How life blows every now and then! Stomach cramps and motion sickness

According to askdarcy.com, the #1 reason why your life blows is because "you believe you have no control over your life."  For me, it's because I believe, and demonstrably so, that I have no control of my bowel movements (happens every now and then).

I had a dentist appointment this morning at 8:30 a.m. for a filling.  I'd blocked out 1 hour on my work calendar under the mistaken belief that this would be another routine rectifying of another god dang cavity.  Here's my dental rap sheet:

• Fillings in every tooth except my front top and bottom row and two top wisdom teeth.  I've had a couple of dentists salivating over the prospect of plucking them.... but pluck them!  No reason for having dental surgery over two harmless and useless teeth.
• Something like 3-4 crowns
• 1 crown is accompanied by a root canal
• Another crown has been faulty since installation less than a year ago.  I'm waiting for next year to open a health care flex account so I can use pre-tax money to pay for an exchange.

I suppose I should count my blessings as things could be worse.

So this morning's filling turned out to be one of life's moments that utterly blows and makes one think about a nap 6 feet under.  I had to keep my mouth wide open for 1.5 hours, all the while smelling or tasting all kinds of nasty shit.  Every now and then I had to reach into my mouth and remove a tooth fragment 'cause the dental assistant wasn't doing grade A work.  I was laying horizontal for most of this time with my head at the same level as my toes, nauseated.  This cavity was deeper than my dentist had thought.  As I was driving to work, I felt an urge to blog about this experience and other life's acutely undesirable moments.

For whatever reason, the most undesirable moments of my life are the ones I am either suffering from motion sickness, or sitting on the toilet defecating my brains out with massive stomach cramps.  And oddly, it never fails that I become sympathetic to the predicament of cancer patients during.  I was at the cash register of a Pavilions near my place when the female cashier asked me if I wanted to donate money for breast cancer research.  I told her no, but if she was collecting donations for testicular cancer research, I was game.

Can we look forward to a future of no cavities, no dental cleaning (these aren't horrible, but bad enough), and no brushing or flossing?  Sheah!  It's called "dentures" baby!  And at this rate of tooth decay, I can't wait for what's in store when I'm 80.  Is there anything graceful about aging?  If you'd like to read more about how fun it is to age, try "The thing about life is that one day you'll be dead", by David Shields.

My depressing blog entry is nothing compared to what this book dishes out.

South African Man Wakes Up in Morgue - You begin to ask yourself, how many other people have died like that in a morgue?”

From a Time article, "Dead Man Walking: South African Man Wakes Up in Morgue", July 26, 2011:

"Kupelo urged South Africans to not conclude on their own that a relative has passed."

Excerpts from the article:

The undead man was zipped up in a body bag and locked in a refrigerated compartment for one day before morgue staffers heard him shouting from his icy quarters. The staffers were terrified that the voice was a ghost and fled the building. “I couldn't believe it!" said Maqolo. "I was also scared.” After they returned and called the police, they entered the fridge to find the man, a grandfather, alive, though shivering and shaken.

“He screamed for help and made an almighty din in the morgue,” said Eastern Cape health spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo.

The man was treated for hypothermia and dehydration at a nearby hospital, and doctors later deemed him stable. He is recovering at home from the bizarre and traumatic experience.

Toilet 2.0: Poop gasified into plasma using microwaves to generate electricity

"Gates Foundation:  We need to reinvent the toilet."

The toilet was invented in 1776, and while it has performed nothing short of a miracle in making people's lives healthier, it hasn't reached 2/3rd of the world.  The Gates Foundation is giving $41.5 million worth of grants to a few universities to develop toilets that cost pennies and recycle or render feces harmless.  Diarrheal diseases contribute to the deaths of 1.5 million children around the world, and poor sanitation is the chief cause.

Here are what the recipient of the grants plan to do with the donated funds.  Let's hope some of the individuals below will make good use of human waste ASAP.  The fate of millions depends on their work.

• Andrew Cotton, from Loughborough University in the UK, is making a toilet that will "recover water and salt from feces and urine."

• Georgios Stefanidis, from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, is working on a toilet that will generate electricity from waste, which will be "gasified into plasma" using microwaves. That gas can be used to generate electricity, according to the proposal.

• Yu-Ling Chen, from the University of Toronto, is trying to make a toilet that will "sanitize feces within 24 hours" so human waste doesn't transmit disease through a community. Chen plans to use a process of dehydration, filtration and smoldering to render the waste harmless.

• Michael Hoffmann, from the California Institute of Technology, plans to develop a solar-powered toilet. Solar cells generate enough power to process waste and turn it into fuel for electricity.

8% of people would play Russian Roulette, but only 1% would have their tongue removed! - What would you do for a million dollars?

Everybody has their price.

For a million dollars, a telephone survey by Entertainment Weekly revealed, almost 8% of respondents would loan their spouses to someone for sex.

In response to "What would you do for a million dollars?", a survey by misterpoll with 1,500 respondents showed the following disturbing results, among others not listed below:

5% would have a sex change

8% would play russian roulette

38% would euthanize their pets

8% would have a limb surgically removed

1% would have their tongue removed

11% would marry someone who weighs 700 lb.

52% would star in a porn movie

These are intriguing survey results, and beg the question, how many would do these things for free, especially starring in a porn movie and have a sex change?

And around 10% of people appear to be quite out there, willing to do such things as play Russian Roulette, have a limb surgically removed or marry someone who weights 700 lb.

38% would euthanize their pets?  Wow!  What does that say about how people feel about their pets?  I wonder what percentage would euthanize a family member for $1M!

Probably the most bizarre survey result was the 1% who would cut out their tongue.  Only 1%???  Is that the worst thing that can happen to someone among the things listed in the survey??

$300 jeans manufactured in the U.S. could sell for $40 if manufactured in China - Follow up to American innovation post

Here are some interesting stats from a July 7, 2011 WSJ article titled "How can jeans cost $300?" by Christina Binkley:

True Religion is one of the industry's giants, making 4 million units of clothing a year. He estimates that his $300 jeans could sell for $40 if he manufactured in China.

Still, Mr. Lubell has caved when it comes to jackets, the cutting and styling of which is more complex than pants. He makes them in Mexico, where costs are higher than in Asia, but less than in the U.S. The jackets retail for about $375. "If I made them here," he says, "they would be about $600."

True Religion's top-selling jeans, the Super T, cost about $50 to make and sell wholesale to retailers for $152 a pair. The average price in stores is $335. They feature white stitching on the back pocket and around the waistband.

The paradox of U.S. innovation - Most jobs are created abroad & majority of income is captured by a few in the U.S.

President Obama said the following during a televised address on June 22, 2011:  "We must unleash innovation that creates new jobs and industry, while living within our means."

President Obama also said the following during a June 28, 2011 speech in Bettendorf, Iowa, at an Alcoa aluminum rolling mill:

"And what you've learned is that if you want to beat the competition, then you've got to innovate."

The article stated "Obama stressed the importance of innovation in order to create new domestic manufacturing jobs."

Chrystia Freeland, the editor of the Thomson Reuters Digital has written an excellent article using scholarly research by other authors on who is benefitting from America's Innovation.  In every era, one can study a sector of the U.S. economy to understand the driving forces behind jobs and income.  In this era, it's the Apple iPod, and here's the summary of who has benefitted from this innovative product:

• In 2006, the iPod created 41,170 jobs worldwide, only 13,920 or 1/3rd of which were in the U.S.
• 6,101 U.S. Apple engineers and professionals or only 15% of the iPod work force worldwide earned 50% of total income of $1 billion generated by iPod in that year.

So in summary, America's innovation sends most jobs abroad and a majority of the beneficiaries of the income generated are a few in the U.S.

That's technology and globalization working in tandem for America.

Death – Taking the fun out of life for 600 million years

"A recent survey stated that the average person's greatest fear is having to give a speech in public. Somehow this ranked even higher than death which was third on the list. So, you're telling me that at a funeral, most people would rather be the guy in the coffin than have to stand up and give a eulogy?" – Jerry Seinfeld

All living things attempt to ensure immortality through reproduction, whether subconsiously or subconsiously as well as consciously.  Each individual, whether single or multi celled, is programmed to reproduce before dying off.  This system of longevity is archane, inefficient and responsible for selfish and barbaric behavior.

Let’s accept the primary objectives of all living things as survival first, and reproduction second.  Reproduction is solely the byproduct of cell decay and death.  In the absence of decay and death from old age, reproduction would be either on a much reduced scale meant as a backup plan in the case of unnatural or natural untimely damage or death – car accidents, murders, Tsunamis etc. – or non-existent.  Decay without death would require reproduction as existing individuals would not possess the vigor for continuing survival.  If you’re a 200 year old who has continued to decay since 21, which is the human physical peak, you won’t have much left in your social security fund past the age of 100.

The inefficiency of this system of survival and reproduction stems from the following:  Much of what is learned by individuals disappears upon death.  Imagine if from birth, offsprings of individuals were beneficiaries of their parents’ vast knowledge and skills acquired throughout a life time.

Moreover, special individuals who contribute mightily to advancement of our understanding of the universe and harnessing its forces to our benefit, e.g. Albert Einstein, are wasted away by decay and death.  Most highly gifted mathematicians contribute their brightest and most useful ideas in their youth.  So decay is partly responsible for wasting valuable human resources in making the world a better place to live, and death seals it.

Now then, death is a natural order of all things in the universe, whether living or not.  The universe itself is projected to be lifeless in a few billion years as all sources of its energy, stars, burn out.  To make matters worse, dark energy is tearing the universe apart, and if this pattern continues, all remaining matter will eventually fall apart as well.

So it may be futile to assume a system can be devised devoid of death, but one can come to fruition, and very plausibly so, whereby decay and death of the living can be postponed indefinitely.  Imagine a world where a young Einstein powers forth with his youthful vigor for thousands of years if not more.  An Einstein who transforms to Einstein squared by combining his mind with those of powerful computers; the merging of biology and machines.

In the near future, decay and death will be postponed indefinitely, man and machine will merge to form more powerful versions of humans, and eventually, we may all exist as just our minds on Verizon’s wireless network.  Our physical bodies are prone to decay and death from a plethora of natural and unnatural causes.  The sooner we can do away with them, the better off we are.  A more powerful mind can then exist in a wireless world with backups in case a computer virus infects the grid.  Badabing, we will then be in business and await the inevitable billions of years later with the destruction of our universe.  Perhaps we can achieve immortality by leaping to parallel universes should they exist, or somehow sneak into the next big bang and the birth of another universe.  And perhaps the assumption that all good things must come to an end is not necessarily so.

 

3 reasons why women's extra pairs of underwear are not for their husbands

Here is what was posted on June 15, 2011, Norwich Evening News 24, "According to a recent survey, British men consider underwear to be a waste of suitcase space and take only three pairs of pants for a week-long holiday.  Women, however, over-compensate for their menfolk and take 10 pairs of knickers for a seven night stay: perhaps the extra three pairs are for their husbands, maybe they’re saucy ones they can use to seduce a swarthy local when they realise they’ve come away with someone who thinks it’s acceptable to reuse their pants."

Here is a CNN video on the topic.

On our vacation to of Sweden, my wife planned a trip to Astrid Lindgren world (ALW) which is a 4 hour drive from my in-laws' house where we were staying.  The itenirary included a half a day stint at ALW followed by a night's stay at the Pippi Longstocking hotel and another day at ALW before heading home.  The hotel room didn't have a shower, but   there were common area showers on most floors.  My wife decided we could do without one during our brief stay.  Even before we arrived, the prospect of forgoing the shower began to look bleak.  The sun was out in full force and the weather hot.  After spending half a day at ALW watching Pippi and Emil shows etc., we drove to the hotel and quickly decided showers for everyone were in order.  Naturally, I hadn't packed a clean underwear, so I had a dilemma:  Continue to wear my old underwear or borrow one of my wife's panties.  I chose the latter, figuring no one would know as long as my wife didn't talk.  These particular panties were Victoria Secret's "Extra Low Rise Hipster" brand, medium size in pink color made in Sri Lanka.  The pictures below are replicas of the original (my wife wouldn't let me post a picture of the actual panties):

For the following 3 reasons this turned out to be a regretful decision:

1.  Disclosure:  Elin and I took our clean clothes with us to the shower on the 2nd floor.  The plan was to walk back to our room with our clothes on rather than in towels.  We finished our shower and no sooner had I put on the panties than Elin pointed to them and asked "whose this?"  She'd recognized immediately something was suspicious about this situation.  So I told her these were mamma's.  Now I was living under the constant threat of her disclosing that I wore women's panties, as was the case a couple of days later when we were driving to Lumma:  She asked her mom what I was wearing today.  I was seated in the back with her as her mom was driving.  Her mom responded "what IS he wearing?"  Elin then asked if I was wearing "Kalsonger" (Swedish for men's underwear).  I told her I would be wearing "Kalsonger" forever, hoping she would never make the same or similar inquiry, particularly in other people's presence.

2.  Comfort:  As evident in the left picture above, there's not much space in the front to handle the extra male anatomy.  The back of the panties is only slightly better, but there is no margin for error when bending over or squatting in public.  My crack would surely be visible to the naked eye.  I had to adjust and readjust the front and back constantly.

3.  Rationale:  Because of reasons 1 and 2, there is no rationale left for any man to use women's panties other than because of cross dresser tendencies, which I thankfully have none.

Less than an hour later, I happily slipped back into my used underwear and put this agonizing and most uncomfortable episode behind me.  Now only if my daughter's memory could be erased.....

My kid is not dysfunctional

We took a trip to the Astrid Lindgren World - she is the author of Pippi Longstocking and other children's characters - a couple of days ago.

As we were eating our pancakes in the dining area of an all you can eat pancake eatery, my older daughter, now 3 years old, knocked her lingonberry juice cup on the ground and spilled the contents.  This was after she got strawberry and rasberry preserves all over her expensive Hanna Andersson clothes - very difficult to remove these stains.

I immediately thought what an awesome display of dexterity, and frankly, I was a little embarrassed and ticked by Elin's predicament.  I was hoping no one would pay much attention to our nasty situation.  My wife reminded me this was a natural thing with kids, but gosh darn it, we just thrashed the area around us.  Must life be so difficult with kids?  Can good table manners be taught to a 3 year old?  What's the acceptable limit of their sloppiness?  If they fling pieces of food at your face, is that a no no or is it excusable 'cause kids will be kids?  There are clearly limits to poor dining habits.

So Elin finished her pancakes - actually, for the last third of her food consumption she ate nothing but the strawberry/rasberry preserves without the pancakes - and ran off to the side of the dining area in the miniature dining hall next to a makeshift restaurant filled with paper dolls with music and dancing in the background.

As I was watching Elin - by now my wife was out of my view with our younger one - a couple of things happened that made the 4 hour trip worth every penny and agony!  A man knocked over a cup of coffee and if it weren't for her wife's lightning fast reflex to push her chair back as she got up to avoid the coffee, she would have been drenched.

I thought to myself Elin did much better in her mishap.  She knocked her cup back and away from everyone!

Then something else happened that reinforced my about face opinion about Elin's dining habits.  A mother who was carrying a tray of 2-3 paper plates with pancakes etc. dropped one of the plates on the ground near her table UPSIDE DOWN!  Yay!!!!  That sh*t was funny, especially the look on her face.  I never thought I'd revel in other people's misery, but these two experiences made me feel much better than my own.  My daughter wasn't dysfunctional afterall!  A whole buncha loud and obnoxious birds gathered around, waiting for their opportunity to dine firstclass.

Years ago, I read a travelog book called The Geography of Bliss:  One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World.  One of the countries Eric Weiner (the author) traveled to was Moldova, which is ranked as the 93rd happiest country in the world.  Residents of this country are so depressed they take pleasure in observing the misery of others.

Gotta cut this blog short and give Elin a shower before we miss our 10:46 a.m. bus to downtown Lund.  She's telling me "you have to haiwee (hurry)".  Bwyan (Brian), mom said is not time for that (blogging)."  A few seconds later she grabbed my iPad 2 and started playing "Animal Lost 10".  As I wrestled the iPad away from her, she grabbed my comforter and mattress cover and made a mess out of my fixed bed.  Then she insisted her mommy give her a shower.

I need to see more miserable parents now!