Nectar, Take Note

I don't know who's idea it was to put non-carbonated beverages in cans—honestly, I don't—but I doubt it was a group decision. I have come to feel this way because whenever I am about to twist off the top of a bottled beverage, be it plastic or glass, and even before I insert straw here, I usually pause to think, hmm... I wonder if I'm supposed to shake this, and subsequently, no, it does not appear that way, or, ah yes, it says here, "shake well," depending—but replace that bottle or box/carton with a can, and that thought process is replaced entirely by the much simpler (though still poised and articulate) oh boy, here goes nothing, and I certainly am not alone in this.

That's right, whoever came up with putting non-carbonated drinks in cans must have been the single person on earth to make it to adulthood without being conditioned to believe that all beverages in cans, when shaken, gain horrible destructive powers—that there are safer ways of running with scissors than there are of running with Pepsi-Cola(s)—that only very stupid people ever say "hey broskie, throw me a beer," and that said beers thrown to said people are usually not their first of the heretofore unmentioned afternoon.

Somewhere, probably in a desert untouched by civilization, a butterfly (presumably a nomadic butterfly) flapped its wings in just such a way that the shifting winds of the earth somehow shielded a solitary person from this common knowledge, and that person went on to market nectar—yes, nectar—in cans. If anyone should have known this would happen, it was the butterfly, who should have known better and who was an idiot. The butterfly's victim, I can only regard as tragically sheltered, because anyone who would dare add copious amounts of sugar to the juice and puree of everyone's favorite fruits in the world (that's right mango, I'm talking about you... you too papaya... alright banana, you can come too, as long as you bring your friends) and offer it to the masses for less than the price of an expensive cup of coffee demands our respect.

However, how many more untold thousands must pick up cans of nectar, usually on vacation or over at a friend's house, and open them cautiously before realizing that (oh crap) this is the solitary canned product in the universe that you're supposed to shake, before we look past that respect and see a problem that needs to be fixed? How many faceless, nameless, thirsty people will be forced to improvise a method for shaking an open can before we gather together and do something about it? How long before it isn't just some guy on the street corner or some friend of a friend? How long before you find yourself with a little bit of nectar on your thumb, and a little dripping down your hand—before some of it ends up on your pants? How long, people? How long?

I Just Won a Game of Solitaire...

...and thus ended a 10-game losing streak. As an optimist, I'd say the glass is one eleventh full. As a realist, I'd say that I shouldn't play solitaire in the desert.

This is What Dead Cats Look Like When You're a Special Agent

This is What Lamps Look Like When You're a Special Agent

More Like, Silver Full of Its

They say you can only kill a werewolf with a silver bullet, but that’s ridiculous. If you shot one with say, 28,000 bullets of the non-silver variety, wouldn’t a werewolf at least bleed to death? Has anyone ever tried explosives on a werewolf? I mean, have explosives really been ruled out? How about poison? If you locked up a werewolf without food or water for a year, wouldn’t it starve to death at some point? Couldn’t you strangle a werewolf? Couldn’t you cut off a werewolf’s head?

It’s one thing to have a weakness against silver bullets—that I can believe—but to be otherwise invincible is absolutely preposterous. If a meteor the size of Vermont collided with Earth on the night of a full moon and happened to land directly on a werewolf, am I really expected to believe that the werewolf would swim up out of the magma-filled crater and die only the next morning when it transformed back into a human and choked to death on the ashes of a dead world? Come on, let’s get serious.

Way Too Serious

Today I was an only child.
Wait...
I don't even know what that means.

things that the internet at work is slower than at the moment

1) hell

Sci-Fi Free Verse Epic Poem Part 5

Anyway, that’s neither here nor there. The point is
That Sam was a freaking loon. You could even say it this way:
“That Sam was a freaking loon,” so it doesn’t even
Matter if you pause unnecessarily at every line break
Like so many do.
(It’s hard not to.)
But here I am just rambling on and on (and on and so forth) etc.,
When I could be telling you about the episode with the puppet.
Well, I’ll get there soon I promise, It’s just that
I need to finish out this stanza before we can get started.

list of things that dried white peaches make me want to do

1) puke
2) have another

a(n im)partial list of things that dried white peaches look like

1) human ears poorly preserved in formaldehyde

This Title Thing is Going to Get Boring Pretty Soon, So...

So, to clarify, what Sam really said when he woke up was
“Dude, it was right here a moment ago.”
There’s nothing wrong with that wherever two or more are gathered,
But… Sam was all alone, so it was a bad sign, at least in hindsight.
Greg, on the other hand,
With the whole “Shooter" thing,
Well… Greg was an all right guy. Sure, he might have said
Things like “Whoa Shooter, keep away from the pastry,”
But when you’ve been alone for two years
It’s okay to be afraid of pastry. Especially lemon bars.

Know What I Mean?

I guess this is as good a time as any to tell you
That Greg and Sam didn’t go by "Greg" or "Sam" anymore.
Heck, they’d been the only two people alive for two years,
And there weren’t a lot of people around to say
“Hey Greg,” or
“Hey Sam.” You
Know? So they’d both taken to thinking of themselves
By different names. Greg called himself “Shooter,”
And Sam always thought of himself as “Dude,”
But, like, he really thought of himself as “Dude.”

...So Now's My Chance to Get a Head Start

Greg peddled to a nearby mall and stocked up on supplies.
He found a better backpack and a pair of running shoes.
At some point Sam woke up and found his bike was gone.
“It was right here a moment ago,” he said—alone in his head,
Though in a sense his head was right,
Maybe for the last time,
For Greg had long since found the bike
And ridden far from town.
If ever again their paths should cross
Then Fate obviously doesn’t have anything better to do.

In the Future, Anything Will Pass as Poetry

At the end of our age, only two men survived the plague.
Their names were Greg and Sam because, why not?
But they both thought they were the last one alive,
Which explains why, after two years of wandering the earth alone,
Greg stole Sam's bike
While Sam was asleep.
The chances of that happening probably aren't very high,
But anyway that's what happened.
It was the highlight of Greg's life
And the start of when Sam went insane.

written for my newspaper internship

Monday night at Hennessy’s Bar and Grill in Carlsbad, a few men and women begin trickling in at the back patio around 7, shaking hands and trying to remember one another’s names. After too long of a debate, they decide to pull two small plastic tables together. Twenty minutes later there are 10 people around three tables and it doesn’t look like anyone else is coming. A man on the end passes out articles on scratch paper—politics, religion or science on one side, old multiplication worksheets or tips for preserving fruit on the other. No one looks too interested in reading just yet.

“Are we eating?” one wants to know. He doesn’t get a definitive answer, but orders the fish and chips anyway. A few others order something to eat or drink, and then, now that everyone’s here, it’s time for introductions again. It’s understandable that they don’t all know each other because they only meet once a month, and they can’t all make it every month.

This is a meeting of the Brights. Their common bond is that they are all atheists, or is that right? Technically, a Bright is someone who does not believe in anything supernatural. The Brights started in Sacramento in 2003 and have spread to almost 100 countries since then, but it sounds like the terminology is still being hashed out. The group around the tables launches into a discussion about the difference between atheist and agnostic, agnostic and ignostic, skeptic and secular humanist. From there they talk about religious texts, presidential canidates, faith and belief, corporations, morals and ethics, good books. But a lot of what they talk about is just how nice it is to be able to talk at all.

“I have a wife and two children, and they’re religious. Just for family harmony, I’m not going to go on and on,” says the man with the fish and chips. It’s a common sentiment, but some say it more strongly.

“We have family that are religious and we’ll go to Christmas and Thanksgiving with them, but we have friends and family members who have found out we were nonreligious and now they don’t want to hang out with us,” says Paul Wenger, 53. Paul has been the president of the San Diego Association for Rational Inquiry for 2 years. He’s got brochures in his car if anyone is interested, but he’s really just here to talk.

So is Eve Daniels, 70, a trained concert pianist with a master’s degree in human development who has met with the Brights off and on for the last 9 months.

“We all need to be able to talk. We all need to have a place where we know we can talk and what we say is valued, and that also allows us to hear ourselves, and you can say back to me what I’ve said, and the idea gets polished.”

Eve says this to Anne Adams, 68, a retired secretary and proud grandmother who once considered herself to be a Christian. She had difficulty pinpointing exactly when she changed her mind about religion.

“I’ve been what you would call a freethinker my whole life. I just didn’t know what to call it,” she says. “I miss being part of the church, you know, the closeness, the camaraderie, but not the other…” she waves her hand to sum it up. Anne says she hasn’t ruled out the existence of the supernatural, but that she does need to be true to herself about what she thinks.

“The thing of it is—we don’t know.”

That’s when the man with the handouts chimes in.

“I disagree, we know thoroughly.”

His name is Lambert Bertrand Halsema, but “Bert” is good enough.

“I’m a Buddhist, so I’m an atheist with a future,” he introduced himself earlier. Asked how old he is, he says he’s not old, he’s a classic. He moved from Florida to California when he joined the Merchant Marines 53 years ago, and he probably wasn’t young then.

Bert has a doctorate in cultural geography from the Nation Autonomous University in Mexico City, he keeps up on his reading, and he isn’t afraid to express his opinions. His t-shirt reads, “God needs no help starting holy wars. Keep church and state separate.”

They all have plenty to talk about, and the topics are as varied as the people around the tables. No one gets up to leave until 10:30, and even then, saying goodbye is a 30-minute process for some.

Nutrition (fun) Facts for Said Sunflower Seeds

serving size: "1 package"
servings per container: "about 1"
me: "...?"

Note Scratched into the Wall Next to a Neglected Bag of David's Sunflower Seeds

It's been, how many weeks now? Each day fades into the next, fades into the next.

Leaving Work at the Office

According to AP style, the correct abbreviation for electronic mail is "e-mail," and this is a "Web site."

Amazing Tattoo Idea #4

An angry goat-like creature whipping an email account that timed out and lost a very long email in progress. The whole thing would be on fire, only the goatman would be unharmed, as would his whip. But, to clarify, it would be a fiery whip made out of chain link. Also, there'd be a kid on the other deltoid popping bubble wrap, just to make the scene painful and annoying. Bonus suggestion: have the goat thing also be kicking the email account with its cloven hooves.

Note to Self # 2

Don't write poems after 10.

p.s. Don't write poems.