"Is It Cancer?" "No?" Then "Who Cares?" and I Answer Other Burning Questions

Hello Fellow Travelers!

Here, in my little corner of California, in Purgatory for the last three years ("Oh, you're still alive!"), I've had the time and serenity to ponder the "big" questions:  "Who Are We?"  "Is There a God?"  And if there is, why would "He" give a rodent's derriere about hooking up smug Christians on the Internet ?  Oh please!  "Finding God's Match for You!"  I highly doubt it.  But the big question on a lot of minds is,   Is "Anchorman=The Legend Continues" as funny as the original, "Anchorman, the Legend of Ron Burgundy"?

I'm a big fan of the original so I asked Patient Spouse, also a big fan, what his favorite scene was.  It was the same as mine - the scene where Ron (Will Ferrell) "helps"  Brian Fantana select a special cologne to woo the new girl, Veronica Corningstone, (Christina Applegate).  In his office, Mr. Fantana (Paul Rudd) keeps several kinds of aftershave, for a "special lady" he presses a button and "Pantera" pops up.

After he applies some (and we know it's good because it's made with real panther)  he goes over to ask Veronica for a date he's nowhere near her when she wrinkles up her nose and says, "What is that smell?"  Brian responds with,"That's the smell of desire, Milady!"  Just in time for another female to run through the newsroom holding a cloth over her nose shrieking,"It smells like a diaper full of Indian food!" By the end of the scene he's outside being scrubbed by guys in Hazmat suits!

The entire movie has quotable lines ("Bear Fight!") and hysterical scenes, like when Jack Black as a biker throws Ron's dog, Baxter, off a bridge!  Don't worry, it's a really fake doggy that gets pitched off the bridge and Baxter has this adventure to come back at the end and save Ron.  So to answer the question, "Is Anchorman II as funny as Anchorman"?  I'll put it to my standard test:  Is it cancer?  No?  Then who cares?  If A2 has one funny scene it's worth a look, anyway.  No, I haven't seen it yet, but I will at some point, and even -using my standard form of measure, I'm sure it will be highly entertaining.  

Flowers? No Thank You! We're Married! Bring On the Hardware! In A Velvet Box!

Hello Fellow Travelers!

So we're done seeing another brain surgeon the other day (No kidding.  He was a neurologist!) and Patient Spouse is predictably listening to sports radio where his favorite sports dude is trying to sell predominantly male population the idea all women want flowers no matter what they say.  So, PS starts asking me if it's true and what do I think, and though Valentine's Day and Romance seem distant memories right now I try to indulge him and give his question due consideration.  Do women really want flowers?  Do women want chocolate?  Who doesn't want chocolate?  It's chocolate!

Flowers?  Trickier.  Once a couple has even a passing interest in one another's longevity, all in-house floral purchases cease. Women want flowers but women don't want to pay for flowers, or be the cause of any member of her household paying for flowers.  Flowers are purchased and sent by women for serious hospital visits and a few other "events" and the flowers are usually sent by women to other women.  Do women want flowers?  Would we be just as happy if our men set fire to $20 bills because buying flowers makes almost as much sense?

Women do not want flowers!  The sports dude was wrong (if not well compensated).  Men, if you're burning money on flowers you could "invest" in jewelry!  Even tacky jewelry shows you care!  Care enough to get out of your car and select anything at the jewelers and pay for it!  We'll treasure that piece of velvet boxed crap forever!  Get the kids involved!  Blaming a child for an awful Valentine's Day jewelry selection is a tradition as old as St. Valentine's Day!  An American Tradition!  Better yet, let us preselect something we like and you guys go in and pay for it!  Cause that's thoughtful!  That shows you care!  And believe me, jewelry is all we're thinking about when we're looking at those stupid flowers!

If this is a question in your life you either have way too much money or no brains or both (in that eventuality e-mail me immediately!) and you should stop and reflect.  Hopefully, I've answered that question (No flowers for Valentine's Day! Ever!) and we all can move on!  Remember; flowers=BAD jewelry=GOOD, ALWAYS GOOD, CAN'T SCREW IT UP-GOOD!  Glad I could answer that for you!  Happy Valentine's Day!

I Go Through Life with my "Dark Passenger" and it's NOT Related to Dexter Or Any Other Psychopath!

Hello Fellow Travelers!

My "dark passenger" is brown sugar!  I had no problem giving up wine (if you need a straw to drink anything drinking fine wine probably isn't on your short list of priorities), but I found a new-to-me adoration of desserts in general and cookies in particular.  I was watching CNN and Alan Dershowitz was brilliantly opining on some high-profile legal matter and he used the expression "having his cake and eating it too."  All I could think of was,"MMMMM Cake!"  Great!  I've turned into Homer Simpson!

This is new for me, previous to 2011 I was an exclusive fan of salty/snacky foods. I had little use for desserts in general and no use for chocolate at all.   Since 2011 I have had a ceaseless need for cookies, toffee, ginger snaps, and coffee desserts.  I dream about Kahlua-infused cake, really dark chocolate and molasses cookies.  I used to watch Legal Zoom commercials just so I could see that Janet Lady make and sell her toffee!

Remember how I stopped watching most TV?  Well, I still watch pastry shows:  "Cupcake Wars" and, no, it's not a show about bakers launching cupcakes at each other, that would be fun to watch.  "Sweet Genius" is a dessert competition show that only includes chocolate/candy and cake, so it's a perfect fit for my vicarious needs.

"Cupcake Wars"?   I don't think cupcakes can even be described as an actual food!  I was at my PS (Patient Spouse's) parent's not too long ago and I was hunting cookies my mother-in-law keeps on hand for the grandchildren!  You want to hear what else she had? In a pewter bowl?   Probably because the wrappers were color coordinated?  Dark chocolate toffee mixed with Dove bites and those (Lindt?) truffles that are on TV.  Yummy central!  Prior to 2011, I wouldn't have looked twice at that bowl.  You know what tastes pretty much just like kahlua?  Costco's frozen mocha!  I know that because I have had dozens of these drinks.  Which brings up another by-product of my sweet rampage that's new to me - fat.   Really, I used to tell my size by what size of clothes I wore.  Now, seeing as many doctors as I do, I get weighed often.  So I know how much I weigh, how much I should weigh how much I want to weigh and because I have no balance, so does Patient Spouse. He wields this knowledge like a Hanso Sword in "Kill Bill" either volume.  He can keep me away from sugar all he wants, it won't stop me from thinking about it!  "C" is for "Cookie" - The Cookie Monster.  There has to be a patron saint of bakeries.  There is!  St. Honorie!  Patron Saint of bakers!  How great is that?

My PS hauls me around often, so me being on the lighter side is safer for all concerned.  And dental issues!  After a particularly nasty fall (You don't want to know.  Suffice it to say,  bones were broken, so were teeth), I had to get dental work done, because the radiation weakened my teeth along with my newfound love of all things dark sugar created a "perfect storm" scenario in my mouth.  A lifetime of perfect dental visits ruined in a single year!

So, there it is.  I like to think my of my new ardor for sugar as an example of neuroplasticity (the undamaged part of the brain creating new pathways around the damaged part) at work.  Whether it's true or not I have no clue, but it would explain a lot so I'll keep crediting neuroplasticity until someone tells me otherwise.  Now that there's a saint involved fighting a war with cupcakes doesn't seem so stupid!  Maybe cookies are a perfect food and the Cookie Monster is a visionary!  Most geniuses are!

The Other Gift That Keeps On Giving - It's Not Toronto's Crack-Smoking Mayor This Time! (Although I Hear He's Been Very Busy)

Hello Fellow Travelers!

Just when I thought I was going to have to really reach down to pull some nugget of wisdom about brain cancer (here's a morsel of wisdom about brain cancer:  Don't get brain cancer!) the other gift-that-keeps-giving, Carnival Cruises, dropped/overflowed/spilled/disgustingly flushed some more foodborn illness all over CNN!

Same cruise line, same story (almost), different cruisers (let's hope!).

This virus has a name (Norovirus) and the CDC (Center For Disease Control) is now involved and claiming that more than 150 passengers out of 3000+ came down with this particular virus.  The ship that saw all this sickness was the Caribbean Princess owned by Carnival.  (Remember?  "Love, exciting and new, come aboard, we're expecting you!").  "The Love Boat" , that Carnival Cruise Line.  Carnival was the floating toilet last time out.  At around two large a pop ($1800+), you wouldn't think people would be standing in line(or waiting online) to book a cruise with Carnival but they are!  These "passengers" (I prefer to think of them as "victims") suffered some horrible intestinal sickness they contracted aboard the "Caribbean Princess".  What have we learned from this?  Easy!  If you have to burn 2K a person don't book a Carnival cruise!  There are plenty of places that will take your dough, even other cruise lines, during the CNN piece about the sickness (they were calling it a "pandemic") they aired an ad for a Royal Viking cruise up a river to Nuremberg.  Nuremberg?  The WWII Nuremberg?  The Trials Nuremberg?  The War Crimes Nuremberg?  That Nuremberg? The very same!

Let me see if I understand this correctly:  You want me to stay several days on a boat, on which hundreds, nay, thousands of people have used to do all manner of personal business in before I was there?  And I'm supposed to reserve a spot on this "Bacteria Du Jour" for next year?  And pay some boat company two grand plus to do it?  So I can end up in Nuremberg?  No thanks!  I'll pass!  Again, I don't care how many princesses or royals are in the name, you're paying a lot of money to strap on a feedbag and gamble a lot and perhaps catch some disgusting parasite! For three to seven days.  Kind of like a seafaring "Circus, Circus".

Who, if not Carnival Cruise lines, will supply these floating petri dishes?   I think the need to tour exotic places while on board some vessel that enables the comfort zones of the tourists (especially Americans) is neither enlightening or even just being a good tourist!

I realize that the "cruise" probably represents a compromise position between lots of married couples, and having unlimited access to gambling and food is the only way you're going to get some people on the boat, i.e., "Look Honey, there's a 24-hour buffet on our floor!".  However, I simply think there are much better ways to spend 2K.  Setting fire to the individual $100 bills, for instance, would be about as useful as a Carnival Cruise.  A retainer for a decent (and I mean decent as in "not great") divorce attorney, who you might consult if a spouse forces you to go on a cruise, is another way to burn two large!  Throwing $20 bills off an escalator would make a lot of people happy and be a better use of $2000 than a cruise to Nuremberg.

My point is, just about anything you can imagine is a better use of $2 Large than a Carnival Cruise.  Or a cruise to Nuremberg.  To me, if a person has the $$ for something as temporary and dangerously germy as a cruise, they have everything and don't need or want anything else, and I don't know anyone like that.

Just contemplating a windowless stateroom gives me the heeby-jeebies!  Learning that going aboard these vessels gives a goodly amount of the passengers a crash course in what life with Crohn's Disease would be like, just reconfirms what I already know:  Never book a cruise!  If you absolutely must book a cruise, never, ever, sail anyplace on a Carnival Cruise!  It's proven time and again to be the cancer of cruise lines.  Maybe Carnival has the best prices.  I say if one line has a marked increase in gastrointestinal illnesses over the others, avoid it, this is not the place to save a few bucks!

PS - I am looking very forward to seeing "The Monument Men"  It's got Nazis and priceless art and George Clooney!  Some of my favorite things!  Nazis!  (boo!  hiss!)  Matt Damon in WWII!  Again! We win the war.  Again!  I am so there!