Friday, December 12, 2008

Life's Like a Cup-O-Noodles

Sorry again for being so out of touch lately, friends. Life gets you bogged down sometimes, ya know?

So I've gone from having nothing but business to talk about to having everything else to say. I bet that makes for more interesting reading. Let's hope so. First, Happy Holidays to everyone! I hope they are grand (or at least joyful). This will be my second Christmas celebrated here in Florida, and since I've moved here, it's been a task to get myself into the holiday spirit. Aside from the days being shorter and the tremendous number of inflatable Christmas decorations in the yards of many, many Palm Bay homes, it doesn't really look much like Christmas. We've had some cloudy days and lots of rain, and the temperatures are a little cooler but our holidays are primarily presided over by the Heat Miser.


Heat Miser, you grumpy bastard.


The very idea of dreaming of a white Christmas is just ridiculous. Everything is still green - even my lawn. True I don't have to shovel snow, and the beach is fun on Christmas Eve, but I definitely took the winter season for granted before. Even when I lived in Phoenix, the snow was always a short drive away, and you could see snow on the mountains even from my back yard. But I'm doing my darndest. We put up a chaotic, yet beautiful, Christmas tree, and I've been drenching my home in holiday smells. I think the reason for the overkill on Christmas inflatables here (Santa on a Harley?) is largely due to the lack of anything naturally wintertime out here. We're grasping for whatever we can get.

And while we're on the "Florida" thing... The Smoking Gun Presents World's Dumbest (Criminals, Daredevil's, Meltdowns, etc) has become one of my very favorite shows lately. But I've begun noticing (and this is true of other similar reality TV shows as well), that clips from Florida are disproportionately common. About every third video clip is from Florida. At first I thought that this was maybe because Florida law enforcement is more forthcoming with their police videos, but then I realized that many of the clips they show are from home videos as well. Draw your own conclusion, I guess. Maybe all these here skeeters done sucked the smart right outta Florida!  

And lastly, a cautionary story... This isn't an urban legend. You won't find it on Mythbusters, and I didn't hear it from a friend of a friend's cousin's Great Uncle Bob. (Everyone has an Uncle Bob, right?) Nope. This very thing happened to yours truly. I feel it's my civic duty to share so that nobody else has to relive the nightmare a Ramen Cup-O-Noodles can cause. WARNING: The rest of this blog may not be suitable for those of you faint of heart or weak of stomach. If you are a weenie, please don't read the rest. After all, ignorance is bliss, right? Now, I used to enjoy a Cup-O-Noodles every now and then. It's a tasty quick snack when you're starving and don't mind a slight "foam insulation" flavor. Plus it's cheap. Bonus! But beware. You know the phrase, "You get what you pay for?" Apparently, one day what I paid for was a small cup of noodles with a big clump of hair in it! It was horrific, and I still get the heebie jeebies thinking about it. So, if you must Ramen in the future, please do the responsible thing. Buy the big brick of noodles, go the long way (all 3 minutes of it), and cook your own. After all, life's like a Cup-O-Noodles. You never know what you're gonna get.

Free prize in every cup!