Sure Way to Die

As I was walking in the parking lot I found it quite curious to find this car parked in the handicap parking space. There are a couple reasons I why find irony in this...




A. I had to ask myself, What on earth is ' E q u e s t r i a n  V a u l t i n g ' ?

LUCKILY, the owners of the vehicle foresaw the confusion that would ensue the reading of said title/club and provided us with a decal to explain...



Oh yeah, you're right; now it makes perfect sense.

B. What I've gathered from context clues and available imagery is that this is a renegade group (cult) that may or may not kidnap you in the night, pull you up on a Clydesdale, and when you've reached galloping speeds on the horse they will lift you up and throw you off of the horse... into the air. Mercilessly.

I'm not going to lie, my palms are sweating just thinking about it.

As you know, I'm not one to jump to conclusions... but lets just say I'm not too surprised that the owner of such a sticker on their rear windshield would also have a handicap sticker nearby.

I am surprised however that the driver is even in any condition to drive and does not have a full on body cast lying on a gurney somewhere - handicap parking seems pretty optimistic to me.

Moral of the Post:

• WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD EVER COMBINE TWO "MOST LIKELY TO DISABLE AND/OR PARALYZE" SPORTS INTO ONE?
  
  GYMNASTICS + EQUESTRIANISM + AT THE SAME TIME = SURE WAY TO DIE!
  
  This could quite possible be the worst application of synergy known to man.
  

Update:  This post was off the market for a while due to the amount of hate mail that I received from a certain "dance-on-top-of-horses" community. I actually even heard from one of the instructors and/or founder who was really nice - so I would definitely recommend taking classes from whoever it was if ya'll are interested. 

It was just the rest of the tight knit (and google savvy) members that let me have it! But I have waited a sufficient amount of time to repost this and I believe that it has been enough time that all those involved have surely had an equestrian mishap and have most likely moved on to meet their maker. So... we're baaacckkk.

Series of Unfortunate Events

I went to a dinner party last night at Addison's where Amy, Addi's childhood friend from Minnesota, started telling us about her 16th birthday party. It was a Fear Factor themed party. She had invited her closest friends to her birthday party to compete in a series of challenges Fear Factor style. The winner would be awarded 50 bucks, "and when you are sixteen, 50 bucks is like a million dollars!" so everyone was in it to win it.

So here is a run down of the events:

The first challenge - Peep Madness! Each person had a minute to eat as many marshmallow peeps as they possibly could without water. Mostly everyone could only handle 11 or 12 peeps but the winner somehow downed 25 peeps - Meanwhile, Amy's friend Cassie turned to her and dramatically told her that she would never eat another peep again....   5 minutes later (and throughout the rest of the night) Cassie could be found popping down all the left over peeps like they were Tic Tacs or skittles.

After a series of other Fear Factor challenges and running around doing obstacle courses, the final challenge was to eat a piece of cold boiled pig's brain on a saltine cracker. Whoever could do it would be the the new proud owner of 50 bones.

Beforehand, Amy and Addi hatched some horrible plan to not eat anything before or at the party so they wouldn't get too full. Their logic, "The peeps are going to expand in our stomachs so we can't eat anything or else we'll be too full to eat for the other challenges."

So it is Amy's turn to eat the pig brain, who mind you, has been running around all day long doing obstacle courses and jumping on the trampoline with nothing more than a few shots of soda and about 12 peeps in her system. Needless to say Amy's logic ended up being her demise as she threw up a saltine cracker and pig brains all over the table in front of 45 of her closest friends.

Now if you thought that was a good story,  you are in for a treat -  That was just the intro! Our real story is about Cassie; and follows her home from the party.

When Cassie got home that night from the party she was struggling with cramps and popped a Midol to try and get rid of the pain. A little while later she still hurt really bad and took a couple Tylenol. She still didn't feel any better and took a few Ibuprofen, a while later - two more of something else. It was at this point that she actually started feeling a lot worse and realized that she may have actually just overdosed. So she told her parents about the situation and her dad rushed her to the emergency room where they had to pump her stomach.

For those of you unfamiliar with the standard stomach pump procedure; they are required to sort through content and list it all on a form. So while Cassie and her dad were waiting in one of the rooms the doctor came in and turned to Cassie's dad and told him she would be okay but he wanted to make the father aware of stomach content that he had discovered,

"Well, it looks like there were about 4 slices of pizza, 48 peeps, and... " The doctor turned to Cassie,

"...was that cow's brain?!"  - Wide-eyed, the dad turned to Cassie and asked, "W-h-a-t  were you doing at the Wilson's?!"

The kicker of the whole episode was that Cassie went home with a pamphlet that the doctor gave her about the dangers of Mad Cow Disease...

I would have paid good money to have been a fly on the wall for that conversation.  I can only imagine the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that peeps now play in Cassie's life.  She must have a fairly large bottle of Xanax just to get through Easter.

Poor thing.

Morals of the Post:

• Reason number 4,395 why I will never eat a peep.
  
  
• Themed birthday parties are nothing short of incredible. Why do we not have more of them!? I guess this gives me 352 days to plan my next one... Reality TV themes (as proven above) are GOLDEN...
  
  So I think my next party will be a Bachelor/SYTYCD/Biggest Loser/Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew/From G's to Gents/Hell's Kitchen/Survivor/Project Runway/ and Dancing With the Stars themed extravaganza with a dash of Jersey Shore...
  
  Granted, I would have to actually watch an episode of any of these shows to know anything of whats going on... so the details of how to pull it all together are a little hazy; but rest assured there is one thing I can say with confidence - It will be epic.
  
  You are all invited.

Monkey See, Monkey Do

So there I am, walking down the sidewalk minding my business when I look up and see a giant gorilla running towards me.

Panic.

Most people are familiar with the fight or flight adrenaline rush; where, when a gorilla is running at you - you either are all pumped up to run away from the gorilla at high speeds or your brain sends you a surge of power to beat the gorilla down in a sudden-death showdown. I however fall under a slightly less recognized category which includes 'Fight, Flight, or Fade Out' where my adrenaline shot has more of a tense up and pass out effect.

I'll illustrate this for you - lets say I am walking in the woods alone and a ravenous pack of wolves appear out of nowhere... my brain assesses the situation:

a.) I could employ the flight mode and have this kid start running away, but who are we kidding - he has practically no legs and would probably make it to the next tree before the wolves eat him alive. Flight - Abort.

b.) I could employ the fight mode and give him super-strength, but there are like 48 wolves and really, what is he going to do? Bite back harder for every time he gets bitten? You can only bite so many wolves before the ultimate scenario is that of the previous point. Fight - Abort.

c.) Lets get real, this kid is going to be eaten alive no matter how we play this, so I might as well make him freeze up, pass out, and send him to a happy place while we get this over quick. He wont even know what hit him. Fade Out....

Thanks brain.

It is something that I've dealt with my whole life. Although its not the most conventional leap in evolution, I find some comfort in the fact that I am not the only who's emergency go-to strategy is 'fade out'.



There you have it. My closest link in evolution is a group of nervous stiff-legged fainting goats. How reassuring.

Anyways, back to the gorilla. There I am, walking all innocent-like down the sidewalk when the giant gorilla comes charging at me. True to form, I tense up and my feet and hands start to tingle and my brain is trying to decide if it should shut down now, or if it should wait til I can see the whites of its eyes before I pass out.

Meanwhile, the gorilla charged up to me, gave me a banana, and then ran right on past me.

?!?

Still in a little bit of shock, I look down to see the banana was attached to a brochure telling me how nice so and so apartments are. Wow. An apartment complex nearly got me to pass out in public via a giant gorilla. Yeah, don't worry - I'm still just as confused.

Here is a picture of said gorilla.


In my defense - this 'gorilla' looks more like something out of Predator than something you would find at San Diego Zoo... So I'm pretty sure you would've freaked out too.

Moral of the Post:

• Guerrilla Marketing - Definition: 'Type of marketing performed on a low budget and a lot of creativity to generate buzz to leave the consumer with the brand in mind.'

• Gorilla Marketing - LITERALLY having someone dress up as a gorilla and chase people down in an attempt to scare them into signing an apartment contract and causing an overwhelming sense of paranoia to follow them around for the rest of the day.