Month: March 2012

On March 13th, people all across the world pulled out their umbrellas in their apartments, classrooms, homes, offices, portable bathrooms and did the unthinkable… they opened them.  I have not owned an umbrella for over a year which has caused me to show up to any number of places dripping wet- restaurants, concerts, movies, the office, grocery stores, portable bathrooms.  I used to have to duck and hide close to buildings hoping that the builders had made the sides slightly sloped to catch some of the rain before it reached me.  After a year of attempting to dodge rain drops when outdoors, I decided it was time, in honor of the holiday, to buy an umbrella.  It was a very cute, compact, and efficient umbrella.  I should warn you now…. I did not open it.
NOOOOOO! How could I vow to celebrate the holidays and then not open an umbrella?!?  How can any of you trust me again to celebrate another holiday truthfully, honestly, and with a bit of flare if I would not celebrate such a simple holiday, a holiday that is so simple the very name of the holiday tells you what you are supposed to do???  I celebrate Christmas and the Fourth of July without fail and their titles tell you nothing about the holidays.  So I know that I have a number of celebration of holiday crimes to answer for and I am now ready to face my jury.  Please here my defense.  Why did I refuse to simple open an umbrella that I purchased and am looking at right now?

1. The bad luck that goes with it.  Maybe this is enough to win many of you over to my cause and I will not even need any more reasons.  Just days prior my lucky bamboo had died and I had crossed a bad cat.  One of my mirrors fell off the wall.  Being a sport’s fan, there is a bit of superstition that always kind of follows you, whether it is wearing a jersey for each game or not saying that there is a perfect game going on during a perfect game.  I would not consider myself a lucky person to begin with but with all of the other bad omen signs stacking up against me, I decided not to open an umbrella and add another one.  Maybe bad luck is like those penny machines at arcades where you shoot pennies on to stacks of pennies.  Most of the time nothing happens but if you toss that penny on to the perfect spot hundreds of pennies collapse in to the bottom of the machine.  I did not want thousands of bad luck pennies to fall to the bottom of the machine after opening my cute, compact, and efficient umbrella.
2. Gene Kelly has already done everything with an umbrella that I could have ever dreamed to do with one.  No, this is not a dirty innuendo.  In case you do not know, Gene Kelly danced through the streets with an umbrella after a beautiful evening with a woman while crooning the iconic “Singing in the Rain.”  Even though I consider myself to be on the same level of heart throb as Gene Kelly, I knew that there was very little I could do to recreate or compare to his inspiring and memorable tap dance with an umbrella.  I mean if Glee tried it and failed, how could I hope to do any better?  I do not have the choreographers, back up band, or number of vests that they are able to produce!
3. I typically dislike Rihanna and she was caught standing underneath an umbrella…ella…ella
4. I did not want to become a super villain.  I did some research and so many super villains choose the umbrella as their symbol of evil that I did not want to risk joining their ranks.  Consider the facts.  The Penguin used umbrellas to battle Batman.  Equipped with little else, this rain blocker was enough to block the Dark Knight from protecting his city from the evil of the Penguin.  In the “Resident Evil” series, the entire organization that turns the world in to mutated zombies named themselves the Umbrella Corporation.  I know we do not live in Racoon City but I am pretty sure that this proves that their is some correlation with umbrellas and pure evil.
5. I just did not want to.  Deal with it.

Would you have opened an umbrella indoors?

What happens when you spend too much of napping day napping?  You have to post a ridiculously short blog post before running to work the next day.  Go me!  Sleeping is important, but so many of us do not get enough.  We have busy lives filled with things like commuting, eating, brushing our teeth, and sometimes even more.  So let us play with a hypothetical question…
You just started writing your novel, an exciting book about a boy that falls in love with a vampire but is also in love with his best friend who is the descendant of the blob, and you are so engaged by the story that you are staying up well past your bed time of 8 o clock, leaving you very tired at work the next day.  Whatever will you do?  Get in a quick cat nap of course.  Here are some handy tricks for the next time you need a little shut eye while shut in at work.

• Cut out fake eyes and place them on the inside of your glasses.  Of course, you could simply wear sun glasses and claim pink eye but then you would have to skip out on the company pool party later.
• Tape your phone to your hand and set your head on the same hand. Prerecord a message of you talking frustrated to someone on the phone. Press play and bury your face in your other hand.  When your boss walks by, it will sound like you are arguing with a caller on the phone.
• Set up a folder around your head like you did in grade school when taking a test to help prevent cheating.  No one will be able to tell you are sleeping or copy your answer to number 12. (It’s D by the way)
• In case you are well hidden from view but worry sleeping sounds will give you away, tell everyone about the new app you bought on your phone called “The Snoring App.” But say you have not quite figured out how to turn it off so if they hear snoring it is just the phone.  Problem solved.
• Set up this premade sign reading “Shhh. Testing in progress.” That will definitely stop your boss from rudely interrupting you.
• Drop your pen on the floor and exclaim “Ahhh. That was my favorite pen. I have to find it whatever the cost.”  It may take some time to make that phrase sound believable so do not be afraid to practice at home.  Once you have said that phrase convincingly, you can dive under your desk and sleep at least ten minutes.  If your coworkers still question you, mention that the pen is a sneaky pen. I’d recommend keeping at least one pillow under your desk because computer wires are not as comfy as they look which isn’t very comfy looking to begin with.
• Bring in a few cookies and email every coworker you know this message, “I made delicious cookies but I only made enough for ten of you. Let the fifth annual hunger games begin.” In the chaos that will break out, you are sure to get at least a couple of minutes rest.  This will not work for people that struggle to sleep during light battle sounds. Extra credit: If you want to get at least thirty minutes more napping time out of your cookies, set out a few weapons to0 and let hunger reign supreme.
• Turn off the lights claiming your migraine will not go away but you love work so much you cannot go home.
• A March themed idea is claiming that you think you heard a leprechaun and everyone must stay quiet with the lights off to try and catch it. Wishes are at stake. Maybe you could wish for nap time. In fact…
• Next option. Catch a leprechaun. Wish for world wide nap time
• Just lay out on your desk. Pillow. Blanket. Soothing ocean sounds. You did not like your job anyway. Go big or go home, literally, as you will probably get fired.

Hope you all had success getting in a nap yesterday as well as every day from now on.  If anyone actually tries any of these, make sure to comment below.
March 12 was also Alfred Hitchcock day, the brilliant movie maker known for his original stories, captivating characters, and masterful suspense.  From recreating the movie genre to re-imagining the movie trailer, he was a true pioneer and visionary.  If you have never seen one of his movies, I highly recommend you pick one out soon and take a walk in to his wonderful world.  In honor of him, I have decided to recreate one of his all-time greatest movies.  But since you cannot produce an Alfred Hitchcock movie in a couple hours on a Monday night, I am issuing a challenge.  I will create a semi-feature length short film reproduction starring just me of one of the best Alfred Hitchcock movies if my blog can reach 1000 views by the end of March.  As of this moment, we are at 439 so almost half way there!  I will give you one more hint on what movie I will make… it is one of the ones starring James Stewart.  So let’s make this happen!
What is your favorite Alfred Hitchcock moment?
I also quickly celebrated Girl Scout Day by eating some thin mints.  Score.

With phrases like “An apple a day keeps the doctor away,” apples are in high demand.  It is a good thing that they are so readily available across the country.  Growing up, my neighbors even had an apple tree… although it produced the sickliest looking apples I ever had the privilege of avoiding eating.  Thankfully, there are plenty of delicious apple tree and apple tree orchards across the nation.  What kind saint do we have to thank for having the foresight to give up all over earthly pleasures to wander the country with a metal pot on his head and a bag full of seeds at his side?  His name was John Chapman but he is better known as Johnny Appleseed.
The image that I picture of Johnny Appleseed is an amiable man wandering across the country with a whistle and bounce to his step.  But in preparing to celebrate this holiday by eating apple desserts, wandering through the gardening section of Loews, and learning about John Chapman, I discovered that for Johnny life was not all the beautiful picture that Disney painted it out to be.  I have separated this next segment in to what I call “Johnny Appleseed: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly”
The Good:  Johnny was a kind soul.  He was a vegetarian because he cared for animals so much.  Once when building a fire, he noticed that mosquitoes were flying and dying in the flames.  He put out the fire because he did not want comfort if it meant hurting one of God’s creatures.  I know there are a lot of strict vegetarians out there and while it is not for me, I respect your decision to make that choice.  Yet I think that even the strongest animal activists out there would be willing to put out a fire on a cold night in the woods to save a few mosquitoes.
Johnny was also a minister.  He went around spreading the Swedenborgianism religious movement.  When I first read that I had to double check, but it is in fact a real religious movement based on worshiping Jesus Christ.  I have to admit that it probably would have gotten much bigger if they had picked a slightly easier name to remember like the Quakers or Mormons or Muslims or Catholics or Protestants.  In fact, I think that if you are planning your own religion it should be limited to three or less syllables.  Sorry for those of you that practice in the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster as you do not make the syllable cut off.
He did not actually walk around tossing seeds willy-nilly like the Parable of the Sower (since he was a minister and it is a Sunday, I think it is acceptable to get a bit of religion up in this house).  He planted nurseries, built fences around them, and left them in care of someone in the town while returning year to year to check on the status.  What a guy!
The Bad:  He was an eccentric fellow.  He wore a metal tin on his head that also served as a pot for cooking his meals.  He rarely wore shoes and was often found wandering around near naked.  That is not exactly the site I would want to wander upon now a days while checking out the gardening section at Home Depot.  As a part of his religion, he believed dealing with pain and suffering in this life led to more happiness in his afterlife.  As such, he put himself through awful conditions with a bright smile on his face.  Living over 80 years of his life with this doctrine of suffering, I sure hope that he was hooked up with an eternity of awesomeness and a pair of Air Jordans.
Keeping up with the notion of bad, a basketball conference in Ohio was named the Johnny Appleseed Conference from the years 1961 to 1977.  Over that history, the baddest team of them all was the Crestline school accumulating a 43 wins-140 losses.  I do not think that they would have made the March Madness Tournament…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGGN0xkHP-M&feature=youtu.be]
 
The Ugly:  Johnny Appleseed had 99 problems (NSFW) and a “woman” ain’t one was two of them.  You figure a man who was so involved with charity and had some wealth (owned 1200 acres of land at his death) would have better success with the ladies.  Even a man that dedicated his life to bettering the world around him had girl problems.  Finding love is never easy but as seems to happen so many times in my own life comes down to timing.  It is about being in the right place at the right time and not arriving a day too late at the doorstep of your dream girl.  Johnny did love a woman and intended to propose.  He bought a ring and went to propose only to find that she had been proposed to by another guy just a day before.  Talk about bad timing.
Heart broken from his first failure at women, he did the 1830s version of finding love on Craigslist.  He met a girl that was alone and had no one to care for her.  He decided to become her benefactor with the plan to marry her when she became of age.  Of course, he visited her unexpectedly one day and found her shacking (this clip actually gets pretty intense but here is a funnier, shorter version of the same idea) up with another man… well, she was holding his hand but same difference.  All of this failure in love turned Johnny a bitter man towards women, claiming that some women were deceivers and not the amiable people that pursuing men thought them to be.  I guess even for a folk legend love can still be ugly.
Summary:  However you want to remember the man, the legend, Johnny Appleseed is up to you.  As a person, he was a culmination of his good, his bad, and his ugly.  As a folk hero, he is cherished with every bite of a Red Delicious or a Granny Smith.  We can only hope that our legacy is marked by something as good as an apple and not something as slimy as a worm.

What defines awesome?  One blogger I found described it as being defined by three things: you, your friends/the people around you, and your world.  Once you had truly designed and challenged yourself in each of the areas, he said you could join the cult of awesome.  If any of you do read about his ideas on being awesome, I think you know how directly I relate to the 24 year old version of himself, although my hummus is frozen pizza.  Talk about feeling like a stranger is giving a personal shout out to you. His concepts are a bit abstract and blunt but there are other step by step guides to becoming awesome for the inspiring impaired.
My analysis of the articles about being awesome out there is that the important part is about getting up and doing something.  Sure sitting on your couch playing Call of Duty 24 hours a day may be enjoyable, but unless you just want to be awesome to 12 year olds living with their parents, you should probably push yourself slightly beyond a battery charged remote.  You have to expand your world and be willing to put yourself in new situations to find the ones that you excel in.  As a result of trying new things and taking chances, someone who is awesome has to not worry about what other people think.  This may seem counter-intuitive because being awesome is judged by other people’s perceptions of you.  If I think that I am awesome, it is conceited, rude, and a little pompous.  But if everyone else thinks I am awesome while I am oblivious to the fact, then I just became one of the coolest people in the room.  By not caring what other people think, a person is able to engage in the very activities that make them awesome because they were willing to not conform, do something different, and expand the scope of the people they affect.
Maybe you are awesome already and maybe you need a lot more work to become awesome, the first step is finding a few concrete ideas to get you started on your yellow brick road to the Emerald City of Awesome.
To celebrate being awesome, I decided that there was only one thing that I could do.  Yes, I finally planted my bonsai tree.  Over the next months and years, I will be cultivating, growing, and hopefully not killing my very own bonsai tree.  Call me the white, very little karate knowing Mr. Miyagi.
One thing that can make a person awesome is having stories of their adventures around the world.  Today is also National Passport Day.  Being from the Midwest, many of the people I grew up with did not have passports.  Our idea of going some place exotic was taking a 5 hour car ride to Wisconsin.  But there is a lot of world out there and I do believe the awesome people are not afraid to explore it.  Because TravelZoo also believes travel is awesome, it posted a discount to the Travel and Adventure Expo next week in DC.  I feel like I owe it to myself to check it out.  I still have not gotten my passport (because I am lazy and it is a Saturday) but I have taken one step closer to obtaining it.  I have filled out the DS-11:  Application for a US Passport.
For anyone else interested in getting their own passport, the steps are simple:
1. Fill Out Form DS-11: Application For A U.S. Passport
2. Submit Completed Form DS-11 In Person
3. Submit Evidence of U.S. Citizenship
4. Present Identification
5. Submit a Photocopy of the Identification Document(s) Presented (Step 4)
6. Pay the Applicable Fee
7. Provide One Passport Photo
8.  Stop Waiting
Have a great World Awesomeness Day and enjoy this videos on your way out!

THE PANIC IS HERE! THE PANIC IS HERE! THIS IS NO CHICKEN LITTLE MOMENT.  EVERYONE REMAIN CALM… or you could always… PANIC!!!!!
RUN TO THE STORE! FIND THE STORE CLOSEST TO YOU AND GRAB THE GENERATORS, WATER PURIFIERS, AND PORTABLE TOILETS   FIRST!
WHAT HAS ONSET THIS PANIC?!?

• A FEAR OF SOURNESS- ACEROPHOBIA
• A FEAR OF THE POPE – PAPAPHOBIA
• A FEAR OF PEANUT BUTTER STICKING TO THE ROOF OF YOUR MOUTH- ARACHIBUTYROPHOBIA (try to say that four times fast)
• GIANT SPIDERS OVERTAKING YOUR LOCAL MCDONALDS- THE DOLLAR MENU INSANITY!
• BEN CHOOSING COURTNEY ON THE BACHELOR FINALE
• YOU LOST YOUR FAVORITE PAIR OF SOCKS
• NO CLEAN TOWELS AND GUESTS ARE COMING

WITH ALL THIS PANIC RUNNING AMUCK, THIS IS NO TIME FOR READING A BLOG.  GO PANIC SOME WHERE.  SCREAM AT PEOPLE UNREASONABLY.  PUSH OVER SHELVES IN A GROCERY STORE. START LIGHTING THINGS ON FIRE AND THEN SCREAM “WHO LIT THAT ON FIRE?!?!” THIS IS A PANIC.  ANYTHING GOES.
Today is also World DJ Day, so please allow DC’s DJ Chris Styles set the beat for the rest of your panic.  Please remember to always panic responsibly.
 
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umycg9dQ-OI&feature=youtu.be]

My blog is apparently catching on as it appears that everyone is starting to join in on the celebrations with so many people joining in on International Women’s Day.  Happy International Women’s Day!  I could not find my red lipstick today, but I hope that everyone found their own way to celebrate this important holiday.
For me, I made a point to wish every woman I spoke with today a Happy International Women’s Day.  This simple gesture lead to an unexpected yet totally expected outcome, some debate and some learning.  First, the question was what this day was specifically for- celebrate women everywhere day or celebrate women that are international.  But before that question could be answered, you have to decide what it means to be international and a woman.  International means some thing that is related to at least 2 countries.  For women, does this mean any woman that is from one country and at least currently residing in another country?  This would make the foreign exchange student that stayed with you during high school an international woman (assuming they were a woman of course).  Or does someone have to share dual citizenship to be considered international?  Maybe it is much simpler than that.  Maybe a person just needs to live somewhere but have an accent from somewhere else to be international.  This would make that guy at work, who always uses a fake British accent whenever the new temp from payroll comes around in an attempt to woo her, international.  The bigger question of what makes a woman is one that is for someone else to tackle in their blog.
The women that read my blog are probably cringing at this point because we all know that this is a holiday meant to mark the great steps forward that women as a group and as individuals have made.  Of course, there are still many improvements that can be made on a global stage which is why it is still important to celebrate days like today.
To add to the debate of today, I discovered a major difference between men and women.  I grabbed a quick breakfast with two girls I work with, G and O.  While waiting for the elevator, a woman walked by with a nice pair of shoes.  The girls commented on the shoes and not wanting to be left out of the conversation I too looked at the shoes.  The girls then asked me if I knew who it was.  I realized at that moment that by looking at her shoes, I had completely ignored who the person was.  I never once looked at her face.  This led me to the only possible conclusion that I could draw.  Men are faced with a daily decision whenever they meet a woman.  It is not whether to be chivalrous or chauvinistic (NSFW).  The choice is much more pure than that.  The choice is to look at her face or her shoes because clearly a man cannot do both.  Science has shown that men are not as good at multitasking (probably NSFW) as women.  O realized that it must be true.  This is why the President’s daughter in The American President tells him to comment on her shoes!  So girls, if you want a guy to realize that you are up here and not down there, maybe you should stop wearing such flashy shoes.  Just a thought!
I decided to bust out the guitar and play a little song dedicated to all the women out there today.  Enjoy!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79wWVboOCXs&feature=youtu.be]
Today was also Be Nasty Day, a day that is entirely devoted to just being cruel to people.  I considered celebrating this holiday too until I realized that I work mostly with girls.  With today being International Women’s Day, I do not know if I would have made it to my next blog post if I was mean to them on their day.  To make up for it, I did think some pretty mean thoughts of the guy that bumped me on the metro.  Take that guy on the metro!

I have delayed writing this post for about as long as I can and still have any hope of getting it done by midnight.  The holidays for today are not great so I am using it as a bit of a rest day.  No video just a simple post.  I promise I will be back to everything with tomorrow’s post from more links to videos.  I currently have 39 minutes left in the day and these are the first words I have written on any of the holidays for today.  And the time starts…. NOW!
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Today was World Math Day.  At first, I thought it was a day dedicated to doing math problems, enhancing your memory of the times tables, and remembering what it meant to take the derivative of something.  In fact as of 6 o clock this afternoon, my boss who has heard of my blog was quizzing me on the derivative or what not of (X^2+3).  I was actually pretty impressed with what my grown up self remembered from the high school corners of my memories of math classes (before to the despair of my parents, I turned my back on science, math, and well-paying jobs to become an English major).
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But I was completely wrong about what World Math Day meant.  World Math Day was not about AP classes, aging text books, or learning that multiplying anything by 0 equals 0.  World Math Day was a challenge and an adventure that world educators had created to keep learning exciting for new generations.  The premise is simple.  World Math Day is one of the days of the World Education Games.  The World Education Games consist of World Spelling Day, World Math Day, and World Science Day.   The games are played across the world and start as soon as a country hits March 6th and end as soon as a country hits March 8th.  Student’s have to answer as many questions as they can in the different topic areas.  The student with the most correct answers in the time frame is the winner.  As of right now, there have been 278,638,000 correct math answers given today.
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You would imagine that the prize must be pretty great to convince kids from around the world to give up 48 hours of their lives to basically study.  The absolute winner in each age group gets a gold medal.  The second place winner?  More minted gold medals and a commemorative certificate.   So there are 11 students in each age group that have the chance to win any prize of merit.  Many others will receive participation certificates, but I imagine the real allure of this competition is seeing how you stack up against students around the world.  I feel like in school we always used to question our math teachers, “When would I ever need to know how to do long division in the real world?  I can always just use a calculator.”  This seems like such a great way to encourage kids to learn their math skills if only to win out in this competition.  Time to get excited about education again.  It may not have any practical value, but after not having wanted to do math on my own without a calculator for about 4 years, I definitely considered pretending to be a 14 year old so I could enter the competition for this year.  World Math Day: Not at all what I thought the day was about but this way is probably even better.
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Today is also cereal day.  I did not eat a lot of cereal but I did have one marshmallow out of a box of Lucky Charms.  Growing up, my family always had healthy, whole grain cereal.  We did not drink pop but carbonated seltzer water.  My mother even made sure that we even had special ketchup with less corn syrup in it.  The only time I would really get to eat junk food was when I visited my friends.  It was not my house that I was introduced to Lucky Charms but at a friends while playing the original Twisted Metal.  The eating of Lucky Charms was introduced to me in one way: put them all in a bowl, add no milk, pick out the marshmallows, dump the cereal back.  To this day I “think” the grain portion of Lucky Charms is not good tasting at all.  Of course when I actually eat the grain portion, I find that it is not bad at all even if it is not as good as the colorful chunks of sugar.  In college with the healthy eating methods of my home behind me, my friends and I took sight of one of the dorm sized containers of Lucky Charms.  I guess we were determined to put on our Freshman 15 in one meal as we set out to eat the entire container of Lucky Charms.  Too many bowls later we were finished.

I do not know if it is because it is delicious or because it is the only cereal that is associated with any memories from my child hood, but Lucky Charms are easily my favorite.
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Today is also Learn What Your Name Means Day.  I already know what my name means.  It means Gift from God.  My parents had it framed in a picture that hung in my bedroom throughout my childhood.  Really Mom and Dad, tell me how you really feel about me.  Just because I know what my name actually means, does not mean that I wanted to skip out on enjoying Learn What Your Name Means Day.  From my experience, regular dictionaries take decades to change or add new words.  There is only one dictionary I know that is constantly changing and updating.  For this name definition, we have to take this to the streets.
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Urbandictionary.com has a couple of definitions for my name.

1. “a sexy guy that liked the women (NSFW) and has a nice tooth brush” – I did just buy an electric toothbrush.  It even beeps every 30 seconds so you can move to a different area of your mouth.
2. “An attractive, smooth-talking, charming young man.  When you’re with him, he makes you feel like a princess; when you’re not, you know he is making another girl feel the same and not even thinking of you” – Wow.  Urbandictionary putting me on blast. Hate the player not the game.
3. “From the Latin term “Awesomus”, meaning “Awesome” or “Rad”” – nailed it.
4. “Can sometimes be misconstrued as having a big ego or being over confident. Commonly a Leo” – My birthday is in August, and I have no idea where it gets that big ego thing.  I think we should cross out this definition and just stick with the last one.  It is much more accurate.

And finally, Urbandictionary has a word of caution to all of the ladies out there…
5.  “a super hot sexy awesome guy that totally got away. Someone you will never get over.” – They also use this one in a sentence.  “[Messychef], I will always love you and want you back. I only wish I would have told you.”   You have all been warned.
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Whoops.  No more time.  Posted!

Today I found out that sitting is bad for you.  Even if you exercise afterwards, you cannot counteract the bad effects of sitting on your body as they slowly add up.  I was going to attempt to write this entire blog post standing up but then I thought better of it.  I guess I will just have to risk my life to bring you tonight’s post!
There is one thing that Batman never understood but Mr. Freeze got right.  Sometimes freezing things is the best way.  While I would suggest stopping at ice cubes and select frozen foods and not trying to freeze entire cities with the people still in them like Mr. Freeze, this has got to be a holiday created in part just for him.  Happy Frozen Food Day, Mr. Freeze.
When I think of how frozen food was when I was a kid, my mind immediately goes to hearing that cheesy tune followed by bursting in to a head long sprint toward the ice cream truck no matter how far away it was.  When you were chasing down the ice cream truck, normal rules no longer applied to you.  If you were required to stay within eye range of your parents, you could now put entire houses in between you and your mother.  If you had to look both ways before you crossed a busy street, the cars would now screech on their brakes to echo the fanfare of your quest for sugar.  If you were too deathly ill to go to school, you suddenly were stronger than Superman on steroids (which would have to be swallowed since normal needles could not pierce his skin) and could carry your entire sick bed with you if that is what it took to reach the promise land.
When I think of frozen food now, I no longer think I am above the law or start doing somersaults in the freezer section of my grocery store, but I do still find some deep pleasure in walking through the magical aisles of prepared, just reheat food as though the greatest food items are contained behind the glass walls.  Some of the most delicious foods still come in the frozen food section, but there are healthy alternatives now too.  Living as a bachelor in DC, I know that I probably keep the frozen vegetable market in business because they are usable so much longer than their fresh food section cousins.
Before food could be frozen, everything was heavily salted to help it last longer.  Thankfully, Clarence Birdseye (I love his name) in 1924 developed the quick freezing technique that we use today.  Coupled with the invention of the refrigerator (or dry ice for the ice cream man) the era of frozen food was born.  As TV dinners began to replace Mom’s Family Tradition Pot Roast, the world of food entered yet a new dimension, the final frontier.  Still one of the problems with many frozen foods today is the salt content as it is very high.  Am I mistaken or wasn’t it the idea of freezing food that was supposed to reduce the use of salt on food?
Despite the problems, there are so many perks to frozen food including the easiness of grabbing an entire meal out of the freezer for lunch has saved me from being late on more days than I would care to relate.  You can even have food made elsewhere in the world shipped directly to you just waiting to be reheated and enjoyed.  Frozen food is here to stay and that is a good thing.  I am Matt, and I support this message.
In honor of the holiday, I tried to only eat frozen foods and liquids throughout the day.  Take a look at how my meals went…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGiS8X9oCIg&feature=youtu.be]
Today is another holiday.  It is also Unique Name’s Day.  There is no one that knows unique names like celebrities…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJ_zo_gBFyM&feature=youtu.be]
Why do celebrities really choose these names?  I have no clue.  I do not think I have ever gone somewhere without someone saying “Oh I know another ___.”  Clearly, I am on Team Normal Name and I kind of like it that way.

When I decided to celebrate Multiple Personality Day, I did not realize how dark a topic it truly was.  Reading through the facts surrounding the symptoms, causes, treatment, and effects of Multiple Personality Disorder, I realized that it was not really anything to poke fun at or to enjoy.  This is not the type of disease that anyone would wear proudly on their chest.  Shows like United States of Tara have tried to open up a dialogue about the topic in a relatively safe environment but the reality is that it is still a very dark and difficult condition to live with.  It was at that moment that I decided not to dwell much on the topic of Multiple Personality Disorder which is now technically known as dissociative identity disorder.  I do invite you to read about this disorder if you want to learn about it and what can be done for people with this condition.
Even though I decided not to cover much of this disorder directly in my blog, I still had an idea for a video and could not pass up the chance to use a new software I found online (yay for 15 day free trials!).  My idea was simple.  What if a normal guy (whose interests, for anyone that has ever gone into the online dating scene, seem to match literally every other person alive) was plagued by an internal battle caused by his alter egos.  Take a look at his journey.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXaSTfTLq-E]
I should include the disclaimer that the character of Martin was probably based off of me minus the multiple personalities… oh and the high paying lawyer job part.  I have never read the Twilight series and have yet to see the entire first movie in its entirety.  In fact all of the arguments that the alter egos made were arguments that I copy and pasted from numerous blogs and posts across the internet.  Thank you internet and the quality education you provide.
A holiday that is a big deal in Chicago, my home town, but apparently no one else on the planet has ever heard of is Casimir Pulaski Day.  He is so non-well known that even my blog editing software thinks it is a mispelling.  It suggests I change his name to cashmere or casing (also known as the outermost covering of a tire). I promise all of my readers that Casimir Pulaski is a real person and his holiday is a real thing.  Rather than roll out the chalk board and give a history lesson complete with pop quiz, I decided there was a much better way to introduce you to a man that has a major street in Chicago named after him and a statue of him just a block from where the President sleeps (in Freedom Plaza).  Now let me introduce you to Casimir Pulaski in the best way I know how…
10 Reasons You Should Invite Casimir Pulaski To Your Birthday Party

1. He thinks on his feet behind enemy lines- handy if any groups of Guidos show up.  Cornered in a monastery in Poland, he held off insurmountable forces for two weeks before being captured by the Russians.  They forced him to vow never to fight against them in exchange for his freedom.  Of course as soon as they released him, he rejoined the fight and gave them literal hell for four years following their capture of the monastery.
2. He has as many exit clauses as Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean in case you can not shake that creepy person that has been hitting on you.  Once when falsely accused of trying to kidnap the King of Poland and threatened to be put to death, he escaped the country without missing a beat.
3. He can give an inspiration speech to rally everyone to find their second wind.  When arriving in America, he announced, “I came here, where freedom is being defended to serve it and to live or die for it.”  I am pretty sure I heard this same speech in The Warrior.
4. He is always willing to take one for the team and jump on any grenades if need be.  He saved George Washington’s life by leading a desperate cavalry charge directly at the enemy to buy Washington enough time to escape.  If you love Sinbad for just saving the President’s son, you have got to love this guy.
5. He is always willing to be the designated driver as long as you do not mind riding a horse.  He was renown for his ability to lead a horse and is known as the “father of the American calvary.”
6. He never hesitates to pick up the tab.  When Congress did not have the money to fund his men, Pulaski used his own money to fund the “Pulaski Calvary Legion” which even deserters and prisoners were allowed to join.
7. He has staying power.  When he finally was killed in battle, it took a full grape    shot to take him down, and he held on four two days after it.
8. He has the hook up.  Some say he was buried at sea, others say he was buried in Greenwich Plantation, and others still say he is teaming up with Tupac on an album dropping this July.  Snoop Dogg and Moby have even played at his parties.
9. He gets the invite to all the best parties.  George Washington used to use his name as a “Challenge-and-password” by using the call and answer- Query: Pulaski; Response: Poland.
10. He will not hurt any of your background checks or clearances (this one is more for the governmental worker crowd than anyone else).  Casimir was the 7th person ever to be named an honorary US citizen in 2009.  This means you do not have to report a foreign contact to your agencies!

One final fun tidbit of knowledge for March 5th (and it is not that my rent was due this morning), this is the day that is known for the invention of the parachute by Leonardo Da Vinci.  Joseph W Kittinger Jr holds the record for the highest parachute jump.  He jumped from 19.47 miles (286 football fields) in the air.  In free fall, he reached speeds of 614 miles per hour in his 4 minute, 36 second fall and when his glove depressurized his hand expanded to twice its normal size.  Felix Baumgartner is currently scheduled to attempt to beat his record by jumping from 120,000 feet all of which is sponsored by Red Bull… talk about giving you wings.
CHICAGO FACT NUMBER 2:
Willis Tower, formerly known as the Sears Tower, stands as the tallest building in the US at 1450 feet.  That is one heck of a first step. If that does not make you scared of heights, maybe you should try a real high in the sky challenge.

This weekend I went to Medieval Madness in Old Town, Alexandria, which is at its most basic a medieval themed dinner theater with plenty of food (ravioli and apple turn overs galore), mostly good people, and some knightly martial arts.  The theme for this Saturday’s show was a witch hunt.  Having celebrated Witch Hysteria Day just a few days prior, I was even happier that I had put myself through the witch trials already as those still suspected of being one were threatened to be killed. I definitely felt like at that moment my life had come full circle.
Now for the real reason you are here today… Who knew a company named Bergen Toy and Novelty Company could know us all so well?  Bergen took the already existing idea of the metal painted army men and put them in a more user-friendly, cost effective way- the plastic army man.  Sure, today’s national holiday is technically “Toy Soldier Day,” but to me that means just one type of toy soldier, the plastic army men.
I am about to get on my soap box for a minute.  Please hang with me.  When I was a kid, we had video games and television but we were still required to find creative ways to play.  Today our kids do not know what it means to find joy in a simple stick they found in the backyard.  Now a days, kids are resorting to weirder and weirder (Warning: This link contains profanity.  Do not play it with your boss, priest or innocent children nearby) ways of having fun.  When I was a kid, a small army of plastic, unmoving soldiers was enough to keep my friends and I occupied for hours.
Plastic Army Men have not changed much since rolling out in 1938.  However, they did have a small weapons upgrade after World War II.  I worry what the weapons upgrade if there was ever a World War III would look like.  While I never caught my army men running any operations on their own, I know that my child hood would not have been the same without them.  On this special holiday, I would like to thank them for the sacrifice they have given to serve their country’s children.
I checked to see if there were any set rules for playing with army men, but it appears that everyone is forced to mostly creatively come up with the rules themselves.  I used to line them up against my friends as we threw marbles at each other.  The last army man standing won.  Other people simply blow them up or created strangely detailed stories of the beige and green men’s campaigns.  Plastic army men have reached such a cult status that they even the home and garden community is taking notice.  While everyone has a different opinion on how army men can be enjoyed, I think we all can agree to support our real army and military men and women.  Go U – S – A!
To celebrate this holiday, I decided to do nothing but play with plastic army men for the entire day.  In case you want to relive some of my adventures, you can find your own plastic army men in the party favor section of Walmart or many other stores.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtQfZXpbOsM&feature=youtu.be]
A SPECIAL NOTE:
Today, March 4th, is the 175th birthday of my beloved city of Chicago.  In honor of this occasion, I have decided to include one fact about Chicago in each of my posts for the entire week.
Fact number 1: Chicago, nicknamed the The Windy City, the City of Big Shoulders, the Second City, and The City That Works, has over 40 million people visit each year.  This is on top of the nearly 10 million people that already live in the Chicago land area across three states (Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois) making Chicago the 28th largest metropolitan area in the world.  The city of Chicago only being 237 square miles large.  If the 10 million people living in the area visited at once, there would be about 42194 people per mile. (Whoops, I think that may have been like 12 facts molded in to one.  My bad)