Just Do It

As everyone knows, Nike produces the coolest and most attractive sportswear in the universe. So, whilst buying Nike sports equipment the other day to prepare for the upcoming baseball season, I noticed that many of its products depict a man swinging a bat with his batting helmet on backwards.

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This seemed strange to me at first, but after a few minutes I had the same epiphany that many others have had before me: if you want to be cooler than everyone else, take two or more previously unrelated cool things and combine them together. In this case, baseball is cool and wearing your hat backwards is cool, so doing both at the same time must be at least twice as cool. Ergo, to achieve ultimate coolness while batting during a baseball game, do it the Nike way and put your batting helmet on backwards.

In my continued pursuit to be accepted by as many people as possible, I will next attempt to surf on a Southern California beach while eating a corndog and wearing an ensemble of five finger shoes and Billabong swimtrunks. Following this, I am going to start drinking Starbucks lattes while talking to some random inconsequential person on an iPhone with a 12 inch screen as I’m pretending to workout at the gym.

Esoteric Etiquette

If somebody you know suffered a disappointing date brokered through a match-making website, sharing the comment “There are plenty of fish left in the sea” might be highly inappropriate. This is particularly true if the site happened to be PlentyOfFish.com, as she will think that you are making a horribly cruel joke at her expense.

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Depending on the degree of catastrophe that was experienced (and eventually comprehended in the aftermath), your well-intentioned journey from Mars to Venus could result in an articulated knee to the gut… followed by black-eye-prostration… followed by one or two cracked ribs… followed by….

Recipes, Entry 1: Peanut Butter Chocolate Oatmeal Crunch Power Breakfast

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Directions

  • Wake up
  • If Monday, Wednesday, Friday then shave
  • Evacuations
  • Stretch
  • If Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday then perform series of 120 pushups/leg-lifts/elbow-to-knee-crunches in the following intervals: 30/40→40/30/40→40/30/40→40/30*
  • If Saturday then run seven miles*
  • Pour glass of fresh apple juice
  • Take multivitamin and vitamin-C pellets
  • If Monday, Wednesday, Saturday then fill one ~6.5cm radius and ~7.0cm height saucepan to ~80% filtered water (NOTE: the same volume of water in a larger pot would be easier)
  • Place saucepan onto burner cranked up to the highest setting
  • Add two pinches of salt
  • Add slightly more than enough Thompson raisins to cover the bottom of saucepan
  • When water begins to boil, turn heat down to ~45% and add enough rolled five grain cereal (barley, oats, rye, wheat, triticale) so that it will represent 10% to 20% of the total amount of cereal
  • Immediately add enough old-fashioned rolled oats to make up the remaining 80% to 90%
  • The recently added rolled cereals should be moving almost freely in the boiling water (the contents of the saucepan should resemble an already thickening “cereal soup”)
  • Wait for two to three minutes; if done right, the cereal will be of the desired consistency: soft, but not mushy and not without granular definition
  • While waiting, drink some apple juice and fill two Blender Bottles each ~35% full with unsweetened soy milk, add one-half serving of chocolate-flavored plant-based protein powder** to each Blender Bottle, add orb mixer thingamajig and mix powder into soy milk for both Blender Bottles, and finally cap and shake fervently (UPDATE 2014/12/03: my body doesn’t take well to long term and regular intake of protein powder so I use protein powder intermittently, but YMMV)
  • Turn heat down to ~20%
  • Add one heaping spoonful of coconut oil to saucepan, stir (UPDATE 2014/12/03: like the protein powder, my body does not always take well to long term and regular intake of pure oils, such as coconut oil and olive oil, so I use coconut oil intermittently, but YMMV)
  • Add a modest amount of maple syrup (must be grade A or grade B maple syrup!), stir
  • Add three heaping spoonfuls of unsalted creamy peanut butter to saucepan, stir slowly so as to not make a mess
  • Cover saucepan with lid
  • Turn heat down to ~10% to ~20%
  • Take shower
  • Divide contents of saucepan into the two Blender Bottles (it is recommended that this is done over the sink)
  • Add mixture of sliced-almond/pumpkin-seed/powdered-cinnamon/ground-flax-seed/chia-seed/unsweetened-coconut-flakes/sesame-seed to the top of each blender bottle for nutrients and crunchiness (this should be made ahead of time and stored in a mason jar—choose the desired proportions of ingredients)
  • Fill each Blender Bottle to the brim with unsweetened soy milk, screw on lids, and shake some more
  • Drink remainder of apple juice
  • Share extra serving with a friend or loved one, or put in the fridge for the following day’s breakfast
  • Dress
  • Grab napkin and drive to work, enjoying breakfast during commute

* Yes, exercise is a necessary ingredient.
** If you dislike protein powder or prefer not to use it, eat one-half to one serving of Greek yoghurt while making your oatmeal (to make up for missing protein).

PSA: If routine consumption of this meal (or one like it) is what you are going after, first start out with a large bowl of plain oatmeal made only of old-fashioned oats, milk, raisins and cinnamon. You have to be content eating every last spoonful without the addition of any sugars or sweeteners—the raisins are all you get. If you can manage this for a month, without skipping this new breakfast regiment, then a jog or three around the block will not be such an ordeal.

Perturbations of Devotion

To make a Christian cry foul, tell him that God doesn’t exist.

To make an Atheist cry foul, tell her that it’s God’s gift of free will that allows her to believe whatever she chooses.

To make an infant cry, steal its pacifier.