. Time is an invention, I don't need a source for that, and a nanosecond of subconsciousness could equal an eternity of dreams, dreams, dreams. But what if you've been flitting away your hot, humid afternoons lucid dreams with blinking goggles? There are no blinking red lights in my heaven, bitch, and ten other commandments. We never listen. But listen to this and buy the Devil's glasses.


http://www.gocs1.com/Psionics/Lucid-Dream-Goggles.htm

http://www.lucidity.com/novadreamer.html

Story of the Day...Kevin Trudeau?

This guy is everywhere. I finally stopped eating Oreos and smoking my new Marlboro shorties all over medical school's couch last night long enough to listen to what he’s pitching.

The Fed fined the shit out of him last year, like $3 million, because he said he had the cure for cancer. He was trying to sell it, that’s probably what got him pinched. Now he’s back, everywhere, everywhere, everywhere. The stuff he’s pushing seems to be Coral Calcium, basically ground up sea coral that people claim cures everything. The stuff raises the body’s pH level which is supposed to be good. I’ll have to run this by medical school, then see what Herbs thinks about eating coral.