I Earned My Mexican Card Today

As a precursor to this story, I have to say that it's a 100% better read if you have The Spanish Flea by Herb Alpert playing somewhere in the background.

As an after-note to that precursor, it's my personal belief that your whole life will be 100% better if you have The Spanish Flea by Herb Alpert playing in the background.

It all started when a careless Hispanic man left a small glass bottle of habenero hot sauce on a table. A busser picked it up and handed it to me.

"Que quiere este? Lo encontre en le mesa."

Since I had no idea what she said, but half guessed it was something along the lines of "here, take

this sauce," I shrugged and took it to the back. My co-worker Junior, who is about 90% deaf, was

standing at the table in what I consider the "break area" (because we don't have an actual break

room). I jokingly motioned for him to drink some. He laughed and said "No, you crazy" in his

soft-spoken Spanglish dialect.

"Whatever man. I'm totally going to find a use for this though." Later that night, as I got off work, I

went back into the kitchen. "Hey Nico, I wanna make a pizza with this."

Nico, one of the main chefs, examined the bottle. "Habanero XXX Hot Sauce. You want a pizza

with this? You're gonna die."

I shrugged. "Probably, but I'm hungry, so I might as well kill two birds with one stone."

Five minutes later, an ominous red miasma permeated the whole kitchen. The pizza moaned and

growled as it lurched out of the oven. The person who cut it suffered third degree burns all the

way up their arm, as well as in their nose, mouth, and eyes. As it was being transported, it

melted right through the metal pan, and had to be brought to me in via wheel-barrow. The whole

building was evacuated for their own safety, and we had to disengage the sprinkler system for

fear of it activating.

Okay, not really, but seriously, it was hot.

I set it down on my table just as my boss, a small Mexican man named Alex, was coming over. "I

bet you're gonna cry."

"I'm not going to cry Alex."

"Good, I don't want to see you cry." He pulled out his Iphone. "But when you do, I'm gonna take

a picture."

I was laughing to hard to eat my pizza. When I finally calmed myself, I took a bite. I can still feel

the raw spot on the top of my mouth from the burn. I kept my composure. All I could say was

"wow."

"Is it hot?"

"Yeah. But it's good. You should try some."

"What's on it?

"Onion, pineapple, pepperoni."

He brought a piece up to his nose and smelled it, then looked me dead in the eye and said "smells

like... crying."

"Yes, it's made from pure extract of crying. Just try some."

"Oh, this not hot at all." He said. I winced. "Nico, come try this. Is good."

Nico came over and put a piece on a plate. "Is it hot?"

"Yeah, it's really freaking hot."

"Mm. Okay. I'll try it." He ventured into the back of the store. About thirty seconds later he

came back out, looked at me, laughed, and shook his head.

"Was it hot?"

"I only took one bite. It's too hot. I couldn't even swallow it."

Junior came out of the back with a look of horror on his face. "You want some man?" He looked at

the pizza, then at Nico breathing heavily and fanning his face with his hand, shook his head, and

briskly walked away. I ate another piece. "Hey Alex, I didn't cry. Does that mean I'm a Mexican

now?"

"Yeah, you can be Mexican now. Here your Mexican card." He pretended to hand me an

invisible card.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the story of how I earned my Mexican card. Just so you have

some point of reference, the jalapeno (approx. 5000 SHU, or Scoville Heat Units) is about 1/20th

as hot as a habenero. The habenero (in between 100,000-350,000 SHU) is approximately

1/12th the heat of the worlds hottest known pepper, called the "Trinidad Scorpion Butch T"

pepper, which clocks in at 1,463,700 SHU. This pepper is so hot that you have to wear gloves to

hold it, and if it gets anywhere near your eye it will temporarily blind you. You have to wear a

body suit or a chemical mask just to cook it.

Or for another point of reference, this pepper is hotter than most law-enforcement grade pepper

sprays, which range from 500,000 to 2,000,000 SHU. If I were to extract the pure chemical

that causes the burning sensation from a pepper, called "capsaicin," it would be 16,000,000 SHU.

Ingesting pure capsaicin would cause you to convulse for a few seconds, and then drop dead.

I swear, I'll revolt all over this business.

Look, since the government obviously doesn't have anything better to do with its time than declare that pizza is a vegetable and enforce the same internet censorship used to such countries at Libya (you remember, that one that had all those protests and stuff about how they wanted their internet back) and China (you know, the Communist one), I honestly don't see why we keep them around at all.

Seriously. I hope they had just gotten out of a thirteen hour debate about how they're going to get us out of debt, and on the little coffee break were like, "man, pizza has a lot of veggies and stuff, let's make it a veggie too." Bam, done in five minutes, then back to the big problems. Don't waste America's time like this, Congress. It's not funny anymore. And leave our Internets alone. We're out of jobs, we're out of money, and if you take the internet away, it's the freaking last straw. Revolt, anyone?

Where's Guy Fawkes when you need him.

If you don't already know what's going on, please educate yourself on why America as we know it is about to change forever, if we don't do something. Do you want to end up like Libya?

PROTECT IP Act Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

To e-mail your representatives, please visit this site: http://fightforthefuture.org/pipa/

"What PROTECT-IP will do is cripple new start-ups because it also lets companies sue any site they feel isn't doing their filtering well enough. These law-suits could easily bankrupt new search-engines and social media sites. And PROTECT-IP's wording is ambiguous enough that important social media sites could become targets. Lots of trail-blazing websites could look like piracy havens to the wrong judge. Tumblr, Soundcloud, an early Youtube, wherever people express themselves make art, express themselves, broadcast news, or organize protests..."

This whole post is like one big fat rabbit trail.

I think the problem people have with classical music these days is that it takes too long to appreciate. Unlike modern music where you have the verse and the chorus, with relatively same music traveling over the first and second verses and choruses, classical music requires patience, and that you actually listen to how the different instruments blend.

Take any mainstream hip-hop or rap song, for instance. Ever since the sampler was invented in like, what, 1980? People have been able to take like, a 15 second audio clip from anything they wanted, play it over and over, and sing to it. You see this a lot in the more electronic music and hip-hop, but it's slowly becoming popularized by the alternative/indie genres as well.

The point I'm getting at is that when you're listening to music on the radio, you can get an aesthetic feel for the song in the first eight seconds, give or take a few. Classical music can change tempo as much as it wants. It might go from the saddest thing you've heard, to suddenly you're being chased by a serial killer, and then bam, you're lying naked in a forest with flecks of gold falling from the sky.

Not that I've ever experienced that feeling or anything. Have you ever wondered what it'd be like to lie naked in a forest with gold shavings raining down from the heavens? I certainly haven't. But I'm sure that if it wanted to, Classical music could make you feel like that.

The reason human beings are becoming so increasingly impatient with the world around them is because the world around them isn't making us wait for stuff as much as it used to. Text messages, wireless internet, T.V. dinners... everything is being designed to be done in minutes or less. Even our exercise and weight-loss schemes. So much, in fact, that the whole education system is being shot to pieces because of it. All around the world people are trying to find a better alternative to sitting in a classroom for eight hours a day, and then sitting at home for another like, four hours doing the same stuff you did the other eight hours earlier on in the day.

The point is that I think the whole world needs to slow its roll and calm its bits. All this million-mile-an-hour living is bad for your health.

So... yeah. The sampler's a pretty cool toy. If you wanna know about how it created about six different genres, you should check out this video.

If you just so happen to hate music, and also spend your time brooding over ways to ruin children's lives and audit ice-cream truck drivers for a living, then maybe you'd be a little more interested in seeing why the world is ruining education.

Click on those links. Learn something today. Do everyone around you a favor and use your brain.

3 AM Philosophy: Chance.

When you grow up you'll probably be one of two people: the person who says "I should have taken more chances in life." Or the person who's lying in bed with liver disease, osteoporosis, arthritis, deaf in one ear, lost the nerves in one of his hands, missing one toe, and has a smokers cough. Sometimes you gotta remember that chance and risk are synonymous. Just remember that chance and risk mean the same thing, and every time you're taking a chance, you're taking a risk.

Then again, the latter person is also probably saying "lets go again!" like their life as been some sort of roller coaster.

So there you have it. Now, go rethink your entire existence.

I remember the strangest things...

When I was little, I remember specifically very few things. I don't know what kind of stuff I enjoyed, or what I did to occupy my time other than a few little things. For as long back as I can remember, however, I have a vivid memory of what I imagined in my mind, as far as how the universe worked. I thought that everything had to be symmetrical. When I built things out of Lego's, they were equal on all sides, and were uniform in color. If I built a house, the house had the same number of rooms on one side as the other. All of the walls had to be one color, and that color was usually yellow, because yellow was the most abundant color block I had. Of course, my house also had knights to guard it and laser cannon security cameras. That's not the point though. Haha.

I also remember that for the longest time I was extremely picky about which order I tied my shoes. It has been and continues to be that put on my right sock, then the other, and then I tie my right shoe first, followed again by the left.

Everything had patterns. I was obsessed with even numbers. I would count the steps I took, and I would never end on an odd number. I thought odd numbers were possessed. I also always started walking with my left foot, so I could end on my right foot being an even number.

Okay, that's pretty normal compared to what I'm about to unveil.

In my head, I thought Satan himself was sitting up in my brain with a bunch of demons, watching my life on television screens. Satan and his cronies would get some sort of weird joy out of odd numbers and my left foot, and every time I would do something like tie my shoes right to left, or step an even number of steps, it would be like they were on fire, and the television screens would start to get blurry.

Is that not one of the straight up most ridiculous things you've ever heard?

Either I was possessed by demons when I was little, or I have one of the most insane imaginations ever.

As for the rest of the weird stuff I did when I was a kid, some of it crossed over into my older years, and I still do now. I still try to avoid stepping on the cracks in the sidewalk. I still keep my legs inside the perimeter of my bed because I think the invisible force field will keep the monsters from eating me. I still talk to my cats as if they can hear me. I still go up the stairs at my house on all fours sometimes, like I'm some sort of feral beast. And I'm gonna be honest here, I have a really good time doing it. Haha. I think in some aspects we never really grow up.

Oh well.

Epic... Gay Best Friend Self-Esteem Building Rant? Part VI

"Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened." I call shenanigans on this phrase. I know it's just something teenage girls quote when they're sad about a guy, but seriously, I hate that logic. Don't cry because it happened, smile because it's over. Think about it: you're crying because something is over, but the only way something can end is if it happened. Therefore, the fact that it happened made you sad. You can smile now, because it's not like it's going to end again. Besides, if he couldn't see that you're the best he'll ever have, he wasn't good enough for you anyways. Dayum girlfran. *finger snaps*.

Epic Mood-Runing Rant Part V

You know what's weird? Winter. The number one feeling associated with the Fall and Winter seasons is warmth. However illogical that may seem, let's be honest here: everyone knows that Winter is cold, and the only thing people want to do when they're cold is be warm. Everyone's wearing six layers and finger-less gloves. Everyone and their dog is drinking hot chocolate, hot apple cider, or hot cappuccino. The second most feeling is change. Everyone with a significant other is breaking up, and everyone without one is finding one. I've seen more relationship changes in three months than I have in the other nine months combine. I think this is because people do associate this time with change, and here's the deal: I know women that change boyfriends more often than they change shirts. Women: if you randomly feel like breaking up with someone during this time of year, but can't really think of a logical reason, I hope you think about the fact that you may just be feeling like everything around you is changing, so you should change something too. I'd love/hate to hear some guy say "My girlfriend broke up with me."

"Why?" His awesome and concerned friend would ask.

"Because it's Fall." He replies with a sigh.

Epic Mood-Ruining Rant Part IV

Friday isn't anything special either. Friday is like a weekend placebo. People try to convince eachother that it's great, but for what? You still work on it. You still go to school. You still have to wear pants. Speaking of which, I don't care for "casual Friday" at all. It's a sham. It's a cheap facade. A plot, whose main device is to trick you into thinking you can be happy just because you get to wear a different color shirt, or jeans instead of dress pants. I think dress pants are more comfortable anyways; jeans are rough, but dress pants are like having your legs dipped into a giant vat of sleeping kittens. Breakfast is another trick. Its main purpose is to make you think there's a good reason for getting out of bed anytime before 10 AM. There isn't. Eggs aren't even that great, and toast is like some odd competition to cook bread a second time and try to get it slightly burnt, but not burnt enough that it tastes burnt. It's just like food; what's up with that?

Epic Mood-Ruining Rant Part III

I never understood that either. Why's it called a "weekend?" It's not like anything's ending any more than something's beginning. As far as I'm concerned, Saturday should be "the weekend" and Sunday should be the "weekeve" or the "weekstart." I'd be willing to bet that statistically, Saturday is the favorite day because it is neither a week day nor the day before the week, during which you are in tense anticipation about the mundane, laborious things to come. I recall Sundays being equally miserable to Mondays, if not more, because the only thing you could think about on Sunday was how awful tomorrow was going to be.

Epic Mood-Ruining Rant Part II

As a matter of fact, the 1% of the time you are happy, it's probably because of some flaw, some relapse in your consciousness that causes you to momentarily forget about how awful the world is today. Or always. Whatever floats your slowly but surely sinking boat. Tomorrow is going to be just as awful as today was. Tomorrow is just like today. Every day is just like the last day, and the next day. The only reason any of you wouldn't believe so is because of the way society has constructed their own schedule and forced you to conform to it. Everyone in the modern world could tell you that you're supposed to work during the "week" and you're supposed to have fun during the "weekend."

Epic Mood-Ruining Rant, Part I

"I never understood the concept of wishing at 11:11. Your wish is going to be unfulfilled and disappointing at any other time of the day, why wait until you're about to go to sleep? I like to ruin my days early off, so I don't even have the prospect of being happy. The prospect of being happy is just about as disappointing as the fact that your wishes wont come true 99% of the time, because the chance of you being happy is equally low." To be continued...

11/11/11 11:11 is coming. Brace yourselves for the Facebook status', the Twitter updates, and the teenage girls sending you texts reminding you to wish.

November is my melancholic ranting month.

So, I'm going to rant about stuff. Stuff I don't like. Stuff I do like. Stuff other people like, and I don't really have an opinion on, but I'll still rant about them just because I like to spark up controversy and be argumentative. The list could go on.

Rant about them in one blog post? Too mainstream. Seeing as how I can't find the time to take thirty minutes out of my daily schedule of getting overly-excited when one person "likes" one of my incredibly insightful status on Facebook and playing the five real chords and one chord that's probably a chord but I just kind of made up in different sequences and tempos on the guitar I stole from my parents closet in an attempt to make something cool sounding, I'm just going to disperse my rant that I've already written over the next week, or month, or however long I feel like it, because I can do what I want, and also because forget you, society.

Also, that last sentence was over 100 words long. I'm mentally patting myself on the back right now.

So there.