You Know What Would Be Cool?

Do you know what would be cool?
   If somebody made ice cream that was chock-full of vitamins. And I mean for real, like it was the most vitamin-enriched thing you could possibly buy. More vitamins than those really nasty vegetables that are totally good for you but are completely gross, like kale or chard or rhubarb.
   And then those guys who are on the daytime talk shows telling people what not to eat would have some sort of aneurysm when they read the nutrition label. Because, after all, it would still be ice cream - which is just sweet fat - but it would also be better for you than a multi-vitamin. It would BE a multi-vitamin, just with a ribbon of silky fudge in the center.
   Ice cream companies would piss themselves trying to come up with the latest and greatest 'healthy' ice cream. No doubt there would be segmentation, with senior-marketed ice cream competing with infant and toddler-marketed ice cream, each with its own specialized vitamin ingredients. And then the inevitable diet books would follow, advocating one brand of vitamin ice cream over another. In the meantime registered dietitians and nutritionists would be screaming at the top of their lungs, trying to get people to realize that it's still ice cream, after all, and totally bad for you no matter how many vitamins you shove into it.
   It would be madness, conflicting opinions, people convinced beyond any convincing otherwise that they were right and there was no other answer. No one listening to each other, just a lot of noise and people yelling to people who already agree with them. It would be like our current political climate, only with ice cream.
   Ah... sweet anarchy...

Can You TP A Space Station?

In a few days there will be four women up in space. That's the largest number of women in orbit ever, and all of them are headed for the space station.
   So which one of them is the mean girl? And which one is the target? You know it's gonna happen, whenever there are three women in the same room, two of them ostracize the third, and it gets even worse the more ladies there are. This is bound to hold true up in orbit, especially in the tight confines of a space shuttle or space station. And don't tell me I'm being sexist or perpetuating sterotypes, it's true and you know it. One of the four women astronauts is going to cry before it's all over, and wonder why the other three don't like her.
   Maybe NASA will pipe down footage of the zero-g pillow fight they're going to have. I mean, seriously, isn't being on the space station like one freaky slumber party? They can get in their sleeping bags, pop popcorn and make cookies, play with a Ouija board, do each other's hair and talk about the boys back in Mission Control.
   Okay, see? That was sexist, that last paragraph. I shouldn't have written that, I know. I feel ashamed. And ready for the YouTube footage of the pillow fight.

So... I'm Supposed To Drink That?

A plumber came to the building today. To do exactly what I don't know, but he had to turn off the water to the entire building to do it. No biggie, it usually happens when they work on the shared water lines for the entire building. It's always fun clearing the lines when they turn the water back on, it spits and sputters and the toilets (or terlits, if you're Archie Bunker) pop and bang and rattle. Like a little haunted house. I got that today, and a little more besides.
   The water ran brown. And not a deep, rich, earthy brown, more like a tan-ish dookie brown, ocher and unappetizing.
   The building is old enough that sediment in the lines is unavoidable, but this was above and beyond. And it just ran and ran and ran. I had to flush the terlits a few times to get the water to run clear. This alarmed me, of course, so I went online and took a look at the Pasadena water quality reports. And, yes, that is totally an old man thing to do, I don't need you to remind me of it.
   Not to be alarmist, but the official report for 2008 lists potential contaminants such as microbes, pesticides, organic chemicals, and... drumroll.... radioactive stuff. And I'm supposed to drink this, do laundry with it, cook with it, and make my rubber duckies pretend to be battleships in it.
   I was spoiled growing up, I lived in San Antonio, which has a large, tasty supply of water in a limestone aquifer that filters rainwater so completely they have to do almost nothing to it to make it suitable for consumption. The worst thing I had to worry about was cleaning the bathroom because the water was so hard (all that limestone, you know). But it wasn't radioactive. Or doo-doo brown.
   I already have a water filter pitcher that I use, now I guess I have to figure out how to make that work for every other water line in my apartment.

What I Miss About Work

There are many things I do not miss about work: commuting, self-important do-nothings, pointless rules that people feel the need to follow without question, evil executives who spout platitudes while lining their pockets with investors' money. The toilet paper in the office bathrooms. But there is one thing I do miss about work:
   Birthday cake.
   It's been two and a half months and I haven't had any birthday cake, I'm going through withdrawal. Store bought or homemade, it doesn't matter to me, all I want is to celebrate someone's birthday with a sugar rush in the afternoon, right around 2:30 PM, after lunch and close to going-home time but not so close that you have to rush to finish or clean up.
   Yeah, sure, I could make my own cake, but it's just not the same. There's nothing quite like getting a visit in your office from someone with a birthday card, it brightens your morning because you know that in a few hours you'll be getting cake. For free. Maybe some ice cream too, if people in the office like the birthday boy or girl enough.
   Maybe I can crash one of the office buildings nearby, somebody there has to have a birthday today...

Things That Worry Me Which Probably Shouldn't

I'm concerned that the Japanese have taken this whole 'lifelike robot' thing waaaay too far.
   It was kind of neato with Asimo, the not-really independent robot who interacts with people. It's actually remotely controlled, but the robot is standing upright by itself, which is a feat. Asimo begat the little robot dogs, and consumer electronics that are fun for kids to play with.
   But the Japanese are getting kind of creepy with their robots now, making 'lifelike' women robots who look like they popped out of a 1960's Godzilla movie, and creepy little girl robots who obviously want the codes to our nuclear weapon arsenal. Or our souls.
   I know the Japanese are weird - it's their defining characteristic and gives them an excuse for all those talking toilets - but seriously, this is taking things too far. The next time I'm in Japan (because I go so often) I'm going to pinch people, to make sure they're not robots.