Xie Xie

Tonight I met up with my best friend Becca who I hadn't seen in about a month. We went out to sushi at an adorable place called Sakura on Wickenden Street in Providence. It's the type of place where you go in and take off your shoes and sit on the floor on cushions etc. I guess I should mention that I am a faux sushi lover as I hate fish (with the exception of Mahi Mahi which I was tricked into eating while under the impression it was poultry). I'm also incredibly allergic to shrimp. I only eat the kind of sushi that's made from vegetables or has chicken in it. I realize that neither of these are really sushi, but I also stopped caring about that three years ago. If you wrap something tasty in seaweed and rice, it's fine by me.
That aside, we were having a discussion about my nerd status increasing dramatically after starting this blog and were deciding what today's should be about. At first, I was going to write about language barriers considering I had such a hard time ordering the food and being understood. Also, Becca waitresses at a Chinese food restaurant and has problems with that often. I thought it would make sense to talk about the importance of language and how it affects our daily lives, ya-de-ya-da.
This idea changed about ten seconds later when a girl sitting at the table next to us stood up to leave, leaned all the way back and flashed everyone in the general area her Britney. Perhaps it was meant to be her tip to the waiter? I'm unsure, but at this point in time I decided that I couldn't write about languages barriers when the girl next to me completely threw them out the window by displaying symbols that are universally understood. I am one of the least conservative people you will ever meet, I could care less if you decide not to wear underwear. Be free! I don't care. However, I did not RSVP to that party.

Thomas Edison and George Clooney?

The fact that good ol' Tommy boy here stole most of his ideas from people who worked for him and then released them under his patent is pretty annoying and unjust in itself. To add to this, I learned today that in 1903 Mr. Edison publicly electrocuted a circus elephant named Topsy in front of 1500 people. Apparently, Topsy's owners were going to have her hanged after she killed her trainer, who had fed her a lit cigarette, but there was a public outcry against it. So they called in Tommy who at the time had been on a spree of electrocuting stray cats, dogs and the occasional horse or cow. Electrocuting an elephant is far more humane than hanging it, obviously. Edison thought an elephant would be quite the challenge since he had never shocked an animal of that proportion. After having Topsy strapped into copper sandals he shocked her with 6600 volts of electricity killing her in about ten seconds. The whole thing was captured on film. Apparently Tom was going around doing this to prove that his arch nemesis George Westinghouse's alternating current was dangerous. At least he was trying to prove a point, right? I had the unfortunate opportunity of seeing the video.

I have really mixed opinions about PETA but if this were done today I'd be glad to allow them to throw tomatoes and red paint all over him. When a kid goes around zapping animals now they have them in a shrink's office faster than you can say "Daddy issues". However, 105 years after Edison, I'm not sure how far we've come with learning how to prove our points with words rather than violent action. What with the more recent outcry over the Costa Rican artist Guillermo Habacuc Vargas starving a dog to death in an art exhibit to "prove a point" of social hypocrisy.



On a far less sobering note, yesterday I went out to dinner with my dear friend and former roommate Meredith. We got on the topic of sexy older men and obviously the man above came up. I don't know what it is about him, but I have had a serious celebrity crush on him since I was a kid. He can operate on me or rob my casino any day.

Greetings!

I've decided that since I'm on the brink of becoming a fully legal adult in the eyes of the government, that it's time to say goodbye to the angst filled kingdom of Livejournal and hello to the world of grown up, "serious" blogging. Here you will find the incredibly interesting details of some of the daily happenings of my life, my thoughts on politics (perhaps) and pictures and videos that interest or merely entertain me.

I went out to dinner with my parents on Friday evening to a place they normally go to without me. All the tables in the bar that would seat three were full (obviously) so we ended up sitting in the dinning room in the back. My parents aren't incredibly young but they don't exactly roll with the geriatric ward either. The atmosphere was awful for anyone who doesn't qualify for a Senior Citizen's Discount. First off all the tables were too close together. I don't want to hear about Uncle Earl's colonoscopy while you complain about the butternut squash on the Early Bird Special. I felt like I was an extra in an add for a retirement community in Florida, the state my father refers to as "God's waiting room". Aside from the table that was in the corner, my dad was the only guy in the room who didn't have white hair. We got stuck in the parking lot on the way out because, as I will forever maintain, the elderly cannot drive. I dubbed over all the conversations of the people walking out with, "Come on Dad, time to go back to the home! Next weekend we'll take you to the circus!" and "Kids, say goodbye to grandpa!" My mom did some of her own while my dad just complained that we should have come later so the bar wouldn't have been full. He didn't think it was funny when I responded with "WHAAAT? Speak up sonny! My hearing aid's on the fritz again!"

I never want to get old.
That is however, unless I'm AWESOME old, like this:

Funny: Elderly Skydive
Uploaded by pmppm