Bucket List cont'd. . . .feat. Sky Dive Out of a Plane After the Pilot Has Been Shot by Mercenaries During A Multi-Continent Treasure Hunting Adventure And Open The Parachute At the Last Possible Second and Survive With Only Minor Scratches

So I have this "ongoing feature" on my blog called Bucket List. It's about my Bucket List (things I want to do before I die from getting gunned down by the US Border Patrol while driving a hijacked Coca-Cola truck for the US-Mexico border at full speed, all jacked up on sweet sweet Coca-Cola (possibly diet, depending on if I'm watching my figure by the time I die)).

What's weird is I can actually claim that this is an "ongoing feature," since I have now been blogging long enough to have visited this topic twice (click here for part 1 of the list and click here for part 2, if you're into that whole continuity/complete-ism thing).

For those of you who don't know, here is an example of a bucket list:

This is a poor example, however, for several reasons. First of all, this person actually appears to have spent more time on actually spelling out the pun of "kicking the bucket" in the title of the list than in the actual creation of their list. In fact, he or she appears to have spent virtually no time working on the list. As you can see, he or she wrote the number 1, and followed it with only an ellipses.

This is just wrong for several reasons.

First, you usually use an ellipses to indicate that whatever comes next is continued from what came before it, only after a slight pause or break. For example, I used an ellipses in the title of this blog. Or, another common example comes from everyday conversations, such as, "You know. . . . if you don't stop humming that goddamn Katy Perry song . . . . I am going to jam a banana up your ass."

But nothing came before the ellipses here. Number 1 is the start of the list. So, whoever reads this list is going to be really confused, like it should have continued from something else, but they won't know what. They might even go looking for another list somewhere to make sure that they aren't missing something important that came before. That just wastes precious time, time the reader doesn't have when they're trying to determine if you achieved your dreams before you died or if you really just totally and completely pissed your life away on meaningless crap like starting lists with ellipses and not actually writing anything else on them.

That brings me to the second thing wrong with this list. There's nothing on it. Here's a quick list-making tip: generally, you want to have some items on any list you are making. Otherwise, it's just a mostly blank piece of paper. At best, it's more like a doodle. Don't put a number 1 if you have nothing to list.

This is especially true of a "bucket" list, which  presumably highlights some deeply held life-long goals you want to accomplish before you "kick the bucket" (as the jerk who wrote this list so hilariously phrased it). Otherwise, why would you even start a bucket list? Doing so kinda makes it seem like you are a loser drifting through life without any purpose or meaning, without any dreams, desires, or ambitions above waking up, stuffing pop tarts in your face and then falling back into a food coma  . . . . and repeating this for 60 years until one Thursday in your 80's you die in your sleep, alone and unloved. (Now that's how you use an ellipses, maybe).

To sum up, if you have nothing you want to accomplish before you die, don't start a bucket list. It makes everyone else around you feel awkward and pity you, and it's really just poor list-making skills in general.

Anyway, one unexpected consequence of creating a bucket list is it really puts your life into perspective at a time before you are probably actually ready for it. What good does it do you to realize in your early-late-middle twenties (i.e. 26) that you have all of these dreams that are not being fulfilled whilst you go into work every day, week-in, week-out trying to earn that skrilla you need to pay off your student loans, go out on the weekends to break up the monotony, buy some semi-cool shit you want and possibly, possibly save whatever is left over from each paycheck (approximately 39 cents) for the "future?"  No good, really. All it makes you want to do is quit your job and go out and just do everything on your list and really "live."

However, here is my advice: keep it in perspective.

My momma always said bucket lists is like a box of chocolates - sure, you want it all now, but if you eat it all at once, you're gonna blow chunks all over your running shoes and the person sitting next to you at the bus stop is going to get angry and possibly hit you. Then you might not make it to the love of your life's house and meet your illegitimate child that she's hid from you for 4 years and named after the kid's daddy, who just so happens to have the same name as you. Momma had some strangely specific advice.

Anyways, the point is to go out and do your bucket list one item at a time. You don't have to have lived a lifetime by the time you are in your early-late-middle twenties, but it's a good idea to start now and maybe achieve one dream at a time.

Then, by the time you are 121 and ready to die,

then you can go out the way you want to. Like Blue did. KY-wrestling 2 beautiful girls at a frat party. (Disclaimer: dying of a heart attack while KY-wrestling 2 beautiful girls at a frat party may not be as glamorous or funny as it appears).

In conclusion, here are some more items on my own bucket list. I have not achieved any of these yet, so I would appreciate if you would keep me posted on any opportunities to check these off.

• 88: Swim with a Whale

There are few things that seem as cool to me than swimming with a gentle giant of the deep. The ocean is pretty cool anyway, if you don't count the presence of giant squid. And whales are nice to humans, for whatever reason. (Except when you put Shamu in a tiny tank and make him perform the same tricks every day for decades upon decades for screaming crowds - then he, justifiably, sometimes snaps and eats the shit out of his trainer). It would be so cool to just serenely glide along the open ocean holding onto the fin of the biggest thing on Earth. A bonus for this item would be to get to swim with a Sperm Whale because they kill giant squid. Sometimes for sport. I maybe would even get to tag along to a Sperm Whale/giant squid rumble. Hopefully my wet suit doesn't have one of those dyes that shows when you pee yourself, cause I would definitely whiz uncontrollably upon seeing a giant squid, even if my Sperm Whale buddy was gonna fuck him up.

This is a sperm whale. You can tell from his coy smile that he is not camera shy.

• 25: Learn to Sail a Boat (and sing I'm On a Boat)

In keeping with my love of the ocean, I'd like to learn how to sail a boat. And then actually sail a boat. I've always had a dream of buying a catamaran, moving to somewhere like New Zealand, and then chartering out my catamaran to tourists, having them think that my lifestyle is so cool and fun that they too might want to go do this someday. I think this would happen because that's how I got this idea - my family traveled to New Zealand and went out on a catamaran with a guide who did this very thing. It's an endless cycle. I'd be like a padawan to his jedi, and I might even get all cocky and think that I was ready for my own catamaran way too early in my training and maybe even slip over to the dark side and, in a heat of passion, accidentally kill all the other jedis only to wake up with no legs and a helmet that I needed to keep on at all times to breath. And then I would try to kill my own son, but later try to recruit him to the dark side, only to eventually save his life when my evil master was trying to kill him once I learned the error of my ways. Then I would just be an old cripple on my catamaran, chillin in New Zealand, living off of fresh green-lip mussels every day. Which sounds delicious! 

Me in my catamaran garb:

The mussels I'd eat everyday:

In order to check off this item, I bought the book Sailing for Dummies. 4 years ago.  I haven't read it yet. But I will. I think buying a "for Dummies" book is advisable for most if not all bucket list items. Just saying.

A bonus to this item would be to actually sing "I'm On a Boat" every day while living on my catamaran. . . . in Darth Vader's voice!

• 16: Sky Dive Out of a Plane After the Pilot Has Been Shot by Mercenaries During A Multi-Continent Treasure Hunting Adventure And Open The Parachute At the Last Possible Second and Survive With Only Minor Scratches

Come to think of it, this one is pretty self-explanatory.

That's it for now. I encourage everyone to consider your own bucket lists, keep some perspective about it all, and if you are going to try to create a bucket list, or any list for that matter, use ellipses . . . what's the word. . . . sparingly. . . . . SUKAFISH!


MikeeP  

I Failed at Microwaving a Peep

Easter season is upon us, and you know what that means. PEEPS ARE BACK IN STORES!

It's no secret that everyone in the world secretly loves peeps. Just look into this peep's droopy-eyed face and try to tell it that you don't love it.

What makes them so universally adored is that, like love itself, everyone experiences and enjoys these tasty treats in different ways.

Some like to eat them and experience the eyeball-exploding sugar rush they get when they stuff four or more of these babies into their face. In fact, An annual "Peep Off" competition is held in Maryland on the first Saturday after Easter, when Peeps are greatly discounted, to see who can eat the most in 30 minutes.

Others like to keep them pristinely sealed and preserved within that cellophane and cardboard mausoleum like four more or less perfectly formed lazy-eyed Siamese-twin monuments and ponder the endless cycle of life and rebirth that the tasty goo-balls and the season they are associated with symbolize.

Some make them the subject of art.

Still others like to break that seal just a bit, wait a week until the peeps have hardened into tougher-than-granite petrified masses and hurl them at cars from an overpass.

Yup, that's actually a peep in the windshield. Amazingly, that's what a peep looks like after just one week's exposure to air, so if you plan on eating them after opening, make sure to have your dentist's number at hand.

One subset of peep lovers likes to microwave them. I don't know how this trend started, but it's apparently caught on like a combination of the macarena and Jesus.

There's even a Wiki-how online manual that walks you through microwaving one or several peeps in just 9 easy steps (click here to see the instructions, which include the crucial ninth step of looking at the peeps once you are done).

Naturally, once I learned about this, I wanted to try it. What could be more exciting and fulfilling than sticking a marshmallow in a microwave and seeing what happens? What, but side-splitting hilarity, could possibly ensue?

Not one to pass up an opportunity to realize my dreams, last Sunday (a beautiful day in Santa Barbara on which I had no work, no responsibilities and could have chosen to engage in any activity I wanted) I, a 26 year-old grown man and a lawyer, drove out of my way, by myself, to the grocery store, purchased nothing but 2 boxes of yellow Peeps, and came directly home, literally giddy with excitement at what might  happen once I stuck one of those babies in the microwave for a minute.

Having first slit the cellophane on one of the boxes so that in a week I could have something to throw at the neighborhood cats, I took out a single, beautiful, sparkling yellow chick, its side displaying its only slight imperfection at where I yanked it apart from its siblings.

I beheld this specimen, my eyes glistening with awe, my mouth confused and angry knowing that it wouldn't actually get to taste its sugary delectableness, my stomach relieved that it would not be faced with the Herculean task of digesting the blob of marshmallow, corn syrup, gelatin, and carnauba wax, and my brain already releasing massive amounts of dopamine in anticipation of what promised to be one the best moments of my life.

Naturally, I brought out my camera because I knew a joyous moment like this, not unlike witnessing your own firstborn baby's first words, was one that you want to capture and relive over and over again.
Here is the before photo I prepared.

Having chosen the perfect plate, one that would contain but not overwhelm the peep's destruction and would not clash too much with the peep's color, I put the peep on the plate. I placed the plate into the microwave. I reached out a trembling finger to set the time, having not once, but twice, to push clear and start over as I pushed the wrong buttons in my excitement.

Then I pushed start.

And this happened.

Needless to say, the image I had for what would happen far exceeded the reality, and, not unlike witnessing someone else's firstborn baby's first words, I was less than impressed and more than slightly bored. 

As you can see, obviously, there were a few problems. First of all, theres that weird stuff on the inside of a microwave window that makes it extremely hard to see anything that goes on in there unless you press your forehead up against the glass, which I couldn't do because my doctor told me to stop doing that since I was suffering headaches and intermittent visions of white light. Also, it makes it very hard to photograph anything inside there.  

Additionally, the event itself was rather lackluster. I had imagined the peep expanding to a ridiculous size, 3, maybe 4 or 8 times as big as it started, its face becoming unrecognizable as its eyes bulged hilariously in different directions and its beak merged into its chin, and the microwave barely being able to contain it.

But, in reality, it just kinda got a little bigger, and then deflated. And that was it. 

So, I spent roughly an hour of a gorgeous day spring day planning and executing what I really should have realized beforehand would be just like putting a regular marshmallow into a microwave.

And that, in case you were wondering, is how I spent my Palm Sunday.

Mikee P

PS: Check out the video below--it's the best video of someone microwaving a peep I've seen. Note that I said, "best," by which you correctly deduce there are more than one out there. Anyway, enjoy. Oh and happy Easter. Hope you have a good time however you choose to celebrate it, whether it's going to a long mass conducted entirely in Latin, eating a baker's dozen of chocolate bunnies on top of a pound of jelly beans and week-old, multicolored hardboiled eggs, or by not celebrating it at all cause you're not religious, hate candy, and are saddened by the commercialization and bastardization of yet another holiday by Hallmark, Cadbury, Honeybaked Ham, and of course, Peeps & Company.

RIP Henry

Goddamn, am I tired. But I'll get to that in a moment.

So, yes, it's now been 1 month and ten days since I last posted. And it had been about 3 months since I posted before that.

Let me explain: I'm lazy.

Not so much lazy as I have a short attention span.

Not so much a short attention span at any one time, but more like I have a problem with follow . . . see, I get hyped up about things in short bursts.

To borrow a phrase from Wedding Crashers, "I'm an idea man. I thrive on enthusiasm." (Also a great line, but nowhere near pertinent to my point: "I just almost nunchucked you, you don't even realize.")  I get all these ideas, and I decide I'm gonna start doing them likeallthetimestartingrightnowandforeverthisisgonnabeaweseome! I'll get all jazzed up and then I'll do those things for about a week, and then something comes up and I kinda lose track. And next thing you know, 4 months have gone by. That's how my brain works. I'm an idea sprinter.

I'm the first to admit it, I have a problem with follow through. I'd be a world famous artist right now if I could just stop walking away to answer the phone and then going out to get a drink before doing some surfing after a kickball game, all the while letting the watercolors dry up before I finish number 12 (my dream is to be a famous paint-by-number artist).

Instead I'm sitting around here with all these half-painted canvases of what I think is supposed to be the Statue of Liberty among all my half-read books lying on top of half-opened computers containing half-written blog posts sitting next to fully empty bottles of wine. There are some things I do actually finish, and wine is one of them.

Another thing, and the reason why I am so tired (told you I'd get to it), is running. I don't mean I started running and haven't stopped, even to this very minute. I'm not that good of a runner or typer.What I mean is I've been running somewhat consistently over the past couple of months. Why you might ask? (or ax, depending on your dialect). Answer: I'm running a half-marathon. Why, you ax? Answer, shut up, that's why.

It's not important why I decided to run this half-marathon; that's between me and Muuuuuhommad. What's important is so far I've followed through. Unlike with my ideas, I'm not a half-marathon sprinter. And that's good because my heart would probably explode around mile 3, and someone would have to clean up that mess, which, yes, I know what you're going to say, is good for the economy because it creates jobs for janitors and coroners and gives another cadaver to medical students to practice colonoscopies on, which yes, if you're wondering is my will for my body if I die--I'm specifically donating it to science so that medical students can practice colonoscopies, it's an important procedure--it saves a lot of lives and is important to get right, hence the practice for future doctors--but in the grand scheme of things I'd rather not die while sprinting in a half-marathon. My goal is to get gunned down by the FBI while driving a hijacked Coca-Cola truck towards the US-Mexican border. Anyone who knows me knows that.

But I digress, sort of. I don't plan on sprinting in the half-marathon. I also have not been "sprinting" in the process of training for it (Ahh, it's a metaphor for life). I mean, I started it, and I've followed through with it. So far. I still have 3 weeks.

There have been some benefits to this. The first that comes to mind is Henry is dead.

Who is Henry, you ax? Henry is (was?) my gut. Henry first showed up somewhere between junior and senior year, the latter semester of my junior year having been spent in London drinking many, many a pint before even 2 in the afternoon and slamming 3 or 4 doner kebab before having some more pints and topping off the night with some Kennessy's Fried Chicken and Kinder Bueno (I tried to find a link for Kennessy's Fried Chicken. Suffice to say, it was glorious in its greasiness. Also, sometimes it was undercooked). So yes, Henry was a baby born of debauchery whilst abroad, and he stuck around after that, senior year proving that the time in London was merely an unambitious prelude.

At the height of Henry's reign of terror, I was eating at McDonald's twice a day--2 double cheeseburgers, large fries and Coke, and McFlurry, cause why the fuck not at that point? Then one day, I realized that that meal had in the neighborhood of 2500 calories. Multiply that times 2 plus, breakfast, drinking, snacks . . . you get the picture. Speaking of getting the picture, because I know you're dying to see, here's a pic of Henry in his prime:

Yup good ol' Henry. Could have been a lot worse, obviously--it's not like I was trying out for the Biggest Loser or anything. But, there's a spare tire there. Also, side note, I used to shave my chest and stomach. I think the only thing that could have made Henry worse was if he was all hairy too.

Anyway, the point is, no one would fault me for calling Henry a "gut." It doesn't take a first year med student who has never even performed his first colonoscopy to diagnose that. And that was senior year. He hung around for about 3 more years after that, like a personal floaty device in case my plane had to make an emergency landing in water. No seat-bottom cushions for MikeeP.

Anyway, Henry's dead now. Twas the running that killed him. Tale as old as time, really.

I can't say I'm sad, but he did provide a good source of entertainment, and for that I'm forever grateful. And somehow, I feel like he's not quite gone, like he'll never really be gone. He's always there, lurking just beneath the surface, just biding his time until the day that I finish my half-marathon, get my wine glass and down a bottle or 2 of wine (did I mention there's a wine tasting festival set up at the end of the race?) and demand that my designated driver head straight to Mickey D's for a 2500 calorie celebratory snack. On that day, Henry, not unlike Jesus, will return and impose his judgment on me. I can only hope he'll be happy I fed him.

MikeeP

PS in lieu of flowers, Henry requested that you send monetary donations to his favorite charity. Just send me the money and I'll be sure to pass it on to the charity. Honestly. Also, for the love of God, make sure to get those colonoscopies--you can never be too careful.

You Get a Face Lift . . . . You Get a Face Lift . . . . EVERY-BODY GETS A FACE LIFT!!

To borrow a phrase from Professor Farnsworth . . . GOOD NEWS EVERYONE!!

The What-It-Is-Suckafish Blog has gotten ANOTHER face lift! Only 7 more and we get a free one! Only 13 more and we'd be Joan Rivers!

Don't be alarmed, we're still the same old blog you know and count on, day-in-day-out, to lazily neglect posting anything entertaining or valuable . . .  or anything at all, judging by the past . . . going on 3 months now. I for one blame the horrible, sagging wrinkles for the lack of new content. But now, those have been nipped, tucked and botoxed away.

So, stay tuned, as new posts will be coming forthwith. In the meantime, check out some of the links I have posted over on the side there, and please accept this video as my attrition for neglecting to post anything: http://www.theonion.com/video/semiliterate-former-gold-prospector-given-own-cabl,17408/.

All My Love (and by "love", I mean, "indifferent tolerance"),

MikeeP