Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Ways of Expression- Hot Sauce Edition

I really like words. I don't really know too many words, other then to describe myself as a Xanthochroi. But no biggy. Actually though, words are pretty cool- You can use them in whatever way you so choose, and you can't really be wrong. I don't mean wrong in a grammar sense, their our the haters (that was on purpose FYI for you're information) (that one was also), but I mean wrong in the sense that a person can combine any set of words to get an idea across. That made no sense, but it's not important! With words I can pretend like I know how to properly get an idea across, and it doesn't matter. These words are mine! Words are like clay, they can be molded however you choose.

Truth be told, this word-madness came about because a post I did from April got a lotttttt of unexplainable views this past week. I'm not really sure why- It's a GREAT representation of me, but not really relevant to much. This post leaped back into the hit-counter and I was somewhat inspired. Only somewhat. Then something amazing happened!

Inspiration is a crazy beast-
Give a Gorilla a beer and he's going to be inspired.

Inspiration hit me this weekend when I got a incredible bottle of... hot sauce (not beer). I really like spicy foods. The small problem is that most spicy foods don't really seem 5-star spicy to me. I order that at Thai restaurants, they cry, resist, say my Xanthochroi genes can't handle the 5-star. I demand, threaten, and plead my case. Finally they bring me the 5-star, wish me luck, and leave. Then I gobble up my Pad Thai as if I was eating a bowl of oatmeal. No problems.


The sriracha was a good opponent. For roughly two meals. Then I had to keep adding more and more until my nightly meal of rice, chicken, and vegetables was died red with the rooster spice. The green tastes good, but it's basically a dessert hot sauce because I notice no spice.

But then something happened.


I believe it or not got this from my mom, not from some seedy potion dealer in the alleys of downtown Seattle. I was instantly attracted to this because of the size. If it's sold in such a small flask, the suggested serving must be one to two dropper-fuls. So my serving should be about 1/2 a bottle. I tried some. A tiny drop. On my tongue. Burning. Flavors. Stinging. Tearing eyes. Sobbing. Guzzling jugs of milk. Sucking on ice cubes. Celebration. Another drop. Love.

I just can't express my happiness with only one way of writing. So I give you WORDS <3

Haiku-
Always Resistant
This is the simple sauce fact
Hot sauce glory here

This kind of poem-
Basically
All
Ian
Loves
Excludes
Yesterdays

Funny
Aromatic
Raisin
Muffins

(I really like this type of poem because it never really involves what you actually are trying to talk about. It's like rap music. Speaking of....)

Rap- (DMC style)
Nowwww let me tell you bout that time 
when I tried something special yup it blew my mind
Came in a bottle all small and spicy
Thank goodness momma bought it would've been to pricy

Grade School Poetry-
Roses are red, violets are blue
I'ma eat this whole bottle tonight
And you're not invited

Country Song (read to yourself with a twang. You absolutely better or else it will sound like everything else)-
I was ridin' my horse, every day, when a poor man came up and asked the way
He said he was lookin' for a place, a place in town, where he could fix his god-awful wayward frown
I gave him a smile, flashed my charm,  and sent him towards Bailey's Farm
Now he's happy, and thats the truth, so I got off my horse and put on my boots

Chorus- Hot sauce is the greatest, it goes well with my food, I put it on everythang yup it puts me in the mood, I said the peppers start my engines yup they lasso my desire, so I rope up my horses, call it Chariots of Fire, Cuz I'm a rebel of the days, I don't leave nothing for the news, I'm a one man army without my pal Jesus (hey-soos).

Simple.

It continues.

Poem that makes H.S English teachers analyze for days-
The weather is bland, like a leafless tree in the winter,
Spirits are low as the tide
When will there be some excitement?

The wind whistles, to and fro
Food is consumed, lifeless, loveless,
When will there be some excitement?

A special bottle appears, magical to touch
Spirits lifted like balloon into the sky
Here, I have found the excitement.

Right, and that's all that I've got for you. If there are any poets out there, feel free to comment with some additions! Cool!

And since I haven't talked about bike-pedaling once. I did that with David and Lang this weekend. It was a monsoon, and David didn't wear a rain jacket, so that means the weather wasn't that bad. Also, I attacked the neighbor kid in a race. And I won.

Ttyl bros

Monday, November 21, 2011

I Did Something Hilarious This Weekend!

Let me tell you all about it. I did something quite strange on Sunday, November 20th, 2011. At one point participating in this sort of... event... was something quite normal for me to do. Now at these events I'm more out of place than Spencer at an Under-Eaters anonymous meeting.

BUT FIRST! Let me tell you about the Ian^2 Adventure that took place at roughly 9:08 on this Wintery Sunday morning. I woke up to approximately 3mm of ice on all my windows. An EXPERT removed this for me, and I took off on the driving mission to pick up Ian Terry for our initial journey to pick up Lang, to go to the event. Excellent. While driving, I noticed that my mirrors were still icy, so the adventure began when I pushed the window-down button on my beautiful car. Whirrrrrr-grinddddd (sound of gears spinning inside of my car door trying to make my window drop down). Whirrrrrrr. Nothing. No movement of window. So here I go and decide that my window must be frozen shut, so I place four fingertips onto my window and gently try and provoke it to start working. Nothing. I whisper into its ear. Nothing. I apply slight pressure to the window in the general go down direction and suddenly it just DROPS. Now my window is half way open, it is 0 degrees outside (hello my non-American readers!) and my nose is starting to get cold. No worries, I push the up button hoping that my window now works, and whirrrrrrrrr. Nada. Excellent! I arrive at Ian's beautiful home and he has duct tape! With me using the four-finger technique to slide my window into place, Ian (confused? I don't talk in third person) put suture-esq duct tape strips onto my window. Swag!
Do not come to my house and remove the tape and slide the window down and let your self into my car and steal my chewing gum and my quarters.

Ok, so then we picked up Lang. Who was all dressed up in bike clothes (hint! We're going to a bike race) 3 hours before the race.

Then we went to a cyclocross race! What? Yes, I tried to do a cross race this weekend.

I have ridden a cross bike 2 times since last December. Once on Thursday, and once at the race on Sunday. And Thursday was on a gravel trail, and Steve still dropped me on the "technical" sections. So I went to this bike race with simple goals: Bump Ian Terry in a corner, get heckled, not crash, ride hard in the sections that I could ride hard in, and beat Lang.

SUCCESS!

After almost missing the start because I was talking to my mom and enjoying the company of my puppy, I was in the zone. I decided that it really wasn't worth it to kill myself to make absurd passes in the first couple of difficult corners (at least to me) so I was content to just wait. Exciting moment one! I bumped Ian in the about 4th corner, and than Morgan Schmitt closed the door so Ian had to get off his bike and yeah! Great fun success. It's ok though, because he returned the favor about 13 seconds later. I really didn't like this section of course right here though-
Oops, that's not me.

There was one section of sustained pedaling that wasn't hampered by silly corners that made me use my brakes. So on the first lap I went ballllllistic on this section and went from roughly 18th place to making connection with the lead group by the end of the first lap. Great!

But this is not a Fairy Tale. Unlike when this guy races something outside his forte-


This does not happen for me-


It's ok though. I made my way to that front group and stayed there for about 2 minutes and 13 seconds. I don't think that those guys realized that the corners didn't have optimal traction or surface material, because they went through them much faster then I could.

After much hilarity

It became time to do something that I'm more comfortable with! Sprinting on pavement! Except for the 40 psi in the tires and the 187degree corner 30 meters from the line part. But an opportunity to sprint a 45t chainring is something I don't say no to.
Steve told me that cyclocross racers must sprint in the hoods, so I tried my hardest.

I had good fun, but definitely don't have any absurd thoughts of needing to do any more races. Because I might need to clean my bike if I do another race. Maybe I can con Steve into cleaning my bike.

I bumped Ian, I didn't crash, I beat Lang, and I was heckled! My favorite was "THE JUNIORS ARE BEATING YOU!!!" C'mon guys, Steve is 21. Give him a break.

OH! My helmet cover is so awesome! My head was the warmest part of my body- Check the steamin'

The hilarity did not stop at the end of the bike race though. Steve and I are slowly killing the world by each driving our cars into Seattle. Having no idea of the others schedule, we ended up leaving roughly 4 minutes apart to head back North. Since Steve drives like a maniac on crack (luckily his vanagon restricts his psychosis), he was putting some time into me. Until he ran out of gas! Sucka! He made it roughly .5 miles from the exit, and then was crawling with the flashers going. I was prepared to rear end him to push his car to the gas station, but instead all I had to do was clear an intersection so he could safely roll a stop sign and coast to the gas station. So I won the race home!

Frostbite report- Turns out my hands still hurt! And it also turns out that my parents don't find my frostbit hands as hilarious as I do, so my dad surprised me with a new pair of winter riding gloves! Thanks Dad! And my mom brought me three different pairs of gloves to try for many different weather conditions. Now nothing can stop me.

What's cooler than being cool? Ice cold! I can't hear you. I said what's cooler, than being cool? ICE COLD! Allright allright allright allright allright allright OK now ladies! Yeah? I'ma break it down for you in just a few seconds. I wanna see y'all on your baddest behavior. Lend me some sugar, I am your neighbor!
-Andre 3000

Monday, November 14, 2011

The Day After Tomorrow

I want to ease everyone's worries. I did NOT die on my ride on Saturday, but I came pretty close. I like to consider myself a pretty decently tough human being, sometimes I try food that I don't like and other times I do things I don't want to when I am tired. Super tough! Other things that make me tough: I occasionally tread water for 4 days in a row, I can cook Minute Rice in 30 seconds, I'm wanted in Nicaragua, I've won 3 Oscars, I know all the lyrics to the song "LDN" by Lily Allen, I once wrestled a Wild Boar (and lost), I've cooked with chili peppers, air-dried instead of tumble dried my clothes, ate 15 raw eggs, and drove Bellingham-Seattle with the windows down. Oh, also I switched my email account from Yahoo to Gmail.

So now you know the background of my toughness, let me explain how I was broken on a bike ride this weekend. I had a pretty excellent route planned, one that was different from my normal long ride route. I wore clothes for 45 and dry, but unfortunately less than an hour into my ride it turned into 40 and raining. Hard. And windy. At about the hour and 10 minute mark I was yelling at the world as I sunk deeper and deeper into the dark place that is the America-Canada border.
I normally have no problem with rain. In fact, my new Lazer Helmet rain cover was working magnificently! But unfortunately this helmet cover didn't cover my entire body, and my hands were becoming quite uncomfortably cold.
About 1 hour later, I was past the shivering point and I pretty much was about to curl up into a ditch, bury myself with leaves, and hopefully wake up in Nicaragua (even though I'm wanted there! Exactly, that's how cold I was). For about 45 minutes of that long straight road I imagined myself in a coffee shop coming back to life. I pictured in my mind a Starbucks in a shopping center. This image was in my mind so much that when I entered Blaine I rode right past a coffee shop. But it wasn't a Starbucks in a shopping center, so I continued on. About 2 minutes later as I rode around in circles trying to find this Starbucks I realized that a coffee shop is a coffee shop. I made my way back to that wondrous place that I passed in my first minutes in town, and was so cold that after I walked up the stairs to the shop I didn't really put together the pieces that the next step was to go in the door. So I stood outside the shop and cursed the world until I remembered that I should go inside. I had to peel my wool Defeet gloves off with my teeth, since the wool shrinks when it gets wet. I then used my sunglasses to get my headphones out of my ears, since my fingers were useless. I ordered tea, and then took roughly 4 minutes to get my money out of the ziplock bag in my jersey pocket. Problem, my hands hurt too much to actually hold the tea, so I just kind of sat there confused at the concept of potential warmth. Then I realized I was sitting by a fireplace! Who knew. I finally drank some tea and got all giddy inside as my hands started to get past the unbelievable pain point and towards the tingling numbing point. Then I remembered that my poor soaking wet gloves were sitting outside in the rain. So I ventured back outside, cursed the weather some more, and grabbed my gloves. I put these on top of the fire, and sat some more. About 10 minutes later, it occurred to me that I probably should have squeezed some of the water out of the gloves, so I did that. As I wrung water out, the next thing that occurred to me is that I probably shouldn't be doing that onto the nice wood floor of this establishment, so I stiffly put a pile of napkins onto the floor and continued squeezing. Sorry!
HOW ADORABLE
Huge puddle on the floor aside, I started to gain some motivation to make my way home. I went and got another pot of tea. Put the teabag and poured all the water inside my water bottle. Which after the fact I realized that I'm pretty sure that's how you can get cancer, but I think that having your inside temperature be 50 degrees stops water-bottle cancer from happening. So then I (ps- Tela, I have no idea which then or than to use there. Sorry. I tried both and they both looked the same and it made sense anyways. I thought it'd be funny to say and made since anyways) had a BRILLIANT IDEA!! I hazingly-stumbled my way to the register and asked the question that would determine my fate for the ride home----

"This is going to seem like a really weird question to you. Uhh do you have any, like, uh, rubber cleaning gloves or something?"
Barista aka Life Saver, no hesitation "Yes, would you like some?"

I spent like 3 hours trying to determine if you could read my credit card number or not. I deemed it safe for internet posting

Jackpot! Then came the difficult decision on whether these gloves should go inside or outside of my other gloves. If I had dry gloves, the answer would definitely be on the outside. But since my gloves were still wet, I decided on using these as a baselayer glove to hopefully create a hand-sauna. Problem- size Small latex cleaning gloves are extremely difficult to put onto slightly wet hands. After a lot of wrestling, I succeeded, and set off on my journey home.

For 5 minutes I was great! And then it was freezing again. So I rode as hard as I possibly could for the next hour and a half to get home. The fun part is that my heart rate never got out of endurance heart rate while I was going as fast as possible to get home! So does that count as training? AKA extremely good training!

If you were super concerned, I made it, and it took 3-4 tries to correctly type in the garage code for me to get in the house. Here I am!

After showering, "warming up", eating, drinking tea, etc, my legs didn't hurt. I went on this big ride and went pretty hard and it felt like I hadn't ridden at all! New training plan- ice bath pre-ride. By doing all your training with numb legs, you will be able to go deeper, hit your intervals more effectively, and theoretically increase your training load. Try it!


PS, my hands still hurt today (2 days after).

Monday, November 7, 2011

Get Rich Edition I think 7

Got a handful of stacks
better grab an umbrella
I make it rain (I make it rain)

So many future plans lately, it's been thrilling. Breaking news for all the people concerned of my well-being, we have turned the heat on. Exciting news! Now it's socially acceptable for me to walk around wearing... use your imagination.

BUT although the heat is on- making my movements slower, more comfortable, and less labored- My mind still races with ideas on financial stability. This is real folks. How can I roll around in piles of money?

1- Children's Story
Word! I'm going to pen a FANTASTIC children's book. It will likely be a 16-book series so that parents are forced to buy their kids every single book. And the resulting merchandise from the book!! That will be nice for my profits. The plan is to make this book really exciting with adorable yet relate-able characters. I will absolutely definitely not pay someone to illustrate this book, why would I want ~30 percent of my profits going to some Kook artist that doesn't fully understand my vision? I'll do the drawings myself. Ok, so I figure each book is going to bring in roughly $45,000. So if each of the 16 books makes that much, I'll bring in $720,000. I'm going to give 25% to my agent, because what sort of hooligan wouldn't. So that leaves me with just a hair over 1/2 a million dollars. SMACK. Then add in the profits from stuffed animals, action figures, posters, and maybe movie deals? We're looking at somewhere in the region of 1.3 million dollars just from the children's novel alone.

How long could you live off of 1.3 million dollars? An excellent long time.

2- Cran-ye West
That's it! I'm going to be a Kanye West impersonator. Not many reasons why him over someone else, other than the fact that I know the words to lots of his songs and the My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy album was SICK. Let's be honest, the real 'Ye can't be bothered to make appearances at kids birthday parties.
The financial statistics, here is what you really care about. My estimates are based off of this chart-
I don't want to overestimate, so let's just assume that each gig as Cran-ye I'll pull in $3,500. I don't want to wear myself down too much, so I'll only do 3 events per week. That's $10,500 a week. Also known as $182,000 a year. Kanye is a busy guy, so I'm willing to bet that pretty soon he'd be asking me to step in for him at various events such as award shows, Super Bowl performances, and interviews on The Montel Jordan show. I'd charge him a flat rate of $100,000 per appearance. Assuming 10 of those appearances a year, that's a pile of cash about the size of $1,000,000.
I've been practicing.

With just these two, I'll be bringing in about on the positive side of 2 million dollars a year. I'd definitely buy name brand cereal with that change. This a fast life, we are on a crash course. What do you think I rap for? To push a f***in Rav 4?

Word to Martha Stewart, if I could park a buick
Then I could flip a Brinks truck- I got the heart to do it

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Living in Luxury

I've been thinking lots about what it would be like to live if money wasn't a problem. IE, for those people who buying a new Audi is the equivalent of me buying a drip coffee. I'm not really sure why I've been thinking about cool houses so much recently. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that we haven't turned our heat on yet and when I wake up our house is in the low 50s and when I get home from school it's 54 and when Matt cooks for 4 hours it gets up to 56 but drops again when I walk in the room because I'm such a cool character.


I'm also sure that house-lust hasn't had anything to do with me watching Entourage on Netflix. But it actually might be because of that. When I was younger (yesterday) (actually lots younger than yesterday) I would draw up elaborate dream house sketches. Very detailed blueprints including where I wanted hallways to be, what would be in each room, how many garages I'd have, and where my basketball hoop would live. And I know all of these because I remember really weird things, not important things like subjunctive conjugations for spanish tests, but weird unimportant things like layouts of houses I designed when I was 11.

I think this could be an acceptable job for me to have. Sort of like interior design, except more like interior excellence or something? I could only work with quad-billionaires and fulfill their living-dreams. I actually have had one client so far, here is my portfolio.

Whatevaaa. Here's some features I remember specifically from some of my house blueprints. Speaking of Blueprint, I've been listening to so much Jay-Z lately. THAT could be the factor why I'm talking about houses.
I'm in the hall already, on the wall already
I'm a work of art, I'm a Warhol already
On another level, on another plane already
H-O-V I got my own lane already

BUT the features. Right. These are from like 10 years deep of memories so roll with me.

-24,000 sq ft on the beach in Hawaii. I didn't know much about how big that actually was. I thought it was a modest size based off of what I thought the house I lived in was. That was an incorrect estimate, so the 24,000 sq ft in Hawaii will be bigger than I'm used to.

-Most hallways will have movie screens as walls. There will constantly be video happening so as you walk down the hallway you will be a part of that scene. Some of the hallways: Underwater extravaganza (fish swimming, etc! Sharks!), a medieval battle scene, a dinner feast, and a food fight (I was 11ish, ok?!?!).
-Hammocks everywhere. 

-Indoor swimming pool. Why did I need this if I lived on the beach in Hawaii?

-Me, being intelligent, blueprinted a heated shower outside.

-Spiral staircases (plural, that means more than one)

-Mini Nerf basketball hoops in several locations around the house. I would definitely have the trick shots mastered so that I could impress my guests with my debonair no-look shots.

-Movie theater

-Bowling alley

-Rope swing from second to first floor

-Slamball court.

Right! So get building. But as I've aged realism has set in a bit, and I've come to accept the fact that I will never have a bowling alley in my house. Too bad!

I think this place is SICK! I'd like to live here. And it's in Australia! Great. This awesome (remember, without ME it's just aweso, and that's not liveable) house is able to rent on a nightly basis for only ~2700 a night.

I think that with unlimited funds I would have a guest house that was a tree house. Come visit!
And something like this.


I would like this, and I would like to jump out of the window every morning when I wake up. Then have cappuccinos while reading the daily-post.


Ok, face it. I'll probably live in a castle at some point also. Shoes optional.


How am I possible going to fund all this? Oh, right. I'm really far into the novel right now.

In other news, happy November.  Lots of people are contributing to no-shave hooliganism. Here is me after 1 day.
Why??