9/21/2007

The Life and Death of Supermen

One morning, when I was on four different pills twice a day, I developed some rash on my hands. I'd been having problems with both splitting headaches (spinal headaches caused by a test for meningitis) and a rare form of epilepsy. My parents thought I should get my palms checked. Since the urgent care down the road wouldn't see me, due to unusual medical history, we had to travel 45 minutes to the ER at a hospital where I'd spent a significant amount of time.

When they got around to checking me, the young, fresh-faced doctor decided to send my parents out of the room for a minute. He then started asking me about my sexual history, which was less like a history and more like a footnote. Did I know that St Louis was the Syphilis capital of the US? No, I didn't. Did I have a rash on my feet? Nope, just on the hands. Had I been bit by an exotic spider? Nope, possibly a sick bat, but that's another story.

After my parents came back in, knowing that they'd asked me about that ever so delicate subject, we all decided the guy was a quack. Sure enough, I'd just had an allergic reaction to one of my new medicines, a steroid call Prednisone. One strange thing happened. I suddenly could stand up without a debilitating headache (I'd been bedridden and filthy for a month). My poison had also been my antidote!

I thought of this years later, when news broke of rampant use of steroids in baseball. Signs of usage were acne, cranial enlargement, and quick healing. Turns out just about everybody was on PEDs, from the best baseball players to Rocky himself, Sylvester Stallone. It started to make me think, are all of our heroes just injecting greatness like Popeye's spinach?

I'd seen this article at a favorite steroid-related blog. Police and firefighters? They're our heroes I thought, trying to save lives. Who cares if they do something to "enhance their performance." They have a better chance of protecting. However, soon after, in light of a recent event here in town, I began to wonder whether the free reign had exploded into cases of cop 'roid rage. (It's a long video, transcript here)

This reminded me of something else, ethically. I've heard anecdotes about soldiers using steroids, trying to build muscle mass. It had even been in the news. If you immediately say any drug user isn't your hero, then you must remove the soldier posters from your wall. But don't we want the best soldiers? Why should we put any limitations on them, when clearly, many other countries have advocated doping programs (China, Nazi Germany, USSR)?

I don't know that much about steroids, other than my short bout with Prednisone. The one thing that stands out in my mind, however, is a series of events that happened when I was working at GNC, in high school. A cop came in one day, and we had a brief chat about how he knew my dad, when my dad was mayor of our small town. He then started to ask me about some of the heavy duty stuff we sold in locked cases. Finally, he came out and asked the question he'd wanted to all along. "Do these shrink your balls? I heard from a buddy on the force that they do." He didn't buy them, and coincidentally, he was at a sobriety checkpoint a week later, and recognized me, and was a really friendly guy.*

A short time after, a kid from high school started asking me questions. Did we have what Mark McGwire was on? I said sure, we sell Andro poppers. I told him that he could use them, and if he didn't like them he could just return whatever was left, even if he only had one pill left. So he stopped by and picked them up.

The next day at school, we were at some computers in creative writing, and he says to me, "Dude, those things are crazy. I only slept 2 hours last night and I feel like I slept 12." I thought to myself they may have been more powerful than I'd imagined. I figured he'd be using them for awhile, but that weekend he came into the store to return them. No real reason, he said, he just didn't like them. I still to this day don't know why he wanted out of the performance enhancing game. But then again, in a world filled with secrets and lies, it's nothing new to be in the dark. All my childhood heroes are suspect. It's a damn shame.



*In fact, I don't think I've ever had a bad experience with a cop, except for once when I asserted my rights and didn't open the door for the police during a party. Not many people know that you can just not answer. This guy didn't like it.

9/18/2007

Illuminati all through your Body

Scary. On multiple levels.

9/17/2007

Wedgies for All Y'all!

I'll admit it, as painful as it is to do so. My name is Drew, and I have a videogame magazine subscription.

I ordered it a few years back, because I thought to myself, oh what the hell, we all need a little bathroom reading. Sure enough, month in and month out, the magazine delivers information that is readily available on the internet in a package than can handle some shower steam.

Lately, I've become much less interested in the games themselves, as I play them less and less each day (except for Mario Kart). What the magazine still sells me on is an insight into video game culture. I consider my subscription to be part of an anthropological study. Let me explain.

At the beginning of each installment, there is the "contributors" page, which is standard to any magazine. It gives bios on what each person has accomplished, professionally and personally. Now, look at this. It's biographies of people employed by Game Informer magazine. Note their lack of true accomplishments and trophy case full of mirage.


Andy
I can picture this guy slobbering over X-rated Princess Zelda fan fiction. He's in charge.


Reiner
He claims to be the worlds biggest Star Wars fan. According to him, he has watched the movies around 1000 times. That's 2000 hours. He could've built a plane in that amount of time. No, really.


Kato
Favorite drink and snack.. Coke and fingernails. Yeah, something tells me you haven't had either one near you, bud.


Bryan
Good-looking guy. Too bad, that in two years, he'll look like Marlon Brando.


Adam
That icy look of determination... it's because now that he's out of his parents' basement he's looking to get laid. No, really, it's in his profile.


Bertz
"Lord Gamington" likes Badlands. He's cool.


Miller
Ok, I thought this guy looked like a serial killer BEFORE I read that one of his likes is "The Newly Beefed Up Assault Rifle." Uhhh


Billy
"Favorite books: I read?" A response akin to the eternal Facebook dilemma, "What are books?"

Life's just one big high school cafeteria, isn't it?

9/13/2007

If a Bear Sh!ts in the Woods..

Here's a fun fact I just found out. Have you ever wondered if and how bears take dumps during the hibernation season? I never wondered, or even thought about it. But apparently, they eat lots of food, creating a "tappen," which according to Wikipedia, is an organic butt plug. It's stated in the article that they are "often passed with great pain in the springtime." Uhh, that explains a scene from Grizzly Man..

(skip to 1:50-2:15)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpq8mjjyiKw&mode=user&search=
(I apparently can't embed this video)

9/11/2007

You Take Your First Pet's Name and Combine it with Your Dentist's Last Name...

I have my next 2 blog entries in mind- one on Oprah, and one on steroids. One for the ladies, and one for the fellas. Oh and one about videogame magazine workers. But I've been in LSAT mode for the past week, so I'll probably hold off on those for now. Instead, I present to you a bunch of names used in spam mail to me. 99% of these are for black market cialis. Keep peni5 enlargement in mind when I talk about steroids.

Kitty Rich
I picture Ms. Rich as an old widow, who at 4'11" and 97 years old, still manages to make men vie for her favor. Why? She's got one of those castle-houses with a.. get this.. bottomless GUMBALL MACHINE!

Ramon Babcock
Works in porn. Not Latino, but you wouldn't be able to tell. He has recently gotten into krumping.

Cameron Youngblood
In the minor leagues of the New York Yankees. About to be traded for somebody with a less cool name who is much better.

Gay Shaw
That neighbor you never talk to. Has a very nice yard, and 2 dogs- a big one and a little one. Pretty straight, if the rumors are correct.

Tad Honeycutt
Car salesman, not a successful one. Sometimes he shoots squirrels in the back yard, just to vent. Wants to bang his secretary but figures it'd require a lot more daily work than he first thought.

Aurelio Guy
State Senator from Arizona. Has introduced a piece of legislation which requires all swimming pools without a diving board to have stone frogs in the surrounding mulch. Will still get elected, mainly because of name recognition.

Son Ragland
Junkie from Seattle. Emailed me from a public library, thinking I was a guy he hitchhiked with once, from Boise to Madison. Uses the original Starbucks for its facilities.

Lincoln Nixon
An 8 year old kid who is chubby and gets picked on. Little do they know, he sketches out fantastic battle scenes on canvases in his basement depicting their gruesome demises. Already on his way to having a great biography.

Daisy Stallings
Cheerleader for Alabama. Southern accent. Is slutty, but tries to keep it quiet, contrary to what some on College Humor would say.

Willis Beaver
A dude who lives on his Veterans' compensation. Is in a wheelchair and sits around all day humming old soul songs to himself while he puts together 3D puzzles.

Cassidy used to read spam names to me to give me some ideas for stories when I took Creative Writing. I can't say I used them, but the point is, you can't beat a random name generator.