THIS IS THE ARCHIVE!

I am retaining this blogsite as an archive for “Ovedya’s Ponderings” since I was unable to return my old posts to Blogger. For the newest postings, go to http://www.ovedyasponderings.blogspot.com

The 5-Second Rule

As I was uploading from Blogger today I remembered this gem and decided to bring it back to the top for potential new readers. I originally came up with this in October of 2003:

The 5-Second Rule

Most people don’t ever stop to think things through very well. That’s kind of a general rule for everything. Over the weekend I observed a young person in the kitchen of our church building drop an item of food on the floor, and then retrieve it back to his plate, citing the 5-second rule. In reality the food item had only been on the floor no less than a second before he picked it up. So that made me wonder: If you had dropped something on the floor and actually waited for 5 seconds before picking it back up and deeming it safe to eat, would you still actually eat it? I tend to think the answer would be no in most situations, because folks don’t really have any idea just how long 5-seconds can really be. To give you an idea, 5 seconds should be roughly the time it takes to decide not to retrieve an item from the floor and put it into your mouth. Go ahead and try it and you’ll see what I mean.

So who came up with this whole 5-second rule, anyhow, and what are some obvious exceptions to that rule, other than “5-seconds is just too long a period of time”? After all, if you develop a rule there have to be exceptions to that rule, right, some kind of guidelines that make that rule valid?

So here are a few exceptions (Some obvious and some not so obvious) to the 5-second rule. These are situations in which it is not safe or wise to follow the 5-second rule:

1) The 5-second rule does not apply on any publicly used surface. This means public transportation (busses, cabs, trains), restaurants (including the tables), roads and highways, and especially public restroooms (Note: If you are eating in a public restroom you’ve got a whole other set of issues you should be dealing with).

2) The 5-second rule does not apply to foods that have been chewed or moistened. If it’s already been in your mouth, and it somehow finds its way to the floor or a countertop, leave it there, because man, it’s gone. If you’re eating chips with salsa, or crackers with dip of any kind, the 5-second rule cannot be enacted. Likewise buttered bread, bread with jam, or bread with peanut butter cannot be retrieved from the floor if they fall condoment-side-down. Bread items can be safely, but carefully, brushed off on the un-condoment side. But if it’s got a hair on it, discard immediately (See exception #6).

3) The 5-second rule may only be used publicly in situations where a food item is wrapped with protective shielding, such as a plastic wrapper, tinfoil, or even a papertowel – providing that the papertowel has not come loose or absorbed anything after it’s been dropped. However, in these situations it is not necesarilly important to utter the words, “5-second rule,” especially if you’re not in the company of friends or family. It is considered uncouth to inform complete strangers of your intent to enact the 5-second rule. That is, unless they really seem to care one way or the other.

4) Generally speaking, the 5-second rule can only be enacted in the safety of your own home, alone or in the presence of trusted friends and family, or at the homes of friends and family who’s floor and countertops you can trust to safely harbor dropped foods for less than 5-seconds. In fact, as a general tule, if you have a friend or family member who’s home is particularly grungy, or if they have shedding pets, it’s not wise to drop anything on their floors or countertops, unless it’s a rag with some cleaner on it, or it’s got a vaccuum hose attached. But you have to be pretty “chummy” with that person if you’re going to show up at their place with a bunch of cleaning supplies. Most folks tend to be a little defensive when others try to clean their homes.

5) The homeless and mildly insane – or homeless and mildly insane are exempt from the 5-second rule exemptions, except if they’ve only been homeless for less than a year. It takes about a year for one’s immunities to get built up from living outdoors, especially in a large city. It also takes some serious gut bacteria to digest food that’s a day to several days old. So if you suddenly become homeless (heaven forbid) remember: 5-second rule for the first year, then gradually increase the time according to what your body can handle.

6) In most cases the 5-second rule cannot be safely enacted in situations where the food item in question has attracted hair. This is sometimes called “the hair threshold.” The hair threshold is loosely defined as the number of hairs a person is willing to pick off their food before eating it. In most cases, when enacting the 5-second rule, you should check with the “grossness threshold” of persons nearby. If, after retrieving an item of food from the floor that has attracted a hair and a person nearby suddenly says, “Eeew. That’s gross.” Then the food item should be immediately discarded with likewise distain. Generally, however, it is never considered civilized to knowingly eat a piece of food that’s attracted a hair.

New Blog Location

Well I decided to give WordPress a shot at supporting my blogfetish. Blogger.com just seemed to be always having problems, and I just got tired of the log lag between logging in and actually getting to where I could post. Besides, I kept forgetting my login information (Maybe I should post more often and that wouldn’t happen ‘eh?).

More of what’s happeining in the brain of Ovedya soon (I plan on writing more now).

~O

She looks like…

A beaver…

Eco-Lunacy

Eco-Lunacy has, at it’s core, one basic tenet: That the human race is basically a parasite on the face of the planet. To the eco-lunatic the definition of a “wet dream” is one in which the human species ceases to exist and “mother earth” is saved, free to live a “human-virus” free life.

Morons.

All of them.

Okay, so it’s probably FABULOUS to the eco-lunatic who wants to sterilize herself in order to “save the planet”. I mean, hey, one or two less idiots that we have to avoid on our way to the chemical plant, right? But what frightens me the most is the APPLAUSE these dufi (plural of “dufus”) get from people.

“Save the planet”? Who the hell are we saving it for? Certainly not YOUR CHILDREN. Okay, so you don’t want to have kids. Great! Lots of people don’t want to have kids. Lots of women get their tubes tied and lots of men get vasectomies. But let’s not have any illusions about “doing our part to save the planet” here, okay? Because, quite frankly, the fact that you refuse to “breed” isn’t going to contribute anymore to “saving the planet” than my choice drink bottled water rather than tap (I actually read once where someone claimed that drinking bottled water helped to “save the planet.”). So the only thing that you’ve proven – the only statement you are really making by getting yourself sterilized – is that you are a completely mindless ninny whose choosing to make a political statement with the castration of your reproductive organs.

Let’s get something straight about “Global Warming,” okay? Let’s just get one thing clear: If the planet is, in fact, “warming” – if greenhouse gasses are increasing in our atmosphere because of the direct influence of human beings – how much do you think that you are helping to “save the planet” in the grand scheme of things by simply not having children? The population rate of the world is exponential. Even if – that’s a huge “if” – a significant number of men and women got themselves sterilized, would that just be prolonging the inevitable? Scientists say that at current warming rates the climate will change significantly in the next 100 years – or not.

Possibly not. They’re not exactly certain about that. Could be 100, could be 100,000….give or take.

But then of course, since, according to a couple of BIG BRAINS in the world of quantum mechanics, humans may have already screwed the entire universe just by looking at it. Gee, that’s funny. I thought they were looking out into space in order to find out how we all got here. Maybe they should have just kept their eyes shut and nothing would have every happened.

Think I’ll go out and burn a tire in my front yard.

Just want to “do my part” after all.

;o)

Have I got a deal for you!

Show me a man who pays $55.00 for water and I’ll show you an idiot with too much money.

Apparently water (You know, that stuff that occasionally rains down from the sky and collects in lakes and rivers?) is the new choice for conesseurs, according to an article on WCBSTV.com (Click to read).

About 3/4 of the way down the article, a woman by the name of “Felicissimo,” who owns – get this – a “water bar” in New York called “Via Genova” says, “There are so many people that are uneducated about water.”

That is the most idiotic thing I think I have ever read. “Uneducated” about water?

WATER??!!!

Photo Caption

Here’s a photo that you can caption in the comments section, if you like. As captions come in, I’ll re-post them under the pictures, with links to your blogs. Sounds like a pretty good deal, right?

“So I eat this mushroom, right? And next thing I know.. I’m like 6 inches tall and the mushrooms are HUGE!!!” ~ Trish (Incoherent-ish)

“Holy crap that’s a big ass SHROOM!” – KristinaQ

Monday’s Morons (On Wednesday?)

They were Monday’s Morons…Possibly Tuesday’s Twits…but since I’ve only finally gotten around to actually posting today – Wednesday – they’ll have to be “Wednesday’s Whiners.”

And really they both are whiners, when it gets right down to it. The whole debate over Global Warming between those who believe that human beings are going to cause the destruction of the entire planet – TOMORROW – and those who believe that there could be other causes (Such as sun activity and…cow farts – read: Bovine Gas Emissions), with the whole politicizing of the issue itself and the increasing number of celebrity morons jumping on the bandwagon, has grown into a din of increasing whining idiocy. It hits me in a certain place on the spine that causes an electrical surge directly to my mouth, causing me to spontaneously blurt “bullshit” quite loudly.

So first up on the block we have Cheryl Crow who, on Monday, apparently claimed that we should all do our part to fight Global Warming by using “only one square [of toilet paper] per restroom visit, except, of course, on those pesky occasions where two to three could be required”. (SOURCE)

When I read this on Monday I got the spine thing again…

So I was really happy when I saw the article on the Smoking Gun showing Crow’s dressing room requirements. Although the article focussed on the amount of liquor she requires in her dressing room, I was more interested in the fact that Crow is apparently a smoker. According to the list, she requires 1 pack of Marlboro Lights to be placed in her dressing room, as well as an assortment of ashtrays (page 4).

Idiot. If that’s not the height of hypocrisy, I’m not sure what is. Cheryl’s got the gall to publicly state that we should use a minimum amount of toilet paper in order to stave off Global Warming when she herself (And likely most of her band) are directly contributing to the problem by belching cigarette smoke into the air. Oh yeah, and I’ll bet that touring bus of hers is really easy on the emissions too.

Next up, Hillary Clinton.

Now I know that she’s getting plenty of knocks in the press as it is (sure..), and I know that many conservatives like me just love to pick on her, but really, how much more easy could she have made it on herself by changing her Park Ridge Illinois accent to that of a southern black woman?

I mean, seriously, who does she think she’s fooling here?

Anyone else getting just sick – I mean “sick” as in “If I hear or read any more political BS I am going to vomit up my left lung, a kidney, and very possibly my right nut” – of politics? Last I checked we weren’t scheduled for another Presidential election for about a year-and-a-half. I wonder if these people even have a clue that the American public is going to be so burn out, so sick of listening to the din of idiocy by then that it’s actually going to harm them more than benefit them. Probably not. I’m sure that some people – even many people – though that Hillary’s impression of Al Sharpton made her more palatable. More like “one of us regular folk.” She’s not fooling me. I don’t think that Sheryl’s “one or two sheets” could clean up that amount of BS.

Until next time…

;o)

Jell-O, Conan and Gore

º Today I was thinking again about Filling a pool up with Jell-O. Has anyone ever even tried it?

º Found the following picture on the web (Click it to see Conan do a wierd street monkey-like thing with his hands):

Conan O’Brien is, to me, even more freaky than the Burger King King-Guy

º Al Gore is still the world’s biggest weenie:

“The planet has a feva’ and the only prescription is more cowbell!”

;o)

Growing Old

Let’s grow old together:

Will someone please tell me what the hell is wrong with growing old?

A couple of weeks ago I went out with a buddy of mine to see the movie “300.” It was opening night of the film, on a Friday night, so obviously the theater was packed with mostly younger – high-school-aged – people. Amongst the usual plethora of movie previews and commercials, one commercial came on the screen for Dove Bath Soap (Part of Dove’s apparent “Campaign for Real Beauty”) . The ad featured a handful of naked women, all mostly in their late 50s to mid 60s. The commercial very tasteful and very respectful (Watch it Here: http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com/ )

About halfway through the ad a young man just behind me and to the right tells his buddy next to him “Eeew. That’s disgusting. Man, who wants to see a buncha’ wrinkly old women?”

It pissed me off.

What is truly “disgusting” is the fact that, for the past 30 years or so American culture has bought into the false dilemma created by advertising and marketing institutions that aging should be combatted with every fiber in our being; that we should buy products and submit ourselves to every new fad in plastic surgery – from stretching our skin to injecting ourselves with botulism (botulinum toxin, “one of the most poisonous naturally occuring substances in the world,” according to Wikipedia). Americans spend billions each year trying to fight the aging process, and each and every effort eventually proves fruitless, giving further credence to the old addage, “You can’t fight the inevitable.”

So what’s wrong with growing old? What exactly is so distressing about getting wrinkles around your eyes, on your forehead, around your knees; and what’s wrong with frailty? Exactly nothing. Nothing is wrong with growing old. It’s one of those things that every one and every thing on this planet have in common.

Dear reader, I would like to submit for your consideration the following idea. This idea might just free you from the years of needless stress, anxiety, and perhaps thousands of dollars in so-called “beauty products.” That is, simply, “You are growing old. Deal with it. Age gracefully – that is, age with grace and dignity – and forget about all those idiots out there who tell you that aging is bad; that it’s the enemy. Growing old is not bad. it’s not “wrong.” It just is. Why create a crisis for yourself? Why add to the stress that you already have to deal with? Learn to embrace your getting old.

Besides, many of us have spent many years and in some cases a lot of money trying to earn the respect of their peers and their elders. How rewarding it will be when we get to an age where young people come to us for advice. How rewarding it will be when other respect our opinions and wisdom just because we are older and more experienced.

Ladies and gentlemen: Age. And age well.

;o)