Zel-kun’s Words

It’s been awhile since I’ve done it, so I figured why not.  It’s time for another, Zel’s Spam Corner!

I disabled comments on my Mexican Thanksgiving post, which has cut the spam down to a trickle.  To this day, I have no idea why that particular post garnered so much spam.  I mean, it doesn’t seem like it’d be a particularly popular topic.  But I guess I’ll never understand the ways of spammers.

So here goes:

Dingoes

Not as absurd as some spam I get, but up there for pure esoteric value.  I haven’t even thought of the word dingo since I saw Crocodile Dundee years ago.  Spam is created by making people want to click on key words and phrases that would draw interest.  Are there really that many people interested in dingoes?

I mean, other than in Australia.

Out of curiousity, I typed ‘Dingoes’ into Google, to see what sort of pages would be brought up.  I thought maybe there was some new type of porn called ‘Dingo,’ or some new slang term the hip young people are using these days.  But no, for the first time in the history of the internet, I get a list of sites about dingoes.  Educational sites about dingoes.  Wow.

Cyclic Vomiting

I’m not even sure where to start with this.  Sounds like a DnD spell gone horribly wrong.

Player: I cast Cyclic Vomiting on the hobgoblin (rolls dice) He gets to spin around in the air and vomit for 1d6 rounds.

DM: Okay, the hobgoblin vomits in the air and the party is covered by hobgoblin puke, making the party in turn vomit on each other.

Eww.

I went ahead and Googled this and found out there IS a somewhat rare disease called Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome.  Affects about 0.04% of people.  It’s as horrible as it sounds, though still, can’t imagine it’s a very popular topic.

Jewish Beef Brisket

That sounds pretty good, actually.  Beef brisket rocks  Not sure why it has to be Jewish.  Maybe the cow was circumsized?

Isn’t that against some animal treatment law or something?

Zel-kun out.

It’s Monday.  I sit here, feeling much better for the most part.  I’m a little nauseus from a bad pastry, but otherwise none the worse for wear.  Zai wasn’t so fortunate, she has been sick all night, making emergency trips to the bathroom.

I had insomnia all Friday night, spending the time wandering from bed, to the television, and the computer.  I finally fixed a problem I was having with it freezing, a bad Adobe dll file, of all things.  So, the evening was productive, at the very least.

During the night, I heard a soft cracking noise in my mouth, and went into the bathroom to spit out pieces of tooth, which was just what I needed in the middle of my insomnia.  It didn’t hurt, but the smart thing to do was to see a dentist as soon as possible.

I hadn’t been to the dentist since high school, which judging by my shattered tooth, probably wasn’t the smartest thing I’ve ever done.  I went in for a walk-in appointment at a nearby dentist, and was given a stack of forms.  I was so groggy from not sleeping I mispelled my name and claimed I was born in December 12, 2008.  At that point Zai took the pen, preventing me from embarrassing myself further.

After an hour or so, they bring me back for some tooth X-rays, which from my experience, is the worst part of going to the dentist.  I have a strong gag reflex, and those X-ray pads make me gag fiercely.  It didn’t help that this particular dental practice used these giant clamps to hold them.  I’m pretty sure they got those from the set of some horror movie somewhere.

After the X-rays were done, the dentist came in to examine those to let me know that my left-bottom wisdom tooth did in fact have a nice chunk taken out of it, due to a sizeable cavity.  It would have to come out, but he’d have to send me to an orthodontal surgeon.  At this point, I’m happy as hell I have dental insurance.  Although I’m not sure how good it is, and neither is the dentist, so I have to wait until they research the nuances of my plan.

On top of the shattered tooth, I also had a number of small cavities, which can be easily fixed, he said, but again he needed to verify my insurance first, so I have an appointment in two weeks.  I’ve never had a novacaine shot before, and the idea of a needle in my gums scares the crap out of me.

But, at least things are going to get fixed, so that’s good.

Zel-kun out.

I’m back at work.  Feeling a little better, thanks to plenty of herbal tea and good old-fashioned drugs.

Seems I covered myself pretty well at work.  Only a few emails and no voice messages waiting for me.  It’s like I never left.

I was watching television when I was sick, and I saw perhaps the stupidist commercial I had ever seen.  Most of the time when I see a product that I don’t think works (knives that never dull, get rich quick schemes), I usually just shake my head.  But when I saw this, it was so ridiculous, so far-fetched, that after I stopped laughing, I had to wonder…

It’s so utterly stupid that it might be true.  I mean, some stuff you just can’t make up.

Kinoki Foot Pads (Warning, the link has a video that auto-plays, so if you’re in a quiet work environment, be careful)

Yes, I kid you not.  Foot pads.  Apparently, by putting these pads on, they will draw the toxins out of your body, like parasites, asbestos, and all sorts of foreign elements.  This is evidenced by the pad turning black overnight.  You’re supposed to continue to use them until the pad remains white overnight.

The removal of these foreign elements are supposed to make you feel healthier, sleep better, and live longer.

I mean… wow.

Zel-kun out.

For the first time I can remember, I called off twice in a row.  I felt a little bit worse, but left to my own devices, I’m pretty sure I would have tried going to work anyhow.  I suppose this is why it’s good to have a fiance to look out for you and force you to stay home while your sick.

My illness has evolved in a way.  It started off as a sore throat, and now it’s full blown flu, and the sore throat is practically gone for now.  Go figure.

I’ve been spending my day alternating between laying down watching television, and working at my computer.  I’m not really able to just sit doing nothing, even when I am sick.  If I had authentication to remote into my work network, I would have gladly done some work from home, at least make a little bit of the money I’m missing out on by staying here.

Not much else to report, not a lot going on when you just stay home.

Zel-kun out.

Woke up this morning with a sore throat.  I wasn’t feeling all that well yesterday, so I made sure to clean up any open projects at work just in case I was feeling worse this morning.  I was feeling worse, so I called off sick.

I was feeling a little ill earlier on, but now it’s full-blown nausea.  So I guess it’s a good thing I called off.

I’ve been spending some time redesigning the site, the old style just wasn’t working for me.  I changed that picture of an ugly bridge a couple times, but for some reason it reverts back, so I got rid of that theme altogether.

This new theme has a calender and ‘recent comments’ section on the sidebar, seemed nifty when I saw it on Perrero, so figured I’d give it a shot, see how it works.

Let me know what you think.

As for me, I think I’m going to get some rest.

Zel-kun out.

There’s a bit of a warm spell here in Chicago this week.  It’s been about 50-60 for about four days now.  It’s nice, but windy and rainy, which tends to be a side effect of warm winter weather here.  I’m not sure what it is about a drizzle, but it increases traffic tenfold.  Although, traffic might be explained by President Bush’s visit yesterday.  Not really sure.

2008… election year.  Soon we’ll have a new president.  I’m not sure what the next one will bring, but he (she?) will have to be strong, intelligent, and charismatic.  America is in dire straights, and we need much more than a figurehead.  We need a leader.

Anyhow, back to the strange title of today’s entry.  I’ve always found religious artifacts to be an interesting thing.  One one hand, you have grand and tasteful works, marble statues, beautiful architecture, and even exquisite works of art.  A look at some of these pieces will show you the amount of love that was put into them.

Then there’s the other side, full of cheesy and chintzy merchandise.  Light-up wise men, mass-produced plastic crosses from Taiwan, and a large plastic Jesus figure.  I saw Jesus lying there on the side of the road, not too far from where I saw the bible that one day.  His face was to the ground and the wind made him wobble back and forth.  It was sad, really.  I’m not the most religious sort anymore, but even a plastic statue of Jesus deserves better than that.

Maybe we should create less chintzy items and focus on more worthwhile pieces of art, the sort people wouldn’t want to throw away.

Zel-kun out.

I find out that living in the suburbs, you end up being sheltered from a lot of things.  I used to go grocery shopping for myself, back in the days when my crazy retail schedule meant I missed pretty much every single family meal.  I went to the produce section, and there was always the typical selection of fruits and vegetables.  Apples, bananas, broccoli, and cauliflower, nothing out of the ordinary.  Once in a great while, maybe some pineapples.

But when I go to the local food store in the city, the produce section is twice as large, half of it filled with fruits and vegetables I have never seen before.  Small fruits, large gourd-like vegetables, and sitting in a large brown pile: Coconuts.

I have eaten coconut many times before.  Coconut chocolates, coconut drinks, and those doughnuts with the coconut shavings on them.  But I have never actually SEEN a coconut.  It was brown, covered in dry fibers, and three brown spots like I had always seen in cartoons.  I always thought those brown spots were just artistic license for some reason, just like when someone gets dizzy and their eyes get all spinny.  But no… there they are looking at you like some odd face.

So, excited at the prospect of actually eating the coconut and humming ‘I’ve got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts,’ I picked one up and bought it.  Getting into a coconut is hard work.  It took a hammer, screwdriver, and nails to get into the coconut to get to the juice inside.  I expected it to be milky white, you know, like coconut milk in the cartoons, but is was actually pretty clear, and tasted horrible.

My fiance tells me that coconut is usually sweetened, and that eating coconut by itself was going to be very different.  After her father took the coconut out back and smashed it on the floor, I tried a piece.  She was right.  It wasn’t bad, just much different than I expected.  I tried it the Mexican way, with chili powder and lime on top, which was not bad, but had a very strong flavor I really could only eat a couple of bites of.

The best thing to come out of it was putting a splash of the coconut juice in a glass of Coke, making what we called the CocoCoca-Cola.  It was pretty good.  I need to try it with chocolate powder and coconut juice so it can be a CocoacocoCoca-cola.

Try saying that three times fast.

You’ll sound like Coco from Foster’s, as we found out.

Maybe she could endorse it.

You know, Coco’s cocoacocoCoca-cola.

Zel-kun out.

Yes, that’s right folks, it’s time for another “Tale of Retail.”

I was working in Electronics at the time, wearing an ugly blue vest they insisted was called a ’smock,’ and had only been there a few months.  If memory serves, this was even before I made friends with Pete.  That seems like a long, long time ago.

I had finished ringing a customer out when the sirens began blaring and the emergency lights started flashing.  It was the fire alarm.  At this time, I instructed the customers in the department to go to nearest exit.  It seems like a simple enough concept, when the alarm goes off, you leave the building.  In school, we had fire drills every now and again, and it was always the same:  Hear the alarm, then leave.

But, as I found out, seems that some people weren’t paying attention in school.

After evacuating the department, I was asked to do a quick walk of the floor to make sure that there were no stragglers.  And sure enough… at least half of the people were just ignoring the alarm.  Most made their way to the front of the store when I asked them, some people outright refused until I assured them it wasn’t a drill.

I have shopped at many stores, and I have spent half a decade working in them, and there has NEVER been a fire drill.  Doesn’t make sense, why would you clear out your store?  The people you drill that day won’t be the same people there should a real fire break out, it’s pointless.

So we treated it as a real fire.  I can’t remember if there was a small fire somewhere or not, but the real point is that there COULD have been.  There was an older woman shopping, could have been about fifty or so, and I asked her to leave.  She agreed, walked four steps, and began looking at the shelves again.  This repeats four times until she finally shouts at me, “I need to buy food for my cat!”

Have we really fallen this far, people?  Do we have no survival instinct left?  People spend time formulating escape and evacuation plans so when a disaster happens, we’re prepared.  And what do we do?  We ignore them.  If someone tells you to evacuate a building, it’s probably not because they want to mess with you.

After telling her that she might be in danger, she finally acquiesced and left the building.  We stood in the parking lot for several minutes until they finally let us back inside.  Not sure what happened, but if I were to guess, I’d say someone pulled the alarm to be funny.  But if it had been a serious fire, many would have died from their own stupidity.

Zel-kun out.

Another year gone by.  I won’t get into another looking through time post, I just did one of those.  But this means I have officially only worked at one job for a whole year.  For the first time since Wal-Mart, my tax forms will be simple again, hurrah!

I came in to work and ripped off the last page of my daily calender, and now I am looking at the blank plastic base that I had been slowly tearing pages off for a whole year.  When Paul gave me the calender last year, I was still new at this job, and didn’t expect to hold it more than a few more months, as that was when the contract was set to expire.  Since the fiasco at my previous long-term job, I didn’t have a whole lot of confidence.

But here I am, I have proven myself time and again to my co-workers and bosses.  That turbulent time where I bounced from job to job wondering where my next paycheck came from seems so far behind me.  I’ve used my money wisely and now have enough saved up in case I need to start bouncing from job to job again.

Hopefully that doesn’t need to be the case.

Happy New Year to you all.

Zel-kun out.