What's in a Name?

I have discovered that the U.S. Navy will call just about anything a ship or a boat. It doesn't actually have to be a ship or a boat; no that is just a mere formality to the Navy because whatever they say goes! For instance, my fiance (who is in the Navy) told me that the barracks, where they lived during basic training were referred to as 'ships' despite the fact they were not ships and were not even located near a body of water. I love this idea of absolute power and unquestionable authority. To be so powerful as to convince your subordinates into calling items other than ships ships without dissent.

It's like being a child again and believing everthing your parents tell you to be true. I once convinced my little brother that I was 18 years old when I was 10. He didn't figure this out until my mom told him otherwise after he asked her why I couldn't just drive to the store to get him something because I was old enough to drive.

Lies like these don't just happen with the military and families but with the public at large. The Real Housewives of Atlanta are neither housewives nor real yet we totally accept this title. There are 5 women on this show and only one of them is actually married. Also, none of them stay at home; they all have careers. They are also not real in any way shape or form. Their boobs are fake, their hair is fake, their nails are fake and their talent is fake. They are probably one "fake" away from being cyborgs. No one should ever tell these women about SkyNet for fear of them becoming selfaware.

Another misnomer are things that are deemed "homemade" by restaurants. If you are making something outside of an actual home there is absolutely no way that it can be considered homemade. Maybe you could call something homemade if you convinced one of your employees to actually live at said restaurant thus making it their home thus making any items cooked there "homemade". That is the only loophole I can see there.

These are all names that we, as a society, just accept for some reason and for that reason I think that I will just start renaming things and damnit you better accept them as Gospel!

What all these names have in common is the fact that they are all trying to be better than the actual product, as to confuse the consumer, so this is the rule that I will follow in my renaming.

Things that I have renamed:
1. IKEA = FOTT = Funiture of Thunderous Thor!
2. Jay Leno = Conan O'Brien
3. Sarah Palin's Going Rogue = The Bible
4. Cats = Dogs
5. Mcdonalds' = McGreatForYou
6. Jim Belushi = John Belushi
7. Fox News = NPR
8. Culinary Arts School = Harvard
9. Lady GaGa = The Beatles
10.The Nintendo Wii = The Gym

Now you can tell all your friends about how funny Conan was last night when you were studying for that really hard test at Harvard about the cultural relevance of the Bible. But, we know better...don't we.

Tuten-Christem

The Shroud of Turin caused a veritable media storm during the 80's and 90's. People were fasinated by a piece of cloth that might have literally touched the face of God. Finally, Jesus didn't appear on a piece of toast or another pastry or breakfast item for that matter, but something significant; plausable. After much scientific research it was concluded that this, albeit ancient article of cloth, was most likely a fake. Carbon dating was done and it appeared that the cloth was not old enough to have existed when Christ was calculated to have died. Mystery still shrouds this shroud and many still believe that it was the holy cloth that the Christ was buried in at the time of his demise.

But I think I have a better idea as to how Christ was prepared for his tomb. I recently took a trip to the Chicago Field Museum of Natural History. You might remember this museum from the movie Night at the Museum. I was walking through the Egyptian exhibit when a small, about 8 year old girl, pointed to a mummy and then asked her parents, "Is that how they wrapped up Jesus?" It took all of my will power to not start laughing at this child's innocent and adorable question. The idea of Christ as a mummy is hilarious. Her parents were chuckling a little but they didn't want to burst her bubble so they told her maybe, who really knows? In a way, a completely ridiculous and unresearched way, the mummy theory makes sense. Jesus rose from the dead just like mummies are supposed to live forever in the afterlife. The mummies never really died because we still discuss them, look at them in museums and interact with their lives and lifestyles. Christ also never died in our hearts and minds.

Candy Coma

In the very late eighties and thru the early ninities, for just one night a year, I was a trick or treater. As a child I didn't have a lot of freedoms, but then again, what child does have a lot of freedoms? Halloween was the the one time a year that pre-pubesant youths could rally together in the name of, vandalism, terror and above all else sugar. This was the one time you could say "F*ck it all! Tonight (with absolutely no formal training in the martial arts) I am a ninja and I will feast upon the sweetest of fare along side my comrades in mischief!" Halloween allowed kids to dress the way that they felt on the inside, watch rated-R movies until the sun came up and consume enough candy to jumpstart their adult-onset diabetes.

But, alas these days are over. I teach about 20 private music lessons to kids during the week and I asked them all how their Halloween went. They all said that they had a good time but I was horrified when I learned that their parents were keeping the kids' hard earned candy from them?! Apparently, the new trend in Dr. Spock/Atkin's Diet inspired parenting is to take all the candy from the child and only allow him or her a single piece everyday after Halloween until the candy is all gone. This is blasphemy! This ranks up there with saying "happy holidays" instead of "merry Christmas".

I strongly urge all Americans (12 and under please) to rise up against your middle aged oppressors and take back what is rightfully yours! Grasp Halloween by the malted-milk balls and make it your b*tch! If kids can't have Halloween, what do they have? Nothing! To truly experience Halloween you must eat enough candy, in one sitting, to throw-up until you never want to see candy again until next Halloween. Not doing so, is to never know Halloween. It's like going to college and never doing a keg-stand! Who cares about your 4.0GPA, we want to see the keg-stand! So, remember kids on Halloween you own the night!

Lean Cuisine Birthday

I am convinced that I can do whatever I want today because I had a Lean Cuisine for lunch.
List of Things I can do:
1.Eat my entire birthday cake by myself (birthdays are not for sharing)
2.Drink two bottles (thanks roomey) of wine by myself and then drink copious amounts of beer at Wurstfest.
3.Listen to all my birthday CD's at a full blast and all at the same time (Aaah yess, Phish, Muse and the True Blood soundtrack together at last!)
4.Make an ass out of myself at my friends Halloween party and throw up listed items 1 and 2 all over the seven-layer Halloween dip...yum!
5.Leave (get kicked out of) my friends Halloween party and then get into a highspeed chase with the law because I am a drunk driver.
6.Take the chase to Mexico, where the cops loose me.
7.Become the new Mexican drug lord, in which my new kingpin name will be Doña Loca Cumpleaños.

That's a hell of a birthday...thanks for making it all possible Lean Cuisine! Or should I say, Gracias!

Shit You Don't Need

This edition of "Shit You Don't Need" is entitled "Pampered Chef"

I went to a Pampered Chef party last night with a friend. I got roped into this by my boss who said that she would only go if I went so I went and, of course, my boss is a no show but luckily my friend went with me.

I quickly realized that the Pampered Chef is 1: freaking expensive and 2: f*cking retarded. I realized this when my friend leaned over and said "Oooh look this thing minces garlic and slices it!" My rebuttle was, "Ya, it's called a knife" Then my friend asked why I went to this in the first place and I said I really just wanted to hang out and get free wine and food.

The Pampered Chef catalog was teeming with crap that no one needs. For instance, an avocado knife? What's wrong with using just a regular butter knife? A thing that mashes ground beef, aka a spatula? Spice blends that I could make myself? I am convinced that women will buy literally anything at any price as long as it comes in pretty packaging and all their other female friends are doing it.

My friend said that the point of all these extra kitchen gadgets is to make cooking easier to which I said "It looks like the point of all these extra gadgets is to make me do more dishes; thus spending even more money on my water bill." Which leads me to believe that the Pampered Chef and the Water System is in cahoots...you be the judge. Either way, it's still overpriced stuff that you don't need. The only way that I would buy a $20 spatula would be if that spatula would buy the food, cook the meal and then have sex with me after the meal, wash the dishes and be sure to call me the next day. All of this would occur without me lifting a finger. Now that's a bargain!

Full Circle

So, I have discovered that when attaching the word "wedding" to literally anything you immediately jack up the price of said item by at least ten fold. Let me elaborate.

Me:"So if I want to rent this field I will need to make an initial down payment to hold the reservation, right?"
Event Coordinator:"Yes, that's correct."
Me:"But, it's just a field?"
EC:"Yes."
Me:"So I have to pay you to rent a random field?"
EC:"Yes, and no it's not random, it's made for weddings and other life changing events."
Me:"You can make a field...are you God?"
EC:"Yes, you can and no I'm not."
Me:"How much for the field?"
EC:"$500 per hour."
Me:"For a field?"
EC:"Yes."

In conclusion, I have decided to start renting out random spots in and around San Antonio, in order to pay for my wedding field. Renting fields, in order to pay for a field...now that's full circle!

A Rabbi, A Priest and a Scientist Walk into a Bar...

...and nothing gets accomplished. There is a commercial out right now that states "science is infallible" which is true if only you subtract the human element from the equation. Let me explain. I was proposed to at a museum during a dinosaur exhibit (I know we are nerds) and literally every exhibit stated that the way these bones were fit together were incorrect. These "scientists" wanted their dinosaurs to look a certain way and thus fabricated the monsters that they desired. Only modern day scientists have discovered this grievance. It was once (a few weeks ago) "fact" that early man hunted the mastodon into extinction. Scientists now believe that it was a massive and sudden climate change that did the mastodon in. My mother told me that when she was in nursing school (late seventies early eighties) that her text book said that babies "evolved" in the womb; that they literally went thru all the stages of evolution in the womb. She told me that the man who wrote this was later arrested by the scientific community but that that book had been "fact" for many years.

What I love about God is the fact that I can't "prove" that He exists. Science thinks that it can "prove" things but as long as humans tamper with evidence and refuse to disclose certain truths there will never be a "definite" anything in this universe. Don't get me wrong many religious leaders would argue that their brand of religion is, in fact, definitive but just like science humans turn something pure and infallible into something tarnished and very fallible. I don't claim that my beliefs are infallible because I am the human element at work but as usual I do like to think that I am probably right (because I always am;)

Right now it looks like I can't get anyone to marry me and my fiance because Andrew isn't spiritual enough for my Baptist minister. My other option is a female minister but the Presbyterian church we are getting married at won't let her in the door because she is a lesbian and I can't get married by Andrew's Catholic priest because I am not Catholic. All of this rigamarole because all of these organizations think that they have the definitive answer. Me and Andrew don't fit into any of these equations because we don't fit their definitive molds of religion. This is a difficult time for me, Andrew and our faith but I just have to remember that it is the human element at play here. God knows us and our hearts. Maybe if a Rabbi, a Priest and a scientist actually sat down at a bar the end result wouldn't be a joke but a miracle; something beautiful.