Death by energy?
Category: Misc.

You know what I'd really like to see? I would like to see a comparison of deaths by Nuclear Power vs. deaths by coal/oil/fossil.

There is so much bad nuclear press; yet, best I can tell, there have been fewer than 1000 deaths directly from nuclear power. Even secondary deaths (i.e. cancers thought to have been caused by nuclear) (I guess) would be very low.

On the flip side... I'm pretty sure that I recently read that in China alone THIS YEAR there have been nearly 5000 direct deaths in search of fossil fuel.

In any case, if people have numbers feel free to share them.

Truly change your life!
Category:

Every now and again, if you're lucky, you'll learn something that will truly change your life. Oh sure, there are the big realizations about who you are as a person. There's all the stuff that you learn to make you successful in your career and in relationships. That stuff is all nice and dandy but I'm talking about something that will TRULY change your life.

Well. It happened to me the other week (during my hiatus); I learned that you don't have to refrigerate ketchup. That's right - there's no need. I know what you're thinking - that's lunacy! Well you're wrong. I too was in disbelief. I even read the bottle after hearing the news. Guess what; there isn't even the ubiquitous "refrigerate after opening" warning on the bottle. So - there you go. You will no longer have to live in a world with cold ketchup again.

Shred away!
Category:

When you've been away as long as I have, it's hard to get back into the swing of things. First, there's the "what's one more day?" thing. However, almost as debilitating is the "is this *really* the post that I want to return with?" thing.

Combine the two and all of a sudden it can be months before a post is written.

So here I stand with a post completely unworthy of a return. That said I will get to the point. I am returning with a suggestion for our lawmakers.

My brilliant suggestion? It's really a two part plan. Part one: establish a "government approved" paper shredder. Part two: require that all commercial mail which could lead to identity theft be able to be placed in the shredder AS SENT.

The result? I don't spend my time opening credit card offers and taking out the stupid magnets/fake cards/whatever before I stick it in the shredder. It can go straight from my mailbox to the shredder!

Podcast
Category: Misc.

Last week marked the 1 year birthday for my column, The Clicker. Peter and Ryan talked about it a little on the Engadget Podcast.

The pauses and their choice of words cracked me up.

To their credit they give me the freedom to have some fun with it and they don't restrict what I write (even when they KNOW it will result in some (to quote Ryan) "umm Feedback so to speak.").

I clipped the part about me out and put it here.

On illness
Category: You Don't Know Jack

As an admitted hypochondriac it was not unusual for Jack to spend any particular day laboring under the misconception that he had somehow contracted an odd, unusual, or downright freaky disease. At the slightest hint of a cough, Jack would run to what he referred to as “The Bible,” an outdated but very well-loved copy of the 1947 classic “A Guide to Modern Medicine and Illnesses.”

Within minutes Jack would cross reference his symptoms and diagnose the problem. If Jack was missing a symptom here or there, he need only wait a couple more minutes. Suddenly those missing symptoms would miraculously appear. Jack was a self-diagnosis expert.

His contraction of these diseases was further exacerbated by his near paralyzing fear of doctors. While quick blood-tests and common sense would have limited his “sick” time, Jack resisted the doctor’s office and instead chose to tough it out.

Over the years Jack had thrice been the victim of yellow fever. His prolonged battle with Rabies accounted for much of 1998. Small Pox and Lime disease ripped two more years from him. None of this was new, however. Since as far back as Jack could remember he was always sick.

Jack was the product of a broken home. His mother, a nurse, was the sole bread winner for the family. Her unforgiving schedule and her need to pick up as much overtime as possible left Jack motherless on many an evening. On these nights Jack’s older sister, Jill, was charged with his safety. Jill took her responsibilities LITERALLY. Safety – that’s all. There would be no entertainment. There would be no mothering. If Jack’s tongue was clear of the electrical socket, Jill had done her job. The closest to entertainment that Jack got was a hearty game of “dodge that book.” It was in one of these much-cherished games that Jack’s life would be changed forever.

It was round three. In rounds one and two Jack had successfully dodged two small and unnaturally aerodynamic books. He was now growing cocky. Jill, increasingly growing impatient with her little brother’s energy, grabbed the biggest book she could find, “The Guide to Modern Medicine and Illnesses.” Jill was slight of build, but you would have never known it watching that book fly across the room. Somehow she had channeled the spirit of an East German discus thrower. Jack tried to duck but there was no time.

Minutes later Jack regained consciousness. Luckily a woozy Jack and his now-concerned sister had just the tool they needed. In a twist of fate the weapon had become the cure. No bleeding. Check the pupils. Hmmm. They’re not reacting. Clearly a concussion. Over the pleas and then threats of his sister, Jack called his mother. She rushed home.

That evening Jack learned that if he was sick, his mother stayed home and tended to him. For the next few years Jack studied the book. He would read about flus, colds, indigestion, etc. and he would masterfully mimic the symptoms.

It’s not exactly clear when Jack lost his grip on the pretending portion of the scam, but it was early. By the time that Jack was nine, he no longer used the book to fake a flu. He had progressed to being convinced he had some of the rarer and more exotic diseases.

He spent the rest of his childhood suffering from Polio. Middle school brought diverticulitis. High School was particularly bleak due to his Tourette's, an illness that did not amuse his “Dickhead Motherfucking Monkey Wanking” teachers. His college years were robbed from him by his seven different bouts of Mononucleosis.

His post college years brought no relief from his string of ailments. By the age of 34, despite still being a virgin, Jack had at one time or another suffered from Gonorrhea, Chlamydia, Syphilis, Herpes, Genital Warts, and HPV. However, these STDs were shockingly routine when compared to his not one but two pregnancy scares.

Ordinary folk would begin to question their use the tattered and well-loved GTMMAI. Jack, however, lived by his bible. If Jack woke up with nausea, morning sickness, swelling, bloating, and it had clearly been more than thirty days since his last period, Jack was, in fact, pregnant. In a cruel twist of fate, Jack’s color-blindness, the only malady from which he actually suffered, hampered his ability to see pink from blue. In those rare cases, Jack broke his long-standing rule and visited the doctor. He made peace with those visits as he comforted himself with the knowledge that it was “for the baby.”

…..

So there!
Category: Site news

I bet you thought that I was going to write yesterday. You were wrong! Yes -- I did vow to, once again, pick it up. However, I wasn't about to be one of those people who made a New Year's Resolution only to drop it half way into January. So, instead, I got straight down to business and broke it ON DAY ONE. Take that! You can't beat that kind of determination.

In any case, I'd like to say Welcome Back. Wait -- you're supposed to say that. Well... if you do, I'd prefer that you sing it. Ouch -- something tells me that just went over many of your heads. Great now I'm starting the year as a resolution breaking person who feels old.

I suppose that I can dream that it didn't. After all, "your dreams are your ticket out."

FYI
Category: You Don't Know Jack

The working title for my "10 Minutes of Writing" exercises will now be "You Don't Know Jack."

10 Minutes of Writing
Category: You Don't Know Jack

Once a year Jack would suffer the same fate. Being relatively unobservant, Jack would fail to notice that the glory days of Spring were coming to an end. The days were growing longer and people’s fuses were growing shorter. The love that so filled the air in the height of Spring was slowly being replaced by the state smell of urine. Ah – to be in New York in the Summer time… All of this was lost to Jack. That was, of course, until Jack lived through his annual ritual of the corduroy pants.

A man of average build Jack leaned slightly towards the stout side. He wasn’t fat, but he certainly hadn’t skipped meals either. On 364 days of the year his slightly heavy legs posed no issue whatsoever. Day 365 was another matter. The favorite corduroy pants that clad his thighs every Thursday throughout the Fall, Winter, and Spring would cease to be a comfort and, instead, become a fabric tinderbox. Jack would look to the sign on the local bank. 82 degrees it read. However, with every step the swish of his pants told a different story. 83, 84, 85, 86. He was all but certain that soon his crotch would burst into a huge ball of flames. 87. He cursed his pants. He also cursed himself. He knew that this happened the previous year and the year before that and that…..

Jack's brush with death
Category: You Don't Know Jack

His cat, Mr. Whiskers, slowly circled the large bottle of pills which stood on the kitchen table. “Surely this time I’ll be successful,” Jack muttered to himself in a barely audible voice.

To be fair, it’s not that Jack lacked either the courage or the follow-through to kill himself. It’s just that, like everything else in his life, Jack was simply no good at pulling together the essential details of a plan. This would be his third and final attempt to off himself. Jack had already decided that if he were to fail again, his punishment would be life.

His first attempt at suicide was a miserable failure. In a fit of depression over Kate, the object of a 7 year lusting and a woman who had made the mistake of displaying a small amount of interest in Jack albeit as friends, Jack had made the decision to end his own life.

Jack sat in the garage with the engine running and a long tube connecting the tailpipe to the interior cabin. For three hours Jack sat in that car. It wasn’t until the clock clicked into hour number four that Jack gave up and turned off the car. His Prius just wouldn’t cooperate.

Attempt two was, in a manner of speaking, more successful in that it caused both bodily harm and a great deal of fear. He learned the hard way that the “gun” his nephew owned was, in fact, a paint gun complete with red “bullets.” Jack took a deep breath, pulled the trigger, and waited for death. He knew that the shot was a direct hit when he saw the red blood splatter against the wall. Still alive, Jack reached to touch the wound. His ghoulish mind though that it might be fun to stick his finger into the fresh hole. Though, probe as he might, he just couldn’t find the wound. Eventually Jack learned the error of his ways, wiped the paint from his head and went to work. He was comforted by the fact that he would at least see Kate there.

“This time was different though,” Jack thought. Mr. Whiskers was less convinced that Vitamin C would be deadly….

10 Minutes
Category: You Don't Know Jack

So I'm trying something new... Every day(ish) I'm gonna just open up the notepad and write for 10 minutes. It might be random and it might not be. I don't know. In any case, here is today's 10 minute exercise. If you've got 10 minutes to spare add a comment with your creative exercise for the day.

____________________________________________________________

Jack looked around the room with disgust. It’s hard to overstate how much Jack hated going to the doctor’s office. Multiply this by an order of magnitude you’ll near Jack’s mood while sitting in the waiting room of what he considered to be the worst of the bunch, the dermatologist. The source of his consternation was the sea of unseen rashes which he was sure hid under the layers of clothing around him. He could just picture the boils, blisters, and ooze that dripped from those skin infestations. Logically he understood that little cancers were the likely cause of so many of his fellow patients' visits. However, he just couldn’t escape the mental picture of bodies filled with sores.

Jack leafed through an old People magazine. Sadly, it showed the once happy Brad and Jennifer on a beach in Aruba. “Poor Jennifer,” he thought, “she’s in for a world of hurt.”

The bell attached to the door clanged as another walked in. A big smile spread across Jack’s face as the teenage boy walked through the door. Look at those zits! No need to worry about his rashes. Give that boy some AcuTane and get him on his way.

A toe into the shallow end
Category: Misc.

It was time for the rubber to meet the road, to shit or get off the pot, etc. etc. That’s right -- I either needed to a) write something or b) officially put a sign up saying “This site has now joined the 1,900,000 other dead weblogs in the sky.”

I realize that the chances of anyone reading this are slim. I’ve given you no reason to come back. I can really only thank god for the power of the RSS feed. No other tool has helped to bring a site back to life with such alacrity.

It’s not that I’ve stopped writing. Yes, I’m still doing my weekly column for Engadget. It’s just that I have gotten out of the habit of memorializing those random thoughts and observations that seem to be all-present in my life.

Before I continue – I really do have to give special recognition to loyal reader Erin. She did her best to force me out of my hibernation. I’d also like to point out that she did it honestly. In the past I’ve (jokingly) accused her of moving the counter with "fake" comments. Well, she wasn’t about to be accused again. With mouse in hand, she scoured through the archives looking for “comment-able” entries. Before too long she had pushed us into “Post Overdue” mode and there we sat. Well, hopefully she learned a lot and was entertained by the entries.

I’m gonna ease back into this with a quote from a song. In the past, song quotes have really only spoken to me during the throes of a big breakup. That time in my life having sailed, music quotes rarely hold the same place in my heart (oh to be a teenager).

With that said, you can always count on Jimmy Buffett to give you something fun. Here’s a quote that really describes me:

I’m a piece of work
I’m iron and lace. I’m shy right up there in your face.

I’m a sweetheart, genius, restless jerk
Lord have mercy -- I’m a piece of work.

Those who know me well can speak to the validity of a bunch of those statements. I particularly like the concepts of “Shy right up there in your face” and being a “sweetheart jerk.”