MMMMMM that shoe tastes pretty damn good....

It seems that the concept of "opportune timing" does not exist in my world. I mean, I'm as lucky the next guy and will have my fair share of serendipidous encounters/experiences but for the most part, a lot of what I do (or in this case) what I say tends to be at the worst possible time.

I attended a wedding this weekend (Nov 13th). Amazing, beautiful, elegant, fanciful, etc etc are all great descriptive words that understatedly delinate the afternoon and evening.

You're probably thinking, "ok, this sounds like a normal wedding...."

And it was. The nuptials were executed outdoors, right next to the calm ocean with a setting sun as a backdrop and the Ritz Carlton Hotel as a breeze blocker to our left. The happily married couple finished with the ceremony and were on their celebratory walk back down the isle. During their leisurely jaunt, Dave and I were reciting a line from the movie "Princess Bride"

"Wuv, twuuuu wuvvv!"

I then immediately thought about that one part in the movie when they go to see Miracle Max to help revive the mostly dead Wesley. When they were leaving Max's house, the old couple say,

"You think it will work?........"

"It'll take a miracle."


So yea, I said that out loud. And the shitty/funny part about that was, I said this just as the married couple walked by.

I spent the next several minutes trying to convince the people around me that what I said was totally taken out of context and that I was just reciting one of my favorite lines from a movie. I don't think they believed me.

C'est la vie.

Despite the embarrassing nature of this moment, I am comforted by the one fact that Asian Murphy has the un-surpassable title of "Saying the completely wrong thing at the completely wrong time"

If you don't know who the Asian Murphy is, look at one of my previous posts titled "Asian Murphy's Law" and read the inauspicious moment #3....

WTF?

This is what you find when you're bored out of your mind and have grown weary of searching the entire youtube archives for entertaining shit.

I will say this... If I happened to come home and find something like this waiting for me, I just might simultaneously shit and piss myself and then do this:

I laugh every time I watch that video. She was a pretty good sport about it. If that were any of the girls that I know, someone's nutsack would be stapled to the wall.

How I got over my fear of the dark

This is a short, coming of age tale of a young boy, his fear of the dark, and how this fear was violently purged.

I think I was about 7 years old or so and I was having trouble falling asleep. Mom and dad were in the kitchen talking about stuff. Around 11pm or so, I walked into the kitchen and told my parents that I couldn't sleep.

My dad asked, "why can't you sleep?"

To which I replied, "I'm scared of the dark."

Dad then said, "oh, I can fix that."

He then took me into the bathroom that was directly connected to his. This bathroom was freaky. It was old, smelled funny, and the shower that was in it had so much grime that you couldn't see through the door. Once in the bathroom, he turned on the cold water in the shower, pushed me in clothes and all, closed the door, and said don't come out until I come back.

I was in that shower for what felt like an hour or so (I think it was about 15 minutes). I had time to reflect upon why I was really afraid of the dark. When my dad came back, he opened the door, turned off the water and said, "go to bed." I quickly dried off and wanted nothing more than to be in my bed. I slept rather easily and have not had a problem with being afraid of the dark since.

Now, if only there were a similar way for me to get over my fear of little people. I mean, I find them absolutely fascinating but whenever I get near one, I freeze up.

Anybody know of a "midnight cold shower" equivalent for midget fear?

Sometimes... you don't need words.

Remember how I said that sometimes you need to kick a girl in the cooter? Well, if I had to face this particular cooter, I might just turn tail and run the fuck away.

I miss Berkeley....

Just this past Sunday (8/16/09) I was in Berkeley, walking along Telegraph Ave. I was very close to the Amoeba's. As I was on my leisurely stroll, enjoying the sun and cool weather, I happened upon the most random verbal exchange ever.

To my right, there was a homeless man. He was blind and had one of those "seeing" canes. He was standing in front of Amoeba's. To my left, there was another homeless man. He was not blind and he was sitting on a bench about 10 feet away from the blind guy. The following conversation happened, verbatim (the names are different to protect the innocent)

normal vision homeless guy: "hey, Joe!"

blind homeless guy: "huh? who is that?"

normal vision homeless guy: "It's Steve!!!"

blind homeless guy: "Steve?"

normal vision homeless guy: "Yeah, you know, the guy who helped you take a shit last night!"

Berkeley. Telegraph Ave. I miss college.

Drinking Contest

I went on a short trip to Los Angeles, I think it was for a few days, with my ex. We were gonna hang out with some good friends and have some fun.

These good friends of ours are korean women, 3 of them to be exact. We were gonna go to a Korean club and party. I had never been to a Korean club before but had heard about the shenanigans that go on there. Lots of Crown Royal and little asians does not go well together. Anyways, on the way there, these girls talked about how much they drank the last time they went and how they drank a bunch of people, including dudes, under the table. I muttered out loud that they would not be out-drinking me. Lots of laughter and giggling ensued. That only pissed me off even more. There was no way I was getting beaten at drinking by 3 little Korean women.

We get to the club. Order a bottle of Crown Royal and start drinking.

14 shots later, I was done. Not only was I done, I couldn't move. The 3 Korean girls with me and my ex? All fine, they went dancing. Actually, the 3 girls went dancing and my ex stayed with me. I remember hearing this guy sitting close to us talking to my ex and saying how they should go dance. She said no and he replied, "but he's fucked up, he won't even know." I thought to myself, "If I could move, I would totally fuck your ass up." But I couldn't even open my mouth, so I just laid there.

Next thing I remember was waking up at a noodle house or something like that. I had a cup of tea that I was nursing. In and out of consciousness I went. I have no idea what time it was or how long we had been there, let alone how the hell we even got there. But, I knew one thing, I was really fucking drunk. I needed to get some air. So, I got up and walked outside. I walked to the sidewalk and noticed a bench. I sat down and put my head in my hands. I then noticed a bright light shining down on me. I looked up and wondered what the hell it was. "Sir, are you OK?" Was the question I heard. I replied, "yeah, I'm just getting some air." Turns out it was LAPD and as they were walking towards me, probably to take me to the ol drunk tank to sober up, the 3 girls and my ex come running out of the building screaming their heads off about how I was with them. The cops told them to keep a better eye on me and left. The girls got me in a cab and we went back to the hotel.

So yeah. Don't battle little Korean girls at drinking Crown Royal. They will win.

Lab Mishaps

I will tell a few stories of lab mishaps that occurred during my 2 year stint working in a Nutritional Science lab at Cal.

First of all, working in that lab was one of the greatest experiences in my life. I got to see how an academic lab did things. And I got to meet some of the coolest people who are still good friends to this day, INCLUDING, my noona or Big Sis, Alice C.

Ok, so the first mishap isn't really that bad. I was chillin in the lab talking with another lab assistant. What I didn't notice was a liquid nitrogen dewer (container) that was sitting right next to my leg. I was sitting on one of those swivel chairs and when I moved to one side, I knocked it over. The sound I heard from this act was quite possibly the loudest glass explosion ever. It literally sounded like a softball sized meteor came crashing through a large plate glass window.

We freaked out and kinda just froze. Within seconds, the Professor ran into the room and with his French accent asked, "what zee hell happoned?" The other guy with me quickly responded, "Oh, sorry Jean Marc, the dewer just exploded for no reason. We don't know how it happened."
He said, "ok" and walked away. I'm not sure if he believed us but oh well, we cleaned it up and continued talking.

The next mishap involves me almost permanently damaging my left hand. I was working in a fume hood with some samples that I needed to add a strong acid to (12 normals). I was in a hurry and only needed to add the acid to a few samples. I put one glove on my right hand, took the acid out of the refrigerator, placed it in the fume hood and proceeded to add the acid to the samples. Everything was going well until I finished adding the acid to the last sample. Remember, I was doing this with one hand. So, as I'm moving to close the acid bottle, my hand accidentaly knocks over the bottle. I instinctively grabbed for it with my left hand and the resulting jolt caused the acid to splash onto my hand. At first I thought, "oh shit. What do I do?"
That thought was quickly replaced with , "HOLY FUCKING SHIT, MY HAND IS BURNING!"
I bounded towards the sink and quickly started to flush my hand with cold water. The other lab assistant saw what happened and quickly poured baking soda on my hand. Lucky for me, I didn't lose any skin. It just burned. Well, a few days later, my hand started to turn brown and then yellowish. And then the skin peeled. It was kinda gross and cool at the same time. I never, ever used strong acid after that without wearing gloves on both hands.

The last incident is probably the grossest thing that has ever happened to me. While working in the lab, I applied for a grant to study glucose flux using acetominaphen as a marker. The patients would ingest some stuff and then we would detect how much of it got processed in the body by measuring the amount of stuff that was not utilized and therefore excreted. The way I was to test this was to measure the patients pee pee. First, I would have to pass the pee pee through a filter using a syringe. Everything was going as planned, in this particular instance. Then I got the sample that would change my life. I was trying to filter the pee but it was being really stubborn. What I later discovered was that if a bubble of air gets in the filter during the process, it clogs. I didn't know this at the time so I kept pressing, and pressing, and pressing until..... pop. Pee on my face. Yes, I got motherfucking piss on my face. Lucky for me, none of it made it into any orifice located on my head. I went to the sink, turned the faucet on, and stuck my head under it for a good 5 minutes. I dried myself off and went back to work. I was much more careful from that point on.