Going Green

It amazes me how network television stations will change their logos to a green color and ask people to “go green” all because of earth day just because it’s popular to do so. I laughed last night as Ryan Seacrest stands on the stage of American Idol with millions of watts of stage and effects lighting blazing all around him and says “Idol is giving back to the environment by using green energy…at the finale in four weeks.”

Green is quickly becoming the most over used color in the spectrum…Why can’t we go blue? The sky is blue, the ocean is blue, the endangered blue whale is blue…but no, I guess green life on this planet has some kind of hierarchal priority over us non-green life forms. This enamorment with the color green has given birth to a whole new form of racism that spans all species of life rather than being concentrated within the human race. Pretty soon we’ll start hearing phrases like “Green Power!” and before we know it, the plants will revolt and ‘Attack of the Killer Tomatoes’ will finally become a reality.

In the spirit of Eco-friendliness, and to celebrate this past Earth Day while trying to prevent the Tomato uprising by not making them mad…I have developed a list of some things you can do to in order to be good ‘Stewards’ of this planet we all call home.

01. Save a tree, build miles and miles of unnecessary roadway in order to go around them.
02. Only buy green ketchup.
03. Paint your Hummer a green color.
04. Purchase the entire Captain Planet series on DVD and rather than driving your car to the store and causing more pollution, buy it online and have it shipped to your home in a large capacity UPS truck.
05. When drawing graffiti on public property, always use green aerosol spray paint.
06. Never cut your grass or pull weeds.
07. Build more wood-framed green houses.
08. Only ever eat green eggs and ham.

Book Review: Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss

Green Eggs and Ham is a much-loved children’s book written by Theodor Seuss Geisel in 1960, the book is so loved in fact that is was the 4th best selling children’s book of all time in 2001.

(Spoiler Warning)

Green Eggs and Ham begins by showing a young fellow bothering an older gentleman while he tries to read his paper. The bothersome chap’s name is Sam as he so eloquently indicates with a sign stating “I am Sam” that he holds while standing on the hindquarters of a galloping dog-like creature. We then realize that such ridiculous behavior is not so ridiculous and that Sam is obviously mentally challenged as he makes another pass with a sign stating “Sam I am.” It is likely that Sam possesses a rare form of Dyslexia wherein he confuses the order and orientation of words rather than that of individual letters, another explanation could be simple insanity. Hollywood has clearly picked up on Sam’s mental state and has made a live-action motion picture based on it. The film is titled ‘I am Sam’ wherein the main character shares similar mental limitations to those of Sam in ‘Green Eggs and Ham’.

As the older man (whom we will call ‘Phil’) becomes frustrated with his newly acquired irritation, he fumes about how he does not like “that Sam-I-am.” At that point Sam overhears Phil and quickly tries to quell the emotion by changing the subject and asking a completely random question, “Do you like green eggs and ham?” Sam now holds a platter with said edibles which I suppose he just carries with him at all times apparently to serve as a visual aide in case this situation should ever occur. Even more infuriated, Phil answers still mocking the backwards name thing, “I do not like them, Sam-I-am.”

Sam proceeds to ask Phil if he would like green eggs and ham in various locations with various different dinner guests, in a house, with a mouse, in a box, with a fox, etc. etc. etc. Eventually, Phil caves and agrees to eat the green eggs and ham but only if Sam will leave him alone. Upon tasting the food, Phil discovers that he likes green eggs and ham and he politely thanks Sam.

So what is the message of all this? What is this Green Eggs and Ham trying to teach our children? First of all, it teaches kids to put rotten green food in their mouths…who has ever eaten a green egg and lived to tell about it? Perhaps little Jimmy is walking through the chicken house and finds an old egg that was missed in the hay 2 months ago. He cracks it open…Oh look! it’s green! Jimmy then recalls having this book read to him and proceeds to eat the aforementioned egg. Yes, not cool.

The second message this book sends to kids is that it’s okay to give in to peer pressure. According to this book, when your friend is offering you something you’ve never tried before like illegal drugs, go ahead and try it. Because after all you might like it and your happiness and appeasing your (insane) friend is more important than your personal convictions, your physical health, or abiding by the law.

April Fools

As you can see from the time stamp on this post, today is April 2nd. By all known methods of mathematical reasoning and social standards for our calender, one would conclude that the day which preceded this one was in fact April the 1st. Such a conclusion would be 100% accurate but at the same time would fall short of what is to be considered as “the whole truth.” April 1st is not only the last day of the Assyrian New Year celebration (as everyone knows), but is also a time for outlandish shenanigans and prankification known to the modern world as April Fools’ Day.

The purpose of April Fools’ is of course to make one’s self esteem maintain the illusion of superiority over our fellow man by pulling hilarious practical jokes on them and therefore making the victim appear foolish while the instigator is rewarded with the appearance of genius. In other words, April Fools’ Day grants everyone free rein to spread lies and deceit without any ramifications or consequences simply because “it’s April Fools.” With that being said, I pose the question; “What are the rules of April Fools’?” (That rhymed, unintentional).

Rule #1: Don’t kill anyone or indirectly cause the death of a live human being.

Rule #2: Don’t taint the area water supply with a microscopic metal-eating organism.

Rule #3: It’s okay to put a rubber band around the trigger of the retractable sprayer on the kitchen sink as long as it does not violate the first rule.

Rule #4: Hiding all your Dad’s tools in the tank of the toilet probably isn’t a good idea.

Rule #5: Switching the salt with sugar and the sugar with salt is old and overused, instead, switch both of them with granulated cauliflower, again as long as it does not violate rule #1.

Rule #6: Putting peanut butter under the door handle of someone’s car then video taping them while they go to open the door is an excellent way to win friends and influence people.

Rule #7: Don’t tell people you’ve been diagnosed with stomach cancer.

Follow these rules (which are really more like guidelines) and you are 110% guaranteed to have a fun and enjoyable April Fools’ Day or your money back.

Due Dates

My birthday is on March 29th and has been every year since I was born. What very few of you probably know is that my original due date was March 6th which according to my doctors meant that I was over 3 weeks late in jettisoning from my mother’s womb. Many people are of the persuasion that if a woman goes more than 3 days past her “due date” then she must be induced. The only explanation for this mode of thinking is that the baby must be born as soon as possible to prevent it from developing to its full mental and physical capabilities. “The man” is certainly behind it with a vast and intricate conspiracy to keep the next generation dumb and weak so they are easier to control. It never occurs to anyone that when a mother goes past her due date, it is actually quite possible and within the realm of natural plausibility that (pause for suspense)…the doctor got the due date wrong.

Heresy, I know…what was I thinking? Of course, the doctor never says “We need to induce labor now or it could get dangerous for both you and the baby…and if it doesn't get dangerous then it will prove that I’m a hack and don’t know how to predict due dates and all my credibility in the medical field will be lost and I won’t be able to eat lunch in the senior doctor’s lounge!”

So what if I had been born on March 6 like the conspirators had wanted? Well, March 6 is the 65th day of the year and the 66th day during leap years (what does that tell you?). Regardless of the leap year, there will always be exactly 300 days left in the year on March 6. Dmitri Mendeleev presented the first periodic table on March 6. David Crockett died on March 6, so did Bill Travis and James Bowie along with a few other people in a fort somewhere in Texas…on the continued downside, Michelangelo, Lou Costello, and Shaquille O’Neal were all born on March 6. To top it all off, on March 6, 2008, a bomb went off in New York’s Times Square.

I’m not sure what the world would be like if I had been born on March 6, perhaps my appendix wouldn’t have gone bad at the age of 7…perhaps I wouldn’t have had asthma…the list of legitimate speculations is innumerable, one thing however is for certain; I was born on March 29th and through my very birth, I was sticking it to “the man.”

Human Enlightenment

In the course of human events it often becomes necessary to enlighten those who are less “lightened” than ourselves. The lightenedest of scholars have spent an ambiguous number of decades attempting to discover the complex and irrefutable method for bestowing this “enlightenedness” upon the endarkened members of society. Massive volumes of books and journals have been published to explain these phenomenon and the best they have come up with so far is the analogy of a light bulb coming on inside a person’s head once they come to the realization that whatever they were thinking about, now makes sense.

What they fail to tell you is that the light bulb isn’t failsafe and often comes on at the worst possible time. Just for the sake of argument, imagine Billy, our unenlightened friend, is staring over the edge of a cliff into an enormous precipice. At the base of this precipice sits a huge pile of chainsaws and a pack of hungry snow tigers…while Billy is thinking about what it would be like to fall from such a height, the light bulb in his head suddenly switches on and his mind tells him that jumping into the air from his current position would be both a good idea, and actually quite fun. The light bulb continues to burn as Billy rationalizes…..”it’ll be like flying”…”scars are cool”…”chicks would dig me”… Meanwhile, the group of lemmings that have been watching the whole ordeal from a nearby cliff are persuaded by Billy’s nonverbal communication to do exactly what he is thinking. Case in point.

For The Leaplings

This one goes out to all the poor babies who will be born this coming Friday…February 29. Which is by all known standards and belief systems considered the absolute worst day in the history of time to be born on. Having only three actual birthdays by the age of twelve is the kind of thing that will warp a kid to the point of unscrupulous derangement followed by a 24 hour period of magical normalcy that reoccurs once every four years.

It is a scientifically proven fact that infants born on Feb. 29 are 13.54% more likely to have additional limbs, misplaced clavicles, and be abducted by aliens. In very rare cases, “leaplings” develop super human powers such as radioactive fingernails and the ability to spontaneously generate piles of tin measuring cups out of thin air. Though these powers would prove very useful to the human race…and housewives, is it really worth the risk?

So for all you leaplings out there, I wish you a joyous and enchanted February 29…my hope and dream is that each and every one of you enjoy your birthday this Friday as if it wasn’t going to happen for another four years…because it isn’t.

Singles Awareness Day

As you all know, today is Singles Awareness Day…possibly the greatest occasion in the history of made up holidays (except perhaps, International Talk Like a Pirate Day). And it just so happens that S.A.D. falls on a Thursday this year and that in itself is cause for celebration – by the way, if you don’t like the acronym “SAD” you can just use “SA Day” which in essence really stands for Stewart Adams Day and is all part of my plan for world domination.

Growing up, SAD was always a source of laughter and giddiness for me…from the tons of spam emails advertising “Light a spark in your love life this Valentine’s Day!” – to Joey giving himself a gift and love note complete with lip imprint, just to throw everybody off. Don’t let these moments pass you by, come celebrate the magic of Singles Awareness Day. There are bound to be other people with which to mix and mingle who have the ‘single’ most important thing in common with you on this joyous holiday. Oh, and there will also be people who are weird and not single but celebrate SAD anyway…

No telling what kind of craziness we’ll get into…activities may or may not include:
01. Spin the bottle – and slap the person it points to.
02. 1 person Twister.
03. The game of solitary confinement.
04. Making red paper hearts, then cut them to pieces with scissors.
05. Solitaire.