The Buddy System

If you are ever enjoying a relaxing swim in the ocean and are interrupted by a shark looking for dinner then I think it is your own fault because using the buddy system would have decreased your risk by 50%.

It's my name and you can't have it

Amy Goodwin has recently been hired by my employer as the director of some kind of internal communication something or other. I keep getting emails meant for her and it creeps me out. I am having an identity crisis of enormous proportions. I thought I was Amy Goodwin….but as it turns out…..I am not what defines Amy Goodwin. Apparently, Amy Goodwin is also an expert in communication. That isn’t me! I suck at communication. I used to take xanax before I had to speak in public. True, I have evolved past that particular issue but I am not an expert…except maybe at awkward silences. You can’t even count on me to return your phone call. I know that many….many….many of us share names with each other….but how many of us work in the same place with people who have the exact same name??? I spent my entire elementary school career as Amy G. because there was always more than one Amy…often three or four of us. So who is Amy Goodwin? I don’t know…apparently Amy Goodwin is an expert in drug abuse and communication…depending on who you talk too.

What the Fuck?!

On October 28 1919, 89 years ago, Congress began enforcing prohibition. I bet people who enjoyed such beverages thought to themselves….WHAT THE FUCK???....and then found somewhere to buy said beverages anyways.

I Love BookTV

I love BookTV on C-SPAN. Most people have probably never even heard of it….let alone planned a Saturday night based on the programming schedule. But I love it. Last weekend I listened to a program from the National Book Festival in Washington D.C. The author was Daniel Schorr, a contributor to NPR and a journalist who worked with Edward R. Murrow. It was fascinating, hilarious, and heart warming all at once. What more could you ask for? I highly recommend BookTV for your viewing pleasure. Here are some guidelines for BookTV novices….

1. No Tivo. The programming must be observed and/or listened to live. Besides, they repeat everything a million times.

2. The best BookTV programs are those focused on books you might never imagine yourself even browsing through.

3. It is ok to be amused at the people who attend the tapings for BookTV programming. They often provide the most comical and heated moments on BookTV. They really love books.

4. If you chose to buy a featured book, please do so through the BookTV website, which links to numerous sites that sell books. This is so the three people working at BookTV know that we are watching! If we band together, given enough time, they may expand their schedule to more than just weekends.

Bad to the Bone

So it seems the skull and crossbones were originally used by the Knights Templar and then copied by pirates during the crusades in order to trick other ships into thinking they were friendly and then….you know….raping and pillaging them. Or was that the villages they raped and pillaged and the ships were plundered? Either way, the pirates were up to no good but the Christians started it.....

Princess Tater

All enjoyable things in life, any pleasure really, correspond with an increase in the neurotransmitter dopamine in your central nervous system. This is the same neurotransmitter often implicated, and always convicted, of mediating the pleasurable effects of drugs. Our neurotransmitters, however, don’t know the difference between pleasure from drugs and pleasure from, say, an ice cold coke on a hot summer day, or the light touch of your special someone, or the sight of a beautiful sunset, or the smell of cookies baking the oven, or the sound of the ocean. The bottom line is that anything we find pleasurable increases dopamine. So, as I find myself tired, worn out, stressed out, beaten down, and generally lacking any kind of dopamine activity, I just look at this picture of the utterly adorable Princess Tater and I can image all the dopamine beginning to bounce around. I just know that simply looking at her cuteness results in a dopamine spike. Ok, so the spike one might observe from cocaine would be significantly larger...but I say take any dopamine spike you can get. Besides, no one ever got addicted to looking at cuteness.....

Berry Pebbles

Many people find compaionship from pets and describe the unconditional love they receive from their pets as the foundation of a unique bond. Tito and I also enjoy the unconditional love from all our pets, although we could do without Fangs actual expression of that love since it includes the occassional urine stream aimed at us, often when least expected. What I love most about my Berry Pebbles is how she makes me laugh. Take, for example, her "happy dance". When she is especially pleased and/or excited she spins in a circle and it NEVER fails to elicit a giggle from me. It makes me laugh to watch her spin in a circle and I find it hilarious to imagine the kind of happy world it would be if we all did a happy dance at the mere mention of going outside. So have a happy dance today and giggle away the gray....

Take me with you!

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is very curious about what is beyond the big white door. I think when winter rolls around we will take her outside for a taste of freedom. Freedom isn't always what it is cracked up to be...especially for a hairless cat in winter! But maybe if she thinks that is what is waiting for her on the other side of the big white door then we won't ever have an escapee...