My Thoughts on the Future of Our World

What is it about flying cars? It seems like since the beginning of time our dreams of the future (of the ‘year 2000’) included flying cars. And yet here we are driving on the ground and flying in planes. I guess our sci fi movies wouldn’t have been as cool had they dreamed of a future where information could be shared wirelessly, where you could spend money you didn’t have if you just swiped a piece of plastic, and where Starbucks ruled the world.

Here are some of my predictions of the future in no particular order:

  • Angry Birds will come out with a game for the X-Box platform
  • Purgo hardwood floors will become even more prevalent in our homes
  • Pennies will be eliminated and we’ll start using our dollar coins (but we’ll choose to call them loonies like they do in Canada…’cause that’s kind of awesome)
  • Those slap bracelet things will become popular again
  • Books will still be around and a slew of new brick and mortar book stores will open that don’t use ‘the digital age’ as an excuse for non-innovative or successful business practices.
  • A hologram will become president
  • Toilets will be considered an opiate of the masses
  • Upon finding out that cloth bags are bad for the environment our economy (which was built on a platform of cloth bag usage) will crash
  • Ikea stores will get bigger and they will introduce a new “stay and camp for the night” alternative
  • Our national anthem will be re-written to the tune of “twinkle twinkle” so that it can be more universally accepted
  • Women will stop painting their finger nails
  • Puzzles will be cool again
  • A counter movement to the wireless age will emerge. They’ll use corded phones, connect to the internet via land lines, print only on computers they’re plugged into, email colleagues by throwing paper at them across the office, and most importantly they’ll refuse to cut umbilical cords so as to keep a wired connection to their mother forever.
  • Oh yeah, and I do think there will be flying cars.

Lyrics that make a difference

These lyrics just might change your life…

Lives are like retractible pencils
If you push them too hard they’re gonna break
And people are like paper dolls
Paper dolls and people, they’re a similar shape
Love is like a roll of tape
It’s real good for making two things one
But just like that roll of tape
Love sometimes breaks off before you were done
Another way that love is similar to tape
That I’ve noticed
Is sometimes it’s hard to see the end
You search on the roll
Search on the roll
With your fingernail
Again and again
And again and again
And again.
Brown paper, white paper
Stick it together with the tape
The tape of love
The sticky stuff 

Brown paper, white paper
Stick it together with tape
The tape of love
The sticky stuff.

Brown paper, white paper 
Paper paper Stick it together with tape
Paper paper The tape of love
People people
People people
Pencil pencil
Pencil pencil
Paper paper
Put the pencil to the paper
Give the paper to the people
Let the people read about the sello tape
Oh baby baby
Yeah

Brown paper, white paper
Stick it together with tape
The tape of love
The sticky stuff
Yeah
Ooh brown
Brown paper, white paper
Stick it together with tape
The tape of love
Say it
Sticky
Stick stick
Stick it together
Ye-yeah

8 Reasons Why Steroids are Bad

Here are my top eight reasons why taking steroids sucks:

  1. ‘Roid rage. Steroids opened up in me anger that I’ve never experienced before. I could get mad at a fork if it didn’t make it to my mouth correctly…and thats no lie.
  2. Backne (as in back acne). I felt like I was in Jr. High again with my whole back, chest, and arms covered in acne! Good thing I’m not much of a swimmer ’cause all the girls would have made fun of me.
  3. Lies. Anyone who told you that if you took steroids you’d be better at sports lied. I’m not better at sports and I’m not stronger and as a matter of fact I think I’m worse at sports now than I was before my steroids. Needless to say I blame all of this on the ‘roids.
  4. Insomnia. Gone are the days of going to sleep at 1am and waking up at 4am everyday. While I do miss those quiet mornings (terribly actually) I don’t miss the lack of sleep.
  5. Water Weight. I’ve got chubby arm pits right now. Did you even know you can get chubby arm pits? It’s due to my body going off steroids, ‘roids cause your body to retain water in strange ways, for me this included asymmetrical chubby pits.
  6. Swelling. This is probably an extension of the water weight, but the swelling that happened in my face was creepy. In a matter of minutes I’d go from normal Ryan to Swollen-Faced-Ryan. It would happen almost immediately and could last for minutes or days. Not cool.
  7. Headaches. The day that I was finally off steroids was the day that my headaches began. For ten straight days I had pounding, debilitating headaches. They’d last from the moment I woke up until I fell asleep. For the first few days no cocktail of Vicodin or Ibiprofin would help and I’d just pound my head agains the wall waiting for relief.
  8. Foot Cheese. That’s right, I said it. While on steroids the bottom of my feet started to sluff off every day. Every day a whole layer of skin on the bottoms of my feet would just crumble off…it was gross…and messy…and would have been painful had I been able to feel my feet.

Beware of The Dreaded Cripple Couple

When Jess first got dreads about four years ago it caught us by surprise how it changed our lives. Maybe it surprised us because her reasoning for getting dreadlocks wasn’t to make some point, wasn’t to stand out, it wasn’t for any big reason except that it sounded fun and we thought they looked beautiful (and I selfishly loved the idea of having a wife never pay for a haircut or hair product again!). Besides the fact that people used to ask her for weed all the time (strangely they’ve stopped…why is that?) we started to notice that people remembered us. We’d go into a restaurant for the second time and they’d remember our order from the first. Hostesses would say things like “hey, its really good to see y’all again”. We found ourselves racking our brains trying to figure out if we knew her from somewhere…and then it hit us! Oh, Jess is that white girl with dreads! We’re the dreaded couple! Talk about accountability! You leave a bad tip…dreaded couple. You say something rude…dreaded couple. It really was a great thing ’cause we made friends with many restaurant and store employees simple because they remembered Jess’ freakish hair. We’ve come to love it really.

But now its even worse (better?)! Whereas Jess has gotten used to people turning heads and whispering about her (its a really strange thing to observe) now I find myself experiencing the same thing because of my forearm crutch and awkward walking. I wouldn’t think that I’m much of a spectacle but apparently I am. People like watching me. Maybe its pity, maybe its the sound of my foot slapping the ground, or maybe its that there’s this slight hope that they might see me fall. I like to think its because I’ve been shaving my face more often and they’re impressed with my handsome look.

People like to hold the door for me now, even automatic doors get spread wide open for lil’ ol’ me. People clear lanes at grocery stores like Moses parting the Red Sea so that lil’ ol’ me can pass through unscathed. People turn heads, slow down, and pause what they’re doing to watch me. Its awkward. Sometimes I’m grateful for the door and the open lanes whereas other times I just want to scream “My arms still work! I can open doors!” Regardless, while I’m not quite as memorable as the dreaded hippie, I’ve become quite the sight I guess and it’s been a strange adjustment.

But here’s what it comes down to. Math. Go ahead, lets do a little math…

Dreaded white mama + Awkward limping cripple = The Dreaded Cripple Couple

Dreaded Cripple C0uple > What’s on my tray at Burgerville

Coming to a store near you. Watch out for us! We tend to order tacos and taquitos at Baja Fresh, the Fred Meyer’s produce selection tends to draw our favor, and yes we do enjoy self check out when available! Beware of our penchant for drinking too much coffee at Mon Ami and eating too many french macaroons from Je T’aime bakery on Main. If you ask us for weed we won’t have any…because the reality is that under the striking and shocking hair/bum leg combo we’re just a couple of recovering homeschoolers who grew up in an old school traditional church context with the most average names possible in suburban Vantucky who like to watch 30 Rock on Hulu ’cause we don’t have a TV who likes to read books and hang out with friends over board games and good food…and who apparently DON NOT use commas in their run-on sentences!

Even still we do sometimes bite. So beware of the Dreaded Cripple Couple. Ha!*

* I don’t know if you can tell but I’m really having fun writing this. As an awkward and scrawny kid that’s always tried to find a way to blend in this is the most ironic twist of fate in my adulthood and I think its really funny and most fascinating!

Singing Anesthesia

No words to post today, but I do feel as though I need to share this video with you. This was the song I came out of anesthesia singing. No joke. I couldn’t stop singing THIS song (and two others: “here we come a wastling” and a Portuguese worship song).