What Would Happen if a Man and a Shark Got in a Fight?

Remember when Jeffrey would come up with these crazy questions? We'd be driving down the road, and all of a sudden from the backseat you'd hear, "Michael, if a shark and a rattlesnake got into a fight, which would win?" Of course, my response was always something like, "Jeffrey, that couldn't happen. Everyone knows that the internal balance of hormones and enzymes in rattlesnakes would be completely upset by the introduction of ocean water into their respiratory system so that they were no longer able to properly process the atmospheric molecules necessary for life long before the rattlesnake ever met up with a shark." In other words, the rattlesnake would drown first and there'd be no fight (I've only learned brevity with age).

I saw this article today, and it reminded me of those questions. Now, before I read the article, I would have thought that a man and a shark in a fight would be interesting only for a short while. Those first few moments while the shark was toying with his prey and circling in the water would be reminiscent of a scene from Jaws and could produce some eerie tension. Right after that, though ,the victim (the man was never really a competitor in this fight) would lose an arm, a leg, or some other appendage, then he would start swimming around in circles like an out of control jet ski, and the shark would finish his meal and cruise off to let things digest. No drama, no fight, just another day in the ocean.

Having read this article, I must admit that my vision of the way this plays out was obviously missing one critical piece: Vodka. Apparently, when a guy drinks enough vodka, he'll start to think that it's a good idea to try and fight a shark, something that no sober man would ever really consider. And once he's crossed that threshold, he might even believe that he can win the fight. Fueled with this hope, a nearby shark to pick on, and a healthy serving of vodka don't forget, the guy in our article actually wrestled and caught a bronze whaler shark barehanded!

The article says that he suffered only small tear marks in his trousers, but I'm betting that if he's married his wife made up for that with the beating she gave him for being so dense. Is it possible that this guy also enjoys snorkeling in rodent infested waters? One has to wonder if he's not at least related to someone in Oregon.

The best part of the whole article almost goes without saying: the guy realized that what he did was not too bright after he sobered up. You think! And you just can't pass up this quote, "When I sobered up I thought about it and I said, 'I'm a bit of an idiot doing it'." Nah, an idiot would have gotten himself killed, this guy was definitely smart about it. Most people wouldn't have thought to anesthetize themselves before fighting a shark.

Valentine’s Day

This is for the guys. If you're a girl, read on at your own risk. You might get mad at me. You might think I'm a pig. You might not understand. But I know all the guys that have ever been in any kind of romantic relationship will get me.

So, I'm in trouble. I totally forgot that it is Valentine's Day when I rolled out of bed at 6am this morning, and now my wife is irritated. Of course, I don't really see the big deal. I'm lucky to remember to put on a shirt most mornings, and I have trouble getting my shoes on the right feet, so how is forgetting that it's Valentine's Day a big surprise worthy of irritation?

Personally, I really dislike Valentine's Day on the premise that I'm a loving, romantic guy all year long and to try and force it out of me on a single day is just not going to work well. How romantic is it really to get chocolate or flowers on Valentine's Day? They already know that it's coming. I think the romance of flowers and chocolate is defined by the amount of care and surprise that can be packaged with it, not the forcefulness of the FTD ads that say I'm a bad person for not buying those things today. Don't you agree?

It's like in Caci's post the other day about getting flowers at school because she'd been having a rough few weeks. That was romantic. Good job, Ben. The question is, would it have been so romantic if she had known about or expected the flowers? No way!

If I get flowers for my wife every day, she'll start to expect them and the romance will be lost. It would just be another bouquet of flowers; she might even get bored with them. Basically, what I'm driving at, guys is that the romance of giving flowers and gifts is defined by all the days that we didn't buy them anything. If you really want to be romantic on Valentine's, ignore your wife all day long and surprise her with flowers tomorrow.

Besides, everything will be on clearance by then anyway.

The views expressed in this article are intended solely for humorous purposes and do not reflect my deepest affection and love for my beautiful caring wife, the greatest mother and woman in the world. I really don't have any intention of ignoring her all day long not only because I love her so dearly, but also because I fear that I might catch a bad case of hypothermia if I had to sleep outside tonight.

Run!

I think last night's episode was one of the best so far. Highlight below to read more:

Finally, we got an episode that wasn't centered around the questions of, "why do I have these powers?" or "what do I do with this power?" or "how do I use this power?" Finally, we got an episode where the central story was just two characters using their powers. Matt Parkman working as a security guard used his telepathy to protect his charge and Jessica used her power to try and kill him. It was great, and if they continue to just use Jessica as an assassin, she might actually be worth keeping around. I'm just glad that there was very little whining from Niki about her sad, sad life. I much prefer Jessica if the character has to stay on the show.

Back in Texas, HRG and Claire are getting ready to go to blows, I think. Did you hear the sass she put in her voice when she reminded him that her mother was also having trouble with memory loss. She seemed to not even be afraid anymore to let him know that she's onto his whole do something evil then reboot everyone's mind plan. The sad part is that her mother (adopted) really is going crazy now, and it's probably the result of too many reboots.

The even worse part, though, is that Claire is being scammed by her birth mother. "He's going to pay us $50,000, and you're entitled to half." It makes me wonder what is her real angle? Of course, Claire was only interested in meeting her biological father, but her mother put the brakes on that, too. Too bad Claire couldn't see Nathan's face when he looked at the pic of her. I wonder if she'd have seen the same two things that I saw: sadness over not knowing her and recognition that she's the cheerleader Peter was trying to save. Little did Peter know that it was his niece. Cool!

Hiro and Ando, as usual, were fun, but I am starting to tire of the quest for the sword. I'm ready for Hiro to get his power back and become the man that tells Peter to save the cheerleader. It was awesome, though, when Hiro told Ando, "Stop saying things that I say to you." That was classic! Too bad that Ando was so easily swayed, though. You could tell that he knew Hiro would never have just left him, but I guess he's been single long enough that it only took one kiss to redirect his focus. So now Hiro is in the hands of a presumably corrupt gaming commission officer and Ando is in the hands of the officer's corrupt partner. How is this going to play out?

Lastly, Mohinder seems to have been fooled by Sylar, who now has another pretty cool ability. I'm not sure about how useful the ability is, but it's pretty cool. The surprising thing to me is that Mohinder didn't recognize Sylar. I would have thought that Chandra would have taken a picture of Sylar early on in the process. He seemed to be fanatical about documentation and he's got pics of several of the others, why not Sylar? Or maybe Sylar stole the photo after he killed Chandra? Unknown, but Mohinder at least has a file on him because he and Eden discussed it earlier in the season. I'm hoping that Mohinder does recognize him and is just playing along to save his own skin.

That's about all for this episode, but it's not all of the update that I have. Remember when I told you a few weeks back that I called the number for Primatech Paper that was on the business card HRG gave to Mohinder? Well, I also visited the website and applied for a job. I've gotten a few emails from them since that time letting me know that they accepted my application and that they would be sending more information soon. Today, though, I got the first email that had any kind of meat to it.

The message was actually from Hana Gitelman (aka Wireless). She's the girl that was chatting with Ted in the desert during the special scene that aired during Deal or no Deal. Her message told me to find the helix and then gave me a username and password to use after I found it. I found the helix hidden in the Primatech logo on the About page of the website. When you click on it, you're prompted for a username and password. If you try it, the username is "bennet" and the password is "claire". Once you key that in, the page will change and then a few seconds later it will change again to show files for people HRG is tracking.

There are four files listed. The username is "bennet," and each one has its own password:

C3001 is the file on Hana Gitelman. Password: HGghx11a

C3002 is the file on Matt Parkman. Password: MPggtn75x

C3003 is the file on Ted Sprague. Password: TSntz14b

C3004 is the file on Gabriel Gray (aka Sylar). Password: GGeh81zu

You can get all of these from Hana Gitelman's site at http://www.samantha48616e61.com/

Interestingly, if you read the files on these characters and Hana's website, you find that Hana was trained by HRG in manner similar to that of Sydney Bristow. She was recruited and trained to believe that she was working for the CIA, but when things got tough, HRG hung her out to dry. Now, she's trying to find out who he really is. We also learn that HRG doesn't want Sylar killed. He wants him recaptured for further study. Hana wants Ted to help her find Matt so that they can all go down to Primatech together to see what's really going on. Finally, HRG wants to locate Matt's wife so that they can run tests on the embryo to see if any abilities are going to be passed along. Interesting stuff that hints at things we might see in future episodes.

Snorkeling in Oregon

From Eugene, Oregon, the former residence of Aunt Sis (our temporary live-in nanny) comes a news story that is great on too many levels. Read the full article at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17091607/, but enjoy my take on it first.

John Cheesman thought it was going to be just another day enjoying his hobby of snorkeling in rodent infested waters looking for various species of fish. What could possibly go wrong? Well, you could get shot in the head. That would pretty much end the day for me. Before reading any further, let me just point out that I don't think it's funny when people get shot in the head.

It is funny, though, when you're wife says that the reason you survived is that the bullet shattered when it hit your dense skull. Seriously! How many times over the years did she get mad at him for being SO dense? How many times did she try to "get something through that thick skull?" I guess now she's seeing the silver lining.

Again, it's not funny when people get shot in the head. It is funny, though, when the guy doing the shooting mistook you for a nutria. If you don't know, a nutria is basically a huge swimming rat. Essentially this tells me that the victim was in serious need of a back waxing. When you appear to be a swimming rodent with a wet pelt, you've got some hair growth issues. Can't people get that through their thick skulls?

Really, it's not funny when people get shot in the head. But I can't help stating the obvious, "DUH!" that follows the police reporting that the shooter was on drugs. Apparently they arrested him for methamphetamine and marijuana, and I'm betting there's more that they just didn't find.

Seriously, I don't think it's funny for people to get shot in the head, and we should all be careful to not go snorkeling in rat infested waters with a pelt on our backs when drugged up felons with rifles are hanging around. It could be more dangerous than you think.

Eleven Years Later

Leah and I just celebrated our eleventh wedding anniversary this past weekend. Aunt Sis gave us the night off from the kids on Saturday, so we got a hotel in downtown Dallas and enjoyed a taste of freedom. I found us a hotel in downtown that is a renovated building modeled in a European style. So, even though the room was pretty small by Western standards, Leah really liked the European feel.

After dinner at Bob's Steak and Chop House, we found a Starbucks and enjoyed some coffee together, and then we spent a while just driving around downtown at night. It was pretty nice. Before long, though, we found a parking area and got out to walk around a little. This is important: I put the required $5 in the unattended box; Leah and I both double-checked the parking slot that I was in; and Leah (being more familiar with downtown Dallas than I) explained how to fold the money so it would fit in the box. More on that later.

So, we walked around a little and found out that Dallas has a Coyote Ugly bar. Have you ever see the show on TV where they are trying to find new bartenders for Coyote Ugly? I don't really get into reality TV, but I've seen part of one episode. They weren't hiring for the Dallas location. As a matter of fact, it was borderline false advertising. On the other hand, though, the name of the bar is Coyote Ugly, so what do you expect?

By the way, if you don't already know, Coyote Ugly is apparently a term used for the girl that looked "good enough" when you were drunk, but when you're sober the next morning and you're arm is under her, you'd rather gnaw your arm off (like a coyote gnawing off his leg to escape a trap) than wake her. I wouldn't know from personal experience, but they say that's where the bar got its name.

Leah and I did go in, though, just to say we'd been in a Coyote Ugly, and we felt really out of place. We weren't wearing nearly enough leather and chains and neither of us rides a Harley. We sat at the bar for a few minutes, though, and watched the people. There were several clumps of people in the place and this one guy just wandering around the room by himself. Well, after a bit we were ready to go, and Leah got up to use the restroom before we left. Here's the part that I'll probably regret telling you, but it's pretty funny: Not two seconds after she got up, this wandering guy grabs her barstool and sits next to me. I didn't notice at first, but I turned that direction and there he was. He says, "Hey, man, how's it going?" And not in a gruff manly voice, if you catch my drift.

If I was out of place; this guy was like being from another planet in this joint, and how is it that I can go in a borderline biker bar that's known for scantily clad bartenders and patrons dancing on the bar (none of which happened while we were there) – basically, a man's kind of place just this side of a stripper bar – and get hit on by another guy? Don't think that didn't bring my self confidence down. Poor Leah had to stroke my ego and tell me how manly and strong I am for the next hour.

So, we walked a little more and ended up standing in line for a dance club called Purgatory. While standing there, one of the doormen came out and addressed the crowd saying that if you had on athletic gear, baggy clothing, or any kind of tennis shoes you might as well get out of line because they were not going to let you in. They weren't going to argue about it, they weren't going to make exceptions, they weren't letting you in. About that time I notice the guy just in front of us in line. He's got on a jersey from his favorite basketball team, pants so baggy it's a wonder they were staying up, and high-top tennis shoes. How does a person get dressed and violate every section of their dress code policy at once? Pretty amazing.

After we danced a bit, we headed back to the truck. Guess what I found there? A parking ticket. It just says that I failed to follow the instructions on a sign, but I have no idea which sign I missed. I've got to call them in a bit and find out why I'm being charged $30 on top of the $5 that I already paid, but I really wonder if I didn't just fund someone's late night McDonald's habit with my first $5. Lesson learned: avoid unattended lots; there's no way to prove that you actually paid.

Next morning, we went out for a nice breakfast and returned home to find that the children and Aunt Sis had wallpapered the door to the house with notes describing their adventures. For example, we read things like: "Reagan won the food fight," and "Dixie doesn't really like taffy," and "Is four bowls of cereal too much?" It was really funny, and the kids enjoyed putting them together. Overall, we had a great weekend, and we were very thankful for Aunt Sis giving us a night off on our anniversary.