Fox Life

1. Swine Flu is a wimpy name. In non-Muslim countries, swine hasn't been a cutting-edge insult for a long, long time. Douche Bag Flu would be more current. As a result, I just can't get that worked up about such a weak name. And thus it has been throughout history. Examples: The Black Death - Rating: 10/10 Cool color + what will happen to you = devastation of 2/3rds of Europe's population. Whooping Cough - Rating 2/10 Silly crowd noise + excuse to get codeine laced cough syrup = future of over-the-counter drug abuse... but no death. Plus the fact that it has a very effective vaccine has cut down the number of annual deaths from 10,000 to about 30 , kinda makes it seem lame. 2. As far as I can tell, the only real effect it has in the US is to turn Republican senators into Democrats, and to get everyone's mind off of the terrible economy. I'm pretty okay with both of those things. 3. As my friend Alex said on Facebook, " If malaria was as inefficient at kil

Part 2: More Death, More Valley While walking through Golden Canyon, Sarah and I were passed by two French girls in a dead sprint yelling, "C'est trop beau! C'est trop beau!" ( It's too beautiful ). I thought Sarah and I were doing a good job of enjoying the effects of lots of wind and lots of time on lots of rocks, but our reaction in comparison was woefully inadequate. It's a beautiful thing to see utter joy and realize, "Oh! That's how you're supposed to live!" I hope one day I can find something so beautiful I have to run. The next day we left the Death Valley (note: I saw very little death on the whole. 40 mph Wind Valley, Dehydration Valley, and Ecstatic French Girl Valley are all more appropriate names for it) for the surprising lushness of Joshua Tree. In retrospect, I shouldn't have been too surprised about the relative abundance of life in JT. "Tree" is, after all, a living thing and that's right there in th

On my way to buy a camping stove from a stranger in Vacaville (from Craigslist, and they threw in a pound of free bison meat), I passed a church marquee that said "No one can ignore Jesus forever." I don't know about you, but that sure sounded like a challenge to me. So far I have successfully ignored Paris Hilton, the economic crisis, and that piece of food stuck in my teeth, none of which I plan to acknowledge any time soon. Now granted, forever is an awfully long time to do anything, but the way I figure it, I only really have to ignore Jesus until I die since he's probably not going to resurrect a guy that's been brushing him off for such a long time. Unless of course, Jesus likes people to play hard to get, and then I might've just clinched my own salvation, so suck it. This slogan is kind of weird though, right? I mean, since when did Jesus become the nerdy kid in high school trying to wear down the defenses of the popular girl so he can ask her to pr