Fireball

Today I had to make Omelets to show at work. This is not a fun thing for me. I get nervous when people watch me do things. I was stressed about this for like a week. For some reason, I always think I do not remember how to make omelets. Then I think that I'll mess up. I get very anxious about this.

I'm a super shy person. My friends wouldn't say so, but I've know them forever.

So I made a few omelets before all the customers arrived, to practice. My first one, not so great. Then real customers showed up, and I got into the hang of things. No major mess ups. I was happy. Then the other guy who was working the station with me decided to leave, because he had better things to do. The next 45 minutes was constant.

Then my boss' boss Paul comes up, and this other guy Mike. Big whigs in my land. I started up Mike's omelet and was trying to change the butane flames that power the stove. The lever that allows you to easily do this was broken. I was able to get the empty can out. The full can I couldn't do. I asked one of the hired help, John to give me a hand. We heard a whooshing sound and then suddenly a huge fireball erupts up into the air. John leaps about 15 feet to the right, knocking over a garbage can. I yank the butane out and the flames stop immeadiately. There was a small fire on the table which Mike put out like a firefighter. Everyone calms down and I finish their omelets. Mike and Paul were actually pretty cool about it. I was super embaressed, though.

As soon as I leave the building my cell phone starts to go off. "What happened...etc." What a nightmare fielding all those calls was.

Later my boss Steve comes up to me. "So you want to tell me what happened?" Luckilly I work with a lot of people who have a good sense of humor. My new nickname is "Fireball."

2009 Internet Fools' Day

The Star Wars Tauntaun sleeping bag was awesome. So awesome in fact, that ThinkGeek.com is making an actual prototype.

Boy, thanks for hesitating

Joe the lion went to the bar. A couple of drinks on the house and he said "I'll tell you who you are if you nail me to my car."

"Joe the Lion" is one of my favorite songs on David Bowie's Heroes. Written in 1977 it was a tribute to performance artist Chris Burden. Chris Burden did most of his well-known art in the '70s. His most famous piece was "Transfixed." He nailed himself to a VW bug, crucifixion style. Then the car was rolled out of the garage for two minutes and rolled back in.

"Shoot" happened in 1971. His assitant shot him in the arm with a gun. He was taken to a psychiatrist after that. Some people thought it was a protest about the Vietnam war. Others thought it was a statement on the right to bear arms.

Another stunt was "Deadman" where he lay in a bodybag on a highway surrounded by road flares.

In 1978, he became a professor at the University of California and taught there until 2005, when one of his students tried to duplicate his famous "Shoot."

Ghost Ship: A self-navigating yacht equipped with a GPS and controlled with on-board computers. It sailed from one port in the UK to another for 5 days with no one on board.

I was reading an article in Bizarre and this is how I discovered Chris Burden. I was scanning the article and noticed David Bowie. As I am a huge Bowie fan, I recognized the song. I am fascinated with song meanings, it's really interesting to see what happened to produce a song, who it was based on, whom is mentioned in the song. Today's hit music is written to generate hits, with the shallowness of a puddle. I wish that this wasn't so, that people like Britney Spears actually wrote her own songs and had some depth behind them, but what can you do?

Wasabi Green Tea Frappuccinos

Once upon a time long ago, I worked at a Starbucks kiosk in a grocery store. Some of the time it was great, the other parts mostly sucked. We weren't allowed to accept tips, for example. I was working there around the time that the Green Tea Frappuccino came out. It was alright, there were definitely better beverages there. Iced Green Tea with Lemonade being one example.

This same store carried a wide selection of International products. One day I thought it would be funny to put wasabi paste in them and hand them out as samples to employees only. So I took a tube of wasabi paste and mixed it in. I tasted it, it was super spicy.

Everyone I gave it to was really surprised. This man to the right was one of my victims. I remember he got really angry about it. "Why would you do something like that to me?" he asked. He turned really red. He ended up getting a DUI and going to jail for a while.

Another guy I gave it to was Paul. He choked down a glass of water right away. Paul was a huge guy and worked out all the time, and it brought him to tears. Paul would later get drunk and dress up in women's clothes. Ahh, memories.

Another of our victims was Carole. She was an older lady and she didn't complain about the taste. A little while later, she complained about her chest hurting, and thought she had lifted something heavy. She was the only one I felt bad about giving the concoction too.