There was recently a thread on Somethingawful about stupid mistakes we have made in our past but wont do again, the theme over at SA was to draw a picture in MS Paint of stupid things you have done. This thread reminded me of something which happened to me over the summer.

My dad was in town from Florida over fathers day weekend and myself, my brother and his family decided to take him to the zoo because, quite frankly, that is where my dad belongs. Ok, maybe he doesn’t belong in a zoo, although he does belong in some sort of bad joke hell because my dad is a fountain of really bad and corny jokes not to mention email forwards and their ilk. But I digress. So we went to the zoo and seeing how I hadn’t seen my dad in awhile I decided to get a haircut right before he got here so I could look all spiffy for him. For those of you who have never met me in person here is a photo montage of me getting a haircut

As should be painfully obvious by now I pretty much have no hair on my head (still have plenty on my ass though, go me) after a fresh haircut. So we head off to the zoo, me with a freshly shorn head, and proceed to walk around the zoo for roughly the next 17 hours. Sunscreen of course never even crossed my mind nor did wearing a hat. I should also mention that this was near the start of the summer so I didn’t really have any base coat or anything going on either, I was pale little white boy who spends entirely too much time under the wonderful glow of my computer monitor.

I was not happy camper that night. After the zoo we went back to my brothers house and we were just hanging out there, had some dinner, watched a movie. By the time we were watching the movie I was already peeling off long sections of my scalp. It is kind of weird pulling your skin off your head especially when you consider that the skin you peel off has tons of little holes in it from where you hair grows out (mine didn’t have nearly as many holes as I would like though, stupid going bald shitfest head). By the time the movie was over I had probably peeled off 80% of the skin from the top of my head and my head was very sensitive and tingly. I asked if my brother had any aloe so I could spread some of its soothingly delicious goodness over my scorched dome but alas they didn’t have any.

After the movie I headed home hoping that I had some aloe. I drove home with the top down in my car which was a very strange sensation. The cool night air blowing over what remained of my scalp alternated from feeling very good, sort of like a dip in a nice cool pool after a hard day of working out in the sun to feeling like being gently poked repeatedly all over the head with an ice pick. I would go from pure bliss to ouch motherfucker several times in the span of seconds. Being the masochist that I am I kind of enjoyed the overall sensation.

When I finally arrived home I looked and looked for aloe but had no luck finding any, but I did find a bottle of suntan lotion that contained aloe. I figured it wouldn’t be as good as pure aloe but I imagined that it would be better than nothing. I was wrong. Very Wrong. The pain was incredible. Imagine, if you will, getting 500 paper cuts on your arm. Now imagine someone coming along and pouring salt, lemon juice and, just to be on the safe side, hot sauce all over your bloody paper cuts. Then to further your agony having gasoline thrown into your face, getting in your eyes and nose and then having it all lit on fire while a 4 year old kid repeatedly punches you in the goodies. That may give you an idea of the kind of pain that I experienced when I put that shit on my head.

In summary, don’t be an idiot douchebag and walk around in the sun with very sensitive exposed skin for many hours without protecting yourself. If you are an idiot like me, under no circumstances put sunscreen containing aloe on your charred skin thinking that it will ease the pain. You would seriously be better off pouring some sort of corrosive acid on yourself.

We are changing offices at the end of the month. The nature of my job means that I get to deal with all the old crap that people want to get rid of. The picture really doesn’t do what you are seeing justice. There are 248 boxes in there that yours truely had to process, sticker and then physically move and stack in there. The boxes are three rows deep in some parts which you just can’t see in the picture. Work has been hell these last few weeks. I cannot wait till we are done moving.

I would like to accomplish the following things before I die. I’d also like to continually add things to this list as time goes on.

Build a trebuchet
Go 200 mph in a earth bound vehicle
skydive
In a car, go from 0-60 in 4.5 seconds or less
Jump a car
Go to Europe
See the pyramids
Go to the louvre
Go to every state in the USA
Learn to play an instrument
Be in a movie no matter what size role
Build a spud gun
Learn how to scuba dive
Scuba dive with a whale
Scuba dive with a great white shark
See the space shuttle launch
See a TV show be filmed
Get high in Amsterdam
Go to Times Square for new years
Go to Mardi Gras in New Orleans
Go into outer space
Drive on the Autobahn
Ride in a hot air balloon
See a lion in the wild
Ride on a train for 2 days (or at least spend the night)
See a tornado
Grow a beard
See Michelangelo’s David
See the Northern Lights
Go on an Alaskan Cruise
Restore a car or build a kit car
Get in shape
Spend the night on a boat
Drive a right side drive car
Buy a house
Join the mile high club
learn how to ride a motorcycle
Go parasailing
Write a screenplay
Do a j-turn in a car
Completely shave my head
Master at least one kickass magic trick
Learn how to make fire
Go to the top of the Eiffel Tower
Learn how to run up to a wall and do a flip off of it
Become a competent photographer
Watch all three Lord of the Rings extended editions back to back
Watch all 6 star wars films back to back
Go to the Mystery Spot
Learn to shoot a handgun
Get another Tattoo
Go to Japan
Go deep sea fishing
Get a stormtrooper outfit
Drive a Viper
Go to a car race (Indy/Nascar/etc.)
Drive the nurburgring
Get enough helium balloons to float
Learn how to silk screen
Go horse back riding
See the Taj Mahal
Go white water rafting
Ride a camel in a country where people ride camels
Ask someone to marry me
Kick, or otherwise, knock in a door

I started my diet today. As you can see in the above picture I really need to lose some weight. I stepped on the scale right after that picture was taken and was a little shocked and saddened to see that it read 223 pounds. On February 14th 2005 I gave up smoking; I said to myself that while I was quitting smoking that I was going to eat and drink whatever I wanted, at that time I weighed somewhere between 180 and 190 which means that over the last year and a half I have put on around 40 pounds. Well, I have stayed off the smokes and now the time has come to lose the weight that I put on in the process.

My goal is to get back down to 180ish, that is a good comfortable weight for me, I am by no means thin at that weight but it is a weight that works well for me. To achieve my goal I am doing a diet that I have done in the past and has worked really well for me. The diet is quite simple actually, my diet can be summed up with these simple words: “Stop eating when you are full”. I know this sounds silly but I find that often I am eating for the taste of the food rather than sustenance. For instance, I would go to Subway and order a footlong sandwhich when a six inch would fill me up, or ordering a pizza and eating 1/2 - 3/4 of a pizza when 3 slices would do the trick. I am also going to try eating better foods, I see a lot of salad lunches in my future and instead of snacking on chips and the like during the evening I will be munching on carrot sticks. I am also going to excercise every work day, I will do 40 minutes of cardio on my Schwinn Air-Dyne (mine is a much pimpier bronze/gold color) and every morning before I get in the shower and everynight before I go to bed I will do situps and pushups (as many as I can until I can do no more).

My goal is to post a picture on the first of every month to chart my progress and subject my readers (all three of you) to more semi nekkid pictures of myself. Wish me luck!

I have officially not had a cigarette for a year today!

To tell you the truth I actually found quitting relatively easy on this attempt. I had tried quitting cold turkey a few times in the past and had tried the gum as well and never really had any luck. This time I used the patch and it was a breeze.

There were a couple of days, where in my hurry to get to work, I forgot to put the patch on and those days were rather hellish but as long as I had the patch on things were really very bearable. If you are considering quitting (and you really should) I highly recommend the patch.

One added benefit of quitting was my sense of smell came back with a vengeance. I was shocked at how much smoking had killed my sense of smell. Walking to work and being able to smell rubber from cars tires and the smell of exhaust and other city smells was almost overwhelming. I have since become adjusted to this and don’t really notice it but I sure did in the beginning.

I do miss something about being on the patch though, the dreams absolutely kick ass. They warn you on the packages that the patch may affect your dreams and they weren’t kidding. I had some of the most intense and vivid dreams of my life when I was on the patch. It was very cool.

Bad part about quitting was that I put on some weight. I kind of willingly put on the weight though, I figured I would eat what I want and worry about quitting smoking and deal with the weight gain later. Well, the later has arrived. I started dieting yesterday and my goal is to lose about 30lbs (gained about 20 when I quit smoking).

Wish me luck.

Yep, it’s my birthday. Hard to believe I have been around for 32 years but it’s the truth. Anyway, happy birthday to me.