Invented by Terrorists: Spray Deodorant

I was going to say communists, but I think they have lost some of their evilness lately. I have been reduced to using a spray deodorant because I have exhausted my stick deodorant and haven't made a trip to Bi-Lo specifically for deodorant yet. I like to get more efficiency out of a trip to the grocery store than one item.

But I might make an exception soon. I have not had good luck with spray deodorants. They make my underarms (I won't use a word as classless as "pits") sticky. They don't cover up the stank as well as a stick deodorant, even though most of my days revolve spending time in front of a computer at the lab, so there's not a lot of time to build up stank, fortunately for everyone involved. It also strikes me more of a mask than an actual deodorant, but I don't know if that's true or not. The engineer in me wants to test that somehow, but after I've written that out, that sounds just a little psychotic. And gross.

Also, the white chalky sticks are disastrous because they become residents of your shirt later in the day. The clear, stick deodorants are the way to go for my money. Also, no support for terrorists, so that's also a plus.

A True Patriot?

I kind of feel bad for posting on July 4th and not talking about something really American. Although, compared to some European countries (which shall remain nameless, excuse me sans nom) showering is pretty American.

I will say this, though: I watched the shuttle launch (in person, not on tv) while eating a hot dog, singing God Bless America, drinking Coca-Cola, while talking about how much I hate soccer. That's pretty American, right?

Three knobs is just excessive

I have spent the last five days in Florida. I will be traveling back to South Carolina tomorrow. I drove down on Friday, left on Saturday for Miami, returned to Daytona on Monday, drove to St. Augustine an hour later, back to Daytona on Tuesday, and will leave for Clemson on Wednesday. It was a jampacked weekend. The biggest revelation that I want to share from my travels is how dastardly a new shower can be.

I know you have felt the terror I am about to describe. If you haven't, you've never slept over at a friend's house or stayed a hotel and you should go do something to meet someone. Because, really, everyone should have done these things unless you're four.

This is the scene: you get up in a hotel room in a strange city (Miami is a strange city even if you live there) and you groggily shamble over to the bathroom, use the bathroom, then get kind of freaked out because the mirror is gigantic and watching yourself on the potty is not the ideal way to wake up. You roll into the shower, then see some number of knobs, typically numbering somewhere between one and three, but more or less is not out of the question. Hot's usually on the left, but what if it isn't? What if they do things backwards in Miami? They speak a lot of Spanish here, and derecha does come before izquierda in the alphabet. What does the middle one do? Can you dial it halfway, so that both the shower and the bath are running? And how sensitive are the faucets, so if it's a little too cold, do I dare touch the dial and risk scalding my face? And what if the pipes are backwards? I know a guy who had that. Those are some of the things I wonder when I go to a hotel room.

Usually, a lot less drama actually transpires, but I definitely go through a checklist like that. And this doesn't even begin to bring up the concerns with detachable showerheads and water pressure woes. Sometimes it's just too much, especially if there are people who can hear the shower nearby, like the person you're visiting or people sharing your hotel room. It would be weird to run the bath for like ten minutes then switch over to shower, because they can hear the difference. It's even weirder to turn off the water and just start over. Sometimes I psych myself out and just accept that I don't want this kind of stress and take a bath. Fortunately, in a hotel, they usually provide complimentary bubble bath, so it's definitely a good way to relieve some of it.

There aren't any songs about go karts

I went to Frankie's Fun Park in Greenville, SC with a church group last night. It was surprisingly fun, considering the next oldest person who wasn't in our group was on summer vacation from middle school. This trip led to a few realizations and a few questions. I will now give a few in numbered list form.

Realizations
1. Little kids freak out (in a good way) when you give them skee-ball tickets, even if they are of a worthless quantity (like four).
2. 50 cents to play Pac-Man is a tragedy, of comparable rank to the sacking of Rome.
3. There is no key for the 'cent' symbol on my keyboard.

Questions
1. How can middle schoolers afford to get that good at laser tag?
2. Whose idea was it to make a video game out of deer hunting?
3. How come driving go karts is so much more fun than driving an actual car?

I love her

Call me juvenile, but I think the ESPN commercial series with Stuart Scott and the can of tennis balls is hilarious. There are two that I have seen - with Roger Federer and Maria Sharapova. In the first of the series, with Roger, he walks past Stu's cubicle, and is offered the can of tennis balls. Stuart explain that they were given to him as a promotion and he doesn't need them, but since they were free, doesn't know if they were any good. Roger thanks him, and begins to walk away while Stuart tells him he ought to check. He does and wham! classic spring loaded snakes gag.

The second one, Maria walks by and he tries the same thing, but she's wise to the game. She calls him on the snakes (although calls them worms) and he does the natural thing and acts hurt. He finally guilts her into taking the can, she opens it, and wham! out they pop. His reaction cracks me up.

I forgot to mention something important: Maria is wearing that cute little tennis outfit that is the most brilliant development in sports marketing I have seen, surpassed only by the concepts of cheerleaders and beach volleyball uniforms. I will now take this opportunity to include a picture of Maria laying down on a bed of tennis balls. Honestly, I have no idea why I don't like tennis more. That can't be comfortable.

Cé leis smaoineamh an thiachóg ar an nós?

I notice, from time to time, that while seated I lean a little bit to the left. This isn't a reflection of any political views, having one bum-cheek be smaller than another, or some sort of effort to maximize a suntan based on window placement. Actually, it's probably closest to the second one. The men in the audience are probably thinking to themselves, if they are seated on a firm chair, that they are doing that now. Women may be puzzled. So I will explain.

People like to buy things. They use money to do it. It is a bit awkward to carry that money in your hand when you're going to buy fireworks or a live chicken. Women keep their money in a purse. Men keep their money in a wallet. I, like many others, keep my wallet in my back pocket. My back right pocket, to be exact. As a result, it pushes me to the left while I am sitting down. I'm like the Leaning Tower of Engineer Sighted.

To combat this, some folks have gone to extreme measures like emptying only of critical contents like their credit and Hooter's Lunch Club cards, disposing of cash and receipts permanently. Others have simply gotten a second wallet, so that rather than be off center, you sit propped up as if on blocks. The key things to remember about this solution is to always have the same amount of cash in each wallet and to wear each wallet on opposite sides. Otherwise you're just compounding the problem. Still others (the least socially aware, I would say) go to fanny packs. I haven't seen one in a long time, but then again, I haven't been to Disney World in a while, either. I have no doubt that somewhere people are still using them. Although, I never understood their naming; they are traditionally worn in front of a person, while the fanny itself is behind said person.

So what am I going to do? I think I may try to make my wallet a little bit slimmer so that I don't have a permanent twist in my entire body. I may consider switching sides every once in a while, but there's something that seems really unnatural about that, like using the other hand to brush your teeth.

(The title is [I think] 'Whose idea was the wallet anyway?' in Irish. If someone who knows better sees this, please feel free to send a correction or confirmation.)

You're making quite a bit a' sport of me

I followed two sports over the past few weeks that I don't normally. You have already read about one of them, and the other is our so-called national pastime. The US team was eliminated in the World Cup and Clemson was eliminated from the College Baseball World Series. It's still two months until football season, so what am I going to do for the intervening time? Watch professional baseball? I'd rather eat the stuff at the bottom of my oven.

The soccer loss was a bit hard to take. I felt like I was forcing myself to watch it as a national service, choking down the programming the way a five your old would his cough medicine, trying to support the United States in a place where (surprise) everyone else hates us. We lost to Ghana. I don't really know much about Ghana, other than what its flag looks like and that the United States should never lose to them in anything. So basically, this would be like telling that five year old that the medicine he took was really just cooking oil. Not only did it make you wish for whatever disease it was supposed to prevent, but you might actually get that disease anyway. But soccer will be huge here in five years.

Baseball, on the other hand, is a little less effectual to me. I could go to Clemson games. They were fun, actually. Watching baseball on television is excruciating without a rooting interest. But since I am a Clemson student, I had one; UNC played a serious game and beat us. Then Cal State played us to the last inning and we came up short. It happens. At least it wasn't Ghana.

So back to the question - what am I supposed to do for sport in the time between now and opening day of football? ESPN has been showing paintball a lot, maybe I'll watch that.

Oreos

I just saw a commercial for Oreo choco stix, and I was reminded of chocolate covered Oreos. Does anybody remember them? My grandmother had them for a brief period when I was very young and impenetrable to the evil forces of fat and sugar. I remember them being delicious, and for some reason, my parents thought they sounded awful and would not get them for me. There may have been a bit of miscommunication; they were covered in chocolate. I don't think health was an issue, because back in the days when my mom packed my lunch (which took place after the grandmother/chocolate covered Oreos and as recently as 2003), I was the envy of all the other kids with my junk food that now seems irresponsible.

The point is, I haven't seen chocolate covered Oreos in a while. I don't think I've had them for like 17 years, so I wonder if they'd still be as delightful as I remember them. Are there any other foods that you folks miss from childhood but can't find anymore? Let's talk about them and then realize how our childhoods were entirely determined by food and action figure advertising.

Indians appreciate efficiency

A good of mine who happens to be of the Indian persuasion sent me this link about a week ago: http://www.shadi.com. He called it "online dating taken to an extreme." It's an online community for Indian people to get married. Skip all that messy dating and courtship, just pick out one you like and offer a marriage proposal. The best part is that there is a question listed that asks who sent in the profile -- yourself or your parent. Check out some of the profiles for yourself and see what I mean.

I'm not really sold on the circus of assinine that is online dating, but this I have to say exceeds my normal level of skepticism. But then again, you have to admire the concept; fill out a form listing everything you want in an ideal husband or wife, and wait for the proposals to come rolling in. Now that I think about it, I'm surprised there aren't a lot more of these out there. I could see facebook evolving a feature like this -- ask a girl in your biology class to marry you.

For it's root, root, root for whoever the hell they are.

I went to a Greenville Drive game tonight. They were playing against the Asheville Tourists. That is no lie. Tourists are the sort of people that those from my homeland consider like cockroaches made out of money - disgusting in every way except that they are made out of money. Yet Asheville, NC named a Single A baseball franchise after them. Great. The Drive are a farm team for the Boston Red Sox, and the stadium looked like a miniature Fenway Park. It was pretty neat, and everybody had Southern accents instead of Boston ones. Some of you may be thinking, "Well, that's sort of a lateral move, isn't it?" The answer is no, it isn't. A Southern accent is infinitely superior to a Boston one in every way. The Boston accent is like poop on a cracker.

One thing I remembered while sort of watching this baseball game is that I don't really understand the "Charge!" cheer. Or the wave, but let's do one thing at a time. The "Charge!" cheer, in my opinion, has no place in baseball or football games. It's merely a Pavlovian sound that elicits the same response wherever you go. The point of cheers is to psyche up your team so they'll perform better. If "Charge!" is universal, then it could be monkeys in the stands, rather than actual fans. Clemson has a cheer where they spell CLEMSON by sections around Death Valley. That is intimidating. If the PA system played the do-doo-do-doooo Charge! sound, sure it would be loud, but so what? Charge! can go to hell.