Day 224: Veggie Energy

     This is one of those novelty looking things you find in the impulse section of most gas stations, which is precisely where I found it. It is a shot of liquid energy that promises to energize with nothing but fruits, veggies and tea extract. The bottle was the same price as a 5 hour energy but it left out all that self guilt that comes with those extreme energy shots. I tried a sample before dumping the contents into my gator-aid (cause I had some serious business to take care of). It tasted like the familiar flavor of V8 veggies, but there was a very mild aftertaste that I assumed to be the pure energy that I was craving so badly. I felt good knowing I chose the same brand (V8) that my grandparents get (cause they surely know whats good for them by now). And it even seemed to boost my energy for the skate session. I only say that because I was eating shit a lot more than I normally due, and I hope it was all of that natural caffeine doing that to me. Long story short, the veggie shot is a healthier way to eat shit when you skate?

Day 223: Hardcore Show

   


















Tonight I reinforced my longstanding opinion on hardcore shows and the music that is played during them. I had never been to nor had I ever planned on attending a hardcore show. The reason I made the exception tonight (other than the fact that I am smack dab in the middle of a project that tends to get me into peculiar situations) was because my sister Sarah was in town and that would be one of the only times I'd be able to spend some quality time with her. So I accompanied her downtown to a show where they play music I don't like, from some bands I've never heard of, with lyrics I can't understand. I'm not intentionally ragging on hardcore music, just calling them like I see them. If your into this genre, that's fine, that's your thing. I had it coming the moment I decided to go. I've heard the music and I've seen the dancing (if you haven't I suggest YouTubing it. Classic), I knew what I was getting into. In a nutshell I paid 10 bucks to endure the loudest, most inaudible musical shit-fest of my life. I felt like I was the only kid there was wasn't wearing the standard issued uniform: Worn-down Vans, cut-off shorts, a black tank top with bold lettering plastered on it, gauges, and a backwards baseball cap. I guess I can't complain too much, after all, I wasn't the one who got knocked dead in the kisser from the flying fist of a rowdy mosher in the crowd. That lucky lady, was my sister. She was sideswiped by this asshole as he paraded around looking like a scrawning orangutan. In hindsight, its kind of funny, but when it happened, I was pretty damn pissed. She got shinny purple bruise under her eye and the orangutan got his ass beat by a small mob of logical thinkers. Sarah washed the blood off in the bathroom and made it back to enjoy a couple more songs (I'm pretty sure they were songs). By then I was about ready to leave, luckily (due to a certain punch to the face) my sister was ready to go too.

I'm hardcore bro

Day 222: Finger Prints

     I had to go get my fingerprints taken for my new job. It all took place at some old lady's house on the very edge of town. She charged an even 10 dollars for the trouble and did the entire process in her kitchen in about 5 minutes. She never properly introduced herself, which made it awkward when I tried to do so myself. She silently took my right hand and carefully inked the tips of my fingers. Then, she systematically went pressed each finger onto its designated square on my fingerprint card. The dance was continued with my left hand until every square was occupied with a smudge ink that was solely my own. I washed up with some heavy duty soap, gave her a ten dollar bill, and was on my way. Not the most exciting challenge yet, but not too shabby ether.

Day 221: Signature

     I have an ugly signature. Not only that, I have a very inconsistent one to boot. See, I've just landed a new job (that one that I had the interview practice from day 207) and I've been spending a whole lotta time writing and rewriting my 'signature' on the bottom lines of various documents and tax forms. Its become all too obvious that my signature is really unappealing, so I spent a solid half hour working on, and hopefully improving the prettiness of my pen-ship. I ended up with this rigid looking sketch of my initials, K and G. Its alright I guess, but I'm not sure if I'll be making this my signature. Come to think of it, squiggles would work fine too.

Day 220: Hemp Ice Cream

     This is something that you could only find in a place like Boulder, Colorado. I found it in the ice cream isle of a Whole Foods and instantly knew that I had stumbled onto a potential 'new thing'. From the first bite I got an overwhelming sense that I was eating frozen dirt. If I didn't open the packaging myself, I would have been like 85% sure that I was munching on nothing more than dirty ice (and that's coming from a kid that used to eat sand on the daily). It wasn't that good, and it was about $4 dollars too expensive, but it was soooo Boulder. I guess that ol' 'you get what you pay for' phrase doesn't ring as true when your talking about the great taste of hemp.

Day 219: Liquid Eggs

     As if that damn ex-lax didn't do enough damage the night before, I decided that trying liquid eggs was a good idea. They come in a tall yellow carton they totally gross me out. Its just something about the fact that its a container of 8 or so unfertilized chick fetuses all mashed together that makes me lose my apatite. But I bought the carton anyway, and I even took it home and cooked it up. I made a batch of cheesy scrambled eggs, because it was obvious that sunny side up wasn't an option. They weren't bad, and I mean that. The meal tasted good and I didn't feel sick or anything afterwards, but I just felt weird eating it. I think I'm just going to stick with the old fashioned eggs for now.

Day 218: Ex-lax

Gooooooood Times

     Welp, I had a good run. I made it as long as I could without resorting to a challenge as demeaning as ex-lax, and for a second, I thought I was going to be able to avoid it completely. Unfortunately, my dreams of being laxative-free came to an end on day 218. The silver lining in this story is this; if I was going to force myself to eat ex-lax, this was the day to do it. I don't want to go into detail about my bowels, I'll just let you use your imaginations. So my backed up intestines and I made our way to the store to pick up a bar of chocolate ex-lax. It was cheap, and for the most part, tasted just like chocolate. That worried me because people tend to overindulge in chocolate, and it seems like consuming the same amount of laxative would be a whole lot of bad news. If I made flavored laxatives, I make them taste like kitty litter to prevent anyone from developing an unhealthy dependency on my product (I've heard about these ex-lax junkies on TV before). So yeah, I ate the recommended amount of ex-lax and I made sure that I was within a quick sprint of a bathroom for the rest of the night. I'll let you know that the chocolate ex-lax worked...3 times that night.

Day 217: Peg Solitaire

     Pegs is the name of a simple puzzle game that I stumbled upon at some pizza restaurant. My friends Eric and Dom explained the basic concept of the game as we waited for our pizza. The game board was a triangular wood block that had15 holes drilled in it. There were 14 golf tees occupying the holes, which left one hole open. The object was to end up with only one golf tee. You can remove a tee (or peg) by doing a sort of checkers-leapfrog move. Each time you jump one of your tees, you can remove the tee that was jumped. The game gets increasingly harder as the scarcity of the tees on the board increases. I guess I'd call this game solo-checkers if I had the power to do so. Dom, Eric and I tried over and over again to complete the puzzle but we never could get it. I got down to 2 pegs a couple of times, but that's about it. The game was fun and I'm thinking about trying to make my own so I can practice.

Day 216: Nasal Strips

     I bought a pack of 40 nasal strips because I figured they could help out with the congestion I was dealing with. I got the generic stuff cause it was cheaper, but I also grabbed the largest size ones they made by mistake. Although they feel way too big on my face, I can feel an instant sort of relief when I wear it. I'm not about to go into full detail about the comforts of the nasal strips, cause I doubt that anyone wants me to (myself included). But I will say that it felt a lot easier to breath and the congestion was not bothering me. My only suggestion would be to grab a size that actually fits your face.

Day 215: Arrested Development

     Probably the funniest show I've ever seen. I just started watching it on netflix through my computer not too long ago and have just finished today. I'm counting this as a challenge for two reasons, 1 I have been told by many people over the years that I needed to watch the show cause of how awesome it is, and 2, I have never watched every episode of an entire show before (mainly because I don't have cable...or a TV). I spent the last week and a half or so watching all 53 episodes. It may not be an accomplishment that I'm proud of, but its one to take note of none the less. I watched them all, and they were more than funny. It was a hilarious show that was incredibly witty and complex. There might be something that happened in one episode that comes back later on (like a season or two) to complete the punchline. I couldn't get enough of the show and the characters and the writing. It was all great. Its a shame the show got canceled, but I did find out that the makers are planning on making a full length movie about the show, which I am now extremely excited about.

Day 214: Yakult

     "Yakult is a Japanese probiotic milk-like product made by fermenting a mixture of skimmed milk with a special strain of the bacterium Lactobacillus casei Shirota." At least that's what Wikipedia had to say about it. All I knew was that it advertised that it would help keep the balance between beneficial and harmful bacteria in the stomach, it was only $3.00 for five bottles, and I would be able to count it as a challenge. The label on the side of the bottle says that there are 6.5 billion bacteria, which is enough to replenish the good bacteria levels in the digestive system. So I bought it and drank one. It smelt pretty good, I wasn't too fond of the taste but it wasn't anything horrible. Apparently there is no color added into the bottle, so the caramelized milky color I was looking at was the real deal. Mac tried a bottle and concluded that it was not only delicious, but it tasted like "brown marshmallows". We enjoyed our yakult and felt good about helping out our digestive system.

Day 213: Fro-Yo

     I heard of this store that sold flavored frozen yogurt by the weight and decided to take my brother with me to investigate. It turned out to be a store called the Red Mango, which had about 7different machines (that looked exactly like the soft serve machines from the old ice cream shop I used to work at) each with 2 different flavor spouts. They also had a little salad bar type thing that held any topping from sour gummy worms to fresh sliced kiwi (I got both). Sean and I each got a bowl of fro-yo, mine was a mixture of pineapple, raspberry, blueberry and banana flavors. We picked out our toppings and then placed our bowls on the scale so we could pay. I ended up dropping about 11 bucks for the two of us, which is a bit too much for me, but the treat was pretty darn tasty. The texture and taste weren't as similar to ice cream as I had assumed. It wasn't as sweet, but it was still delicious. I guess I could see myself getting some more frogurt in the future.

Day 212: Cart Attendant/ Jenga

     Today at work, I was granted the prestigious task of gathering the scattered shopping carts from the parking lot and lugging them back inside the store so the guests could park them back in the far corners of the lot once they were done using them. I was excited to work outside for a change and so I found Nick, the cart attendant, and asked him if there was any cart retrieving advice he could spare me. He told me to not get hit by the cars and then he sent me on my way. So I began grouping carts into manageable amounts, and lugging them back towards the store. It was hot and I was sweaty, but it sure beats cashier. My cart duties lasted for about an hour and then they had me return to the check out lanes. Now I know that this challenge kind of leans towards the lame side, but that's why there is a part 2 to today's challenge, Jenga. Yeah, that game where you have to remove and re-stack wooden blocks from a tower and hope that it doesn't come crashing down on you. I ended up playing Jenga well into the night with some friends. I had no idea that the game could get that intense. We all focused on the shaking hands of each other as we took turns trying to take out the last possible piece of this vertical puzzle. I only made the tower tip once that night, which is impressive considering the amount of games we played. Its a lot funner than I had always assumed it to be.

Day 211: Ride A Double Bicycle

     Yeah, you read correctly. Today I rode a double bicycle, its all the fun and danger of one bike, times 2. Its essentially one normal bike frame with another welded directly on top of it. You need to stand on something tall (like the bumper of an SUV) and since this particular bike does not have brakes yet, stopping and getting off the contraption was way up there on the danger levels. We found that rubbing your shoe against the back tire was the closest thing we were getting to a brake. But the bike was so tall that you would have to extend you foot like you were trying to stand on your tippy toes just to touch the back tire, scary stuff. Once you get on and start riding around, you realize how ridiculously rad the thing is. The view from up there was awesome, and the look on people's faces as you rode by were even better. Kalin even busted out the top hat to complete the costume. I need to get me one of these puppies.

King of the world