A while ago I waxed poetic (or something like that) about turning 30, and now that I’m a few months into my 30th year, it got me thinking what I’ve done this year that has really stood out.  Unlike others who think their lives start to suck the older they get, this has been a great year so far, with a bunch of great new things happening to me (not the least of which is getting a fantastic girlfriend, but I’ll skip over that for now):

• Attended my first professional baseball game outside of Fenway park, and did so with an impromptu road trip
• Made plans to attend my first professional baseball game in Canada in September when the Red Sox play the Blue Jays
• Checked off a life goal by seeing Beethoven’s 9th Symphony performed live
• Learned to play tennis
• Went bowling for the first time
• Sat in the bleachers at Fenway for the first time
• Finally made the short pilgrimage to Boston on the 4th of July to see the Pops play
• Went on my first "booze cruise" on Boston harbor

Before the year is out, I will probably have gone camping for the first time in my life and possibly will have traveled overseas for the first time. 

Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?  Now get off your duff and do something!

While watching the premiere of America’s Got Talent tonight on NBC, one of the contestants came out dressed like a pirate and played a tune (using the term loosely) on something called a "nose flute."

Yeah, I know – how can you NOT look up something called a "Nose Flute"?  Here you go.  Yes, it exists.  However, to get the full effect, you HAVE to watch the videos towards the bottom of the page.  Here is this totally serious guy giving LESSONS on how to play the nose flute.  And he’s not even good at it.  This really should be on Youtube.com.

Oh and that web site for the nose flute is Sillyasstoys.com.  Hide the credit cards…

Was just reading a trade magazine at work and came across a little news bite saying that Ben & Jerry’s released the results of a survey asking with whom they would like to share an ice cream cone .  The number one person, with 21% of the vote is President George W. Bush.  Bill Clinton followed with 20%.

Next three were: Angelina Jolie (19%), Jennifer Aniston (19%) and Kelly Rippa (9%).

Before looking for the actual news release online, I was assuming that if you broke this down by gender, you’d find that mainly women voted for Dubya and Bill, since any healthy red-blooded American male would give his left arm to watch Angelina or Jennifer (even Kelly) lick an entire ice cream cone.

Sure enough: "Men choose Angelina more than anyone else (24%) while women choose Bill Clinton tops (22%)."  Duh!

Also, considering his approval ratings, most people probably want to share a cone with the President so that they can shove it in his face.

I also think it is funny that Ben & Jerry’s – the ultimate example of a hippy-dippy tree-huggin’ all-natural, granola-crunch type of company – holds a survey asking who customers would like to share their product with, and the uber-conservative and pro-war Republican President comes out on top. 

This morning on the Grocery Manufacturer Association’s SmartBrief newsletter, there was this nugget of news:

Internet home videos turns into brand explosion for Mentos
Mentos has gained more than $10 million in free advertising from the onslaught of do-it-yourself videos on the Internet featuring gushing bottles of Mentos and Diet Coke, estimates a Mentos marketing executive. The company has approached the makers of one of the more elaborate Mentos and Diet Coke ruses for a possible marketing deal. 

The full article is posted at Wall Street Journal, which you need a subscription to access, so excuse the lack of full link or article. 

I had never heard of this whole Mentos and Diet Coke thing until this past May when a visit to the Oddfellow Theater in Buckfield, Maine revealed a video done by Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz with 200 litres of Diet Coke and 500 Mentos were sent cascading through the air in a breathtaking video, which can be seen here. 

It inspired some experiments of my own at home and generated some ponderables.  Well, mainly two of them:

First, who was the poor soul who was eating a Mentos then took a swig of Diet Coke and realized that it was an explosive combination, and is he still alive?

Secondly: if you mixed 151 proof rum with Diet Coke, and then dropped a Mentos in it, could you create a flame thrower?

I was recently asked if I was tweaking out (that one is for you Meghan) over turning 30 this year.  While I’m sure many people do, I’m really not.  First of all, getting all freaky over reaching a certain age doesn’t do you any good.  Fighting it isn’t going to change anything.

Secondly, I’m only 30… what’s the big deal?  I still have some of the best years of my life ahead of me.  Yeah, my 20’s were awesome – lots of fun, concerts, experiences, and wisdom that I’ll remember forever.  And a few things that I still can’t remember, which is also good…

It isn’t a groundbreaking observation to say that we live in a society that is obsessed with age, with everyone trying to look younger, usually following the lead of Hollywood stars, so it doesn’t surprise me that people ask how I feel about turning 30. 

My answer is that I feel fine about it – somewhat indifferent other than looking forward to having some fun the weekend of my birthday.  If it has affected me in any way, it has been in a positive manner: it has caused me to get off my duff about some things I’ve wanted or been meaning to do, and I guess you could say that I have become more "self-aware" about who I am and what I want to be. 

I’m certainly not viewing it as "fun’s over, time to get serious" – in the last few months I’ve had a fair number of VERY late nights of partying (including for a friend’s 30th birthday celebration) and have done plenty of fun, spontaneous things.  At the same time, I’ve gotten into playing the stock market a bit more, taken some classes on topics of personal interest, and have tried my hand at bowling, and tonight, tennis.  I saw my first Red Sox game away from Fenway and I have tickets to see Beethoven’s 9th Symphony performed at Tanglewoods in July- two things I’ve wanted to do for years.

When people despair over leaving their youth behind, it is usually for one of two reasons: one, they just get so stuck in the idea of "I’m not young anymore, I can’t have any fun" that they simply don’t MAKE any fun for themselves and resign themselves to a life of boredom.  The second reason is that they forget what getting a little older can bring to you: usually a bit more money and a wider spectrum of interests. 

OK, so you don’t go to the bar every Friday night to get drunk and laid.  That was fun at the time, but maybe now you get to go out to a nice restaurant, experience a more expensive bottle of wine and share a great meal with someone special.  (You can still go home get some nookie!)  Or maybe it is the opportunity to go to a concert and sit in good seats, not in the nosebleed  section.  A microbrew instead of a 30-pack… a single-malt scotch instead of a shot of Everclear.  Etc. etc.

I’ll stop before I start to sound defensive, but to anyone out there turning 30, 40, 50, 60… whatever… don’t view it as a big problem, but rather as a big opportunity.  Its another 10 years of your live that you made it through and another 10 years of great experiences until the next milestone.

Wanna freak out a vegetarian?  Give them a piece of this gum.  LOL

A while ago I had put up a random list of my favorite female celebrities.  Scarlett Johansson was on that list, but was at number 9 out of 10.  However, last night I went to see Match Point and after seeing her in that film, I will gladly move up up…. to the number one position!  She is officially my new female celebrity obsession!!  If you need proof, just see her in Match Point.  The movie is very good, and she looks amazing throughout the entire film.  (the title of this post is also a bit of inside joke for those who have seen the movie)

Went out to eat at Uno’s tonight.  Went to the bathroom and saw that they had a baby changing station in the men’s room.  Nothing too unusual there.

Then I noticed that it had braille instructions – or that I assume are instructions – on the outside of it. 

Now, I’m hoping that the observation I’m about to make won’t be so politically incorrect that I’m going to get screamed and yelled at, BUT…

This is a place where you basically NEED to drive to get to.  If you go to dinner at there with someone who is blind and you have a child with you who is still in diapers and that child needs to be changed…

Who the hell would send the blind guy to do it?  Seriously.  Think about it.

I’m sure he COULD do it – as in he’s capable – and I’m sure he WOULD do it if he had to.  And if it is his child, he probably WANTS to do it.  But even with all of that, who would send the guy who CAN’T SEE to change the kid in a RESTAURANT? 

I have a ton of respect for people who live with disabilities, especially those that so often affect people from birth, like deafness and blindness.  Many of them overcome their hardships and go on to accomplish more in their lives than those of us with our full capabilities could ever do. 

But man, if you’re going out to eat and you’re blind, you’ve probably made a pretty decent sized effort to get there – taken a bus or had someone drive you, probably used a cane or had someone help you to find your way through doors and to your seat.  If, after all of that, someone sticks you with changing the baby’s crap-filled diaper, you gotta get yourself some new friends or something.

So I went to the bank today to conduct a few transactions that required me to sit with one of the customer service reps and during that process, I overheard a conversation taking place through the drive-through window.  The teller there was telling the person in the car that the next time they have such a large transaction, they prefer that she brings the deposit inside, as it takes up a lot of time to count and verify everything and holds up the drive-through window.  She was very, very polite and nice about it.  The woman in the car said something back and the cashier – still being polite, said it was fine, but that for safety and security purposes, it is best to do such a large transaction inside.

About two minutes later, this elderly-ish woman comes STORMING into the bank and RUNS right up to the window and practically throws her cane through one of the cashier windows and starts bellowing at the top of her voice "HERE’S MY CANE! I’m on my way to the doctor’s!  I can’t walk and you want me to come in to make a deposit!!?!?!? "  I think that if she had a gun she would have started firing it.  She woman said – err, screamed – her piece and walked off.

Everyone in the bank realized how ridiculous the situation was and how much the woman was over-reacting, so we kind of had a quiet chuckle, and then the poor teller at the drive-through window makes a very valid point by saying "for someone who can’t walk in here to make a deposit, she sure ran in here pretty fast" which was very, very true. 

Another 5 or so minutes go by and the manager comes back from getting her lunch.  Everyone fills her in on what happened and sure enough, the woman comes back in again to talk to the manager.  Well… again, "talk" is probably not quite the right description.   She started screaming and yelling again, not letting the manager get a word in edgewise.  As soon as the manager  started to explain why they prefer a large transaction like that to be done inside, the woman  just said "FINE! I can see that you’re just going to be a pain!" (she should know…) and went storming back out of the bank yelling "I’m going higher up!"

The manager just grabbed her food and told everyone she was going to lunch.

But really – what is wrong with people.  Who the hell thinks that the world owes them that much of a living?  Just because you have trouble walking – supposedly, since this woman seemed to be doing OK – don’t take it out on the rest of the freakin’ world!!

So who do you think would be better in bed, Betty or Veronica?  I think Veronica would be too much of a stuck-up princess to do anything really good.  Unless she goes the Paris Hilton route and is actually kind of wild.

On the other hand, if you’re Archie, Betty wants you really really bad, so she’ll probably do just about anything you want.  Probably even let you screw her someplace really uncomfortable… like the backseat of a Volkswagen.

(Apologies and thanks to Kevin Smith for this entire blog entry)