Day 260: Baja Sausage and Imitation Crab Meat

     My dad had one of those cookout days today. He picked up some high class sausage and a package of imitation from whole foods. The fake crab was used as dip for the whole wheat crackers he bought. I just looked up what exactly imitation crab was and now I pretty disgusted. Wiki tells me that it is a hunk of finely processed and highly pulverized white fish flesh that is shaped and cured to resemble crab legs. That just sounds gnarly. It's probably good that I didn't know what I was really eating because I think I would of had second thoughts. As far as the taste goes, it wasn't that bad at all, but good luck getting me to eat it after I learned that Wiki used the word 'pulverized' to describe how it's made. Gross. The sausage goes through basically the same violent process as the fake crab, but it doesn't freak me out as much (I think its cause I've always known that about them). And, much like the fake crab, it tasted a lot better than how I assumed something that had just been pulverized would taste. I guess that's a good thing?

Day 259: Uncommon cure for the common cold

     I heard of a scientific study that found that 'if your getting sick, you should look up pictures of ill people so your body's immune system will kick start'. Apparently it really works because your mind sees the sick people and prepares itself for illness by making sure that the immune system is prepped and ready to go. I heard about this a while ago and have been waiting for a chance to test it's validity. Fortunately, today I felt like poop. So I had myself one extensive Google image search of sick and ill people. I saw a bunch of pictures of miserable looking people with red noses and baggy eyes for the most part. Hopefully this crackpot approach to the cold works, cause I really hate feeling sick. =(

Day 258: Chipotle Cups

     Have you ever noticed the little blurbs and stories that are plastered on the sides of the cups at Chipotle restaurants? They are all written by fellow burrito lovers and submitted online. The stories can be about anything that is Chipotle related. Anything from the food to the straws and lighting fixtures is fair game. If the guys at Chipotle like what you've wrote, they will put your story on their cups for everyone to read. I thought that I'd have a go with this so I decided to write two entries. One was from the perspective of the sneeze guard and the other was about how overwhelming it can be to try to define all the flavors you might experience in your burrito. So they are both sent in and if they actually like them, Chipotle will contact me to let me know that I'm awesome.

Day 257: Indoor Camping

     Summer is coming to an end and I'm just now realizing that I still have some summer living do to. I've yet to spend a night under the stars telling ghost stories and peeing on trees (I did spend a weekend at my grandparent's cabin, but that's way too luxurious to be considered camping. So I kicked my brother off the Nintendo Wii so there would be enough room to set up my one man tent in the middle of our living room. I garnished the tent with a sleeping bag and even some candles to add to the effect. I spent the night surrounded in an outdoor atmosphere without leaving the house. The outdoorsy smell that the tent gave off made the experience all the more convincing. From there, Sean and I watched a skate video while I lay sprawled on the floor of the tent. It actually ended being a pretty fun night, but the following morning was bad news for my super sore back. It was still fun.

Day 256: Sign a petition

     It was hard for me to find a cause that I really believed in while I was browsing through the list of e-petitions on the http://www.thepetitionsite.com/ website, so I gave up on trying to be noble and just picked a random petition to sign so I could go to bed. The petition I ended up signing was the 'Give thanks to Jane Goodall for 50 years of research'. I don't really see why that cause needs a petition, but I signed it anyways. Now I, along wit the 23,636 other petitioners are going to be bugged via e-mail about petitions for the rest of our lives, thanks Jane.

Day 255: Lock Picking

     I was thinking to myself about how I wanted some more desirable skills. After some pondering about what skills are cool verses which ones are lame, I came to the conclusion that I wanted to learn how to pick locks. I looked up tutorials on the two strategies that I knew of, the one that used a paper clip, and the one that used the credit card. The videos on both of the techniques seemed to be easy enough so I had a go with the door knob for my room. I assured myself that with the right amount of luck and enough time, I would totally be able to break into my own room. Needless to say, I never did break into my room. I wasn't ready to give up, so I lock myself out of my house and picked at the lock on the front door. Periodically, I would bang on the door and have my brother unlock it so I could asses what I was doing wrong. But again, I couldn't get past the door. All I had to show for my work was a mangled paper clip and Safeway Club Card (and a hefty amount of frustration). I decided to call it quits before a suspecting neighbor could call the cops on me.

Day 254: Speech

     I learned a very important lesson in my public speaking class today. I learned that I'm as not good of a bull-shitter that I previously thought. Today was my first speech, it was an ungraded, very relaxed introductory speech. All you do is go up to the front of the class and talk about a time where you got in trouble as a child. After a couple minutes, you wrap up, everyone applauds, and you sit down so the next person can go. I've given many presentations and I never gave them any though (and I wasn't about to give this one any). I didn't practice or write anything down. I was just going to go up there and talk about whatever came to mind (that was my mistake).

It was my turn to go and I walked up to the podium and mentally decided that I was going to talk about the time I got handcuffed and fined for skateboarding down the sidewalk in downtown Denver. But it wasn't till I started my speech that I realized that I had no idea what I was doing. My mind went blank and I just said "OK" and "Alright" a couple times. I wasn't doing to well. I struggled in the beginning, but built up some momentum after a little while. I finished up my totally improvised story and walked back to my desk. I learned quickly that speeches are in a category all their own. They aren't like informal conversations where you can rely on bullshitting. I didn't well, which is fine because it wasn't graded, but also because it made me realize that a little bit of preparation can go a long way. Don't worry, my next speech will be better.