Jesus Christ Superstar

Whew... I'm still psyched up from the Lutheran youth convention i went to last week with my church. For you Christians, you know that feeling where you get so inspired and pumped up for God that you just want to run up to the devil and sock him in the gut? Well, I don't. Maybe the neck but not the gut. That hurts! So anywho, if you wanna ask me about Jesus, now's a good time. Normally, I'd respond to such a request with a punch to the neck but I'm in a Jesus-loves-you mood. So step right up.

So I went back to work after the convention and the first thing my supervisor tells me is that I lost some weight. He's probably right. I haven't been using the last hole on my belt like I usually do. I'm actually using the second to the last hole. *gasp* I better start packing the pounds back. I miss using that last hole on my belt. Hopefully, by my next post, I can get those sexy love handles back.

And speaking of food, what's been irking me lately are the high prices. Buying lunch will easily run over ten dollars. Dinner could be another twenty bones. I remember when cafeteria lunch at school used to be two dollars! Sure, the food tasted as bad as it looked but it was a complete meal. Now, I'll be lucky to get something to drink for two dollars! I place the blame squarely on the rising minimum wage in SF. See, people think raising the minimum wage is some magical gift with absolutely no repercussions. But where do they think the employers are going to get that extra money to pay the workers? Magic lamps? Money trees? Or magic trees with money lamps inside and when you make a wish, guns turn into boba drinks and drugs turn into doves and fly away into the enchanting sky?!? Well, in case you didn't know, I was being sarcastic. But the answer is that raising the minimum wage leads to higher prices on goods and services. So now, I have to shell out an alexander hamilton or two just so little jimmy can get an extra thirty cents an hour. Pure lunacy!

...Ah well. That's the price I pay for living here, I guess. Actually, I shouldn't be too hard on them. I'm sure people get sick to the stomach when they realize that their taxes go straight to my pay check so I probably shouldn't be complaining about money issues. Must change topic...

So... how about that Jesus, huh?

Gluttony at it's Finest

Muhammad Ali versus George Foreman at the Rumble in the Jungle. The Axis vs the Allies in World War II. Rosie O'Donnell vs Donald Trump on daytime tv. To categorize these battles as legendary is a gross understatement. They are light years away in superiority than any Super Bowl, World Series, or NBA Championship matchup combined. They will never be forgotten. But lo and behold, last week, came a battle that rivals the awesomeness of the three i mentioned five sentences ago. You know what I'm talking about: THE 2007 Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest.

In one corner, Takeru "Tsunami" Kobayashi. Kobayashi, going into last week's contest, had six consecutive victories, easily making him a true legend among legends. The first thing you'll notice about him when you see him is that he's Japanese. The Japanese are a very advanced people, perhaps even more so than than the Tibetan Monks of Drepung Gomang, so you know anyone going up against him is pretty much doomed. In fact, in his first year in the contest, they had to resort to hand-written signs because they didn't have actual signs that counted that high. That year, he finished with FIFTY hot dogs in twelve minutes, utterly humiliating the previous record of 25.25 hot dogs. To say the least, Kobayashi is a king among men.

But wait! In the other corner, we have Joey "Jaws Chestnut. What's so good about him, you ask? Honestly, I don't know. I just know he goes to San Jose State.

I won't spoil the ending but if you really don't know what happened, you are wasting your internet. It's nice to see that in a world where over 850 million people end the day with an empty stomach, the U.S. is holding contests to see who can ingest 20,000 plus calories worth of hot dog and hot dog buns in a single sitting. It is a true display of athleticism, or some sort of barbarianism anyway. Champions of etiquette and table manners must be keeling over at the sight of this annual contest but they can take their doilies and uh... umm... recycle them, I guess. God bless America and God bless competitive eating.

Burn, baby, burn!

And just like that, summer is officially upon us. I say what's up with that? We already had a summer last year, right? We don't need another one... or do we? Okay, stupid question. Of course we do. I certainly like it because I can now walk out of the house with only three layers of clothing and it's the only time of year when I actually get to see sunlight outside my house. Why is the sunlight so important, you ask? Well, when you live in a home equipped with solar-powered toilets, the sun becomes more important than family, and maybe even more important than internet. Alright, I'll fess up: I don't have solar-powered toilets. Nobody does... God willing.

During the past couple of weeks, I've been out in the sun a lot. And as Murphy's Law would have it, i got a pretty nasty sunburn. It's so bad that I've resorted to using lotion. I'm not a big fan of lotion, but my skin was peeling pretty bad. So before I went to work the other day, I applied half a bottle of lotion onto my face. But the problem was that it smelled really fruity. As I was on the bus to work, it seemed like everyone was looking at me. Maybe it wasn't the lotion and I was just over-paranoid. Maybe it was because the color of my belt didn't match the color of my shoes. Or maybe, it was because I didn't have any pants on. Either way, I had to do something about the lotion. So a girl at work prescribed some Aveeno for me because of its unscentedness. So during my 10 o'clock break, I stormed out of the office, power walked past the regular calvacade of hobos, went into Walgreens, and picked me up some Aveeno. I went back to the office, washed up a bit and tried some of this stuff and lo and behold, it worked! Aveeno provided the soothing coolness of a moisturizing cream but without the girlie scent. The aftermath of the relentless sunburn was humbled by a simple 2.5 oz, plastic, squeezable tube of Aveeno.

For all your lotion-tastic needs, Aveeno should be your liquid cosmetic of choice. It's fragrance free, moisturizes for 24 hours, and is made with natural colloidal oatmeal! But best of all, it is dermatologist recommended. Although if I went to see a dermatologist, they would probably tell me I'm an idiot for going out in the sun without any sunblock on. So before you start stocking up on Aveeno lotion, it'd probably be best to just get some sunblock and avoid sunburns altogether. But if you do get a sunburn, Aveeno has a shoulder you can cry on. Yes, a comforting shoulder made of sweet, colloidal oatmeal.