Whenever I find myself feeling down...

A couple of years ago, I was flipping through my local newspaper, and I found this piece by advice columnist Ann Landers. The plight of the man who wrote in, and the advice she offered to him moved me so much that I decided to cut the column out and carry it around in my wallet, pulling it out whenever I found myself feeling down. A quick read always seems to make me feel better. It never fails. Having access to a scanner, I decided to post the column here, to try and spread the joy. Here it is. I hope it helps you as much as it helped me.

(Click Image to View Larger Version)

Meet the New Star of My Nightmares

This story broke a couple of days ago, but I haven't had the time to actually view the video until now. This rare species of shark, called a frilled shark, is rarely caught on film while alive since it's normal habitat is usually around 2000 ft. below this surface. This particular specimen was caught in about 5 feet of water. As a result, I am now officially terrified of going swimming. This fish is absolutely hideous. I'm pretty sure it's going to haunt my dreams for the rest of my life.




***UPDATE***
Apparently YouTube was forced to take the video I have posted above down, so clicking on it won't let you see anything. There's another video of the shark posted here, this time with Japanese commentary.

For those of you so enamored with my blog that you're afraid to navigate away, I've posted this picture:

"Boo!"

If man were meant to jump out of an airplane...

god would have pushed him.

"I immediately regret this decision!"

Now, I'm no expert in skydiving, never having jumped out of an airplane myself, but I have always thought that the sport was a pretty stupid way to get a rush, especially when much safer alternatives exist. You know, like smoking crack. I never really saw the attraction to trusting you life to a piece of fabric with some rope attached to it. Well apparently, skydiving mishaps are pretty rare, especially amongst experienced jumpers, but there's always room for an "accident".

This story, out of England, involves a love triangle, a sabotaged parachute, and a woman plunging 12,000 ft. to her death. Apparently, three skydivers, one male, two female, made a jump together about two months ago. The male, named Marcel, was romantically involved with female #1 (named Els) but was seeing female #2 (also named Els...I guess that helps avoid awkward boudoir situations) behind female #1's back. Having found out the situation, Els #1 didn't let on, but instead tampered with Els #2's parachute before their jump, causing it to fail, sending it Els #2 to her death. A two-month investigation followed, and Els #1 was arrested last week. In addition to this, the suspected Els (not the dead one) had been previously arrested for trying to run over a boyfriend she suspected of cheating. She wasn't charged.

"I won't be ignored!
Hey...wanna go jump out of a plane?"

This is clearly a unique situation. One involving a person with both anger issues and mental problems (and poor taste in men, apparently). But it opens up a can of worms. Why even put yourself in a high-risk situation like that? Now I'm no adulterer (you hear that sweetie?), but I have been known, on occasion, to piss off a person or two. Hopefully not enough to inspire murder, but one never knows. You can never be too careful. And that's why I'm going to continue to avoid skydiving. You never know when you might be jumping with an enemy. A car speeding at me, I might have a chance to dodge, but you have no where to go when it's the earth that's speeding at you.

Does this freak anyone else out as much as it does me?

Is your baby a her or he?
Now YOU can decide.

When my wife and I were first trying to get pregnant, we did a lot of reading on the subject. We checked out a few books and magazine and looked at a bunch of websites (and there are plenty). During our "research" we came across a couple of different theories regarding baby gender. There are supposed to be a variety of things you can do to help your odds at conceiving one gender baby over another: certain foods or drinks to consume, the date and time you try to conceive, temperature changes; you name it. In the beginning we toyed with the idea of trying some of them out, but in the end, we realized it was kind of silly and we'd just roll the dice and see what fate gave us. Well my wife got pregnant, and while we don't know whether we're having a boy or a girl (and we've decided we want to be surprised), the bottom line is that we're pretty psyched about becoming parents and we can't wait until he or she gets here.

"I case you missed the earlier post with my picture,
here I am just chillin' in the womb.
Don't I look like a genius?"

So fast forward to today: I was surfing one of my favorite Yankee blogs (Peter Abraham's blog), hoping for any sort of nugget of information in this slow season for baseball news, when an ad banner on the side of the web page caught my eye. It mentioned something about baby genders, and being a father-to-be, I decided to give it a click. The link brought me to a web page for The Silverman Center for Gender Selection. The site is for a medical center in Westchester, NY that will pretty much allow you to choose the gender of your baby. They have a process that will allow you to select only specific sperm cells to fertilize an egg, with the end result being the baby gender of your choosing. Is anyone else weirded out by that? I may be making a bit of a leap here, but how long until we start deciding hair and eye color? Or athletic ability or smarts? Hell...people love celebrity baby names, how long before people try celebrity baby genes? Doesn't there have to be a line somewhere?

"Don't you wish your baby was hot like me?"

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not an anti-science guy...far from it. I'm all for taking every advantage that science has to offer to make sure that your offspring are born into this world with the greatest chance to live a long and happy life. If there is someway to genetically detect and correct potential problems in your unborn child. I'm all for it. Why shouldn't we use our knowledge to our advantage. But there's something about using it to make sure your baby is a specific gender that gives me a creepy feeling, you know? I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this, and I might not be for a while. After the trouble we had when we first tried to get pregnant, having a healthy baby of any sex seems like a big enough deal to me. Who knows though, maybe I'd change my mind if I was the father of four boys.

Anyway, it kinda feels like we're beginning to hurtle towards a weird science fiction future where big brother is always watching, and people are genetically altering their DNA to breed super babies and it's starting to freak me out a little, though I'm all for jet-packs and hover-cars. I can't wait for hover-cars.

"Fear my genetically bred Atomic Super-Men!"

Tattoos on the Head, Mourning on my Mind.

RIP Bam Bam Bigelow (1961-2007)

When I was a youngster, way back in the 1980s and early-1990s, I, like most American males, loved professional wrestling. It probably stemmed from the same part of my brain that likes comic books. There, on the TV, were larger than life figures, some good, some evil, battling each other for...well who knows really, but it involved a lot of punching and kicking, and that was cool with me. Anyway, Bam Bam was one of those guys that always fascinated me. Probably because of the tattoos on his head. All I know is that he was one of those people on TV whose physical appearance mesmerized me. Him and Fred Gwyne...the guy who played Herman Munster. I think that was mostly because I thought his head was actually square.

Square-headed monster where are you?

Apparently I had some sort of obsession with heads when I was a kid. Young boys throughout the country were crushing hard on Winnie Cooper, and I was staring at the heads of professional wrestlers and 1960s sitcom starts. I was a bit of a weirdo.

Where have you gone Winnie Cooper?
A nation turns its mourning eyes to you.

And now Bam Bam has joined Herman Munster as a member of the deceased, not that their deaths were related. And that kinda sucks. Fred Gywne wasn't really an old man, but he was in his late 60s when he passed in the Early 90s, so that's not entirely out of the ordinary. Bam Bam was only in his mid-forties...too young for anyone to go. I always wondered if the tattoo on Bam Bam's head would seep into his brain and kill him. At this point, the cause of death hasn't been determined, so I'm just going to assume that yes, he was killed by tattoo ink. Another reason not to emulate professional wrestlers kids.

***UPDATE***

It's been brought to my attention by one of my adoring fans (thank you Steve) that Winnie Cooper herself had a melon head. Maybe there is something to this. Maybe I am obsessed with the cranially unique. (I think I just made up a word. Hooray for me!).
More to come.
In the meantime:

"HEAD! MOVE! NOW!"