Terrible Analogies

Whelp, it’s Friday, and I’m all tapped out.  I got nuthin’ for ya.  I’m a shell of my normal self.  Bereft of thought, mentally void, and awash in a warm calming sea of indifference.  All I can think of as I stare slack-jawed and motionless in the center of a dark room staring into the soft glow of my laptop is that it’s finally Friday, and for me that means there’s just one more work day before I can enjoy my one day off this week.  Needy computers…

I’m just glad I don’t have this announcer’s job.  I don’t think I could be witty enough to come up with enough pop culture references to fill an entire season of hockey:

But if I ever did find myself either burnt out from my job, or just simply unemployed, I guess I could channel all of my energy into finally finishing my book, studying for a doctorate, or molding myself into a Tetris god (see how wicked-fast…and invisible…it gets at the end):

Of course, if the unthinkable does happen and I become a drain on society, unable to hold down meaningful employment between hits of Mountain Dew and Twinkies, I could always download a torrent of Final Cut Studio, drop a delicate balance of uppers and downers, and create something as wonderfully twisted as this:

Or I could just take a cue from my cat and chill under the covers all day, which seems more and more like the proper path to take:

Heh…I think she has the right idea…

While perusing the blu-ray isle at Fry’s yesterday I heard a tiny voice behind me say, “Do you mind if I ask you a couple of questions about blu-rays?”  Unfortunately for me I had to reply in a positive way, “Sure!”.  Turning around I found the wavering voice belonging to a man in his late forties, well dressed in a sweater and slacks, carrying several packs of empty DVD cases.  He asked if I noticed a difference between blu-ray and standard DVD.  He asked if I was upgrading movies in my collection to this new format.  He asked about television resolution and speaker systems.

Then he asked me if I believed in aliens.

Just like that he asked me.  Out of the blue.  Do I believe in Aliens?

I quickly learned that his name was Frank, and that he thought secret military transport tunnels criss-crossed underneath the entirety of the United States.  Frank claimed that this was how Cheney made good his escape to a fortified undergound bunker during 9/11, but that they can’t make these tunnels in California “because of the earthquake fault lines.”  Frank also claimed to have intimate, first-hand knowledge of Area 51, and that the main operations had been moved to a hidden location deep in the Canadian interior.  Apparently, Aurora was old news, and that a new “invisible” aircraft had already been developed to take its place.  This knowledge was, of course, passed on to him during closed door meetings he had with some of the “top brass” while serving as a medic in the Navy some ten years back.

And so I stood there like an idiot, blu-rays in hand, listening intently for any sign of a verbal pause from Frank so I could excuse myself from the conversation, but he continued on with barely a breath.  The conversation morphed into a giant run-on sentence.  Frank’s words were bullets, and I was the target.  

He asked if I knew about Tesla, and how big corporations squashed innovation in favor of old technology to keep the money rolling in.  Frank lamented in great detail on Wernher von Braun, and did I know that satellites are spying on us this…very…second?  ”If Google has satellites capable of identifying people in their backyards, imagine what the military possesses!”  Frank also wanted to know if I knew that his wife has a glass eye.

I finally had to interrupt him, asking if he had visited any number of online web sites dealing with this sort of thing. Faking a concerned look at my watch, told him that I unfortunately had to take off.  

We shook hands and parted ways.  Frank headed for the registers and I made my way to the back of the store just to open up some space between us.  I didn’t want to chance another encounter with him in the parking lot.

I wondered what makes somebody open up to a complete stranger about aliens, ufos, and secret military bases.  Is it loneliness, as Karin pointed out to me, or do I just look like the approachable sort to conspiracy theorists?  I’d like to think that there is some sort of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, but this compulsion to spew obsessively memorized “facts” to any total stranger too weak (or in my case I can’t dismiss people, out of empathy) to simply stand up and walk away is a bit too much for me. 

Have you ever had one of these encounters?

Unpacking our weekly haul of groceries Karin picked up a seal pack of mushrooms and mumbled something about picking up a hitchhiker.  Handing the ‘shrooms to me she pointed out this little guy desperately trying to figure a way to freedom:

This got me thinking; I wonder how many bugs people inadvertently eat on a yearly basis.  If you ponder the process by which food is made, it isn’t raised or grown in sterile environments, but rather in farms and barns deluged with creepy-crawlies of all shapes and sizes.  It has to be an impossible task to remove all of them between the time it’s picked, caught, or killed, to when it finally appears in manageable bite-sized chunks on our plates ready and willing to be converted into energy.

The FDA apparently has guidelines in place that attempts to regulate how many contaminants consumers can ingest before it becomes something other than an “aesthetic” issue.  To quote the FDA:

The FDA set these action levels because it is economically impractical to grow, harvest, or process raw products that are totally free of non-hazardous, naturally occurring, unavoidable defects. Products harmful to consumers are subject to regulatory action whether or not they exceed the action levels.

Diving into this handout I’ve picked a few passages that you might find interesting.  I’ve made notes along the way to help you visualize the percentage of foreign material that can legally make it on to your dining room table:

ASPARAGUS, CANNED OR FROZEN
10% by count of spears or pieces are infested with 6 or more attached asparagus beetle eggs and/or sacs

BROCCOLI, FROZEN
Average of 60 or more aphids and/or thrips and/or mites per 100 grams
(NOTE: average bag of frozen broccoli is 100 grams)

CHOCOLATE
Any 1 subsample (100 grams)  contains 90 or more insect fragments
(NOTE: a standard Hershey’s Chocolate bar is 3.5oz (or 99.645 grams))

COCOA POWDER PRESS CAKE
Any 1 subsample (50 grams) contains 125 or more insect fragments

FIG PASTE
Contains 13 or more insect heads per 100 grams of fig paste
(Question: Why to so many insects lose their heads in the making of fig paste?) 

Blue Fin and other Fresh Water Herring
60 parasitic cysts per 100 fish (fish averaging 1 pound or less) or 100 pounds of fish averaging over 1 pound)
(NOTE: see Parasite Detoxification for further details.  This will make you think twice next time you order sushi.)

MACARONI AND NOODLE PRODUCTS
Average of 225 insect fragments or more per 225 grams
(NOTE: service size of macaroni is 2oz (56.94g))

NUTMEG, GROUND
Average of 100 or more insect fragments per 10 grams

OREGANO, GROUND
Average of 1250 or more insect fragments per 10 grams
(NOTE: small container of ground kitchen oregano is 21g)

PEPPER, GROUND
Average of 475 or more insect fragments and 2 or more rodent hairs per 50 grams
(NOTE: typical kitchen container of pepper is 63g)

TOMATO PASTE, PIZZA AND OTHER SAUCES
Average of 30 or more fly eggs per 100 grams
OR
15 or more fly eggs and 1 or more maggots per 100 grams
OR
2 or more maggots per 100 grams in a minimum of 12 subsamples

I’ve been living with a secret, one so dark and heavy it weighs me down with guilt, shortens my step, and drains me of my otherwise radiant charm.  It haunts me, daring me to go one more day before letting loose to the world this dreadful unknown.  

But I can’t bear the burden any longer.  My trembling, creaking bones can no longer carry the weight of this ill-gotten fortune.  I must share the origin of my blog title…

As a child I grew up with comic books.  For several years I even worked in a comic book shop.  My favorite series was one that holds the record for longest running english independent comic…Cerebus.  Originally a parody of Conan The Barbarian, it quickly evolved into a tale of politics, finance, religion, and ethics.  In the 300 monthly black and white issues that this story spanned Cerebus, an earth pig born, was a warrior, Prime Minister, the Pope, a witness to God, and finally serving as His vessel and doing His bidding before succumbing to a sad, uncelebrated fate Cerebus has foreseen and knows is ultimately unavoidable.

And this brings me back to my original point.  The title of my blog, Terrible Analogies, comes from an issue of Cerebus.  In it, Cerebus the Pope is rejected by the only woman he ever loved.  Having shed his papal garb and holding his old blade he stands at a pivotal crossroads; continue with his mad plan to bankrupt the city-state of Iest, or slink back to his old ways of living by the sword.  

If you’ve never read independent comics when they truly were independent, then I implore you to read the history of this series.  It’s a quick read, but well worth your time.  Check out some of the amazing cover art as well.  And after having reviewed this information you find yourself wishing to dive into this series, you can purchase the phonebook encyclopedia novels that covers the entire run of Cerebus.

So there you have it.  Terrible Analogies owes its title to Dave Sim and his amazing body of work.  

My love for this series knows no bounds…  

Here’s hoping that you had a nice, relaxing Valentine’s Day.  

It appears that the weatherman couldn’t have been more wrong about the forecast.  The weather was actually quite comfortable in southern California.  In between celebrating the wife’s birthday and Valentine’s Day I managed to squeeze in two trail runs in as many days.   When the rain does finally arrive I plan to spend my days in the gym, so it’s all good.

Not to get all non-sequitur on you, but for no apparent reason reason I’m been thinking about The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air recently, and something’s been bothering me about the show’s premise for the past three days.  If the Fresh Prince and his mother lived in the projects, and the Fresh Prince had an extraordinarily rich aunt who lived in a wealthy and prominent neighborhood of Los Angeles, why would his aunt let her sister live in such a squalid, dangerous location?  

It seemed that his mother and her sister were on good enough terms to let the Fresh Prince live with the aunt apparently with no conditions attached.  If they were on such good terms, why couldn’t his aunt kick a few bucks his way, helping he and his mother escape from a strangling life of targeted, criminal, gang-related violence?

I mean, here’s the aunt who’s dripping with jewelry, three self-centered kids, a powerfully-connected husband who happens to be a well-respected high-ranking judge, a smarmy butler, gardener, and an unknown number of servants lurking in the background performing a variety of tedious tasks all in an effort to keep her comfortable in the lifestyle to which she’s accustomed.  Floating in a pretentious sea of haute culture and callous celebrity, his aunt couldn’t lift the three fingers it takes to write a check that could change the life of an extremely intelligent, grounded, good-natured child that deserves the opportunity to excel beyond his wildest dreams, breaking the cycle of turbulence and strife that his family has no doubt experienced for generations?

This is, after all, family.  No?