Ch-ch-ch-changes

Do you ever get distracted? Like start one task and end up going off on several different tangents before you get it completed? Or perhaps get so far off target that you forget the original goal completely?

One of the problems with having a giant brain and a fifth-grade edjycation is that I tend to fall victim to this curse on a regular basis. I start to write a thoughtful study piece on the indignities suffered by child stars in silly roles, and end up distracted by Urkel's ice cream cone and spend 20 minutes Googling to see if there's a 24-hour Baskin Robbins open anywhere near my neighborhood.

Unfortunately, there isn't. But now it's time to get ready for swim practice, so I'll just throw out a couple of things for you to think about until we have time to resume this discussion. I'll get back to the topic later, I promise...unless I end up watching 50 hours of trolololo video. Sigh.

Here's your assignment: Watch a few nights of the Retro Channel (Channel 3 on Comcast in Denver) and tell me why we thought "Get Smart" was so incredibly funny when it first came out. Do chicks still think "Magnum PI" is hunky, or would his hair and mustache leave him dateless if he showed up at a sports bar on a Friday night? And whatever happened to Roger E. Mosley, anyway? Why do "Airplane" and "The Exorcist" still get laughs after all these years, but "Family Ties" just makes you feel sorry for everyone involved?

OK, I have to go. Give it some thought, and we'll continue the discussion later. Have a great day!

Limits

There's an old saying: "If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen." I'm not sure who said it, but I think it was either Colonel Sanders or Aunt Jemima. Or maybe Ben Franklin. (It could've been R. Lee Ermey, but the word "maggot" is missing, so we'll have to assume it wasn't him.)

Well, I'm not in the kitchen (and despite cooking skills that make Julia Child look like Julia Roberts, I hardly ever go there), but, Dudes...I can't take the heat!

Now, wait just a minute: Before you go filling my inbox with hate mail about how I'm a whiny little spoiled brat who complains about 100° heat in the summer, 2 feet of snow in the winter, and the chirping of those infuriatingly annoying birds in the springtime, let me preface my rant by assuring you that I do have a solution to the problem, which I'll reveal momentarily.

But, man, it's hot! I was doing fine for the last month or so, facing the brutal sun by dipping myself in sunscreen and drinking enough water to fill Hoss Cartwright's hat. I was sweating a lot, talking very slowly to avoid heatstroke, and spending about 17 hours a week doing laundry to deal with all the sweaty clothes. But you never heard me complain.

Until now.

I suspect we're all like that: Jolly and good-natured souls through all sorts of natural hardships, enduring untold brutality at the hands of this heartless planet, until we finally reach our limit and have to say "That's it, Mother Nature...I've had enough!" And I think a lot of Denverites reached that limit this week.

For those of you in the less-fortunate states, or (God forbid) another country, you may be under the widely-held misbelief that Denver has a universally cold and alpine climate. People assume that since Colorado has tall mountains, and tall mountains are generally cooler than lowlands, then ALL of Colorado must be constantly frigid and overrun by elves and reindeer, etc. This is simply not true. Denver gets HOT. Not all humid and yucky inbred-redneck hot like Oklahoma or Arkansas, but still stifling to a degree where you just don't want to go outside after a certain point in the summer.

And we have definitely reached that point. Which brings me to the main question of the day: Why are people so worked up about wanting to "Love this planet" and "Treat Gaia like you'd treat your sister" and stuff? Let's face it, this stinking planet does everything it possibly can to try to kill us and make our lives miserable, from producing rattlesnakes to hurricanes to forest fires and tornados. Mother Nature is unquestionably one nasty dude, and yet all I hear is talk about living in harmony with the environment and taking care not to upset Nature's Delicate Balance.

Delicate balance. Yeah, sure. Humans are the delicate ones, when you look at the big picture...and it's high time we started defending ourselves. After all, it wasn't humans who killed off the dinosaurs and squished their guts and turned them into the oil that we had to spend all our hard-earned time and money cleaning out of the gulf. It was Nature! And it wasn't humans who turned the Middle East into a sand-blasted hell-hole that makes the inhabitants want to kill everyone who lives in any of the nice places; that was Nature, too. These are just the two examples of the macro-environmental nastiness that Gaia has perpetrated upon us...when you look at the smaller scale, you come up with stuff like spiders and scorpions and viruses and politicians, not to mention gnats, flies, and those @#*%! mosquitoes.

Oh sure, we humans have used our ingenuity to build air conditioners and Cozumel resort hotels and Slurpees*, etc., but we've never really looked at solving the actual problem, have we? Well, I say it's time we do that.

All we need to do is correct the earth's stupid axial tilt; that's what causes the seasons. If Mother Nature weren't constantly wobbling like a drunken sailor, then every country on the planet would retain a fairly constant temperature, and we could all move to where we'd be comfortable. The guys who like to go shirtless and sweat all the time could move to the equator, and the folks who appreciate an Eskimo lifestyle could move to Norway. And Denver would be a nice cozy 70° all the time, so we could ride our bikes to work and eat lunch on the patio. Beautiful!

I'm not an engineer, but I don't think this would be all that hard. Get a couple of hero-type guys like Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck, and have 'em mount big ol' planet-straightener jets on a couple of strategically-placed mountains, and before long we'd be as straight and sure as a Frank Sutton haircut. I'm sure it would cost far less than whatever bailout Congress is planning to upchuck next, so it's totally doable. And this, my friends, is why it is important to vote. Let's make "Axial Tilt" the centerpoint of the upcoming election campaign, OK?

In the meantime, stay cool, my friends. And as always, thank you for your support!

*Don't you love the wide variety of Slurpee flavors? From "Cool Runnings" to "Meadowlark Lemonade", they're all delicious. My favorite is "Vanilla Ice".

King George III

I just woke up from a dream where I was in the lap lane at an outdoor swimming pool, and was stealing a giant inner tube from Douglas C. Neidermeyer. He was planning to play a practical joke on me by holding the tube underwater until I swam over, and then releasing it to float up and bushwhack me. It was a joke I could appreciate, and a good plan -- except for two things: 1) The water was clear, so I could easily see him lurking on the bottom, holding the tube, and 2) The physics of the situation were clearly absurd; no 170-pound guy is going to submerge a fully-inflated tractor tire inner tube without the assistance of a block of lead the size of Gaylord Perry.

No, wait, I mean William "Refrigerator" Perry. Sorry about that. But while we're on the topic, I urge all prospective mothers out there to think very long and hard before considering naming their sons "Gaylord". Please, just don't do it.

Anyway, Neidermeyer released the tube, expecting hilarity, but I surprised him by stopping short, and then grabbing the tube when it came to the surface and swimming away. The good news is that I could swim faster than him, even when pushing a 6-ft diameter rubber donut in front of me. The bad news is that I had no idea how to escape him once I reached the end of the 25-yard pool. The other good news is that I woke up before being caught and verbally abused.

So, my question for you is this: "Why are we allowed to violate the laws of physics in our dreams?" Does this mean that our waking consciousness is artifically limited, and that such lawless places do exist for us to visit if we could only break the shackles of human shortsightedness? Does it mean that our dreams are actually visual portals through black holes, and that for those few minutes during the night, we are blessed with the gift of seeing into other universes? Or is it just that our brains are all messed up from eating too many jalapeños, and nighttime is the chance for our cerebral anti-virus programs to kick in to clean and purge?

I have no idea. And I am just as clueless as to why the Queen of England is visiting New York this week. I heard a radio reporter say that the last time she visited was for the American Bicentennial, which seemed exceedingly odd to me: Why would you join in a celebration of an event in which one of your ancestors lost the most valuable piece of real estate a country ever possessed? Seems like you'd want to hang your crown-heavy head in shame every forth of July.

I don't know. But if nothing else, the Queen's visit means one thing for sure: We need to make sure someone keeps a close eye on Reggie Jackson.

And with that thought, I'll leave you with an additional celebration of the American spirit: Baseball! Enjoy!

More Thoughts About Food

Why haven’t they invented pitless peaches? We have seedless watermelons, and they’re much bigger and had many more seeds to get rid of. If genetic science could create an Ivan Drago, surely they could get rid of a few crummy peach pits. Am I right?

I think we should stop worrying about the gulf oil spill and instead spend the money on research to remove ANY impediments from eating food. After all, who needs fish in the gulf when they have plenty of fish sandwiches over at McDonalds? We need to be able to eat without having to work so hard, right? Wouldn't that be worth a few asphalt-covered beaches and pompadour-wearing sea lions?

[Note to PETA Terrorists: Of course I'm kidding! Geez, dudes, lighten up! I know that we have no higher priority as a nation than to make the Iranians pay for the Gulf crisis and its cleanup, and that each and every humpback whale, harbor seal, and gefilte fish living in that area deserves to live a life free of pollution (other than their own poop, of course).]

Anyway, in addition to removing all seeds from fruits, we should grow oranges you don’t need to peel, corn you don’t need to shuck, and pancake batter that already has the smile-shaped crispy bacon slices pre-embedded in the proper location. And the greatest advance of all would probably be edible candy-bar wrappers, so you don't have to expend so many precious calories in working to open the package.

(And what's up with the "Tear here" arrows that don't point to the right place on the package? I can't tell you how many times I've needed to pull out the BenGay after struggling to rip unrippable cellophane when the labeling implies that ingress could be accomplished by anyone, including Paris Hilton and Rob Schneider. I don't get it.)

And I guess we should also make clothing that you can wear when preparing food so you don’t get your work clothes all spotted.

What? An apron, you say? Well, OK, I guess they do make such a thing. And the hilarious captioning potential is enormous, isn't it? “Kiss the Cook”, “World’s Greatest Chef”, and the Robert DeNiro “You Talkin’ Ta Me?” designs are just a few of the classics that come to mind. But I've never been a big fan of aprons, partly because of their resemblance to hospital gowns, and partly because wearing an apron with style also requires wearing one of those tall poofy chef hat things, and I have no idea where you go to buy one. I know they exist, and must be readily available...but I've never seen one on the shelves at King Soopers. Hmm.

Anyway, the point is that any advances in food simplicity are to be applauded and pursued. After all, didn't the hamburger provide a vast improvement over steak, merely by being edible without the need for utensils? And didn't Spam advance the state of the art by combining all sorts of food goodness into one simple loaf, rather than requiring a person to purchase all the various animal parts and additives separately? I say yes, and I enthusiastically look forward to the day when ANY food can be eaten without the need for effort on the part of the consumer.

And that, my friends, is why we desperately need to continue funding NASA and the Space Program. Remember "Space Food Sticks"? That's what we're talking about...

...if only the packages weren't so darned hard to open.

Oh well, I suppose it's time for me to go get my daily fruit serving portion via the delicious convenience of a Pop Tart. Have a great day!

Mysteries of the Universe

Most days, I wander carefree down the corridors of life, stopping only to smell the flowers, hug the children, and high-five my teammates after every play, no matter how badly we messed it up.

(OK, I don't smell the flowers. With my allergies, any indiscriminate pollen inhalations would result in migraines, clogged sinuses, and the kind of brain-dead incoherence you normally only get from meth users and congressmen. And I only hug children with whom I have avuncular relationships; I'm no Walter Mondale or anything. But you get the idea...I'm normally a happy-go-lucky fellow. Let's move on now, shall we?)

Some days, though, I gets myself to ponderin'. Something happens that makes me think deeply about the mysteries of life. And for some reason, those questions seem to occur most frequently when food is being prepared.

Which brings me to the main point of today's lecture: Happy Birthday America! Whoo hoo! Fourth of July! Is this a great country, or what?

I hope you all got to watch fireworks, listen to Ray Charles, enjoy some baseball, and make disparging remarks about all the crappy countries who care about soccer and speak languages that no one can understand. And I hope you got to eat lots of good ol' American picnic food.

And therein lies one of the food preparation mysteries I was talking about: Why do we eat (and indeed love) hot dogs, when we know what's in them?

I don't have the answers to any of my Independence Day food-related mystery questions, but I'll leave you with a few others to ponder as we resume the long holiday-free period that extends over the next few months:

How does pudding work? I was making some the other day, and it began to mysteriously thicken as I stirred it. The ratios of liquid to powder just don't seem to provide the proper bulk for it to gelatinize the way it does...and I find this very strange and improbable. I mean, with ice cream, it kinda makes sense; you're freezing the stuff -- so you expect it to thicken. But the pudding is just sitting there in a bowl on the cabinet and growing spongier by the second. Weird.

I probably don't want to know the science, although as it is with hot dogs, the grossness of pudding technology probably wouldn't keep me from eating it. Same with Jell-o.

And why is it that my clothes seem to get small colored spots all over them every time I prepare food in the kitchen? Hmm. I do not know.

And the final mystery I'll leave you with today: How can a person live in a place for years, and then suddenly find himself walking directly into the corner of the kitchen cabinet with such force that he screams in pain and squats on the floor sobbing for the next 10 minutes? Um, this is a rhetorical question, of course, since I would never do such a thing, what with me being a finely-tuned athlete and all. But I'm sure you know someone who has done it, and are just as curious as I am about the physics (and/or metaphysics) involved.

(By the way, that giant bruise on my hip is from where I got hit by a, um, baseball. Yeah, that's it...I was just walking down the street smelling flowers and junk when WHAM! -- it came out of the blue like Skylab. But don't worry, it'll heal.)

Anyway, I hope you all had a fabulous Fourth, and will continue to enjoy picnics and stuff throughout the remains of the summer. Have a great day!

Dental Work

The good news is that the construction work inside my skull yesterday went quickly and flawlessly. The new fillings look great, feel great, and are supposed to be stronger than metal. (Is this where they say "You could even eat a tin can with it -- but you wouldn't want to"?)

The bad news is that even though I told them that I'm a total lightweight when it comes to drugs, they gave me the "normal" amount of sedation, and my mouth was numb and my diction egregious for most of the workday. (I believe they call it "IOOS" -- Involuntary Ozzy Osbourne Syndrome. Not a pretty sight.)

The good news is the the Rockies scored 7 runs last night and there will be a special on tacos at the Bell today. The bad news is that I'll probably go there, eat like a pig, and raise my cholesterol even more. (I was planning to eat an apple yesterday, but with the lack or oral control I suffered, I was afraid the attempt would be disastrous.)

The good news is that my vocal abilities have returned, and therefore I should be able to use my "coaching voice" to direct the sets for this morning's "Fun Friday" workout. The bad news is that no one else on the team defines "fun" the same way I do, and there will probably be murmerings about a lynch mob from the outside lanes. The good news is that I'm so oblivious to other peoples' concerns that I won't even notice.

The bad news is that I've run out of time to write this morning, and need to head to the pool. The good news is that it should be a completely fabulous day! Enjoy it, my friends!

Nutrition

Like most modern Americans, I abhor the idea of personal responsibility. Hey, if you get your fingers cut off when you stick them into whirling lawn mower blades, it is clear that the evil corporate demons owe you a comfortable living for the rest of your time on earth. Those responsible obviously include the mower manufacturer, the genetic scientists who made the grass so appealing to have in your yard, and the homebuilder who so callously left all that empty space around the outside of the house...just to tempt you to install the lawn that eventually left you crippled. Those people are criminals, and certainly must PAY...and that payment should include enough cash for lifetime HBO, Showtime, and Pay-Per-View Wrestling.

No one would argue that. But I recently had a medical checkup and found that my cholesterol is a bit high...and I'm not exactly sure who I should sue for causing this. I suppose that each restaurant I patronize bears partial responsibility, as does everyone in Wisconsin for allowing cheese manufacturers to do business there. And the government of Mexico, too (of course), for exporting the concepts of tacos and burritos.

It is a vast conspiracy that involves people from all over the world. By the time my lawyers (I'm considering Franklin D. Azar) are finished getting me the money I deserve, I suspect that we'll also lighten the wallets of Italy, various hamburger clowns, and the center of all evil in the Universe...Hershey, Pennsylvania.

But it's a pain to have to sue all these people, when it's really the government's fault. If our lazy Congressmen would just hurry up and pass legislation to make pizza illegal and provide us all free fruit (and someone to cut it up into easy-to-eat bite-size chunks), then I could eat healthy and solve this cholesterol problem without having to resort to legal action. It's those damn rich people who created the variety of alluring stores where I'm tempted to buy all this tasty food, so they deserve to have their taxes raised to pay for my inability to resist their products. Obviously.

Anyway, the point is that my employer needs to give me paid time off while I pursue legal recourse to remedy the fact that my high cholesterol has not yet resulted in my possession of a premium cable TV package. And the worst thing is that the stress of knowing about my arterial time-bomb makes me want to eat even more comfort food, and that could raise my LDL levels even higher. How can I eat right and exercise more with such a metaphorically heavy weight hanging over my head?

I know what you're thinking: Wait a minute, Dudes...Terry is far too handsome to be afflicted with high cholesterol -- it's a disease that's only supposed to affect ugly people, like Tommy LaSorda, Manny Ramirez, and Bernadette Peters. Ah, yes. This is normally true, but I have been watching some World Cup Soccer lately, and that could explain the anomaly.

We may never know for sure. But one thing is certain -- I would also be suing my childhood dentist if he wasn't already dead. Thanks to his monumental incompetence, my metal amalgam fillings have begun to deteriorate after only 40 years or so...and now need to be replaced. So that means I have to go to the dentist this morning and have a few of those clunkers yanked out and replaced with modern composites to make my teeth as strong as they would've been if my parents hadn't forced me to eat all that food that attracted the decay bacteria in the first place. And Lord knows that their half-hearted attempts to get me to brush and floss by reminding me multiple times a day were totally inadequate...so I guess I should be suing my folks as well.

Sigh. I have SO many lawsuits to file. Why is life so hard for me? And why isn't the government handling all this, instead of forcing me to do it myself?

Oh well, I guess I can ponder these questions while I'm reclining in the dentist chair with my head full of Novocaine. But even if I do come up with answers, don't ask me to reveal them to you today; I'll probably be drooling on myself for most of the afternoon.

So if you see me, don't expect conversation. Just smile and wave. And have a great day!