Thursday, September 20, 2012

Craaaaacked

Hi everybody... My shabby little blog has never had so much fun. If you read the article on Cracked, there were two entries that didn't make the cut. Here they are below:

Jacques Cousteau's 2,200-year-old wine

On a 1952 dive, Cousteau and his crew uncovered the wreck of a Greek trading galley dated to 250BC. The galley was headed for Marseilles, packed with wine from the Cyclades and pottery from Rhodes. Cousteau guessed that on the trip's final leg, the ancient sailors got wasted, since some of the bottle seals appeared "tampered with." Then, presumably arguing over which goddess would be the best lay, the crew proceeded to drunk-drive the fucker into the rocks just before reaching port.

Cousteau and his crew recovered some 1,500 amphorae, and already giddy with the idea that they were outnumbered yet not expected to surrender, they decided to pop one to celebrate.

Yeah, it was nasty – but perhaps not quite as grody as… (then the Mastodon juice followed.)

And:

The Salt of the Earth…that might be radioactive

Not many people have eaten something a quarter-billion years old, but those wacky NOVA folks are certainly down. Way down. They traveled 2,000 feet deep into the earth in search of the salt that hosts prehistoric water. Water trapped in the crystalized salt could hold DNA or bacteria older than dinosaurs and plants. Who wants a bite?

In addition to maybe holding 250,000-year-old microbes, this particular salt might even have another secret. Hey, where are we, anyways? They won't tell us. It's an undisclosed government location where they store radioactive waste, 2,000 feet underground.

Scientist Jack Griffith and journalist Ziya Tong had a mini-toast with the ancient mineral, tossed it down and declared that it tastes…just like salt. Just exactly like salt. Still, salt snobs everywhere envy the shit out of them.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Oink

I have eaten nothing but shit today. Literally nothing but shit. I love how I'm talking about something mundane like being a pig when I should be apologizing to you all for not having writen anything for a hundred fucking years.

I've had a hell of a year. I can't wait to tell you everything that's happened, but there are legal ramifications if I do right now. Once this crap's over, though, it'll be a fucking miracle if I don't get sued for libel after all the shit I'm going to write.

In the meantime, I may as well tell you that my ex asked me to come "home." No, seriously. Two-and-a-half years later. We were on Skype with my stepdaughter and my ex. She's the most beautiful girl in the world and I love her, and he - well, he's the father of my two babies.

He told me he hasn't been able to sell the house yet, and he just can't stay there and do it all on his own. He said this all with a sad look on his face, then crumbled into tears and said "come back."

Without hesitating, I said "No. Absolutely not," but I cried too. I cried because he finally said what I'd wanted to hear when I first left. I waited a long time to hear those words from him. And at the same time, I could see the mirage: My smiling stepdaughter, by pretty, manicured back yard out through the plate-glass window. Our little maltese dog, my mouse-catching black cat. Our neat, orderly home where so much pain was inflicted, all white-washed away through the little window on my computer screen. It's like the requisite part of all those fantasy sequences in movies that test the character of the heroes: "It's all right there. Everything you've ever wanted. Just reach out and take it." Harry Potter's Mirror of Erised, Alice and the looking glass, Daenerys in the House of the Undying, etc., etc.

The secret, of course, is to realize it's just a spell, and accepting it at face value will lead to doom. Seeing it as reality renders you insane.

Of course I know the reality. I've lived through the fear and anger, bumps and bruises, and lies and sadness. So I did what anyone would do: cried for half-an-hour in the shower; kissed my children while they slept, then crawled into bed and willed myself to sleep - so by the time I woke up to the smell of coffee in the morning, the spell was broken.